Friday, December 26, 2008

Intelligent Design, Infinity, and the Cosmos

Philosopher Bradley Monton, whom I have written about previously, has authored a brand new article about whether one can infer design in an infinite universe. He even discusses a piece of evidence suggesting that it really is infinite, based on some findings by WMAP.

Anyway, his article concludes by saying that in an infinite universe, life must happen an infinite number of times even if it is extremely improbable. So the existence of life is no big deal in an infinite universe. But what about if we witnessed a break in the laws of nature? What if, for instance, tomorrow evening some random quantum events lead to the words "Jesus Lives" appearing on the moon. Could we infer God from this (even if the universe is infinite?)? Yes. The reason is that even though things like this would happen an infinite number of times in an infinite universe, it would be incredibly rare for intelligent beings to actually witness this. Miracles like these would not be expected to happen in a godless world, but they would be expected to happen if God exists. So a miracle like the one I described above would make the existence of God, if not proven, highly probable.

So what has Monton done? He's shown how the IDers' main arguments fall flat while still allowing for the possibility of God.

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