Trying to understand Edward Feser's objection to ID

Occasionally, I try to understand Prof. Edward Feser's objection to Intelligent Design, usually without success. I suspect it's because I don't fully understand Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy. I'm trying to read Feser's book, Aquinas; a Beginners Guide, so perhaps one day I will understand it all. Meanwhile, I've come up with a thought experiment, hoping it finds its way to Prof. Feser, who will comment on it in his own blog.

Let's suppose that one day scientists are able to construct a "simple" bacterium completely from "scratch." No preexisting living parts were used. All the basic parts were synthesized from non-living materials. Let' suppose that this bacterium then behaves as if it were alive. As an ID advocate, I would have no problem with this. I would say that the scientists had succeeded in designing and constructing the bacterium, and that once constructed, its materials and organization have resulted in its ability to live.*

 I'm not sure what Prof. Feser would say. Would he say that the bacterium isn't really alive? Or would he say that once it's parts were organized in the proper fashion, God conjoined the form of life to it? Or would he maintain that such a scenario is in fact not possible? Or what?

 * I would also add that it seems highly improbable that (without the intelligent guidance of the scientists) all the materials would come together in exactly the right way so that there would be a bacterium. So improbable that we wouldn't expect it to happen even once in this universe. And that there doesn't appear to be any natural, gradual method from non-living materials to living ones. It appears that someone had to design and organize at least the first bacterium.

Is Autism an Epidemic?

Is Autism an Epidemic?

From the article:

 "The CDC report, published in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), states that more than 1 percent, or 1 in every 88 children, is diagnosed with autism today, including 1 in 54 boys. 

This is a 78 percent increase in 6 years (2002-2008) and a 10-fold (1000%) increase in reported prevalence over the last 40 years. The report uses the same methodology that produced the CDC’s 2009 prevalence findings of 1 in 110 children with autism."

Programming of Life

HT: Uncommondescent.com

Well-polished video that shows a lot of what goes on inside the cell and makes the argument that life could not have arisen through an undirected process. Whether or not you buy the argument (and I think there are problems with it), the animation is the best I've seen, so far. In fact, I wonder if it was animation or actual photography.

Something from Something means Something

This has been posted almost everywhere, but in case you haven't seen it, philosopher David Albert rips to shreds Lawrence M. Krauss's new book, A Universe from Nothing.

The other interesting comment that Albert makes is this:

"When I was growing up, where I was growing up, there was a critique of religion according to which religion was cruel, and a lie, and a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for every­thing essentially human. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but it had to do with important things — it had to do, that is, with history, and with suffering, and with the hope of a better world — and it seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity, with all that in the back of one’s head, to think that all that gets offered to us now, by guys like these, in books like this, is the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don’t know, dumb."

If religions are cruel, a lie, a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for everything essentially human, then wouldn't it be dumb to believe them?

Is this easier to remember?

Millions of my readers have been complaining that it is too difficult to remember the address for my blog. So I created an easier address to remember:

 idbilbo.blogspot.com

Now I'll just have to put a link over there for here.  Or start blogging over there?  Decisions.  Decisions.

Where is the Purposelessness of Evolution?

Insightful article by Techne over at Telic Thoughts:

Where is the Purposelessness of Evolution?

Keep up the good work, guys.

Taking Over the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF)

Thanks to Victor Reppert at Dangerous Idea for recommending RD Miksa's Taking Over the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). I've only had time to look over the first page, but I can tell it will make for very good reading.