ARGUMENT #7: Personal and intelligent causes violate the uniformity of cause-and-effect. Without the uniformity of cause-and-effect, science falls apart.

RESPONSE: By identifying intelligent causes, we are not disregarding the uniformity of cause-and-effect; instead, we are affirming it. Because we recognize personal causes in the present, we should be able to recognize personal causes in the past. By offering a theistic explanation, we are giving an explanation based on what we know (an intelligent cause), rather than what we do not know. Since information (i.e. specified complexity) always comes from a personal and intelligent cause, we have a criterion for recognizing personal and intelligent causes in the past. In fact, this same criterion is used in many fields of study, including cryptography, SETI, forensics, archaeology, and intellectual property protection. For example, in the forensic sciences, a scientist can differentiate between a natural death and a murder. A detective might ask, “Was this person killed by natural causes, or was this poison and murder?” In the 1997 movie Contact, Jodie Foster’s character works for the SETI program (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). In the film, she is able to recognize an intelligent cause from outer space, because the transmission contains the first 20 prime numbers. Thus, she is able to differentiate random sequences from intelligent ones.

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