Hello, I'm starting "slow": Intelligent Design and its implications

[spunkets]

"But there's no evidence that says life arose spontaneously from organic chemicals rather than any other way, either.

There's plenty of evidence of that. In fact, it must have happened. How and by what model, no one knows.

" If you define that as "nature", then you are basing your judgement on an unproveable belief of what nature is"

Nature is defined independently and w/o regard to that question.

"Why is it scientifically inconceivable that, if not God, some elder, sentient, and spacefaring race created Man and deposited us here,"

The short answer, because I'm out ... Provide the specimens and put them on the table. Gather some of their tools, docs, maps, plans ect... and put them down on the table. If you can't demonstate the object, then it doesn't exist! That's usually Art Bell's and his follower's problem. The Discovery Institute has the same problem. Nothing behind the claim.

"With respect to spontaneous generation as the creator of life on Earth, to me - and I think also to our hypothetical objective scientist - that is no less fantastic than aliens or God as an explanation."

There are no aliens anywhere around, nor have there been. As far as God goes, He does not belong in the science class whatsoever. Anyone that poses a particular invisible God can examine the claim with pure logic. All illogical claims can be tossed as rubbish. Here's what Jesus the man that said He was GOd said, "Matt 12:39
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. The sign of Jonah is the Holy Spirit and God says, no other sign will be given. Only by the Holy Spirit will you know God created the world. The science class just tells how.

Night.

[spunkets]

Augustine and those who wrote Canon 1 of the Council of Orange were wrong. There is no such thing as original sin, or the fall of man. John 9 and Ezekiel 18 refute it. God equates the engineers of original sin with the Pharisees in John 9 after God and the blind man stumped the chumps.

Night.

[Manic_Episode]

Great first post.
I was hanging on every word.
Please write many more just like it. The longer the better.
Several a day would be great.
We get bored around here otherwise.

And to think that I lurked for over a year before I even dared post and have never done a vanity.

[Ichneumon]

Bookmark for later.

[Marauder]

bttt

[codyjacksmom]

"You lost me at 'Hello', you lost me at 'hello'"....

[Junior]

Ping for completeness sake.

[moatilliatta]

The problem with philosophy is that it tends to be based pretty much entirely on human intuitions about what's logical and reasonable and makes sense. But if there's one thing that we learn from actually doing science it's that nature doesn't necessarily confirm to those intuitions. It's unlikely that any philosopher would have ever thought up anything as exotic as quantum mechanics because it runs so contrary to human common sense.

Only by leaving the armchair from time to time and going into the lab or getting out into the field is our thinking kept honest. The answers to the questions you're addressing are more likely to found in the journals of biochemistry or paelentology than they are in any ancient Greek text.

[RobbyS]

Naturalism is the notion that nothing exists which cannot be perceived by these senses. This is different from the view of theologians as different from Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin that we can know only what we perceive through the senses.

[thoughtomator]

I guess you can't see that you are, as does any religious person, accepting as indisputible fact things that you cannot possibly know are certain.

[Rurudyne]

"You financing?

Theories are not beliefs. They are not faith, nor are they religion."

Actually, asking about financing is an interesting question. Consider the evolutionary problem posed by the fox. Before any understanding of DNA foxes and fido had been placed in the same cluster of related beings based on taxonomic inferences. Simply put a fox and a dog (or wolf) are really, really similar ... so this seemed a logical inference.

BIG problem, it turns out that all canids EXCEPT the fox have 78 chromosomes ... the fox has 34.

I could well imagine the thought bubble above the scientist's head when he realized that for the first time: "What the ****?!"

Before I go on to discuss this further I'd like to answer the question about funding. Someone thought it important enough to preserve the "Family tree" of living things where foxes and wolves are concerned that they managed to find funding to compare the mitochondrial DNA of both. Turns out foxes are just similar enough (though still very dissimilar) to give the old family tree a chance. Everyone probably breathed a sigh of relief that day.

And if there is a theory that can be tested ... don't you think our government would fund it? I mean, Uncle Sam will fund ANYTHING (well, maybe not a proper border patrol, but that's besides the point). To borrow from the movie: "If you theorize it, they will fund."

Now back to evolution...

I've already mentioned Petawalski's Horse (I've never been too sure of my spelling of "Petawalski" though ... it's a Polish name and I'm not Polish). In historical times this kind of pony produced the domestic horse as one pair of its 66 chromosomes fused to become one larger chromosome pair in the domestic horse (which has 64). Now, the order of the genetic information was not changed so the P.H. is fully fertile with the D.H. (their fertile offspring just have 65C).

I mention this to support the idea that chromosomal fusions could, in theory, produce a vulpine (fox) from a canine (wolf). I'm sticking with genetic fusions rather that fissions or duplications because such tend to pose fewer problems with deformities or infertility. Now, scientist put the breaking off of vulpines at only 10 million or so years ago. That may seem like a long time but consider what had to happen during that time, there had to be (in the lineage of the fox) 22 successful fusions (or the equivalent). No problem? Well, yes a big problem (even for a question of micro-evolution).

Even allowing for some reabsorbtion of less successful breeds back into the fold all of this allows for at least a few successful canid-like species with between 78 and 34 chromosomes. But none are known. If wolves and foxes weren't so successful that wouldn't be a problem ... but they are nearly everywhere. By implication any transitional species should also have the right stuff.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that even when scientist have "good evidence" they can still have serious problems.

[Rurudyne]

"The problem with philosophy is that it tends to be based pretty much entirely on human intuitions about what's logical and reasonable and makes sense. But if there's one thing that we learn from actually doing science it's that nature doesn't necessarily confirm to those intuitions. It's unlikely that any philosopher would have ever thought up anything as exotic as quantum mechanics because it runs so contrary to human common sense.

Only by leaving the armchair from time to time and going into the lab or getting out into the field is our thinking kept honest. The answers to the questions you're addressing are more likely to found in the journals of biochemistry or paelentology than they are in any ancient Greek text."

A very valid point. But this is now and that was then. The origins of modern science and the scientific method were what I was trying to get at. Not to say "it all about Christians" but rather to point out how a difference in world view can produce different results. It is the Holy and rational God of the Bible who created a world that could be construed according to a scientific method; but, it was rational men living in an irrational world who first desired to construe their world in a rational way ... actually in defiance of their world view.

In some respect I see this happening now in our day. Men are turning their backs on reason in favor of things like "experience" because they cannot accept a rational world. Just for comparison, the Onion ran a recent spoof called "Intelligent Falling" ... my response was a New Age Theory of Gravity: "Now, if this pet rock KNEW it was really God then it wouldn't HAVE to fall. Or it could fall at a rate of it's choosing!"

Peace!

[Rurudyne]

"is a christian, i have no problem reconciling that god in his omnipotence, omnivoyance, omniscience, created in detail every single building block of matter and energy and set it forth using the big bang as the instrument of the dispersal of that matter and energy into the newly created medium of the ether/universe... i also have no problem in reconciling that evolution in it's infinite complexity is the manifestation of that creation..."

Actually I do have a problem with intelligent design ... its theological implications (if placed in tandem with Christianity) comes close in principal to the watchmaker God of the deist, a big part of why I said it was bad theology.

As I said right out of the gate, intelligent design is not scientific. But neither is naturalism. I imagine the reason why intelligent design is even on the table is that scientist were getting tired of explaining away how tidy the universe is to the needs of life.

Intelligent design would seem to have first reared its head in scientific circles among the likes of cosmologist and cellular biologist within rarefied environments away from the public eye. Since then the idea has moved out into the public where it is finding numerous interested onlookers.

In this way it has a further resemblance to naturalism: many more people are interested in naturalism for its implications or how it supports their issues than are interested in naturalism because they are scientist or philosophers. The interested onlookers are driving the debate here too.

[PatrickHenry]

Ping for completeness sake.

So noted.

[spunkets]

"I guess you can't see that you are, as does any religious person, accepting as indisputible fact things that you cannot possibly know are certain."

Everything is open to examination and reexamination. Certainty is a qualifier for some quantification. Quantification depends on the evidence.

[spunkets]

"but they are nearly everywhere"

I don't know enough about this. However foxes are not everywhere, nor were they. Man spread them around. Seems the Europeans liked to hunt them.

"Now, scientist put the breaking off of vulpines at only 10 million or so years ago. That may seem like a long time but consider what had to happen during that time, there had to be (in the lineage of the fox) 22 successful fusions (or the equivalent). No problem? Well, yes a big problem (even for a question of micro-evolution).

Problems have solutions. Start here.

[Rurudyne]

"I don't know enough about this. However foxes are not everywhere, nor were they. Man spread them around. Seems the Europeans liked to hunt them. "

Various breeds of fox are native to all continents except Australia and Antarctica and (maybe, not sure) South America. Granted, that's not "everywhere" but it is everywhere that wolves are native (plus Africa).

"Problems have solutions. Start here."

So it would seem that 26 fusions and 4 fissions have taken place, hmmmm. Interesting for future reference. Still, that actually complicates things a bit for the poor would-be fox. Also, this should, in theory, increase the chance of other taxonomically "canid" species (given the habitat range they achieved on their own).

Still, the study you cite does seem to indicate that the basic order of genes within the chromosomes isn't all that different between vulpines and canines (though certainly over the edge where fertility is concerned) or else they wouldn't want to use the former to compare to the latter.

[taxesareforever]

Of course it is in Scripture. Why do you think that people get sick and die? If it wasn't for sin all people would still be living today.

[taxesareforever]

I agree. You should turn the lights out.

[AntiGuv]

We weren't talking about sickness and death. We were talking about intelligence.

Sinful man does not have the intelligence that Adam and Eve had before the fall into sin.

Is that in the scripture or did you just make it up?