Posted on 06/08/2007 10:45:45 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
I’ve already admitted that I “haven’t yet found that peer-reviewed paper that explains in detail the evolution of the human ear in purely naturalistic terms.” I assume that you’re not so old that your reading comprehension skills are weakening. Kindly remember what I wrote, as follows:
I admit that I can neither think of a paper that answers your question nor come up with an experiment on my own.
As you can see, instead of waiting for my scanning the archives of peer-reviewed journals to satisfy your claim, of which I have already stated my position on, why don’t you get started on your groundbreaking paper?
The good things that would happen to you include, but are not limited to
If I were well-versed in a controversial idea that I knew to be true because of its obviousness to anyone with “half a brain,” and these things awaited me following my challenge of the status quo, then I would do it in a heartbeat.
But, Paielli, you’ve got the upper edge in this battle. I’m not as well-versed in the ideology as you are, so you are the right person to write that paper. Do it! Instead of criticizing the “crap that passes for scientific wisdom these days” and wasting your time trying to “enlighten” folks like me, better our nation by using your talents to destroy what you perceive as scientific dogma. Make your contribution to biology.
Don’t wait one more second. Your refusal to write that paper means that countless public school students will continue to be taught stuff that isn’t true. You don’t want that to happen, do you?
“I admit that I can neither think of a paper that answers your question nor come up with an experiment on my own.”
Yet you continue to argue in favor of a theory you admit is not supported by empirical data? Why is that? Ideology perhaps? Or is it just plain stupidity?
The greatest scientists of all time, including Newton, Kelvin, and Pasteur, all saw intelligent design in the universe and nature and said so in no uncertain terms. And they saw it before we had any idea of the incredible complexity of the simplest living cell, to give just one example of the great discoveries since their time.
Yet modern fools make truly asinine claims about how ID “cannot be observed.” The only people who “cannot observe” it are willfully blind fools who simply refuse to open their eyes.
Here I am wasting my time on you again. Let me make a suggestion. Take the source code for the Linux operating system, and pretend it came from some unknown distant galaxy. Then do an analysis and see if you can “prove” that it was “intelligently designed.” Then let us know your conclusion and how you reached it.
Is that a pointless excercize? Not really. If SETI ever receives an apparently intelligent signal from space, they will have to do precisely such an analysis. I doubt they will take your position that we cannot conclude an intelligent origin until we can identify the source of the intelligence.
I argue in favor of evolution because its definition, change in a population’s allele frequencies over time, has been both observed and tested in our world. Your writing indicates that you believe high school kids throughout our nation have been gypped. I’m sorry that you feel that way. So, instead of wasting time trying to point out my problems as you perceive them, why don’t you help them out by publishing the first peer-reviewed paper in support of creationism?
Disappointingly, it looks like you’re choosing to hide those gems of science in the confines of your mind. I am perplexed. You think high school kids are being taught “crap that passes for science.” If I thought that, I would be outraged, and I would try to do something. As Kitzmiller shows, lawsuits end up in failure and colossal wastes of local taxpayer dollars. But, peer-reviewed papers have a habit of shutting naysayers up. So, write the paper and do something to benefit our countrymen. It’s the American way.
The more you say stuff like, Yet modern fools make truly asinine claims about how ID “cannot be observed,” the more I think that you are the one who can change biology forever. Since it’s so obvious to you that intelligent design can be observed, write the paper and prove it to the scientific community! You can use the examples of the eye and Linus Torvald’s technological contribution to demonstrate your points. You can do it. I’m making fun of you now, but it will be you who will have the last laugh when you publish your paper. On that day, you can meet me, point your finger at my face, and guffaw to your heart’s content.
The greatest scientists of all time are human; they are capable of mistakes. Dr. Linus Pauling, the only scientist to ever win two unshared Nobel Prizes, proposed a triple-helix model for DNA. He was wrong. DNA is a double-helix. Before he died, he advocated massive doses of vitamin C as a cancer treatment, even though he published nothing in support of his claim. Do these two instances detract from his significant contributions? Of course not. You view the words of great minds as gospel and accept them without question. That is not how science works. Science changes. Have you forgotten that Pluto used to be a planet but is no longer?
I’m ending the verbal irony running gag on Paielli; it’s run its course.
Paisan, you can whine all day about how it’s so “obvious” that the ear can’t be explained by natural means alone. But, by invoking the supernatural, you’re stepping outside of science by default.
There are zero peer-reviewed papers supporting creationism. Unless you change that number, your creationism will be a joke in the courtroom and the science classroom.
“There are zero peer-reviewed papers supporting creationism. Unless you change that number, your creationism will be a joke in the courtroom and the science classroom.”
That is precisely the argument that Al Gore uses to dismiss the non-believers in man-made global warming. Have you seen his movie?
You and Al are two peas in a pod. You are both completely incapable of thinking an independent thought, and you both fall back on the politically correct interpretation of modern science as you understand it to hide your complete and utter inability to think critically.
I suggest you get the hell off of FR before you further embarrass yourself. We already know *exactly* what standard old canards you will parrot before you even parrot them, so you serve no useful purpose whatsoever. You are nothing but a complete annoyance and time waster.
Whoever your Sunday School teacher was, he did a great job teaching you how to be a Christian. "Paielli, my boy, never try to enlighten the unenlightened. Instead, insult them and laugh at their ignorance."
It's not my fault that when it comes to creationism, you prefer the American liberal's method of whining without a offering a solution over the American conservative's method of attacking the problem at its source.
I guess you're just going to have to live knowing that you haven't done a thing to stop public school kids from being taught "crap that passes for science." Must be a terrible existence.
You live in California, so you're typing this in the afternoon. Have a nice one and whenever you get that paper published, message me.
I never said I was a “creationist,” nor have I argued in favor of “creationism,” but you insist on mislabeling me because you are a pathetic loser who is incapable of debating me rationally.
You’ve also fallen for the Big Lie about human origins, namely that the only alternative to Neo-Darwinian evolution is “creationism.”
Since you like to use my name a lot, and you’ve mentioned my occupation, I’d be interested in your name and occupation. Oh, but I’ll bet you’re embarrassed to tell us that. I would be too if I were you, “my boy.”
Oh, and please quit sending me personal messages to hide your pathetic personal insults. Let’s get it all out in the open, “my boy.”
Is Google just too damn hard? ENT News, an otolaryngology and audiology journal with over 100 peer reviewers.
Thanks for the link. It’s a three-page article with a couple of small diagrams and a few references. This is an example of an article that basically *assumes* evolution and sketches a very rough outline of how it *might* have happened.
As is typical in this kind of speculation, any “evidence” that even remotely suggests the possibility of transition is taken essentially as proof positive of evolution. Also as usual, absolutely no analysis is done of the probability of the development occurring by purely naturalistic mechanisms. That’s simply assumed or implied.
And if I may say so, the article does not even “scratch the surface” of the complexity and sophistication of the ear. Think about how many tiny pieces must fit together virtually perfectly, not to mention the nerves leading to the brain, and the auditory processing center in the brain.
But of course, if we observe the obviously intelligent design, we are not being “scientific.”
You're welcome. You asked for a peer-reviewed article, and you got it with a quick Google. I have a feeling nobody here even bothered to look.
This is an example of an article that basically *assumes* evolution
It is an article within the field, just as ID articles "assume" ID happens. But what it did is show how the ear evolved.
Also as usual, absolutely no analysis is done of the probability of the development occurring by purely naturalistic mechanisms.
Have you ever thought that scientists rarely address probability because it's a dumb question in the first place? You don't see many geologists taking the biblical flood into account much either. Does that mean their work is invalid?
And if I may say so, the article does not even “scratch the surface” of the complexity and sophistication of the ear.
Well, he is talking from a different position than our understanding, being a well-published doctor of otolaryngology, head of ear-nose-throat surgery at a hospital. To him the ear is probably rather simple.
if we observe the obviously intelligent design
"Obviously" here is based on feelings. The gay crowd thinks that homosexuality is "obviously" natural and healthy, do you agree? It's obvious, isn't it? They want it to be that way, they feel they are right, so they think it's obvious.
Feelings screw up science, just look at Global Warming.
quote:
Have you ever thought that scientists rarely address probability because it’s a dumb question in the first place? You don’t see many geologists taking the biblical flood into account much either. Does that mean their work is invalid?
my reply:
What you have just clearly demonstrated is that you do not understand the procedure of hypothesis testing, a fundamental part of science.
Let’s say the hypothesis here is that the ear developed by purely natural mechanisms (i.e., with no intelligent design). The evidence is then examined, and the probability that the hypothesis is true is determined or at least estimated. When you say that probability is a “dumb question,” you demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the scientific method. You are simply assuming as a premise what is in reality only a hypothesis. Evolutionists are notorious for doing this.
In this case, hypothesis testing is very difficult, but that is not an excuse to simply skip it altogether. Science is sometimes hard, but that does mean you can cut corners (or neglect to run the track at all and pretend you did).
Now, an ear, nose, and throat practitioner most likely does not care much whether the evolution occurred with or without ID. He just wants to make you healthier — not to mention avoid controversy. In that case, he can skip the “no-ID” hypothesis test, which is essentially what he did in the article. But then he cannot make a scientific claim about it one way or the other.
Actually, I find that true for ID. It is at most an untested hypothesis. In science, the most the ID movement can be is an attack on the Theory of Evolution, and attacks are good in science. Attacks come from within the scientific community all the time, since that is the way of science.
However, ID pretends to be a competing theory in the agenda to teach religion in schools, which makes the movement dishonest. "Research" from parties proven to be dishonest and having a hidden agenda (formerly, it was exposed) is easy to dismiss. Yet scientists still take the time to play whack-a-mole with whatever pseudo-scientific claptrap the Discovery Institute puts out.
Well, you started out making sense in your first paragraph, but you quickly lost it in the second.
So, are you suggesting that if the ToE is disproved, it should still be taught anyway as the only “scientific” theory of human origins? That’s what you seem to be saying.
And if the “agenda” of the Discovery Institute discredits ID itself, does the atheistic “agenda” of Dawkins and Karl Marx (who endorsed Darwinian evolution) equally “discredit” the ToE? Again, you are showing your lack of understanding of basic scientific principles.
As for playing whack-a-mole, that is exactly what I feel like I am doing whenever I get sucked into one of these evo threads. The same old canards come up over and over again, and I have to keep whacking them down. I suppose I should have learned my lesson by now.
“Actually, I find that true for ID. It is at most an untested hypothesis.”
One more point. When you assert that ID is an “untested hypothesis,” are you aware that mathematicians claim to have proven that the first living cell is *extremely* unlikely to have come together by random chance? That’s a result based on classical hypothesis testing, and ID passed with flying colors. (I don’t have the reference(s) handy, but I know they exist.)
But even if you don’t believe their analyses, I hope you are aware that the origin of the first living cell has certainly not been explained by modern science.
Whack-a-mole time again.
Aside from the fact that is completely outside of the ToE (a common ID mistake), no I haven't seen a mathematical proof, only speculation.
I hope you are aware that the origin of the first living cell has certainly not been explained by modern science.
Gravity hasn't been completely explained for sure either. Do we abandon that?
You teach the best that science has to offer. Even a ToE with some holes in it is better than nothing. Come up with a better scientific theory and I will gladly see it taught in science class.
Phlogiston theory remained dominant for a while after it was disproved, but it finally died after Lavoisier introduced caloric theory to replace it (which was itself replaced by the theory of heat, also with some overlap).
And if the “agenda” of the Discovery Institute discredits ID itself, does the atheistic “agenda” of Dawkins and Karl Marx (who endorsed Darwinian evolution) equally “discredit” the ToE?
The "agenda" was the search for knowledge. Although it built on the work of earlier people, Darwin's basis of the ToE took off when Darwin, a highly-religious man, saw a pattern during his voyage on the Beagle . He so believed in God that his Bible quoting garnered ridicule during the voyage. Later, the theory he developed from this work won on its merits despite many attacks, not resorting to a planned program of subterfuge and dishonesty.
The same old canards come up over and over again, and I have to keep whacking them down. I suppose I should have learned my lesson by now.
The same canards come again and again because what you see is the hammer coming down to whack your mole. Care to trot out the 2nd Law of Termodynamics again? There's a really big hammer ready for that one.
Keywords evolution ear come up with a Washington Post article from last year that covered fish ears, which is interesting but won't advance the discussion because RussP has no interest in fish ears.
Sounds like you’re describing yourself. Have you forgotten that you started off our discussion with a barrage of insults and appeals to ignorance?
In any case, you are no different in style from the American liberals who defend racial preferences. The Supreme Court banned quotas, so now racialists can’t use that term. But, they can still use “goals” and “targets” and “critical masses.”
The Supreme Court ruled that creationism is not science. So, the creationists can’t use that term to push their agenda. But, they can still use “intelligent design.”
Since you don’t like my calling you by your last name, I’ll refer to you by your username. Also, I like to keep my identity separate from my account. My FR page does not link to my personal web page. It just displays a brief summary of my political beliefs.
Your only argument is that “intelligent design” is so obvious that anyone can see it. Care to explain why this argument has produced no peer-reviewed papers? You’ve already played the Al Gore card, twice, in fact. Please play a new card.
Really, though, were you ever trying to convince me to become a creationist? Unlike dschapin, you started off by slewing vitriol in my direction. You've reinforced my belief that the only way creationists can have their beliefs construed as scientific is if science includes the supernatural. But, every time the supernatural is studied, crap happens. Procedures are loosened. Controls are not used. All sorts of bad stuff. Just ask James Randi.
The School Board debates Evolution. Once they are done with that they will move on to String Theory and Hawking temperature.
Evolution is not stochastic, so the choice is flawed.
Guess again. Good guess, but not it.
Just saying it is not does not refute the evidence I gave. The modern intelligent design movement was founded by creationists as a backdoor to teaching creation as science. Almost all modern publications on the subject are related to the Discovery Institute, which is not only complicit in, but an architect of, this devious scheme. The evidence is clear and incontrovertible.
You even linked to one of their publications in your first post on this thread. You even used their deceptive descriptions, "seeks to improve the teaching of Evolution by the Inquiry-based approach," when we know by their own statements that the goal is not to improve Evolution as a science, but to supplant it with theology.
Even in the end Darwin still thought there were "designed laws" behind everything. It's a step back from ID, saying that a powerful god could set up this universe so that it would have perfect conditions to produce life as we know it. An all-powerful, all-knowing god would also be able to create exactly what we have now just by planting the seed of physical laws at the Big Bang.
But that was just his personal belief. He didn't try to pass it off as science.
So, on the one hand we have militant Darwinist whose mission it is to teach the world about the dangers of believing in God, but whose mission you conveniently ignore in order to attack a counter-idea called the Wedge...Why ?
Dawkins is quite open about his agenda. The Discovery Institute tried to keep it hidden, using deception to pass theology off as science. And they're still doing it.
I think desiring to look at how new developments raise doubt on the materialistic paradigm is a wonderful goal.
Didn't read the rest of it, did you?
mathematician, David Berlinski ( an agnostic whose main goal in life is simply to have "a good time all the time" ) and New Zealand Biochemistry professor Michael Denton
Both members of the Discovery Institute.
And there aren't many forgeries and lies from Ideological Darwinists who fake their discoveries of ancient ape men to fool people ?
I've heard these brought up before, "See, there's fraud in evolution, too" the creationists, then creation scientists, then IDers say. I guess its some kind of victory to find a flaw or conspiracy to defraud in evolution. Yet they seem to always forget that the fraudulent claims always get disproved by the very evolutionists engaged in this supposed conspiracy, and not them. It's science working as it should. You might as well criticize the field of nuclear science because some frauds at Berkeley said they discovered element 116.
Nebraska Man was slapped down by other evolutionary scientists and pretty much forgotten, but I still hear talk from your side of the Paluxy man tracks and a supposed controversy over them long after they were shown to be a fraud.
Many people have made up their minds not because they have a religious presupposition but because the EVIDENCE compels them to do so.
Most people make up their minds because they want to believe God is important, and therefore they are important. You do have aberrations like the one you mentioned, just like evolution has aberrations like Dawkins who aren't interested in just science, but a cultural agenda like the IDers.
Thank you for leading me to the one of the founders of the Discovery Institute, Mr. Stephen C. Meyer.
It seems like he did, in fact, get a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" appeared in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
Considering that Meyer is a founder of the DI, I'm surprised that in his testimony, Dr. Michael Behe claimed that there were no peer-reviewed papers supporting intelligent design. I would expect a senior fellow at DI to be well aware of such an event.
Anyway, we'll just see if intelligent design can get more papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Hey, thanks for saving me a lot of time debunking this bozo’s baloney!
If you have more time, why don’t you try to explain to these ignoramuses that the first living cell has not and *cannot* be explained by purely natural, unguided mechanisms. That means that every single living cell in the world is essentially not just “evidence” of ID but *proof*.
Oh, but “ID cannot be observed,” they confidently (and cluelessly) assert. They might as well declare that the nose on their face “cannot be observed.”
I know I shouldn’t throw around some of the insults that I do, but the incredible ignorance that these guys proudly and arrogantly exhibit just rubs me wrong.
Let me just end with a relevant quote:
“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” —Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Laureate
Let's go back a bit to all the times where people said things couldn't be explained by natural mechanisms and were later shown wrong due to scientific progress.
“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” —Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Laureate
This is a common example of Intelligent Design dishonesty, always taking little snippets completely out of context to support your arguments. I know you guys pass these nuggets around in order to further the cause, but someone should fact-check every once in a while.
The fact is that Crick later retracted the above pessimism due to scientific advances in the field. He admits he didn't anticipate such advancement when he made the speculation. Crick in fact was a proponent of evolution by natural selection and its teaching in schools. Going further, he was an agnostic who thought that science would one day mostly dispel Christian concepts of humanity.
Dishonesty, the core tactic of the Creation/ID movement.
I would appreciate your answers. Thank you.
Not interested in what it is, but interested on how someone can be certain. That's somewhat interesting, but not interesting enough to review several thousand years of thoughts and arguments on how someone can know something with certainty.
The evidence I gave firmly establishing the Discovery Institute and the modern ID movement as directly descended from (or rather just a new name for) the Creation and Creation Science movements. They have made a valiant effort to distance themselves in the public (and especially court) view from their Christian theological base, but many of us still remember.
ID as it is currently presented DOES NOT MENTION THE BIBLE and LEAVES THE AGE OF THE EARTH out of the discussion. That is a fact.
Part of the distancing tactic as described above. The cleansed-for-public-release version only exists to try to backdoor theology into the public schools as science in an evangelical effort. Here are two excerpts from the preeminent textbook on Intelligent Design, one is the original, and the other is from after the Edwards v. Aguillard decision, which said you couldn't teach Creation in public schools as science:
Original: Creation is the theory that various forms of life began abruptly, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers and wings, mammals with fur and mammary glands.Do you see the similarity? The whole book is like that. It is a shining example of how ID is just Creation with a transparent veneer of science on top.Post Aguillard: Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.
Every single article I've read from them today relating to science and technology never refers to the Bible, Koran as their authority for their arguments.
Their PR job is working, at least on you. The CSC, which is the ID arm of the Discovery Institute (the two can be used interchangeably on the subject), was founded on the concept that "nature and human beings are created by God."
Uh huh, and does the publication claim the Bible as its source of authority ?
Again, the PR job at work. Knowing their history, they believe in the Christian God in all things.
How is this deceptive ? You ought to use the inquiry based approach to ANY endeavor that attempts at finding the truth or falsity of a claim ( even ID and creationism ).
Because they don't want to improve the teaching of it. They don't want to show errors and fix them scientifically so that it can be improved (as most scientists do). They want to kill it and replace it with something entirely different and theologically based.
Basically, it comes off as a guide for it, when it is nothing of the sort.
You know ? How do you know that ? YOU SAID YOU KNOW but you don't really know.
Yes, I know, specifically from their own statements in the Wedge Document. Meyer admits the document is authentic.
In fact, if you read the Discovery Institute, they do not even recommend teaching ID in the classroom ( that's right I said it and it isn't a typo ).
Deceptive PR again, inconsistent with their stated mission, their "Teach the Controversy" program and history. The board in the Dover case did not move forward until they received help and advice from the Discovery Institute, which had arranged a legal defense (by a Christian legal organization) for when their inclusion of ID led to a lawsuit.
1) If this was Darwin's belief, then you are saying he believes in panspermia.... interesting, I never knew that. Could you show me where Darwin said it ?
It's in his autobiography. He talks about the "First Cause" (which of course to him is the Christian God) being necessary to produce something so wonderful and immense.
Simply because you throw in the name Discovery Institute shows us what ?
That they are committed to the concept of God Did It at any cost.
Since we have cultural agendas by evolutionist and cultural agendas by IDers
No, we have an agenda by a couple of evolutionists, and an agenda by the founder of, and most members of, the modern Intelligent Design movement. I don't trust anything with an agenda, be it the DI, Dawkins or the Global Warming movement (sorry, "Climate Change," they've been doing the same PR coverup as the DI).
On the other hand, evolution through natural selection came about through a genuine desire to advance science. Even Darwin, as a religious man, feared a backlash for his heretical ideas. Luckily times had changed and he didn't suffer the same fate as other correct scientists such as Galileo (the Church didn't think he had "proof" either) and Bruno.
1. Can an atheist believe in intelligent design?
I don’t know if a hard-core athiest can believe in ID, but many non-Christians certainly do. You might want to check into the writings of Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer who wrote books on intelligent design in the universe. I read one of his books many years ago, so my recollection is vague, but I don’t think he ever publicly announced that he was a Christian.
He is the one who said that the probability of the first cell forming without ID is comparable to a 747 jet being formed by a “tornado in a junkyard.” I believe his views could be classified as “pantheism,” the belief that the universe itself is intelligent (as opposed to having intelligence designed into it by a transcendent Deity).
You might also be interested in the work of British physicist Paul Davies, who wrote a book called God and the New Physics. He also cites strong evidence of design in the universe. He uses the word “God,” but I don’t think he is referring to the classical Judeo-Christian personal God.
2. If so, is the intelligent designer he believes in the same as a Christian’s?
If it was, he would not be an athiest, so the answer must be no.
I think it is possible for a Christian to believe that ID can be discovered by scientific methods, yet at the same time to agree that science cannot prove that the “designer” is God. That is basically where I stand. I believe that God designed the universe and life, and I am convinced that the intelligence of the design can be observed scientifically and proved mathematically. At the same time, however, I do not believe that *science* can identify the Designer as the God of Christianity or of any other religion for that matter. That’s a matter of faith, and that’s why we have religion as well as science. Recall what Einstein said:
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
Where some of the more vociferious opponents of ID go wrong, in my view, is that they reject ID a priori because they do not like the potential religious implications. In science, ideas should not be rejected simply because some people don’t like the possible implications.
3. Is God supernatural?
Yes.
4. By extension, is an intelligent designer supernatural?
Maybe. Maybe not. I think Hoyle believed that intelligence is somehow inherent in nature.
5. Is it possible for a human to be the intelligent designer responsible for the intricate complexities of life?
Huh? Is this a trick question?
6. In other words, and this relates to the first question, is it possible that the Christian God is not the intelligent designer?
Yes, that is possible, or at least conceivable.
I definitely agree that non-Christians can believe in intelligent design. Tariq Ramadan, a well-known Muslim apologetic, is very much for the instruction of “Islamic biology.” He is clearly a non-Christian who believes in an intelligent designer.
I will look into the two authors you have mentioned.
In science, ideas should not be rejected simply because some people don’t like the possible implications.
Very true. We will just have to wait and see if the Discovery Institute can get more peer-reviewed papers published without resorting to the study of the supernatural. It will be difficult, but we’ll see.
My fifth question was not a trick question. It was related to the first and sixth questions. I wanted to know whether or not you thought it was possible that the intelligent designer is not the Christian God, and you have answered that question thoroughly and consistently.
As a follow up to question six, if (keyword) it were shown that the intelligent designer is an entity separate from the Christian God, would that disprove Christian creationism and hurt Christianity?
Again, thank you for the answers. They were direct and to the point. I appreciate it.
quote:
As a follow up to question six, if (keyword) it were shown that the intelligent designer is an entity separate from the Christian God, would that disprove Christian creationism and hurt Christianity?
my reply:
I suppose it might, but as you point out, that’s a very big “if.” I think it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for science to ever show *who* the intelligent designer is.
By the way, I just googled Fred Hoyle, and wikipedia says he was an atheist. If he was an athiest during his entire professional career, that’s a bit of a surprise to me. In any case, I also found the following with regard to his views on chemical evolution. Assuming he *was* an athiest, this answer your question about whether an athiest can believe in ID.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“... if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of...”
Here is a larger excerpt:
Rejection of chemical evolution
In his later years, Hoyle became a staunch critic of theories of chemical evolution to explain the naturalistic origin of life. With Chandra Wickramasinghe, Hoyle promoted the theory that life evolved in space, spreading through the universe via panspermia, and that evolution on earth is driven by a steady influx of viruses arriving via comets. In 1982, Hoyle presented Evolution from Space for the Royal Institution’s Omni Lecture. After considering the very remote probability of evolution he concluded: if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of...[5] Published in his 1982/1984 books Evolution from Space (co-authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe), Hoyle calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 10^40,000. Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (10^80), he argued that even a whole universe full of primordial soup wouldn’t have a chance. He claimed:
The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.
Hoyle compared the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that “a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik’s Cube simultaneously. [1]
You seem to be doing a good job explaining things. I’ll leave it to you until you get tired. :)
>>
The you shouldn’t trust a lot of Darwinists as well since their PR is to claim that they are not Anti-religion when a lot of them truly are. At least guys like Dawkins come out openly.<<
It is important to remember that Darwinism is a philosophy of the late 19th century - it is quite different from modern evolutionary theory. If you see someone calling himself a Darwinist that is not the same at all as someone who studies evolutionary theory.
>>By the way, I just googled Fred Hoyle, and wikipedia says he was an atheist. If he was an athiest during his entire professional career, that’s a bit of a surprise to me. In any case, I also found the following with regard to his views on chemical evolution. Assuming he *was* an athiest, this answer your question about whether an athiest can believe in ID.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“... if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of...”
Here is a larger excerpt:
Rejection of chemical evolution
In his later years, Hoyle became a staunch critic of theories of chemical evolution to explain the naturalistic origin of life. With Chandra Wickramasinghe, Hoyle promoted the theory that life evolved in space, spreading through the universe via panspermia, and that evolution on earth is driven by a steady influx of viruses arriving via comets. In 1982, Hoyle presented Evolution from Space for the Royal Institution’s Omni Lecture. After considering the very remote probability of evolution he concluded: if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of...[5] Published in his 1982/1984 books Evolution from Space (co-authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe), Hoyle calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 10^40,000. Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (10^80), he argued that even a whole universe full of primordial soup wouldn’t have a chance. He claimed:<<
Fred Hoyle and Panspermia are interesting to read up on. His math is suspect because he focuses so much on his belief that there should not be so much carbon on earth. But once you get past that, he has good writing on the possibilities and implications of life originating off-earth. He suggests that life continues to arrive here in the form of inter-stellar viruses.
One week after my class finished the evolution section of biology in ninth grade, I overhead some of my classmates saying, “But, it all seems too perfect to have just evolved.”
And, indeed, we can take a look at some marvelously well-adapted species, such as an Indonesian mantis that looks exactly like a flower. It blends in perfectly.
If the “truly complex and extraordinary” parts of life are best explained through intelligent intervention, what about the seemingly useless parts? It makes little sense that a powerful being capable of creating the right things would also create, well, wrong things.
Enter vestigial structures.
Why do we still have the appendix? It doesn’t do much, and you only notice it if you’re an unlucky fellow who gets appendicitis.
Why do we still have wisdom teeth? All they do is cause pain to the unlucky teenagers who have to get them removed.
Why do whales have leg bones?
Why are some fruit flies born with wings that are too small to aid in flight?
These can be summed into one question: Is the intelligent designer capable of making mistakes?
“These can be summed into one question: Is the intelligent designer capable of making mistakes?”
Perhaps. Men with prostate problems probably think so.
Another possibility is that the Designer deliberately made things imperfect in this world so that we can appreciate perfection in the next. After all, if all you ever know is perfection, you can’t appreciate it.
But that’s just speculation.
The important point is that, even if “mistakes” are made, the doesn’t negate ID. You wouldn’t say that cars or computers are not intelligently designed just because engineering mistakes were made in their design and production, would you? Of course not.
I surely would not. We're human. We're imperfect by definition.
But what about the intelligent designer?
If he’s the Christian God, then according to the Bible, he’s infallible. He shouldn’t make any mistakes. Whales shouldn’t have leg bones. Fruit flies shouldn’t have miniature wings that serve no purpose.
If he’s not the Christian God, then he doesn’t have to be perfect. He can make mistakes like the rest of us.
Another possibility is that the Designer deliberately made things imperfect in this world so that we can appreciate perfection in the next. After all, if all you ever know is perfection, you can’t appreciate it.
Interesting. But, can you reword this to be more neutral? I know that this is your belief and opinion, but I’m curious as to whether or not you can rephrase such that the paragraph is completely free of any references to religious tenets. After all, intelligent design is trying to market itself as a scientific theory. It should have no ties whatsoever to any religious belief.
Thanks.
I'm not an Engineer, but I think they would agree with the statement that perfection is the fulfillment of the designer's intent. The problem is, we don't know what that intent was, or is, so we have no standard with which to contradict. That's first and foremost.
Second, even if we did have knowledge of such a standard, science would need to be complete in it's knowledge of the given thing in order to make such a contradiction, and evolutionary theory, along with it's related sciences and disciplines, isn't even close to accomplishing such a thing.
Your argument may sound reasonable on the surface, but upon scrutiny, it actually demonstrates what you don't know, rather than what you do.....
If God designed us to be perfect, we would live forever and probably never annoy or anger each other. That would be heaven on earth. According to the Bible, things were supposed to be that way, but they got derailed by original sin. Whether you believe that or not, at least the Bible has an explanation for it.
But that’s all in the realm of theology and religion, not science. As far as science is concerned, imperfection in the design of life is certainly not an argument against intelligent design. As I noted before, man-made designs are imperfect too, but that certainly does not mean they were not designed by ostensibly intelligent engineers.
Please keep in mind what pure naturalists are claiming. They are claiming that no intelligence whatsoever was involved in the origin and evolution of life. Not “a little bit.” Not even one tiny bit. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Do you know what zero means? It doesn’t mean 10^(-1000). It means none whatsoever.
The thesis of ID is that some nonzero “amount” of intelligence was involved in the origin and evolution of life. And given the staggering complexity of the “simplest” living cell and our utter inability to even begin to explain its formation in purely naturalistic terms, I consider that a virtual certainty.
To my way of thinking, the anti-ID crowd is making a much more extreme claim than the ID crowd. After all, the IDers are merely claiming that the the amount of intelligent design behind life is nonzero, whereas the anti-IDers are claiming that it is precisely and exactly zero. If the “amount” is anything other than zero, then the IDers are right.
No. If there is something we see as useless, it is only because our perception is too limited to understand God's overall plan. No matter how stupid, worthless, or downright evil, it's all part of that grand plan.
So shut your mouth and quit questioning the dogma, blasphemer.
The founders of the modern ID movement's stated goal of advancing the word of God is not convincing? There is probably no point in debating someone with such blinders on.
Yes I see the similarity.
Similarity? It is flat-out a Creation book edited to be the primary Intelligent Design book for the classroom. What gave me that hint? Maybe it was earlier titles like Biology and Creation and Creation Biology.
Where did you get THAT definition of Intelligent Design ?
The book Of Pandas and People. It was a central factor in ID losing the Dover court case. It is published by the Christian group, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, an associate organization of the Discovery Institute.
As I said, when you postulate INTELLIGENCE, there IS BOUND to be similarities with what Creationists see as God
Maybe you're a new convert to the religion, but similarity is simply not the case. There is a definite history from Creation, to Creation Science to Intelligent Design. Meyer himself started on the ID road after listening to creationists.
Really ? You've read it huh ? OK, tell me where the book mentioned the days of creation, The God of the Bible, The Flood, etc. and then maybe you're right to use the term CREATIONIST but not until.
How do I know it's creationist? Because it currently doesn't say anything about creation? Did you actually read the before and after text? It is a creation book, with "ID" as a synonym for "Creation."
As I said before, if you read the Discovery Institute, they do not even recommend teaching ID in the classroom ( that's right I said it and it isn't a typo ).
How does the saying go, "I can't hear what you're saying because your actions are too loud." No, the DI didn't consult with a schoolboard before they tried to introduce a creationist/ID book in the curriculum.
The fact that they are presenting a theory that has better explanatory power
This is one of their goals, to change the definition of science so that anything can be considered a theory. Thus, established theories that have undergone decades of rigorous scientific scrutiny are suddenly brought down to a level where a tribal creation myth can be called a theory. As soon as you let "God did it" be evidence, it's just turtles, all the way down.
You have an agenda for society as well I. My agenda for instance is to see America become Less liberal and more conservative. But that has LITTLE TO DO with the truth or falsity of Darwinism or Intelligent Design.
Maybe we should just listen to the father of the Intelligent Design movement, Phillip E. Johnson:
* "We are taking an intuition most people have (the belief in God) and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator."Do you still deny the origins and motives of the modern Intelligent Design movement? When you read the DI site, know that they are deceiving. Their past words and current actions prove it. Their target audience is religious dissenters (sure, they caught a few others on the way, but that's not the goal). Now, how should we trust any paper that is put out under them? Johnson, above, has been cited for countless instances of intellectual dishonesty in his "research.""Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
"This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy."
"So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing" —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do."
The objective [of the Wedge Strategy] is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'
In a nutshell: ID is not about better science, but about Christian evangelism. The evidence absolutely proves it.
You are so lost, I’m not sure where to begin.
First of all, Phillip Johnson and other at the Discovery Institute really believe that ID is a reality. They are not making it up to “further their agenda.” If they were trying to “sell” ID without really believing it themselves, then they would be dishonest, but they are not.
Secondly, many great scientists also believed in ID — even before science had a clue about the amazing complexity of the “simplest” living cell. Louis Pasteur, the father of modern biology wrote, “The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the work of the Creator.” Now, call me naive, but if Pasteur did not believe in ID, would he find “the work of the Creator” by studying nature?
Thirdly, the “agenda” of the Discovery Institute is completely independent of the reality of the existence or non-existence of ID. You don’t seem to understand that point, because you keep going back to their “agenda” instead of addressing ID itself. And when you do address ID, you simply make assertions and invoke arrogant appeals to authority.
A few posts back I quoted from astronomer Fred Hoyle, who according to Wikipedia was an atheist, explaining why ID is undeniable. Let me give a fuller version of this quote from a lecture he gave in 1982:
“So if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of in pondering this issue over quite a long time seems to me to have anything like as high a possibility of being true. ... The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”
—Sir Fred Hoyle, British astonomer, 1982
The difference between you and Hoyle is that Hoyle has thought about the problem, whereas you apparently have not. As a result, your posts constitute “nonsense of a high order.”
How can you possibly say that? I've posted their own statements, their own documents, that conclusively show their agenda is not science, but to bring more people to Christianity.
Secondly, many great scientists also believed
There's your problem, "believe." As I showed, Darwin believed too, but he did not try to put forth is belief as science.
Thirdly, the “agenda” of the Discovery Institute is completely independent of the reality of the existence or non-existence of ID.
They founded the modern ID movement. They and their members publish almost all ID books and papers. ID is defined by them.
The difference between you and Hoyle is that Hoyle has thought about the problem
Hoyle thought life came from outer space. Where did that outer space life come from? He just moves the problem of origins one step back.
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