Posted on 07/08/2008 11:48:40 AM PDT by neverdem
Unlike an actual object that one is determining if it was the result of an intelligent action, what actual object does I.D. point to other than “biological complexity”?
Well, the ability to digest citrate is biological complexity. Was it caused by the actions of an intelligent agent?
Which goes to my point. How can you classify ID as a science when you have no interest in the ultimate answer? Science may not know exactly how life first came to be on this planet, but they don't write the question off as not worth exploring.
Answer this question-if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes? I don’t believe scientists have been able to give an answer to this, and indeed, since there still are apes this would seem to disprove the theory of man’s evolution anyway.
The answer to that has indeed been answered - it's because man did not evolve from apes. The evolution of man spans the Genus Homo and includes ancestors like Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Rodesiensis, back to Homo Erectus. And, GEICO commercials to the contrary notwithsanding, none of those earlier species still exist. The evolution of apes as we know them, while similar to humans, took a different evolutionary path millions of years ago which resulted in the similar, but distinct species, of today. It's interesting to note that science classes apes as hominoids, as it does humans. And that the family Hominidae includes orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. The other family, Hylobatidae, consists primarily of gibbons.
It is a bait and switch -- you're switching the argument from one of finding evidence to support a specific hypothesis, to one of trying to explain the rationale behind such evidence.
"Science," however, claims not to care about rationale for phenomena ... as to do otherwise would suggest that there were something other than naturalistic processes involved.
Unlike an actual object that one is determining if it was the result of an intelligent action, what actual object does I.D. point to other than “biological complexity”?
Sigh. I gave you a specific example of the "object" and you refuse to see it.
You're not even discussing the issue anymore -- your objections seem directed toward avoidance of the actual points I've made. I'm through.
All of what you mention sounds very scientific, but I believe most of what you quote is based on skeletal remains and much of it has been debunked. But again, its all conjecture, none of it has been proven according to scientific method.
I’m off to exercise my body-need to rest my brain.
Enjoyed the conversation.
Everyone in the ID movement is welcome to look for evidence of genetic engineering. It's not even expensive since genome data is online.
When humans engineer organisms -- and I presume you would include this as an example of intelligent design -- they tend to insert genes from one species to another, even crossing the lines at the level of kingdom.
This results in organisms that do not fit in a nested hierarchy. So ID supporters might spend their time looking for breaks in the nested hierarchy. ERVs would be a logical starting place.
You believe incorrectly.
Fundamentalists tend to deny or ignore what they find inconvenient to their religious beliefs, and their writings are full of this kind of thing.
That they find it convenient to deny or ignore such findings does not make them go away, not does it "debunk" them. To do that requires real science.
If you should have any questions on the different species of fossil man that were mention in the previous post, let me know. Maybe I can help explain things a bit.
If the object you are pointing to for Intelligent Design is a man made object then I guess that is as far as the I.D. hypothesis can take you and you seem unwilling to take it further. Fine, we know human beings can intelligently design objects. And how can we determine the mark of that interference except against a backdrop of the “not designed” bacterial genome?
Debunked by who?
But again, its all conjecture, none of it has been proven according to scientific method.
Thousands of scientists would disagree with that statement.
Silly statement. Why must ID be a movement? Is "evolutionary theory" a "movement," too?
That said, I thank you for summarizing so neatly the testing approach that I had tried to state before.
Clearly, then, you would have to agree that the "ID hypothesis is not testable" canard is no longer valid, at least not as a general statement.
The techniques of genetic engineering (which is a form of "intelligent design," just as you said) are such that the signs of similar activities by "unknown agents" might be recognizable.
What ID hypothesis? I look at ID websites -- Uncommon Descent and TelicThoughts -- and don't see a hypothesis.
I proposed something to look for, but in order for that to become a hypotheses, it needs to be tied to some general conjecture about causation, or assigned to an agency having some defined attributes.
What ID does is assert that unspecified things were done by unspecified entity(ies) at unspecified times for unspecified reasons using unspecified methods. In other words, one or miracles occurred.
Now it would be extremely exciting to find a major exception to the nested hierarchy, and very troubling for common descent if the exception doesn't look like a viral insertion. Unfortunately for the ID "hypothesis," the converse doesn't apply. ID is not troubled by the lack of exceptions. That is because, in the absence of a causative agent having attributes, anything is possible.
ID is not about showing that people can design things.
ID is about proving that the Christian deity created everything, just as stated in Genesis, so that religion can be wedged back into the classrooms.
You must be listening to that science mental midget, Rush Limbaugh. If America came from England, then why is are there still English? If Christianity came from Judaism, then why are there still Jews? You need to pick up a biology text book.
If Miss Jones married Mr. Smith, how come there are still people named Jones?
Because Satan deceived the Jews (as he has deceived many) into believing that Jesus was not the savior. Which proves that evilution is the work of Satan, as well.
/Sarcasm off.
"Evolutionarily speaking - the creation of life from non-life is being papered over. The odds and the time involved preclude this happening, and any experiments to the contrary have fudged, to put it mildly, the conditions that existed on the early Earth." [excerpt]You can see the mathematical impossibility of abiogenesis demonstrated here:
"OK, who is the intelligent designer and how do you test for that?" [excerpt]ID doesn't say who the designer is.
The existence of people named Jones has been debunked. Evidence shows that these so-called "Joneses" are really people with other names who have merely been misidentified by scientists with a sinister agenda.
“The only thing the Discovery Institute has come up with to try and disprove evolution are some rhetorical shenanigans. IOW, a big pile of steaming B.S.”
How can you disprove something that has never been proved. Why don’t you concentrate on proving what so far have proven to be unprovable? Wouldn’t that actually be science?
Wow, a real live snake handler.
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