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Intelligent design gets even dumber
The Washington Post ^ | 03/08/19 | Jerry A. Coyne

Posted on 03/16/2019 11:26:56 AM PDT by Simon Green

The notion of “intelligent design” arose after opponents of evolution repeatedly failed on First Amendment grounds to get Bible-based creationism taught in the public schools. Their solution: Take God out of the mix and replace him with an unspecified “intelligent designer.” They added some irrelevant mathematics and fancy biochemical jargon, and lo: intelligent design, which scientists have dubbed “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.”

But the tuxedo is fraying, for intelligent design has been rejected not just by biologists but also by judges who recognize it as poorly disguised religion. Nevertheless, its advocates persist. Among the most vocal is Michael J. Behe, a biology professor at Lehigh University whose previous books, despite withering criticism from scientists, have sold well in a country where 76 percent of us think God had some role in human evolution.

Behe does not rely on the Bible as a science textbook. Rather, he admits that evolution occurs by natural selection sifting new mutations and that all species are related via common ancestors. Where he parts company with other biologists is in his claim that the important mutations producing new types of organisms are not random accidents but are deliberately installed by a designer with a plan. A pious Catholic, Behe sees the designer as the Christian God but concedes that there could be other mutation-makers. These designed mutations solve what he sees as a problem for natural selection: the origin of some complex biochemical features. Such features appear to defy Darwinian explanation because, claims Behe, they can’t function until all the parts are in place. (Unguided natural selection requires that every step in the evolution of a complex feature must enhance an organism’s fitness.) Ergo, these “irreducibly complex” systems must have been forged by a designer who made simultaneous changes in several genes.

(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...


TOPICS: Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: barfalert; creationism; evolution; fakenews; id; intelligentdesign; washingtoncompost
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To: bridger54

Considering how vast the universe is in terms of space and time, there have been/are/will be billions of life-supporting planets, so your glib derision is simply glib.


21 posted on 03/16/2019 12:50:13 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Capitalism produces EVERYTHING Socialists/Communists/Democratic-Socialists wish to "redistribute.")
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To: NativeSon; Simon Green; libh8er; Williams
Mrs. Don-o pipes up from the peanut gallery:

If no designer is mentioned in Intelligent Design, I don't think you are required to go with God/creationism. Didn't Fred Hoyle come out with his hypothesis of panspermia sometime in the mid-70's? (If my memory serves me well.)

Hoyle and his fellow researcher Chandra something (can't remember and can't spell it) said that life forms, or complex organic (carbon-bearing) molecules, coming into the earth's atmosphere from comets, asteroids, planetoids, whatever, would provide the genetic Leg-O's necessary for macroevolution, which requires myriads of innovations which can't be otherwise accounted for in a mere geologic ages.

Hoyle did not propose "God" but there certainly lurks an 'unknown x" since he does not propose any kind of formula for the initial abiogenesis, which he assumes happened, but thought so vanishingly rare that it would necessarily take place outside of a strictly terrestrial time-frame.

22 posted on 03/16/2019 12:50:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.)
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To: NativeSon; Simon Green

However, EVERY “science” book on Darwin/evolution uses “Nature selected” or “the body evolved this” to “do that” because “it was more efficient” “it was faster” “it needed to see better” “proto-whale (a bear-like creature) needed to lose its legs so it could swim faster” “it moved its nostrils up to breathe easier” ....

Yet there is NO “intelligent designer” allowed in their myth?

What is harder to believe? 37.2 trillion cells in 9 billion human bodies - all working together to live in near-perfect cooperation next to each other by 10^16 “natural random accidents”?

Or one miracle?


23 posted on 03/16/2019 12:53:57 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (The democrats' national goal: One world social-communism under one world religion: Atheistic Islam.)
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To: Simon Green

Notice that he does not indicate why intelligent design is an untrue theory, only that it has been rejected by other scientists and judges. The problem with most scientists is that they accept only materialism as the basis for knowledge, whereas wiser thinkers, such as Thomas Aquina, recognized that the natural sciences are subordinate to knowledge derived from Divine revelation. A question for those who insist on Darwinism or neo-Darwinism: what proof can you provide that mutations are random?


24 posted on 03/16/2019 12:55:50 PM PDT by I-ambush (One foot in the grave,one foot on the pedal—I was born to rebel.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
I will look for the work by Hoyle to better understand.

I am in no way a statatician but when running the values around in my mind in the wee hours, it occurs to me that multiple universes would be needed for proper "accounting".

If time is constant, there isn't enough of it.

25 posted on 03/16/2019 1:21:19 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: Simon Green

where 76 percent of us think God had some role in human evolution.


It’s maybe half that, the other half denying evolution entirely.


26 posted on 03/16/2019 1:31:17 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: Kazan

“Nor is there a single mutation that provides evidence one species can evolve into another.” No, butterflies don’t mutate into buffalo, but there are biological clines where the two ends are recognized taxonomically as different species. And it certainly isn’t the result of a single mutation.


27 posted on 03/16/2019 1:37:05 PM PDT by Hiddigeigei ("Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish," said Dionysus - Euripides)
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To: Kazan
Stop posting left-wing propaganda here.

Debunking pseudoscience isn't propaganda, it's a public service.

28 posted on 03/16/2019 1:37:57 PM PDT by Simon Green ("Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats.”)
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To: NativeSon
I love multiverse theory. Since, given enough time and an infinity of universes, everything that can happen must happen, multiverse theory implies an infinity of universes with no god, and an infinity of universes with a god or gods. And since "god or gods" can come in an infinity of combinations, multiverse theory tells us that there is a singular infinity of universes with no god, and an infinity squared of universes with god(s).

So the first question would be: in which type of universe do we live, and how would we tell?

29 posted on 03/16/2019 1:40:10 PM PDT by sphinx
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To: Simon Green

It seems the god of evolutionists is time. Time has no limits to what it can create. Plus, the time god doesn’t judge.


30 posted on 03/16/2019 1:42:13 PM PDT by robel
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To: Robert A Cook PE
It easy to understand evolution via "natural selection" by thinking probability - role the dice.

The number of die is the challenge - each roll would contain billions, at least.

I've always been more of atheist with heavy leanings towards the religion of the Diné. Early on in college, I had the pleasure of being the student of a devout adherent of Judaism.

I had no idea he was religious. I was curious as to how a man of science, could believe in G*d/gods. In essence, he shared with me that the world, the universe, he and I, time, all existence were a gift. And that he & I have been created with the ability and drive to seek knowledge & understanding of these creations.

The more he learned, the more knowledge he acquired, naturally strengthened his skills and his beliefs.

We are no accident.

31 posted on 03/16/2019 1:42:27 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Considering how vast the universe is in terms of space and time, there have been/are/will be billions of life-supporting planets, so your glib derision is simply glib.

To the contrary: the universe ain't nearly as vast as the problem. You'd know that if your understanding were anything but second hand.

Try quanifying the problem before making "glib" assertions with only tenuous connections to reality.

32 posted on 03/16/2019 1:48:47 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: sphinx
So the first question would be: in which type of universe do we live, and how would we tell?

No, the first question is "where did all the energy come from for all these universes?"

No "magic wands" allowed.

33 posted on 03/16/2019 1:53:15 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: sphinx
We are in the universe that has been observed, thereby collapsing the wave function into a single reality.

That begets the question; "who or what is the necessary observer"?

Collectivley all "living" organisms? That leaves a lot of holes. The observer must be one able to perceive all things at all times, omniscient.

34 posted on 03/16/2019 1:53:59 PM PDT by NativeSon ( Grease the floor with Crisco when I dance the Disco)
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To: robel
It seems the god of evolutionists is time. Time has no limits to what it can create. Plus, the time god doesn’t judge.

If you run the numbers, even the most generous age for the universe is paultry.

35 posted on 03/16/2019 1:56:06 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: papertyger

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Authur C Clark


36 posted on 03/16/2019 2:00:37 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Except we're not talking about a technology; this is supposed to be a natural process....

37 posted on 03/16/2019 2:04:20 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: papertyger
"Except we're not talking about a technology; this is supposed to be a natural process...."

do you know we're not talking about a technology? Who says it's supposed to be a natural process.

Only God is natural. Everything else is a creation.

38 posted on 03/16/2019 2:08:31 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: papertyger

How do you know we’re not talking about a technology? Who says it’s supposed to be a natural process.


39 posted on 03/16/2019 2:10:00 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN
Who says it's supposed to be a natural process.

The materialists who claim dominion over scientific inquiry.

40 posted on 03/16/2019 2:16:11 PM PDT by papertyger
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