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Author Topic:   Evidence for Intelligent Design-is there any?
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5598 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 1 of 220 (480410)
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


I am always being asked to give my evidence for intelligent design.However, no matter what I say, the same question comes up as if I never had anything to offer.
For example:
bluescat48 writes:
Then show the evidence. If evidence can be found then it would change ID from pseudoscience
My reply was as follows and Granny Magda's answer to that follows thereafter:
Beretta writes:
Why is it that nobody has ever seen me mention any evidence, no matter how many times I mention various lines of evidence?
Lets see, how about
-the fossils, sudden appearance and general stasis
-the Cambrian explosion -sudden appearance of practically all phyla
-the information rich genetic code
-the inability of ”science’ to explain how the information got there
-the lack of transitional forms
-the continually rehashed icons of evolution that despite being a collection of old worn, some fraudulent, others thoroughly discredited, most out of date somehow never seem to change. One would think with all the vast network of science, something more convincing would come along, but no.
-mutational load, absence of beneficial mutations being demonstrated, surplus of examples of negative effects of mutation
-the specified complexity of living things.
Granny Magda writes:
None of the arguments you list is positive evidence for ID. Not one.
Each of the items you list is an argument against evolution.
I contend that my examples are evidence for intelligent design.

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by dokukaeru, posted 09-03-2008 11:54 AM Beretta has replied
 Message 7 by Granny Magda, posted 09-03-2008 2:00 PM Beretta has replied
 Message 8 by Huntard, posted 09-03-2008 3:10 PM Beretta has not replied
 Message 9 by Straggler, posted 09-03-2008 4:16 PM Beretta has not replied
 Message 10 by Deftil, posted 09-03-2008 4:28 PM Beretta has not replied
 Message 11 by Straggler, posted 09-03-2008 4:30 PM Beretta has not replied
 Message 13 by RickJB, posted 09-04-2008 7:17 AM Beretta has not replied
 Message 14 by LucyTheApe, posted 09-04-2008 7:28 AM Beretta has replied

  
AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 220 (480411)
09-03-2008 10:52 AM


Thread Topic
Thread moved here from the Creation/Evolution In The News forum.
This is not a "in the news" post it is a good new topic proposal so I have moved it as if it was put in the Proposed New Topics thread.
You need to clarify how limited you want the thread to be:
As as been noted elsewhere some people will take issue with the validity of your points as an argument against evolution. Others will point out (as has been done) that an argument against evolution is not, in itself, any kind of positive evidence for ID.
Do you want this thread to be only about how these points are or are not evidence for ID? Or will you allow posters to rise issues with the validity of the points.
My strong suggestion is that this thread be restricted to the issue you make in it's title. That is, the validity of the individual points NOT be discussed here. You should, however, be prepared to defend them if anyone raises them in individual threads.
If we allow discussion of the individual points the thread will have much, much too wide a range of topics.
Edited by AdminNosy, : No reason given.

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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 3 of 220 (480415)
09-03-2008 11:25 AM


Just a Note...
Hi Beretta, thanks for posting the thread. This is just a note to let you know that I am still interested in discussing this issue, but I shall wait for you to address AminNosy's request for clarifications before directly replying to your OP.

Mutate and Survive

Replies to this message:
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dokukaeru
Member (Idle past 4615 days)
Posts: 129
From: ohio
Joined: 06-27-2008


Message 4 of 220 (480418)
09-03-2008 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


Hi Beretta,
Let me just address 2 of those:
Cambrian Explosion
wiki writes:
Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude
When you say explosion, we are talking 70-80 MILLION years, not for instance, a single week.
The lack of transitional forms
You do realize that every year, more and more transitional forms are found? The transition from fish to tetrapod on wiki has at least 10 illustrations from fossils alone. wiki
Will ther ever be a 100% complete transitional diagram....no. Only a tiny fraction of animals ever even become fossils and of those only a tiny portion are unearthed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Beretta, posted 09-03-2008 10:47 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 19 by Beretta, posted 09-04-2008 9:28 AM dokukaeru has not replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 5 of 220 (480427)
09-03-2008 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Granny Magda
09-03-2008 11:25 AM


Don't wait
I have made the decision myself.
We can't have all those topics discussed in one thread.
So the topic is "even if true do the listed items constitute support for ID?" The validity of the items need to be discussed in individual threads which I expect Beretta to answer in.
Edited by AdminNosy, : fix author

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 6 of 220 (480429)
09-03-2008 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by dokukaeru
09-03-2008 11:54 AM


Topic
As noted in the previous post dokukaeru. The validity of the items in the list are too diverse to be discussed in this thread.
If you wish to discuss the two items you bring up here then make 2 separate threads for them. Or find open threads on the topic.

This message is a reply to:
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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 7 of 220 (480435)
09-03-2008 2:00 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


Positive and Negative Evidence
OK, since Nosy has laid down the law, I'll respond.
I'll just concentrate on the first example. Note that I'm not interested here in whether the example is right or wrong, but rather whether, if correct, it would constitute evidence for ID.
Beretta writes:
-the fossils, sudden appearance and general stasis
If true, this is something that might legitimately cause us to doubt evolution. In other words, it is evidence against evolution. It would certainly require that an explanation were found in answer, but why should that explanation be intelligent design?
Why should ID be the automatic default explanation for a limited fossil record? There could be other explanations. The most obvious is punctuated equilibrium. Now I'm not a fan of PE, but it does provide another explanation for the limited fossil record to rival the ID explanation. That's just one example, but it serves to demonstrate that even if the claim about the fossil record is true, it doesn't mean that ID becomes the replacement explanation. There could be others, some reasonable, others outlandish. There is only one true explanation, but a potentially infinite number of wrong explanations. Eliminating one wrong answer doesn't necessarily mean that any specific alternative is the right answer; it could just be another wrong answer.
The same can be said of all the examples given. They argue against evolution. What they don't offer is positive evidence of a designer's handiwork in nature. What do I mean by positive evidence?
An example of positive evidence for evolution is the well-known fossil Tiktaalik. This is positive evidence because it confirms predictions made by evolutionary theory. The theory suggests that tetrapods descended from fish. It suggests that this happened during a particular time-frame. Thus, seeking to find the truth of this prediction, palaeontologists looked for rocks of the relevant age and duly found the predicted transitional fossil, a tetrapod-like fish.
Prediction made, prediction confirmed. That is positive evidence for evolution. IDists have not managed to equal this kind of evidence, concentrating instead on attempting to chip away at evolution.
Even if all the claims made by Beretta are true, it still does not constitute evidence for ID. If evolution was declared obsolete tomorrow, that does not mean that ID, special creation or any other explanation becomes true by default.

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Beretta, posted 09-03-2008 10:47 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Beretta, posted 09-04-2008 9:50 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


Message 8 of 220 (480441)
09-03-2008 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


First of all hello to you all here on the EvC forum, been lurking here for a while and finally decided to post, hope to learn a lot here.
Note to reader: points made by Beretta treated as though they were true for the sake of this topic
Beretta writes:
the continually rehashed icons of evolution that despite being a collection of old worn, some fraudulent, others thoroughly discredited, most out of date somehow never seem to change. One would think with all the vast network of science, something more convincing would come along, but no.
This isn't evidence FOR ID now is it, it just means that textbook writers are slow to pick up the vast majority of evidence that has accumulated since Darwin. It doesn't even mean Evolution's not true, since it depends on far more then just these so called "icons".

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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 9 of 220 (480446)
09-03-2008 4:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


Evidence
Double post
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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Deftil
Member (Idle past 4456 days)
Posts: 128
From: Virginia, USA
Joined: 04-19-2008


Message 10 of 220 (480448)
09-03-2008 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


I have to agree with others that what's been given is only (potentially) evidence against evolution as it's now understood, and not as evidence for ID. That doesn't mean that those points aren't relevant to possibly falsifying our current evolutionary theories, but they don't appear to be "positive evidence" for ID. Just because current evolutionary theories might not be sufficient to explain Earth's biodiversity, doesn't mean that ID becomes the correct explanation by default. New versions of evolutionary theories may be right, currently unknown explanations might be right, or ID may even be right, but we don't know just by disproving the current scientifically accepted model.
Independently of falsifying the effects of natural selection, genetic drift, and sexual selection, the burden would be on other concepts to produce testable hypotheses that a) explain existing phenomena, b) predict future experimental observations, and c) that are subject to potentially being falsified by some observations. Some facts have been already put forward about strange and odd "designs" in life that could falsify ID, but proponents of ID seem to say that an intelligent designer could have chosen to design them in that way. If that's the case, then it means that there are no observations that could theoretically be made that could falsify ID. Hence the judgement can be made that, at this point at least, ID is philosophy, and not science. It could even be right, but that doesn't mean that in it's current form it's science, and indeed it is not.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add a blank line.

This message is a reply to:
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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 11 of 220 (480449)
09-03-2008 4:30 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


The Nature of Scientific Evidence
To be "evidenced" in scientific terms does not just mean a bunch of known facts weaved together to form an interpretation. Especially one designed to fit a predefined view of the world.
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
A scientifically evidenced theory is one that has been tested. The essence of science and the thing that makes it different and more reliable than any other form of investigation is the use of hypotheses and the testing of conclusions. Observation, interpretation, analysis etc. etc. are a means to an end which without incorporating the key concept of testing are incapable of achieving the reliability of any truly scientifically evidenced theory. Unless conclusions are tested they are open to misinterpretation, philosophical bias and subjective reasoning.
Scientific evidence is evidence that positively supports a theory or hypothesis by being consistent with the predictions and logical consequences of the theory in question. The most objective and best supporting evidence for a scientific theory is indisputably new evidence discovered directly as a result of the theory in question.
PREDICTION - THE GOLD STANDARD
A new particle predicted and discovered as a result of theory.
A transitional fossil searched for and located specifically on the basis of geological and evolutionary knowledge.
A newly observed physical phenomenon, such as the bending of light around massive bodies, sought out based purely on theory and confirmed by experiment.
These types of result are the gold standard of scientific evidence.
We can easily make our theories consistent with known facts but making specific new facts consistent with detailed predictions is all but impossible unless there is some truth to the theory being tested.
Unless we test our theories all we have are interpretations of known facts which, no matter how objective we may try to be or how accurately we have obtained our facts, are inevitably subject to subjective misinterpretation. Only by making the truth of nature the judge, jury and, where necessary, the executioner with regard to our theories can we truly have any confidence in them.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
There is no evidence for Intelligent Design that could be called 'scientific'. It is remarkable that a "theory" that purports to be both scientific and true has never made a single verifiable prediction that can positively confirm it's veracity. It is unbelievable that a "theory" that purports to be both scientific and true has never ever resulted in the discovery of a single new piece of evidence. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Diddly squat.
CONCLUSION
All ID ever does is re-interpret the evidence discovered as a result of truly scientific theories.
None of the "evidence" you list for ID qualifies as evidence by any scientific standard at all. Most of it does not even attempt to positively verify ID at all. Instead it seeks only to discredit the alternative.
At best your list is the basis for an unverified (unverifiable?) hypothesis.
At worst it is a blatant bastardisation of scientific evidence used to prop up an irrational faith based predefined world-view by superficially opposing genuinely scientific conclusions for purely philosophical reasons.
Enjoy.
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Beretta, posted 09-03-2008 10:47 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Beretta
Member (Idle past 5598 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 12 of 220 (480507)
09-04-2008 6:42 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by AdminNosy
09-03-2008 10:52 AM


Re: Thread Topic
Hi adminnosy,
My strong suggestion is that this thread be restricted to the issue you make in it's title. That is, the validity of the individual points NOT be discussed here.
Ok great -lets go with that.

This message is a reply to:
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RickJB
Member (Idle past 4991 days)
Posts: 917
From: London, UK
Joined: 04-14-2006


Message 13 of 220 (480510)
09-04-2008 7:17 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


Everything you list is an argument against Evolution. Even if the ToE was wrong, that wouldn't validate ID by default.
You have no positive evidence for ID, instead you rely solely on inaccurate ToE criticism.
When presenting positive evidence for ID you should not need to make any reference to the ToE.

This message is a reply to:
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LucyTheApe
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 220 (480511)
09-04-2008 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Beretta
09-03-2008 10:47 AM


What other options are there?
G'day Beretta.
I'm confused, I thought Intelligent design was the default position until Darwin formalised biological evolution. What other theories are there?
If there aren't any other theories then evidence against evolution, it seems, is evidence for Intelligent Design.

There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything.
Pascal

This message is a reply to:
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RickJB
Member (Idle past 4991 days)
Posts: 917
From: London, UK
Joined: 04-14-2006


Message 15 of 220 (480512)
09-04-2008 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by LucyTheApe
09-04-2008 7:28 AM


Re: What other options are there?
Lucy writes:
If there aren't any other theories then evidence against evolution, it seems, is evidence for Intelligent Design.
No, because we could have been created by accident by intergalactic robots.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by LucyTheApe, posted 09-04-2008 7:28 AM LucyTheApe has replied

Replies to this message:
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