INTELLIGENT DESIGN: An Engineer’s Approach

Joining the discussion late, but late is better then never.Hello limbosis, nice to meet you.Thank you for clarifying your position limbosis. Here are a few questions about your beliefs from a scientific point of view. Is this God "intelligent," and what is meant by intelligent? How were the species orginally created, and when?As for your question-

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But, what I'd also like to know is, when is everyone who believes in evolution going to express a fair amount of rage, for being publicly deceived with messages about some god that's supposed to be worth a darn. Don't you think that's in order?

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I don't believe anyone in evolution will express either rage, surprise, or concern over such a proposition, because the nature of the creator has nothing to do with science, and will have no influence on scientific thought. Science is concerned with understanding the nature of the world- what some may call the product of the creator. Science wishes to describe the world through set rules and relationships. Whether these relationships were created by a benevolent or malevolent being or by no being at all is inconsequential to understanding these relationships.So why did I ask the questions above? The questions I asked are scientifically important questions for which we can give definite answers based on evidence. If you are claiming that several evil beings created the world 4.5 billion years ago in an incompetant and constantly modified way, and additionally that this modification happens slowly through the means of natural selection, then you are basically describing the evolutionary process, with an minor extra bit about evil beings.

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Newer designs appear to have originated as modified copies of earlier plans.

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This statement makes no sense without a tree of common decent. How do you define "newer" and "earlier" plans? Most views to date that I have heard concerning designers involve everything being created at the beginning moment in time. In this case, the same blueprint may be used for many organisms, but it is unclear how to determine which designs are "newer." This is perfectly explained by a common ancestor tree, as this naturally groups older and newer models.Considering that there is no older or younger in a design argument, then any position that argues for a designer based on an analogy with modern engineer companies that can modify designs falls apart. Unless it is argued that the designers modify designs after they are made. In which case it must be asked how do they modify designs? In which case the answer is natural selection, and we are back to something that looks a lot like an evolutionary viewpoint.

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Parenthetically, how it gives anyone the notion that DNA lends credibility to the theory of evolution is still beyond me.

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Since this concern has not been directly and succinctly addressed, I will attempt to do so. DNA gives a mechanism by which organisms can be modified through time. It describes how genes can be passed on and changed in the process. This is the neccessary basis for evolution. With these mechanisms in place, there is no longer a need to ask for a designer, we can describe how all organisms evolve from one original ancestor.One further point against a designer- vestigial parts. Why do some creatures have parts that they no longer use? No one would ever design a car with a lead pipe sticking out of the back which a) serves no purpose and b) may actually decrease the cars efficieny. Yet these cases are commonplace in biology, and perfectly reasonable things to expect if all organisms have been and are currently evolving from one state to another.The only other explanation is a very stupid designer.

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this modification happens from TIME TO TIME is what I'm suggesting--not slowly through the means of natural selection--from time to time.

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Well, this is the crux of the issue, from a scientific perspective. We have a good explanation of how change happens through time, ie natural selection. If this is where you think current evolutionary thought breaks down, explain exactly how a change may come about. Is the change instantaneous? Does it happen to an organism? Or do the gods mess with an organism's sperm and induce the change in the offspring by some mysterious means? What evidence would constitute a confirmation of this new mechanism? Does that evidence exist? Notice that this is a big task that no creationist or IDer has stood up to, but I kinda like you limbosis. You are neither a creationist nor an IDer, nor bound by silly books or beliefs. You are an EDer, an Evil Designer proponent (yes, I think I coined that). You may just be able to give an answer to this question. And remember, the machanism that causes changes cannot violate laws of physics, meaning you can't claim that mass is instantaneously added to an organism out of nowhere, since mass needs to come from somewhere.Another question, because I'm curious. Did the creator(s) make one original species like a bacteria in the beginning and evolve everything from that, or were there separate groups in the beginning, like mammals and reptiles and such?

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The only other explanation is a very stupid designer.

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Or evil.

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Or evil AND stupid.

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So let me get this straight- vestigial organs point to a designer that is either evil or stupid, and silly designs point to a designer with a sense of humor? I may just be starting to like this theory. Limbosis, have you ever considered Mormonism? I believe that really good Mormons become gods in the afterlife, who rule over their own worlds. Might explain a lot of what you are suggesting here...

All of these quotes can be summed up on one of three ideas:1) "People (including myself) don't understand evolution."2) "Studying evolution is difficult." (All of Gould's quotes)3) "Darwin's theory hasn't stood up."Let me examine:1) Well if you don't understand it, why are you commenting on it? It makes a lot of sense to 99% of the biology community, and to bioengineering companies that design anti-influenza vaccines, and stem-cell researchers, and to cancer researchers, and to HIV researchers...I mean, one of these quote is cited as "H. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physic Bulletin." One physicist writing about evolution in a physics journal. By his quote, he is obviously not familiar with evoutionary research- not a big surprise that he doesn't understand it.2) Well, ain't that a fact. You know what, ALL SCIENCE IS HARD. That's why we still do science. That's why we don't know everything yet. Science is complicated. But that's no reason to stop doing science, or to stop trusting a scientific idea. Yes evolution is complicated, yes many different ideas have been thrown around in the last 100 years about evolution, yes there is no conclusive mathematical evidence for the evolution of all animals. But some amazingly informative research has been conducted on the various aspects of evolution, and have confirmed them to be true.3) Darwin's theory has certainly undergone some revisions over the years. Also, Darwin did not offer any testable predictions, thus what he offered was more of a natural history account than a scientific theory. But I believe that the Origin of Species is one of the most convincing books about evolution that one can read. It isn't a science article, and treating it like one is unfair. But it is an extremely convincing account of the nature of the world. Most of Darwin's uncertainty was in the heriditary unit that passed on traits, and how it operated. This was completely solved by the discovery of genetics and how genes operated. Statements like are blatantly not true. More and more evidence has only continued to speak for evlution. How could such an illusion be propogated through these fields of biology? If such an illusion existed, wouldn't more, or even all, the students researching these fields be guided towards the real truth? Consider that the students doing this research are some of the most intelligent people in the country, and have undergone a scientific training which has taught them to be critical, especially of existing theories. It would frankly be a failure of their education if some of them did not have some critical comments about evolution. Do we see criticism of creationism from within the creationist community, if such a coherent thing can even be described? Of course not, they are not critical of their views, rather they are glad to find someone else who shares a similar viewpoint.As one final point, I find it hard to imagine that some of these quotes were not taken out of context. Ok, I'm done ranting.

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You hear evolutionist says we are descedant from apes and monkees. Sure, but that's not the point. All of life is related, not just human's with monkees. If you hug a tree, you're hugging a relative, a very distant relative, but a relative nonetheless." Dr. Joan Roughgarden in Evolution and Christian Faith

Thanks Woodsy, that link was helpful, I was suspecting as much. I should have waited for your response before posting my rant. Oh well, what's done is done.

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You hear evolutionist says we are descedant from apes and monkees. Sure, but that's not the point. All of life is related, not just human's with monkees. If you hug a tree, you're hugging a relative, a very distant relative, but a relative nonetheless." Dr. Joan Roughgarden in Evolution and Christian Faith

Hey guys,Those were great posts, and they did shut PJ up for a while, but just a reminder. This is limbosis's thread, and he has specifically distanced himself from the ID movement. He has accepted those posts, and said that the designer is obviously evil and stupid, but that evolution is still wrong and that evolutionists are misguided. I think this still needs to be addressed.(BTW- I did open a new thread on PJ's elaborate list of quotes, feel free to direct comments on that list there.)Edited by platypus, : No reason given.

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You hear evolutionist says we are descedant from apes and monkees. Sure, but that's not the point. All of life is related, not just human's with monkees. If you hug a tree, you're hugging a relative, a very distant relative, but a relative nonetheless." Dr. Joan Roughgarden in Evolution and Christian Faith

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Granted. That frame of mind is especially enticing if the idea of evolution was hereafter limited to a description of the way things happened, and not allowed to pose as the explanation for a process that does not exist. You could call it a set of chronologies, a gant chart at best.

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Sorry limbosis, you lost me. "A description for the way things happened" is in my mind posing "the explanation for the process." If evolutionary biology did not do this, it would be more like natural history.The current explanation for speciation through natural selection can explain how things got to be the way they are. And this explanation is not motivated by turning away from a benevolent God. In fact, you could incorporate the idea of a benevolent God quite easily into this framework. For example, a benevolent God created the world through the Big Bang and used the process of evolution to create humans.Ideas such as this are known as theistic evolution. Some evolutionists do believe in such a thing, some (such as Dawkins) adamantly don't. One thing is definitely true, evolutionists study evolution because it intrigues them intellectually, not because they are trying to turn away from any sort of God. The God thing only gets brought into the issue after the fact.

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If it is not evolution and not design then what is the model?

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That is what we are trying to find out from limbosis, but he hasn't been entirely clear on this issue yet. What he has been clear on is that he believes that there is a designer, but that this designer is not an Intelligent Designer (ID), but an evil designer(s) (ed- note no caps) who may or may not have a sense of humor. He is not arguing from religious grounds.

I don't know, I think its still fairly relevant. Limbosis was forced into arguing for an evil design theory through discussing message 1, and now we are using speciation to show that his theory is not correct, or at least not noticably in conflict with current evolutionary theory. If this is deemed off-topic, I won't continue the issue, though.Since you brought up dogs, I'll point out the obvious. We call different kinds of dogs "breeds" rather than species, simply because we breeded them in certain directions. If we saw a chihuahua and a German shepard in the wild, we'd classify them as separate species. So looking at dogs we see evidence of what is effectively several new species. I use Chihuahua's as an example because physically, they are sexually isolated from other dogs. Physically meaning their equipment is too small.Darwin saw artificial selection in the form of carrier pidgeons, and this was a motivating factor in developing his theory. Observe: All of these morphological forms of pidgeons (3 shown here, 15-20 overall) developed from one species of rock pidgeons, shown at the top. Darwin speculated in the Origin of Species that this selective breeding started probably about 3000 years ago.There you have it, in-your-face drastic morphological differences caused by humans over the course of many years, resulting in different "kinds." I guess fruit flies are a more subtle, scientifically correct form of speciation, but you seemed to want the big morphological differences. There you go, nothing left to do.

Limbosis, please explain what your argument is, and what evidence you have to support that argument. I for one am certainly not clear on what your argument is anymore. And make sure to point out how your theory is different from the commonly accepted theory of evolution.

The only posters doing such a thing are the creationists, because it benefits them. If its a binary option, then all creationists have to do to prove their point is negate evolution. Consider these other options. We were put here by extraterrestrials. We were programmed by robots. We are still programmed by robots (seen the matrix?). Of course you might ask the question, where did the robots and aliens come from, but the same question can be asked about your designer. Abliogenesis is a biochemical question. Evolution is a (you guessed it) evolutionary biology question. Evolution says assuming you have a living, reproducing life-form, you can generate the variety of life seen today through natural selection. In fact, evolution concerns itself with showing the "big jump from fly to man" rather then the "squirming and reproducing worm" forming from nothing. Your problem is with abliogenesis, not Evolution. Get your facts straight.

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You hear evolutionist says we are descedant from apes and monkees. Sure, but that's not the point. All of life is related, not just human's with monkees. If you hug a tree, you're hugging a relative, a very distant relative, but a relative nonetheless." Dr. Joan Roughgarden in Evolution and Christian Faith

Simple- if the two groups of organism would not naturally interbreed in the wild, speciation has occured. It does not matter if they are unable to breed because of genitalia size differences, offspring sterility, positive assortive mating, or because of the wierd kinship chemical receptor that you kinda described. If any of these mechanisms are in place, then no interbreeding will occur- the two groups will evolve separately. Their gene pools are effectively isolated. If a mutation occurs in one group, it cannot be tranferred to the other group. This effective separation is the important consequence of speciation. There is no "mistaken as speciation." If they don't interbreed in the wild, it doesn't matter if we could achieve artificial insemination in the lab, they are effectively isolated: speciation has occurred.

Actually if you're curious, I believe in a benevolent, intelligent, and efficient (or lazy) god. This God created the laws of chemistry and physics which govern our universe, and then spun everything into motion with the Big Bang. This God is smart and efficient enough to create a machine (our universe) which is able to sustain itself without his continual input. To me, this is a mark of intelligence. He created the machine- but the machine propagates itself. Science is a study of the machine created by God.Of course I understand all of this stuff about God is what I BELIEVE, as opposed to what I KNOW about the process of evolution. Perhaps this may help you answer your question about purpose. If design is "present" in nature, where is it present? In the products of the designer, or the machine created by the designer? Several people have all ready indicated the how nature's organisms are not like our manufactured cars in ways that argue against a designer. If the designer created the machine (our universe), the purpose is held in the machine, not in the individuals produced by the machine (species).

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"Keep God OUT! Tell us about Evolution in place of an Intelligent Creator.

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Evolution isn't replacing anything, it is science. For evolution to act in place of an intelligent designer, the intelligent designer would have to be in the classroom in the first place.

Yeah, you can count me in the Deist category. It's a shame that the 18th century Deists were anti organized religion, probably lead to the breakdown of their own viewpoints since they were left with no means to perpetuate their beliefs. But I think they pretty much analyzed the religious situation accurately, and my beliefs tend to follow theirs.