Evidence For Evolution - Top Ten Reasons

Regarding paragraph 1 : You end with this rhetorical quetion "Isn't this perspective even more direspectful of God that forthright atheism ?"Could you explain to me what you mean by this ? Don't worry about me forgetting the context - I won't.Regarding paragraph 2 : I agree with everyhting you said except 2 things. You assume Darwinsterrier would credit ID, I do not believe this person would based upon other debate in other topics but it wouldn't surprise me to have him agree with you suddenly just to be contrary against me. And the second thing : How exactly does the observation and identification of "mindless process of variation and selection " disprove ID ? Why can't these processes be His creation ultimately ? IF you say it is because they are observed/proven to be mindless thus it is common sense to deduce no ID then could you assure me that your worldview (whatever it is) is not creeping into this conclusion ? And if your worldview is included into the conclusion then would you admit it ?Another question : What is the source of your beliefs of how God (if HE exists) would create ?For the record : My worldview and all its biases are included in all of my beliefs and assumptions. I believe NOBODY can separate the starting assumptions contained in their worldview from the evidence they are offering for whatever they are attempting to prove.This post of yours was a very good response, and I have chosen to interpret your ending personal jab to really be your way of saying how far apart we are in your understanding of creationism as opposed to mine which makes what you said a compliment.

This is AMBIGUOUS.
I can use the list to argue AGAINST ANY EVOLUTIONARY ARGUMENT I HAVE SEEN ON THIS SITE from it. I still DO NOT understand why anyone wishing to do any kind of c/e fails to realize that this typed list is USELSESS if any current duality is to END WITH A POLARIZED OPINON of who was button holed who is the cat in the hat etc. It will help in Channeling some writing about the topic but I KNOW I can do the reading of the subjects in either direction with such a proposition that even being constraied chonologically merely assumes by 1 or 2 that there is some slant. Why didnt you say if you thought that this list supported ONE OR TWO??? That I FIND as a flaw. we agree to disagree but that is not very helpful unless the only purpose is negative.

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I still DO NOT understand why anyone wishing to do any kind of c/e fails to realize that this typed list is USELSESS if any current duality is to END WITH A POLARIZED OPINON of who was button holed who is the cat in the hat
______I get don't it. What on earth does this mean? Can we get the Special English version please?

Welcome to the "Brad Zone", 's variation on "The Twilight Zone".You may wish to consult the topics "Brad McFall" and/or " Is Brad McFall a fruitcake or what?"Also, My non-admin mode (minnemooseus) just gave Brad a "Post of the Month" nomination. See here for that.Cheers,
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Question:How does scientific evidence that supports the theory of evolution also evidence the non existence of a Creator ?Could it be that whatever persons that make this leap are also using their worldview and its assumptions in their conclusions ?How does an atheist resist injecting their worldview into scientific evidence ?As a theist I cannot separate my worldview from any evidence.If atheists do separate their worldview from creeping into the interpretations and conclusions of scientific evidence then could you somehow explain to me the secret of how this is done ?And if the answer to this question requires trust in any degree could you tell me why I should trust an atheist in this matter as opposed to a theist ?

It's pretty simple. What you do is, you don't reject evidence simply because it conflicts with your worldview. That doesn't mean that you never reject evidence, but you reject it because it wasn't gathered under a specific methodology, for instance.An open and transparent methodology for evidence collection is the key to not allowing your worldview to influence your conclusions. When everyone can agree on your evidence, no matter what they believe, you know you've done a good job of using the scientific methodology.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 12-21-2003]

The scientific evidence that suppport the ToE only gives evidence for the non-existance of the Creator defined by the biblical literalist who, on top of insisting that he knows how God did things also insists that if part of the Bible is wrong then it is all, including the existance of God, is wrong.Since most Christians don't define God in this way the ToE has nothing to do with the existance of God.
It is only the fundamentalist creationist that uses the ToE to disprove the existance of God, not the majority of athiest scientists. The scientific process is what is used to keep "worldviews" out of conclusions. There are other threads discussing how this works.The biggest problem an individual scientist might have is to keep conclusions he already has a lot of "skin" in out of his/her work. Generally I would say that keeping God out of conclusions would be one of the easier things to do. Something just under half of practising scientists are believers but are rarely working in an area that would impinge on the idea of God. Almost all non-believers just don't think about God on a day to day basis (or even month to month). It doesn't enter into any thinking and, again, there is rarely a case where it would impinge anyway.I've worked along side (not recently mind you) scientists in a number of disciplines and this is both my personal experience and what I would conclude having read the publications of scientists in a number of fields. I don't think you should base any trust on what a person believes about God. You need to look at the quality of the scientific work done. You need to do what any scientist would do: ask if the work has been verified by someone else. You need to go over the strength of the logic yourself. You need to give a thought about how the new piece of work or conclusion fits into what else is known and more trusted.There is a degree of trust in the scientific process. That is why you see such an uproar and career ending condemnation if someone is found to have broken that trust. However, the process itself is not trusting. If an earth shaking paper comes out then it may, if it comes from a reliable source, get a lot of interest but the interest will be strongly in the area of checking it out. The more of a big change or consequential result it is the more checking will be demanded before it is accepted with reduced reservations. The process has considerable conservatism built in.In summary:Individuals may have greater or lessor capability in keeping their worldviews out of their conclusions. The process works to keep them out.Individuals know that their interpretations and conclusions will be subject to a very searching examination over time. This tends to make them question themselves a lot. I've heard individuals (most recently a Nobel laureate physicist) talk about the time taken after a discovery trying to figure out what they might have done wrong or how they might be seeing it incorrectly. Months and months in this case. They don't want to be embarassed.

WILLOWTREE,I'll explain what I mean about creationists being ultimately more disrespectful of God than evolutionists.As a creationist, you start out with the assumption that every believer does: God exists. Mature believers would not let that belief override their rational understanding of science. People with a mature faith assert that science has concluded that species have evolved over time from primitive ancestors, and that fact doesn't challenge their faith.You, however, as a creationist, are allowing this scientific consensus to put your faith into jeopardy. You assert that if evolution is true, then God does not exist. No evolutionist on this site has ever made this claim, but you simply assume that one can't understand science realistically and believe in God. Therefore, you come to the conclusion that faith in God requires you to mangle science, deny facts, and put your faith in that bizarre caricature of science called creationism, merely because God wants you to.All of us here understand the evidence supporting common ancestry of life on Earth, and we also know that there are plenty of believers who have no problem with evolution. If you feel that understanding the facts as they stand is an affront to God, then you must think God doesn't value the intellect He gave you. If you feel that any scientific theory is a challenge to your faith, then I'd say you don't have much faith. And if you think God wants you to make believers look ridiculous in front of intelligent people, then you don't have much respect for God.------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

Weird double post...[This message has been edited by Darwinsterrier, 12-22-2003]

It’s beside the point, but, no it is not.Rhetoric Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.comCDO - Error - 404The nearest to your presumed meaning is "sounds good but is not sincere or has no real meaning". What you are actually suggesting is that there’s some logical fallacy or other inherent in the claims. Well, we’ll see... I see you read it pretty thoroughly then. Because the word is anomalies. As in, things which are irregular: anomalous with regard to the proposed explanation. Please define intelligent design. Yeah, me... Oh dear. Your grasp of this seems to lack opposable thumbs. I suggest you read the other page there, which is linked twice (for emphasis) in the first three sentences. Here it is again:
This website is frozen.There is no such assumption at the outset. The idea is to test the explanatory hypothesis that is proposed.1. Living things are complex.2. Suggested explanation: they were designed by an intelligence.3. Prediction of the explanation: there should be no really stupid / blatantly suboptimal designs in nature... because an intelligent designer should not, by definition, do things less well than they could be done.4. Find suboptimality, and the hypothesis is refuted, even if we have no explanation to replace it with.5. Suboptimality is indeed found. So the hypothesis is rejected.Note that this reasoning says nothing whatever about evolution, or offers any other explanation for the observations.In the interests of sustainability, here’s something I’ve said before on this matter. The example is the human coccyx. It is sometimes claimed that it is not vestigial, because it has some function (eg as an attachment for the muscles of the anus). But that is irrelevant...In science, we test hypotheses by trying out predictions that can be drawn from them. If the predictions do not match reality, then the hypothesis is cast into doubt, or even completely refuted. If that happens, we can safely ditch the explanation as being wrong, even if we have no substitute, even if it leaves the problem explanationless.An analogy might help here (since I can recycle it from another thread).It is claimed that a well-known ‘psychic’ can bend spoons with the power of his mind. The hypothesis is that it’s his super-natural powers that make said phenomena happen.But what happens when we take the proposed hypothesis -- the power of an individual’s mind over matter -- and test it? What are we to make of the powers when they show unexpected limitations? Are there any elements of the phenomenon that are not predicted by the hypothesis?On investigation, oddities emerge. The mind-over-matter hypothesis does not predict that the ‘psychic’ could only bend the spoons after having had sole control over them, however briefly; that he can bend spoons, but not pound coins; that he can bend the spoons by touching them with his fingers, but not with, say, his nose; that magicians can replicate the phenomenon (perhaps not with the finesse of the ‘psychic’, but in all its particulars nevertheless); that his powers would evaporate when a knowledgeable magician (rather than a scientist) has set up the controls for the test.If the hypothesis were correct, none of these other facts would be likely; nothing about the hypothesis leads us to expect these limitations on the guy’s ‘mind-over-matter’ abilities. There are too many irrelevant (from the hypothesis) factors and features involved. Since there is no reason why, if the hypothesis were correct, he should be tied to handling things and replicating what magicians can do non-supernaturally, we can reject it. We do not have to know how he does do it to know that it isn’t by the power of his mind.Agreed?So one way to tell if a hypothesis is valid is to look for unexpected limitations, for places where the explanation has too much design of the wrong kind, for irrelevant features not directly explained. After all, the point of an explanation is to explain something.So let’s consider the coccyx.Neither creation nor evolution require the coccyx to be utterly functionless. But creation goes a little further, and denies that the structure is vestigial because it has a function. Therefore the structure must sensibly fit that function; the claim, in effect, is that it was designed that way for a purpose. So it should not contain unexpected elements or features: things the hypothesis does not predict, and / or things that hinder the claimed function.Are there any features of the human coccyx that the designed-as-it-is hypothesis does not predict? Please examine the pictures below 1. The coccyx is made up of small, separate bones, apparently an extension of the vertebral column. These fuse during development to form a single lump. The hypothesis does not predict this: to perform as an anchor for the muscles that stop our insides falling out, it need not be small separate-then-fused pieces. One has to wonder why it is not a single bone to start with.2. The small, separate-then-fused bones of the coccyx bear an unanticipated similarity in shape to the tail-bones of creatures with tails, especially to creatures with very small tails, such as hamsters, guinea pigs and mandrills. This does not mean that it is a result of evolution; we’re setting that aside for now. It is simply something the hypothesis does not predict, and something that is not required for it to perform its function.Mandrill pelvis: 3. The human coccyx often, though not always, has another muscle attached to it, the extensor coccygis. As Gray’s Anatomy puts it:

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The Extensor coccygis is a slender muscular fasciculus, which is not always present; it extends over the lower part of the posterior surface of the sacrum and coccyx. It arises by tendinous fibers from the last segment of the sacrum, or first piece of the coccyx, and passes downward to be inserted into the lower part of the coccyx.

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This muscle would, if it contracted, flex the coccyx. Unfortunately for the muscle, the coccyx is a fused single piece, and so it cannot do that. This is another feature of the coccyx that the hypothesis does not predict. (I’ll note in passing that in animals that do have tails, the equivalent muscle to the human extensor coccygis has an obvious function.)4. It seems from genetic research that the same genes that form the tails of mice are also responsible for the formation of the human coccyx. Again, there is no reason from the designed-as-it-is hypothesis why this should be. We know from experiments that genes are often interchangeable even between radically different organisms (eg mice and chicks, mammals and insects). On the other hand, the necessary muscle-attachment structure might reasonably be formed as part of the pelvis, and / or as a single bone, and be shaped by the genes that do that elsewhere. It is odd at the least that tail-making genes should be responsible for something designed to be an anchor for the muscles that stop our insides falling out.To sum up. The coccyx does have some functionality. But nothing about what it does requires it to be made of fused, vertebrae-like bones; to have a muscle to move it, since the fused parts cannot move; nor to be made by the particular genes that it is. In short, nothing about what it does requires it to look like a tiny tail.Its structure does not match with its claimed function. It is overdesigned, containing features that are irrelevant.Thus we can reject the hypothesis as an adequate explanation, even if we have no other to offer.As it happens, we do. Descent with modification explains how one structure can, over the course of generations, become enlarged, reduced, added to or subtracted from, and even change function or lose function. And intriguingly, other creatures have coccyxes. It is just that they are often longer, unfused, and made of more bones. But when we encounter such longer, unfused coccyxes, we call them tails.Evolution predicts that a tail-less creature whose ancestors had a tail might have a thing just like a coccyx, just as it predicts that a lineage that lost its hind limbs on returning to the sea might still have bits of bone shaped like parts of a pelvis and femur inside it. As many whales do.Evolution is therefore a satisfactory explanation, while creation can be rejected as inadequate. On the contrary, it is you who are putting god in a box, by claiming that it is (a) intelligent, and (b) designed stuff. You are attributing qualities and actions to this claimed entity. Fine. But when we respond by pointing out things that do not fit with the explanation that the explanation does not predict, and / or that run precisely counter to the explanation’s predictions, we are doing no more than taking the explanation at face value. We are assuming exactly what you are assuming: intelligence behind the design.And the question that flows from this is: how can stupid designs be called intelligent? I maintain that they cannot. There is no way to redefine ‘intelligence’ to include stupidity.So, please define ‘intelligent design’. Because discussion of ‘design’ that does not include the design criteria is meaningless.I put my own view on what constitutes intelligent design on the page you ‘overlooked’:

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It is worth bearing in mind what 'intelligent' really means in a design context. Manufacturing researcher and consultant Terry Hill could help here. He has noted that "any third-rate engineer can design complexity"; the hallmark of truly intelligent design, Hill says, is not complexity, but rather, simplicity. Specifically, it is the ability to take a complex process or product spec and create the least complicated design that will meet all project parameters.

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Does this not sound eminently sensible?

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So, if we were to find in nature designs that are less good than we mere humans can think of; that are wasteful of materials; that are unnecessarily convoluted; that can be a danger to their owners; that leave out some important, 'known-of' element, or include elements that are unnecessary; or that are pointless, stupid or plain weird... then, as per the above, we would have good reason to reject the theory of an intelligent designer as the explanation for life, even if we have no other to substitute for it.

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Intelligent design is as simple as possible; it does not waste materials; it uses a good piece of design wherever it is needed (and hence has no need to ‘reinvent the wheel’); it does not leave out some useful element of a design from elsewhere without good reason, and so on.Remember that an intelligent designer is starting from scratch for each item. It can pick and choose whatever is best for the circumstances. So it can put a lens in a nautilus’s eye; it can give high-efficiency through-flow respiration to hawks and bats, and if necessary give the much less efficient tidal system to sloths and, say, kiwis. You may be right, but I hope not. Atheism is the conclusion I draw, not the starting point. And, importantly, it is not atheism in general. It is only atheism with regard to one (or a few) definitions of god: specifically, gods that are ultra-intelligent (and loving) shapers-from-scratch of living things. Yes. Since you apparently disagree, please explain why an intelligent designer might form idiotic contraptions. What definition of ‘intelligent design’ predicts stupid design? You made the same point in your other thread. And I replied with post 260:
http://EvC Forum: Some Evidence Against Evolution -->EvC Forum: Some Evidence Against EvolutionI note you have not responded to that. I strongly suggest you read that thoroughly before replying on this again. And what grubby little pawprints they are then! The fingerprints are of someone wearing heavy mittens while writing a symphony; they are the marks of someone with an inordinate fondness for parasites. Look, this is not difficult. In the absence of any other explanation, I would happily still deduce design. There could be a committee of them; there could be one, who was sometimes drunk or otherwise having a bad heed day. What is ruled out is a single highly intelligent designer, operating always at the height of his powers.Trouble is, that is what creationists / IDiots do propose.And, we are not ‘in the absence of any other explanation’. We do have another explanation. One that neither requires nor denies gods, and one that anticipates suboptimal design, because no ‘design’ was involved, but rather, blind filtering of random heritable variation, leading to cumulative, incremental improvement on previous versions. AKA ‘evolution’. Weird. You’d have thought suffering from the wrath of an omnipotent being would be more... you know... tangible. Like leprosy, fire and brimstone, turning into a pillar of salt, a dose of the clap perhaps. Not merely interpreting pretty unambiguous evidence the wrong way. Ho hum.I said, above, that an intelligent designer should not, by definition, do things less well than they could be done. Of course, this means '...without a jolly good reason'. Therefore, please suggest some jolly good reasons for the design of the coccyx, for bat lung ventilation, for blind eyes in utter-darkness-dwelling creatures, for external mammalian testicles, for the human appendix and post-auricular muscles. For starters. Please. If they are not products of evolution, if they are designs, please explain why they are actually good design, just heavily diguised as stupidity.TTFN, DT

Hah! There is a vast difference between ‘do not believe’ and ‘would not believe’. Why do you think I keep on asking for your evidence? When there’s some evidence for ID to consider, then I’ll consider it! Would I consider ID? I don’t know, it depends on what and how good the evidence is. I strongly suspect I’d go wherever the evidence led, and if it led to ID, so be it. (You will find no inconsistency between this and anything else I have said, so I take exception to your suggestion I’d say anything just to argue with you.) Because these processes are capable of producing ‘designoid’ objects. Try running any of the A-life programmes, for instance, or investigate Nilsson and Pelger, 1994, ‘A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve’, Proc R Soc Lond B 256: 53-58. Where d'you get those peepersThat, m’dear, is precisely what I’ve been asking you. I doubt anyone here will argue much with theistic evolutionists -- which is what you are suggesting here. But it is not what you’ve been suggesting elsewhere. Hence, once again I ask: what, exactly, is it you think the creator created? Did he set up the experiment and let it run... or did he form each ‘kind’ de novo and ex nihilo? There are two distinct bits conflated here.Yes, the processes seem to be, as far as we can tell, completely mindless. If they are not, they certainly seem to be mimicking what mindless processes should look like, as far as we can tell.And yes, this means that intelligent design is perhaps not required. But there’s more to it than that; it is not a straight deduction.Random variation plus intention-less filtration of these heritable traits may be capable of forming the things in question, but this doesn’t mean they did. But another thing to consider is that there is no reason for intelligent design to produce nested homologies. Bird respiration, for instance, is found throughout the grouping we call birds, as are feathers. But, useful though they are for flight, they are only found among birds. No other flying things have them; instead, they have their own answers to the same problems.Intelligent designers do not have to reinvent the wheel -- or the wing. They can use whatever is the best design, wherever it’s needed. Evolution, by contrast, expects wheel-reinventions, because traits can only run in lineages. Thus we have wings made of skin and of feathers, supported by different layouts of bones (well, the same basic bones, but different ones longer or shorter to form the wing), and so on.Intelligent design, in effect, should look different from evolution. One might expect, as I’ve mentioned before, that birds and bats should share the avian lung ventilation system. But they don’t. This suggests intelligent design is not the answer, and that the known mechanism is.But the clincher is that intelligent design in no way predicts stupid designs -- wasteful, convoluted and plain weird things such as in my list.In sum:1. We have a mechanism that can in principle produce designed-looking things.2. The ‘designs’ of living things fall into patterns of distribution, as the mechanism expects and ID does not.3. There are too many ‘designs’ in nature that no half-competent real designer would use.Therefore, it is common sense to deduce ‘no ID’. It is not just superfluous, much of the evidence runs counter to it. Because the scientific world view is a conclusion, not a presupposition. It starts with fewer presuppositions.If I hold my pen thus... and let go of it... did it fall because a large mass (the earth) distorts spacetime so that small things (eg pens) move towards it... or, despite the things we know about gravity, did it fall because invisible gravity elves pulled it down with invisible ropes?In the same way, evolution does not presuppose designers. Biology does not assume that there are supernatural entities and supernatural mechanisms. Their existence might be revealed by investigations, but we don’t assume they are there to start with. And we do this with good reason, for an explanation involving the unknowable is no explanation at all. Why did that volcano erupt? God did it. In the search for answers, ‘gods’ are a cop-out. So we would only bring them in as a last resort.If you feel this is unreasonable, consider: next time your car breaks down, would you get a mechanic to look at it, or have it exorcised?So the scientific world-view does not creep into science’s conclusions. The conclusions are reached simply by making as few starting assumptions as possible. And the world view is supported by the thousands of independently-checked, evidence-based conclusions. If you can show that it has been, then yes. But you are suggesting presuppositions affect the conclusions. Sure they do. But, crucially, scientists have fewer of them than theists... and hence have fewer things which separately need justifying. Occam’s razor, as usually stated, is incomplete. It should be, don’t include more elements in your explanation than you need, because each element itself needs explanation and justification.So okay, there’s an intelligent designer. That assertion needs to be justified by reference to something other than apparent designs. Cos we’ve already got an explanation for those that doesn’t require a designer, so we don’t have to demonstrate that he exists, let alone that he’s involved.If science includes its worldview in its conclusions, it does so as carefully as we can manage, and constantly checks to see if it’s on the right lines. You though are undoubtedly including your worldview in your conclusions. Care to justify that?Cheers, DT

At the very end of your post you ask me to justify the placement of my worldview into my conclusions.First, ironically, I wanted my response to start with what you just ended with.The questions I asked concerning worldviews were basically rhetorical.
My mind is made up. NOBODY can separate their worldview from the meaning, interpretations, and conclusions of scientific evidence, UNLESS they specifically state a disclaimer. However, for all intents and purposes this is never done.Everyone has an ax to grind regardless of what they claim. When an atheist Paleontologist reports the status of their research then it is assumed this presentation also includes the starting assumption contained in their worldview."the definition of rational enquiry automatically declares that no position is taken concerning the supernatural"Sorry, but that is a claim that requires trust. Absent a disclaimer we are all grinding an ax.Mr.Darwinsterrier wants me to justify the creationist worldview into my/our conclusions.What is the name of this website ? EvC, this title assumes the desire for persons to argue the two most famous positions.I am a creationist, a Protestant Evangelical of the Paulinist frame.I am not a fundementalist who believes the Earth is a mere 6 or 7 thousand years old. There are eons of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.My starting position/assumption is derived from the 66 canonized books of the Bible which contains/is God's eternal word. In this source we are asked to believe/embrace that out of nothing God spoke the universe into existence. That He created Adam (not man) from dust of the ground and breathed into him life, and that God also created every other living thing animal and plant.These starting assumptions are reckoned to be true through God's own self-impopsed veracity test which is the resurrection of His Son. IF Jesus rose as He predicted before His death this then validates everything else He said as absolute truth. I having looked at the evidence of His resuurection and conclude that He indeed rose. If I can believe this miracle then it is no trouble at all believing the claims of creation which are proclaimed in the context of Christ's eternal pre-existence."but this is all subjective"Negative. IF God IS, then His subjective views become the objective truth. And part of His objective truth is the claim that He is the Creator and His authorized spokesman said in the book of Romans that unless He is given credit as the ultimate Creator of what is seen/made He will punish the violators by removing their ability to deduce from creation that He created it. God will in essence incapacitate the ability to recognize His fingerprints as a punishment for "a priori", a previously made decision to exclude Him from the creation table.This same source (Romans) says "they knew of God but not AS God". Thus I conclude the defintion of rational enquiry to be this "a priori" decision, which is the self-professed constitution that all scientific evidence is based upon. This is a shoe meant to fit upon those persons who deny God to be the Creator. If you are a theistic evolutionist or any other hybrid then I am not addressing you.Anyone who hides behind the claim of rational enquiry to sidestep the issue of God as Creator is also claiming an objectivity that does not exist. Unless stipulated specifically one's worldview is assumed into the evidence offered.It is inconcievable that the "average" neo-Darwinist Paleontologist is not also saying by the evidence they produce that God is not the Creator. Once again I ask rhetorically what qualifications does this Paleontologist have to make this conclusion about a Creator ?This conclusion presupposes an expertise in the Divine. Or rather it is simply one starting assumption contained in their worldview, which said assumption and its existence is explained as a punishment from God for deciding to presumptuously exclude Him from being the ultimate Creator.God ONLY asks/demands 2 things : credit as Creator and genuine thanks. This is the entire case of creationism, these two things.Now Mr.Darwinsterrier offered counter-evidence against ID in this topic to the author claiming agnostic status. In response I criticized the criteria he used to be a "rigged" (another posters adjective I will borrow) litmus test. Opponent argues that imperfections in nature (he used "anomalies") are fair game to conclude that "design" is not intelligent, I countered that this type of evidence subjectively places God in a box previously constructed, a box that demands that all nature must pass this rigged litmus test.Then my opponent responded :"You cannot have it both ways. If the good stuff is in fact good design, and hence evidence for the designer, then the lousy stuff is in fact lousy design, and hence evidence that the designer is foolish. Reject our criteria for judging designs and you reject the very basis for your argument from design."My response to this:This statement gives the illusion that the imperfections of nature outweigh the perfections. It is simple-minded deduction that concludes his starting worldview assumption.The objective truth of God's word says if you cannot deduce from what is made (perfect or imperfect)that a Creator made it then the reason you cannot is because you are suffering His wrath (a response from God for denying Him Creator credit/thanks).I do not apologize for the imperfections or deny them. It is just plain retarded to stand in judgment of God with your puny design box. The "subjunctive supervision" of God allowed these imperfections to happen and unless you know the reason you will just conclude what you were inclined to conclude anyway.I quote my opponent again :"Have a god involved by all means, if you wish. But it will have to be a god that has used evolution....or has made things look exactly that way."Once again I ask, how does the scientific evidence prove God not to be the ultimate Creator ? Answer : Only if your worldview is involved.And IF your worldview is involved then my message to the author of this topic is : Reject any interpretation or conclusion of the evidence that is also given to deny God as the Creator.Source of Theology information : Dr.Gene Scott

It doesn't that I've ever seen. It doesn't try to either.The only time a problem arises is when someone decides to define God in such a way that He is in conflict with what we can test or if someone says that God doesn't exist if the Bible is wrong in any point what so ever. You don't see athiest saying that as often as you see the literalists doing it (that is, those that can't see the evidence for the earth being the eons old that you understand it to be, for example).------------------
Common sense isn't

And once again, for the umpteenth time, in another futile attempt to make you appreciate this point, I offer you the fact that many believers reject creationism as pseudoscientific and accept the evolutionary explanation of the diversity and complexity of life on Earth.I understand your unwillingness to deal with the existence of scientists and theorists such as Kenneth Miller, Terry Gray, and Robert Pennock. Among many, many other believers (including our own Truthlover here at EvC), these people destroy your claim that evolutionary theory is predicated upon atheism. The fact that you continue to claim that 'worldview' is the crux of this debate indicates your inability to understand empirical evidential inquiry.It's obvious these believers have faith in God as creator and give Him thanks. However, their faith doesn't depend on denying reality. Their worldview allows them to understand evidence and let it lead them to the appropriate scientific conclusions.We fully understand your reluctance to admit that these believers exist, since they invalidate your claim that evolution is atheism. At some point, however, you should take the blinders off.------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

I do understand empirical evidence, my point was that this empirical evidence has a twin meaning if the worldview it is offered in is not specifically disclaimed.And as to your other comments about scientists that do credit God - I made it abundantly clear that I was not addressing these people, which makes what you said in this context a non-sequitor.