Intelligent design. Philosophy of ignorance.

PercyFrom the website we have this quote. What exactly would the researchers expect to find that would differentiate the notion of evolution by natural means from a intelligent designer who's characteristics they refuse to specify?
If an intelligent designer was the hidden variable within the oddly imprecise workings of biology how would they distinguish this?
They cannot any longer simply state that the complexity of a phenomena is evidence since they must then explain how this cannot be accomplished by natural means, again undermining their own agenda.Without a concrete and substantial explanation of the nature of this intelligence they cannot hope to establish any sort of scientific validity much less the even greater problem inherent in explaining the mechanism this intelligent designer must employ and the evidence they have to support that Pandora's box of issues.I think it would be a definite plus to put them under the public microscope to allow all those hopeful faithful believers out there the opportunity to let beggars ride horses. How about a prime time slot on Sunday following local church services on TV? Then the Biologic Institute could jump in to devastate the theory of evolution with their superior insight into the real world and its structure.I mean Sundays need a good comedy show to end the week and have us laughing all the way into work on Monday morning don't you agree?

You want it both ways. How is it possible to prove something can't be done by natural means. You can only prove that it can. If using the concept of the "God of the Gaps" is wrong, then it is just as wrong to use the Science of the Gaps" as well.The naturalist explanation for something that can't be explained is that if the science was advanced enough we would know the natural explanation. That is no more scientific than saying that God did it."Complexity of a phenomena" is evidence but it is not scientific. We just come to our own conclusions and have to accept that we aren't all going to agree.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

All plants, animals, humans, and heavenly bodies were designed by an Intelligent Designer. The wonderful complexity of micro and macro space is too marvelous to even consider that all of life and the universe could have come about by chance from nothing. I am very sorry that most at this forum cannot take the first step towards accepting the truth that intelligent design and an Intelligent Designer is the reason for our existence.True science has shown how a number of natural, physical and cosmological laws work in our world and universe, but true science has not come close to actually showing how matter can come from nothing and evolve itself into today's existence.The Theory of Evolution has been at the center of many social and religious controversies since its inception because of its potential implications for the origins of humankind. Although the Theory of Evolution will always be just a theory, most evolutionists now consider it to be proven fact and teach it as such, allowing no alternate explanations to be taught in modern biology.The definition of religion is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe." Even though the Theory of Evolution has no explanation concerning the purpose of the universe, it is certainly a religion of unproven beliefs which tries to explain the cause and nature of the universe; yet our education systems allow no other religious beliefs contrary to evolution to be taught in our schools, hiding behind a fiat that says the Theory of Evolution is now proven science, when in fact it is nothing but pseudo science at its best, and patently false at its worst.

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The evil one comes to steal, kill and destroy; but I Jesus have come that you might have eternal Life and have eternal Life more abundantly - John 10:10

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The wonderful complexity of micro and macro space is too marvelous to even consider that all of life and the universe could have come about by chance from nothing.

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That is true. That is what makes natural selection such a nifty idea. It explains how known living species can come about from very simple replicating systems.-

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True science has shown how a number of natural, physical and cosmological laws work in our world and universe, but true science has not come close to actually showing how matter can come from nothing and evolve itself into today's existence.

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If by true science you mean the dogmatic acceptance of an ancient and historically inaccurate collection of myths and morality tales, then you are correct, it has explained almost nothing about anything.-

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The Theory of Evolution has been at the center of many social and religious controversies since its inception because of its potential implications for the origins of humankind.

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None of which has any bearing on its overall accuracy. To determine its accuracy, it must be compared to real data.-

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Although the Theory of Evolution will always be just a theory, most evolutionists now consider it to be proven fact and teach it as such, allowing no alternate explanations to be taught in modern biology.

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That's because the theory of evolution has been proven as fact, at least as much as anything in science can be proven as fact. There is no alternative explanation that holds up in the face of available evidence.-

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The definition of religion is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe."

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That's not what Merriam-Webster says.-

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I am very sorry that most at this forum cannot take the first step towards accepting the truth that intelligent design and an Intelligent Designer is the reason for our existence.

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And I am very sorry for your commitment to dogmatic recieved beliefs "true science".

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Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. -- Otto von Bismarck

Hi John 10:10,This thread is discussing the scientific evidence for ID. If you'd like to discuss the scientific evidence for evolution then you should find another thread, or propose a new thread over at [forum=-25].--Percy

You really should buy this video and watch it objectively...But here's a small preview:Page not found | Intelligent Design Movies – Illustra Media
The Privileged Planet Preview

Or instead of providing a donation of $17.95 to the Discovery Institute, you can get the full transcript here.http://www.illustramedia.com/.../ThePrivilegedPlanet-web.pdfEdited by anglagard, : Reveal true author of this video

It offers nothing that has not been debated here and is based on a false assumption.The basic assumption is that the goal is man, and technology. If you agree that life does not necessarily mean "Technological Human", then we already know of many forms of life that are not dependent on many of the conditions cited.In addition, almost every one of the factors mentioned has a very large margin of error. For example, the right distance from the sun if we only consider the Earth ranges from 91 million miles to 94.5 million miles MINIMUM. That is a range of 3.5 Million miles, about a 4% margin.We know of life that requires low oxygen levels or even no oxygen; life that needs higher oxygen levels.We know of life that needs oxygen in a gaseous form and life that cannot use oxygen in its gaseous form.We know of life that does just fine without sunlight.We know of life that requires frigid temperatures.We know of life that only lives in boiling sulphuric hot springs.As has been pointed out here many, many, many times, we are also projecting from a sample of one.The only form of life we know so far is what we see here on earth. Even there we find that the requirements vary greatly, and we have no indications that what we see is all that is possible and every indication that every time we find a set of conditions where we think life would be impossible, we are wrong.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks DB. However, all I see is people saying "We don't know how this could have happened..." with the implication that there was some intent. That seems a little like what my OP was warning against. Why postulate intent when we don't know how something happened? It's espousing a philosophy of ignorance, not one of discovery.abe: also it uses hokey maths. It calculates the odds and compares that to the number of suns in our galaxy (it says 100 billion). It neglects to mention that there are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Thus the rather than 100 billion opportunities there are a conservative 10²⁰ opportunities. If we use their own slightly dodgy maths we get a completely different answer. Instead of an insanely small number. We get the number: 100What can we learn from this number?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Thanks for the transcript Anglagard.Their implied conclusion thatimprobability == intelligently designis fundamentally flawed.First the coefficients in the Drake equation have a lot of variability and there is considerable disagreement on the values. For example finding life on Mars or some other planet/moon would significantly effect this equation.In addition, extrapolating of what we know about life on Earth is probably wrong. As Jar pointed out life fills a variety of niches on earth and many are not what we would call hospitable. One of my favorite movie quotes is Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park when he says "Life will find a way". Life is a property of matter.Finally the vastness of the universe overwhelms the low probability of life evolving.As far as probabilities go what do you think the probability of you being born given a starting position of 10000 years ago. There are a very large number of very minor events that would have effected the event of you being born. You are astronomically improbable but there are you are - amazing isn't.

Have you watched the whole video yet? I'm impressed if you have. Sure there are organisms that can survive in cold temperatures and boiling sulfphuric acid, etc etc. But the problem is, if the whole earth was like that, WE couldn't survive. If the earth's crust couldn't support the magma and the tectonic activity, what would happen to all the organisms? I thought you would see that pretty clearly. Please tell me that false assumption this is based on.

You completely misunderstood what they were saying. What they are saying is that for all those factors to happen all at the same time, the probabilities are to be multiplied together. This gives us that small fraction. This is what shows us that our earth isn't just here by accident.

As far as probabilities go what do you think the probability of you being born given a starting position of 10000 years ago. There are a very large number of very minor events that would have effected the event of you being born. You are astronomically improbable but there are you are - amazing isn't.You truly need help!!!

Certainly not. I did read the transcript though. What a joke. LOLWhat does that have to do with anything? You seem to think that "We" are something special. Life existed for billions of years before man and will likely exist for billions of years after we are gone. First, it is not the crust that supports the magma but the magma that supports the crust. And if there is energy in the interior, there will be tectonic activity. Look at Jupiter, Saturn. See activity?The tectonic activity argument is one of the silliest of all.The organisms that rely on that might not exist, but our experience has been that no matter where we look, no matter the environment, we find life. Look in ice, we find life. Look in water miles deep in the rocks isolated from the sun and surface for millions of years, and we find life. The false assumption is that the conditions were prepared for the critter instead of realizing that the conditions determined the critters.If conditions were different, the critters would be different.The problem is that the video is created to fool the gullible suckers. It is master con artists playing hide the pea shell games. They bring up unknowns and irrelevancies and try to hide them in scientific sounding clutter so the pigeon doesn't realize he is being conned.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sure I need help, don't we all.Now DB can you be more substantive and less evasive.To the point why does improbability require an intelligent designer as your reference implies?I question the low probability. However, given low probability why does that require an intelligent designer? I can think of a large number of low probability events that occur, but do not require an outside designer as an explanation.Additionally Modulus did not misunderstand at all. The immensity of the universe (ie the number of opportunities) counter the low probability.Yes the "probabilities are ... multiplied together" resulting in a low combined probability. However, you also multiple the probability by the number of opportunities to get an expected value.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.