Spotting Beretta's "designer" {Now only 1 summation message per member}

Expecting natural causes and explanations for natural phenomena does not come from a philosophy, but from human experience and common sense. It is those who look for unnatural explanations for natural phenomena who do so due to some bizarre philosophy.All the explanations for natural phenomena that have ever proven to be true have been natural, so when we observe things as yet unexplained, or only partially explained, it is only natural that we treat natural explanations as the default likelihood.If you hear a strange unidentified noise in your house, consider the possibilities of it being caused by the plumbing, or the wind rattling something, or other such things, before you bring in the exorcist to rid you of a poltergeist. That's the scientific attitude.If you were to buy a little lamp in Egypt, then rub it one day, and green smoke poured out, forming itself into a genie who granted you three impossible wishes, then I'd be the first to agree that you need a supernatural explanation for a supernatural event.Who knows, perhaps we will one day find something that is not part and product of the natural universe. Perhaps all is natural except the moon, which was put there by a moon goddess, or all except the rings of Saturn, which were put there by artistic wizards from extra-universal dimensions.We can keep an open mind. But so far, experience tells us that with hundreds of sound natural explanations for natural phenomena, and no unnatural ones, that it's always more than 99% sure that any observed and described phenomenon, like LIFE, for example, will have natural origins and explanations.Common sense born of experience, Beretta. No grand philosophy required and, sadly for you, no intelligent designer required either.But don't despair! Nature itself could have been designed, and the methodological naturalism of science is not anti-theistic, as so many creationists seem to think. Methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism are not the same thing.Edited by bluegenes, : Title added

Haven't got what you ordered, ikabod, but will this do?Beretta, it looks designed, doesn't it? But we know the mutation that "designed" the extra finger.

Do you really suppose that lying to us about the basis of our opinions is going to deceive us? Think about this for a moment. Scientists disagree. I'll take their word for it rather than yours, because they know about science, a subject of which you are not merely ignorant, but also dishonest. Yup. That and all the other evidence. This has been calculated by Nilsson and Pelger.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Actually no. see Distinguishing "designs"The design we see is exactly NOT the kind that intelligence causes.

There we go, subbie -that's the faith part, the philosopphical presumption - some biologists 'believe' that natural processes were responsible. That's quite a different thing from science -repeatable, experimental science. I know all about what they believe but is it actually believable when you look into the little details of what would have had to have happened in order for things to evolve the way you imagine they do? What if I didn't do that at all? What if something that looks created is created and all the imaginings in the world about natural processes that might have done this and that should not be the default position at all? So it's maybe possible that natural processes did manage it but then we need a little bit of proof that that is what happened, not a hypothetical series of maybes in a nice little tree. In the meantime, what if a creative intelligence was actually needed and until we can prove that no intelligence was needed, we should keep all our options open and not state as fact that which is far from it.
Anyway nobody in their right mind ends their enquiry there, we study these created things and find out how and why they work. That is what science does.

And there is evidence for this, and no evidence for the involvement of magic. Could I point out one more time that your opinions of what science is differs completely from the opinions of scientists? Obviously it is belivable, since the people who "look into all the little details" --- something you have never done --- do in fact believe it.If you ever bothered to "look into all the little details" --- i.e. study nature --- you might come to the same opinion. Then I suggest that you do what scientists have done and study nature. If you study it a little bit, you'll have a "little bit of proof". If you study it a lot, you'll have a lot of proof. You mean like when you stated as fact that "all Earth's creatures have 2 eyes"? Do I need to remind you again what conclusions doing science has led scientists to?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But (Message 94 it has been pointed out to you that it doesn't look created. Living things look exactly like things not created.You seem to be missing that point entirely. Along with a lot of others.

How is it a faith-based presumtion to think that something in the natural world has a natural cause?Wouldn't the faith part be the invoking of a SUPER-natural cause?To presume something in nature had a natural cause is, well...only natural.
______________________________________________________________________Example: You walk into the woods and notice a tree has fallen.Do you A: Presume that it fell due to natural causes? (to include man cutting it down since we are a part of nature)Or do you B: Invoke that a SUPER-natural force HAD to be responsable?Without questioning which presumtion is the right presumtion, which of the 2 choices would you say is faith-based?
______________________________________________________________________Lets apply that same logic to species.Do you A: Presume that a natural cause was responsable and gather evidence to support a naturalistic cause?Or do you B: Presume that it can only be the work of a SUPER-natural force(s) and gather evidence to support that?Ignoring whether or not one is a better way to the correct answer than the other, which of the 2 would you say is faith-based?If you think that they are both faith based to a certain extent, then I would agree. However, as it has been pointed out to you before, history has shown that ALL natural phenomenons have been easily explained through natural causes. So it is only natural to seek natural causes when observing a natural phenomenon...naturallyHowever, if you care to give an example of where it has been better to invoke the SUPER-natural, and have had results with this presumtion(and can provide evidence to support it), then I would love to see it.TTYL...

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All great truths begin as blasphemiesI smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth.

No there are philisophical presumptions that material processes must have done it. If material processes,no foresight and no intelligence is capable of creating the intricate interconnectedness of all the functions of biological design -I'd call that magic. Well you know science is supposed to be based on evidence but you're probably right -a lot of scientists do seem to work according to these philisophical assumptions while apparently not realizing that they have any. No, you're wrong there -some of them find it believable, some don't, some might change their minds about what they imagine is believable if they looked deeper into this controversy.
It seems that the public at large don't generally believe it either. Perhaps their indoctrination hasn't been intense enough but don't tell me that only sceintists have brains and that the educated lay public are in no position to assess the conclusions drawn from the evidence or the lack thereof.
By the way, it's by looking into the details personally that I find it 'unbelievable'. They didn't reach those conclusions by doing science, they limited themselves to material conclusions from the outset.

Beretta, are you saying that you would call natural processes supernatural? By all means, put forward the standard I.D. argument that certain things in nature cannot be produced naturally because they're too complex. But natural processes aren't "magic" by definition.Our ancestors thought that the supernatural was required to explain numerous phenomena for which we now have natural explanations. That's why intelligent scientists continue to look for natural explanations for phenomena that have not been explained. Common sense born of experience, mate, not the grand philosophical viewpoint that you want it to be.If we explain a spectacular volcanic explosion by attributing it to a fit of anger on the part of the volcano God, we'll never find out the truth about what causes such events.I.D. is about intervention in the laws of the universe as we know them. The claim is that the supernatural is necessary to explain life. Right or wrong, that's where the magic comes in. In the naturalistic explanation, we claim no magic, which is why we point to observable mechanisms like mutation, natural selection and genetic drift. Right or wrong, no magic.

Well it's like saying that a motor car engine works without its creator stuffing his fingers in the moving parts and blowing diesel through the pipes.It was created to work therefore it carries on due to the organization of the parts and input of energy requirements.
We don't imagine that an engine with its parts fell together by chance but we don't have to have the creator in our sights to get the engine to work.
So just because complex things in the natural world work by designed processes and parts does not necessitate that the interconnected parts fell into place by natural law without any designer. Well in this case we would naturally assume natural causes since we know that natural causes do create such circumstances. But we do not necessarily presume that the original tree with all its interconnected functions working together necessarily came about by natural processes. That's the hardware (the tree) but we need intelligence, the software to put trees together in the first place.That to me would be an intelligent supposition knowing what we know about things that are designed to work. Well one shouldn't really presume such a thing. One should, in order to avoid philisophical assumptions, put all the possibilities on the table and then gather all the evidences together not just those that support our favored philisophical supposition. If there are no possible alternatives to materialistic causes, why bother to collect the evidence at all? The one that imagines that software can write itself with time as the magical ingredient. Great then I'd have to agree with you there. No I'd have to not agree with you there -origins are not easily explained through natural causes -in fact the whole field seems more based on imaginative scenarios than on anything concrete. I'll agree with you on that as well but when your natural explanations start to look non-explanatory or even imaginary, then it's time to look again!

Only to people that have decided, based upon their philisophical biases, that living things look exactly like they are not created.

Well this is the thing -the fingers were designed and the programme for the finger design is present in the organism -an extra copy of what already exists does not prove that the genetic instructions for fingers produced themselves by natural causes.

But which hand and which fingers were designed? If one mutation can make this change, could mutation cause one finger to move into opposition to the others, and become a thumb, for example? It wouldn't be magic for that to happen, would it?What was the original hand? A paw perhaps? Or a fin with a wrist (something we find at exactly the expected period in the fossil record)?

At some point, Beretta, software must be able to write itself. Otherwise your intelligent designer requires an intelligent designer.All your arguments make your intelligent designer a logical impossibility. Both intelligence and complexity must be able to exist without an intelligent designer, otherwise no intelligent designer can exist.