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

Beretta, you forget. We know better. It does you no good to repeat falsehoods here. It only makes you look either ignorant, stupid or dishonest. (or any combination of the three).I suggest you start getting your facts straight before repeating this kind of junk.

I suppose if he were the product of evolution, we might find a fossilized fish with eyes in a position half way between those of normal fish and his. Of course, that might just be evidence of omphalism and the evil designer who designs in stages just to deceive us, and make it look like evolution.How would you interpret such a fossil?

Crocs are born with a 3-chambered heart and as they grow that heart becomes a 4-chambered heart. Without skipping a beat. And, quite obviously, without killing the croc in the process.What does it take to pull off that "trick"? The 3-chambered heart basic configuration (shared by amphibians as well) consists of 2 atria and one ventricle. One atrium gathers de-oxygenated blood from the body and the other atrium gathers oxygenated blood from the lungs. Both atria empty into the ventricle with contracts and pumps the blood out to the lungs and the rest of the body. Of course, since both atria empty into the same single ventricle, the oxygenated blood mixes with the de-oxygenated blood. Ineffecient though this may be, it's sufficient for small animals with low metabolic requirements.The four-chambered heart has two ventricles, one pumping blood to the lungs and the other to the rest of the body. Each atrium empties into only one ventricle, so there is no mixing of oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood, which is much more efficient and supplies the oxygen needed by an animal with high metabolic requirements.So what's the "trick"? What does it take to convert a heart from 3 chambers to 4? A septum, which is a thin muscular wall that splits the amphibian/reptilian ventricle into two. That is what keeps the croc alive through that entire process: the heart keeps working as it always did as the septum grows and finally closes off, after which it continues to work just as it always did, only now the oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood don't mix.The reason why I had presented this little trap was to point out to you that just because you personally are unable to understand how something could happen and does happen, that does not constitute any kind of evidence against that something happening. It's been a while since I've formally studied the informal fallacies, but I believe that the fallacy that you have been basing most of your arguments on is called "personal incredulity."

This isn't the right thread for getting into a discussion about the evidence for evolution, so I'll just say once again that if your goal is to convince a (for the most part) scientifically ignorant public then these kinds of arguments will work fine, but for people familiar with evolution all you're doing is demonstrating your ignorance of the evidence.You need positive evidence for ID, for two reasons. One, it's positive evidence along with correct predictions that allows a theory to carry the day. Two, it's the topic of this thread.--Percy

Well I must say I printed your article and took my pencil out before reading the article in order to underline all the iffy words like "we might guess" "probably" "suggests" "may have". The whole point is that just because you believe it (and the author does), that does not mean that it happened. It only means that those who believe it can paint a picture of how they think it happened because they 'know' it did. There's your philisophical assumption right there.
What the evidence of mutations actually shows is that mutations are copy mistakes. Mutations are mostly harmful, sometimes neutral and very occasionally beneficial in cases where for example, bugs that no longer have wings may survive better on an island where wind blows them into the sea when they fly. Of course that's a loss of information that would cause such a change, not a gain. For evolution of the type you imagine to be true to happen, we need evidence of many many beneficial mutations that need to happen not just morphologically but also biochemically, neurally etc and all these changes have to arrive timeously to create an overall beneficial and coordinated situation such that the 'evolved' creature can survive.Chances seem to indicate that any beneficial mutations that might theoretically arrive would be more than compensated for by the many negative mutations that would be far more probable according to the actual evidence.
Making up a story doesn't make it true though I can see how you would believe it -that's philosophy not evidence-based science.
Now for me, I can't believe it because of the evidence produced by the study of genetics and mutations.

You're arguing against evolution again. This thread is about 5/6 used up. You're running out of time to offer any positive evidence for the designer.--Percy

So in other words, the fact that evolution has no real good evidence (apart from minor variations) to support it and the fact that the evidence against evolution is becoming rather overwhelming,this is not enough to remove 'evolution as a fact' from the world's imagination.We have to first produce a better story before it is possible to unseat the pretender.
That's like saying that you are guilty of a crime you have not committed until you produce the one that actually did it.How about we go for intelligent indecision about what actually happened and teach the controversy in the meantime?

To repeat, ad nauseam it would seem, you're arguing against evolution again. Evolution is not the topic of this thread. Everyone would be more than happy to address your concerns about the evidence for evolution, as we do all the time in threads where that is the topic. But this thread is in the [forum=-10] forum, not the [forum=-5] forum. Very few are responding to your attempts to change the subject to evolution. It would seem that most are content waiting to see if you'll ever offer any evidence in support of the intelligent designer premise.You do say one thing that is sort of on topic: There's no scientific controversy, because IDists don't actually do any science. This is why, as this thread that is 5/6 done winds down, you're unable to offer any positive evidence for the designer.--Percy

But why would there be a controversy when there's no evidence for intelligent design and it's only creationists who have faith that there's not enough evidence for evolution?In order to claim a controversy that should be taught, we need evidence for your intelligent designer.I think that we should be able to examine the nature of the proposed designer by looking at his designs. But when I do that, the most obvious conclusion is that we have a designer who is trying to fool us into thinking that evolution is the culprit.Take the "Picasso Fish" I mentioned above, for example. The designer has designed some creature in the fossil record which looks as though it was deliberately designed to look like a transitional that preceded our cute little scaly friend.Strange, eh? Picasso designs fishes, hereIf he continues to do such things (and he has done many) what can we conclude about this weird designer of ours?

Even if this weren't a rather touching example of wishful thinking, it would still leave you no nearer to establishing ID as an alternative to evolution. In science there is no controversy because ID has no hypothesis backed by evidence! What will you teach these kids about ID? No - entirely the opposite, in fact. It's similar to the assumption of innocence until guilt is demonstrated. If you can't show any positive evidence that God created us, then he is innocent of all charges!

Well I don't know -that's like saying that to convert a four chambered heart to a three chambered one, all you have to do is get rid of the septum -but that on it's own would definately kill you in the wild -it's just not that simple -a whole lot of other things have to change in order for it to work -and the changes have to be perfectly co-ordinated to keep you alive along the way.
What evolutionists do is convert their philisophical prejudice into a sequence or story line that most likely never happened and then just wave their magic wand over it to baptize it as fact. Actually it's more about the fact that's there's no scientific evidence to back up the assertion so I'd rather tend towards incredulity until the evidence is there.The opposite of personal incredulity would be "gullibility" I'd think.

You really sound like a Dawkins clone here. I repeat, the fossil evidence for evolution is not convincing in the slightest. Are you forgetting the Cambrian explosion? The sudden appearance of fully formed fish? The sudden jumps between this and that with no evidence of intermediates? You really have to look at the big picture and ask yourself whether evolution makes sense.

You have only 47 messages left to address the topic.--Percy

What do you really know about the fossil record? Tell me more, what didnt convince you? I would like specific examples where the fossil record is falling short. (Maybe in another thread, since this one is not about evolution) Let's say i dont think evolution makes sense. Now i have no idea what made us what we are. Convince me of creation.

Why don't you let the professionals deal with the fossils?You are a proponent of creationism; perhaps you could share your evidence with us (that is the topic of the thread, not your unprofessional and unlearned opinions on the fossil record).

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.