A Study of Intelligent Design Debate

The cutting and pasting of other people's work without attribution is very strongly discouraged here.I found your post here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/555.asp

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Paul:
[b]What I have found in most ID debates is that someone always insists we need to know who designed the designer? As if that makes a difference as to whether or not the apparent design is illusory or not. If that argument held any water it would mean that Stomehenge wasn't designed because we don't know who (or what) designed it.[/QUOTE]

​

The point of the "...but who designed the designer?" statement is to point out the fact that claiming that an IDer "had" to have designed something doesn't *explain* anything.

​

All you are doing when you day "Godidit" is introducing greater complexity into the problem.

​

quote:

---

ID gains momentum every time we take a closer look at life. The closer we look, the more complex it appears to be, and the less likely Darwinian step-by-step processes could be responsible for such complexity.

---

​

Not really, if you look at the history of ID claims. There is no Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design. The God of the Gaps idea has a long history of being made smaller and smaller as science unravels ever more complex mysteries about nature.

​

Currently, the "best" account (Behe's) of the God of the Gaps idea (a.k.a. ID) mentions only a few bits of Molecular Biology. Behe accepts Evolution for everything else, an old Earth, no Flood, etc.

​

quote:

---

I, for one, am a proponent of ID as a scientific alternative to materialistic naturalism on the topic of biological evolution. Behe's Darwin's Black Box, along with the likes of Dembski, Johnson, Ratzsch, Wells, Gitt* et al., put forth a very convincing argument for the scientific validity of ID. And as far as I can tell the only argument against ID is philosophical in nature.

---

​

[QUOTE]The reason the argument against ID is *only* philosophical is because it is *only* a philosophical argument. There is no positive evidence for ID, and ID does not make testable predictions, therefore it is a philosophical, not a scientific (IOW, emperical)position.

​

Behe's ideas aren't scientific, although his actual science is valid, which is a BIG step up for the quality of most Creationist works. Then again, he accepts all of mainstream science except for a few points of Molecular Biology, as I stated above.

​

If Behe's ideas about ID WERE scientific, he would publish them in a professional scientific journal, not a popular press book.
Anyone can say anything they like in a non-peer-reviewed publication and call it science.

​

Behe's God of the Gaps just assigns "Godidit" to that which we don't understand yet. History is packed full of science eventually explaining what people (religious and otherwise) previously thought was unexplainable and *had* to be caused by a higher power.

​

I understand the 'system architecture' PoV, which is IMO, genomes can be viewed as a computer OS. The alleged junk DNA is nothing of the kind and although those segments of DNA may not code for a protein, they do have a function in the overall program of an organism. Afterall if every piece of DNA coded for a protein, what would be left to tell those proteins what to do and where to do it?

​

*Werner Gitt is a Creationist. However his theroms on information enforce the basic premise of ID- which is 'there is more to life than mother nature plus father time can explain'.
[/b]

---

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Paul:
[b]schraf:
The point of the "...but who designed the designer?" statement is to point out the fact that claiming that an IDer "had" to have designed something doesn't *explain* anything.John Paul:
It explains more about how life came to be than "it just happened in nature over vast amounts of time." Design establishes form, function & purpose. Then we guide our research under that premise. Under that framework we will better understand genetic movements such as recombinations, insertion sequences, gene duplication, deletions and transposons. We will be able to differentiate that genetic activity from randomly occurring copying errors (i.e. point mutations).[/QUOTE]Really? We will be able to make predictions about future genetic movements with ID as a guide?Please provide some examples of these predictions.

quote:

---

Also if there is a purpose for life being here and we have the ability to find that out, it would be ignorant not to figure it out. Or at least make the attempt.

---

I say, it doesn't matter why life is here; it matters what we decide to do with it now. Prove me wrong, scientifically.schraf:All you are doing when you day "Godidit" is introducing greater complexity into the problem.

quote:

---

John Paul:I disagree. The complexity arises when you say life is nothing but a chance encounter of molecules.

---

The ToE does not posit this, so it is not a valid criticism of the ToE.

quote:

---

And that the diversity of life is just more chance encounters culled by something we call natural selection.

---

What you just explained about NS is very simple, not complex as you claim it to be. A tad too simply stated to be a true representation of the ToE, but simple, nonetheless. The inclusion of a unknown, all-powerful being which is supposed to have major effects upon nature but so far has been undetectable, is much much more complex than the ToE.What is the nature of the IDer? By what mechanisms do we know that the IDer operates? How do we tell the difference between ID activity and nature? What predictions are made if we assume the existence of an IDer?It is the very simplicity of the ToE and NS which bothers you. You WANT there to be a great, omnipresent, omnicient, all-powerful supernatural being as the creator of it all, and taking a special interest in humankind.That is a fine philosophical or religious belief, but just don't pretend it is a scientific theory.

quote:

---

You are confusing today's ID with the ignorance of two plus centuries ago. The 'gaps' you speak of are as wide as the Pacific
Ocean IMHO. Especially when it comes to life & this solar system forming (for two examples)

---

ID makes the same God of the Gaps logical error; the argument from ignorance. It doesn't matter how big or small the gaps are; equating, "I don't know" with "Godidit", has a long history of failure.

quote:

---

John Paul:The fact that evoplution, as in the change of allele frequency over time, has been observed, does not mean all of life's
diversity originated at some unknown population(s) of single-celled organisms, which just happened to be able toself-replicate. And thank Mother Nature for ensuring that self-replication process wasn't perfect. And thank Father Time for giving us the needed excuse when asked to present some actual observable, testable and repeatable data that would substantiate our claims.

---

You are claiming that an IDer exists. Provide evidence.You are claiming that ID is scientific. Provide a Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design, complete with posisive evidence, testable hypotheses, and potential falsifications.schraf: If Behe's ideas about ID WERE scientific, he would publish them in a professional scientific journal, not a popular press book.
Anyone can say anything they like in a non-peer-reviewed publication and call it science.

quote:

---

John Paul:That doesn't stop the fact that his book is out there, has been responded to and those responses have been squarely
rebutted.

---

The book boils down to God of the Gaps, and that can't be rebutted: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

quote:

---

Science journals do not print book-size articles and are not readily available to the common person.

---

Behe could have easily put together a article-sized paper for publication, but he didn't because it isn't a scientific work. He proposes no Scientific Theory of ID. He makes no predictions, and the logical fallacy is glaring out from the pages.

quote:

---

I, for one,appreciate Behe for putting his thoughts on paper so that I may read them. Now, morer than ever, I see I am not alone in
thinking there is data being withheld on the difficulties faced by the step-by-step Darwinian process.

---

There's no data being withheld. It's the faulty logic, the lack of a theory, and the fact that ID does not produce any predictions that would keep it from publication.schraf:Behe's God of the Gaps just assigns "Godidit" to that which we don't understand yet. History is packed full of science eventually explaining what people (religious and otherwise) previously thought was unexplainable and *had* to be caused by a higher power.

quote:

---

John Paul:And just because you can imagine how some organism cudda 'evolved' doen't mean that can be used as evidence that it did
evolve.

---

Because we can explain a POSSIBLE naturalistic model means that it is not IMPOSSIBLE. Therefore, an IDer does not HAVE to be invoked. That is the argument from ignorance again.

quote:

---

I understand the 'system architecture' PoV, which is IMO, genomes can be viewed as a computer OS. The alleged junk DNA is
nothing of the kind

---

Evidence for this assertion.

quote:

---

and although those segments of DNA may not code for a protein, they do have a function in the overall program of an organism.

---

Evidence that this is the case, please.

quote:

---

Afterall if every piece of DNA coded for a protein, what would be left to tell those proteins what to do and where to do it?

---

We know the gene sequences that do this; they are called "control sequences". Do you really think you are the only person to have thpought of that?

You did not answer my questions.I will repeat:We will be able to make predictions about future genetic movements with ID as a guide?Please provide some examples of these predictions.You are claiming that an IDer exists. Provide evidence.You are claiming that ID is scientific. Provide a Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design, complete with positive evidence, testable hypotheses, and potential falsifications.Schraf: Because we can explain a POSSIBLE naturalistic model means that it is not IMPOSSIBLE. Therefore, an IDer does not HAVE to
be invoked. That is the argument from ignorance again.John Paul:Imagination is no substitute or evidence. "just-so' stories are best kept for fairy tales and such.They are POSSIBLE naturalistic scenarios, which may or may not pan out. What they have going for them is that they actually make TESTABLE PREDICTIONS, and also are POTENTIALLY FALSIFIABLE. They have nothing at all to do with fairies, or Gods of the Gaps, or magical, unknown IDers.It is a VERY LARGE LEAP between saying "we don't know how this happened" to "an IDer HAD to be responsible for this."Once you attribute something to an IDer, then why bother trying to figure out how it works?On the same note; what happens if, 100 years down the road, scientists figure out how every single one of Behe's examples of "irreducably complex" systems could arise by natural means? What will you do then?
(there has already been great progress on some of them, such as the evolution of blood clotting)Creationists/ID proponents do not provide POSITIVE evidence, and this is what is required. They use the GAPS in our knowledge and then say "SEE? That which we don't understand PROVES that there MUST have been a designer." Can't you see anything wrong or lacking in this, logically?schraf:Behe's God of the Gaps just assigns "Godidit" to that which we don't understand yet. History is packed full of science eventually explaining what people (religious and otherwise) previously thought was unexplainable and *had* to be caused by a higher power.John Paul: That is not what IDists or Creationist do. Why do you misrepresent us? We observe the specified complexity that is life and
attribute it to something other than nature acting with time.But all of the examples of "evidence" that you use (which isn't positive evidence at all, but gaps in our knowledge) for this IDer consists of unexplained naturalistic phenomena.If you want to say that life is so amazing and wonderful that you feel that "something" had to be behind it all, that is a nice philosophical or religious belief, and that is perfectly fine.However, if you are going to start talking about science providing evidence for such beliefs even though you provide no scientific theory, no positive evidence, no testable hypothese, and no potential falsifications, then you are living in a made-up, pseudoscientific fantasy land.

quote:

---

John Paul:
I agree, bias should not be part of any scientific equation but the sad reality is that it is.

---

Science has this neato way of correcting errors, including errors caused by bias. It's called THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, which includes positive evidence, hypotheses which make testable predictions, and potential falsifications.Let's say that a scientist produces a paper claiming that he has evidence that squid and humans are close evolutionary relatives. (this scientist really likes squid and wishes he was related to them) This is major news to the rest of the scientific community. Other scientists attempt to duplicate this scientist's work, and they fail, which casts a great deal of doubt on the first scientist's hypothesis that humans and squid are closely related. The hypothesis is abandoned.This is a silly example, of course, but it makes my point. Because of the self-correcting nature of science, personal bias is weeded out eventually. In this way, science comes closer and closer to representing the reality of nature.The problem with so-called Creation "science", is that they do not ever submit to this stringent correction mechanism. Any work that is anti-evolutionary in nature or which agrees with the Bible is accepted, but any evidence which leads away from their particular interpretation of the Bible is ignored.That is one big reason why Creation "science" is not science, but religious dogma dressed up in a lab coat, holding a beaker.Going back to my squid-loving scientist example, Creationists do this kind of thing all the time, except with animals they DON'T want to be related to; primates. Despite the enormous quantity of morphological, behavioral, and genetic evidence which indicates that Chimpanzees are very closely-related to humans, Creationists do not put Chimps and humans in the same "kind". Creationists say that Chimps and humans are not related AT ALL, even though 99% of human genes are IDENTICAL to Chimp genes. However, a Bengal Tiger and my tabby cat, which share fewer genes, ARE the same kind. These are just silly things to claim in the face of all of that evidence, and an obvious contortion to attempt to cram science into the Bible. Makes them look, well, silly.

quote:

---

John Paul:
And I would rather go through life believing there is a God and to die only to find out there is not, than to go through life not believing there is a God and to die finding out there Is.

---

Ah, Pascal's wager. You believe not based upon the evidence, but "just in case". That is perfectly fine to believe, of course. Just know that your belief in God has nothing to do with reason, science, or Biology.Also, that line of thinking doesn't help anyone decide which God or gods to believe in, either. Why not Vishnu, or Allah, or Zeus, or the Great Spirit, or Gaia?

quote:

---

mark24:
This means not ignoring evidence to the contrary.

​

John Paul:
Oh, like the way evolutionists ignore irreducible complexity & minimal functionality?

---

First of all, you did not respond substantively. Please answer why Creationists ignore all the evidence for evolution.Second of all, these ideas aren't ignored by science. They are simply not powerful arguments. They are, in fact, old arguments given new names.They aren't evidence. They aren't theories. They produce no predictions. That means that THEY AREN'T SCIENCE. Why should scientists concern themselves with non-science? If they WERE science, they would be published in professional journals.

quote:

---

mark24:
It's lack of any evidence that doesn't allow a divine foot in the door. This is reasonable.

​

John Paul:
In my case it is the lack of evidence that drove me away from believing the ToE is indicative of reality. That includes the lack of evidence that life could form from non-life via purely natural processes.

---

Whether or not the evidence for the ToE convinces you bears not at all on if Creationism has positive evidence for it's claims. If the ToE was shown to be entirely false, that does not mean that your particular interpretation of the Creation account in the Christian Bible is correct, as there is no evidence to support the claims.Science concerns itself with finding naturalistic explanations to naturalistic phenomena. It has enormous predictive power, and this is why it is altogether superior to Creationism if you want to understand nature. Creationism produces no testable predictions, and has no potential falsifications. God can be used to explain anything and everything, so Creation Science explains nothing.Abiogenesis is a SEPARATE THEORY from the Theory of Evolution. It could be shown tomorrow that life on Earth was seeded from outer space and it would have NO EFFECT on the ToE at all.The ToE kicks in as soon as the first life appears here. How/where it came from is not a part of the ToE. [QUOTE]John Paul:
When the evidence turns up that substantiates the grand claims made by the ToE and abiogenesis, I will embrace it. If it never turns up, then it is just another belief system - ie a religion.[/B][/QUOTE]Tell me, JP, how many college-level Biology, Geology or Genetics classes have you taken? Have you read any entire books by Gould or Dawkins? How much of the Origin of Species have you read? Have you ever undertaken to do an HONEST study of science from the source to truly grasp what it is you are railing against?Who are you to declare that hundreds of thousands of scientists working over hundreds of years are ALL wrong or biased on the basis of nothing more that your religious beliefs?It is no matter. Science will continue to move forward with it's discoveries of common descent and evolution regardless of your claim that it can't happen.

​

[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-09-2002]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrueCreation:
[B]The whole debate arrousing Intelligent design is the fact that we have complexity in our environment, complexity is everywhere, in every form of life. Intelligent design is assuming a creator and looking at what he created and seeing how complex it is, evolution will always be able to explain almost every aspect of life, it just matters how far you will drift off from science into fantasy to give that answer, humans will always have a great imagination. There are many animals that it is simply overwhelming to the mind such as the giraffe, Bombardiar Beetle, birds nest fungi, turtle migration, armadillo, spiders, etc, they all fortell intelligent design, to realize the unity in its working systems is utterly amazing, thus posed intelligent design.[/QUOTE]The sun travelling across the sky used to be "utterly amazing" to us, so Apollo was the sun god in his firey chariot.Before the connection between pregnancy and intercourse was made, reproduction used to be "utterly amazing" and baffling to humans, so we worshipped female fertility goddesses, as females were thought to solely be responsible for bringing new life into the world.Lightning used to be "utterly amazing" to humans, so Zeus was the mighty god who hurled the lightning bolts down to earth.The fact that humans have ALWAYS attributed that which amazed and puzzled us to the divine or something "otherworldly" is nothing new.Isn't it interesting that all of these ideas about the gods are thought to be rather quaint?That a organism or system found in nature is amazing to humans does not equal ID or God.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrueCreation:
[b]To imply that ID is an unscientific concept is partly true, but it has a major part in science. The unscientific area would be to assume a creator and say that because so and so is so complex it had to have a designer, this is conjector.The scientific method is looking at this, figuring out how it works, find out the odds, in an evolutionists case it must be feasibly possible to contribute to evolving kinds, ie molecules to man evolution (kinds to kinds).[/QUOTE]ID is not scientific because there is no theory, the notion makes no predictions, and there is no positive evidence for an IDer.Negative or lacking evidence for the ToE does not constitute positive evidence for any other theory or notion, including ID.The ToE could never have existed at all, or be completely falsified tomorrow, but this in no way can be considered positive evidence for Creationism.

quote:

---

If there is an impossibility, then ID has an argument, explinations shouldn't be contributed by assumptions or conjectors,

---

That is the heart of the problem.How do you tell the difference between, "It's impossible!" and "We don't know yet", or, "We don't have the brain power to comprehend it."?Oh, BTW, TC, have you looked at the thread I started entitled "Questions Creationists Never Answer"? One of the question I haven't had answered yet is "Define Kind. IOW, how can I tell the difference between one kind and another?"Since you used the word "kind" in your reply, I was thinking that you must be able to define the word and tell me how I can tell what "kind" an animal is.

​

[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-12-2002]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrueCreation:
[B]"conducting research under a Biblical framework" presupposes scripture validity, & isn't science."
--I thought you wanted to know what a biblical 'kind' was?[/QUOTE]No, I wanted to know how Creationists defined the word "kind" when they attempt to use it in a scientific sense.I don't care how people use words in a Biblical or theological sense.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrueCreation:
[b]"ROTFLMAODid " Behe forget to do some reading?"
--Don't start the belly laugh yet, this sounds conceivable, but can it be applied?[/QUOTE]It doesn't matter if it can be applied!The whole point is that Behe and ID proponents say that it is impossible that these systems could have arisen naturally.It has ben demonstrated that it is, indeed, possible to produce these systems naturally, so the argument that it is impossible is rendered false.When you say "...but can it be applied?" you are moving the bar and are now arguing something different that you were before.

​

[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-04-2002]

​

[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-04-2002]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joe Meert:
JM:What an insanely absurd quote. Sounds like something out of a gaming magazine.

​

Cheers

​

Joe Meert

---

Quite.Post-modern drivel.