Nature belongs to ID

Granny Magda says: How little you know about me. How few of my posts you have read. What I am advocating is to put aside prejudice (rife in this forum) and with fresh eyes look to Nature to understand evolution.Nature develops life through identifiable systems and processes but we choose to explain the evolution of life as the result of arbitrary cosmic events and chromosomal abnormalities. But this is not how Nature works - look at how a plant grows, how a baby gestates, how a butterfly forms - in each case the development of life is part of a system with transformative stages - just like our fossil record. Does this not make you curious?You dismiss my argument as religiously driven and I am baffled. You seem to prefer an explanation that has little to do with Nature (yet claims exclusive ownership by calling itself 'Naturalism'), cannot make predictions (essential in scientific theories) and views life as a 'one-off', a lucky fluke. Is the birth of a baby a one-off, a lucky fluke?.Wouldn't it be preferable to view our evolution as a system, like the growth of a flower, in which we could identify where we are in the growth cycle? Isn't that the goal of scientific enquiry to identify patterns and regularities and thereby uncover a process that enables us to make predictions? This is certainly how we approach the study of biological processes in medicine, why not in evolution?I know what I am saying is unusual, I know science does not look at evolution like this. It is a shame and it certainly was not like this in the 1980's when I began my enquiry. Einstein spent his last years looking for 'the theory of all things', it seems we've given up the cause, the search. And it is our loss.I embrace Nature, I look to Nature to help me to understand life and you claim I am a creationist. I think this is a way of dismissing anything I say, like calling someone a feminist, a liberal, a socialist, a (fill in your prejudice). Once again I say, how very little you know about me.

You sound as though you think there is some entity "Nature" that is separate from the chemistry and physics, some guided or causative agent, but offer no evidence that such a critter exists.Yes, the birth of a baby or germination of a seed is a lucky fluke; and it is one that is totally driven by chemistry and physics.

Hi Vanessa, I have read your posts and, im my opinion, they are intelligent, cognent not encumbered by the ideological assumptions often made by the conventional evolutionary determinists.
While there are random adapative changes resulting from natural selection, this does not explain the whole theory of evolution.I recommend you read James A. Shapiro's "Evolution, a view from the 21st century". Shapiro is a professor of Microbiology at the University of Chicago.
His book is a summary of the papers he has written in the past and most of those papers can be accesed from his web site at the Univ of Chicago.Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

Unfortunately, what you call 'prejudice' we call knowledge. The knowledge of how life evolved on our planet has been hard won over hundreds of years and involves enormous quanitities of evidence and testing. It enjoys a concensus amongst scientists and there are no competing ideas.So, if you think you can overturn all this, go ahead, but you're going to need some actual facts to back up your counter-cultural ideas. Argument alone does not work here - you need hard evidence to support your words.Do you have any?

Hm... I'm beginning to see the problem.Before I got married, an old guy came to me and told me his secret to a successful marriage. He said that whenever I talk to my future wife, always try to see how she will perceive what I say instead what I think I say. Ever since, I've noticed throughout the years that indeed my wife often heard what she wanted to hear from me rather than what I actually said.I'm seeing the same thing happening today. We're talking about the time span of the cambrian explosion and then all the sudden you make the claim that I claim to know about how life started.Vanessa, if you're reading this, please try to read what people actually say on here rather than what you think they say. You and I are not married, and so you do not have the benefits of me trying to lean over backward like I do with my wife.The point I was trying to make is we do know the time span of the cambrian explosion. In a span of 70-80 million years, life managed to fill up many new niches. Creationists always seem to conveniently leave out the time span of the cambrian explosion and just calls it an explosion to give the illusion to laymen that it all happened almost overnight. I'm sure that's what you thought when you mentioned it as one of your examples of rapid evolution (supporting ID).Edit.And as a matter of fact, I haven't stated anything beyond what paleontologists have themselves said. At no point did I even hint at proclaiming I know more than they do. I'm a structural engineer, although I have worked in biology research in the past. I'd say I have probably the most basic of basic knowledge in these matters. It's not much, but it's enough to allow me to sniff out BS when I see it. And I assure you, IDists and creationists use a lot of BS in debates.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

You, like many creationists confuse abiogenesis with evolution.
They are two separate disciplines.
No one, yet knows how life first formed, we do know how it evolved after it first formed.

Taz mentioned a couple of extremely basic facts about the Cambrian Explosion and you reacted with incredulity. You seem to entertain very great doubts about even the most elementary facts about that period. To me, this seems too extreme a level of doubt. There are some things about the Cambrian that can be known. I challenge you to find me a single textbook on the subject of evolution that uses that definition. You won't find it. It's not there, because that's just an idiosyncratic definition that you made up. All you have done here is draw a loose poetic parallel between two separate concepts. The fossil record does not resemble a developing butterfly in any meaningful sense. It resembles what it is; the physical remains of billions of generations of living things.You're not saying anything concrete. That was not my intent. I merely saw similarities between your position and the attitude commonly exhibited by creationists. You both seem to cast doubt upon the reliability of scientific conclusions. Only if it were true. So far you have not offered anything that suggests this is true. Precisely what predictions does your flower/evolution analogy make? How can they be confirmed? It really isn't. You are suggesting a sort of "third way" between science and spirituality. It's a common kind of accommodation position. The problem is that faith brings nothing to the mix. It doesn't help us understand nature any better. It might be aesthetically pleasing, but it has nothing concrete to offer scientific pursuits.Mutate and Survive

I really really wanted to refrain from commenting on this.You've obviously never done any type of research, whether it's biology, physics, engineering, math, etc. In the physical sciences, there are entire disciplines of study devoted to what are essentially random mutation coupled with natural selection.When I was in grad school, I worked for some time with a physics professor in his funded research into chaotic systems, fractal dimensions, and prime numbers. He needed me as part of the group ot write out some software for him. While there, I managed to learn a great deal about how random mutation and natural selection extends beyond biological systems. Practically speaking, everything in the known universe is affected by random mutation, or random chances, and natural selection, or some kind of natural parameter enforced by the natural world.For instance, if you were to investigate a chaotic system like the weather, there is no better demonstration than using the monte carlo method, something that mathematicians use everyday to explain natural phenomena. In layman's term, chaos is synonymous with randomness. But to physicists and mathematicians, chaos really means ordered randomness.The point I'm trying to make is so far I've seen nothing from you but layman's superimposition of non-scientific experiences onto scientific endeavor. Sure, you use a lot of big words like naturalism, arbitrary cosmic events, and chromosomal abnormalities, but you lack the experiences and in-depth understanding of the sciences behind those words.Again, I've done considerable researches in the past. I must admit that I'm at best a novice of the physical sciences. But I have just enough experiences in these matters to be able to tell when someone is just throwing out big words without the understanding of the sciences behind them. I see this all the time with creationist and ID lecturers and debaters. I'm seeing it now in you.This brings me back to the very first question I asked you in this thread. May I ask your qualifications? I see a lot of big words and phrases being thrown around without much in-depth understanding behind those words and phrases.Edit.So, to recap, I'm an engineer who have done researches in past lives and there are those here who are honest to god biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, etc. Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

You appear to have composed your post by taking an introduction to evolution, cutting it into separate words with scissors, and then drawing them blindfold out of a hat. The consequence is that while the words may sound very science-y, the sentences themselves are meaningless.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Did it really take 5 days for the IDists to remove any knowledge about chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics (assuming you had any of these before the conference) and replace it all with a singe magical word 'Nature'?If so, and bearing in mind we live in a litigious world nowadays, would it be too much to hope that you sue them for intellectual degradation?Seriously, why would you take your 'science' from those who have absolutely no qualifications in it? You are aware I suppose of the arduous route from student to peer-reviewed science professional? It's not something achieved overnight you know!On the other hand creationists have no qualifications in science and are laughably ignorant. If you need your car fixing you go to a mechanic. If you want a new hairdo you go to a hairdresser....why do you not go to a scientist when you want to discuss science? Because Vanessa, when you try to discuss 'science' without the benefit of scientists input you come up with nonsense phrases like 'nature develops life through systems.'The really sad thing is that you don't even know how pathetic that sounds!

shadow71 writes: Thank you shadow71, his book and website look very interesting.

I think probably everyone participating in this thread has read all your posts - there's only 15 of them and they're not very long. You may be underestimating how much your posts say about you, and the impression we give to others often differs from the one we have of ourselves. If by "Nature" you mean the universe in which we live, I'm pretty sure everything we know in science comes from studying nature. Actually, we describe evolution as a process of random mutation and natural selection. Evolution *is* part of how nature works, but it does not describe all of nature. Plant growth and fetal development have nothing to do with evolution. They don't have anything to do with the fossil record, either, and since you ask about curiosity, yes, it does make me curious how you managed to add the fossil record into the rest of this hash. You may be experiencing this encounter with true science as bafflement, but from where we sit it looks like hornswogglement at the hands of creationism. Whether you consider yourself a creationist or not, your arguments are the same creationist arguments this website has witnessed time and time again. Surely you don't believe you're the first one who has ever come here making these kinds of arguments. Why do you keep capitalizing "nature". Again, everything we know in science has come from the study of nature. Now you're just spouting preprogrammed claptrap from your conference. Of course evolution makes verifiable predictions. For example, because evolution requires that new species evolve from existing species, one prediction of evolution is that any newly discovered life, fossil or current, will fit into a nested hierarchical classification system. This prediction has come true time and time again. Now you're confusing evolution with the origin of life. Wouldn't it be preferable if you learned something about evolution so that you could draw analogies that make sense? Evolution is not a "growth cycle". There's no analogy between plant growth and species change from fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals. Evolution is, at heart, whatever works, not growth cycles. How about we ask, "Why not get your facts straight?" Way back in 1944 George Gaylord Simpson wrote Tempo and Mode in Evolution. It studied the patterns revealed in the fossil record. Research in this area has been ongoing both before and since.Vanessa, you've been hoodwinked. If you learn what science says about evolution you'll see a very different picture.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I was not trying to give a definitive definition of evolution. I think Vanessa got my meaning.
Sorry my post went over your head.

Good. I hope you weren't trying to say anything remotely accurate either. Wishful thinking is a wonderful thing, isn't it? What a curious fantasy.

After seeing your posts over the years, I don't think humility is one of your virtues.Perhaps you ought to think about that.