The Power of the New Intelligent Design...

Your ghost can't do anything. It is not real.

God is also perfectly capable of creating patterns other than a nested hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason why we would expect to see a nested hierarchy if species were created separately. The only reason we would expect to see a nested hierarchy is if species evolved from a common ancestor.

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For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.

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Now, since the days of Linnæus this principle has been carefully followed, and it is by its aid that the tree-like system of classification has been established. No one, even long before Darwin's days, ever dreamed of doubting that this system is in reality, what it always has been in name, a natural system. What, then, is the inference we are to draw from it? An evolutionist answers, that it is just such a system as his theory of descent would lead him to expect as a natural system. For this tree-like system is as clear an expression as anything could be of the fact that all species are bound together by the ties of genetic relationship. If all species were separately created, it is almost incredible that we should everywhere observe this progressive shading off of characters common to larger groups, into more and more specialized characters distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups. At any rate, to say the least, the law of parsimony forbids us to ascribe such effects to a supernatural cause, acting in so whimsical a manner, when the effects are precisely what we should expect to follow from the action of a highly probable natural cause.
--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

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According to your description of the alien overlord, He treats His "sons" like slaves. What if the Son came here to escape from his domineering Father?

No. You don't.

The best avatar on this entire bloody site belongs to the late RAZD. No discussion possible.Yours is spewing, which is appropriate.

That's ironic, coming from a guy with an IQ of 9.

A nested hierarchy is just one of billions or trillions of possible patterns of shared and derived features that God could produce. So why do we see the one pattern of trillions that just so happens to be the one pattern that common descent and evolution would produce? Why would God limit himself to a nested hierarchy when it is entirely unnecessary?

To fool his creation into thinking this was the work of evil evolution? To lie to the host of followers to test their faith?Because if he didn't then the jesus-meat munchers and malevolent bible thumpers have nothing to hold up that part of their lie?

The idiot Dredge has dredged up yet another tired old refuted argument: Omphalos ("belly button").And being a typical clueless creationist, he understands neither what he's claiming nor the problems with his claim. No creationist ever knows what they're talking about. Some of the funnier bits from Drs. Henry Morris and Duane Gish (founders of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and co-creators of "creation science") was when they had to bend themselves into pretzels trying to explain away why all the evidences look like and point to evolution and an old earth.One of their "explanations" has been to resurrect the Omphalos Argument (see also Wikipedia):

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The Omphalos Argument was advanced in 1857 by an experimental zoologist, Philip Henry Gosse, who was obsessed with the need to protect his extreme fundamentalist view of special creation from the geological evidence against it. The argument derives its name (Omphalos (Ομφαλος) means "navel" in Greek) from an old theological question (of the same general class as counting angels on the head of a pin): Since the navel is evidence of a past event (i.e. having been born of a woman) and Adam was not born of a woman but rather was created whole and fully formed, did Adam have a navel? The answer is: if it would have so pleased God for Adam to have the appearance of having been born of a woman, then he would have had a navel.

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In his book, Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot (1857), Gosse argued that everything was created with the appearance of a history; everything was created fully-formed with evidence of its growth and development and pre-existence, all of which had never actually happened. Thus, any scientific findings supporting the earth's great antiquity could immediately be discounted as false evidence of a non-existent past. The earth only appears to be ancient because it was recently created with the appearance of great age. It isn't that the scientists have gotten the story wrong, it's just that they don't realize that it is ONLY a story.

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So the apparent fossil remains of non-existent creatures were created in the strata to give the false impression of evolutionary change. The proper ratios of parent and daughter isotopes were created in new rock to lend it spurious age. Light was created in space with the proper Doppler shift to make it appear that the distant galaxies had produced it. And so on.

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Yes, this did indeed give rise to the theological position of Last Thursdayism (which schismed further into Last Wednesdayism, etc). Even Gosse himself anticipated that conclusion, which formed part of the reaction against his ideas:

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Indeed, Gosse himself developed this effect of "Indeterminate Creation" to its logical conclusion. Why assign the Creation to 6000 years ago? Why not 4000 years ago or 1000 years ago or 100 years ago or 10 years ago or 10 days ago or even a few minutes ago? If the Creation had occurred a few minutes ago with all the false evidence of pre-existence, even down to our individual memories, intact, then how could we know it?

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Of course, the Omphalos argument fell into disrepute with everybody almost immediately. Many just laughed at it, but others were deeply offended by the idea of God being a lying and deceitful prankster who had written an enormous and superfluous lie in the rocks. But even worse for many believers was the thought that the events of the Bible, most importantly the Resurrection, might have never happened and so their faith might be based solely on a Divine Hoax.

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Again from Wikipedia:

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Deceptive creator

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From a religious viewpoint, it can be interpreted as God having created a "fake" universe, such as illusions of light emitted from supernovae that never really happened, or volcanic mountains that were never really volcanoes in the first place and that never actually experienced erosion.

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In a rebuttal of the claim that God might have implanted a false history of the age of the universe to test our faith in the truth of the Torah, Rabbi Natan Slifkin, an author whose works have been banned by several Haredi rabbis for going against the tenets of the Talmud, writes:

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God essentially created two conflicting accounts of Creation: one in nature, and one in the Torah. How can it be determined which is the real story, and which is the fake designed to mislead us? One could equally propose that it is nature that presents the real story, and that the Torah was devised by God to test us with a fake history! ...

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One has to be able to rely on God's truthfulness if religion is to function. Or, to put it another way—if God went to enormous lengths to convince us that the world is billions of years old, who are we to disagree?

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What my avatar is "spewing" is class, truth and sanity ... three things that are alien to your wretched little world.

It looks like crap to me. Just like your posts.But, it is your avatar and, like your religion, you can give it whatever attributes you want regardless of reality. Just know that where you see class, truth and sanity, the rest of us see garbage.

It's precisely your inability to recognize class, truth and sanity that has resulted in the disaster that is your life. You know it; I know it.

No you don't and neither do I since the disaster that is my life has been pretty good. I wasn't stunted by religion.

The criticisms mentioned in your post seem to be directed at YECs ... please be advised that I'm not a YEC.

Yucky Eucharist Cruncher? I thought that was you? You do still munch the jesus-meat don't you? Your lack of intellect says you still do.