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

For the last time: They are exactly the wrong kind of complexity. They demonstrate the results of a non-intelligently driven process that we know about and have shown to produce this kind of outcome. You've never responded to this point though it's been pointed out to you more than once.You seem to be unable to deal with the actual issues so you ignore them.

No. Surely you know that indirect evidence is perfectly acceptable in science, and you can be sure that Rick believes in the existence of many things that he cannot see.You still don't seem to want to understand the difference between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism. The science that we use to study the universe is the same whether that universe was created by some form of intelligence or not.You're on the correct track in trying to point out things that you think couldn't be produced naturally as being evidence of intelligent design. Your main problem is technical, in that we can think of ways in which highly complex organs can evolve, which doesn't disprove the existence of your designer(s), but does mean that you're still without evidence, direct or indirect. Another problem is that gaps do not mean gods, so lack of human knowledge doesn't constitute evidence for a designer.But never mind. It's fun looking for a designer and trying to figure out what he must be like by observing his designs. You mention bacterial flagella, presumably because you think they can't evolve. Some of the creatures with these are pathogens for us. So, we see a somewhat bizarre trait in the designer, because our immune systems are also complex. This really looks like two competing designers, or a mad designer who is competing with himself.Strangely, the evolutionists' view of an arms race between parasite and host seems to explain these directly competing complexities so much better than any I.D. hypothesis.What I maintain about the designer is that she must be deliberately trying to leave the impression that evolution is the culprit, or leaving things to evolve intentionally. There's absolutely no reason why a designer should design only within the parameters of evolutionary possibility, so we either have a designer for whom evolution is part of the design, or a designer who's deliberately attempting to deceive observers.Which do you think most likely?

Your fantasy does not account for the many theists who accept evolution, including almost all theist scientists. And if you see the results of evolution ... ? A painter is a materialistic explanation for a painting. Evolution is not based on the premise that there is no God. As demonstrated by all those theist scientists. That does not follow. For example, if God exists and evolution happened, as theist scientists believe, then your conclusion is irrational. Or if God exists, but he's Krishna rather than Jehovah, than you've still screwed up.The phrase "God exists" is not co-extensive with everything that you choose to believe. If God does exist, then his conclusions are also rational. Because they are based on observation of nature, not on any proposition about God. IMHO, no. This is why no-one does so.You keep whining on about this fantasy world of yours, but where in the real world do you see anyone arguing for evolution with the non-existence of God as a premise? Another strange fantasy. Do you believe that you can read minds?

Hi, Beretta. But, the information comes from the DNA sequence, not the other way around. You can change the information that is transmitted by changing the DNA sequence. You can also add or delete information by adding or removing pieces of DNA. Clearly, the chemicals are in charge, not the information.So, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that DNA produces information, rather than information is superimposed upon DNA?So, what we should be asking now is, “How do DNA sequences (and thus, information) change? Or, how do they form in the first place?”The answer to the first part---How do they change?---is pretty straightforward. Mutation. Actually, this is kind of tautological itself: “mutation” is a word that just means “change to the nucleotide sequence.” Changes can happen pretty much randomly: replicating and transcribing machinery occasionally just substitutes the wrong base pair somewhere for no apparent reason. Also, various external chemical conditions (pH, radiation, free radicals, other chemicals, etc.) can also cause mutation. This has been observed in the laboratory countless times, even without the researchers’ assailing the E. coli with radiation. And, these mutations have been shown to be capable of producing beneficial and useful effects.The answer to the second part---How do they form in the first place?---is really the crux of the whole debate. Since we’ve already shown that useful sequences can arise from non-useful sequences via mutation, if we can also show that DNA sequences can be formed without a designer, wouldn’t that completely refute your claim about design?I believe I have heard of DNA sequences forming without a designer, in fact. If you throw a bunch of assorted nucleotides into a solution with DNA polymerase, you can create a random stretch of DNA.All that remains then is to change it via mutations until it does something.

---

Darwin loves you.

As I have pointed out, all these imaginary "problems" are problems with the rubbish that Barham has made uup in his head (or, to be more precise, pinched from creationist websites) not with the theory of evolution. I notice that you haven't defended any of Barham's crap, you just admit that creationists also use this sort of drivel as their starting point. This I concede.---To return to the one point you did try to answer: yes, you do indeed start out with the same crazy nonsense and ignorance as Barham does. But as you, from this nonsense, draw the conclusion of fiat creationism, and Barham draws a completely different conclusion, it seems on the face of it that your/Barham's nonsense is not in itself an argument for fiat creationism in particular. It's just the customary nonsense that people recite when they want to wish away evolution --- whatever they want to put in its place.To take a further example, that trash about hurricanes and 747s originates with Fred Hoyle, who believed that evolution was driven by genes dropping on us from outer space or something. Barham cheerfully recites it as an argument for his views. You copy-and-paste it from Barham in favor of yours. I bet a quick look round Muslim fundie websites would demonstrate that they trot it out too.If it was an argument against evolution, which it isn't, it still wouldn't particularly be an argument for your false conclusion, rather than Barham's false conclusion, or for Hoyle's false conclusion, or for the false conclusions of Muslim fundementalists, or for any of the other utterly unsubstantiated alternatives to evolution that one can think of.

There is no shortcut to success in this debate. The equally fallacious reply to this argument is, "No, it is you who have the philosophical predisposition..." Now what?There is no way to avoid the hard work of uncovering and analyzing evidence. If others think your evidence insufficient then the proper next step is to find better evidence. It is not accusing them of "philosophical predispositions".You don't actually need evidence that convinces the precise people you're debating with. Concessions of "Oh, you're right," rarely happen in discussions. All you want is evidence that is based upon the best approach we know of for figuring out what is likely true of the real world, and that is the scientific method. Evidence gathered in this way that has been analyzed, replicated, put in an interpretative framework that has made successful predictions cannot fail to convince a preponderance of scientists. That's the kind of evidence you want for your designer.--Percy

Others have tackled this analogy. Obviously the a painter is a material explanation - I can observe a painter at work if I choose. As long as God is "out of the picture" then how can it be irrational to leave him/her/it "out of the picture" when it comes to science? Naturalistic explanations render God irrelevant as a cause whether he exists of not. Can I afford it? Why not? What will happen? Why should I want to believe in God when none appears to exist? If, on the other hand, God does exist, then why did he create the concept and appearance of naturalistic causes? Was it to deceive some of us into not believing in him?Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

But God is not out of the picture. Man leaves him out of the picture because it suits him. Man likes to imagine that naturalistic explanations explain everything. God does not become irrelevant just because man likes to try and explain everything as if a creator was not required. It is self deception. The stories of how creation got started without a creator are imaginary and the more complex science becomes, as we investigate the micromachines within cells, it is not logical to assume that they made themselves. It was perhaps conceivable in Darwin's time, when a cell was imagined to be something really simple, that he could have believed that it was possible for it to have happened by chance but in view of the complexity of the cell that we now observe, it is no longer feasible that no intelligence was required to put a cell together. God got written out of the picture when Darwin (and others)came up with his alternative creation myth and tried to give it a mechanism.The stories they have to invent these days about how complex systems just made themselves by naturalistic mechanisms become more and more ridiculous which is why we call them 'just so' stories -they have no proof, they are just built on naturalistic presuppositions and the subsequent desparate attempts to make the possibility sound logical.How can naturalistic explanations render God irrelevant? If God created life, then naturalistic explanations are ridiculous because they are untrue. What I mean is that there are two possibilities, either God created life or life created itself. You can't just rule out the one possibility because then you have a philosophy not a science and you really have no need of evidence and anything found will be forced into the only possibility you are prepared to allow.You need to allow for both possibilities and test the evidence against both not just the one that you think must be right. Why should others believe that evolution happened when there are so many indications that this just may not be true. Evolution is a word based on a philosophy -how do you know that it happened? God didn't create the concept of naturalistic causes, man did.
It may appear to you that naturalism explains everything that exists but it is actually a belief based on whatever evolutionists can find to support or seem to support their presupposition. God isn't deceiving anybody, man does all the deceiving all by himself and then having deceived himself, deceives others into believing it.Evolution is a creation myth that does away with God.It was in the beginning when Darwin formulated it and it still is today.

Hi, Beretta. "Logical" doesn't mean "common sense," Beretta. "Logical" refers to a systematic process of thinking based on premises and evidence, whereas "common sense" refers to the complete absence of thought. So, yes, it defies common sense to imagine that cells "made themselves," but, if you would like, I could provide a long list of other things that have been proven, but defy common sense. I am a theist myself, so I have never liked the wording RickJB prefers. I like to think of it as "naturalistic" being synonymous with "divine." When you compare things we humans make with things that God made, there is a stark difference, because what we make follows our functional and aesthetic patterns, whereas what God made follows natural and ecological patterns.To me, that's damn good evidence that God is a naturalistic God, and not an anthropomorphic "designer." And we have been asking you to show us your results when you did this. Not your conclusions, your results. How did you compare the two ideas side-by-side, weigh the evidence, and find a Designer in the evidence?Please answer with evidence for the Designer, and not with evidence against evolution.

---

Darwin loves you.

Science deals with those things that can be observed. There is not enough data for science to say that God does not exist, but as long as no evidence of God is forthcoming then he is, in effect, utterly irrelevent to science.If you want to put your designer-God "into the picture" then you need to produce some evidence in support of such an entity and not rely solely on ToE criticism. All of these so-called "indications" are based solely on misrepresentations of the ToE. If the ToE is false then why is ID "science" entirely dependent ToE criticism to define itself? Where is your original evidence? How do you know this? Evolution does not "do away with God" as legions of religious scientists will tell you. For example, there's nothing to stop a Cosmologist ascribing the Big Bang to God and having the universe develop in a naturalistic manner subsequent to creation. Science cannot, as yet, show otherwise. Yes, but you have yet to bring any evidence to the table! How do I spot the designer?Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

True IDists must shudder every time they see declarations like this from those like yourself who for some reason claim the ID label. The whole creation/evolution controversy in education is about whether or not creationism and its more recent incarnation IDism are religion or science, and here you are declaring, "God is not out of the picture." People like you must drive true IDists crazy.There is an honesty in your position that is not reflected in true IDism, but because of that honesty it contains no threat to education. I'm sure most evolutionists are perfectly happy if you want to believe that life was intelligently designed and that God is the designer, and they would have no concern whatsoever were you to present your position to boards of education while arguing that ID be taught in schools. No board of education, no matter how religiously conservative, would ever be so dense as to think they could teach that God created life in science class. Rewording your fallacy, the one I noted in Message 156, doesn't make it any less a fallacy. The equally fallacious response is, "No, it isn't we involved in self-deception but yourself."As I said earlier, there are no shortcuts to winning this debate. There's no way to avoid the hard work of uncovering and analyzing evidence. Obviously the most productive science will be built upon the most accurate model of the real world that can be derived from the evidence. One way ID could prove it is better science than evolution is to produce better insights and advances. Declarations that God is in the picture and that evolutionists are deceived are not scientific arguments.--Percy

Some of them may, others know exactly why I say what I do. The difference between me and some IDists is that I have decided for reasons apart from science who the intelligent designer is. Some IDists just decide that the evidence for evolution is not sufficient so they believe that there has to be a designer or a higher intelligence and they may have no idea who that would be.Some, like Berlinski believe that 'intelligent uncertainty' is a better option to evolution -in other words he hasn't decided for anything in particular but he is not convinced by the evidence that evolution is the explanation for the complexity of life.
I can be an IDist as well as believe in a specific God because ID is really about the scientific evidence for a creative intelligence and against mutation and natural selection as an explanation for everything that exists.
So ID as such does not propose any specific designer but believes that the evidence suggests that there is one. Who it may be is outside of science so they can get together in agreement for general scientific reasons and they don't mind who thinks what after that, they're all just about the evidence and go no further in their argument. Some IDists are creationists, others are theistic evolutionists, others have no clue beyond the general proposal. Creationists believe in God, Idists stick with what they can put forward as scientific evidence for creative intelligence and against evolution as a total explanation. They can be both but many are not.Even creationists often don't propose that creationism should be taught as science, but they do want the evidence against evolution to be taught. I do not believe in any way that the ID position is dishonest -they're just sticking with the science and saying that this is not a religious argument so don't start with Noah's ark because we are not interested in that -what we want to do is discuss the scientific evidence and the possible alternative explanations for what we have. Everyone has the same evidence, it's the interpretation of the evidence that often differs. Evolutionists are also not particularly keen on any evidence that doesn't support their position so they don't like that proposal at all. They want evolution taught as fact despite everything that can be brought out against it.I believe that a lot of evolutionists don't even hear about the facts that don't fit since nobody teaches those sorts of things because it's not convenient to raise doubt. Any doubtful evidence is just put in the anomalies bucket and ignored or they come up with a possible but unproven solution which then passes as fact along with the whole general picture. Well it should nonetheless be on the table for discussion because nobody can know that God didn't create life and nobody can prove that chemicals just arranged themselves by chance into a self replicating organism. So rather than saying that the one option is fact without being able to prove it, keep things open for debate. Well there's no doubt that one of us is wrong. Right so lets put all the evidence on the table, not ignore general stasis in the fossil record nor the sudden (in geological terms) arrival of practically every phyla in the Cambrian explosion.Lets not assume that there is no limitation on the portion of evolution that can be observed and then sticking with the real facts, all of them, lets put our models on the table and consider both not just the one that has become dogma amongst a good proportion of scientists. Nor is it scientific to ignore the very real possibility that God or some intelligent designer may be in the picture and that naturalism may not be the only 'reasonable' explanation to consider.

Thanks for the suggestion Granny Magda-it didn't work so I still haven't seen the video but it was a good idea nonetheless. That's possible of course but the analogy may still be apt. We can't know that for certain.

What is that evidence?A think a lot of are under the impression that ID is creation "science" lite, established after the Edwards decision of the US Supreme Court as a way to sneak creation "science" back into the classrooms.The standard arguments for ID are not impressive either:

So, what is the evidence for ID in 100 words or less (and you can't bring up anything to do with evolution).

---

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

So what is the I.D. model? Have you all agreed on what is designed by your designer, and what isn't? Does this designer design every individual organism, or does he design at the level of species or family or what? Does he design organisms to fit environments, or environments to fit organisms. How will you decide these points? Hold a seance and ask him/her/it/them? Does he design complex systems for parasites to attack their hosts, and the complex immune system defences of the hosts? If so, what for? To amuse himself?What is the alternative theory, and when will the first bit of positive evidence for it be revealed to the world?