What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)

Hi Drevmar,You are making a couple of classic errors here. Firstly, a lack of evidence for evolution is not evidence for design. You can complain all you like about the alleged lack of evidence for macroevolution (something that you are quite mistaken about I assure you), but none of that amounts to positive evidence in favour of design.Any hypothesis requires evidence. Actual tangible positive evidence in its favour. Lack of opposing evidence is not enough. Alleging that alternative hypotheses are inadequately evidenced is not enough. You need to bring positive evidence for design. That is the purpose of this thread, to explore what design evidence might look like. You have not done that. Surely you can appreciate why this type of testimonial isn't very impressive. You may have convinced yourself with this "experimentation" (which you do not describe), but it is worthless to an outside observer. It's just too subjective. Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it, but one of our rules here is that threads should be kept on-topic. If you want to keep posting on this thread, you need to bring some positive evidence in favour of the design hypothesis. If you want to talk about this supposed lack of evidence for macroevolution that you mention, that belongs elsewhere on the forum. I'm sure you will find plenty of members eager to engage with you in that discussion, since you are quite, quite wrong about it. Surely you are aware that countless scientists actually are Christians? You seem to have a very warped preconception of what a scientist is.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Drevmar, What? You knew that there was overwhelming evidence for macroevolution? But you still said that it could not occur. Why that is strange, because that would make you a contemptible liar. Is that what you are Drevmar?And you knew that there were countless Christian scientists who support evolution? But you still wrote as if scientists were all godless infidels? That, again, would make you a pathetic and disgusting liar. I guess that's what you must be.A liar for Jesus. Another one. Because Jesus loved liars.Bottom line; this is not a place for you to proselytise or make unchallenged statements of faith. This is a discussion board. If you are unwilling to discuss what you post, then don't post it. If all you are interested in doing is telling moronic lies that make you (and, by association, Christianity in general) look foolish, without defending those positions in discussion, then this forum may not be the place for you.On the other hand, if you decide to grow up and you think that your positions are defensible, you might try to engage in adult discussion. Y'know, like a grown up person. Instead of a childish liar.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi havoc,For future reference, just the one reply to the one message would have been sufficient. You can always edit a message if you feel you wish to add more. NO, the fact that it is so makes it so. If you would like to discuss some of the evidence for macroevolution, I would be glad to discuss it with you. The current Animals with bad design. touches upon one of the classic pieces of evidence; whale evolution. Or you might like to address the issue in the thread Dogs will be Dogs will be ???.The topic of this thread is not the evidence for macroevolution though, it is "What is evidence of design?". I was initially attempting to coax Drevmar into trying to provide with some design evidence, but apparently, he isn't interested. Or hasn't got any. Probably both. Because they are Christian. Ken Miller for instance, is a scientist, a vocal advocate of evolution and a devout Catholic. Francis Collins, another scientist and evolutionist, is an evangelical Christian.You can pretend that Catholics and Evangelicals are not Christian if you like, but it will only serve to make you look like a fool. For the record, Drevmar's entire response to my post; That kind of reply does not qualify as either discussion or debate.Initially, Drevmar made a number of claims about his reasons for believing in God. I addressed those reasons and did so quite politely. Drevmar responded with a trite and dismissive one-liner. I regard that as extremely rude and rather pathetic. that's why he got a going over in the next post. I regard that as completely fair.If Drevmar is unwilling to address criticisms of his posts, then he should not be posting here. Further, if he knew that evidence for macroevolution existed, then he ought not tell lies by denying it. This is not a venue for drive-by proselytising. It is a debate site. If participants can't stand the heat...Now. Do you have any of that design evidence that I hear is so impressive? Or are you just going to continue whining?Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

I've told you already; I am more than happy to discuss any problems you have with macroevolution in the proper threads.
I even provided you with a couple of links.Beyond that I don't see what more there is to say.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Drevmar,Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I appreciate your taking the time to respond in full. I would also like to apologise to you for the tone of my previous message. Hopefully we can move beyond that and into some constructive future discussions. Sadly, the admin team have decided to close this thread for now, so I'm not going to be able to address your points in full; not on this thread anyway.If you would like to discuss some of the issues raised in your messages though, there are a number of open threads where such discussions would be on topic;

• What prevents micro evolution from becoming macro evolution challenges creationists to explain exactly what barrier prevents micro-evolutionary change from adding up to macroevolution over the long-term.
• Dogs will be Dogs will be ??? takes a look at the differences between species and focusses in particular upon one clear example of macroevolution; the evolution of the horse from small, dog-like ancestors.
• Animals with bad design. sees one of your fellow creationists, Aaron, trying to answer charges of apparent bad design in nature. Along the way, we have focussed quite a bit on whale evolution, another good example of macro-evolutionary change.
• And although you mention it only as a side point, The Bible's Flat Earth challenges the assumption that the Bible does not describe a flat Earth. Although you are correct in so far as that the Bible never explicitly describes world as flat, I believe that some books, such as Genesis, were written from a flat-earth perspective.

If you want to join in the discussion on any of those threads, I would be glad to participate.

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A general summary;I don't think that any creationist participant in this thread has provided any positive evidence of design. Probably the person who has come closest to doing so would be Slevesque, with his advocacy of Irreducible Complexity. I see two major problems with that argument.Firstly, Behe's examples of IC systems in biology have all fallen apart. Good evolutionary models exist for all of them. Some, such as the bacterial flagellum, were well understood even before Behe wrote Darwin's Black Box. Given that not a single IC biological system has been identified, I can't help but doubt the usefulness of the idea.Also, I think that the way that Behe's examples have been shredded speaks of the difficulties in actually identifying an IC system, both in practise and in principle. Behe thought he had found several, but he was wrong. If the diagnosis of IC is this shaky and if false positives are so clearly possible, then I don't see how we can ever have much confidence in claims of IC. If even the originator of the concept can be so badly deceived, then a diagnosis of IC seems an extremely shaky foundation upon which to challenge so well evidenced a theory as the ToE.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Hi Admin, It was that Percy who started it. Cluttering up the board with his off-topic boat banter... Damn disrespectful is what it is. You should ban his ass.Mutate and Survive(Nice idea about the summation-enforcement though )