intelligent design, right and wrong

Don't forget the Amish!Of course they are the exception among Xtian denominations. And that is something I wonder about what with all this talk of Xtianity being the only source of peace and meaning in the world.Most Xtian denominations (as organized religions)have stood against peace and knowledge for most of their existence. Sure their leaders talk about peace and truth, but this "peace" does not seem to reach beyond fellow believers, and "truth" is defined as filtering reality through a singular text with many different interpretations.In fact the vast number of possible Xtian "truths" have led to so many horrific conflicts between Xtians themselves, it makes the idea that Xtianity unifies anyone in peaceful union and a common morality almost laughable.Xtianity is just as splintered morally as any group of atheists/agnostics, only most Xtians also have an overriding drive to convert others to their specific beliefs... by force if necessary.I'm not saying that atheism/agnosticism is the best way to peace and a common morality. I'm saying that the meaning a personal belief in Christ generates is just as good as the meaning an atheist or agnostic creates for themselves while learning how to interact with others.Perhaps the only difference is the latter group has less extra-worldly hangups to impose on others in this life. Then again some atheists get all bent out of shape regarding economic/political forms and do just as much damage trying to convert others to that.Why can't people be content that others find meaning in this life from many different sources? And realize that knowledge about this life does not come from any source of personal "meaning"?------------------
holmes

You seem to miss the point that being able to say "I don't know" is what gives science it's power. Scientists don't know MANY things, but can identify what they don't know and the good scientists refuse to claim knowledge until they have pretty solid evidence.Claiming you know what happened because you read some book (which gives no detailed explanations) is easy, actual knowledge is tough.You also seem to have missed the point that abiogenesis is wholly separate from evolution. "Evolutionists" don't need to know how life began, in order to explain how it functioned once it was here.This is underlined by the fact that one of Intelligent Design's major contributors (Behe) admits that evolutionary theory is mostly and perhaps wholly true. Intelligent design may only hold true for abiogenesis.It would be helpful if you learned more about what you were critiquing, as well as what you are supporting (ID) before posting.This is not the first time I have seen a creationist waving the ID flag, and not have a clue how ID (much less science) works. And unfortunately that is exactly the criticism scientists (including religious scientists) have made against ID. It is too easily used as a tool to water down science for creationists.Saying ID is right is not the same as saying the Bible is right. It is a scientific theory and you need to understand its strengths as well as its weaknesses. If you think ID scientists don't say "I don't know" about much of how life came to be, then you haven't read any of their works.The difference is ID theorists want to use specific areas where we currently lack knowledge, which may simply be temporary, as a permanent signature of knowledge. Or at least the worst of its promoters do. A very bad move for science.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 05-22-2003]

This is not the criteria for belief in intelligent design theory.This is criteria for belief in creationist theory. The gulf between the two in methodology is vast, even if ID supports a claim that a god may have existed.Nice way to avoid my earlier post to continue saying something which simply is not true. You have no belief in ID theory at all. Or if you do, please explain what plank of ID theory (besides it's conclusion) you find acceptable, especially as it states portions if not all of evolutionary theory may be correct. Also, ID theory totally rejects YE theory which is part of the Bible (and by the way is historically INaccurate).------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 05-23-2003]

This is totally incorrect.Belief in the Bible does NOT mean a belief in Intelligent Design theory. Almost every ID theorist refutes that very idea, while countering criticisms by evolutionary theorists.Just check out the Discovery.org site if you don't believe me... and don't want to read ID books on the subject.Creationism is the belief that God created man as it says in the Bible. Unbound by science or logic, creationists are at liberty to make claims such as "right and wrong mean there is a god." Or that fulfillment of biblical prophecy is a sign that god is real.Intelligent Design theory is based wholly on scientific evidence (even if absent strict scientific logic) found within biological or cosmological entities themselves for design by an outside intelligence. As such, ID theorists are restricted to comments about natural (physical) phenomena alone.As I have already stated, ID theorists refute specific biblical statements regarding genesis and human history because they depart from scientific evidence.Thus belief in the bible, especially a strict reading of the bible, means a DISBELIEF in intelligent design theory.Along similar lines, there are scientists who believe in the bible, yet refute intelligent design theory as very bad science and therefore proof of nothing, including their own faith.Thus you can be both a believer and a scientist, and come to the conclusion that ID is wrong.The only connection between belief in the bible and belief in ID, is that both maintain an entity of some kind was involved with certain natural phenomena in earth's past. But both exist independently of each other.ID theory MIGHT help some with a general faith feel they have some scientific support, but only as long as such persons are not too strict about biblical truth or scientific methodology.------------------
holmes

Unfortunately this is an equivocation. Belief in an intelligent designer does not require, or involve belief in ID theory.I totally grant that belief in the Bible requires one to believe in an intelligent designer. However, this has nothing to do with a belief that we can discover that an intelligence must have designed specific biological or natural phenomena by looking at scientific evidence regarding their physical construction.A good example of this kind of equivocation would be to say that all Egyptians believed in Creationism. To them the gods created the earth, which is a creation event, thus they believe in Creationism? No, they believed in a creation event, but it had nothing to do with Judeo-Xtian Creationism.See the distinction I am making here? Hardcore Biblical literalists believe in intelligent design (small i small d) but would be forced to reject Intelligent Design (capital I and D), just as many ID proponents have had to reject hardcore biblical literalism because of certain inconsistencies between the two.Those that are flexible on Biblical literalism can embrace ID, as a support for their faith in id.Argh... I hope I am making sense with this. This is one of the problems with ID theory, both id (of creationism) and ID (of ID theory) are significantly different. They may come to the same conclusion (a God exists), but the methods and realities supposed by the two are different. And yet the waters of debate get muddied as creationists claim ID helps them, not knowing that all they really have is id and not ID (consequently mixing and matching methodologies)!I would prefer if ID theory changed its name to something else so creationists could not make this equivocation, and that critics would not fall into the same semantic trap.------------------
holmes

NosyNed is totally correct. You cannot mix their motives with the theory they are advancing.While all the active IDers I have seen appear to be bible thumping bigots of the worst order, their theory truly does not require belief in any specific god.It merely requires a misstep in logic, ironically the same "leap of faith" and "black box" Behe says evos use, to come to a dubious scientific conclusion that certain natural phenomena are designed.You want one person who could be an IDer and not a Bible thumper? Francis Crick (the discoverer of DNA). Now I can't say he'd be foolish enough to buy into ID theory, but he did believe that life was sown throughout the universe by aliens. That is id (small i small d). If he believes Behe's arguments regarding the irreducible complexity of biological systems, then he truly believes in ID, with the IDer being aliens.In fact, I think there is a serious reductio heading toward ID theory for all the bible-boppers clinging to it. If they are serious about their scepticism and conclusions based on that scepticism, then Xtian mythology will eventually have to replaced with another IDer.Certainly biblical literalism goes out the window with ID theory, and once people start trying to divine "purpose" of humans, based on construction, it is clear that the Xtian God was not the likely source. I'm sure we'll then start hearing about devils and saints being IDers, but that opens the door to polyIDers which undermines support for the Bible just as much as evolutionary theory.To my mind, IDers first made a misstep in scientific logic (rushing to judgement that they have found design), and then made one in strict philosophy (totally assuming the identity of the IDer).------------------
holmes

And they say ID theory should be taught in school, because too much materialism is being taught in the guise of evolutionary theory. Yet here we have someone who claims to be in 8th grade not knowing the basics of evolutionary theory.Biglifty you need to spend some time reading real biology texts, or even other portions of online resources... like this site.Evolutionary theory say nothing about humans descending from apes. Apes and humans are two totally different branches which split while "descending" from a common ancestor which as it turns out no longer exists.I guess this could be read as saying your condition #1 is the case, but it is not that simple.Evolution does not demand that an ancestor die out for a "descendent" species to emerge. New species form as a specific organism adjusts to new environments, either because it (or a number of that species) has moved into a new environment, or because their original environment has changed.Neither does it demand that all stages remain. This should be obvious as beings that are changing due to their environment wouldn't normally keep breeding each specific stage as separate breeding populations, just to keep them around.You have to shake the idea that these changes are sudden and dramatic... something to human, something to ape. It is a fluid change where children look slightly different from the parent and eventually the accumulation of these changes results in an ability to say (or categorize) a new specie.An better analogy (than your adults and babies analogy) may be to imagine evolution in terms of a single person's life.Imagine organisms as a baby. Due to internal pressures and external pressures, the child grows accordingly. At some stage we are able to "categorize" the child as a "toddler" and not a "baby". And then a "teen", then an "adult", etc etc.The baby does not snap from one category to the next. Neither does it bud into the new form leaving both a baby and a toddler, so we see each stage. It simply changes and eventually we recognize new and distinct forms that it has taken on.This is a very simple analogy, but it should work to help you over the hump of yoru dilemma. After all it would be odd to have someone tell you you were never a baby, because you don't look like a baby now, and there are no traces of this "baby" you say you once were.And as a final note, evolution has not "stopped" because we have apes and humans. Both are still evolving. Within one's lifetime, it is impossible to see the evolutionary process in action... except for the minute changes between parent and child.Please read more biology and evolutionary theory, and perhaps some logic texts as well. This will only help your arguments in the long run.------------------
holmes

They must reject elements of ID which specify that biblical passages do not constitute evidence for any particular scientific theory, and that scientific evidence must be taken as superior to strict biblical interpretations.ID theorists have openly rejected YEC, and in some instances admitted that evolution may have been the major force for speciation (though never abiogenesis). These are all rejections of literal interpretations of Biblical creation.Dembski himself, in Intelligent Design: Bridge between Science and Theology, suggests that scientific evidence must take precedence in interpreting scripture. The biggest example for this necessity being Xtianity's dismal failure when it crushed astronomy centuries ago in order to impose the "reality" of biblical descriptions of the universe.You can always check out their discovery.org website to see how they separate themselves from creationists, and strict literal interpretations.------------------
holmes

I had a feeling crashfrog's comment was going to cause some problems.First of all "punctuated equilibirium" does not suggest in the slightest (or at least nothing that I have ever read) that one species suddenly gives birth to a new species.It only suggests that species remain stable with relatively small physical variations over very long periods of time, until a major environmental change comes along.After the environmental event, selection effects result in permanent changes rather than back and forth changes within a boundary, gradually producing new species.The surprise is that this gradual change is much faster than was held by original evolutionary theorists, but it is not instantaneous.Perhaps crashfrog was talking about very small organisms, like bacteria. Changes can be seen within a single bacteria's lifespan, much less between generations. There is a whole other debate raging within evo circles on what this means. Some suggest that bacterial life does not contain species at all, and that speciation is only a property of multicellular life.But to re-answer biglifty's question. Humans did not come from apes. Neither did humans suddenly come from something between apes and humans.Members of a species relatively unlike both splintered into separate breeding populations (due to location or what is unknown) and gradual changes in both populations (not to mention many more splinterings) have resulted in what we see today. There are apes and there are humans.Perhaps we could be called a type of ape, certainly we are all primates. But that is all based on how we choose to classify each "type" of organism. In the end the chain of which organism changed through generations of breeding to become what would remain the same.------------------
holmes

Exactly, with the further addition that he may not have had to directly tinker with organisms from time to time. If he set up the original info, then he could have put "time-release" or "situation-release" info into the systems.But then again I have seen some Trojan YEC Theorists within the ID camp.Some argue that once you have proven that something has been designed, and so there must have been a designer, and so it could have been a God... all bets are off. That means He could have simply created the world to look as old as it is, because a God can do anything.Of course why God would forget to erase his work in biology (as he did in the rest of the world) is left unanswered, as is the question of if God wanted us to believe the world is old--- and went to all that trouble to make it look that way--- shouldn't we believe it?I notice that "official" ID websites don't knock these trojan IDers and their websites at all. One would think they should spend even more time trying to refute creationists riding their coattails and making them look bad, than evos who they claim share a bond in scientific methodology.------------------
holmes

I have answered your question in more than one post. At the very least check post 79.But here is a recap: THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN APES AND MEN. APES AND MEN EVOLVED FROM SEPARATE SPECIES, WHICH EVOLVED FROM SEPARATE BUT CLOSER RELATED SPECIES, etc etc traced back to a species unlike both apes and men.It was that original species which spawned different branches through isolation of breeding populations.Is there some reason you are ignoring my posts and restating the same error you made initially?------------------
holmes

This is exactly where ID theory becomes IDC theory.If ID was truly pure science, not only would they admit that there is no immediate replacement for evo (if evo has been refuted), they would not say that ID ends materialist philosophy and replaces it with a teleological philosophy that contains "moral answers to everyday problems".It's as if they found some chinks in the armor of evo theory, raced to the conclusion that evo is no longer good, continued sprinting to their next conclusion that things must then be designed, then leaped (the same leap of faith Behe talks about) to an idea that it must be a deity type (extra-material)designer, then leaped again to what morality that deity had intended for us... conveniently that deity must be the Xtian god and had a son which died on a cross for all man's sins.All that from some unanswered issues in evo theory?Normally I'd prefer to eat ice cream, but with neoconservatives pushing IDC watered down definitions of science into government documents, and changing educational requirements to foist their "new think" on unsuspecting children, sometimes killing some people looks just as tasty.
(heheheh... just kidding)------------------
holmes