ID taken to the end

To me, the weak part of the argument is the premise: Since evolution makes no statement about origins, I don't understand why (in this sense) evolution and ID must be at odds. Could it simply be that ID operated only for origins? Whatever happens after origins need not be designed.Seems to me a story like this would be the most logical way to try and explain purported "data points" of complexity which "couldn't have evolved." ID creates the complexity; whatever variation / mutation / evolution that happens afterwards, happens.In other words, I don't see where you're assumption that everything must be designed comes from. I thought it's just the origins that need to be designed (in ID). But I'm not very familiar with specific ID theories, just general ideas I learned through this board.Just a thought.This message has been edited by Ben, Wednesday, 2005/09/07 10:18 PM

Nuggin,My thinking was more inline with the previous poster's thoughts. ID operates at the time of creation of some "complex" thing, like an organ or whatever. After that, there's mutation and variation, maybe even evolution.ID is trying to:
- explain the appearance of "complex" things
and
- predict that no such "complex" thing will ever come from evolution.If that's the case, then I don't see how it conflicts with variation and mutation in organisms. I would just say that today's organisms are a mix of design plus mutation. ID would just be saying that evolution wouldn't be able to create certain kinds of structures in the future.Does that make sense?AbE: I think I'm disagreeing with this assessment. I dont' think ID is saying that "changes have been guided." I think it's saying that things were formed statically as is.Or maybe your suggestion is one type of ID, and mine is another type. Both seem consistent with the title "Intelligent Design." Just, if the designer is not a god, then I don't see even at the surface level that it could manipulate changes continually. It seems like a non-starter theory. And I'm pretty sure ID (in general) allows for non-god designers.This message has been edited by Ben, Wednesday, 2005/09/07 10:32 PM

I don't think so. Mendelian genetics wasn't widely known at Darwin's time; there was no mechanism given by Darwin for heredity. There were NO mechanics of heredity, only descriptive accounts of results.(Note: I vaguely remember this, and I did a quick Google search to confirm and looks like I'm basically right; for example see Wikipedia's heredity page.) Like I was writing in AnnaFan's thread on ID being non-science, I disagree. Just because a theory has black boxes (i.e. lacks mechanisms for parts of it) doesn't mean it's not worthwhile or "scientific." Another good example of this (besides Evolution Theory, as shown above) is Newton's gravitational law. It's completely based on description of observation; there was no attempt to describe a mechanism at all.

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Anyway, I have a proposal. We're fairly clever people. It's clear that ID is not at all a theory. What if WE try to make it into a theory. Seems that the ID people aren't doing the proper work; let's try to do it for them. We can assume some critical part of ID (maybe that "irreducibly complex" exists), and see if we can find a non-God ID theory that works. And I mean, let's actually try. I don't want to do a half-assed effort, then shoot it down and say ID is impossible. What do you say?Although I get the feeling this is in the direction of what Brad has been working on... so maybe we're better off spending more time understanding Brad's thoughts.BenP.S. Do you mind if I start calling you "Nugs"? An old friend loves the Denver Nuggets, and he always called them the "Nugs"... it's my temptation every time I respond to one of your posts...

Maybe your question is better asked at AnnaFan's rant about God and bad things. Why do bad things happen? Seems like you're assuming they're due to an all intelligent, all powerful designer.If you're really interested in trying to push ID to see what's there, I'll ask you to go back and hit my previous two post (9 and 20). ID can't go anywhere with such a designer, so I'm more interested to push it assuming a non-God designer.Ben

There's lots of ways to get an intelligent designer:
- maybe life on earth before the lineage we see intelligently designed the life we see today (including us).
- maybe extraterrestrial life did it.
- maybe "intelligence" does not require life. I have the hunch (but no real understanding to back it up) that many of Brad's thoughts are headed in this way. Maybe there's something about the laws of the universe that LEAD us into the life we see, rather than it being as "accidental" as (abiogenesis + evolution) proponents would believe.It's hard to keep two of these threads going at the same time. I would invite you to visit my response to AnnaFan's similar question here; it fleshes out some of this, including
- how, if we discovered this, it would move us forward in our understanding of the origins of our own species
- how we don't need to know the origins of our origins to move forward (i.e. starting with a black-box designer is OK; simply revealing that there was design would be a critical step in investigating the physical basis of life.)Hope that helps clear up my thoughts.