ID taken to the end

I'm moving this quote from the bottom of you post to the top of my response: Here's why: You are building a strawman. Again.You are claiming that MY argument is "life less complex than humans can't produce technology."That's not my argument. It's never been my argument. It's a strawman that you are building.My argument is, has been, remains and will remain this:A life form which is _LESS COMPLEX_ than the _SIMPLEST LIFE FORM ON EARTH_ (and keep in mind Humans are NOT the simplest life form on Earth), does not have the complexity necessary to generate the technology necessary to be "the designer". Of course it does.Here, point out where I'm wrong so we don't keep mistaking each other -a) ID makes the claim that life on Earth could not have been produced without the help of a designer.b) The subset of the ID argument we are discussing is the "It's not necessarily God" dodge which claims that the designer COULD BE a space alien.c) The problem with this dodge is "Where did the space alien come from?". That can only be explained as either "from God", "from another space alien (infinite regression)", or "evolved naturally". We are discussing the "evolved naturally" claim.d) Since the premise of ID is that all life on Earth is too complex to have occurred naturally, then the follow up claim that the designer may have "evolved naturally" MUST adhere to the same standards as the initial claim.In other words - if ALL LIFE on Earth is TOO COMPLEX to have occurred naturally, than life which "occurred naturally" must NECESSARILY be LESS COMPLEX than life on Earth.e) The simplest life on Earth is too simple to generate the technology needed by a "designer" to travel to Earth and actually do the designing.I'm not saying that "designers" can't design things which are more complicated than themselves. I'm saying that "designers" which are restricted to being LESS COMPLEX than the simplest virus on Earth are restricted in what they can accomplish - either intellectually or physically. So, it sounds like what you are saying is this:It's perfectly reasonable for ID proponents to claim there is a designer despite not having evidence FOR one and despite acknowledging that one isn't necessary to explain the existing data.This is sort of like adding "...caused by magical Smurf Ninjas." to the end of everything because while there's no evidence that it's true and no reason to believe it, there's nothing that says it couldn't have happened.So, "An object in motion tends to stay in motion... because of magical smurf ninjas. An object at rest tends to stay at rest... because of magical smurf ninjas."IDers are making the claim that ID is the BEST description of what we observe. They can't make that claim if they are ALSO making the claim that ID is not necessary to describe what we observe.It's either "the BEST" answer or "not necessary". It can't be both. The argument from IDers is that their route is the SHORTEST route. That life on Earth COULD NOT have evolved it's complexity without a designer.They can not ALSO argue that life that is MORE complex than life forms on Earth _COULD_ evolve with a designer.It can't be both.Either life on Earth is TOO complex or it isnt. Wow. Let's just keep repeating ourselves over and over again.A designer which is LESS COMPLEX than the simplest virus is NOT COMPLEX ENOUGH to generate the technology necessary to travel to, create and manipulate life on Earth.It has nothing to do with whether or not a simple thing can create something which is more complex than itself. It can.It has EVERYTHING to do with the arbitrary cut off that the IDers are establishing as the basis for their argument:EVERYTHING on Earth is TOO COMPLEX to exist without a designer.Therefore, a designer is NECESSARY for the simplest thing on Earth.Therefore, a life form which exists WITHOUT a designer MUST BE LESS COMPLEX than the simplest life form on Earth.So, that's your threshold.Your "naturally evolved designer" can NOT BE more complex than the simplest virus.That means a NON-cellular, single short sequence of DNA has to have invented the technology to travel to Earth, create life and manipulate it. No, it doesn't. ID can't be a competitor to evolution if it doesn't deal with evolution.Evolution doesn't care how life started, it only makes a claim for AFTER life exists.If ID doesn't make a claim for after life exists, but only how it started, then ID is not a competitor to evolution at all. Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't have jumped in on your conversation to CRITICIZE your argument....Oh, hey, wait a second. I didn't. Did I?It was, let's see.... oh right, YOU. It was YOU who jumped in to criticize me.Wow, that must be really embarrassing to accuse someone else of doing what you are doing. I feel for you. Apparently that you should have the right to criticize me and that I should roll over and take it without daring to defend myself lest I be "irritating" to your majesty.

And I'm telling you, there is nothing that prevents this designer from starting out a lot less complex than the simplest life on earth but then evolved to something more complex. Remember that ID has no problem with evolution. This is where your logic goes wrong. We can examine life on earth. We can't yet examine the designer. What makes you think the designer must adhere to the initial claim?For all we know, the designer could have been made of crystals. Correction. Life whith occurred naturally must necessarily have STARTED OUT less complex than life on Earth. You keep trying to push forward your strawman. Let me repeat. ID doesn't reject evolution. Not at all. But just because it's not reasonable for ID proponents to claim there is a designer without any evidence doesn't necessarily mean it's ok for you to present an argument that is obviously BS.Again, just because there is a better route to a destination doesn't necessarily mean I didn't take the longer route. Just because there didn't need to be a designer doesn't mean there was not a designer. I keep seeing you and others use this argument against ID. We're suppose to more logical, remember? I'm just against you using a BS argument against ID. Then it's their problem. That doesn't mean you can present any BS argument against them that you want. I see that you conveniently left out the part where I said even though ID deals more with the origin of life it also deals partly with the mechanics of evolution. You know, the random mutation and natural selection stuff?Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

No, Behe has no problem with evolution.ID is bring presented as an alternative to evolution.Something can not be an "alternative" to evolution unless it is different from evolution. That's who whole point of the word "alternative".You are trying to reframe ID as though it's theistic evolution. It's not. It never has been. The initial claim is that the "evidence" for ID is the amount of complexity.Therefore the _amount of complexity_ is the significant criteria which is being judged.I don't care if the designer is made of crystals or mercury or lollipops. The criteria which necessitates the claim that there is a designer is the minimum level of complexity on Earth.Therefore, given that that is the ONE AND ONLY criteria presented, you can not discard it simply because it's inconvenient to the rest of your argument.If "complexity" necessitates "designer" and "minimum complexity on Earth" is above the threshold", then ANYTHING with more complexity than the minimum complexity of Earth requires a "designer".Period. Except, you know, in reality.So Dover was about what, exactly? The school board was insisting that teachers teach Evolution in school so the scientists came to defend the teaching of evolution against the people who were trying to teach evolution? And in the end, it was a great win because the teaching of evolution was upheld and the teaching of evolution was rejected?Come on. This is getting sort of pathetic. You don't get to relabel ID to be something other than it is because you think it's going to win you an argument. It absolutely does if we're told that any route longer than the best route could not have happened.ID claims that evolution COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without the designer.You can't claim that they ALSO are saying that it DID happen without the designer.The two arguments are opposites of one another, you can't label them both ID. I see that you conveniently contradicted yourself again.Are you lying now, or were you lying above when you said "ID has no problem with evolution".I'm only going to both refuting ONE of your lies, so if you could do me the favor of picking one lie and sticking to it it would save us a lot of time.Oh, and if you find that "irritating", tough.

Ok, let's just stop with the clutter.Do you or do you not agree that just because there didn't need to be a designer doesn't mean that there wasn't a designer? Don't try to introduce other elements. Just answer this very simple question.

What contradiction?IDists don't have a problem with things evolving over time. This is what I meant when I said ID doesn't have a problem with evolution. IDists, however, want to introduce another mechanism that drives and guides evolution. They call this mechanism intelligent design.Jesus christ, do you know anything about ID or are you just criticising ID to show people how smart you are?Edited by Taz, : removing obscene language

I agree that just because there doesn't need to be a designer doesn't mean that there wasn't one.However, the "logic" that "complex life couldn't have come about without the input from a designer" completely eats it when you then go onto say "a designer can come about naturally through complex life that didn't require a designer".Either "complex life" requires a "designer" and therefore the 2nd half of the statement is wrong -or- "complex life" does NOT require a "designer" and therefore the 1st half of the statement is wrong.Basically, the whole "It's not Jesus, it's a space alien" is a load of crap introduced by Creationists who are trying to hide the fact.

Occasionally, we do see people on the evolution/science side who make outrageous claims. Actually, there was one guy here who claims to be a geologist and claims that he could read people's minds. He once explained this as syncing his bio-electric field with the other person's bio-electric field. According to him, the reason people usually can't read other people's minds is because there is no "signal" louder than their own. It's like the radio where you can't talk and listen at the same time. So, this guy claims that he could shut down all his thoughts in order to "tune in" with the other person's thoughts. Anyone know who I'm talking about? I can't remember his username on here.Of course, we all jumped all over him for this. This is one of the strongest characteristics of mainstream scientific community. We criticize our own if they step out of line.The ID/creationism side, however, has a different mentality. They are always afraid to criticize their own. And at times, they would rally to defend their own even if it meant defending a ridiculous position.An example of this is all those racist slurs yelled at the McCain rallies. Not a single conservative stepped up to condemn those nutcases. McCain never even said a thing about it. If these things were to happen at a more liberal rally like a gay rights march or women's rights you can bet your ass that the nutcases would have been ostracized by the people in the rally pretty quickly.Another example is our very own Ray Martinez. Can anyone remember any instance where another creationist criticize Mr. Martinez for his wildly crazy ideas? Just do a search for his posts and you will see that Ray represents probably the worst crackpots out there.If you look carefully at the official position of ID and what happened with the Rover school board, you would have realized that members of the school board were in fact creationists who thought they could bend ID to their liking. I highly doubt those school board members knew anything about ID. All they knew was that it was an alternative to mainstream theory of evolution, so they just assumed it was to their benefit as creationists.Unfortunately for ID/creationism, the mentality among their side of the spectrum is they would defend their own no matter how crackpot their own turns out to be. And that's exactly what happened with the Rover trial.

Good. Then stop using this argument against ID. Stop saying that there doesn't need to be a designer therefore there was no designer. It's annoying as hell everytime I read someone criticizing ID with this argument. I agree completely. However, this doesn't excuse you from keep using the "there's no need for a designer therefore there was no designer" argument.

Sigh. I'm bored with Creationists who want to redefine terms every other post.evolution = change over time
Evolution = NATURALLY CAUSED change over timeSo, yes, Mr. Both Sides of the Mouth, "IDers don't have a problem with _e_volution", just with _E_volution.But IDers aren't trying to get _e_volution removed from schools. They are trying to get _E_volution removed from schools.Happy? You win. You used a lower case "e" and I didn't catch it. You're awful tricky. Yeah that's me alright. I've been criticizing people soooo much on this thread that was dead for 5 years.In fact, I tracked you down on a thread where you were posting and came and criticized you just to show you that I'm so smart.Oh, crap. That's right, that wasn't ME, that was YOU.It was YOU who came here. It was YOU who criticized me to try and show me how "smart" you are.It was YOU who cleverly used a lowercase "e". Bravo.Congrats, I bet you're the smartest kid at Bible camp.Edited by Nuggin, : No reason given.

However it does mean that since there is no need for a designer there is no reason to consider, look for or even speculate on some designer.Intelligent Design is simply silly, pointless, adds no value or knowledge to our understanding.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Would it be more convenient for you if I give you my login and and password. That way you can just log in AS ME and post these strawmen you are constructing under my name instead of trying to pretend like I've written something I haven't.Would THAT make you feel like you've won?Perhaps there's someone with better reading comprehension skills who can come and help you - maybe then you would see that...I
AM
NOT
MAKING
THAT
ARGUMENTIs that clear? Do I need to be clearer? Is it POSSIBLE for me to be clearer?Is there a way that I can write this post in crayon? Would THAT help you?

While that's true, that's also not what I am saying.This whole portion of this thread is about this:IDers who want to hide that they are claiming the designer is Jesus make the argument that the "designer" could be anything - even an alien race from another world. However, that argument NECESSARILY raises the question - where did THOSE aliens come from?That question can only be answered three ways:
a) Those aliens are Jesus or were designed by Jesus
b) Those aliens were also designed by aliens who were also designed by aliens who were also designed by aliens who were also designed by aliens who were also designed by aliens....
c) Those aliens evolved naturally"A" makes the whole dodge worthless.
"B" is infinite regression
"C" means that evolution is a valid answerSo then their argument becomes that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved naturally. That naturally evolving life DOES in fact exist elsewhere and has resulted in a life form MORE capable than life on Earth. And that that MORE capable life form came to Earth and "designed" life here to be MORE complex than the naturally occurring life but ultimately LESS capable than it.It's a childish self contradiction.But hey, what do I know, I'm just here to criticize.

However it was what Taz was saying.I have not seen or thought that you said anything like that.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Time to put your money where your mouth is. Let's have the password.

Ok, as far as the need or not need for a designer argument thing, I could have sworn you said somewhere along the line. A quick look through you posts and I can't find it. May be I'm remembering from what someone else said. I apologize for the misunderstanding.Post # 76 This still bothers me. You're making 2 assumptions here that I have been rejecting since the beginning.(1) A thing of certain complexity cannot create another thing that is more complex than itself.(2) The designer IDists are referring to started out as less complex than the least complex life on earth and remained less complex than the least complex life on earth.Again, prominent IDists have made it abundantly clear that they do not reject the notion that things "evolve" over time. This leaves the door wide open for the designer to have started out a lot less complex than the least complex life on earth and that this designer "evolved" over time to become more complex.I think the problem here is you're referring to the non-prominent IDists who have identified the designer as the judeo-christian god, an ever unchanging being.Edit.And I still want the password. Edited by Taz, : No reason given.