Is Intelligent Design Religion in the Guise of Science?

Message 137 of 204 (449207) 01-17-2008 5:58 AM

Reply to: Message 108 by RAZD 01-13-2008 1:15 PM

No perhaps it proves a common intelligent creator that provided other creatures for us to use, eat etc. How would we eat them if they were fashioned from entirely different materials? How would we digest them? A carpenter makes things from wood. God makes carbon based life using 20 different amino-acids in various combinations in the various proteins. That way we can break them down and our bodies can build them up into what we need for growth, metabolism, our survival.You're welcome to assume a common ancestor but that is not the only possibility and it should not be taught as fact when it is only an assumption based on materialist philosophy.

Message 138 of 204 (449209) 01-17-2008 6:00 AM

Reply to: Message 134 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:31 AM

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Class should go something like this:

Evolutionists believe that everything can and must be explained in purely material terms

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But that isn't true.

Why do you want to lie to our children?

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Since neither historical worldview can be categorically proven

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But that isn't true.

Why do you want to lie to our children?

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Where's the threat?

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It's in the lie that there is a controversy when there isn't.

Here's a thought: Every year, we do a survey of the various biological journals of the past 10 years with regard to the articles published regarding the diversification of life on this planet.

However the percentages break down, that's how much time we'll spend on that particular topic. So if 70% of the articles are in support of evolution and 30% are in support of ID, then we'll spend 70% of our time discussing the diversification of life on evolution and 30% of it on ID.

Would that be fair? Would that accurately reflect the state of the science and ensure that nothing but science ends up in science class?

Or are you about to say that the journals are biased?

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What is your simplified version?

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That evolution is not "pure accident." You seem to forget that selection is decidedly non-random.

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Did we come from the minerals in the rocks, or did we come from chemicals

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Excuse me? I thought we were talking about evolution. You've wandered off into the topic of origins. Evolution has nothing to say about origins and is compatible with every single method of genesis you care to name. Life could have arisen chemically through abiogenesis, supernaturally through god zap-poofing life into existence, extraterrestrially through panspermia or alien seeding, interdimensionally through a rift in space-time, or any other method you could possibly imagine.

So long as that life did not reproduce perfectly from generation to generation, then evolution is satisfied.

Is god incapable of making life that evolves?

So it seems that you don't know what evolution is. You have completely ignored selection and you think it has something to do with origins. Couple that with your insistence that we lie to our children, and you wonder why people are having a hard time accepting your insistence that there is a controversy.

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Evidence, what evidence???

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The evidence at your local natural history museum. You have actually gone to your local natural history museum and asked to look at their research collection, yes?

The evidence in the petri dishes and test tubes in the biology labs. You have actually gone into a biology lab and spent a few years of your life doing the experiments, yes?

The evidence in the field. You have actually gone out into the field and spent a few years of your life digging for fossils or tracking genetic profiles of populations across generations, yes?

If you haven't, if you aren't aware of the results of those who have, how can you claim there is no evidence?

Serious question. I really do want an answer to these two questions:

When was the last time you were in a science library reading biology journals?

When was the last time you were in a laboratory doing experiments in biology?

If you can't quite recall, what makes you think you are in a position to say what evidence exists?

Once again, here's a thought: Every year, we do a survey of the various biological journals of the past 10 years with regard to the articles published regarding the diversification of life on this planet.

However the percentages break down, that's how much time we'll spend on that particular topic. So if 70% of the articles are in support of evolution and 30% are in support of ID, then we'll spend 70% of our time discussing the diversification of life on evolution and 30% of it on ID.

Would that be fair? Would that accurately reflect the state of the science and ensure that nothing but science ends up in science class?

Or are you about to say that the journals are biased?

Message 139 of 204 (449211) 01-17-2008 6:08 AM

Reply to: Message 109 by Rrhain 01-13-2008 7:05 PM

Atheists have plenty of faith. They absolutely believe that there is no God (in the absence of evidence). They can't prove that, they believe it and they base all their assumptions on that worldview.
It's called 'religion'.

Empirical science doesn't care, but the materialist philosophies of atheists do care enough to insist there is no God and that everything should be based on that presupposition.

Truth doesn't care what atheists think. It remains true nonetheless.
God doesn't care what atheists believe, He just knows that they are running from him and can do that only up to a point - the point of total regret.

Message 140 of 204 (449213) 01-17-2008 6:29 AM

Reply to: Message 137 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:58 AM

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How would we eat them if they were fashioned from entirely different materials?

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Through the process of digestion. That's the entire point. What you eat gets broken down and then converted into new material that has nothing to do with what you ate.

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How would we digest them?

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The same way we currently digest all food: Physically and chemically.

One of the problems of human digestion is that we can't digest cellulose. We don't have anything that can break it down. And yet, we eat cellulose all the time. We get past it by the physical act of chewing in the mouth and the physical grinding of the food in the stomach and intestines. It breaks the walls so that we can get at the bits inside.

When you eat the muscle of another animal, it isn't like it goes straight to your muscle to be patched in. No, it gets broken down chemically into constituent parts and then reassembled into human muscle.

So there is no reason why a creator would create everything to share the exact same DNA. In fact, given the sheer diversity of things, a designer would be foolish to try and use the same process for everything.

F'rinstance, humans have a broken vitamin C process. In the other mammals, vitamin C can by synthesized within the body. There's a multi-step process to synthesize your own vitamin C from glucose so you don't need to eat fruits for it.

Except in humans and the other primates, we have a broken gene in step 4, GLO. Because of this broken gene, we cannot synthesize vitamin C and must consume it in the food we eat. The first three steps of the process are still present in humans and other primates and the first three steps in the process to create vitamin C takes place, but because the fourth gene product in the process doesn't express correctly, no human can synthesize his own vitamin C.

Now, here's an interesting point: Guinea pigs also have a broken vitamin C synthesis pathway, but their pathway is broken in a different way.

Why would a creator make life that can synthesize its own vitamin C but withhold it from another form of life? And why would a creator withhold that ability in two completely different ways?

Since a creator is free to do whatever on earth it wants to do, the fact that the biological scenarios we actually see exist as they do is of no help in deciding if a creator was involved. Because "god did it" explains everything, it actually explains nothing.

But the exact opposite is true with regard to evolution. With evolution we expect to see that life is interconnected with one-off deviations scattered everywhere. It would be an amazing disproof of evolution if we saw that all organisms were genetically distinct with no connection at all among them.

That's the difference between the science of evolution and the religion of ID. With science, there are wrong answers: If you see X, then that means you've disproven your theory because it should have been Y. With ID, there is no such thing as a wrong answer: If you see X, then that's just the way god did it and there's no particular reason why it couldn't be Y...it just isn't.

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God makes carbon based life using 20 different amino-acids in various combinations in the various proteins.

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Indeed, but humans only need 9. We can synthesize the rest of them on our own. F'rinstance, you don't need to consume taurine. You can synthesize it from phenylalanine. So why would it matter if each type of life were unique to every other form of life? Just synthesize what you need from whatever it is that you eat...there's no reason for it to be anything like you at all.

And by the way: Dogs can also synthesize taurine but cats can't. Why would a creator decide that one species can synthesize the amino acids it needs while another species can't?

We do not assume a common ancestor. We conclude it. It is the only explanation. "God did it" is not an explanation because it doesn't actually explain anything.

Message 141 of 204 (449214) 01-17-2008 6:32 AM

Reply to: Message 139 by Beretta 01-17-2008 6:08 AM

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Atheists have plenty of faith.

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No, they don't. That's the entire point behind atheism: To have no faith.

Are you about to tell atheists they don't understand their own philosophy? That they're lying to themselves? That they're simply being spiteful and willful?

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It's called 'religion'.

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And that's what atheists don't have.

Atheism is a religion the way not collecting stamps is a hobby.

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God doesn't care what atheists believe, He just knows that they are running from him and can do that only up to a point - the point of total regret.

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BZZZZT!

Pascal's Wager. I'm so sorry, Beretta. Johnny, tell him what parting gifts he has!

Well, Bob, Beretta has won himself a lifetime of anguish in someone else's hell! Yes, that's right. After spending all of his life fighting against Satan and worshipping the Christian god, Beretta gets a reward of going straight to Hades for his hubris. He'll be sentenced to solve a series of puzzles for which the instructions can be read in many ways. Every attempt to glean more information will be met with "Since it would just be a waste of my time to tell you, I won't." Of course, every proposed solution will conflict with something in the contradictory instructions. This being for his continued insistence that those around him are unworthy of explanations.

But, he won't get hungry because he'll have an afterlife-time supply of Rice-a-Roni®, the San Francisco Treat.

You didn't really think that the god that truly exists is the Christian one, did you?

Message 142 of 204 (449215) 01-17-2008 6:37 AM

Reply to: Message 135 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:42 AM

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technological advances continue in the absence of evolutionary assumptions.

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Not any more they don't. It's how manufacturing gets done.

The Boeing 777 wasn't designed. It was evolved. No human knows exactly how the thing was made. The computer used evolutionary algorithms to come up with the plans. Modern industrial design is all about evolution.

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Only natural selection and variability have anything to do with science.

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And that's evolution. So what are you complaining about?

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Origins philosophies...

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...have nothing to do with evolution, so why are you bringing them up?

Message 143 of 204 (449218) 01-17-2008 7:21 AM

Reply to: Message 107 by RAZD 01-13-2008 1:09 PM

I don't know that there's a contradiction but if there is -what specifically is the contradiction? I know that there are a range of beliefs that nonetheless support ID because it posits a designer. The individual's beliefs are not contradicted by those concepts -for example specified complexity. On the other hand there are those that believe in an old earth and a common ancestor which is completely at odds with what others believe. That doesn't bother anyone, the fundamentals are what is important -matter didn't create itself.
One can be a YEC and an ID proponent at the same time. You can even be an evolutionist and an ID proponent (theistic evolutionists) and there are a lot of different inbetween positions. The point is that all believe in intelligent input at some point and that everything is not random and related to pure chance and natural law only.

I disagree. The individual's specific religious beliefs are not needed or wanted in science, the science behind intelligent design is what is important in ID.

Except that you keep your view of the individual details and agree to disagree which is not the same as compromising on those details.

No I don't agree with that -logically valid is not necessarily true -they may be based on pre-existing suppositions and may not be equally valid because two opposing conclusions cannot both be true.
However again, we are not worried about those differences in the ID approach but we can sort out the suppositions and the facts in time by working with the principles that lie behind ID ie. separating fact from assumption and empirical science from historical science.

Got to go -will answer the rest of this when I can get back.

Message 144 of 204 (449224) 01-17-2008 7:52 AM

Reply to: Message 134 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:31 AM

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Evidence, what evidence??? Keep your eyes shut tight and you will never see. You are a very loyal member of the Darwin Party that much is clear and loyalty is a great trait but the truth of what the argument is all about has got to leak through at some stage.There's a paradigm shift going on -your philosophy is old and tired. Wake up to reality -lots of people are and the truth of what real science is,is infinitely satisfying.

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Now you're the one who's following the party line with eyes tight shut - and promoting an old and tired philosophy agianst real science. The ID movement has been proclaiming a paradigm shift for years - and it looks less likely now than it did when the Wedge document was published. The Wedge program at least insisted that the science should be done first. However when that failed to happen the ID movement simply went on to the next stage - despite the warniongs in the Wedge document itself.

Instead of producing an exciting body of new research - which is what a new paradigm shift would require - the ID movement spends more time whining about (largely invented) persecution.

ID is a political and PR campaign to influence religion for religious reasons. That's really all there is to it.

Message 145 of 204 (449226) 01-17-2008 8:07 AM

Reply to: Message 135 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:42 AM

That's not encouraging critical thinking. Quite the opposite. For you to even suggest that teaching students that "God did it, so no further investigation is needed" is a a valid and acceptable answer, and that it somehow encourages critical thinking is so utterly preposterous, that the thought of you having any say whatsoever in our education system scares the crap out of me.

Not so with ID. With ID, it stops with "eureka, God did it". No further questioning allowed and no further investigation needed. What a complete crock of shit to be teaching our children.

You know, you spout off a lot about Natural Selection this, and Variability that, and Philosophies these, and blah blah blah.

Look, it's quite simple...cut the bullshit and provide to us the I.D. hypothesis. What is the testable hypothesis put forth by I.D.? If you truly believe that I.D. meets the criteria of being a real scientific tool, then for the first time in the history of the planet, provide for us the workable, testable, falsifiable hypothesis on which it is based.

And while you're at it, why not provide us with even ONE new piece of usable information we have "learned" from I.D. What scientific advancement has it brought to the scientific community and/or the World as a whole. What do we know now that we did not know prior to the utilization of the new, revolutionary, scientific tool known as Intelligent Design?

Message 146 of 204 (449241) 01-17-2008 9:52 AM

Reply to: Message 145 by FliesOnly 01-17-2008 8:07 AM

Wrong -ID claims that the evidence does not support that concept as well as it supports special creation by an intelligence that acts beyond natural laws inherent in our system. The fact that creatures appear fully formed in the geological strata, remain essentially unchanged (ie. exhibit stasis) for the duration of their appearance and then disappear abruptly or (in other cases) are essentially the same as those now living, is better explained by special creation rather than by gradualism which is badly supported by the available evidence. Id also claims that wonderful stories of gradual evolution of,say the eye,are badly supported since all different kinds of fully developed eyes appear, not piece by piece, but complete in the geological record.
Where are all the inbetween partly functional eyes? What would their purpose be that natural selection would retain them if they didn't work to begin with. Considering the many many parts that have to work together with nerves and brain co-ordination included in order to be of any use at all, it remains, to our thinking, inconceivable that no intelligence nor plan was involved.
I realize that this is a hard concept for an evolutioist's mind to get around but nonetheless, it is a reasonable alternative to the evolutionary model of gradualism and just because you find it hard to believe, that does not make it necessarily untrue nor inconceivable. In the absence of pure proof either way, lets climb out of the evolutionary box and consider the alternatives.

In the absence of absolute proof for your view, lets allow for the alternative models to be considered.That is critical thinking as opposed to indoctrinated thinking.

Nobody ever advocated that - you don't like the idea so you misrepresent it in order to make it look stupid. "Ok stop your work medical researchers, no need to work out how to fix eyes anymore, let's just pray." If you think that is what is going on, then you are not really thinking. We don't have to know where the eye came from in order to investigate it and work on technological ideas concerning it. Philosophizing about its origin is nice and interesting but lets just stick with the empirical science when studying it and technology will continue to advance.

The thought of evolutionists having total say over what we should believe about origins scares the crap out of me!

No, it is generally followed by imaginative stories of how evolutionists believe it happened with no evidence at all to back up their assertions just that solid belief that material mechanisms must account for everything.

The fact that we are discussing it and the discussion is accelerating all the time shows that we are moving out of our evolutionary indoctrinated coma and beginning to really think based on the advances in what we do know.

I'm not here to write a thesis -there are so many good websites out there presenting these things -why must I repeat it? -would you like some references???? I'm debating general concepts not the specifics -you can read, go and look.Google it -go to ARN, go to crev.info Investigate it properly before you condemn -there's a good reason this stuff is catching on and believe me, it's not going away unless you can organize the death penalty for those who would dare to question Darwinism.

Most branches of science were started by people that believed that God was responsible for creation and that we therefore live in a rational universe with working laws. We do empirical science just like everyone else. Like I've said before, you don't have to prove where an eye came from to investigate the structure.

And in the same vein who needs to know that we must have evolved in order to investigate what we see around us? Why would it be scientifically dangerous to not swallow that hogwash whole?
You have been indoctrinated by the anti-ID hype -please proceed to investigate the issue without your preconceptions of what ID entails and get the real story then perhaps you will calm down.

Message 147 of 204 (449244) 01-17-2008 10:09 AM

Reply to: Message 134 by Beretta 01-17-2008 5:31 AM

Actually, what you really want is pretty clear. As expressed in the Wedge Document, the goal of ID is to redefine science to include the non-material, as you make clear later on when you say:

IDists want to redefine science because they understand it doesn't fit within the current definition of science, which keeps it out of science classrooms. To get into science class IDists have to either start doing real science, something they don't seem particularly inclined to do, or they have to redefine science, something that actual scientists aren't particularly inclined to do.

You also claim that science specifically excludes God:

Science is actually inclusive, not exclusive. It includes everything for which there is evidence detectable by our senses, directly or indirectly by any means available. To the extent that there is evidence of God or an intelligent designer, they are more than welcome within science.

You also abuse the word "prove" quite a bit, for example:

Now, we all know that nothing can ever be proven in science, if "prove" means 100% certainty, because science is tentative, and so nothing in science can ever be proven. But scientists use the word "prove" all the time, because in a scientific context "prove" is just a shorthand way of saying "supported by sufficient evidence."

But your above sentence wouldn't make any sense if we just did a simple substitution, because that isn't the definition of "prove" you had in mind when you wrote it. What you really should have said is, "What we want is for teachers to present the evidence that supports evolution." And this is something I think everyone could agree with.

I'd like to touch on just one more thing, your apparent desire to create two categories within science, those that are "historical" and those that aren't. This isn't a distinction that is currently drawn within science, and so it represents another change that you want to make to the definition of science. Science only cares about evidence. It doesn't make any difference whether the dinosaur bone dug from the ground was put there one year ago or millions of years ago, it's still evidence, and we can learn about that dinosaur bone through scientific analysis.

The reality is that all scientific endeavors study the past, just some study a more distant past than others. What counts is the evidence.

--Percy

Message 148 of 204 (449253) 01-17-2008 11:48 AM

Reply to: Message 146 by Beretta 01-17-2008 9:52 AM

Who needs to know?

That sums up the manifesto of the Christian Cult of Ignorance. They seem to think it is better NOT to know the truth than to challenge their dogma.