Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Yep, and I can build a computer by putting enough transistors in a box and shaking them up long enough.

And how did that non DNA based life form reproduce? And then evolve! How would it preserve the fortunate mutations that natural selection works on?

I know it works for you, but I can't buy it. Too much faith required.

I loved the living glop thing...

NO, you have to think nat selection. The "first" computer was a bunch of rocks that slid down a hill because they broke off a ledge and were overcome by the grvity of it all. They lqnd in a heap qt the bottom of the hill qnd are swept away in a freshet in a donga that deposits the now rounded stones in another heap where OOG, the first mathemetician discovers them and thinks "I COUNT THESE"

Thats the very nature of the separation of first life from even modern microbes.

You hve a habit of trying to slip some "nnew think" on me when all you hqve to do is try to dicuss the items at hnd.
Im sure every Christian in the room is familiar with William Paley's arguments in his Natural Theology,or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature Even Darwin hd a copy. That arguments been updated by the IDers with the " building a 747 by having a windstorm in a junkyard" and of course, yours where you build a computer from COMPUTER PARTS.

1st Life wasnt even that advanced, it was a bag of soup that rolled away from the cold and darkness and reacted with various forms of energy.

I never said it works for me. Im an earth scientist/ geochemist Im not involved with abiogenesis. Im only reporting stuff out. I still have lots more reading to do as the research process moves along.My only points relate to the observation that the scientific data to date is the only thing that makes SENSE.
Im a data kinda guy and if evidence shows up that can really make Irreducible complexity a possibility in the evolution of life, Then Id have to make room for alternatives including :intelligence in the cosmos"

'Faith is only needed where evidence doesnt exist". Every point youve discussed has a mountain of evidence that (with enough effort on your behalf) is understandable and compelling (The more ya know the more its obviousness kicks in)

Sorry for not answering (I needed a haircut)
Your statement is, in effect, NOT a tautology because it is not repeating the same phrase.
The "possibility of ID"(statement B) is a dependent condition that REQUIRES statement A to occur.

Im merely saying that I see no evidence for either.

Sorry for not answering (I needed a haircut)
Your statement is, in effect, NOT a tautology because it is not repeating the same phrase.
The "possibility of ID"(statement B) is a dependent condition that REQUIRES statement A to be valid (or a possibility)
Im merely saying that I see no evidence for either.

I clearly stated "in effect", FM.

And it is.

Tautologies do not repeat the same phrase.

In logic, a tautology is a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.

If there is the possibility of a god...there is the possibility of intelligent design.

Check it out more carefully, FM...you will see.

Wow. You claim

Then when I point out contradictions you state:


It seems you want to make arguments that you can run away from when they are shown to be silly and unsubstantiated.

There are a few issues with this statement. Atoms become molecules when energy is applied. DNA is a molecule. Energy comes from many sources that are not supernatural. We see atoms forming molecules all the time in nature. You are simply arguing that a complex molecule can't be created from simpler building blocks yet we see that all the time in nature.

In your analogy, you are missing the most basic thing which is attachment of the parts. Transistors don't attach to each other by simply applying energy.

Just applying energy will not form molecules of DNA with the Specified Information required of a living organism. Random combos won't do the job.

You are dodging the point on the analogy. Even if we make the transistor leads magnetic so they stick together or add a PC board with holes that mate with the transistors so they fall into place and wires that do the same, you will never get a functioning computer in the 4 billion years available of earth's existence.

no you check it out, youll see.

There is another problem you have. Atoms don't randomly attach to other atoms. Maybe this will help you:
http://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/cfb/basicchemistry.htm

You seem to have missed the other part of evolution. The small transistor groups in your analogy that don't destroy themselves and actually function need to be able to multiple a lot. Then the small groups can make larger groups that also need to be able to multiple a lot. When we do that, you will get a functioning computer well before a billion years. But I tell you what. You give me a box with 1 trillion of the basic parts for building a computer and I guarantee that dumping them on the floor will result in some of them falling in such a fashion that they create a simple computer. An AND gate only requires 5 components with 4 of them being unique and an energy source to function. An AND gate is a basic computer. Assuming there are only the 4 items in your box, the chance of building a basic computer in the form of an AND gate is 1 in 1024. But wait. A NAND gate only requires 3 components to build. That means the chances of getting a NAND gate in throwing the objects in the air is 1 in 64. A NAND gate can also function as a basic computer. So if I follow your sceanrio, I will get almost a billion AND gates and over 15 billion NAND gates. 1 NAND gate makes a NOT gate. 3 NAND gates make an OR gate. I have more than enough there that if half of them stay together when I pick them all up and throw them on the ground again and do this several times, I will quickly have a circuit capable of doing some pretty sophisticated computations.




You are making the mistake of assuming that atoms can form randomly any way they want to. They can't. There are specific rules for how it works.

You are assuming that nucleic acid can assemble randomly. It can't. There are specific rules for how it works.

You said that you make your living in a field of science, but you seem to be ignorant of some basics that others here are acutely aware of. What gives here? Please explain.

"Specified Information" is a code phrase coined by Discovery Institute for use in these kinds of "debates"

Link to some background on "Specified Information"? I'm already (sadly) familiar with DI.

First, if you falsely attribute one more assumption to me I will regard you as unworthy of further discussion. Quote me if you have an example.

Second, you are simply wrong about how nucleic acids assemble in DNA. The only way they do form is randomly. The 4 of them (A,C,T & G) have absolutely no preference in the order in which they link up other than the complementary pairs which form the other side of the helix. That is just a mirror image of the information in the primary RNA strand. If you cannot defend that last bit of bullshit I'm done with you.

Specify the basics that you accuse me of being ignorant of.

So what? If the shoe fits, wear it. You are more than welcome to disprove that DNA contains specified information. I'm waiting....

You, and others, have yet to say just what disqualifies Discovery Institute's position on anything other than that their members happen to believe there is a God. If that is grounds for dismissing anything anyone says, why are you bothering to talk to theists?

AHEM. The burden of any proof is not with me since I havent adopted any "code words".
The mechanistic approach to defining functional groups on DNA(wrt to "carrying information" is certainly a non-starter for Creationism . (IT JUST SOUNDS SCIENTIFIC) and because Dr Demski (the coiner of the phrase) is a functional illiterate wrt biosciences he is trying to dazzle us with his "scientismic" bullshit.
As I said numerous times, we know how the functional groups align and link. we understand the bonding mechanisms and how it all is put together. AS Gould said, and I offer this in your consideration

'DNA is merely the bookkeeping of evolution, nothing more, nothing less"

coding proteins still requires somatic cells upon which to effectuate the "record keeping" .
I think thats why life really did NOT require a big batch of record keeping equipment until it was actually useful, then the same chemical reactions that caused the cell wall to exist, could also be part of the reactions that cooked up and strung these nucleotides together. Now, of course, that science has found a vast workshop of reactions in epigenetic, ribose sugars, nucleic acids, nucleotides and amino acids, just how and when these get assembled as permanently "coding" molecules becomes more easily understood.

When you consider how really Irreducible these "complexities" are (or are not), being a believer of a grand plan requires a lot more faith than does understanding how a chemical linkage that prefers either the plus or the minus side of an amino acid, in and of itself could react to an environmental change that caused the pH or Eh of the medium to rise or decline a wee bit . (the difference between a toxic or a liveable water column is only one or two pH units and weve seen life adjust to ALL pH levels demonstrating amazing phenotypic arrays. We have coal acid runnoff in the rivers of Pa that have given birth to entirely new species of annelids and tartigrades . Surely you dont blame a GOD for the acidification of the Susquehanna River do you?

Thats just some evolution where we can see the effects being done .
It seems that weve coinned a name "EXTREMOPHILES" that in most cases can be seen to be highly modified genera of already existing species that have (perhaps) evolved to adapt to toxic environments that, in many cases, are actually man-made.

Iknow, I know, you will now drop back and punt thephrase that asserts "MICROEVOLUTION IS NOT MACROEVOLUTION"
.

(I beat ya to it)

you are funny