Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Would like an example of those wrong ID predictions. I've followed ID literature for some time and have been surprised at the LACK of predictions. I hadn't seen any so I posted 3 of my own earlier. The one about life signs on Mars is testable in our life time too.

Not that a theory has to be testable to be a valid hypothesis. See Hawking's theoretical source of the universe for example.

Why would ID predict no life on Mars?

It seems you are simply taking an event that you feel isn't likely to happen and saying if it fails to occur than it proves you were right. What if someone argued that atheism predicts there is no planet between Earth and Mars so if no planet is found that proves there is no God.

I explained my reasoning when I posted the prediction. Many 'anti IDers' maintain that abiogenesis is virtually inevitable where conditions permit. Mars looks to have had those conditions at one time, so by their reasoning, Mars is likely to have signs of past life.

Well, I can't spend too much time reviewing history, so I'll just note the obvious one... People used to think that life was too complex to have evolved on its own through natural processes and they declared fervently with hands to heaven that it must be proof of God (or some ID). They were wrong. We now understand how biological evolution works and we can see that it is a perfectly natural process requiring no ID at all.

Interesting but nonsense. The opinion of some anti IDers is your basis for what ID predicts? The point is that ID should make specific predictions. Failure of another hypothesis is not evidence of support for yours.

ID needs to predict something based on ID. You still haven't presented anything that ID predicts. So what does ID predict?

People also used to think the world was on the back of a large turtle. We now know that was wrong. (At least most of us know that.)

It may or may not be wrong. You can't really know. Tips hat to sweet F.A.

I told you where to look. If you are too lazy to read the original post, I'm not obligated to do it for you.

Pouting?

As far as life on Mars goes, the daytime temperatures on Mars run about 200K to 230K, on average about 220K. Freezing on the Kelvin scale is at 273K. If there is or ever was life on Mars, it was very likely deep underground--it is certainly unlikely that it was ever on the surface.

I notice you haven't addressed your math failures.

As to reading your original post. I have gone back over the last few days of your posts and found nothing that even resembles 2 testable predictions that you have stated ID makes. Your 3rd one, which I am aware of, has proven to be not based on anything ID can predict but rather a wedging of God in what you think is a gap.

I couldn't. I'm still laughing too hard over your charge of 'creationist probability formulas'.

There is pretty good evidence that ancient Mars was warmer than it is today (although it may not have been much warmer) and had a thicker atmosphere. And we know it had liquid water on the surface.

I'm a big fan of the sub-surface life idea for Mars. If we do end up finding microbial life on Mars today (re Methane plumes) then I'm certain it will be subsurface. And if life ever existed in the past even though it may have originated on the surface, I'm sure it would have found more success in the subsurface. Based on the latest findings, I suspect that even today Mars has an extensive subsurface layer of ice with some areas which become temporarily fluid.

I like to think that the Methane plumes which are such a mystery at the moment, are a sign of life below the surface. But we don't have enough evidence to conclude that yet.

I see. So you stand by your argument that abiogenesis states there is only one molecule and only 1 attempt to create that molecule?


Rather than address your failing you are going to trot out a straw man. The probability formula you used assumes one attempt. That doesn't make it "creationist". It makes it wrong headed and idiotic to use that formula to show a molecule couldn't occur. It would get you flunked in any HS statistics course.

I don't think you understand the implications of that number: 1 / 2.3316 x 10 ^ -302 (For a sequence of only 500) That's the chances of each attempt being functional assuming a chain that short could be functional (which it wouldn't).

I never said you only get one chance. Even if every atom on earth got its chance to become that self reproducing molecule (assuming one is even possible), the odds of one of them being a functional combination is still vanishingly small.

But you can still appeal to statistics yourself. There is nothing that says you might not get lucky on the first attempt. But would you bet on those odds?

The hydrological flow patterns which can be seen on the surface of Mars would as well have been created by glaciers as by liquid water. There are two camps on the "wet Mars" hypotheses, one that there was a long period of surface water and a dense atmosphere, the other that there was only a short period. There are many planetologists who will point out that there is no unambiguous evidence that there was liquid water on the surface. It is, however, a majority opinion that there once was. However, that was likely to have been three and a half or even four billion years ago. The "Big Hit" hypothesis--that a planetesimal collided with the northern hemisphere of Mars about three and half billion years ago accounts for it no longer having a dense atmosphere and for the huge discrepancy in the elevation of the northern and southern hemispheres. The "chaoses" of the southern hemisphere are from 10,000 to 20,000 feet higher in elevation than the northern hemisphere above 30 degrees of latitude north.

Mars has not had an active volcanic cycle for millions of years, so the idea of life surviving or arising in volcanic vents is dubious. But the core of Mars is still hot, and i agree that if life is found, it will likely be underground. Underground environments would also provide protection from solar radiation, which right now would kill you in a few years if you weren't able to get underground for long periods of time. There may well be a good deal of permafrost, and at certain depths that could be liquid due to the pressure of the regolith above it.

Schiaparelli, who named the most prominent albedo features on Mars, saw what he considered evidence of hydrological flow. This has been confirmed, but is not necessarily evidence of liquid water--glaciers can make the same channels, it just takes them longer. Schiaparelli named them channels, which in Italian is canali, so that's how we got all that old "canals on Mars" BS. Thanks to journalists, of course, who wouldn't know science if it bit them in the ass.

Conversations like these are far more interesting than listening to the latest creationist bible-thumper.

There are thousands of different algae and lichens, as well as diatoms, in Antarctica. Mars, though, is currently somewhat colder than Antarctica. It's possible that such types of organisms survive there--but i would think that they would have had to arise in volcanic vents, or deep underground.

ESA's fly-by mission recorded lava flows thought to have been as recent as two million years ago. There's no evidence of anything more recent, so volcanic vents would not likely be a contemporary environment. Most extensive lava flows on Mars have lobate edges, suggesting it was colder than a well digger's ass when those lava flows occurred. Most evidence is that Mars has been very cold, even in the it's dense atmosphere phase.

From what we've seen here on Earth, once life gets doing it pretty much takes over the whole planet, and it evolves over time to remain viable in whatever conditions the planet has to offer. Based on that, I would guess that if life ever existed on Mars that it still does. If there is subsurface water/ice/slush or whatever, and I think there is, then I think there's a decent chance we'll still find life (microbial) hidden in there. I plan to respond to your previous post regarding the evidence for liquid water on Mars, but I haven't had time yet. I'll try to get back to it later today if possible.