Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I prob wouldn't have clicked on it either. Not a statement; just some humor

We could go on and on and on about our POVs and it will prove nothing. I don't know whether the environmental changes were controlled by a 'super intelligence' or not. ID's central tenet is that life emerging without the critical component of information in the form of design did not happen.

ID advocates do not have the budget to perform large scale experiments (like "real science" does) but further more, what experiment would you have them perform to prove a negative? 'Your' side maintains that spontaneous life is not only possible but inevitable given the right conditions and raw materials (that you specified in your post). So it is YOUR side that has the obligation to perform the successful experiment to generate life from the components and conditions you claim made it.

Go ahead, add all the ingredients you like, use as big a sample as you like, change the environment in whatever way and as often and to whatever extent you think is necessary to create the most rudimentary self reproducing life capable of evolution that you insist is possible. Do anything EXCEPT add INTELLIGEGENCE AND/OR DESIGN to the mix and see what you get. If you are right, this ought to yield life or SIGNIFICANT precursors (not just amino acids) in short order.

Has this been accomplished? Of course not. I doubt any scientists would even propose such an experiment because they INTUITIVELY KNOW it would fail and they would be laughed at for submitting such a grant proposal. Nor would anyone be willing to spend their own money on it. But WHY? Why would they not if they really believed in their heart of hearts that it is possible?

Preliminary experiments of this nature HAVE been done but ONLY by starting with known existing DESIGNS (sequences) using nucleotide sequencing machines and other methods but that OBVIOUSLY involves Intelligent Design, albeit furnished by humans and/or existing organisms.

No matter how you slice it, there exists no evidence of non intelligent design creating Life. OTOH, there are inumerable inferences of Intelligent Design in Life.

all those items Ive posted we can MEASURE , MODEL, and (based on uniformitarianism and LAws of Superposition ) PREDICT. Im satisfied that, once a geological event occurs, it leaves a trace of the event and that similar events can be similarly analyzed.

Ros made the point several pages back that implied that, in effect, we are all "intelligent designers" when we recognize and use the laws of chemistry and can understand how oxidation etc can cause all these things to happen in time.

Your rationale that, because we havent yet achieved life in a test tube, its explicitely proven (in your mind) that the origin of life needed an Intelligent designer.
Im sorry butyou have no idea how you would even begin such a study.

Understanding how and when and where it has happened is good enough for me because Im not wearing any baggage that some religious POV requires of me. You really are making some ridiculous demands of science without any evidence to support them.

I can see by your choice of words that I must be angering you. Just like your past arguments on "neutral theory", science doesnt really have a lot invested in these stands.
Darwin himself originated the concept of neutral theory and , in a later work, he speculated that life probably had a natural beginning but in all- he was unequipped, (because of his lack of knowledge in genetics and chemistry ) . He was skinning his evidence for all he could get out of it. Here we are 157 years later and weve got the genetic thing down pretty much but we still dont have a decent lab handle on biogenesis )

If you believe something strongly, go with it. Noones stopping you. Similarly, if you feel youve actully got some evidence besides the above faact-free assertions. We are all aware that ID has it core belief that "Life is too complex to have risen without some intelligence driving it all".

To me, This is merely a pronouncement of our existing levels of ignorance, not an indisputable FACT that such an intelligence exists.

Not having a budget to conduct any research is kind of a copout. Darwin had an allowance-He didnt even get paid when he went on the Beagle, In fact HE PAID THE ADMIRALTY for the honor of being Capt Fitzroy's companion. He drafted an entire theory that still stands starting with a monthly allowance from his father. Basically He developed his theory for free.
Its one of those things that great ideas have in common, they have, in retrospect a degree of obviousness."I coulda thought of that" -
Well, if ID is so damn obvious to you, theres got to be something beneath your single tenet(or Frankies rqnts). You guys have really nothing but bumper stickers an baseless , evidence-free, unfalsifiable assertions.

Also, most sciences develop outcomes that, either right or wrong (we are only now beginning to celebrate the role of failure ) ultimately lead to truth and facts.
Jut like evolution, these facts qre a matter of time and work

My point is, you'll never get it!

http://www.400monkeys.com/God/

Civil reply, but you erroneously inverted the whole point of my last post. You are either willfully doing that and hope no one notices or just responding with knee jerk arguments.

Other than looking at all the design inferences in life, I said that I nor anyone could possibly know how to perform an experiment to prove a negative (that life without design could not arise). It would not matter how much money I or anyone threw at it, you can't prove a negative. (I assume you know that?)

The other side of the coin that you ignored is that you are saying that you DO know the conditions and ingredients needed for life arising by natural processes and with all that knowledge and a butt load of funding, science does not have a clue how to go about doing an experiment demonstrating what you say IS possible. You say you are satisfied understanding how, when and where it happened? Sound's like you should be able to do that experiment any day.

Angering me? Please... I AM kind of dumbfounded that someone who claims a measure of intellectual honesty can either fail to understand these simple points or intentionally distorts or ignores them.

Unlike the assertions of many on the 'all natural' side of the argument, I'm All for more actual science work on understanding life going forward. So far it supports rather than refutes the idea of ID. After all, it was born of the relatively recent discovery of DNA and the mechanisms around it. Without that, ID as I have been discussing it would not even exist other than the religion based creationist stuff which is not related at all. I regret that ID gets tarred with that brush. On the other hand, many here are all too happy to supply the labor, tar and the brush.

I believe you're missing the point: Scientists have concluded the necessary ingredients for life. Design has nothing to do with it; it's about evolutionary process. There's no negative inference.

The necessary ingredients for life are water, organic compounds, and energy.

and where does that come from?

Thanks.

I like humor videos...so maybe I'll make an exception now that you explained.

I see.

Mine is that you do not know what you are talking about...and on those occasions where you might know what you are talking about...you write so incoherently, you cannot communicate whatever it is you are attempting to.

That was an example of incoherence, ci.

You should get some school kid to proofread your posts before posting.



Thank you for sharing that blind guess. Why did you make it sound as though it was a divine revelation?

I notice that you continue this mantra and yet hqve never explained the"why" . The dicovery of DNA is over 100 yeaqrs old now and its placement within a genome clearly shows the relationship among all organisms . We see the DNA in animqlss who are clearly derived due to some natural isolation (or even a human caused isolation).
You wish to ignor all that evidence or claim that it supports ID?

The recent Issue of SCIENCE has an interesting article re the derivation of the early proto mammoths to the evolution of the Columbian Mammoth. The evolution of these species show a pattern that clearly defines its derivation as a result of a migration due to climatic and edaphic hanges from the early Pleistocene. We have just enough undegraded DNA to show their evolution from "non upwrnatural means". (Similar to thos of cichlid fishes, Sticklebacks, Polar nd Brown Bears, and many speicies of monkey).

Your continued amazement at my inability to "run to your way of thinking" is probably that Ive suffered from over 40 years of teaching and working in the field. I know, its a curse thrust upon me for not maintaining my Catholic tabula rossa mind.
But even so, I pride myself in actually reading whatever the self -published literature maintains about the " correctness of ID".


I submit that , your ID buddies have no idea about what evidence to look for to cement their case , so they are just flailing around claiming that "Epigenetics is undeniably ID influenced, or DNA smacks it"
Every time someone attempts to use some of these irreducible complexity arguments as evidence, someone else wastes time to show the IR "researcher" how silly his assertion really is.

Imposter NAILS it!

The problem was that you were talking so FAR above my head that I didn't get it.

Finally I am enlightened, after imposter's beautifully elegant explanation.

CI has never been an "imposter" he knows his way around pretty damn well.

If you excuse use of the English language, that is.

Pot, meet kettle.

You have a problem with my use of the English language?

YOU????

It's "all of you."

The children are at it again!

What are you doing in the children's playground?