Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

The point timber was made in post 2244414.

That evolution will find ways of tolerating higher levels of radiation than we have now and that Dworkin, by suggesting it is harmful, is being subjective because he only means harmful to his own way of life rather than life itself and he is therefore in the same bed as Creationists.

Any scientist, standing disinterestedly outside himself, a difficult concept for Americans seemingly, would obviously agree. Not all people are as susceptible to radioactivity as the most at risk and they are the ones who will be "selected" in an increased dose environment and thus their immunity will be passed on.

Whatever you think timber I think he made an error, as did his editor, of catastrophic proportions from an intellectual point of view. The man in the street, brought up on kid's sci-fi programmes might well think so to.

You carry on reading him if you wish but he's off my agenda goodstyle.

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real life wrote:

Most of the evidence that is said to support evolution is circumstantial in nature, and thus open to a variety of interpretations.

Nonsense. It isn't circumstantial evidence that there no human fossils have ever been found in jurassic strata. It isn't circumstantial evidence that many physiological features of animals point not to an intelligent designer, but to a patch-job on a patch-job on a patch-job (the nerves of the human eye, the "Picasso-look" of some flat species of fish, the fact that fishes in dark caves develop eyes in early stages of development, only to loos them in later stages. And there's thousands more of such instances.)

The ID proponents' arguments, however, why evolution is wrong and some designs are irreducably complex and require a creator, are circumstantial and quite frequently wrong.

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Thomas wrote-

Quote:

The ID proponents' arguments, however, why evolution is wrong and some designs are irreducably complex and require a creator, are circumstantial and quite frequently wrong.

Many proponents of intelligent design do not say that evolution theory is wrong and neither do they claim that a Creator is "required". They merely think that a Creator is a possibility which cannot be dismissed by an assertion. This idea, of course, allows a certain flexibility which the empirical evidence of science does not.

The British Labour party contains a section which is opposed to the Government's policy in the mid-east and to a number of other of its policies. One wouldn't attack the Labour Party on the basis of attacking them.

One needs to be careful to avoid inventing one's opponents for one's own use.

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spendius wrote:

Thomas wrote-

Quote:
The ID proponents' arguments, however, why evolution is wrong and some designs are irreducably complex and require a creator, are circumstantial and quite frequently wrong.

Many proponents of intelligent design do not say that evolution theory is wrong and neither do they claim that a Creator is "required". They merely think that a Creator is a possibility which cannot be dismissed by an assertion. This idea, of course, allows a certain flexibility which the empirical evidence of science does not.

Let's compare your claim to an interview on the PBS show "Uncommon Knowledge" with the Discovery Institute's William Dembski. Here's how Dembski explains the idea of "irreducible complexity". The interview is Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution.

Quote:

William Dembski: [...] The idea is that not only let's say if you want to reduce what you're calling a irreducibly complex mousetrap, not only do you remove a part but you have to modify another part. And if you can modify, let's say, I mean with the mousetrap, you remove what's--it's got a hammer, a holding bar, a spring, platform and a catch. You can remove the holding bar and then--rather you can remove the catch and make a little indentation in the hammer and then basically that indentation holds the holding bar and acts like a catch. You can reduce it in that sense. The notion of irreducible complexity, I mean, Behe's definition holds up. I mean, it's that you remove a part and you can't get a functional mousetrap but if you remove and modify, then you can get something functional. So the idea is that you can get to these irreducibly complex systems not just by adding parts but adding, modifying, adding, modifying, adding, modifying. So that's supposed to be a way around that.

Peter Robinson: And do you think that it is? Is his argument a forceful argument against evolution or not?

William Dembski: I think it is.

Source

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One needs to be careful to avoid inventing one's opponents for one's own use.

I agree. And I didn't.

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I consider Mr Bembski's explanation to be incoherent. If that constitutes your idea, Thomas, of a proponent of intelligent design possibilities, then I think you have invented your own opponent.

It would seem I am your opponent and what was given out by a self-publicist on a TV show has nothing to do with me. We are on A2K. Using a mechanical device as a metaphor in the realm of the sublime is too ridiculous for words.

A mousetrap needs a mouse and a person motivated to kill it. What is the explanation for the motivation when some people carry a mouse around in their pockets and buy it Christmas presents? I knew somebody once who's pet mouse slept on her cat.

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spendius wrote:

I consider Mr Bembski's explanation to be incoherent. If that constitutes your idea, Thomas, of a proponent of intelligent design possibilities, then I think you have invented your own opponent.

No I haven't. Mr. Dembski is a leading proponent of ID, as you can easily verify by Googling "intelligent design" and searching the hits for his name. I agree he is incoherent -- but the incoherence is his, not mine. And I haven't invented him, it's the ID movement itself who made him his spokesman.

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Thomas wrote:

real life wrote:
Most of the evidence that is said to support evolution is circumstantial in nature, and thus open to a variety of interpretations.

Nonsense. It isn't circumstantial evidence that there no human fossils have ever been found in jurassic strata.

This is somewhat of an argument from silence at first glance, 'we haven't found......therefore........'

But it also points out a problem with the supposed dating of the strata. Dating estimates often are revised, so dogmatic assertions regarding them should be avoided; and dating done by more than one method will often contradict that done by another method.

Carbon 14 dating is often not done at all on a sample which is assumed to be too old to contain any, so a self fulfilling prediction is set up. Meanwhile very many coal samples which are not supposed to have C14 often do.

Thomas wrote:

It isn't circumstantial evidence that many physiological features of animals point not to an intelligent designer, but to a patch-job on a patch-job on a patch-job (the nerves of the human eye, the "Picasso-look" of some flat species of fish, the fact that fishes in dark caves develop eyes in early stages of development, only to loos them in later stages. And there's thousands more of such instances.)

The fact that you or I might not understand the reason something was designed so, doesn't mean it was designed 'wrong'.

I happen to think the human eye functions pretty well.

And do you really think that the aesthetics of the 'Picasso' fish you refer to were the primary concern in designing it?

Now a fish that loses a feature , such as eyes, may not be evidence of the design at all, but possibly of the degeneration of genetic information within that species. This is consistent with entropy , but hard to explain by evolution since even a partially functioning eye should give it a 'survival advantage' and thus be retained.

Thomas wrote:

The ID proponents' arguments, however, why evolution is wrong and some designs are irreducably complex and require a creator, are circumstantial and quite frequently wrong.

I agree that the evidence which supports creation/ID is also largely circumstantial, as it is with evolution. Nobody observed creation and it is not occurring now for us to observe. Likewise, nobody has ever observed evolution and it is not occurring now for us to observe.

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Thomas-

Mr Dembski is a proponent of something I don't recognise. If labels for pressure groups are more important to you that ideas then so be it. The simple fact that he chose a mechanical metaphor of the utmost simplicity when he had a TV opportunity tells me that he's really an Anti-IDarian in disguise.

This is in yesterday's Sunday Times-

Quote:

All of which is a creation of Mediacorps for reasons of lucre.

When Anti-IDarianism triumphs that will be wall to wall man. ID defends the Patriarchy and masculinity. Is Dembski tangled up in matriarchal arrangements which only have legs on the basis of what the patriarchy put in the bank. (Historical psuedomorphosis).

Whether you know it or not you are all pagans. Anti-IDarianism has nothing to do with science. It's a conspiratorial self-serving coalition of pagans, homosexuals, feminists, carpetbaggers, abortionists, birth controllers, eugenicists, divorcees, trouble makers, henpecked husbands, daughter run dads, pornographers, wimps, asserters, the talent free, rights demanders, the vulgar, determinists, communists, narcissists, animal experimenters, cloners, adulterers, devil worshippers, euthenasiasts, witches, wizards, Blavatskyists and pumped up Gaderenists. (Apolgies to any I have overlooked).

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real life wrote:

Thomas wrote:
real life wrote:
Most of the evidence that is said to support evolution is circumstantial in nature, and thus open to a variety of interpretations.

Nonsense. It isn't circumstantial evidence that there no human fossils have ever been found in jurassic strata.

This is somewhat of an argument from silence at first glance, 'we haven't found......therefore........'

More like, we have been looking intensively for over a century. Based on these observations ...

real life wrote:

But it also points out a problem with the supposed dating of the strata. Dating estimates often are revised, so dogmatic assertions regarding them should be avoided; and dating done by more than one method will often contradict that done by another method.

Perhaps you can cite examples of frequent revisions and contradictory results? Sufficiently frequent and sufficiently contadictory to make the case for creationism or ID?

Carbon 14 dating is often not done at all on a sample which is assumed to be too old to contain any, so a self fulfilling prediction is set up. Meanwhile very many coal samples which are not supposed to have C14 often do.

real life wrote:

Thomas wrote:
It isn't circumstantial evidence that many physiological features of animals point not to an intelligent designer, but to a patch-job on a patch-job on a patch-job (the nerves of the human eye, the "Picasso-look" of some flat species of fish, the fact that fishes in dark caves develop eyes in early stages of development, only to loos them in later stages. And there's thousands more of such instances.)

The fact that you or I might not understand the reason something was designed so, doesn't mean it was designed 'wrong'.

Maybe it wasn't designed at all.

real life wrote:

I happen to think the human eye functions pretty well.

Compared to what?

real life wrote:

And do you really think that the aesthetics of the 'Picasso' fish you refer to were the primary concern in designing it?

I don't think there was any "designing" to consider its aesthetics in.

real life wrote:

Now a fish that loses a feature , such as eyes, may not be evidence of the design at all, but possibly of the degeneration of genetic information within that species. This is consistent with entropy , but hard to explain by evolution since even a partially functioning eye should give it a 'survival advantage' and thus be retained.

Not if there's no light to see.

real life wrote:

Nobody observed creation and it is not occurring now for us to observe.

You may want to Google "antibiotics-resistant bacteria" or DDT-resistant insects.

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rl-

You are an Anti-IDarian in disguise. Playing on their turf indeed.

Leave this to me young man.

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spendius wrote:

Mr Dembski is a proponent of something I don't recognise.

That says more about you than about Mr. Dembski and ID

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Good Thomas.

We agreed he was incoherent and one wouldn't wish to be lined up with that.

I see you mentioned-

Quote:

"antibiotics-resistant bacteria" or DDT-resistant insects.

Have you no comment on radioctivity resistant humans? Dworkin suggested that radioactivity was harmful in the human setting he's in and, by implication, for life in general and IDers are suggesting that Anti-ID is harmful in similarly human settings. It's a bit politically naive to try to foist Anti-ID onto communities who believe it to be harmful irrespective of whether they are correct to have such beliefs.

We are neither bacteria nor insects and not fossils either.

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spendius wrote:

rl-

You are an Anti-IDarian in disguise. Playing on their turf indeed.

Leave this to me young man.

Here in Manhattan, we are in the brief place between summer and fall, hotumn.

Spendi is in that briefer space between diapers and diapers, lunum.

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he,he.

It means he's stuck for words.

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By them, more correctly.

How are things over there in the land of fox hunts, anoraks, Green Knights, princely breast-grabbers, lousy hamburgers, emasculated Prime Ministers, warm beer, tragic footballers, and Martin Amis? Well, I hope.

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Hi Bernie-

Fox-hunting is carrying on as before I gather. Most Chief Constables have friends etc. They tried bringing one to court and all the little liberals took a day off work and the Magistrate had mislaid the papers or something and it's all adjourned. And the cops won't spend the money on a helicopter
besides which it's the dogs that do the hunting and if you put them in the dock you would get done for bringing the law into disrepute and we can't have that can we? To make it work they would have to proscribe the hound breed. When can an Englishman not ride over his estates with his friends and suitors for his daughter's hand in Holy Matrimony with his dogs. If they see a fox- well that's hounds for you. It would make a mockery of November 11th. But the coalition had their day in Parliament and their celebrations and the English Way and Purpose has hardly seen the surface riffled.

Anoraks went out with the power cuts. Outages I think you call them now.

Green Knights are not a suitable subject for a family thread.

I think there has been an increase in breast-grabbing due to the increasing number of young ladies coming of age. But that is a mathematical consideration and there may be other factors at work, such as mounting Anti-IDarianism, which I can only hypothesise about.

Hamburgers are simply not eaten by anyone with an IQ above 88. They are thought, indeed it is widely believed, that they contain substances which are supposed to clog up arteries just as the sunny uplands approach and are suspected of being a way of seeing off the workers before they become budget scoffers. And what they are made of is the subject of dark rumours. Lungs, ears, recta including exterior nipsy, fallopian tubes, bone scrapings, dugs ; in fact anything the average educated American would turn his nose up at in a restaurant. As Bob said- I don't eat anything that hasn't been prepared by someone who loves me.

And I wouldn't dream of underestimating Mr Blurr who, incidentally, has lost a number of his chaps over the weekend.

My pub has a choice of about twenty beers the temperatures of which are adjusted by the Landlord, who does put a price on our souls, according to the ambient conditions in the immediate vicinity. And it's all free because the Government, the lovely little darlings, have arranged for us all to have the money to buy it assuming no interference from the readers of ladies magazines which ,of course, includes TV and newspapers. When we go to piss it up against the wall there's a sign saying "GENTLEMEN" and that's good enough for us.

Our footballers are not tragic. You must have thought Footballer's Wives represented their lifestyles. Actually it represented the lifestyle ambitions of the ladies of the land and, as such, was real enough. They have taken it off after some sort of bust up in the higher echelons. I loved it.

I did try London Fields but after 3 or 4, it seemed about that, pages or possibly paragraphs I laid it down. His old man was okay though.

I would be mortified if it was thought that I had read that before Mr Burgess.

"Act! Act! the ducks give voice,
'Enjoy the widow in the meadow,
Drain the sacrament of choice:
The running tap casts a static shadow.' "

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Fox season isn't 'till mid-October here in The Northwoods (as is the general case for the taking of furbearers as a game category), but bear season opens locally in just a couple days. The interested parties - and their dogpacks - are excited and confident, with all signs pointing to an excellent harvest. The Timberland area, BTW, is considered to be among the state's finest for bear, every year contributing heavilly to the upper scale of the record book.

For ducks and other waterfowl, the season opens in late September, though a special early Canada Goose season has been open since September 1 (overpopulation being the reason. There is no Silly Goose season, so spendi need have no qualms about visiting Wisconsin - provided, of course, he doesn't wear his bearskin coat while traipsing through the woods. Non-furbearing Canadians who are not geese are fairly safe here year-'round, there being little sportsman interest in them.

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I do have a fondness for Wisconsin I'll admit. Might be to do with Veblen.

Titanic was about the price to be paid for leaving such a place, and it's young ladies, to go seek fame and fortune on ambitions without the talent to back them up. A morality play in the grand tradition and carried out in a manner that old Will would have given everything up for. His was a similar tale which wouldn't have ended where it did had the Queen not had a fondness for the lad.

But I couldn't shoot any geese wherever they came from. And bears! My goodness! How do you shoot a bear after Yogi. Do they not have pincic basket feeding centres? With enough picnic baskets you could turn them into the most lovable creatures on earth and all have one as a pet. It's only natural to get a bit mad when you're hungry. Do they bark like maniacs for no reason. There's the **** to consider though I suppose. Maybe you could dry it in the sun and chuck it on the fire.

Pedicures for the lucky ones and a society for the protection of the ones that got a good kicking.

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Thomas wrote:

real life wrote:
Nobody observed evolution and it is not occurring now for us to observe.

You may want to Google "antibiotics-resistant bacteria" or DDT-resistant insects.

hi Thomas,

The example of bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics is a poor one IMHO, and I am surprised that it is so frequently cited. These little critters start as bacteria and end as bacteria. Have any of them produced offspring that were NOT bacteria?

Likewise, when your body resists bacteria on it's own and grows immune, are you 'evolving'? Not at all. The capability was already present within your body to build up a defense against the bacteria and protect itself.

Evolution is supposed to be able to produce whole new organs, biological systems etc If evolution is occurring now , we should be able to see this.

Do you have any examples of half completed organs or biological systems which are evolving in-progress presently?

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I could name a few but a gentleman is not supposed to be indiscreet so I will refrain.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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