Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

hi spendius,

Simply put, evolutionists use the similarity of structures in different species (homology) as 'proof' of an evolutionary link between them.

(It's a type of circular reasoning: Organism A and organism B have similar eyes, therefore they are linked in the evolutionary process , i.e. they share a common ancestor or one evolved from the other.

How do we prove that Organism A and organism B have an evolutionary link? Well, their eye structure is similar. )

The problem arises when two species which are not thought to be linked also have similar structures.

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real life wrote:

Simply put, evolutionists use the similarity of structures in different species (homology) as 'proof' of an evolutionary link between them.

Yes, but they never base that conclusion on only one structure.

real life wrote:

(It's a type of circular reasoning: Organism A and organism B have similar eyes, therefore they are linked in the evolutionary process , i.e. they share a common ancestor or one evolved from the other.

Well, for one thing, independently evolved eyes often have structures different from each other. For example, the eyes of octopusses have a different structure than the eyes of fish: octopus eye nerves come out on the outside of the eyes, while fish eye nerves come out on the inside first, then leave the eye on one single spot. (That's a problem for the "intelligent design" hypothesis by the way: wouldn't an intelligent designer make decide which side is "right", and stick to his decision?) Anyway, my point is that when genetically unrelated species evolve similar features independently, you can often see it in distinctive differences in those features.

real life wrote:

How do we prove that Organism A and organism B have an evolutionary link? Well, their eye structure is similar. )

This would be circular reasoning if taxonomist relied on one feature only -- but they never do. Even where evolutionary convergence has produced similar eyes, the animals will have differing features in other organs.

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Why all this fuss about eyes. Is it simply an expedience because students can be easily led to think that they think they know what is going on with an "organ" which they recognise.

The eye is an extension of the brain which is itself an extension of the spinal cord and hence the the whole, more or less, interdependent body structure. Certain nutrients improve and impair its functioning and some, poisons, render it inoperative altogether despite all its parts being present.

Hence we see with our brains, or to be more precise, with our bodies. The light patterns striking the retina are decoded by a part of the brain into "sense" which itself is a function of the whole physiological system and thus is essentially tautological.

A test-match batsman has visual skills during his "good form" periods which he doesn't have when he wakes up after a night on the batter or when his wife has enraged his bank manager.

This pedantic focus on the eye, useful of course for eye surgeons, is entirely unscientific in the broad sense of the word. It is akin to certain specialisms in mechanical repair technologies and is technological.

I have undergone retinal surgery for two hours under local anaesthetic and I saw some truly amazing sights. I advise anyone who needs such surgery not to have a general anaesthetic if they can lie still for that amount of time. I could see the needle pushing the tiny detatchment of retina back into place, like fixing a puncture, and I firmly believe I could see right up the optic nerve as if it was a tunnel with a fantastic coloured light show all along it despite my eyeball being on my cheek. (The one on my face of course.)

I can't for the life of me imagine why discussing the eye in this superficial manner is of any relevance to this debate when art and social organisation are ignored. The suspicion arises that it is nothing but a smokescreen to avoid these much more relevant areas of human life and to display a limited knowledge of something which few people ever think about. It forces the debate into a straight-jacket.

It has nothing to do with religion or science for that matter.

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Quote:

Evolution Attack Goes Global
( By Lakshmi Sandhana, Wired News, September 18, 2006)

Religious critics of evolution have trained their sights on one of the world's pre-eminent fossil exhibits -- Louis and Richard Leakey's extensive skeletal collections illuminating the origins of man.

Evangelical Christians in Kenya are demanding that the exhibit at Nairobi's National Museum edit out references to human evolution in order to prevent young African Christians from being taught falsehoods.

"We are objecting to the message that the fossil exhibits represent the scientific evidence of human evolution," said Bishop Boniface Adoyo, chairman of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, which claims to represents churches of 35 denominations with 9 million members. "They do not. Human evolution is still a theory and this cannot be called as evidence."

The Evangelical Alliance's attack targets a giant in the world of evolutionary and primate studies. The Nairobi museum's fossils include the famous Turkana Boy, an almost complete skeleton of a juvenile who lived about 1.6 million years ago that was unearthed by Richard Leakey's team of paleontologists in 1984. It also includes bones of early hominids that are believed to have made and used stone tools.

"The fossil collection in Kenya provides an important set of pieces to the picture of human evolution," says Sean Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Extinct hominids give us a picture of how human forms have changed, when, at what pace, and what changes were independent and which may be linked."

The museum is currently closed for renovations, and museum officials said they have not yet received any official complaints by local evangelical churches. But they plan to prominently house the collection as "scientific evidence" of evolution when it re-opens in 2007, a representative said.

It's not the exhibit itself the alliance opposes, Adoyo told Wired News, but rather its interpretation. A satisfactory solution, he said, would be to remove the words that would classify the fossils as "scientific evidence," displaying them instead as a history of other creatures, without connecting them to human beings.

"When you use evolution as God's tool in creating man in his image, you have to reckon with the fact at what stage in the evolution process does man attain to that image?" he said. "The conclusion is either God's image is evolving or God Himself is evolving or every creature has God's image. God could be anything and I'm afraid I cannot put my faith in a 'changing God' or an 'anything God'."

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wande-

Haven't we done dem dry bones, dem dry bones in the jungle before somewhere? Was it not on here?

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spendi,
The controversy itself is new. Apparently the Nairobi museum exhibit is being attacked on the basis of religion.

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As far as I can determine Intelligent Design is neither Religion, Science or Philosophy. It is a form of Ideology.

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More liked Idiotology.

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JLN wrote-

Quote:

As far as I can determine Intelligent Design is neither Religion, Science or Philosophy. It is a form of Ideology.

There you are. Not everybody is blind. It is an ideology unknown to the Founding Fathers. It chooses what works best from all three or, should we say, it tries to.

Every Grain of Sand as sung at Wembley Stadium in 1984 and Mr Tambourine Man in various guises both are shot through with it.

A bit idealistic I'll admit but you can easy snap out of it when the need arises. It's a sort of temporary trance like thing and you are not disabled by it so you can't take a swig from a bottle of beer and have a draw on your chokie. The next best thing is arguing in a similar fashion. You don't even notice you're pissed. It's a close second.

Sex is no good. 7 minutes once a month is no good.

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I shall respond to Spendius' diatribe using a new technique I picked up off some Creationists.

Let me begin...

Ahem.

I like pie.

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So do I but I don't eat it. The fat in the crust, and often in the filling as well, is, like all temptations succumbed to, bad for you.

One would expect a secular, materialistic mindset to succumb to easy temptations as the avoidance of even mild asceticism is the main objective of its inculcation. One would thus expect a continuing rise in obesity rates, and other things, and the ultimate ruin of the economy as the NHS expands at the expense of other investment opportunities to cope with the mess.

A secular, materialistic, scientific mindset is another matter. To such a mindset pie is a form of long term suicide or a way of acquiring non-lethal conditions requiring vast expenditures.

It is a very easy temptation to succumb to to casually write off my last post as a "diatribe" as it avoids any effort in thinking about what was said and allows opportunities to show one's approval of one's own weaknesses and thus pass them on to younger readers.

Imagine an educational system which eradicated the capacity to achieve the trance-like state I mentioned and the victims thus having to face stark reality in their face every minute of every day for the whole of their lives.

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Imagine a supermarket invading a country...

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Do you not know wolf that what you said is one way of describing what has actually happened. I agree it takes some effort to study such matters in a way that comes to such a conclusion and I know you have so far managed to avoid putting yourself to the trouble.

I wouldn't worry about it though as it is quite normal. Very few people are interested in what is actually happening around them so you'll have no trouble finding companions to have meaningless discussions with.

You ought to know better than to try it on me though.

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As far as supermarkets go it's a right shame that they're outpricing smaller retailers, but this kind of debate has NOTHING TO DO WITH INTELLIGENT DESIGN!!

Whatever a secular, materialistic society's outcome is, is irrelevant to the topic on INTELLIGENT DESIGN, as I and many people here have tried to point out to you.

If you've run out of something to say on this topic, because there's nothing more to say, you don't change the subject. You let the topic die. If you tried this on any other forums, the topic would be locked for going off-topic and you'd have been punished.

This would be true of Christian forums, anti-ID forums and any other forums you care to think about. This behaviour isn't because of ID, anti-ID, Creationism, your mind or what have you.

And before you make your usual witterances in reply, may I state that you sound like a broken record and have an unsuitably narrow, one-track mind, incapable of real logic.

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Wolf wrote-

Quote:

Imagine a supermarket invading a country...

Surprised though I was at such a post on this thread I made an attempt to answer it out of general politeness and my easy going attitude to being "on topic" or otherwise.

I know that market penetration on behalf of US industrial might is one of the main motors of US foreign policy and has been for many, many tears.

What was the post about then wolf?

Quote:

If you've run out of something to say on this topic, because there's nothing more to say, you don't change the subject. You let the topic die. If you tried this on any other forums, the topic would be locked for going off-topic and you'd have been punished.

Try not to be so silly. All topics would be locked under those rules if strictly applied.

I have plenty more to say about the teaching of evolutionary science in schools. I am waiting for somebody to show some sign that they are ready for it which hasn't happened yet.

Quote:

And before you make your usual witterances in reply, may I state that you sound like a broken record and have an unsuitably narrow, one-track mind, incapable of real logic.

And pray what does that mean. It looks like a diatribe to me.

What exactly is my asserted narrow, one-track mind unsuitable for? Is it unsuitable for being in awe of your nonsensical, inconsistent and confused
drivel because if it is I'm very glad about it. Or is it unsuitable for living a lifestyle like you have admitted to. Perish the thought that it might even be suspected of being suitable for that.

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

And before you make your usual witterances in reply, may I state that you sound like a broken record and have an unsuitably narrow, one-track mind, incapable of real logic.

So why are you still trying to debate with him?

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stuh-

The only logical answer I can think of is that I'm a convenient conduit for Wolf to get something off his chest.

Debate, I'm afraid, is absent.

The heat generated by the religion/science controversy is sufficient to inform anyone with any humility that something important lies at its core. The simple fact that whatever it is has not been touched upon despite my alluding to it a few times ought to inform any intelligent person that it might, at the least, border on the unmentionable.

Nobody showed the slightest understanding of those posts I did about the Footballer's Wives programmes. They preferred to think I was barmy and off topic. It's one form of turning your face to the wall.

Underestimating others is the cause. The view that if they can't understand it there's nothing there to be understood. And yet that series of programmes, popular though they were, have been taken off and the latest is that they won't be coming back or reshown. As if they would do that without a big reason.

These anti-IDers can't see that ID is the last defence against fundamentalism because fundamentalism would win if the stark choice between science (pure obviously) and religion was put to the voters.

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stuh505 wrote:

So why are you still trying to debate with him?

Because I can't stand the way he blames everyone but him and his cherished ideals for everything I despise.

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Just exactly who is this "everyone"?

It's an odd statement Wolf. I'm not sure what you mean even if "everyone" is defined.

I can't say I despise anything except maybe despising things and the consequences of that.

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Your in bloody good fettle today Spendi, keep it up old lad!

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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