The Intelligent Designers - who were they?

megamanXplosion wrote:

Real Life, haven't we had this conversation before?

We've had ALL of RL's discussions before. He hasn't brough anything new to the table since he got here. Even the stuff which hasn't been mentioned on A2K before all comes from creationist propaganda which has been proven ridiculous many times before.

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What is there new to bring? One believes or one doesn't; and then, there's posturing and mudslinging....

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snood wrote:

What is there new to bring? One believes or one doesn't

RL doesn't come to the table saying, "I believe in magic and I'm sticking with it". If he did, I would approach the discussion very differently.

RL comes to the table challenging empirical evidence, logic and rational thought. There are many questions about evolution which may be asked, many things which are worth discussing, but RL doesn't ask any of those. Instead he asks questions which don't relate to the theory, and he stands on assumptions which are incorrect. He recited known propaganda and ignores the answers we give him.

No, the issue here is not one of belief. The issue is one of a believer who is trying to discredit science and human knowledge.

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I agree with Rosborne. Real Life does not approach the matter as one of beliefs but as a matter-of-fact situation that could be exploited. In other words, he approaches the situation like a corrupt politician. He will say any number of lies so long as it gets his religious sect, as opposed to a political party line, to increase in size. His approach to these discussions is contemptible, worthy of scorn.

(I want to highlight a slight error in my earlier post. For some reason or another, I used "increase" and "decrease" in the wrong places. The Universe doesn't decrease its entropy overall, it increases--it approaches maximum entropy, approaches thermal equilibrium, which would be the death of the Universe, the big freeze. Where I used the word increase in the earlier post when talking about open systems, replace that with decrease to get the correct explanation. I had taken a walk to find some moss for my terrarium, gotta get some new stuff in before winter comes. When I came back I noticed the errors but it was too late to edit. I apologize for any confusion that may have caused.)

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Intelligent design isn't anti-evolution. It's an alternative perspective on how evolution occurs and its primary focus right now is on the origin of life. This thread is beginning to veer off into the typical creation versus evolution debate.

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Teleologist wrote:

Intelligent design isn't anti-evolution. It's an alternative perspective on how evolution occurs and its primary focus right now is on the origin of life. This thread is beginning to veer off into the typical creation versus evolution debate.

Do you know what intelligent design is, opposed to evolution...? if you had the slightest idea, you wouldn't have had posted such nonsense.

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Terry wrote:

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If we were designed by another intelligent species, who designed them? And who designed their designers? .

As one design theorist puts it:

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Design-theoretic explanations are proximal or local explanations rather than ultimate explanations. Design-theoretic explanations are concerned with determining whether some particular event, object or structure exhibits clear marks of intelligence and can be legitimately ascribed to design. Consequently, design- theoretic reasoning does not require the who-designed-the-designer question to be answered for a design inference to be valid. There is explanatory value in attributing the Jupiter Symphony to the artistry [design] of mozart, and that explanation suffers nothing by not knowing who designed Mozart.

I don't have to explain the origin of sculptors in order to infer Mt. Rushmore was sculpted. Neo-Darwinists are in the same boat with design theorists on this issue. When they posit the theory of evolution they face the question "How did the first living thing arise?" This question is brushed to one side with declarations of the difference between the origin of life and the theory of evolution. Just as one can focus on the theory of evolution without bothering about abiogenesis, one can focus on the design of the cell without worrying about who designed the designer of the cell.

Here are two explanations that avoid the "infinite regress problem" as it relates to the origin of life on earth:

1. Abiogenesis did occur on another planet, intelligence evolved, and this intelligence seeded this planet.

2. The ETI that seeded the earth with life owes its origin to some supernatural intervention at some point in its history.

But it's unclear to me why infinte regress is a problem. For example, the intelligence that designed life on earth may itself have been designed earlier by an intelligence that came from one of those "multiple universes." It in turn may have been designed by another intelligence, ad infinitum. If there are an infinite number of universes, why think intelligence or life must have an ultimate beginning?

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Teleo-you can advance any explanation that rows yer boat. However, rules will apply to you as well as to anyone who is researching molecular "self-assemby and self organization" ( abiogenesis to you). Show us the compelling evidence or experiments.

If , for example, you want to say that MArs is actually our womb, then good lab practice would dictate that you

1 demonstrate that eukaryotes or monista could have developed (these could enucleate) to perhaps (but not definately) survive the "commute" to earth)

2 Assemble a means to affect the commuter train that got them here.

Mars is an easy one to assemble such an argument but its not available yet, whereas the undersatnding of self assembly and organization through congener organics acids and fatty acids and pre proteons can be developed in a lab.

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To me, trying to identify the designer, is getting the cart before the horse. Unless there is reason to think something is designed, why look for a designer? But according to the ID critic's logic you can't infer something is designed unless you first know things about the designer. Looks like an approach whose sole purpose is to slam the door shut on any investigation into design. Here is another way to look at it:

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It is not unreasonable to suppose that within a mere 1000 years, humans will have the ability to design life forms and use them to seed distant planets, say planet X. According to the reasoning of the ID critic's, if we wanted to explain how life got on planet X, we could not appeal to human design, as that would not answer the question about where humans came from. Therefore, to avoid this conundrum, the ID critic's would have to postulate that life on planet X was spawned from the geochemistry of planet X even though it would not be true.

If one thinks that in the future humans will have the ability to design life forms and use them to seed distant planets then it would be reasonable for them to conclude that the intelligent design of life forms may have possibly occurred in the past, here or elsewhere. If we will be able to do it, then it's at least logically possible that somebody else could have done it too.

Now, I'm not arguing for ETI as the designers nor am I ruling out God as the designer. I'm merely pointing out the possibilites that exist within the ID paradigm. I happen to find the exploration of the biotic world for traces of intelligent design to be intriguing. There are various features of life that lead me to tentatively infer some form of intelligent causation (direct or indirect). Yet there is nothing about these features which allows me to distinguish between a supernatural intelligence and a natural intelligence. Thus, since the data cannot distinguish between the two, any attempt on my part to "identify" the designer would have to be completely extrinsic to the analysis.

ID theorists aren't trying to identify the designer/designers. They are trying to determine if the design inference can be a reliable guide for generating hypotheses that help them better understand the biological world.

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Jason wrote:

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Do you know what intelligent design is, opposed to evolution...? if you had the slightest idea, you wouldn't have had posted such nonsense.

You are clueless about ID if you think it is anti-evolution.

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Teleologist wrote:

Jason wrote:

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Do you know what intelligent design is, opposed to evolution...? if you had the slightest idea, you wouldn't have had posted such nonsense.

You are clueless about ID if you think it is anti-evolution.

So, the world is 5000 years old according to the Bible...opposed to billions of years according to the theory of evolution...how are they relevant? And who's the clueless, straw man?

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Jason wrote:

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So, the world is 5000 years old according to the Bible...opposed to billions of years according to the theory of evolution...how are they relevant? And who's the clueless, straw man?

Your cluelessness is getting worse. ID is not anti-evolution, ID doesn't dispute the earth is billions of years old and ID has nothing to do with the Bible.

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Teleologist wrote:

ID theorists aren't trying to identify the designer/designers. They are trying to determine if the design inference can be a reliable guide for generating hypotheses that help them better understand the biological world.

And what do you think they've found out about using ID as a reliable guide for generating hypothesis?

Can you name one hypothesis which ID has generated which helps us better understand the biological world?

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Teleo. Id suggest that you take some time to read and absorb what the IDers are trying to pull. Theyve got you believing that they dont have a religious agenda but lets see what they say

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Intelligent design is not an evangelical Christian thing, or a Christian thing generally, or even a theistic thing...Intelligent design is an emerging scientific research program...Design Theorists attempt to demonstrate its merits fair and square in the scientific world-without appealing to religious authority--William Dembski (2004)

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Any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient...The conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ---William Dembski 1999

Dis he change his views in the intervening 5 years? Hell no, Its just that in 2004-2005, thge Discovery Institute and the Thomas Moore Law center were prepping for the Dover case and they wanted to "distance themselves "from their real underlying theological agenda.

You may holler all you want that ID is a scientific discipline. Youd have your utterings fall on deaf ears. Nobody's buying their shell game. Theyve tried getting their noses under the education tent by appearing scientifically motivated , when all theyve been attempting to do was merely get on with the initial baby steps.

As ros has asked of a number of your ilk, name something of a reasonable scientific nature that has had an ID core. Ill bet you cant name one.

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This is why I should have kept my mouth shut on page 2

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rosborne979 wrote:

snood wrote:
What is there new to bring? One believes or one doesn't

RL doesn't come to the table saying, "I believe in magic and I'm sticking with it". If he did, I would approach the discussion very differently.

RL comes to the table challenging empirical evidence, logic and rational thought. There are many questions about evolution which may be asked, many things which are worth discussing, but RL doesn't ask any of those. Instead he asks questions which don't relate to the theory, and he stands on assumptions which are incorrect. He recited known propaganda and ignores the answers we give him.

No, the issue here is not one of belief. The issue is one of a believer who is trying to discredit science and human knowledge.

As you know Ros, it is not empirical evidence that is under question, but the interpretation[/b] of evidence.

You want to pretend that evidence and the interpretation (or inferences) drawn from that evidence are the same thing.

They clearly are not, but you haven't any other song to sing.

You observe two similiar creatures. That is evidence.

You say, 'one must have descended from the other'. That is an inference. Get it?

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real life wrote:

As you know Ros, it is not empirical evidence that is under question, but the interpretation[/b] of evidence.

Phylogenetic analyses (DNA comparisons) do not leave much room for interpretation.

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megamanXplosion wrote:

real life wrote:
As you know Ros, it is not empirical evidence that is under question, but the interpretation[/b] of evidence.

Phylogenetic analyses (DNA comparisons) do not leave much room for interpretation.

They certainly do.

You must assume evolution to prove evolution.

Just showing that two creatures are similar, even that their DNA is similar, does not mean that one descended from the other.

Why would it be unusual for two creatures, sharing the same environment, the same food supply, the same challenges with predators, etc to also have similar features to survive and thrive in said environment, and these features based on similar chemistry?

What's unusual about that? If you were going to design two creatures , you might use a common pattern and common chemical processes to achieve the same ends in both.

Then again you might not, and thus you can also have two very dissimilar creatures that can also thrive in the same environment.

But none of this demands that one MUST have descended from the other. You must assume evolution is true in order to reach that conclusion. It becomes a circular argument.

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Teleologist wrote:

There are various features of life that lead me to tentatively infer some form of intelligent causation (direct or indirect).

What features, specifically?

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real life wrote:

megamanXplosion wrote:
real life wrote:
As you know Ros, it is not empirical evidence that is under question, but the interpretation[/b] of evidence.

Phylogenetic analyses (DNA comparisons) do not leave much room for interpretation.

They certainly do.

You must assume evolution to prove evolution.

Just showing that two creatures are similar, even that their DNA is similar, does not mean that one descended from the other.

Why would it be unusual for two creatures, sharing the same environment, the same food supply, the same challenges with predators, etc to also have similar features to survive and thrive in said environment, and these features based on similar chemistry?

What's unusual about that? If you were going to design two creatures , you might use a common pattern and common chemical processes to achieve the same ends in both.

Then again you might not, and thus you can also have two very dissimilar creatures that can also thrive in the same environment.

But none of this demands that one MUST have descended from the other. You must assume evolution is true in order to reach that conclusion. It becomes a circular argument.

Please educate yourself about phylogenetics.

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The Intelligent Designers - who were they?

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