A simple case for intelligent design

[Polymath257]

Not at all. They represent two conjectural items, to account for invisible influence in the universe.

Um, yes, they are. Dark matter, for example, has definite location. It has gravitational influence that can be measured and used to map out where it is. This *is* a detection, by the way. it just isn't a detection via *light* (which isn't going to happen given that dark matter doesn't interact via E&M).

Dark energy is just the cosmological constant of Einstein in a different guise. As such, it has been on the table of possibilities for about a century. Again, it was use because it was driven by the evidence, not because it was driven by a specific dogma.

 

[tas8831]

The theory of ID is based on 2 premises

1 Intelligent design is detectable: there are objective ways to detect design, this is uncontroversial; for example forensic scientists, archeologists, fire experts, detectives, cryptographers, and many other professionals detect design all the time.

These all apply to human activity.

2 if we apply those objective methods to living things, we would infer design: If we look at living things at apply the same methods that we already know that are reliable, to detect design, we would infer that life was designed by an intelligent designer (even if we might not know who the designer is, or were did he come from)

The only logical conclusion of such an application would be that the 'designer' is a human.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Just out of curiosity, let’s pretend that the Big Bang theory is wrong, and heavy elements are made in some other unknown way. For good measure, let’s toss out evolution as well. Where does that leave us on the questions, except to admit we do not know?

It would leave you with just one other theory of origins......

Evolution was “tossed out” long ago, they just won’t let that vampire die no matter how many stakes are driven through its heart....

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Um, yes, they are. Dark matter, for example, has definite location. It has gravitational influence that can be measured and used to map out where it is. This *is* a detection, by the way. it just isn't a detection via *light* (which isn't going to happen given that dark matter doesn't interact via E&M).

Which was speculated to exist “before” we could see those vast plasma halos right where the “placeholder” was claimed to exist. It simply isn’t dark anymore but astronomers refuse to give up their cash cow.....

Dark energy is just the cosmological constant of Einstein in a different guise. As such, it has been on the table of possibilities for about a century. Again, it was use because it was driven by the evidence, not because it was driven by a specific dogma.

The one that was the biggest mistake of his life, resurrected to make expansion work?????

What evidence? Measured expanding nothing??? No.

Just the mistaken belief of what cosmological redshift actually is....

A New Non-Doppler Redshift

Hubble’s law demands the redshift be directly correlated to recessional velocity, not an expanding nothing..... so if it is expanding nothing that causes redshift, then Hubble’s law can not be used to determine distance. They proposed Fairie Dust once the z values got so high it falsified their belief, so they added expanding nothing to save their belief from falsification.

And the kicker is Hubble didn’t even accept expansion, but they keep trying to blame it on him anyways....

 

[ecco]

We are testing the opposite, the assertion that there is NO designer. Certain things should occur, based on known natural laws, if there is NO designer. Thus, we have falsifiability/testability.

Intelligent Design helps falsify test this assumption, "There is NO designer." This is eminently testable.

Have there been any outcomes of these tests yet?

While you're at it, test to prove the Universe wasn't created Last Thursday.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

As I have already explained to you in my previous reply, I told you that the hypothesis (meaning the proposed statements and set of predictions) needs to be at least falsifiable and testable to be given the status of being “HYPOTHESIS”.

Intelligent Design isn’t even a “hypothesis” because the entity that you call “Designer” isn’t falsifiable and isn’t testable.

Falsifiability occurred before the actual tests being performed. There is a difference between “testable” and “tested”.

Any statement (eg explanation, prediction or equation presented) that are “falsifiable”, meaning having the potential of being “testable” and “refutable”, has the status of being hypothesis.

Those statements that are not falsifiable, don’t even meet the grade of being called “hypothesis”.

If you cannot setup an experiment, where you can actually detect, measure or test the Designer, then it (ID) is pseudoscience.

The term “tested” means the experiments have already being performed, and any detectable/measurable/quantifiable evidences will either be

1. refuted
2. verified/validated

ID certainly haven’t been “tested”, because can you “measure”, “observe/detect” or “test” this Designer?

No.

And no ID adherents have been able to detect/observe the Designer, no one has ever measure or test the Designer. So in the testing phase of scientific method, testing the validity of hypothesis (explanation/prediction), ID haven’t met the requirements of Scientific Method.

So Intelligent Design isn’t a hypothesis because the Designer isn’t testable.

And Intelligent Design isn’t a scientific theory because there are no recorded observations or measurements to the Designer.



I have never claimed to be scientist.

My backgrounds in science and mathematics are applicable in engineering - more specifically in civil engineering, first, then later in computer science.

Both courses involved in “applied science”, meaning any field in science that I’ve studied, are related to the respective courses.

Examples, in civil engineering, you need basic understanding of mechanics, masses and forces, hence Newtonian mechanics (physics).

Examples in computer science, in the hardware side of computing, you need some basic understanding of electricity, electrical and electronics devices, hence knowing about power, current and voltage (physics), and if I was studying networking, then I need to understand electromagnetism, eg satellite network, WiFi, or if I was into business of laser and fibre optics, I again to know the basic of electromagnetism (physics), as well as optics, such as reflection and refraction (physics).

However, in both course, they both stressed the importance of testing, so evidences and test results and data are important both:

1. to civil engineers (eg testing soils, testing the strength and stresses of construction materials (be the materials be concrete or steel or others), ensuring that the design and materials used meet safety standards, etc);
2. and to computer programmers (eg creating prototypes, testing and debugging codes), or to computer/systems engineers (eg testing the electronics, circuitry, network, operating systems, etc).

Because of my grounding in engineering and applied science, I hold testable evidences to be of utmost importance, just as experimental science required empirical and verifiable evidences.

Right, that’s why some people even speculated aliens to avoid the design......

It is design that everyone is laboring to explain. There would be no reason at all to presume one could explain anything that was random. Why bother to even try? Because you “expect” to find order and reason, not unexplainable randomness. You “expect” to be able to explain what we observe logically. This comes because everyone sees the design, but most that do see it then try to pretend they don’t and claim it’s all just illussion. It is the very design we are all trying to explain. Even you....

 

[SkepticThinker]

It would leave you with just one other theory of origins......

Evolution was “tossed out” long ago, they just won’t let that vampire die no matter how many stakes are driven through its heart....

Not by a longshot.

Evolution is the only existing scientific theory that fits every bit of available evidence that has ever been uncovered. It's the only scientific theory in town, when it comes to the diversity of life on earth.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Not by a longshot.

Evolution is the only existing scientific theory that fits every bit of available evidence that has ever been uncovered. It's the only scientific theory in town, when it comes to the diversity of life on earth.

Please, enough with the PR.

You got fossils that remain the same for the oldest one found to the youngest one found for that creature, across millions of years. Then connect them with claims of “missing” common ancestors for every split on every single tree.

You got bacteria that remains bacteria.

Fruit flies that remain fruit flies.

While on the other hand we have dogs with over 100+ breeds from wolves, that always remain what? Dogs.......

You got finches mating right in front of your eyes, refusing to correct their classifications.

In reality you got no evidence at all. It all falsifies evolutionary belief....

And now the magic words of “millions of years” will be invoked, even if fossils always staying the same has falsified that already...

 

[SkepticThinker]

Please, enough with the PR.

You got fossils that remain the same for the oldest one found to the youngest one found for that creature, across millions of years. Then connect them with claims of “missing” common ancestors for every split on every single tree.

You got bacteria that remains bacteria.

Fruit flies that remain fruit flies.

While on the other hand we have dogs with over 100+ breeds of dogs from wolves, that always remain what? Dogs.......

You got finches mating right in front of your eyes, refusing to correct their classifications.

In reality you got no evidence at all. It all falsifies evolutionary belief....

And now the magic words of “millions of years” will be invoked, even if fossils always staying the same has falsified that already...

No PR. Just the facts.

Evolution is the only scientific theory in town that explains the diversity of life on earth. It has not been "tossed out." It is definitely falsifiable though, and yet nobody has managed to falsify it after 150+ years, despite the fact that I'm sure there are plenty of creationist types that have been trying to disprove it during all that time. What's taking so long?

 

[Tomas Kindahl]

People tend to complicate things ...

The theory of ID is based on 2 premises

1 Intelligent design is detectable: there are objective ways to detect design, ... know”

OK, so far, but I agree with the opinion that this is not a theory, it is a methodology, or a conceptual mode of reasoning.

2 if we apply those objective methods to living things, we would infer design: If we look at living things at apply the same methods that we already know that are reliable, to detect design, we would infer that life was designed by an intelligent designer (even if we might not know who the designer is, or were did he come from).

The objective method that Dembski and others propose is “specified complexity” something is specified and complex if:

1 it has many parts (or units)…. For example a book has many letters

2 they are organized in a pattern…..for example the letters are organized in such a way in which they produce meaningful words and sentences

3 the pattern is independent from the forces of nature: …. For example there is no a law (or principle) in nature that forces “ink” and “paper” to produce meaningful letters words and sentences.

Something requires all (1,2 and 3) in order to call it “specified complexity”

This is unnecessarily complicated! You are hiding "God created it!" behind the neutral-sounding "pattern is independent from the forces of nature". You are presenting a mode of reasoning that should lead to the conclusion "God created it!" by hiding an obscure version of it in the premisses! A => A, but we already know that. If the sun is shining the sun is shining, but we already know that! And it doesn't prove a iot other than you can confuse fools by baking in the conclusion in the premisses by a sneaky formulation!

The argument is that life is specified and complex

even the simplest life forms would require many amino acids (1) organized in a very specific order and pattern (2) and nothing in nature forces the amino acids to organize themselves in such a way that they would produce functional self replicating “things”

*For simplicity lets define life as: something organic that can reproduce.

In my experience those who deny ID don’t really present an argument, and usually they don’t spot their point of disagreement, they simply troll and call ID “creationism with another name” instead of providing an actual argument.

Perhaps if you realize that the argument above is fallacious reasoning, you may finally ... one beautiful day in your life, realize that mixing religion with science in a confusing way is not the life. It's just a trifle.

 

[tas8831]

You got fossils that remain the same for the oldest one found to the youngest one found for that creature, across millions of years.

Is it your informed opinion that evolution ONLY occurs at the morphological level?

Then connect them with claims of “missing” common ancestors for every split on every single tree.

An identified common ancestor is not needed to identify relatives when there is sufficient, tested methods that can be used.

You got bacteria that remains bacteria.

Fruit flies that remain fruit flies.

Very astute.

While on the other hand we have dogs with over 100+ breeds from wolves, that always remain what? Dogs.......

I just read that there are about 30,000 named species of bacteria, and that was in 2005.
About 1500 species of fruit fly (just referring to Drosophila).

What point did you think you were making again?

In reality you got no evidence at all. It all falsifies evolutionary belief....

And now the magic words of “millions of years” will be invoked, even if fossils always staying the same has falsified that already...

Right... Your arguments are so profound, well thought out, and verifiable that I suspect we will see an announcement from the AAAS any day now.

 

[ecco]

And the kicker is Hubble didn’t even accept expansion, but they keep trying to blame it on him anyways....

You can post evidence for this assertion, can't you?

 

[ecco]

It is the very design we are all trying to explain. Even you....

By design do you mean the particular angle at which oxygen and hydrogen atoms connect when they form a molecule of water?

By design do you mean how plants bend toward light?

By design do you mean something like this...

If not, then what is this design you keep talking about?

 

[ecco]

Right, that’s why some people even speculated aliens to avoid the design......

No one speculated about aliens to avoid design. Aliens does nothing to resolve the argument between nature and creationism. It just pushes back the clock. I'm surprised that someone seeking the truth claims to not understand that.

 

[Polymath257]

Which was speculated to exist “before” we could see those vast plasma halos right where the “placeholder” was claimed to exist. It simply isn’t dark anymore but astronomers refuse to give up their cash cow.....

Um....what plasma halos?

The one that was the biggest mistake of his life, resurrected to make expansion work?????

To match the observed expansion, yes.

What evidence? Measured expanding nothing??? No.

Supernova red shifts.

Just the mistaken belief of what cosmological redshift actually is....

A New Non-Doppler Redshift

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hubble/

You might want to get a more recent source than 1988. We've learned a few things in the last 30 years.

Hubble’s law demands the redshift be directly correlated to recessional velocity, not an expanding nothing..... so if it is expanding nothing that causes redshift, then Hubble’s law can not be used to determine distance. They proposed Fairie Dust once the z values got so high it falsified their belief, so they added expanding nothing to save their belief from falsification.

All I can say here is that you are confused. Your introduction of an 'expanding nothing' is irrelevant. We detect appropriate red-shifts from distant galaxies that agree with the predictions of general relativity.

You are correct. Those red-shifts are not, strictly speaking, Doppler shifts. The Doppler shift explanation is only an approximation for nearby galaxies.
We've gone far beyond that now.

And the kicker is Hubble didn’t even accept expansion, but they keep trying to blame it on him anyways....

Irrelevant. His data showed there is an expansion. The further discovery and details of the background radiation clinched the BB scenario.

 

[ecco]

In my experience those who deny ID don’t really present an argument, and usually they don’t spot their point of disagreement, they simply troll and call ID “creationism with another name” instead of providing an actual argument.

In my experience those who believe in ID don’t really present an argument, and usually they just roll out the same old silly slogans:

• Look at the beautiful design
• It's too complicated to be natural

They try hard to convince others that ID is not just Creationism with a different name. I guess they hope no one ever heard of Kitzmiller v Dover.

They believe in GodDidIt because anything else conflicts with their deeply held religious views.

 

[gnostic]

I think you've never "heard" the ID proposition:

We are testing the opposite, the assertion that there is NO designer. Certain things should occur, based on known natural laws, if there is NO designer. Thus, we have falsifiability/testability.

Hope that helps.

ID proposition is just that a proposition, a claim.

ID isn't a "hypothesis" in the sense of "scientific hypothesis", which need everything in the hypothesis, including the "DESIGNER" to be falsifiable or testable.

The hypothesis used in every day language, like in the courtrooms, are not the same as the hypothesis used in science. And if you want to use ID or Creationism as science, then you must agree to use the correct terminology and definition as being used in science. And in science, hypothesis have to meet with certain conditions.

Behe's Irreducible Complexity doesn't meet the conditions that of being falsifiable or testable (therefore, ID isn't hypothesis), and it doesn't meet the condition of Scientific Method (therefore ID isn't a "scientific theory"). This is why Irreducible Complexity, as well as Intelligent Design fall under the category of "PSEUDOSCIENCE".

Discovery Institute don't use science to verify or validate ID, instead it used their money to fund a campaign of propaganda, and flooding the media with misinformation, not only about ID itself, but about evolution. It is dishonest tactics, that DI used time, and time again.

If the DESIGNER isn't testable, then the whole proposition of ID isn't falsifiable.

The problem is the Designer, because you cannot observe/detect, measure or quantify the DESIGNER.

You need EVIDENCES to show that's the DESIGNER is real.

All you are doing is conjecturing the DESIGNER exist because you think nature, including life, have to be "designed", and therefore requiring a "designer".

But there have been no evidences for designer, so your conjectures are merely circular reasoning, and wishful thinking.

Your belief in the DESIGNER is no more than superstition, just like superstitions of Neolithic people, the Bronze and Iron Ages people, the people of Dark Ages and the Middle Ages.

The ID proposition "designed requiring Designer" is just as superstition as thinking that YHWH, Indra, Zeus or Thor causing thunders and lightning. The Designer is no more falsifiable than YHWH, Indra, Zeus and Thor. You cannot test the Designer, you cannot detect or observe the Designer, you cannot measure the Designer.

Discovery Institute have been trying to promote Intelligent Design for years now, but not once have they provided any evidences for the existence of Designer, because the Designer is as fake and fictional as dragons, giants, fairies, goblins and ghouls, angels and demons.

No, BilliardsBall. You still don't understand the concept of hypothesis, evidences, falsifibility, etc.

 

[gnostic]

Sorry, but SETI is looking for hypothesized, unproven entities. While searching for God is eminently logical and the natural human condition.

While SETI may be searching for evidences of life outside the solar system, and it may be still hypothetical, the fact remains is that they are not looking for “supernatural” entities, “magical” entities, “divine” entities or “spiritual” entities.

They are not looking for god, angel, demon or jinn. They are not looking for spirits, fairies or other supernatural beings.

The entities they are looking for, are totally physical.

 

[gnostic]

1) Assume X is true HYPOTHESIS
2) Follow X as true to expect Y HYPOTHESIS/LOGIC
3) See if Y is there TEST FOR Y AND EITHER CONFIRM X OR FALSIFY X

No, you are no assuming the hypothesis is true.

Hypotheses are NEVER TRUE “by default”.

When a scientist to formulate his hypothesis, he has to make sure that his hypothesis CAN BE TESTED in the future, meaning his explanation and predictions are “falsifiable”.

Hypothesis is neither true, nor false, when he write the explanation, the predictions and the mathematical equations (if there are any).

When the time come to test it, you would perform the experiment (if you are in the lab) or find the evidence (if you are out in the field), you would record the outcomes, such as the current number of experiment, record any measurements, and if the status of experiment is a success or failure. Then you would repeat the experiment again, and again, as many as required, to ensure there are no errors or anomalies, and there are not experiments to either refute or validate the hypothesis.

The success or failure of the number of repeated experiments, are what determine the hypothesis to be true or false.

Your first point (“Assume X is true HYPOTHESIS”), only demonstrated how little you understand how science work, or what is involved in the scientific method and falsifiability of the hypothesis.

You never assume the hypothesis to be automatically true, or true by default.

Making such assumptions before you even started to test the hypothesis, only demonstrated the scientist being incompetent, bias and a cheat.

 

[gnostic]

Right, that’s why some people even speculated aliens to avoid the design......

In our galaxy alone, the Milky Way has anywhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. The closest spiral galaxy - Andromeda Galaxy is even larger and have more stars than the Milky Way.

But in the observable universe, there are billions of other galaxies.

What make you so sure there are no other life from other planets?

You don’t know, I don’t know, and scientists don’t know, but that doesn’t mean there are none out there.

However, I don’t believe that “aliens” come to Earth for scientific experiments or invasions. I don’t believe they flew here in “flying saucers” or UFO crafts. Nor do I believe them abducting people to perform experiments on humans.

These are merely sci-fi fiction in novels and movies, or the really deluded (idiotic) people who do make up stories about their abductions.

There are no alien traveling to earth on ships, no alien invasions and no alien abduction. Aliens didn’t built Egyptian pyramids or any other ancient buildings. And aliens did leave signs of their presence in crop circles. All these are either fictional, or misrepresentation of facts (eg pyramids), or hoaxes. They have nothing to do with reality.