Does DNA prove intelligent design?

[knockknock]

Knockknock, what you are saying to us is: "I know nothing at all about biology, evolution, science, scientists, or scientific method but EVOLUTION IS WRONG." (The caps you used indicate yelling on the internet.) Then you get all upset and start hollering about a conspiracy because people who know more than you about biology, evolution, science and the scientific method gang up on you.

Have you ever considered the possibility that your approach might be provoking a particular reaction, and that maybe we're not all in cahoots with "scientists and the mass media" in some grand, complicated scheme to suppress the truth?

I didn't actually realize I was giving the impression that I was getting upset, I guess that's the limitation of internet forums, I can assure you I am in no way upset, I was just trying to get my point across. I don’t know how to do it without incurring the wrath of you people. I am open to a different approach because obviously I have not made my point which was not meant aggressively or at the detriment of science.

 

[PureX]

Who? Do you mean in the context of "random mutations" being an evolutionary factor? Or are there really "atheists" (rather than "nihilists") saying "existence is random and meaningless"?

I think some of the comments on this and other threads around here confuse and conflate the two. I was trying to point out that one does not support the other.

People who don't have a supernatural world view, where a higher intelligence is busily ordering the universe, don't see "intent" when it snows, or when the lake freezes over, or when water evaporates.

And yet these phenomena are the result of a natural order, created by limitations that remain a mystery to us. I would have to say that logically, they are biased not to contemplate the possibility of intent.

We are satisfied with "an inherent reaction to temperature" for an explanation.

Then you are confusing the immediate cause with the source explanation, I'd say.

If being led to the question of possible intent requires belief in God as a first premise, you would need to provide evidence of the existence of God to convince anyone else it's a logical argument.

It doesn't.

You haven't provided any evidence, and your first premise (that design in nature implies intent) requires faith. So we're discussing your faith, not your logic.

The evidence is that we live in an ordered universe, and order does imply purpose. It's doesn't prove purpose, but it does imply it (order is not a default condition, randomness is). And therefor I think intent must be considered. Logically, it deserves consideration. Your assertion that inherent design does not imply intent is wrong, and shows your own bias.

 

[Autodidact]

ARE YOU WILLING TO LEARN TO USE THE QUOTE TAGS, OR DO YOU WANT TO KEEP ON DOING IT WRONG AND ANNOYING PEOPLE?

Not at all, I was stating that things are not as clear cut as people like you would have us believe.

Then demonstrate that.

I wonder why you feel the need to get personal :sarcastic Very cheap

But true.

Perhaps you should learn the first thing about it, before you start formulating grandiose theories based on it. Did you know there are Ph.d geneticists in this forum who spend their lives studying DNA? And they agree that ID is a crock?

I said people with a casual attitude to DNA not Ph.d geneticists who certainly don't have a casual attitude, I hope. BTW I have no intention of getting into a slanging match with you so I won't answer anymore derogatory posts.

Your preorgative.
But it's the geneticists, and other people who have forgotten more about DNA then you have bothered to learn, who are telling you that you are wrong. Your problem is not that we don't understand DNA, it's that we do--and you don't.

 

[Autodidact]

I didn't actually realize I was giving the impression that I was getting upset, I guess that's the limitation of internet forums, I can assure you I am in no way upset, I was just trying to get my point across. I don’t know how to do it without incurring the wrath of you people. I am open to a different approach because obviously I have not made my point which was not meant aggressively or at the detriment of science.

Here's an approach you may want to consider: Learn something about what you're talking about. It takes time and effort, but is much more effective than speaking from ignorance. There are people here who would be happy to teach you.

 

[Alceste]

I didn't actually realize I was giving the impression that I was getting upset, I guess that's the limitation of internet forums, I can assure you I am in no way upset, I was just trying to get my point across. I don’t know how to do it without incurring the wrath of you people. I am open to a different approach because obviously I have not made my point which was not meant aggressively or at the detriment of science.

I'm afraid the only effective approach is to learn something about the topic you wish to discuss. If you can't seem to get your head around it, I assure you people have great respect for others who approach topics they know little or nothing about with humility. This would entail recognizing you're talking to people with a greater understanding of the topic and you would profit more by listening and asking questions than talking and making assertions.

Imagine you don't play the violin, you know nothing at all about violins, but you have some very rigid notions about how a violin should be played because you heard it in church (from somebody else who doesn't play the violin). What do you think would happen when you stepped into the midst of a symphony orchestra and started trying to convince the musicians your notions are better than theirs? Insisting that what they call a violin is really a bassoon, and what they call "crescendo" is actually "staccato"? If they respond with ridicule and contempt, would you think it was because they secretly were afraid you were right and were too fanatical about their own misguided musical theories to admit it?

Some of the people you are talking to are actual biologists, and many others have spent huge amounts of time reading about the subject.

I'd recommend picking up some Stephen J Gould to start with. He's a very accessible and friendly writer who covers some fascinating territory. If you just read one of his books, you will know more than nothing, and be in a better position to exchange ideas with people who understand evolutionary biology on the internet.

I'd also recommend avoiding the Discovery Institute like the plague if you want to be respected. While I can see it has had no impact on your point of view, Auto has demonstrated in a way that is more than convincing to everyone but you that they have no credibility. In other words, they lie, and they've been caught lying. People who discuss real science don't need to do this, since real science has no other motive than to discover the truth.

 

[knockknock]

I'm afraid the only effective approach is to learn something about the topic you wish to discuss. If you can't seem to get your head around it, I assure you people have great respect for others who approach topics they know little or nothing about with humility. This would entail recognizing you're talking to people with a greater understanding of the topic and you would profit more by listening and asking questions than talking and making assertions.

Imagine you don't play the violin, you know nothing at all about violins, but you have some very rigid notions about how a violin should be played because you heard it in church (from somebody else who doesn't play the violin). What do you think would happen when you stepped into the midst of a symphony orchestra and started trying to convince the musicians your notions are better than theirs? Insisting that what they call a violin is really a bassoon, and what they call "crescendo" is actually "staccato"? If they respond with ridicule and contempt, would you think it was because they secretly were afraid you were right and were too fanatical about their own misguided musical theories to admit it?

Some of the people you are talking to are actual biologists, and many others have spent huge amounts of time reading about the subject.

I'd recommend picking up some Stephen J Gould to start with. He's a very accessible and friendly writer who covers some fascinating territory. If you just read one of his books, you will know more than nothing, and be in a better position to exchange ideas with people who understand evolutionary biology on the internet.

I'd also recommend avoiding the Discovery Institute like the plague if you want to be respected. While I can see it has had no impact on your point of view, Auto has demonstrated in a way that is more than convincing to everyone but you that they have no credibility. In other words, they lie, and they've been caught lying. People who discuss real science don't need to do this, since real science has no other motive than to discover the truth.

Ok, thanks for that. I take your points on board and can see how people have taken me the wrong way and how I have stepped on a few toes. :sorry1:

Note self: Must try harder

 

[Alceste]

And yet these phenomena are the result of a natural order, created by limitations that remain a mystery to us. I would have to say that logically, they are biased not to contemplate the possibility of intent.

You're not quite getting this, so I'll say it again. In order to contemplate the possibility of intent, you need to believe it's at least plausible there is some higher intelligence that could be doing the intending.

If you don't think it's plausible that there is a supernatural intelligence out there intending things, there is no path by which you could logically or reasonably arrive at the conclusion that patterns are evidence of "intent".

It's not called "bias" not to think a higher intelligence is plausible, it's called "atheism". Believing a higher intelligence is plausible is called "theism", and theism requires faith. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with faith. In fact, it may even be necessary. I'm not one of those "logic is superior to faith" people, but I do think it's important to acknowledge the difference between the two.

The evidence is that we live in an ordered universe, and order does imply purpose. It's doesn't prove purpose, but it does imply it (order is not a default condition, randomness is).

If that's what you think, then you don't understand physics. Like many creationists, it seems you've gotten hung up on the second law of thermodynamics and forgotten that the earth enjoys a constant input of massive amounts of energy.

Once again, order does not imply purpose. No matter how much you repeat it, it will never become true. If I drop a handful of sand on the ground and it happens to land in a perfect circle, this is no more purposeful than if it lands willy nilly.

Also, FYI, the universe is not very well-ordered. It behaves much more like sand spilt willy nilly than it does sand spilt in a perfect circle anyway. So even if order DID imply purpose, the universe itself still would not imply purpose, because it isn't very well-ordered. In an ordered universe, there would be no "junk" DNA.

 

[Mr Cheese]

Does DNA prove intelligent design?

Ok, I’m starting again and clearly asking a question whilst avoiding coming across as rhetoric or baiting. I have a problem with the general current scientific view that life structures are not intelligent. I openly admit that I believe we had an intelligent creator and I also believe that the more we discover, the more this will be proven, that’s if the media will allow it!

I am of the view that DNA is a good example of intelligent design. DNA molecules contain an actual language, like a software program greater than any man has been able to create. I do not have a scientific education and so I borrow from those who have studied on my behalf. according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, ‘Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, consists of artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . [and a] capacity not equaled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours" (Denton, p. 329).

Also, at a symposium sponsored by the Institute for Metascientific Research, Antony Flew, British professor who for decades was one of the world's leading philosophers of atheism, said he has come to believe in God based on developments in DNA research. Flew, author of the book, Darwinian Evolution, declared, "What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together. The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence."

“Mr. Flew's conclusion is consistent with the actual beliefs of most modern scientific pioneers, from Albert Einstein to quantum physicists like Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg. In their view, the intelligence of the universe - its laws - points to an intelligence that has no limitation - "a superior mind," as Einstein put it.”

Life created DNA not DNA created life....

the computer program thing is kinda garbage

well thats one expert's take:

Since Crick first proposed it forty-four years ago, the central dogma has come to dominate biomedical research. Simple, elegant and easily summarized, it seeks to reduce inheritance, a property that only living things possess, to molecular dimensions: the molecular agent of inheritance is DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, a very long, linear molecule tightly coiled within each cell's nucleus. DNA is made up of four different kinds of nucleotides, strung together in each gene in a particular linear order of sequence. Segments of DNA comprise the genes that, through a series of molecular processes, give rise to each of our inherited traits.

Crick's gamble suffered a spectacular loss. In the journals Nature and Science, and at joint press conferences and television appearances, the two genome research teams reported their results. The major result was "unexpected." Instead of the 100,000 or more genes predicted by the estimated number of human proteins, the gene count was only about 30,000. By this measure, people are only about as gene-rich as a mustardlike weed (which has 26,000 genes) and about twice as genetically endowed as a fruit fly or a primitive worm - hardly an adequate basis for distinguishing among "life as a fly, a carrot, or a man." In fact, an inattentive reader of genomic CDs might easily mistake Walter Gilbert for a mouse, 99 percent of whose genes have human counterparts.

The Spurious Foundation of Genetic Engineering

ID is just a thinly veiled way of saying

"God did it"
...

ID or Evolution?

Both are wrong, ID is far too simplistic
Evolution only deals with materialism

 

[Alceste]

ID or Evolution?

Both are wrong, ID is far too simplistic
Evolution only deals with materialism

I wouldn't agree that it's "wrong" for science to deal only with materialism, or for religion to deal only with spirituality. In fact, I think that's the only possible way to marry the two in such a way that nobody gets annoyed.

 

[LuisDantas]

I know that those in the scientific field who have come down on the side of ID are few and far between but they do exist and when one considers that TOE is taught as fact throughout the western education system and the mass media, then the odds that there are going to be fewer people who don't agree with TOE is understandable, pretty much like those who didn't agree with ID back in the christian dominated past. The roles have just reversed is all.

Except that evidence and facts back up Evolution, while ID is just another issue of Faith, I am afraid.

 

[Jose Fly]

PureX,

At this point, I have to confess I'm thoroughly confused about what you're trying to do here. You've contradicted yourself a number of times, and have not responded or clarified to any of the contradictions upon me pointing them out. I'll finish by pointing out your latest example....

by definition, to be designed is to have order, and to have order is to be designed

But next you immediately state:

I don't think I've made any [assertions about "design"]

IOW, one one hand you tell us "design is this and that" but OTOH you claim, "I'm not making any claims about 'design'".

It makes it very difficult to have a discussion when one party consistently contradicts themselves.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

It makes it very difficult to have a discussion when one party consistently contradicts themselves.

You're going off the faulty assumption that one of the parties is interested in having a discussion.

 

[Jose Fly]

Knockknock,

I'll restate that so far, all you're doing in this thread is saying that you believe DNA is evidence of a "designer", yet the only support you've given to this belief is "because these guys think so".

Again, what specifically about DNA makes YOU think it is "designed"? You have studied genetics haven't you? Surely you wouldn't reach such a significant conclusion about a subject without having studied it first, right?

 

[Jose Fly]

You're going off the faulty assumption that one of the parties is interested in having a discussion.

Probably so. There's certainly no shortage of people who come to these boards to do nothing more than preach.

 

[Mr Cheese]

I wouldn't agree that it's "wrong" for science to deal only with materialism, or for religion to deal only with spirituality. In fact, I think that's the only possible way to marry the two in such a way that nobody gets annoyed.

well they are wrong in the sense that both claim to show or demonstrate the "whole story"

neither do

but you know ID is actually a good idea, what is CALLED ID and is ID in modern times however is so patheticly stupid there arent words

 

[Mr Cheese]

Except that evidence and facts back up Evolution, while ID is just another issue of Faith, I am afraid.

evidence and facts change....

they are largely dependant upon the yard stick that is applied.

As Benoit Mandelbrot wrote "How long is the coastline of England?"

The answer is, it is infinite, because yif you measure with increasing accuracy, you would reach an infinte length as you measured ever more detailed with every measuremnt, until you are measuring atoms or even plank lengths etc.....

Facts are not all that water tight as many suppose

 

[LuisDantas]

evidence and facts change....

Sure they do. But when it comes to changing to the extent of disproving evolution and/or offering support for ID or other form of Creationism, it simply won't happen. Facts are not random.

 

[Alceste]

well they are wrong in the sense that both claim to show or demonstrate the "whole story"

I don't agree. Science claims only to understand material truths and makes no claims whatever about "the supernatural" except this: anything that can't be verified empirically is not science.

As for religion, well... some religions do teach that their supernatural claims are material truths, and that causes problems for everybody. Most of all, their adherents.

but you know ID is actually a good idea, what is CALLED ID and is ID in modern times however is so patheticly stupid there arent words

You'll get no argument from me there. The nature of God and how he went about cooking up the universe is probably a very enjoyable area of contemplation, for those who believe in one.

 

[Autodidact]

well they are wrong in the sense that both claim to show or demonstrate the "whole story"

No, science explicitly does not do this. Science is about the natural world only. It clearly, explicitly and consistently asserts this limitation.[/quote]

 

[Mr Cheese]

No, science explicitly does not do this. Science is about the natural world only. It clearly, explicitly and consistently asserts this limitation.

Asserting its limitations and not even acknowldging anything beyond it are hardly the same

While I agree for some this is the truth
For others, there simply is nothing beyond science.

:foot: