Does Intelligent Design Require a God or Super Natural Being?

[Dante Writer]

By magic I mean any intentionality, guided development or design by unetectible entities/forces.
A life form was created from inorganic materials ~3.8 billion years ago. Don't feel bad -- I missed it too.
What does Darwin have to do with modern evolutionary Biology?

"By magic I mean any intentionality, guided development or design by unetectible entities/forces."

So you are saying that you believe life only evolved on this planet so there could not be other intelligent organisms out there?

If the odds are so against other life on other planets why do you believe the odds are any better that it happened on earth and developed into intelligent life forms?

That is called a logic trap in case you did not know.

What does Darwin have to do with modern biology?

Are you saying you do not agree with Darwin' theory and if so what specific theory of evolution do you believe because here are your choices:


Evolution by Natural Selection, Front-loaded Evolution, Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), Evolution by Natural Genetic Engineering, Somatic Selection, Structuralist / Platonic Evolution, Biological Self-Organization, Epigenetic Evolution, Evolution by Symbiogenesis, and Teleological Selection.

 

[Dante Writer]

The question misses the point. The point I am making is that if natural evolution is a sufficient and necessary explanation then there is no need to propose any form of intelligent design. No need for intelligent design and no evidence for intelligent design, no point to intelligent design.

OK- if you want to change the debate to your question maybe you should start your own post next time because I started this one.

Natural selection is obviously not sufficient to explain or it would not still be a theory and one of many such theories.

You are aware that there are many theories of evolution that do not rely on natural selection right?

Take your pick and tell me which theory of evolution you believe:


Evolution by Natural Selection, Front-loaded Evolution, Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), Evolution by Natural Genetic Engineering, Somatic Selection, Structuralist / Platonic Evolution, Biological Self-Organization, Epigenetic Evolution, Evolution by Symbiogenesis, and Teleological Selection.

 

[fantome profane]

Natural selection is obviously not sufficient to explain or it would not still be a theory and one of many such theories.

If that is you opinion then the theory of alien intelligent design would not help you. If evolution is not a sufficient explanation then the intelligent designer does need to be supernatural. Because the alien intelligent designer hypothesized by Dawkins requires natural evolution to be sufficient.

But you are wrong, evolution is sufficient.

And like many people who don't understand science you don't know the definition of the word theory.

You are aware that there are many theories of evolution that do not rely on natural selection right?

Take your pick and tell me which theory of evolution you believe:


Evolution by Natural Selection, Front-loaded Evolution, Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), Evolution by Natural Genetic Engineering, Somatic Selection, Structuralist / Platonic Evolution, Biological Self-Organization, Epigenetic Evolution, Evolution by Symbiogenesis, and Teleological Selection.

There is one basic evolutionary theory that is accepted by the scientific community, and several wacky nonsensical ideas that are proposed by internet nut jobs.

 

[Valjean]

So you are saying that you believe life only evolved on this planet so there could not be other intelligent organisms out there?

If the odds are so against other life on other planets why do you believe the odds are any better that it happened on earth and developed into intelligent life forms?

What does the point of origin have to do with anything? Weather life originally developed here, on Mars or on a thousand different planets has nothing to do with the mechanisms involved. Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones.

Are you saying you do not agree with Darwin' theory and if so what specific theory of evolution do you believe because here are your choices:

Why do you keep bringing up Darwin? Why not Aristotle, as well?
Darwin lived a century and a half ago and knew nothing of modern evolutionary science.
There's only one ToE. It describes various mechanisms by which change occurs, but these are all part of the same theory.[/quote]

Natural selection is obviously not sufficient to explain or it would not still be a theory and one of many such theories.

Who is this not obvious to? You? You don't even know what a scientific theory is. I expect your familiarity with the ToE is similarly flawed.

 

[Dante Writer]

If that is you opinion then the theory of alien intelligent design would not help you. If evolution is not a sufficient explanation then the intelligent designer does need to be supernatural. Because the alien intelligent designer hypothesized by Dawkins requires natural evolution to be sufficient.

But you are wrong, evolution is sufficient.

And like many people who don't understand science you don't know the definition of the word theory.

There is one basic evolutionary theory that is accepted by the scientific community, and several wacky nonsensical ideas that are proposed by internet nut jobs.

1- No where did I say the designer had to be supernatural.
2- Evolution does not in any way explain the origin of life.
3- I understand a theory very well and there are several theories of evolution as you were shown.
4- There is no real consensus on any theory only one that has been researched the most because it builds on the work of Darwin.

Like most evolutionists you were not even aware of other theories and have not explored or researched and just accepted the one you were taught in school.

Now I have shown you the quote from Dawkin's that life on earth could be the result of intelligent design.

If you want to call him a kook and wacko and ignore the possibility that is on you!

 

[fantome profane]

1- No where did I say the designer had to be supernatural.

I didn't say you said that. I am telling you that if evolution is not a sufficient explanation then the designer would have to be supernatural. The idea hypothesized by Dawkins assumes that natural evolution is sufficient. If it is not sufficient then the idea of an alien being the intelligent designer no longer works. If natural evolution is not sufficient then the designer would have to be supernatural.


And I am sorry, but I have to say that the fact that your source of information for this thread is the most disgusting anti-science piece of propaganda is not a good sign.

And for the record Dawkins does not believe in intelligent design by aliens. What Dawkins was doing in that clip is bending over backwards to examine the idea of intelligent design in the best possible light before rejecting the idea.

 

[Dante Writer]

What does the point of origin have to do with anything? Weather life originally developed here, on Mars or on a thousand different planets has nothing to do with the mechanisms involved. Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones.
Why do you keep bringing up Darwin? Why not Aristotle, as well?
Darwin lived a century and a half ago and knew nothing of modern evolutionary science.
There's only one ToE. It describes various mechanisms by which change occurs, but these are all part of the same theory.

[/QUOTE]

"Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones."

Black and white thinking. Can you see how intelligent life on another planet involved with the seeding of earth alters that possibility?

Is that just too much for you to grasp even though Dawkin's said it is a possibility?

Calling all evolution theories part of the same theory is a cheap way to get out of saying which one you believe.

 

[Dante Writer]

I didn't say you said that. I am telling you that if evolution is not a sufficient explanation then the designer would have to be supernatural. The idea hypothesized by Dawkins assumes that natural evolution is sufficient. If it is not sufficient then the idea of an alien being the intelligent designer no longer works. If natural evolution is not sufficient then the designer would have to be supernatural.


And I am sorry, but I have to say that the fact that your source of information for this thread is the most disgusting anti-science piece of propaganda is not a good sign.

We genetically modify organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

We clone organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

Neither of those processes are a result of natural selection.

You must be assuming intelligent life would not be way past our level of genetic and biological skills.

I quoted Dawkin's and you can find that quote all over the web and he has never denied it!

 

[Valjean]

1- No where did I say the designer had to be supernatural.
2- Evolution does not in any way explain the origin of life.
3- I understand a theory very well and there are several theories of evolution as you were shown.

The origin of life is either natural or supernatural -- chemistry or magic.
Pick one.

4- There is no real consensus on any theory only one that has been researched the most because it builds on the work of Darwin.

There is only one theory! Please name some of these other theories you refer to.

Now I have shown you the quote from Dawkin's that life on earth could be the result of intelligent design.
If you want to call him a kook and wacko and ignore the possibility that is on you!

Dawkins does not believe in intelligent design. Please review the context of your quotation.

 

[Dante Writer]

The origin of life is either natural or supernatural -- chemistry or magic.
Pick one.
There is only one theory! Please name some of these other theories you refer to.

Dawkins does not believe in intelligent design. Please review the context of your quotation.

We genetically modify organisms all the time- is that natural?

We clone organisms all the time- is that natural?

Neither of those processes are natural and yet they work and do create new organisms or replicas.

You assume intelligent life would be at the same level we are in our understanding of genetics and biology when they could be extremely advanced in those sciences.

I posted his quote verbatim in the OP. He made it clear it could happen not that it did. If you can not accept that it is your problem not mine.

 

[fantome profane]

We genetically modify organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

We clone organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

Nothing, but the point is that we are the product of natural evolution. There is nothing that we know of that could genetically modify organisms or clone organims that is itself not the product of natural evolution. And based on this Dawkins hypothesised the existence of something else that is also the product of natural evolution that could do the same thing.

Neither of those processes are a result of natural selection.

Not directly, but indirectly they are. They are the result of something that is the result of natural selection (us).

I quoted Dawkin's and you can find that quote all over the web and he has never denied it!

Yes you quoted it, I am just not sure you understood it. Just as we are the result of natural selection Dawkins is hypothesizing that something else that is the result of natural selection could do what we can do, and as you said perhaps much much more. But it would still be the result of natural selection, natural evolution. If the alien designer could be the result of natural evolution then obviously we also can be the result of natural evolution. Therefore intelligent design is not required. But if the designer is not the result of natural evolution then you are back to a supernatural designer.

 

[Valjean]

"Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones."

Black and white thinking. Can you see how intelligent life on another planet involved with the seeding of earth alters that possibility?

Are we discussing origins or venues? Sure life might arise on another planet. It might even find its way here, but the question of abiogenesis remains. It was still either natural or magical. What other alternative is there?

Is that just too much for you to grasp even though Dawkin's said it is a possibility?

Quotation -- in context -- please.

Calling all evolution theories part of the same theory is a cheap way to get out of saying which one you believe.

There's just one! I challenge you to name another.

 

[SkepticThinker]

We genetically modify organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

We clone organisms all the time. Is that supernatural?

Neither of those processes are a result of natural selection.

You must be assuming intelligent life would not be way past our level of genetic and biological skills.

I quoted Dawkin's and you can find that quote all over the web and he has never denied it!

"Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar — semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett).

Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won't get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. "What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN." "Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/375766/richard-dawkins-the-rap-video

 

[Dante Writer]

"Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones."
Are we discussing origins or venues? Sure life might arise on another planet. It might even find its way here, but the question of abiogenesis remains. It was still either natural or magical. What other alternative is there?

Quotation -- in context -- please.

There's just one! I challenge you to name another.

Here we go again:

We genetically modify organisms all the time- is that natural?

We clone organisms all the time- is that natural?

You are still assuming an intelligent life form on another planet is at the same level of scientific knowledge that we are and have not developed ways not natural to our world to create life. Our success in genetic manipulation and cloning in just in the last 10 years should tell you that life does not have to come from a natural process and can and will be created in a lab at some point in the future. Not a natural process.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Nah, The reason evolutionists and creationists may get into heated battles (actually, it's more like two intractable stances) is that evolution looms as an adversary to many of the Christian interpretations of the Bible. Some Christians feel evolution challenges the veracity of their Bible, and they can't stand it. They expect people to either agree with their interpretation or keep their **** mouths shut. Evolutionists couldn't care less what creationists believe---want to believe that intelligent design is synonymous with a belief in Mighty Mouse? Go right ahead---however, they do care when creationists try to subvert science in public school classrooms. THIS is what creates the outward conflict between the two.


.

And evolutionists don't try to "subvert science in public school classrooms"?

Unfortunately, twisting the truth is done on both sides of this issue!

Example: Decades after being exposed as fakes, Haeckel's drawings are still presented as fact in a few school science textbooks, including:

Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (6th ed, McGraw Hill, 2002), p. 1229

Joseph Raver, Biology: Patterns and Processes of Life (J.M.Lebel, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education for approval in 2003), p. 100

Michael Padilla et al., Focus on Life Science: California Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001), p. 372

And there are other modern textbooks doing the same.

 

[Dante Writer]

"My concern here is that my science fiction thought experiment — however implausible — was designed to illustrate intelligent design’s closest approach to being plausible. I was most emphatically NOT saying that I believed the thought experiment. Quite the contrary. I do not believe it (and I don’t think Francis Crick believed it either). I was bending over backwards to make the best case I could for a form of intelligent design. And my clear implication was that the best case I could make was a very implausible case indeed. In other words, I was using the thought experiment as a way of demonstrating strong opposition to all theories of intelligent design.

Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won’t get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. “What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN.” “Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE.”

https://badidea.wordpress.com/2008/...-ben-steins-evolutionarily-ignorant-expelled/

A wordpress blog with no verified quotes and no links to a source.

Whether Dawkins walked back his statement after being pressured by the science community is irrelevant. He said it and has never denied it.

He did not say it did happen only that it could and implausible is not impossible.

It is no more implausible than organic life forming from inorganic materials!

 

[Dante Writer]

"Life either originated through natural mechanisms or magical ones."
Are we discussing origins or venues? Sure life might arise on another planet. It might even find its way here, but the question of abiogenesis remains. It was still either natural or magical. What other alternative is there?

Quotation -- in context -- please.

There's just one! I challenge you to name another.

Already answered above:

Here we go again:

We genetically modify organisms all the time- is that natural?

We clone organisms all the time- is that natural?

You are still assuming an intelligent life form on another planet is at the same level of scientific knowledge that we are and have not developed ways not natural to our world to create life. Our success in genetic manipulation and cloning in just the last 10 years should tell you that life does not have to come from a natural process and can and will be created in a lab at some point in the future. Not a natural process.

EVOLUTION THEORIES

Evolution by Natural Selection, Front-loaded Evolution, Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo), Evolution by Natural Genetic Engineering,Somatic Selection, Structuralist / Platonic Evolution, Biological Self-Organization, Epigenetic Evolution, Evolution by Symbiogenesis, and Teleological Selection.

 

[Valjean]

You assume intelligent life would be at the same level we are in our understanding of genetics and biology when they could be extremely advanced in those sciences.

Are we talking about original abioenesis or bioengineering?
You refer to bioengineering by an existing species. Sure, that could happen, but where did these bioengineers come from -- earlier bioengineers? Is it bioengineers all the way down?

When I say mechanism vs magic I'm referring to abiogenesis.

 

[Dante Writer]

Nothing, but the point is that we are the product of natural evolution. There is nothing that we know of that could genetically modify organisms or clone organims that is itself not the product of natural evolution. And based on this Dawkins hypothesised the existence of something else that is also the product of natural evolution that could do the same thing.

Not directly, but indirectly they are. They are the result of something that is the result of natural selection (us).


Yes you quoted it, I am just not sure you understood it. Just as we are the result of natural selection Dawkins is hypothesizing that something else that is the result of natural selection could do what we can do, and as you said perhaps much much more. But it would still be the result of natural selection, natural evolution. If the alien designer could be the result of natural evolution then obviously we also can be the result of natural evolution. Therefore intelligent design is not required. But if the designer is not the result of natural evolution then you are back to a supernatural designer.

" but the point is that we are the product of natural evolution."

That is just your assumption because that is what you were taught in school. I have shown you that Dawkin's and Crick both said intelligent design is possible. If you want to deny their experience in the matter that is fine by me.

I have just shown you that we already create organism using genetic manipulation and cloning that are not natural processes and here you are still telling me it has to be a natural process.

Unless you can show me verified evidence of organic life forms coming from inorganic materials you have just a theory. One of many theories and the more scientists look at the possibility that life exists outside our solar system the more they agree it exists.

That means it may have developed way beyond our understanding of science and the life on this planet could be seeded and is not natural.

The intent of my post was to show that it did not require a God or supernatural being and still is a result of intelligent design and I have done that.

If you can not accept that it is not my problem.

 

[Valjean]

And evolutionists don't try to "subvert science in public school classrooms"?

Unfortunately, twisting the truth is done on both sides of this issue!

Example: Decades after being exposed as fakes, Haeckel's drawings are still presented as fact in a few school science textbooks, including:

Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (6th ed, McGraw Hill, 2002), p. 1229

Joseph Raver, Biology: Patterns and Processes of Life (J.M.Lebel, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education for approval in 2003), p. 100

Michael Padilla et al., Focus on Life Science: California Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001), p. 372

And there are other modern textbooks doing the same.

High school science textbooks are a joke. They're a political compromise chosen by Board of Education members, not biologists.
Only one side is twisting the truth, and the creationists and textbook writers/approvers are part of the same "side."
The biologists are pretty much excluded.