If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory...

[siti]

But leaving that aside for now, what makes you so sure, that this universe must be that special virgin birth, immaculate conception, organic, free range, universe. Rather than what would inevitably become infinite iterations of plain old copies. Isn't that special pleading?

It might be if that was what I was saying...but it isn't. Having stated that there is nothing preventing us (and by 'us' I mean intelligent life) creating a new universe, I have no idea whether that idea might describe our future or our past - or both. I am not 'special pleading' anything. I have no idea whether the Big Bang was the actual beginning of creation (I strongly suspect it was not, but that is a whole different story based on scientifically-compatible reasoned philosophical speculation - as opposed to blind faith in the scientifically-incompatible philosophical speculations of bronze age sages). What I know for sure (from observations we - intelligent life - have made in this universe) is that to suggest that an intelligent creator, natural or supernatural, deliberately intervened to put hip bones in leg-less whales, tail bones in tail-less humans, and ridiculous body plans with nerves taking unnecessary 15 foot detours (as in the recurrent laryngeal nerves of giraffes) is plainly absurd. Whatever intelligence may or may not have been involved in kick-starting the evolution of the natural universe we can see did not, as far as I can make out, stick around to see the outcome - even less to poke its nose into the natural evolutionary process it had initiated.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It might be if that was what I was saying...but it isn't. Having stated that there is nothing preventing us (and by 'us' I mean intelligent life) creating a new universe, I have no idea whether that idea might describe our future or our past - or both. I am not 'special pleading' anything. I have no idea whether the Big Bang was the actual beginning of creation (I strongly suspect it was not, but that is a whole different story based on scientifically-compatible reasoned philosophical speculation - as opposed to blind faith in the scientifically-incompatible philosophical speculations of bronze age sages). What I know for sure (from observations we - intelligent life - have made in this universe) is that to suggest that an intelligent creator, natural or supernatural, deliberately intervened to put hip bones in leg-less whales, tail bones in tail-less humans, and ridiculous body plans with nerves taking unnecessary 15 foot detours (as in the recurrent laryngeal nerves of giraffes) is plainly absurd. Whatever intelligence may or may not have been involved in kick-starting the evolution of the natural universe we can see did not, as far as I can make out, stick around to see the outcome - even less to poke its nose into the natural evolutionary process it had initiated.

That sounds fairly reasonable to me.. but!

On science v philosophy,

as far as we can possibly tell scientifically, the BB was the literal beginning, creation, of all space/time energy/matter as we can possibly or probably ever will be able to know it.

Anything beyond is inherently speculative is it not?

Also we know without doubt, that entirely novel information systems can and are created by creative intelligence, we are using an example right now.

Whether not this can occur without any creative intelligence at any stage whatsoever, is a far more philosophical speculation.

I don't think there is any slam dunk argument either way, and it's all largely subjective- but I certainly don't think that automated/ spontaneous/ naturalistic creation mechanisms are somehow a 'default' explanation- based on what precedent?

Something I don't understand though about this position-

You concede that the universe could have been intelligently designed with all the necessary specific detailed instructions required to create space/time, great fusion reactors, producing in turn elements specific to life. These reactors are even designed to explode and disperse these complex elements onto habitats like Earth, where they are given the right conditions to somehow initiate the first self replicating organism- quite a remarkable feat of engineering from any perspective

But from this point on...

this intelligent agency, has no particular plan for the upshot of all this?! Having gone this far, the result is now left entirely to chance?

And the actual result- one species out of millions we know of, that became self aware, the only means we know of, by which the universe can literally contemplate it's own existence and ponder these questions, seek the answers... Even begin to reverse engineer the universe it lives in

That would all be one monumental bizarre unplanned & unexpected coincidence?

Not impossible I suppose, but is that really the most likely scenario (if at least granted an intelligently designed universe)?

 

[leibowde84]

The real point of any science is to try to find rational ways to explain what we see and experience. Gravity helps explain why we don't fly off this spinning ball, but then it also (almost magically) explains why and how planets orbit stars and satellites orbit planets and a whole lot of other things (including our sense of balance).

The Theory of Evolution, which is a scientific theory, attempts to explain our trillions of actual observations of what life is, what forms there are, how they are related, what forms there were (i.e. exist as fossils only, with no living examples), and how all this happens. It also tries to explain why the fossils of life forms past appear only separately in the geological strata -- the "written history" of the earth itself.

For most (actually, nearly all) people in the sciences, ToE does this with absolutely stunning accuracy. That makes it -- for them at least -- kind of compelling.

So, let's allow, for the sake of discussion, that ToE is wrong and Intelligent Design is the correct "scientific theory." Well, how might we examine that? We could, of course, do what science always does, and ask, "how does ID explain those things that we observe?"

So, let's propose some questions to see how well it might do that -- and alternately, whether it might not do it very well. I'll post some, and encourage others to think of more in this thread -- but most of all, I'm hoping that the supporters of ID, instead of saying "ToE is impossible" (which is what we always get), instead try to live up to their own belief in their theory, and actually try to answer the questions asked.

I'll start with one of the most obvious questions that I think needs explaining if ID is true:

1. There are literally thousands of life forms that by their very nature cause immense suffering -- and death -- to many other life forms (including humans, guilty and innocent, very young and very old) quite apparently at random. The list is simply enormous and the suffering often terrible beyond description. So, I ask myself, why would a Designer fashion me -- and at the same time something that can cause me unbearable agony and eventually destroy me? And not just me -- the newborn child who can't possibly be guilty of anything warranting such pain, not to mention the grief of family. If you accept ID, there must be an intelligent, or intelligible answer to this. The theory of ID should be able to explain it. The ToE, by the way, can explain it with almost trivial ease.
2. Somebody, earlier in this thread, said something like "if ToE is true, then we would have an appendix or wisdom teeth." Apparently this means he thinks that those are artefacts mandated by the Intelligent Designer. There are many other things that are sub-optimal about our design(eyesight and blind spot, dangers of giving birth to a large-brained baby, etc.), and yet an Intelligent Designer should not be expected to choose bad designs, and a perfect designer should select only optimal designs. This is clearly not the case with the human body. Blind selection by ToE would be expected to produce frequently optimized designs, but hardly ever optimal ones -- which is exactly what we see. So, how does ID explain why we are as we are?
3. The question of why the evidence of life that has existed is so stratified cannot be ignored. Layers happen in chronological order, and nobody gets to insert one geological layer underneath another one crust of the earth. And the fossils found in those layers -- all over the earth -- show a clear progression of species. So, if ID is true, we need an explanation for why the Designer tried so very hard to fool us. ToE, of course, provides a perfectly rational explanation, but does ID?

I will have more questions as the thread progresses -- I hope others will, too!

A "scientific theory" is a hypothesis that has been confirmed repeatedly through experimentation and observation. It is not merely a theory based on reason. It must be repeatedly confirmed with empirical, verifiable evidence.

So, how has ID been repeatedly confirmed through experimentation and observation with verifiable evidence? In other words, it takes a whole lot more than mere explanations that make sense to some to be considered a "scientific theory" rather than merely a hypothesis based on reason.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

A "scientific theory" is a hypothesis that has been confirmed repeatedly through experimentation and observation. It is not merely a theory based on reason. It must be repeatedly confirmed with empirical, verifiable evidence.

cobblers!

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

So, how has ID been repeatedly confirmed through experimentation and observation with verifiable evidence? In other words, it takes a whole lot more than mere explanations that make sense to some to be considered a "scientific theory" rather than merely a hypothesis based on reason.

One theory predicted that the gaps in the fossil record were mere artifacts of an incomplete record, that would be filled in as we go

The other predicted that the gaps were real, highly evolved species appeared suddenly without history, remained in stasis with limited variation, and/or went extinct

Remind me which prediction was borne out by the evidence itself, and which is supplanted with artistic impressions?

 

[leibowde84]

cobblers!

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

Maybe in your alternate reality, but not in the real world. A "scientific theory" has a specific meaning when used to describe the "scientific theory of evolution by natural selection". It must be repeatedly verified/confirmed through experimentation and observation.

One theory predicted that the gaps in the fossil record were mere artifacts of an incomplete record, that would be filled in as we go

The other predicted that the gaps were real, highly evolved species appeared suddenly without history, remained in stasis with limited variation, and/or went extinct

Remind me which prediction was borne out by the evidence itself, and which is supplanted with artistic impressions?

I'm not sure where you are going with this. There have been a plethora of predictions based on evolution that have turned out to be accurate.

 

[siti]

as far as we can possibly tell scientifically, the BB was the literal beginning, creation, of all space/time energy/matter as we can possibly or probably ever will be able to know it.

Anything beyond is inherently speculative is it not?

As far as we can possibly tell, anything we can possibly say, including 'there was nothing', beyond (i.e. before) the BB is inherently and unavoidably speculative.

but I certainly don't think that automated/ spontaneous/ naturalistic creation mechanisms are somehow a 'default' explanation- based on what precedent?

Automated and spontaneous are not the same as naturalistic. The painting of the Mona Lisa has a naturalistic explanation, but it was neither automated nor spontaneous. Naturalistic explanations are a natural default because appeals to the supernatural are not really explanations at all but rather signal failures to explain. So far, we have successfully uncovered naturalistic explanations for most of the previously mysterious phenomena that used to be put down to divine intervention - germs and genetic disorders, not demon possession, cause diseases, plate tectonics, not God's anger, cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes...etc. Given the continued failure of the "God hypothesis" to adequately explain these things, it should be a very last resort in explaining features of the natural world. Its record is appallingly bad. Scientific naturalism's explanatory record is much, much better.

You concede that the universe could have been intelligently designed with all the necessary specific detailed instructions required to create space/time, great fusion reactors, producing in turn elements specific to life. These reactors are even designed to explode and disperse these complex elements onto habitats like Earth, where they are given the right conditions to somehow initiate the first self replicating organism- quite a remarkable feat of engineering from any perspective

But from this point on...

this intelligent agency, has no particular plan for the upshot of all this?! Having gone this far, the result is now left entirely to chance?

And the actual result- one species out of millions we know of, that became self aware, the only means we know of, by which the universe can literally contemplate it's own existence and ponder these questions, seek the answers... Even begin to reverse engineer the universe it lives in

That would all be one monumental bizarre unplanned & unexpected coincidence?

Not impossible I suppose, but is that really the most likely scenario (if at least granted an intelligently designed universe)?

Leibniz answered this as eloquently as anyone I can think of:

"According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work."​

Of course he was talking about Newton's contention that God deliberately intervened to keep the stars and planets from falling into each other...Leibniz had no inkling (as far as I know) about evolution - but the logic fits. Does God really need to tinker with His own handiwork? And if so, what does that say about the "intelligence" of the original "design"?

 

[Jose Fly]

cobblers!

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

Now Guy is making up his own personal definitions, and apparently expecting everyone else to ditch their long-established definitions and adopt his? Bizarre.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

cobblers!

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

That sounds more like a description of fake news. A scientific theory is nothing like what you described. If you disagree, please explain how the germ theory of disease, quantum theory, or relativity theory conform to your definition.

One theory predicted that the gaps in the fossil record were mere artifacts of an incomplete record, that would be filled in as we go

The other predicted that the gaps were real, highly evolved species appeared suddenly without history, remained in stasis with limited variation, and/or went extinct

Remind me which prediction was borne out by the evidence itself, and which is supplanted with artistic impressions?

The theory of biological evolution is the winner in that race. There is no place for the hominin fossil series nor what is called "junk" DNA in Intelligent Design. Artistic impression are not part of the theory of evolution.

The theory of evolution accounts for mountains of observations and unifies them. It is falsifiable, but has never been falsified. It make prediction as about what will be found and what cannot be found that have been borne out. And its practical application has been fruitful in a variety of areas such as medicine and agriculture.

Why would we toss that out for an idea that is merely an unsupported claim based on ancient religious dicta that predicts nothing and is not useful in any way? Can you suggest why we should do that?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

As far as we can possibly tell, anything we can possibly say, including 'there was nothing', beyond (i.e. before) the BB is inherently and unavoidably speculative.

Automated and spontaneous are not the same as naturalistic. The painting of the Mona Lisa has a naturalistic explanation, but it was neither automated nor spontaneous. Naturalistic explanations are a natural default because appeals to the supernatural are not really explanations at all but rather signal failures to explain.

Natural explanations are the default for books, cars, planes?

So far, we have successfully uncovered naturalistic explanations for most of the previously mysterious phenomena that used to be put down to divine intervention - germs and genetic disorders, not demon possession, cause diseases, plate tectonics, not God's anger, cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes...etc. Given the continued failure of the "God hypothesis" to adequately explain these things, it should be a very last resort in explaining features of the natural world. Its record is appallingly bad. Scientific naturalism's explanatory record is much, much better.

volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteors were once used as evidence of God refuting 'bad design', until we learned the essential roles they played in supporting life

Likewise 'makes God redundant' was used as an explicit rationale for theories like eternal, steady state, big crunch universe models, classical physics, & gradualism

It's no coincidence that the scientists who took us beyond these ideas, like Lemaitre and Planck, were skeptics of atheism- when you are not looking to disprove God you are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Leibniz answered this as eloquently as anyone I can think of:

"According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work."​

Of course he was talking about Newton's contention that God deliberately intervened to keep the stars and planets from falling into each other...Leibniz had no inkling (as far as I know) about evolution - but the logic fits. Does God really need to tinker with His own handiwork? And if so, what does that say about the "intelligence" of the original "design"?

As above yes, it was once believed that cosmic structures, as extraordinary as they were, could be accounted for by a handful of simple 'God refuting' immutable laws. That they required hidden, mysterious, unpredictable highly specific guiding instructions (QM) to function, was still the realm of 'religious pseudoscience' as you refer to.

Nature is the executor of God's laws- as Galileo put it..


But other than this dismal track record of naturalism/materialism - it presents a unique paradox:

That the laws of nature must be accounted for ultimately, by those very same laws. It also places an unwarranted restriction on intelligent agency, which must be removed entirely from the playing field to allow blind chance to work eventually unhindered.

Intelligent design presents no such paradox or baseless restrictions

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

As far as we can possibly tell, anything we can possibly say, including 'there was nothing', beyond (i.e. before) the BB is inherently and unavoidably speculative.

Automated and spontaneous are not the same as naturalistic. The painting of the Mona Lisa has a naturalistic explanation, but it was neither automated nor spontaneous. Naturalistic explanations are a natural default because appeals to the supernatural are not really explanations at all but rather signal failures to explain. So far, we have successfully uncovered naturalistic explanations for most of the previously mysterious phenomena that used to be put down to divine intervention - germs and genetic disorders, not demon possession, cause diseases, plate tectonics, not God's anger, cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes...etc. Given the continued failure of the "God hypothesis" to adequately explain these things, it should be a very last resort in explaining features of the natural world. Its record is appallingly bad. Scientific naturalism's explanatory record is much, much better.

Leibniz answered this as eloquently as anyone I can think of:

"According to their [Newton and his followers] doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion. Nay, the machine of God's making, so imperfect, according to these gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary concourse, and even to mend it, as clockmaker mends his work."​

Of course he was talking about Newton's contention that God deliberately intervened to keep the stars and planets from falling into each other...Leibniz had no inkling (as far as I know) about evolution - but the logic fits. Does God really need to tinker with His own handiwork? And if so, what does that say about the "intelligence" of the original "design"?

You might find the following of interest.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson did a nice presentation on the evolution of the god of the gaps arguments. Man doesn't invoke his gods until he reaches the limit of his knowledge. This was illustrated using the comments from three men from history, Newton being the second:

First was Ptolemy from antiquity. He suggested that the sun, moon, and planet revolved around the earth because that is how it appeared from what felt like a stationary earth, a reasonable idea. But when it came to the problem of the apparent retrograde motion of the planets - illustrated and explained at Retrograde Motion - where they seemed to briefly stop, go backward, stop again, and reverse direction again, he reached the limits of his understanding, and at that moment, invoked his god, Zeus:

"I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia" - Ptolemy

It was just a matter of earth overtaking a planet like Mars whose orbit was outside earth's and whose motion was slower. As earth is approaching it, the planet seems to be going in the direction that they are both moving. As earth passes it, it seems to be going in the reverse direction. As earth gets further ahead of it, it appears to be moving in its actual direction

Two millennia later, Newton, who never referred to deities in his Principia when discussing universal gravitation and the laws of (planetary) motion, hit a wall: the 3 bodied gravitational problem. Newton realized that as earth reached its closest approach to Jupiter, Jupiter tugs on earth. Newton could not see how it was possible for the solar system to remain stable given that intermittent destabilizing force. So, "for the first time in his entire record of the discovery of the laws of mechanics and the laws of gravity" Newtons says, "God must step in and fix things."

Tyson goes on to say that, "He didn't mention God. He didn't mention God when talking about his formula F = ma. He didn't talk about God when he knew and figured out the motions of the planets and his universal law of gravitation. God is nowhere to be found. He gets to the point where he can't answer the question,[and] God is there."

"It took 130 years, but somebody was finally born that could solve the [three body gravitational body] problem ... Pierre-Simon Laplace," who developed a new branch of calculus called perturbation theory. Napoleon, a contemporary of Laplace, asked him why he never mentioned the creator in his treatise. Laplace answered, "I had no need of that hypothesis."

And so it goes.

 

[leibowde84]

One theory predicted that the gaps in the fossil record were mere artifacts of an incomplete record, that would be filled in as we go

The other predicted that the gaps were real, highly evolved species appeared suddenly without history, remained in stasis with limited variation, and/or went extinct

Remind me which prediction was borne out by the evidence itself, and which is supplanted with artistic impressions?

The former obviously seems much more plausible. I'm not sure what you are referring to specifically. But, if you are referring to something along the lines of the Cambrian explosion, I would suggest including the pertinent fact that the "explosion" lasted for roughly 25 million years. So, suggesting that species "appeared suddenly" is just about as misleading as a description can get. Relative to evolutionary time, 25 million years is a short period though.

something is generally referred to as a 'scientific theory' if

#1 it's academically fashionable and/or politically advantageous
#2 it's impossible to verify empirically so it needs a true-sounding label stuck on it to give it some more clout

If you use the incorrect meaning of the term "scientific theory" (public usage does not make a meaning more or less correct), then, sure, you can call Intelligent Design whatever you want.

 

[viole]

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane: Dawkins

I agree that Dawkins might not have been totally accurate in describing evolution skeptics.

I don't believe that they must be either ignorant, stupid or insane.

He forgot to say that some of them could be all those three things at the same time. Or a combination of two.

Just kidding, of course.



Ciao

- ciole

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The former obviously seems much more plausible. I'm not sure what you are referring to specifically. But, if you are referring to something along the lines of the Cambrian explosion, I would suggest including the pertinent fact that the "explosion" lasted for roughly 25 million years. So, suggesting that species "appeared suddenly" is just about as misleading as a description can get. Relative to evolutionary time, 25 million years is a short period though.

Even Dawkins describes the appearance of highly evolved species in the Cambrian as sudden, so you could take up the semantic argument with him.

You can stretch a 25 million year bracket around the label (Cambrian explosion) if you like, geological blink of an eye as that still is, but the actual appearances of highly evolved species are utterly instantaneous in the fossil record. - If we go by the actual evidence that is (a quaint old scientific notion that skeptic of evolution stubbornly cling to)

Cue various excuses for why the speculated 'truth' is absent from the scientific evidence- fine, but 'the dog ate my homework' ≠ passing grade, I'm afraid.

If you use the incorrect meaning of the term "scientific theory" (public usage does not make a meaning more or less correct), then, sure, you can call Intelligent Design whatever you want.

Semantic again, but intelligent design theory has scientific standards that are a tad higher than M 'theory', multiverse 'theory', string 'theory', global warming 'theory', I think you will find!

 

[Jose Fly]

You might find the following of interest.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson did a nice presentation on the evolution of the god of the gaps arguments. Man doesn't invoke his gods until he reaches the limit of his knowledge. This was illustrated using the comments from three men from history, Newton being the second:

First was Ptolemy from antiquity. He suggested that the sun, moon, and planet revolved around the earth because that is how it appeared from what felt like a stationary earth, a reasonable idea. But when it came to the problem of the apparent retrograde motion of the planets - illustrated and explained at Retrograde Motion - where they seemed to briefly stop, go backward, stop again, and reverse direction again, he reached the limits of his understanding, and at that moment, invoked his god, Zeus:

"I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia" - Ptolemy

It was just a matter of earth overtaking a planet like Mars whose orbit was outside earth's and whose motion was slower. As earth is approaching it, the planet seems to be going in the direction that they are both moving. As earth passes it, it seems to be going in the reverse direction. As earth gets further ahead of it, it appears to be moving in its actual direction

Two millennia later, Newton, who never referred to deities in his Principia when discussing universal gravitation and the laws of (planetary) motion, hit a wall: the 3 bodied gravitational problem. Newton realized that as earth reached its closest approach to Jupiter, Jupiter tugs on earth. Newton could not see how it was possible for the solar system to remain stable given that intermittent destabilizing force. So, "for the first time in his entire record of the discovery of the laws of mechanics and the laws of gravity" Newtons says, "God must step in and fix things."

Tyson goes on to say that, "He didn't mention God. He didn't mention God when talking about his formula F = ma. He didn't talk about God when he knew and figured out the motions of the planets and his universal law of gravitation. God is nowhere to be found. He gets to the point where he can't answer the question,[and] God is there."

"It took 130 years, but somebody was finally born that could solve the [three body gravitational body] problem ... Pierre-Simon Laplace," who developed a new branch of calculus called perturbation theory. Napoleon, a contemporary of Laplace, asked him why he never mentioned the creator in his treatise. Laplace answered, "I had no need of that hypothesis."

And so it goes.

I believe this is what you're referring to. It's a great lecture and a wonderful illustration of the fundamental problem with ID creationism (it's nothing more than an argument from ignorance).

 

[siti]

Natural explanations are the default for books, cars, planes?

Except for the Bible I'm told...BTW - do you happen to know when and where the next generation of intelligent motor car will supernaturally appear in all its irreducible complexity - I need a new one but in the natural world I'll have to pay for it and I don't have any money.

when you are not looking to disprove God...you are free...to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

I'm not...I am...and I do...you?

Intelligent design presents no such paradox or baseless restrictions...

...as long as you are prepared to accept the baseless assumption of God's existence and ignore the evidence...

 

[leibowde84]

Semantic again, but intelligent design theory has scientific standards that are a tad higher than M 'theory', multiverse 'theory', string 'theory', global warming 'theory', I think you will find!

This seems irrelevant, as none of these have graduated to the level of "scientific theory".

Also, why do you think Cambrian explosion go against the theory of evolution by natural selection?

 

[Valjean]

Natural explanations are the default for books, cars, planes?

What does this mean? Please clarify.
Are you talking about that oft refuted watchmaker hypothesis, comparing the origins of manufactured items to living things?

Even Dawkins describes the appearance of highly evolved species in the Cambrian as sudden, so you could take up the semantic argument with him.

You can stretch a 25 million year bracket around the label (Cambrian explosion) if you like, geological blink of an eye as that still is, but the actual appearances of highly evolved species are utterly instantaneous in the fossil record. - If we go by the actual evidence that is (a quaint old scientific notion that skeptic of evolution stubbornly cling to)

Twenty five million years isn't exactly a biological blink of an eye. A lot can happen in millions of generations.
Granted, there remain a lot of questions about it, but I don't see why this would cast any doubt on the ToE. Once a template forms, copies and variations can ramify pretty quickly.

Semantic again, but intelligent design theory has scientific standards that are a tad higher than M 'theory', multiverse 'theory', string 'theory', global warming 'theory', I think you will find!

I disagree. It's not a 'theory' in the scientific sense, and I don't see what "standards" you're referring to.
It's religion in a lab coat.

volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteors were once used as evidence of God refuting 'bad design', until we learned the essential roles they played in supporting life

"...evidence of God refuting bad design?" What does this mean?

Likewise 'makes God redundant' was used as an explicit rationale for theories like eternal, steady state, big crunch universe models, classical physics, & gradualism

God's been retreating for a couple thousand years. He retreats each time the actual mechanics of a 'divine' phenomenon is discovered.

It's no coincidence that the scientists who took us beyond these ideas, like Lemaitre and Planck, were skeptics of atheism- when you are not looking to disprove God you are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

??? -- are you saying scientists try to disprove God? I've never encountered this. Scientists normally try to disprove their own hypotheses, God never comes up. Science can only deal with the tangible.

That the laws of nature must be accounted for ultimately, by those very same laws. It also places an unwarranted restriction on intelligent agency, which must be removed entirely from the playing field to allow blind chance to work eventually unhindered.

I'm not sure what you mean by "accounted for." Science just describes them and measures their effects.
If an "intelligent agency" cannot be detected of described, science pretty much ignores it.
Finally, what is this "blind chance" you refer to, and what are these restrictions?

Intelligent design presents no such paradox or baseless restrictions

Intelligent design presents no evidence, makes no predictions, can't be falsified and doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.
ID is, essentially, an appeal to magic.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Natural explanations are the default for books, cars, planes?




volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteors were once used as evidence of God refuting 'bad design', until we learned the essential roles they played in supporting life

Likewise 'makes God redundant' was used as an explicit rationale for theories like eternal, steady state, big crunch universe models, classical physics, & gradualism

It's no coincidence that the scientists who took us beyond these ideas, like Lemaitre and Planck, were skeptics of atheism- when you are not looking to disprove God you are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads.





As above yes, it was once believed that cosmic structures, as extraordinary as they were, could be accounted for by a handful of simple 'God refuting' immutable laws. That they required hidden, mysterious, unpredictable highly specific guiding instructions (QM) to function, was still the realm of 'religious pseudoscience' as you refer to.

Nature is the executor of God's laws- as Galileo put it..


But other than this dismal track record of naturalism/materialism - it presents a unique paradox:

That the laws of nature must be accounted for ultimately, by those very same laws. It also places an unwarranted restriction on intelligent agency, which must be removed entirely from the playing field to allow blind chance to work eventually unhindered.

Intelligent design presents no such paradox or baseless restrictions

Dismal track record of materialism? The present paradigm is the only one to have produced any useful knowledge about nature. It's given us every modern marvel we enjoy including polio vaccines, engines and motors, electric light at night, and nearly instantaneous global communication including the Internet.

If you want to discuss dismal records, let's discuss the contribution supernaturalistic thought has made. How has that ever been helpful?

What are you expecting an idea like intelligent design to offer or add? How are you proposing to improve science by injecting a god into it?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I believe this is what you're referring to. It's a great lecture and a wonderful illustration of the fundamental problem with ID creationism (it's nothing more than an argument from ignorance).

That's it, starting at about 4:30. Thanks.

Here's the same lecture in print form: The Perimeter of Ignorance | Natural History Magazine.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

What does this mean? Please clarify.

Siti said 'Naturalistic explanations are a natural default'

Are you talking about that oft refuted watchmaker hypothesis, comparing the origins of manufactured items to living things?

Not in this case, but it's an argument that keeps on ticking yes!

God's been retreating for a couple thousand years. He retreats each time the actual mechanics of a 'divine' phenomenon is discovered.

You'd have to have argued that with Hoyle and most other atheists at the time, they explicitly rejected the Big Bang for it's overt theistic implications

??? -- are you saying scientists try to disprove God? I've never encountered this. Scientists normally try to disprove their own hypotheses, God never comes up. Science can only deal with the tangible.

No, you are quite right sorry, I can't think of a single prominent evolutionist who tries to disprove God, ever, no idea where I got that from!

I'm not sure what you mean by "accounted for." Science just describes them and measures their effects.
If an "intelligent agency" cannot be detected of described, science pretty much ignores it.

That depends entirely on what scientists want to find

The WOW signal, a single ambiguous mathematical sequence caught drifting across interstellar radio waves, was interpreted as pretty strong evidence of alien intelligence (what other explanation could there possibly be!?)

Yet a vast array of functional mathematical algorithms permeating all space/time matter/energy- can safely be assumed by default, to have spontaneously blundered into existence for no particular reason

tiny bit of a double standard?

Finally, what is this "blind chance" you refer to, and what are these restrictions?

according to Toe significant design improvements are created purely by blind chance alone, random mutations.

ID theory has no need to banish chance altogether, both can and do work in harmony, as I think we referenced earlier in design software

Intelligent design presents no evidence, makes no predictions, can't be falsified and doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.
ID is, essentially, an appeal to magic.

IT predicted a creation event for the universe, deeper guiding forces existing beneath classical physics, that the gaps in the fossil record were real, to name a few biggies

lucky guesses perhaps