Scientific Evidence Supporting Intelligent Design

[painted wolf]

Of course I have but anaerobic life includes only very simple organisms. Evolution from unicellular to multicellular forms of life could not have taken place without respiration.

Anaerobic life still respires... and you have no way of knowing what evolutionary path it would have taken if oxygen levels hadn't spiked in the early atmosphere.
Just because they are simple now, doesn't mean they would remain so if the limitations of a highly oxygenated atmosphere and competition from oxygen using life were removed.

wa:do

 

[Sunstone]

What is being argued and shown by new science is that all that simply "is" in physics, chemistry, and biochemistry is just so because it has to be that way if carbon-based life is to evolve into homo sapiens.

To my knowledge it is not being shown by "new science" that physics, chemistry, and biochemistry are the way they are in order to allow the evolution of life into Homo sapiens. So I'm wondering where you get this idea. What evidence do you have for it?

Would you be willing to argue that a mud puddle is the shape it is because the earth it rests in was designed to make the mud puddle the shape it is?

 

[Kurgan]

But there were WMDs!! The question is what difference did it make ? WMDs were not the reason we went in in the first place.

$$C

 

[camanintx]

I see your point and accept the standard interpretation. Nevertheless, the question still remains as to how the phenomena that natural laws describe came to be precisely what they are with the values precisely that they have - like gravity.

You answered your own question in an earlier post.

Here are two recent discoveries as food for discussion:

From cosmology - The constants of Nature
"The sizes of stars and planets, and even people, are neither random nor the result of any Drawinian selection process from a myriad possibilities. Those and other gross features of the Universe are the consequences of necessity; they are the manifestations of the possible equilibrium states between competing forces of attraction and repulsion. The intrinsic strenghts of these controlling forces of Nature are determined by a mysterious collection of pure numbers that we call the constants of Nature. (John D Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle," p.5 - italics in text)
"The remarkable fact is that the value of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", p.125)

If our universe is as it is out of necessity, then what need is there for a designer?

 

[Buttons*]

agnosticism is fun

 

[monta]

agnosticism is fun

Yeah looks like fun

I am mostly joking

 

[sandor606]

Anaerobic life still respires... and you have no way of knowing what evolutionary path it would have taken if oxygen levels hadn't spiked in the early atmosphere.
Just because they are simple now, doesn't mean they would remain so if the limitations of a highly oxygenated atmosphere and competition from oxygen using life were removed.

wa:do

Anything is possible... perhaps. Whatever the case, it is a fact that without respiration there would be no life as we know it and you and I would not be here discussing the issue.

 

[sandor606]

You answered your own question in an earlier post.

If our universe is as it is out of necessity, then what need is there for a designer?

This question was already asked and I answered it.

 

[sandor606]

To my knowledge it is not being shown by "new science" that physics, chemistry, and biochemistry are the way they are in order to allow the evolution of life into Homo sapiens. So I'm wondering where you get this idea. What evidence do you have for it?

Would you be willing to argue that a mud puddle is the shape it is because the earth it rests in was designed to make the mud puddle the shape it is?

I get my ideas from science books. The info has been posted and I don't argue nonesense, just the Anthropic Cosmological Principle and matters related to it.

 

[Willamena]

Yeah looks like fun

I am mostly joking

My favourite, fun part of agnosticism is when that fellow gets off, not on either of those sides of the fence, but on the third side.

 

[Jose Fly]

So if H. sapiens is the purpose of the entire universe, I guess mass extinctions, asteroid collisions, and such are all part of the "design"? And I wonder what other intelligent life forms in the universe would think of Sandor's belief that the entire universe was designed to bring us about?

Also, one of the main arguments ID creationists make is that the evolution of complex, conscious life is so improbable and unlikely, a designer must have been involved. But now we're hearing that the evolution of complex conscious life was inevitable and the entire reason the universe exists.

So which is it?

 

[nonbeliever_92]

It is good to note that if we ever get contact from aliens from outer space and they have the same or very similar religion(s) as we have on earth, this would be quite good evidence to suggest that ID is valid.

 

[sandor606]

So if H. sapiens is the purpose of the entire universe, I guess mass extinctions, asteroid collisions, and such are all part of the "design".
And I wonder what other intelligent life forms in the universe would think of Sandor's belief that the entire universe was designed to bring us about?

Also, one of the main arguments ID creationists make is that the evolution of complex, conscious life is so improbable and unlikely, a designer must have been involved. But now we're hearing that the evolution of complex conscious life was inevitable and the entire reason the universe exists.

So which is it?

I don't know what alien intelligent life forms would think of the Anthropic Principle but I do know what proponents from different fields of the natural science think. I share their view.

Scientists are not saying that evolution of complex conscious life was inevitable, on the contrary. They are asserting that in order for this to occur all the parts and their dynamics had to be just-so, precisely what and as they are. This, they claim, require a designer.

 

[painted wolf]

Anything is possible... perhaps. Whatever the case, it is a fact that without respiration there would be no life as we know it and you and I would not be here discussing the issue.

Life as we know it... but life may yet surprise us. The line between non-life (like viruses) and life (simple bacteria) is a blurry one.

indeed viruses may be secondarily simplified organisms....

wa:do

 

[Jose Fly]

Sandor,

You keep saying "scientists say...." as if that by itself is a valid argument. The problem is, the scientists who advocate the anthropic principle are in the minority. Thus, if you expect "scientists say..." to be a compelling argument, why isn't the fact that the majority of scientists disagree with the anthropic principle even more compelling?

They are asserting that in order for this to occur all the parts and their dynamics had to be just-so, precisely what and as they are. This, they claim, require a designer.

Again, the question is why? Why does this universe "require a designer"? Why can't this universe have come about without one?

 

[sandor606]

Sandor,

You keep saying "scientists say...." as if that by itself is a valid argument. The problem is, the scientists who advocate the anthropic principle are in the minority. Thus, if you expect "scientists say..." to be a compelling argument, why isn't the fact that the majority of scientists disagree with the anthropic principle even more compelling?


Again, the question is why? Why does this universe "require a designer"? Why can't this universe have come about without one?

When I say scientists I of course mean the proponents and supporters of the theory. Minority or not, ID is worthy of being judged on its merits. I am sure there are scientists who disagree with the anthropic principle and if you know of any by all means present their case. My purpose is to offer evidence that supports ID, the title of this thread, and the anthropic principle is evidence.

Why? Because in order to ensure that homo sapiens would one day evolve on a life-bearing planet, the Universe had to be exactly as it is. Every single physical, chemical, and biochemical characteristic and process had to be just-so. The purpose, the evolution of Man, demanded it. This astonishing complexity and precision could not have occurred by accident but had to have been designed, they claim.

 

[sandor606]

Life as we know it... but life may yet surprise us. The line between non-life (like viruses) and life (simple bacteria) is a blurry one.

indeed viruses may be secondarily simplified organisms....

wa:do

:yes:

 

[Sunstone]

...in order to ensure that homo sapiens would one day evolve on a life-bearing planet, the Universe had to be exactly as it is.

You believe that and yet you do not appear to believe the earth is intelligently designed to hold mud puddles that are precisely a certain shape -- the shape of the water and mud that will someday fill them. Why the inconsistency? Why believe the Universe had to be designed exactly as it is for homo sapiens, but not believe that the earth had to be exactly as it is for mud puddles?

 

[Autodidact]

The problem is yours because you don't distinguish between the messenger and the message. I am just a messenger. The message, based on recent discoveries in the natural sciences, is that the Universe is designed to harbor life and the goal of life is to evolve homo sapiens; that we are not here by accident but by design.

The message is incorrect. There is no scientific way to determine that the universe was created to facilitate life. Rather, life evolved to fit the universe it evolved in. If it had not, we would not be here to talk about. That's the anthropic principle.

 

[Autodidact]

Exactly, the law of gravity will describe exactly what will happen if I throw myself out of an airplane. It describes what would happen if I did it without a parachute, and what would happen if I did it with a parachute. But the law it self is descriptive, not proscriptive. No one is going to arrest you for violating the law of gravity. Scientific laws did not need to be written like legislative laws, and they do not need to be enforced. Scientific laws are descriptions of observed natural phenomena (like gravity). Nothing more. [/quote

I see your point and accept the standard interpretation. Nevertheless, the question still remains as to how the phenomena that natural laws describe came to be precisely what they are with the values precisely that they have - like gravity.

We don't know, we probably can't know, and it is not reasonable to expect to know. It may be that an incomprehensibly vast intelligence set it up, and it may not. You may believe this to be so, but you cannot deduce it from the facts at hand.