The failure of Intelligent Design

[rusra02]

Ouroboros addressed this already, more or less. The reason that the same reasoning doesn't apply is because watches don't have the characteristics required for them to evolve, unlike life.

And, once again, evolution can work just as well with a divinely-created first cell as it can with one created via abiogenesis.

So, as long as something lives, the brilliant design evident in it's form and function can be assumed to arise totally as a response to it's surroundings, whereas non living things, far less complex can be assumed to arise totally by intelligent design? The logic of Hebrews 3:4 is much easier for me to believe, because it matches what we observe.

 

[rusra02]

It was done so by a Christian judge! So, we know how unbiased and fair Christians are, completely free from human bias and ignorance. Riiiight.

I do not know the judge involved, and I do respect his office. However, anyone can call themselves a Christian, including the heartless men who burned people at the stake for reading the Bible in medieval times. Calling oneself a Christian does not, in itself, mean you are a Christian, IMO.. Jesus himself said: "“Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. *Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ *And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’" (Matthew 7:13,14)
Calling on the authority of a human court of law to settle a question of scientific fact will not make the false ToE true, nor the truth of ID false.

 

[rusra02]

Designers don't just spring out of nowhere either. Intelligence has to bring about the first creator/designer?

No not really at all frightening cause it destroys the concept of god by requiring god have a designer or a cause, just cause everything else does isn't much of an argument. If the very first thing in all of existence can come about as intelligent then anything can, certainly anything evolving from it.

I believe it is as Psalm 93:2 states: "Your throne was firmly established long ago; From eternity you have existed." God has always existed, and is the source of all life, as Psalm 36:9 affirms. Ultimately, there must be a Source of all things, and the Bible logically and correctly says there is.

 

[Parsimony]

So, as long as something lives, the brilliant design evident in it's form and function can be assumed to arise totally as a response to it's surroundings, whereas non living things, far less complex can be assumed to arise totally by intelligent design? The logic of Hebrews 3:4 is much easier for me to believe, because it matches what we observe.

That depends. The complexity and diversity of modern organisms would be down to evolutionary processes. The original cell could still have been designed by God. If that was the case, then modern organisms would be examples of an original design heavily modified by natural processes. If watches could evolve, then you could explain their complexity without having to say that they were designed as-is in their present form as well.

 

[Ouroboros]

No, the Bible does not support the ToE:

Genesis 1:21-"And God created the great sea creatures and all living creatures that move and swarm in the waters according to their kinds and every winged flying creature according to its kind. And God saw that it was good."

Genesis 1:25-"And God went on to make the wild animals of the earth according to their kinds and the domestic animals according to their kinds and all the creeping animals of the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good."

Genesis 2:19-" Now Jehovah God had been forming from the ground every wild animal of the field and every flying creature of the heavens,"

Genesis 2:7-"And Jehovah God went on to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living person."

Evolutionists try endlessly, it appears to me, to reconcile the irreconcilable. Either life was created by an intelligent Designer, as the Bible says, or all life arose by evolution. Once you dispel the propaganda smoke and examine the evidence for yourself, the evidence for Creation is overwhelming, and the evidence for macroevolution lacking, IMO.

I can make buildings in a game engine (Unity3D) by using a building algorithm. It's a plugin that helps me build buildings in a game. This means, I'm the creator, and I make the buildings, but... I use an algorithm that does it for me. It doesn't mean I didn't do it, but it's a specific of the means and methods of how I make it.

God making the animals and plants doesn't mean that he handcrafted them one by one in a workshop. It only means he was the source of the method. Evolution can be considered the algorithm and method by which God created life (and still is).

It's your very specific interpretations of the word "make" and "create" that holds you back. Nothing else.

Think of evolution as a tool. A house builder, carpenter, and so on, all use tools. They don't hammer a nail directly with their palm. Neither do they drill with their finger or dig into a paint bucket and slap it on. They use tools. Modern tools are smarter and better than the old ones. Programmers for computers use IDEs, SDKs, frameworks, and much more, which all are tools to make something. They don't hack binary code or assembly unless it's very necessary. No one writes a whole program in machine code anymore. They use at least a compiler so they can program in mnemonics (assembly). But on the higher level, Today's programming languages will do many things for you. For instance, I don't have to know how to write a discrete math function for sine. Sine is built-in. In Java, you would write something like Math.sin(x) to get the calculation done for you. And this goes on. On even higher level of programming, you can use workflow engines, database engines, servers, etc. And on even higher level, you have heuristic software solving problems for you. All this points to that smart people (simple, human people, not even God) are clever enough to build tools to make the jobs easier for them. Now... you're telling me that God is not that smart. God had to go in and use his fingers and pick on things here and there and build everything like a child builds with Lego. God could not use his intelligence to create life by using evolutionary algorithms? (genetic algorithms is now a concept used in computer science and even design of mechanical things.)

Or, let's use another tool example from computing. I'm using Adobe Flash right now too. It has a cool feature called "tweening". It basically is that you can create one image, and then another image, and then space them out on a timeline, and Flash will create all the intermediate images for the polymorphic change or motion. Those intermediate frames are called tween frames. Flash makes them for me. I don't have to do stop-motion animation like the 60's anymore. The program does the frames in between for me. It basically "evolves" the images from one to another without my help, but according to my command.

I do not know the judge involved, and I do respect his office. However, anyone can call themselves a Christian, including the heartless men who burned people at the stake for reading the Bible in medieval times. Calling oneself a Christian does not, in itself, mean you are a Christian, IMO.. Jesus himself said: "“Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. *Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ *And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’" (Matthew 7:13,14)
Calling on the authority of a human court of law to settle a question of scientific fact will not make the false ToE true, nor the truth of ID false.

Wow... Uhm... You said you don't know him, yet you judge him. You're calling a judge lawless... I'm at loss of words.

The judge had people from both sides present their case, and he felt that the ID side failed to give any compelling evidence.

 

[idav]

I believe it is as Psalm 93:2 states: "Your throne was firmly established long ago; From eternity you have existed." God has always existed, and is the source of all life, as Psalm 36:9 affirms. Ultimately, there must be a Source of all things, and the Bible logically and correctly says there is.

That foundation resides within creation itself and remains eternal. The cause has to come from itself if such feat should be granted at all. All of existence, especially god is a source unto itself.

 

[Willamena]

That foundation resides within creation itself and remains eternal. The cause has to come from itself if such feat should be granted at all.

Why, pray tell?

 

[rusra02]

I can make buildings in a game engine (Unity3D) by using a building algorithm. It's a plugin that helps me build buildings in a game. This means, I'm the creator, and I make the buildings, but... I use an algorithm that does it for me. It doesn't mean I didn't do it, but it's a specific of the means and methods of how I make it.

God making the animals and plants doesn't mean that he handcrafted them one by one in a workshop. It only means he was the source of the method. Evolution can be considered the algorithm and method by which God created life (and still is).

It's your very specific interpretations of the word "make" and "create" that holds you back. Nothing else.

Think of evolution as a tool. A house builder, carpenter, and so on, all use tools. They don't hammer a nail directly with their palm. Neither do they drill with their finger or dig into a paint bucket and slap it on. They use tools. Modern tools are smarter and better than the old ones. Programmers for computers use IDEs, SDKs, frameworks, and much more, which all are tools to make something. They don't hack binary code or assembly unless it's very necessary. No one writes a whole program in machine code anymore. They use at least a compiler so they can program in mnemonics (assembly). But on the higher level, Today's programming languages will do many things for you. For instance, I don't have to know how to write a discrete math function for sine. Sine is built-in. In Java, you would write something like Math.sin(x) to get the calculation done for you. And this goes on. On even higher level of programming, you can use workflow engines, database engines, servers, etc. And on even higher level, you have heuristic software solving problems for you. All this points to that smart people (simple, human people, not even God) are clever enough to build tools to make the jobs easier for them. Now... you're telling me that God is not that smart. God had to go in and use his fingers and pick on things here and there and build everything like a child builds with Lego. God could not use his intelligence to create life by using evolutionary algorithms? (genetic algorithms is now a concept used in computer science and even design of mechanical things.)

Or, let's use another tool example from computing. I'm using Adobe Flash right now too. It has a cool feature called "tweening". It basically is that you can create one image, and then another image, and then space them out on a timeline, and Flash will create all the intermediate images for the polymorphic change or motion. Those intermediate frames are called tween frames. Flash makes them for me. I don't have to do stop-motion animation like the 60's anymore. The program does the frames in between for me. It basically "evolves" the images from one to another without my help, but according to my command.



Wow... Uhm... You said you don't know him, yet you judge him. You're calling a judge lawless... I'm at loss of words.

The judge had people from both sides present their case, and he felt that the ID side failed to give any compelling evidence.

You obviously did not read my post carefully. First, I never called the judge lawless, as you claim. I simply quoted a statement that Jesus made showing that not all who claim that Jesus is their Lord have his approval. Being a Christian is different from saying you are a Christian.

Secondly, the scriptures I cited show that God formed animals and the first man from the elements in the ground. It also shows that these animals were created according to their kinds. Nothing in the Genesis account supports the notion of gradual macroevolution. And the fossil record supports what the Bible says, that one family of animals does not evolve into another. It appears to me God did use the programming language of DNA to fashion all types of animals and plants. That is not evolution either, IMO.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

And the fossil record supports what the Bible says, that one family of animals does not evolve into another.

Flat-out lie. The fossil record very clearly shows smaller numbers of simpler organisms evolving over time into larger numbers of more complex and varied species. It does not show contemporary species suddenly appearing with no ancestry out of nothing, as we would expect to find were the Genesis account accurate. To suggest otherwise is dishonest.

 

[Ouroboros]

You obviously did not read my post carefully. First, I never called the judge lawless, as you claim. I simply quoted a statement that Jesus made showing that not all who claim that Jesus is their Lord have his approval. Being a Christian is different from saying you are a Christian.

It's a covert way of saying that he's not a Christian in your opinion. You don't know him, but you're suggesting (insinuating) that he's not a Christian. That's you judging him, which Jesus told you not to do.

Secondly, the scriptures I cited show that God formed animals

And how do we form things? By using tools.

and the first man from the elements in the ground.

And how did he do that? By magical word-powers? Waved a wand? Cast a spell? If he used his hands, he still used tools! The hands are an extension, not the "it" of a person's actions. How God made man from the elements of the ground is God's choice. How God did it is not based on your belief. If you study Nature, you will find how God did it. And evolution is the answer. Nature is the final witness of how God did it. If you reject nature's evidence, you're rejecting God's actions and methods.

It also shows that these animals were created according to their kinds.

"Kinds" is a very vague and loose term that has no meaning or context today.

Let's say that "kind" means Kingdom in the taxonomic system. That means that God created the "animal kind", "plant kind", "fungi kind", etc. Flying kinds is a kind. So all the birds evolved because God created a "flying kind". All animals evolved because he created the "animal kind." So evolution still holds.

Nothing in the Genesis account supports the notion of gradual macroevolution.

It doesn't support a lot of stuff simply because it's not a scientific journal.

For instance, the day-night concept is obviously wrong. There is day and night constantly on our planet. When there's night on one side, it's day on the other. Believing that God was creating the whole planet based on a time-zone on the same planet (i.e. just a part of the world), is just silly. So it's not to be taken that literal or scientific. It's the symbolics, figure of speech, that God created everything, that matters.

And the fossil record supports what the Bible says, that one family of animals does not evolve into another.

Why is there transitional forms then? Which "kind" do they belong to? The transitional kinds?

It appears to me God did use the programming language of DNA to fashion all types of animals and plants. That is not evolution either, IMO.

Appears to you? That's exactly the problem. You're not letting yourself open up to the truth that God speaks in Nature.

Evolution is an algorithm. No doubt about it.

You just have to change your literalist thinking and realize that you're not being literalist at all. You're reading and interpreting the Bible based on traditions that are outdated and wrong. You can and should read the Bible in a better light.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

Hmm, sometimes things in nature do have words written on them:

As said already, it is photoshopped, but I'm sure it's possible to breed a horse to have that pattern.

Afterall, Japanese humans have unwittingly breed a certain group of craps to have samurai faces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIeYPHCJ1B8

 

[rusra02]

Flat-out lie. The fossil record very clearly shows smaller numbers of simpler organisms evolving over time into larger numbers of more complex and varied species. It does not show contemporary species suddenly appearing with no ancestry out of nothing, as we would expect to find were the Genesis account accurate. To suggest otherwise is dishonest.

"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life,” says evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup, “what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record.”
Is paleontologist David Raup flat out lying. Is he dishonest to suggest otherwise?
Or is he letting the fossil record speak for itself, without the side of evolutionary propaganda?

 

[Ouroboros]

"Now let me step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."
David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Palaeontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, pp. 22, 25, Chicago, January 1979.

Is evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup flag out lying?

The quote you used Rusra is some 50 years old. The amount of fossil evidence today is some 10,000 times larger. He wrote his things in 1979. We are now in 2014. Welcome to today.

Fossil record and gradual change: http://biologos.org/questions/fossil-record

Transitional forms occur just when one might expect to see a change from one body type to another. However, a common objection is that few transitional fossils have been discovered; thus many lineages cannot be traced smoothly.
There are several reason for these gaps in the fossil record. First, fossilization is a very rare event. Plus, transitional species tend to appear in small populations, where rapid changes in the environment can provide a stronger evolutionary drive. Finally, because fossilization itself is a rare event, smaller populations are sure to produce fewer fossils. The fact that transitional species have been found at all is remarkable, and it offers further support of gradual, evolutionary change.

(BioLogos is a Christian website, by the way. Christians who embrace Christianity, science, and evolution.)

 

[rusra02]

It's a covert way of saying that he's not a Christian in your opinion. You don't know him, but you're suggesting (insinuating) that he's not a Christian. That's you judging him, which Jesus told you not to do.


And how do we form things? By using tools.


And how did he do that? By magical word-powers? Waved a wand? Cast a spell? If he used his hands, he still used tools! The hands are an extension, not the "it" of a person's actions. How God made man from the elements of the ground is God's choice. How God did it is not based on your belief. If you study Nature, you will find how God did it. And evolution is the answer. Nature is the final witness of how God did it. If you reject nature's evidence, you're rejecting God's actions and methods.


"Kinds" is a very vague and loose term that has no meaning or context today.

Let's say that "kind" means Kingdom in the taxonomic system. That means that God created the "animal kind", "plant kind", "fungi kind", etc. Flying kinds is a kind. So all the birds evolved because God created a "flying kind". All animals evolved because he created the "animal kind." So evolution still holds.


It doesn't support a lot of stuff simply because it's not a scientific journal.

For instance, the day-night concept is obviously wrong. There is day and night constantly on our planet. When there's night on one side, it's day on the other. Believing that God was creating the whole planet based on a time-zone on the same planet (i.e. just a part of the world), is just silly. So it's not to be taken that literal or scientific. It's the symbolics, figure of speech, that God created everything, that matters.


Why is there transitional forms then? Which "kind" do they belong to? The transitional kinds?



Appears to you? That's exactly the problem. You're not letting yourself open up to the truth that God speaks in Nature.

Evolution is an algorithm. No doubt about it.

You just have to change your literalist thinking and realize that you're not being literalist at all. You're reading and interpreting the Bible based on traditions that are outdated and wrong. You can and should read the Bible in a better light.

Again, you're reading into the post what you want it to say, not what it says. I will not revisit the creation of animals, as I think Genesis is clear in what it says. As to man, this quote from Genesis 5:1 is pertinent, I believe; "This is the book of Adam’s history. In the day that God created Adam, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them. On the day they were created, he blessed them and named them Man. Clearly and taken together with the description at Genesis 2:7, man was a special creation and did not evolve from some lower creature. There can be no harmony between what the Bible teaches and the ToE, and no torturous reasoning can make the two harmonious.

 

[Ouroboros]

Again, you're reading into the post what you want it to say, not what it says. I will not revisit the creation of animals, as I think Genesis is clear in what it says. As to man, this quote from Genesis 5:1 is pertinent, I believe; "This is the book of Adam’s history. In the day that God created Adam, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them. On the day they were created, he blessed them and named them Man. Clearly and taken together with the description at Genesis 2:7, man was a special creation and did not evolve from some lower creature. There can be no harmony between what the Bible teaches and the ToE, and no torturous reasoning can make the two harmonious.

You believe, is the keyword.

Remember that the Bible is a religious text, not a science book.

The text doesn't' say how God created man. You're assuming that it was according to your belief tradition instead of look at the evidence in nature.

 

[rusra02]

"Now let me step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."
David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Palaeontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, pp. 22, 25, Chicago, January 1979.

Is evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup flag out lying?

The quote you used Rusra is some 50 years old. The amount of fossil evidence today is some 10,000 times larger. He wrote his things in 1979. We are now in 2014. Welcome to today.

Fossil record and gradual change: What does the fossil record show? | BioLogos

Here is a quote from Raup in 1979, the same year you quoted him:

"Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -- what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection."

 

[rusra02]

You believe, is the keyword.

Remember that the Bible is a religious text, not a science book.

The text doesn't' say how God created man. You're assuming that it was according to your belief tradition instead of look at the evidence in nature.

You are wrong in saying the Bible doesn't say how God created man. The scriptures I quoted show this. And while the Bible is not a science book, it is, I believe, as Jesus said "the truth." (John 17:17) Calling something "science" doesn't make it true. The evidence in nature supports Creation, not evolution.

 

[Ouroboros]

*sigh*

Whatever.

 

[Sir Doom]

Here is something Dr. Raup said within the last decade...

"One of the most unfortunate aspects of the current creation-evolution debate is that many of the creationists equate Darwinian theory with evolution. They are saying, in effect, that if Darwin's theory falls, then so does evolution. Nothing could be further from the truth. To me, there are two basic questions: Has evolution occurred (in the sense of change in the biological composition of the earth over millions of years)? By what mechanisms has evolution occurred? Darwin's contribution was to the second question. He proposed a biological mechanism: natural selection. Whether Darwin was right or wrong has no bearing on the question of whether evolution did or did not occur.


On the question of whether or not evolution has occurred, I would say that there are few things in the natural sciences about which we can be more confident. The geologic time scale has been checked and rechecked by many independent methods. Although individual dates may be subject to error, the overall chronology stands firm. It is used every day in petroleum and mineral exploration, and, if there were basic problems with it, I am sure that industrial geologists would have blown the whistle. The fossil record is intimately tied in with this chronology and shows a record of change in organisms through time. What we are not sure about is just how the biological changes took place. Natural selection surely played a part, but there may be other biological processes that have operated. One of the challenges of biology and paleontology is to find out what other processes were involved.

 

[Ouroboros]

H
On the question of whether or not evolution has occurred, I would say that there are few things in the natural sciences about which we can be more confident.

And since Rusra02 said Dr. Raup is telling the truth, we shouldn't have any doubt anymore about evolution to be true.

Dr. Raup also said:

Now with regard to the fossil record, we certainly see change. If any of us were to be put down in the Cretaceous landscape we would immediately recognize the difference. Some of the plants and animals would be familiar but most would have changed and some of the types would be totally different from those living today. . . This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change too place, and that is really the question. If we allow that natural selection works, as we almost have to do, the fossil record doesn't tell us whether it was responsible for 90 percent of the change we see or 9 percent, or .9 percent. (p. 26)

Ouch... Dr. Raup is telling the truth, the fossil record shows changes and differences.

And again, Rusra told us to trust this guy, so he must be right, evolution is true according to him and the fossil record shows the changes and support the science.