The flaws in Intelligent design

[Audie]

You have repeated the same errors even after they were clearly explained to you. You have been guilty of doing what you have accused me of doing multiple times. The main problem is that you have latched onto a term that does not describe your true beliefs. Like it or not intelligent design is creationism. Are you familiar at all with the Dover Trial? The history of that term was clearly shown there. When one uses terminology incorrectly that person is in a very weak position to claim that others have misrepresented him.

I can support my claims about ID. The origin of the term, how it was coined by creationists in an illegal attempt to get creationism back in public schools. Why didn't you ask for evidence for my claims? I already quoted you to show you using that phrase incorrectly. I could have done it again and again. That is why I said that you did not seem to understand the corrections.

I could also quote time and again where you misrepresented my claims. I will support my claims when asked.

And if you do not like a correction dispute it. Tell why you think it is incorrect. I know that " Intelligent Design " sounds good as a term, but it was invented by a dishonest group and it is tainted as a result.

And even here you make an incorrect statement about my beliefs. I never said or even implied that all believers of ID are YEC 's. Where did you get that from? You keep claiming that others misrepresent what you say, but cannot substantiate that claim and then clearly misstated others positions.

Well, when they made you, they sure forgot to put
in the quit!

 

[Subduction Zone]

A short example of why terminology matters. Almost everyone knows how what "blackface" is. It is conceivable that a person that did not understand the history of the term might misuse it. Perhaps it could be used to describe nighttime camouflage that one would apply. If a person mistakenly called that blackface such an error would not be accepted in a place where race relations were being discussed. In the same way a lack of knowledge of how the term ID arose could, and has, led to its misuse. Like it or not due to its history the term has a clear meaning.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well, when they made you, they sure forgot to put
in the quit!

I know. It is a flaw of mine. When I run into a similar individual is when the sparks fly at times.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

We could just say that evolution is the evidence, which is pretty much what is said already. But it isn’t. What we see for certain in every fossil ever discovered is a result. What we have not seen is the cause. Nobody has observed it.

If the evolution theory were a crime that generations of detectives had been investigating for 160 years, still with insufficient evidence for a conviction, we would probably conclude by now that it will never be solved.

You still have failed to provide objective evidence that a god or designer exist.

 

[Bear Wild]

We could just say that evolution is the evidence, which is pretty much what is said already. But it isn’t. What we see for certain in every fossil ever discovered is a result. What we have not seen is the cause. Nobody has observed it.

If the evolution theory were a crime that generations of detectives had been investigating for 160 years, still with insufficient evidence for a conviction, we would probably conclude by now that it will never be solved.

Yes you desperately want to remove the evidence don't you. Fossils are evidence and since they support evolution you reject them without any evidence yourself. Evolution theory is not a crime and the comparison is of course ridiculous, but deceiving people the way the proponents of intelligent design may need to be considered a type of crime. So what makes you so terrified of the theory of evolution. What does this theory say that you are willing to make so many inaccurate statements.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

What makes the personal 'witness' of a meteorite strike...which cannot be reproduced in front of a camera, btw, more acceptable as evidence than the witness of someone who claims to have seen God...or any other sort of miracle?

I don't get it. The difference, at least to me, seems to be 'well, I believe in meteors so if someone says one landed in his back yard, it probably did. I don't believe in God, therefore anybody who claims to have seen Him is either lying or it's all in his head.."

Yes, we do have camera footage of meteorite strikes. We do not, however, have any camera footage of THAT meteorite strike.

....and the truth of it is not affected by whether you believe it or not, either way.

I never said I believed him about the meteorite.

Funny how miracle's stopped happening in front of cameras.
Edit for typo

 

[Subduction Zone]

I can understand how a Christian can be tempted by the phrase "Intelligent Design". But as I have pointed out the term has a meaning that those that use the scientific method would not approve of. It would help immensely if one knew the history of the term. To help in that regard here is a PBS documentary on it. It consists of interviews with people involved and reproductions of courtroom testimomy:

It is two hours long, but it is an interesting presentation.

 

[Bear Wild]

This is the last time I respond to you.

You have accused me of misrepresenting everything. You have told me that I am unable to understand, you have, basically, called me stupid and you are constantly accusing me of positions that I not only do not hold...but nobody else on this forum think I hold.

In the meantime YOU are guilty of moving the goalposts, insisting that "Intelligent Design" is restricted to a specific group that you identify...at the same time you are equivocating and commiting a 'fallacy of composition,' in that if someone tells you that s/he believes in a divine Creator, then OF COURSE that person is a biblical six day creationist who thinks the earth is a whole six thousand years old.

Most of us are not. There are a great many scientists who believe in a Creator God (meaning that the universe was designed by Intelligence) but who do not bring that belief into the study of, say, paleontology.

Or rocket science. As to whether you have ever made a claim about me that was not correct? When have you ever made a claim about me that WAS?

Enough already. When you figure out what your objection is to me and the claims I have actually made. let us know.

Actually we are only helping you to realize that intelligent design has fatal flaws and no evidence. The theory of evolution is based on actual evidence that ID believes want to disappear - ex. the entire fossil record, genetic plasticity creating phenotypic variation and so on. I even just read an intelligent design make a statement that three research articles on mice regulation of hot spots in the genetic code for increasing variation was proof against evolution. I read the articles sited and - surprise - the articles supported concepts of genetic variation and evolution. How much misinformation and incorrect statements does it take until it is clear how misleading the ID proponents are?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I never said I believed him about the meteorite.

Fun how miracle's stopped happening in front of cameras.

The "Dinosaur Killer Meteorite" is well supported by evidence. The first clue was that there is a worldwide very thin layer of sediment that is enriched in iridium. It is one of the rarest of elements in the crust. Yet we have one layer of it, all of the same age, all around the Earth. The question became where did it come from? Since some meteorites are also enriched in iridium that became the hypothesized source. And that was confirmed when they found a large crater of the appropriate age off of the Yucatan peninsula:

Alvarez hypothesis - Wikipedia

Repeatable observational evidence is why it is accepted as the event that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

We could just say that evolution is the evidence, which is pretty much what is said already. But it isn’t. What we see for certain in every fossil ever discovered is a result. What we have not seen is the cause. Nobody has observed it.

If the evolution theory were a crime that generations of detectives had been investigating for 160 years, still with insufficient evidence for a conviction, we would probably conclude by now that it will never be solved.

Variation--often through mutation--and natural selection. It has been observed. No. We do not know the specific selection factor. It is environmental and could be anything from climate, to predators, to shift in a host species, to disease, to some internal physiological change and so on.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, you know, he just says things.

Really. I see people providing him with explanations and evidence and he has even accepted some of the evidence, but for all the good it has done, he might as well be continually posting 'I like cake'.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Actually we are only helping you to realize that intelligent design has fatal flaws and no evidence. The theory of evolution is based on actual evidence that ID believes want to disappear - ex. the entire fossil record, genetic plasticity creating phenotypic variation and so on. I even just read an intelligent design make a statement that three research articles on mice regulation of hot spots in the genetic code for increasing variation was proof against evolution. I read the articles sited and - surprise - the articles supported concepts of genetic variation and evolution. How much misinformation and incorrect statements does it take until it is clear how misleading the ID proponents are?

@dianaiad appears to accept evolution. She (I assume from the user name, if I am wrong I am sorry) is misusing the term ID. She has admitted that some ID is thinly disguised creationism. She does not realize that all ID is that.

But at least I am not the only one that knows that ID is not science.

 

[Jose Fly]

We could just say that evolution is the evidence, which is pretty much what is said already. But it isn’t.

Huh? How is the fact that we see populations evolve not evidence that populations evolve?

What we see for certain in every fossil ever discovered is a result. What we have not seen is the cause. Nobody has observed it.

Yes we have. What do we see in the fossil record? We see the emergence of new species and traits. And how do those things arise today? By evolutionary mechanisms.

So again, why would we think new traits and species arose differently in the past?

If the evolution theory were a crime that generations of detectives had been investigating for 160 years, still with insufficient evidence for a conviction, we would probably conclude by now that it will never be solved.

Well, that's your opinion and you're certainly welcome to it, but. ...well, you know.

 

[dianaiad]

Actually we are only helping you to realize that intelligent design has fatal flaws and no evidence. The theory of evolution is based on actual evidence that ID believes want to disappear - ex. the entire fossil record, genetic plasticity creating phenotypic variation and so on. I even just read an intelligent design make a statement that three research articles on mice regulation of hot spots in the genetic code for increasing variation was proof against evolution. I read the articles sited and - surprise - the articles supported concepts of genetic variation and evolution. How much misinformation and incorrect statements does it take until it is clear how misleading the ID proponents are?

Which ID proponents are you talking about?

And HOW many times do I have to write that one cannot prove that god exists empirically? If one cannot prove that God exists empirically, then ...excuse the emphasis here, but I am really frustrated at the level of intransigence and unwillingness to actually read what I write....

how in the name of all that is logical, holy, objective or subjective can one prove "Intelligent Design?"

Indeed, What part of "Intelligent Design belongs in church," is going whoosh? What part of my repeated statements that science isn't about proving that God exists; science is about investigating the process? That science is about what the universe is and how it works, not Who made it?

But you folks seem to insist that because I DO believe in God, then I MUST 'really' believe in young earth creationism, or am all about proving that god exists, when almost every post of mine rather blatantly claims that this isn't possible through science?

"Intelligent Design" may include the young earth creationists who are attempting to present themselves under a new name. It also includes folks like me, who believe that the universe was indeed 'intelligently designed,' but who also believe that it's not science's job to prove that; it's the job of science simply to examine what is, and help us understand the processes. It doesn't matter, to 'science' whether God designed the universe or not; the goal here is to understand it, not to chase down the Author....or to prove that there isn't one.

But more than one of you simply doesn't seem to read what I write. You are inventing your own dialogue for me, and I am tired of it.

 

[dianaiad]

@dianaiad appears to accept evolution. She (I assume from the user name, if I am wrong I am sorry) is misusing the term ID. She has admitted that some ID is thinly disguised creationism. She does not realize that all ID is that.

But at least I am not the only one that knows that ID is not science.

Ah. No, it isn't. You may claim it is, but you are wrong. Many ID proponents accept evolution. They just think that God micromanages it. Or if not micromanages, certainly giving it a boost in the desired direction from time to time...less, perhaps, than mankind has done with plants and animals ourselves.

I'm not even willing to go with that; I suppose that it might be possible to find evidence that the evolutionary process has been interfered with, if indeed it has...but I honestly don't see how, and as far as I am aware, nobody has found any such evidence.

Mind you, if He decided that evolution (in terms of producing us, say) went off the rails with the dinosaurs so that it would have been impossible to produce decent sized mammals that would eventually end up in us as long as they were there, the Chicxulub meteor would certainly have been a quick, 'down and dirty' way to accomplish getting the evolutionary train going in the 'proper' direction. A very OT style divine clobber, actually.

Oh...just to cut this off, because I KNOW that you will make some idiotic side track about how I claimed that the Chicxulub meteor was God micromanaging His design...I am not claiming that. It's a joke. I think. Anyway, we certainly can't prove that god had anything to do with it, and it is silly to try. Our job is to figure out what happened when the meteor struck, how life came back, and if the astrophysicists are interested enough, perhaps to figure out where that meteor came from and if there are any more out there with earth in the 'cross hairs.'

ID proponents run a very wide gamut of belief. that you insist that they ONLY comprise the far end of the 'creationist' spectrum, so that anybody who believes that god created the universe MUST then be strict biblical creationists is irrational. It's also fallacious; equivocation, composition....begging the question...shoot, just about all of them.

.....and your claim here is as rational as claiming that all atheists are hide bound anti-theists who want to pass laws prohibiting all religious observances and have 'Imagine" as their anthem.

You don't think that, do you?

 

[Jose Fly]

I gotta jump in here. I've only been glancing at the back and forth with @dianaiad but even at that level of perusal, I thought it was pretty clear that he saw his views on God and design as his personal religious beliefs, and wasn't saying in any way that they were scientifically valid and should be taught as such.

Unless I missed something.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Which ID proponents are you talking about?

And HOW many times do I have to write that one cannot prove that god exists empirically? If one cannot prove that God exists empirically, then ...excuse the emphasis here, but I am really frustrated at the level of intransigence and unwillingness to actually read what I write....

how in the name of all that is logical, holy, objective or subjective can one prove "Intelligent Design?"

Indeed, What part of "Intelligent Design belongs in church," is going whoosh? What part of my repeated statements that science isn't about proving that God exists; science is about investigating the process? That science is about what the universe is and how it works, not Who made it?

But you folks seem to insist that because I DO believe in God, then I MUST 'really' believe in young earth creationism, or am all about proving that god exists, when almost every post of mine rather blatantly claims that this isn't possible through science?

"Intelligent Design" may include the young earth creationists who are attempting to present themselves under a new name. It also includes folks like me, who believe that the universe was indeed 'intelligently designed,' but who also believe that it's not science's job to prove that; it's the job of science simply to examine what is, and help us understand the processes. It doesn't matter, to 'science' whether God designed the universe or not; the goal here is to understand it, not to chase down the Author....or to prove that there isn't one.

But more than one of you simply doesn't seem to read what I write. You are inventing your own dialogue for me, and I am tired of it.

You still are misusing the term ID. An ID proponent is a creationist.

Intelligent design - Wikipedia

"Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".[1][2][3][4][5] Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[6] ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, so it is not science.[7][8][9] The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a fundamentalist Christian and politically conservative think tank based in the United States."

You are clearly not an ID believer. ID mainly consists of OEC's not YEC's. That is Old Earth Creationists. Not all creationists are YEC's, but ID is creationism in a cheap lab coat.

No one is saying that you are a YEC. No one is saying that you are an OEC. That is once again a misinterpretation of you what others are posting to you. The problem is your misuse of a well understood and defined term.

Some history of the term "Intelligent Design". As I already claimed and supported with more than one source the term came from the Discovery Institute. They invented the term after creationists lost the lawsuit of Edwards vs. Aguillard, the Supreme Court case that declared creationism to be religion and not science and therefore illegal to teach in schools. There was a book in the works at the Discovery Institute and it became Of Pandas and Peoples. That book was a creationist book but it was quickly edited into a "Intelligent Design" book. As a result of the Dover Trial the anti creationism side got a subpoena for all of the records on that book. In one part they found the "transitional species" of ID. What they had found was that terms like "creation" were edited into words like "design" with no other change to the text. They found one early version where the editing was not quite right one version had the word "cdesign proponentsists" That was a case where the editor did not quite take out the word "creationists".

cdesign proponentsists - RationalWiki

People keep treating you as a creationist because the terms that you choose to use identify you as a creationist. I am not the only one that has seen you do this. Just drop the term "ID" and you will be fine.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I gotta jump in here. I've only been glancing at the back and forth with @dianaiad but even at that level of perusal, I thought it was pretty clear that he saw his views on God and design as his personal religious beliefs, and wasn't saying in any way that they were scientifically valid and should be taught as such.

Unless I missed something.

The problem is that the use of the term "ID" which is a creationist term. Calling yourself a creationist, whether one realizes it or not, and then denying that one is a creationist is confusing.

 

[Jose Fly]

The problem is that the use of the term "ID" which is a creationist term. Calling yourself a creationist, whether one realizes it or not, and then denying that one is a creationist is confusing.

Well then maybe the first thing the two of you should do is agree to what the term "creationist" means. I know theistic evolutionists oftentimes don't like to be referred to as "creationists" because of the connotations with the term, even though technically they are. But that can usually be resolved pretty easily.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ah. No, it isn't. You may claim it is, but you are wrong. Many ID proponents accept evolution. They just think that God micromanages it. Or if not micromanages, certainly giving it a boost in the desired direction from time to time...less, perhaps, than mankind has done with plants and animals ourselves.

No, the proper term for that would be believers in theistic evolution. That is not ID. If you check some of the sources that I have supplied you will see the origin of that term. It does not mean what you think that it does.

I'm not even willing to go with that; I suppose that it might be possible to find evidence that the evolutionary process has been interfered with, if indeed it has...but I honestly don't see how, and as far as I am aware, nobody has found any such evidence.

Yet that could be an area of valid research. Once again one would have to approach the problem using the scientific method that means that one would have to have a test that could refute that belief. By the way, proving that belief wrong would not "disprove God". A mistake that many creationists make and a test that I have never even implied.

Mind you, if He decided that evolution (in terms of producing us, say) went off the rails with the dinosaurs so that it would have been impossible to produce decent sized mammals that would eventually end up in us as long as they were there, the Chicxulub meteor would certainly have been a quick, 'down and dirty' way to accomplish getting the evolutionary train going in the 'proper' direction. A very OT style divine clobber, actually.

Oh...just to cut this off, because I KNOW that you will make some idiotic side track about how I claimed that the Chicxulub meteor was God micromanaging His design...I am not claiming that. It's a joke. I think. Anyway, we certainly can't prove that god had anything to do with it, and it is silly to try. Our job is to figure out what happened when the meteor struck, how life came back, and if the astrophysicists are interested enough, perhaps to figure out where that meteor came from and if there are any more out there with earth in the 'cross hairs.'

Never even thought of that. But one question. Do you realize how the Chixiclub meteor hypothesis was scientific, unlike some of the concepts that you have asked about, and that it has been strongly confirmed? By the way the use of the term "idiotic sidetrack" would be against the rules here. I have tried to politely correct obvious errors. You have misunderstood those corrections because you did not realize that you were using a term incorrectly. Once again what you believe in is theistic evolution. ID goes much further than that.

ID proponents run a very wide gamut of belief. that you insist that they ONLY comprise the far end of the 'creationist' spectrum, so that anybody who believes that god created the universe MUST then be strict biblical creationists is irrational. It's also fallacious; equivocation, composition....begging the question...shoot, just about all of them.

.....and your claim here is as rational as claiming that all atheists are hide bound anti-theists who want to pass laws prohibiting all religious observances and have 'Imagine" as their anthem.

You don't think that, do you?

Once again please check out some of my sources on the origin and meaning of the term "ID". Just like the term "blackface" even using it in a more appropriate term does not change its meaning.