DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
Thank you. Of course God said he created Man in His image; He is/was never an ape.
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The validity of intelligent design
- Thread starter Nirvana
- Start date
Thank you. Of course God said he created Man in His image; He is/was never an ape.
Laughing Coyote
Member
I should hope that good scientist is questioning climate change, in every detail, just as good scientists question everything. I would however would like to see sources for your "thirty thousand." The number I saw was 3,000, mostly employed in petroleum and related industries, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands otherwise.
Now, why, why, why does ID keep saying evolution is due to chance? There is good reason why Darwin called it natural selection and not the lottery. The only randomness are the changes in the genome due to mutations. Whether the random mutations offered up at a regular rate are kept by a certain proportions of populations is entirely due to selection of the traits provided by the mutations. Whether they are selected or not at greater or lesser rates or eliminated entirely depends upon the reproductive advantage a trait gives individuals carrying the traits. The existence of traints as a dominant or recessive expression of genes allows retention of initially maladaptive mutations which in changing circumstances might become adaptive, for example ability of plant to live on less water. This is why a healthy population has a great variety of traits each giving slight advantage or disadvantage at particular times.
Besides mutation genetic material can enter the genome by means of viruses. A large amount of our DNA is virus derived. And foreign DNA can enter the genome through the course of symbiotic relationships with the hundreds of billions of bacterial cells that live within multicellular organisms in greater numbers even than the cells of those organisms in a process called symbiogenesis, which has not even the randomness of mutation involved; it is derived from mutual advantage.
The changes in the genome must be random, because so many constantly changing variables are involved in the life of every population that it is impossible to anticipate what would be advantageous beforehand. Instead of predetermining what may or may not work and will become obsolete even before it leaves the assembly line, its better to offer up a the whole plate of possibilities provided by random changes in a population's genome among its various individuals, then let reproduction choose what will be useful to keep in what proportions according to its success from generation to generation.
This is one flaw in the thinking of proponents of Genetically Modified Organisms who say that intelligent human design in the laboratory is perfectly safe and that the process is natural, because they are denying that in introducing modifications serving the design of humans they have no way of knowing the infinite range of unanticipated effects in all the relationships of both the parts of the organism to each other and of the organism to a complex and constantly changing ecosystem. The only way that these "monstrosities," the early word for mutations, stay in domesticated populations is through vast modification of ecosystems mechanically and chemically, these with their own deleterious impacts and growing monetary costs now in trillions of dollars worldwide, bankrupting agriculture.
Were all changes derived by some unseen intelligence, it would have to know all the infinite factors involved for every single organism, and it would have to be constantly changing the genome in every local population of every species in every single generation both due to changes in natural factors and due to the changes being constantly introduced in every other organism in the enter planet. Then imagine having to watch over all the other billions upon billions of planets throughout the universe with life on them, each with their hundreds of trillions upon trillions of organisms, from single cells to large predators. If God were rational, she herself would go with natural selection, which is a pure simplicity compared to intelligent design. Even in the case of human intervention in domestication of plants and animals, ecologists are realizing now that the only way human agriculture is going to survive is by modeling it on natural ecosystems. As of now, it is losing some 13 tons of topsoil from every acre. Already in America's bread basket, the Great Plains, half the topsoil has been lost in a century. In another half century there will be no topsoil left on the planet at the rate we are now losing it. Imagine growing food on bedrock in a condition similar to what the Romans did to their north African bread basket in the course of four centuries.
In a way I agree with last point partially, but if the work of scientists requires vast sums of money, how can it be divorced? I think it requires not divorce of science, but self politicization and development of knowledge, awareness and ability to discern by the great bulk of humanity so it can redirect science according to the interests not just of humanity, but because humans depend upon the planet as the home, of the planet rather than of the increasingly few people now determining the future of the planet.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Well, if god is a thing, then he has to have a beginning, by your own hypothesis.
Is he a thing or a nothing?
John 4:24 "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
I don't think we know enough about spirits to say.
Laughing Coyote
Member
On what basis are you saying that anybody claims it is random? Could you cite even one sentence in Darwin's Origin or Species, that might make you feel that the theory of natural selection is random. Once a basis is given for such a position we can discuss it and ascertain whether it is indeed true. But if no basis is given for this assertion, it is nothing more than a straw man created to give the illusion that the theory is wrong without actually addressing the theory.
Laughing Coyote
Member
On what basis are you saying that anybody claims it is random? Could you cite even one sentence in Darwin's Origin or Species, that might make you feel that the theory of natural selection is random (note the operative word "selection"). Once a basis is given for such a position we can discuss it and ascertain whether it is indeed true. But if no basis is given for this assertion, it is nothing more than a straw man created to give the illusion that the theory is wrong without actually addressing the theory.
You said "agreed," but you did not answer the question. How can I verify the veracity of your assertion if you give no reference. Again, could you quote anywhere that it seems to you that Darwin or any theorist of evolution makes such an assertion?
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Laughing Coyote
Member
Or, to put it in frame of question, you assert god is spirit, so what is spirit?
I'll give you the etymology of the word, which is Latin spiritus a breathing (respiration, and of the wind), breath; which translates the Greek pneuma, breath; which translates Hebrew ruah, breath. There was a thought that breath came from God before we understood what breath was. But we know now that it is the exchange of gases and water in metabolism, which is part of a cycle of exchange of gases and water the other direction in photosynthesis in plants. In fact, there are some fifty-six different forms of metabolism found in bacteria, five or six which are represented in the five or six or so kingdoms of life now recognized by biologists. So, what is it that you are talking about when you say "spirit"? What am I supposed to understand God to be by that Biblical Quotation? Or even, what does it mean to you that I can make sense of?
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Jose Fly
Fisker of men
Human/primate common ancestry can be "proven" via the same methods and to the same standard of "proof" that are used in courts in paternity/relatedness cases.
God never said that.
At least, not to me. The humans who claim He did have not demonstrated much credibility to me either. There's tons of stuff that they were clearly wrong about.
Tom
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
Wrong. It isn't the same at all.
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
And you're always right about everything. We know.
Not everything.
But everything in that post. I was demonstrably right and you know it.
Which is why you made such a weak response.
Tom
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
How do you know? Are you familiar with the methods behind using comparative genomics to establish relatedness?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
Some things are so commonly asserted they don't usually need a reference - but here you go; from a Berkeley link given to me by a Darwinist here as 'proof' of evolution
Mutations
Mutations are random
Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not "try" to supply what the organism "needs." In this respect, mutations are random — whether a particular mutation happens or not is unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.
If you are referring to scientific websites, the reason would be to learn science.
No. My argument against referencing Christian apologetics sites is that their values, methods, and agenda are not the same as mine.
Methods: The way they decide what is true and the place evidence plays in that is faith based rather than based in reason and evidence and critical thinking. This is why they consistently come to different conclusions. I find that I can't use faith based thought for anything.
Values: Another issue is the ethics of religious apologetics. They are notorious dissemblers.
Agenda: Whereas science is attempting to discover how our world works, Christian apologetics is interested in promoting religion. You can understand why many of us would not be interested in that or what it generates.
The bottom line is that nothing that is true is known only to those creating creationist websites. How could they? They do no scientific investigation. If it's on one of these sites and it's true, it was imported from a legitimat scientific resource. Link to that, not the apologist citing it.
And if it appears only on a creationist apologetics site, it's fabricated.
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
My argument against referencing Christian apologetics sites is that their values, methods, and agenda are not the same as mine.
Translation: I'm biased against Christian sites.
Translation: I'm biased against Christian sites.
Absolutely, and I just explained why - reasons you chose not to rebut.
Rational bias is not just a good thing, it is essential. As we go through life, we accumulate ideas such as that this way is better than that one. Hard work is better than laziness. Pedophilia and drunk driving are bad. Saving for the future is better than being irresponsible with money. They're all biases, and very good ones. Failing to accumulate a list of such biases is failing to learn from life and experience.
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
Why should I rebut you? It will just lead to a useless long argument. I don't have the time to waste.
No problem.
I do have the time, and I don't consider spending it in this manner wasting it.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
That is a non-answer. If spirits exist, then they are a thing, no matter how you want to define that thing, or what attributes you wish to ascribe to it.
Spirits are not a physical manifestation. Except maybe in the movie Ghostbusters.