The validity of intelligent design

[metis]

When it comes to life forms, whereas there's competition for survival, there are forms that tend to have a better change of survival and reproduction than some other forms, but these forms are not universal in design since the environment and also chance is different. "Bricks" do not have that same kind of competition.

 

[DavidFirth]

No matter how you dress it up it comes down to either God did it or it just happened. I tend to believe it didn't just happen randomly.

That actually makes too much sense so people just ignore it and believe whatever they choose based on their presupposed assumed truths about it.

 

[metis]

That actually makes too much sense so people just ignore it and believe whatever they choose based on their presupposed assumed truths about it.

Generally speaking, I think it's more the other way around when it comes to "presupposed assumed truths", as most theists I know seemingly start out with a belief in God or Gods creating.

 

[Altfish]

Agreed! all the changes needed to morph a single cell into a human being could not be blundered upon by chance, but that's exactly what the ToE proposes- it made a lot more sense 150 years ago before we knew about the complexity of the cell/ DNA etc

Sorry, but it doesn't. Each mutation is random but none beneficial mutations are quickly discarded. Hence the natural selection element trumps the random element.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

What do you think about the future of intelligent design? Is it valid? Will it stay valid?

"Intelligent Design" has no future, and no it's not valid as science, it is just religion under another guise. Credit to the American Christian apologists though, they pounce on anything and everything and claim it as their own, they repackage it and sell it to the gullible. Is it intellectually honest? No. Is it great salesmanship? Oh yes! The problem they have is that most educated people are well versed in the psychology of sales and marketing these days, though I don't suppose it will stop them from trying. Cant wait for the next creationist take on scientific theories...

 

[DavidFirth]

Generally speaking, I think it's more the other way around when it comes to "presupposed assumed truths", as most theists I know seemingly start out with a belief in God or Gods creating.

Circular argument. Atheists do the same by assuming no God exists or ever did exist. They need their millions of years to justify their weak arguments for macro-evolution and abiogenesis to make any logical sense.

Been there, done that. No thanks.

 

[metis]

Circular argument. Atheists do the same by assuming no God exists or ever did exist.

Most of us scientists are not atheists but are agnostics or are rather "unconventional" theists.

The reality is that it is virtually impossible for anyone to provide one shred of objective evidence that a deity or deities caused our universe. And I can't help but notice that you are assuming that it's just one deity that you assume did this because I've not seen you post "gods" or "deities" instead of "god" or "deity".

They need their millions of years to justify their weak arguments for macro-evolution and abiogenesis to make any logical sense.

"Macro-evolution" is just a logical and scientifically-established extension of "micro-evolution", and the evolution of life forms has been going on here on Earth for around four billion years. OTOH, the Genesis creation accounts simply have no factual evidence to support them.

Been there, done that. No thanks.

Obviously your choice.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Sorry, but it doesn't. Each mutation is random but none beneficial mutations are quickly discarded. Hence the natural selection element trumps the random element.

So it does then, design improvements have to be blundered upon by pure chance, no way around it.

Of course a significantly superior design will be selected over an inferior one. Mustangs v Pintos.. intelligent design does not dispute this. Accidentally producing vast enough numbers of them by pure blind chance- that's the problematic part

 

[Jose Fly]

"Intelligent Design" has no future, and no it's not valid as science, it is just religion under another guise.

There are two good ways of discerning the current status of ID creationism. First, on the scientific front we ask "What contributions has ID creationism made to our scientific understanding of anything?" The answer is clear......none, nothing, nada, zip. That establishes the fact that ID creationism is 100% scientifically irrelevant.

Second, on the social/political front we look to see where ID creationism has had, or is having, any impact. Since the stated goal of ID creationism is to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions", we ask whether the "materialist worldview" is in decline and if science is becoming increasingly in line with "Christian and theistic convictions". For the former, surveys have consistently shown the opposite, i.e, that materialism is increasing rather than decreasing; and for the latter I've seen absolutely no signs of science becoming more theistic, let alone more Christian.

Given all that, one has to wonder on what basis can one reach any other conclusion than that ID creationism has been a colossal failure.

 

[Altfish]

So it does then, design improvements have to be blundered upon by pure chance, no way around it.

Of course a significantly superior design will be selected over an inferior one. Mustangs v Pintos.. intelligent design does not dispute this. Accidentally producing vast enough numbers of them by pure blind chance- that's the problematic part

NO!

It is not 'pure chance'

Let's take rolling dice as an example, imagine you have 10 dice and you have to roll 10 6's. The chances of that happening is 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x1/6 x 1/6 , if you keep throwing the same 10 dice again and again the chance of you throwing 10 6's remains the same - i.e. very unlikely, it is 'pure chance'. How many times would you have to throw those dice to get 10 6's? A great many.

But evolution doesn't happen like that. In evolution you throw the dice and every time you get a 6 you 'keep it' and only throw the remaining dice. That is the 'natural selection' element.
Relatively quickly you will achieve 10 6's.

There is much more to evolution but that gives a simple explanation of why it is not 'pure chance'.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

NO!

It is not 'pure chance'

Let's take rolling dice as an example, imagine you have 10 dice and you have to roll 10 6's. The chances of that happening is 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x1/6 x 1/6 , if you keep throwing the same 10 dice again and again the chance of you throwing 10 6's remains the same - i.e. very unlikely, it is 'pure chance'. How many times would you have to throw those dice to get 10 6's? A great many.

But evolution doesn't happen like that. In evolution you throw the dice and every time you get a 6 you 'keep it' and only throw the remaining dice. That is the 'natural selection' element.
Relatively quickly you will achieve 10 6's.

There is much more to evolution but that gives a simple explanation of why it is not 'pure chance'.

It's almost impossible to score the desired result in one roll yes, that would be my point. playing Yahtzee, we know to retain each 6-insignificant on their own- and roll again so we can eventually create a usable score, we know to save small useless change in a coffee can and take it to the bank when it's full

And I think this is where some anthropomorphism creeps into evolution, the concept of saving for future pay-off is so intuitive to us, it's very difficult to remove it completely

But evolution, so the theory goes, cannot do this, it has no long term goals, it cannot save potentially useful parts for a future payoff.

Half an eye is worth exactly zero in this unguided model.

 

[McBell]

ouch.
It is truly sad the exceptionally high amount of ignorance of evolution in this thread.
I mean, how do some of these people even use a computer...?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The argument from complexity is actually a more powerful one against gods existing than against naturalistic abiogenesis (or evolution).

What you are saying in essence is that a cell seems too complex to you to exist undesigned and uncreated, so to solve this dilemma, you propose the existence of the least likely thing one can imagine existing undesigned and uncreated.

the 'functionality' of a cell may be a better word, since 'complexity' can be more semantically confusing for many atheists

A random pile of bricks is more geometrically complex to describe than a brick wall, but chance is a less probable explanation for the 'simpler' but more functional wall

The cell Darwin saw was a blurry blob, back then we could still imagine it to be quite simple in it's function- hence simple explanations for it's arrival and simple mechanisms of reproduction. We know this is not the case today.

You ignored the argument. You must have had a good reason.

 

[omega2xx]

The operative phrase being "as yet".
For most of human history people attributed much of what went on around them to some form of supernatural agent. We did this for hallucinations, storms, infections, earthquakes, you name it. We described demons and gods and wizards and angels etc.
But as our knowledge and reason grew, more and more things were understood for the naturalistic events that they are.

Those who do ignore the possibility of a spiritual realm. Those who do, cant' explain the origin of the universe and the most logical explanation is we have an intelligent Designer who did it.

Our knowledge and reasoning is continuing to grow. I see no reason to doubt that these big questions will be answered as well. I'm not holding my breath, because I expect it to be a long time. But that's not the same as impossible by any means.
Tom[/QUOTE]

Since nothing can't be the source of something, either matter, energy and life or God must be eternal. Since order is very unlikely to come into being from disorder, I an going to go all in that God is the cause of the 3 things I mentioned.

 

[Jose Fly]

You ignored the argument. You must have had a good reason.

That's why creationists always lose in the arenas of court and science, and it's why they only persist in online communities. In court and science you can't ignore data and questions without consequence; in online forums you can do it all you want, and people will eventually forget it and continue interacting with you.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

You ignored the argument. You must have had a good reason.

addressed it, read again, or let me know if you need it explained better

 

[omega2xx]

This is a perfect example of quote mining and plugging in an irrelevancy. First of all, under the guise of showing that evolutionists "recognize" certain problems with the Big Bang, Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research cites an old (1983) comment by Don N. Page of The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Theoretical Physics:

"Quote mining" is an ignorant term. It is by those when the quote refutes what the complainer says.

"There is no mechanism known as yet that would allow the Universe to begin in an arbitrary state and then evolve to its present highly ordered state."

Is his statement true or not?
​

of which Morris says

"Creationists have stressed these problems, but now evolutionists themselves recognize them."
​

which is totally irrelevant to evolution.

No it isn't. If creationism point to a problem and then evolutionists see the problem it is not irrelevant, if the problem has anything to do with evolution and it usually does.

Second of all, Morris' article, whose topic is

"Evolutionists have frequently criticized creationism as unscientific because of its basic commitment to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo—that is, “creation out of nothing.”
​

is an outright lie. Evolutionists couldn't care less about creationism's thoughts about “creation out of nothing.” They have far better things to do.

But they do criticize it, and yet they must also believe in it or say the matter, energy and life are eternal and have always existed. This makes them hypocrites.

One thing the evolutionists need to be busy doing is offers some scientific evidence for all of their theology.

Thirdly, stating that there is a problem concerning how

"the primeval explosion could be the cause of the complexity and organization of the vast cosmos, and another of which is to explain how a uniform explosion could generate a heterogeneous universe"​

which "evolutionists themselves recognize" and is purportedly evidenced by Page's remark, part of a letter regarding the inability of inflation to explain time asymmetry,

Then why criticize creationist for mentioning it?

"There is no mechanism known as yet that would allow the Universe to begin in an arbitrary state and then evolve to its present highly ordered state."

is pure irrelevancy and hogwash.

Then provide the mechanism.

So the concept of 'made from nothing' is a completely wrong characterization.Evolutionists aren't the least concerned with such things, nor do they impact biological evolution in any manner. Morris is simply again going far afield to grab a piece of science's ignorance (science doesn't know everything) and trying to convince the reader it's somehow a concern to the evolutionary model. It is not. Believe me, evolutionists couldn't care less about the inability of inflation to explain time asymmetry, or any other cosmological issues.
The problem for evolutionists is not what Morris say, it is what real science has proved and much of it in the field of genetics, refutes evolution.

They can't explain scientifically how a land animal surviving very well on land , could become a sea creature., and you will have to ignore the prove laws of genetics to try and explain it. It is a necessary thing to explain or the TOE is exposed as the fraud it is.

But such strawmen are part and parcel of the creationist strategies. Unable to make a case for creationism they confront evolution with innuendo and phony issues. Nothing new, but it is disturbing when people fall for it.
.

Everything is a strawman when it refutes the fairy tale of evolution. Your problem is you don't understand real science well enough to know what they say is not possible. You think opinions are evidence and you accept them by faith alone.

 

[LuisDantas]

The intelligent design debate has attracted lot of attention lately. Even after the kitzmiller v dover trial, it`s proponents still gain a significant popularity. I`m wondering what you all think of this secular version of creationism. What do you think about the future of intelligent design? Is it valid? Will it stay valid?

ID is not at all secular. Nor is it at all valid, nor will it ever be.

It is refurbished so-called Creationism, that is all.

There was never any question of whether "Creationism" was valid. Rebranding it as "Intelligent Design" did not change that, either.

The whole matter is caused by a lack of proper education, nothing else.

 

[osgart]

stupid design is the truth, nothing elegant, nothing fancy, just a good Jerry rigging.

we might be spawned from something stupid, yet intelligent.

why ignore intelligence as fundamental to existence?, just throw it under the bus science does.

The assumption without evidence is that we exist as a brute indifferent fact.

at least take the middle road on it.

if we are a brute indifferent fact, than we should never exist , or exist non sensefully.

bodies have logic and convenience too them; thumbs are right where they need to be to grab objects. this logic isn't accidental.

God or gods I totally dismiss but that doesn't rule out stupid design by an intellect.

 

[Nirvana]

stupid design is the truth, nothing elegant, nothing fancy, just a good Jerry rigging.

we might be spawned from something stupid, yet intelligent.

why ignore intelligence as fundamental to existence?, just throw it under the bus science does.

The assumption without evidence is that we exist as a brute indifferent fact.

at least take the middle road on it.

if we are a brute indifferent fact, than we should never exist , or exist non sensefully.

bodies have logic and convenience too them; thumbs are right where they need to be to grab objects. this logic isn't accidental.

God or gods I totally dismiss but that doesn't rule out stupid design by an intellect.

Indeed! That`s the truth, let me quote, Neil DeGrasse Tyson here -
``Another area of fuzzy thinking out there is the movement called Intelligent Design.It asserts that some things are too marvellous or too intricate to explain.The contention is that these things defy common scientific accounts for cause and effect,and so they’re ascribed to an intelligent, purposeful designer. […]So let’s start a movement called Stupid Design, and we’ll see where that takes us.For example, what’s going on with your appendix?It’s much better at killing you than it is at anything else.That’s definitely a stupid design.What about your pinky toenail?You can barely put nail polish on it; there’s no real estate there.How about bad breath, or the fact that you breathe and drink through the same hole in your body,causing some fraction of us to choke to death every year?And here’s my last one. Ready?Down there between our legs, it’s like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system.Who designed that?``