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The validity of intelligent design

Secretary of Health and head of the genome project Francis Collinshas shown in his book The Language of God that intelligent Design is not the correct Christian response to atheistic materialism

There is definitely a lot of hidden political and economic agendas behind it. For example, reading some of their websites way back, I found there was stuff indicating an interest in undoing the endangered species act and generally make open house on exploitation of the ecosphere. Fisheries at that time was was being associated with it. Generally it also has to do with transferring scientific authority to a textual one, which then can be interpreted as wished.

If you think of Jesus, he was an iconoclast, against exploitation, and probably more than most of the Hebrew prophets he not only knew the Hebrew scripture but criticized slavish following of it as was being promoted by the Pharisees and other sycophants for the provincial government. It's curious that Christianity took over the Torah as their foundational book, except perhaps that early Christianity was a Jewish sect. I don't think Jesus would have had any problem with Darwin. Maybe it is that a major proportion of followers of prophets never catch up to the position of those prophets, taking them and their metaphors literally and inflexibly, or their minds became captured by people who twisted the prophecy, such as the Roman Paul. This goes for secular philosophers and prophets as well, such as many followers of Descartes, Marx, etc.
 
The BB is a fact as we have very detailed pictures of it, look up Wmap and Planck satellites. I am busy today, but will respond more to this at another time. Matter was created from the Bang. Also remember e=mc#.

This isn't a joke thread. The "BB" is not a fact. If it is then prove it is. You can't.

We can make detailed pictures of teddy bears and candy, too. Proves nothing.

Prove matter was created from the BB. First, of course, you have to prove the BB happened. Good luck, you're about 20 years behind the leading scientists of our time.

The Big Bang itself is not "fact" until it can be empirically observed. However it seems to be the best explanation fitting what we can observe: expanding university, closeness of galaxies in the early universe, grouping of galaxies due to gravity, background radiation, high content of hydrogen in the early stars, generally a hotter earlier universe, i.e, less entropy. You could say that as we disclose facts with better and more varied ways of observation, what they disclose all support and elaborate it.
 
complexity alone means nothing. functionality with specificity shouts intelligent cause. The God thing means nothing.

The mystery is what kind of intelligence is it, not that it exists, or existed, or moved on.

The evidence of intelligent cause has always been profoundly simple. ego blinds the naturalist mind to the very simple.

This is interesting. Could you give examples of functionality without specificity so we can test your premise?

Regarding your second and third sentences, Darwin dealt also with these topics in detail in the Origin of Species and his conclusions make up part of the core of his theory. If you would like to actually criticize it rather than straw men that you yourself have created, I would suggest reading it carefully first. You'll do favor to your cause. It was written in a manner to be easily accessible to a broad audience, so it is not really a difficult read. Although due to the complexity of the topic you have to bear with it. Remember also that it is at a very early stage of the development of the theory so it will have shortcomings simply because ways of investigating questions it may leave hadn't been developed yet.
 

DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
The Big Bang itself is not "fact" until it can be empirically observed. However it seems to be the best explanation fitting what we can observe: expanding university, closeness of galaxies in the early universe, grouping of galaxies due to gravity, background radiation, high content of hydrogen in the early stars, generally a hotter earlier universe, i.e, less entropy. You could say that as we disclose facts with better and more varied ways of observation, what they disclose all support and elaborate it.

"However it seems to be the best explanation fitting what we can observe"

That's your opinion. Not mine.
 

DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
Can you name one contribution "creation science" has made in the last century to our scientific understanding of things?

No need, Genesis 1 & 2 explains it in enough detail for you. If you read the entire ICR website you would understand.

But you won't.
 

DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
LOL.....a long-running psychological case study. :D

I'm still trying to figure out why intelligent people think abiogenesis happened. And the one single simple cell somehow turned into the billions of life forms on the planet today. Now if that isn't quite the stretch of the imagination I don't know what is.

You guys sure do have a lot of faith in some rather incomplete *cough stupid* theories.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I'm still trying to figure out why intelligent people think abiogenesis happened.
Abiogenesis is a scientific hypothesis, not a scientific theory or axiom.

In science, we do not assume that it has happened like is your belief in a divine creation. There simply is not even one little speck of objective evidence at your disposal, especially since who was old enough to actually see "creation" happen? Maybe it happened as you say, but then maybe it didn't.

IOW, yours is the blind belief.
 

McBell

Unbound
...
Now if that isn't quite the stretch of the imagination I don't know what is.
That's easy, Creation.
No wait, Intelligent Design.
I go with Intelligent Design because those pushing it think they have tricked people into not seeing ID is nothing more than Creation with god removed.
Which is interesting given all the whining they do about God being removed from school, etc.
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
So that's a no then. Thought so.

Genesis 1 & 2 explains it in enough detail for you.
I wasn't aware that Genesis contained examples of "creation science" adding to our scientific understanding sometime in the last 100 years.

If you read the entire ICR website you would understand.

But you won't.
As I demonstrated earlier, the ICR operates under a framework that is the exact opposite of the scientific process.
 
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Jose Fly

Fisker of men
I'm still trying to figure out why intelligent people think abiogenesis happened.
Because we know at one point there was no life on earth, and then later there was life. That means the first life forms came about somehow. Origins research is about attempting to figure out how that occurred.

And the one single simple cell somehow turned into the billions of life forms on the planet today. Now if that isn't quite the stretch of the imagination I don't know what is.

You guys sure do have a lot of faith in some rather incomplete *cough stupid* theories.
Given your ignorance of the subject and your religious bias, it's hardly surprising to see express such opinions.
 

DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
Because we know at one point there was no life on earth, and then later there was life. That means the first life forms came about somehow. Origins research is about attempting to figure out how that occurred.


Given your ignorance of the subject and your religious bias, it's hardly surprising to see express such opinions.

You don't "know" anything about what happened on Earth before you were born. You choose to believe what you hear and ignore what you wish to ignore.

Given your ease at believing people who change their opinions about things so frequently, it's difficult to believe most anything you postulate.
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
You don't "know" anything about what happened on Earth before you were born.
Why not?

You choose to believe what you hear and ignore what you wish to ignore.
How do you know what I hear and what I ignore?

Given your ease at believing people who change their opinions about things so frequently, it's difficult to believe most anything you postulate.
That doesn't make any sense. You seem to be saying that if anyone ever changes their views on something, they are forever unreliable for anything from that point forward.

Is that really what you're saying?
 

DrTCH

Member
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.

WHOA!!! I absolutely disagree. Just because one holds that there is some intelligence or "design" in the universe is not necessarily predicated on the existence of a god. So, one need not be a theist or deist to be attracted to the kind of position I mentioned...which is akin to the positions of Taoism and Buddhism (and, for that matter, seems to be supported by some discoveries of modern physics).
 

DrTCH

Member
This caught me when I read the definition of Intelligent Design. "[It's says that] nature categorically cannot be explained through natural causes; it requires the guidance of an "intelligent agent."

If not natural causes, what is nature of the agent that's separate from the cause of the universe-energy?

I actually think, given christian science, that it is an attempt to keep god in schools without directly referring to him. It's still a form a control of a child's education to be wrapped around christian views (rather than say Hindu, Islamic, Toasist).

The future? It depends on the state, really. In VA, US creationism isn't taught in any form to children. In college, it is only referred to as a comparison, and then they go into evolution or evolving of the specials from animal to human.

As for intelligent design, I don't know what that is. I don't care for christian ideas as a foundation for societal, educational, and legal morals so any implementing any idea like that regardless the name they use, I disagree with and the passive use to put christianity in schools may cause more harm than good later on. (As seen by indoctrinated children leaving their home religion because they didn't have a chance to explore to understand what works for their soul not for their parents when they are teens).

Please...do you mean "It's said that?" ; )
 
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