Ok, here's where I stuffed up before. I remember a few years ago a quote from a sincere scientist. Here's what this dude said: George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954 "When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!" This to me is a little like Darwin's eye dilemma: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist" Now, here's proteindude way of thinking: I look around and I see oddly shaped rocks. In any case I think some of them rocks were "sculpted" by the wind, the erosion, etc. YET, although there are billions of rocks when I see one rock that looks like a perfect sculpture say a replica of a man's face with perfect eyes, nose, ears etc, I don't think for a second: "Wow. What an amazing work of nature..." NO. I wonder who sculpted it. I wonder how it got there. Asking me to believe it was a random accident is asking to go against my common sense and that is what I see the atheists doing. Whenever atheists see a lifeless painting or a sculpture they immediately assume someone did it. YET when they see something much more complex, they start coming up with fancy theories. But then again, that's just my take.
Spontanious generation wasn't proven false. Show me the research performed that falsified it. Science is about to construct a chromosome from laboritory chemicals and insert it in to a cell. Effectivle creating life with a completely fabricated genome. If you are going to quote people and misrepresent what they are saying it probably isn't a good idea to include the bit that shows you to be misinterpriting them. if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist - From the end of the quote which shows Darwin had absolutely NO dilemma what-so-ever when it comes to the evolution of the eye. He only said it seems to not make sense, But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. that's because you are a pattern seeking animal. We look for patters and recognisable features in everything. Shapes in clouds are a perfect example of this. Just because something looks like something you recognise doesn't mean it was designed with that intention.
Nature resoundingly points to the former, and there is no evidence for the latter. William Demski's concept of "specified complexity" - that something that is both "complex and specified" must have had an intelligent design isn't useful. It is a mere tautology. There is evidence for punctuational bursts in population genetic change occurring sporadically over aeons of time, followed by long, slow periods of population dispersal and gradual change. There isn't any evidence a supra-natural being had anything to do with any of it.
A belief in unspecified complexity takes resoundingly more faith than specified complexity. So the punctuated bursts of increased complexity happened without a driver? Complexity generated by randomness?
You have just touched on a religious topic. Mankind was created perfect, the flaws you mentioned entered the world when mankind sinned. The creator you want to fired, gave mankind enough brains to correct many of the flaws that sin created, in North America most people have good teeth thanks to braces and childbirth is quite safe.
Well the burst can be due to changes in environment, survival of the fittest senarios. As mankind became more agricultral, we did turn off or tuned down some modes of survival because of the lack of need for extensive physical effort to get food.
Again, We see a far fetched rationalisation for something that contrasdicts the idea of a perfect designer. According to you then, God gave man toothache and an apendix because we sinned? Well in your face god! Science has nulled your petty revenge! How could someone so "perfect" come up with such a worthless punnishment. It kind of reflects the idiocy of making a snake crawl on his belly for talking adam and eve in to eating the apple. I bet the snake couldn;t believe his luck! What did snakes do before hand? fly? maybe they had boats.. All the religious do is create far fetched rationalisations.
Unless the specified complexity argument is an absolute tautology, in which case it is woefully flawed as a logical premise. The guy made a theory that states anything that is both complex and specified must be from god. Hence, any theory that does not include god as a "designer" is by definition of the tautology impossible. Sorry, bad logic. Regarding punctuational evolution, it appears you aren't familiar with the theory. In a nutshell, geographic and other stressors aggregate like populations together. Under such concentrations, mutations and recessive traits will be expressed in much higher percentages. Hence, we find relatively short periods of intensive changes - and all without a "driver." That is, without a driver, unless you believe it was a "driver" who pushed like populations together, and not things such as concentrations of food, water, arable land, mountain massifs and flat plains, etc. I'd recommend reading up on the theory at least a bit in order to continue the debate. I'd also gently remind Tbarr of a couple of quotes he directed to me: Now, coupled with: I find myself puzzled by the apparent dichotomy - wondering when are we discussing science, using the tools of science, and when faith, using tautologies and statements of religious faith to make an assertion about the natural world? ID is essentially a guy with a religious point of view who says that things with "specified complexity" can only come from God, and, therefore, the universe is necessarily intelligently designed, and random events - aggregated over massive amounts of time - "just cannot be." Hmmmm...I do not take issue with a testament of faith, as it is ultimately unknowable. I do take issue with such testaments improperly cloaked with the pastiche of science. Let me also add this - I've said it before. If there is a designer, I would think he, she, or it wouldn't be happy unless his creations used every available means to discover the design. Like I said, although I see no evidence for it, and do not believe in deity, it may be that at the end of the empirical chain is a laughing Creator. Therefore, I say, peace to all. Allow science to proceed apace, unimpinged by or unadulterated with issues of faith, and let the faithful practice their faith, freely and without judgment.
You have free will, you can deny the possibilitiy of a designer and not use "every available means to discover the design."
For someone who claims to be an atheist, you certainly do spend a lot of emotion and effort fighting against something that doesn't exist.
And this is the credible response you'd like to make? Seems you and Mr. Demski share the same philosophical strain, which is to close up the sandbox once its logical holes are pointed out. I entertained the thought you came to this thread with an honest desire to engage in a discussion. Based on prior history, and your posts here, I sadly conclude I should have known better. I'd ask you please do us all a favor and let us know up front that you simply want to play games; it will save time and make room for those who actually seek an interesting and open exchange.
With all due respect, those that deny design are the ones playing games. I marvel at how the machine called the human body works because I studied physical design in my engineering undergrad studies and did a thesis on robotic system design. I know how complex a closed loop feedback system is. I marvel at how many of these systems are included in the design of the human body. Do you understand what control theory is?
There is scientific evidence to support evolution. One good example of this is the connection between reptiles and snakes, or between dinosaurs and birds. I agree with SolutionX. I believe both Intelligent Design and Evolution can co-exist and both be right, but there is no scientific way to prove that God exists, and until he comes down from heaven and announces him/her self, it can't be proven. The problem I have with many religions is that they think they know everything, that they have all the answers. What really pisses me off about religion is that many are against you if you don't follow their view point. I mention religion because it is directly related to intelligent design, the idea that a higher being(obviously God), was responsible for the creation of life. Evolution is a theory that has been proven. Check out this article on Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact.
An Intelligent Creation may exist, but there are so many paradoxes to the existence of a supreme being that it is hard to determine what to believe.
Tbarr, I won't engage you any further. You have only ably demonstrated that you have nothing to support your contentions, and concluded, as I am sorry to say you are wont to do, with a snide comment that serves nothing and no one.
Those bursts had to have happened because God doesn't exist. There is no other actual evidence to support it. The more I listen to people talk about evolution the more it sounds like Greek mythology. Every unobservable and untestable problem has to have a story made up to explain it. Those stories change as the facts come in to refute the stories. The only theory that hasn't changed, and evolution theory becomes closer to, is the Biblical account of creation.
Science digs. As it digs, it digs deeper. Plain and simple. It sure would be a helluva lot easier to posit an absolute, that cannot be explored by empirical means, and end all discussion. But to the extent any theory is rigorous, explains natural phenomena, and, as a special goody, helps to predict future results, it is, as I have said, heuristic. It moves from the light to the dark, seeking to make the dark new light. There is an extraordinary amount of credible evidence and scientific theory derived from same to support punctuational evolutionary theory, and I have no idea what you are basing your claim on. No one is saying the "bursts had to have happened because God doesn't exist." It simply isn't really an interesting question, as we have enough to do using our senses to explore verifiable evidence and data. It is from this that science moves. Now, I have said that if at the end of empirical inquiry, there is god, then great, we're all happy. But to ascribe deity to complexity is tossing one's hands up and saying "Yippee! I'm done!" To say that any theory of "specified complexity" that doesn't ascribe phenomena to an "intelligent design" as wrong is a classic tautology, and flawed logic in the extreme. I fought this fight over 20 years ago, as student body president at my college. Back then, it was a Creationist wanting to include his course among the biology curricula. Nothing has changed, and I object to it now. I object to my tax dollars, and my son's education, being adulterated by religion posing as science in a science curriculum. I also strenously support the right for people to practice their faith as they wish.
I agree with this. Anything that can't be proven cannot be considered a science. I believe there is a possibility that God, Ghosts, Psychic abilities, or other things may exist, but until it can be proven experimentally, it cannot be considered a science, and therefore, it cannot be taught in schools. Another problem I have with Intelligent Design is that there is more than one religion, and a Buddhist or Hindu may have hard time with it. The biggest problem with teaching intelligent design in schools is that you ultimately run into the problem of who the "intelligent designer" is. People of different religious backgrounds will start disagreeing on who the "intelligent designer" is, and this is where everything falls apart. Muslims will think it is Allah, and Hindus will think it is Brahma. If something can't be proven, it shouldn't be taught in schools.
Your remarks bring to mind Saul of Tarsus or the man from Gerasenes. I am the one with the engineering background, the topic is intelligent design, I explained an aspect of design engineering that we see in the natural world. Can you supply any contention supporting there is an absence of design either intelligence or chance based?
One more time, then. No, what you did was illustrate that the world is complex, which we know already. You stack the deck immediately when you dictate that anything on that order must have been designed by a supranatural intelligence, and in this you follow the flawed logic of Mr. Demski, one of the "Designers" of "Intelligent Design." And then you threw up your arms when the most elemental aspect of your logic was brought to light as a tautology, and therefore impassably debatable. Tbarr, in these debates, you bring up your diploma a good deal. It seems to me you are hiding behind the named major on your diploma as if it has given you something of worth beyond what you post here; I really would that it were so, both because you so tightly cling to this as the necessary condition to both have knowledge and curiosity on the subject, and because it would mean we could engage in a fruitful discussion. But with every thread I've seen you engaged in on this forum, at least as it appears to me, you leap to the most illogical of positions (or worse) when you are faced with facts, logic and credibility - the very cornerstones you should be resting on. Something as elemental as rudimentary traits in human physiognomy you ascribe to a biblical statement - which I, by the way, have no trouble with as a testament of faith - but you then have the temerity to disdain others you deem ill suited to argue along the very lines of science you decry. It doesn't work. You can't tell someone to use logic and science, and when they do, say one of two things: (1) because they don't have a degree in engineering, their positions - as they make them in writing here and now - cannot be credible, the inherent merit (or lack thereof) of the stated argument notwithstanding; or (2) god did it all, so you're wrong. Under (1), this is like saying I hate Gibson films because he's an idiot in personal life, and I've never understood such thinking. I watch a movie and judge it on the 120 minutes' material contained therein (OK, watched his Hamlet again tonight). I read an argument and evaluate it on its intrinsic merit, not on what color bowtie the writer was wearing when writing it. Under (2), this isn't science, but religion. It seems to me the bottom line is this. If you want to debate along lines of logic and science, stick to it. If not, enter an ontological debate instead. There is richness in either realm. The difficulty comes when the two are conflated.