Intelligent Design?

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by thomez

They should have just given up on that round earth business too, everyone knew it was flat and they were wasting their time

They won't give up, but it will not do them any good in my opinion.

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by thomez

They should have just given up on that round earth business too, everyone knew it was flat and they were wasting their time

Nobody is telling them to give up, but they are wasting their time.

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by R-Type

If you disbelieve evolution, fine, but at least offer something stronger than religious assumption if you intend to discredit it.

I have said before that I believe in natural selection but believe it was directed by the creator. The proof I have also given before. I have given no religious assumptions.

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by Scrum

Less than two centuries of modern science and we already know what can never be done.

Science is trying it's damdest but it just ain't coming for them, ain't that too bad.

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

I have said before that I believe in natural selection but believe it was directed by the creator. The proof I have also given before. I have given no religious assumptions.

Belief in a creator is a religious assumption.

[JSmythe]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Belief in a creator is a religious assumption.

qft... religion is a natural human creation. its a heuristic, actually, to make dealing with reality easier and more streamlined. it also serves to keep people from questioning too much, so the powers that be have an interest in preserving religious thought, especially because its a good way to hold people to a moral doctrine. I think Nietzsche was pretty spot on with his explanation of Christianity, its all ressentiment

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by JSmythe

qft... religion is a natural human creation. its a heuristic, actually, to make dealing with reality easier and more streamlined. it also serves to keep people from questioning too much, so the powers that be have an interest in preserving religious thought, especially because its a good way to hold people to a moral doctrine. I think Nietzsche was pretty spot on with his explanation of Christianity, its all ressentiment

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Belief in a creator is a religious assumption.

Well, if life on this planet was not created by itself then someone created us. I don't call that a religious assumption. I don't know, I could be wrong, but that is all I am assumming is life was created. I am just calling whoever or whatever a creator. I personally believe it was the christian god.

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

Well, if life on this planet was not created by itself then someone created us. I don't call that a religious assumption. I don't know, I could be wrong, but that is all I am assumming is life was created. I am just calling whoever or whatever a creator. I personally believe it was the christian god.

I know. It's just more of that dishonest weaselry that you see from the "Intelligent" [sic] Design briggade.

If you think that LIFE was created by "SOMEONE," then you are making a religious assumption. Period. You can say "Maybe that 'SOMEONE' was an alien or whatever, but then am I lead to assume that the alien was not a form of life? Well, if you can list "someone" that does not live, then I might concede that it's not a religious assumption. But the fact of the matter is, if you list anything that isn't a deity, and it isn't alive, then you're effectively personifying a natural occurrence. Maybe I'm going out on a limb by assuming you don't mean "biopoiesis" when you say "SOMEONE."

[imind]

Originally Posted by ballz

Uh, are you seriously arguing that because Darwin knew of 'no such case' in 1859, then surely there must not be a case?

of course not. YEC's have been using that quote for some time now to discredit evolution and i originally thought behe had used it for that purpose, as well. i now see he may be using it simply as an introduction to his idea of IC. i would like to see the surrounding text as written in his book, though. i don't expect you to provide it, as i'll be in the bookstore this weekend and will read it there.

As I said, and Behe states, micro-evolution is certainly feasible, and he believes in it. All your link defines is micro-evolution.

there is no difference between micro/macro evolution, as 'macroevolution' is simply a series of microevolutionary events, and the only people who make this distinction are those who don't believe in evolution. they will say they do not believe in species to species transitions, and then when pointed to them they will respond with, "yeah, but its the same kind" of whatever it is that has been pointed out, oftentimes in reference to the biblical 'kinds' spoke of in genesis. then when asked to define 'kind' the arguement stops. so what is macroevolution (macroE)? please define it for me.



i don't see how this pertains to the question of IC, though, as any supposedly IC system would come about through small, 'microevolutionary' means, and the 'proof' for macroevolution is not necessarily defining the microevolutionary(ME) steps between species transitions. who knows how many ME steps were involved? its irrelevant, really, in determining if macroE has happened, as the evidence for macroE transcends any quibbles one may have of the ME steps (ie, twin nested hierarchies, ERV's, combined chromosones, etc). yeah, it would be great if we knew each and every intermediate ME step but we can't be expected to discover all of them.

behe is, in a sense, arguing against ME, as he is suggesting that the small evolutionary steps necessary to develop the 'complex' systems could not have happened, as their intermediate steps would have been useless. but what is this arguement, at its core - intellectual/scientific pessimism? he is only arguing against current knowledge.

If you read this and understand what it says, you've been trained in more than just introductory biology. What do you study?

i'm a visual communication design student, currently employed as tech support rep for a broadband ISP (all your modemz are belong to me!), and while i don't understand everything in that article, i can recognize the position he is taking which is, again, an arguement only against our current knowledge. even if we never discover, for instnace, how blood clotting evolved, the evidence for evolution (macro) is still overwhelmingly supportive.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by imind

behe is, in a sense, arguing against ME, as he is suggesting that the small evolutionary steps necessary to develop the 'complex' systems could not have happened, as their intermediate steps would have been useless. but what is this arguement, at its core - intellectual/scientific pessimism? he is only arguing against current knowledge.

Yes, I suggest you read the book, as he outlines it better than I can, but basically macro-evolution requires broader jumps and changes than does micro-evolution, jumps that are essentially impossible. Yes, I know you think it's a series of micro-evolutionary changes, but he'll explain that it's impossible.

He is not arguing against current knowledge, as there is no proof that these occurences are possible. In fact, most scientific study points otherwise. As a biochemist, I find it simply amazing to think that a series of micro-evolutionary changes can occur to produce something completely different...without it actually killing off the species before a 'good' mutation occurs. You realize you're asking not just one, but a series of 'good' mutations to occur...mutations that require a complex system to even be useful? It doesn't at all seem plausible, and there is no science to back that up. Hence the theory of evolution.

I'll be curious to see what you think about the book.

[imind]

Originally Posted by ballz

Here's Behe's response to your link:

Behe responds to Russell Doolittle, Ken Miller and Keith Robison

having had the opportunity to fully read the article above, i've come to the conclusion that behe isn't actually arguing IR, as it has been shown that these systems are not IR (see video below on blood clotting cascade). though not argued specifically by behe, the 'science' textbook proposed by ID advocates, of pandas and people, defines the irreducibly complex system of the blood clotting system 'as all of the proteins had to be present simultaneously for the blood clotting system to function'. as miller explains in the video, eliminating, for instance, the two components from 'factor 12' should render the system non-functional, but as it happens whales and dolphins lack these components while maintaining a fully functioning system. eliminating an even larger segment of the system provides the protein map of the puffer fish.

so what, then, is behe arguing? not that they are IC, as we've seen they are not. what he is arguing is the way they evolved (he doesn't even seem to argue against the idea that they evolve**), and a 'testable pathway' has been provided (jiang & doolitlle, 2003 - see video). note that this research was provided 3 years after behe's counter criticism of doolittle in the essay your provided. i haven't found a response from behe to this more recent finding. it was nothing more than an arguement against current knowledge.

**EVIDENCE OF COMMON DESCENT IS NOT EVIDENCE OF NATURAL SELECTION.

-behe

below is a video of a talk kenneth miller gave at case western reserve university here in ohio. not only does he speak of the many problems ID has as science, in general, it also provides refutations of the examples ID proponents have used to argue their case, with an in-depth look at the trial in dover, pa. miller was the primary witness in this trial to determine whether ID belonged in science curriculum. some have linked to portions of it before, but this is the whole of it, and clearly shows why ID/IR are not valid scientific arguements.

YouTube Video

i've neglected to address rouger's points...

Originally Posted by rouger

Scientic law life does not come from non life. There is your proof

There is a scientific law but you don't even have to know the law to know it is true,...

you've made this claim twice now. what scientific law are you speaking of? please define it and provide links where factual claims are made.

Originally Posted by rouger

From my knowlege and understanding of the world, life as complex as we are, could not have happen by itself

argument from personal incredulity

My mind cannot cope with a billion years but science makes up for many of those years by the knowlege gained over the centuries and they cannot even make a one celled animal.

argument from ignorance (see link above). modern biology is only about 50 years old, and the information we have detailed in that short period of times is unprecedented in human history. to suggest that we've had centuries to do this is absurd.

Originally Posted by rouger

If evolution were true life would have been happening by itself from the time it was suppose to have started happening.

que? what does this mean?

Originally Posted by rouger

I have already given my reason for believing that life could not have happen by itself.

Don't know but I know life could not have happened by itself, and then by itself evolve into a human being.

the only thing you've done is say it couldn't have happened because you simply cannot believe it. what the hell kind of an arguement is that?

Originally Posted by rouger

I don't think there is any evidense that life could happen by itself. Scientist cannot even do it in a laboratory. Can't comprehend billion's of years but what I can comprehend or anyone else is that it is impossible with what we know right now.

operative words in bold.

Originally Posted by rouger

I personally believe the christian god created us, but that cannot be proven, but what I think is very proveable,to me, is that we were not created by ourselves out of warm mud soup.

again, 'provable' to you is simply not believing its possible. awful, just awful.

Originally Posted by rouger

I have said before that I believe in natural selection but believe it was directed by the creator. The proof I have also given before.

i have just reread this whole thread and you have provided no proof, whatsoever. your only proof has been that you cannot believe it possible.

Originally Posted by rouger

Speaking of science I heard that there are some scientist that are coming over to the creationist belief because in a full solar eclipse the moon fits perfectly inside the sun and they believe this could never happen by itself so it had to have been manipulated by a creator.

the above, i'm afraid, probably sums up your knowledge of science. you really don't belong in this thread, IMO.

[ballz2wallz]

I think what Behe is arguing is that we need to be careful of what we take as scientific fact, when it hasn't been proven as fact at all. I don't believe that is necessarily providing an alternative, but we shouldn't be so quick to accept something just because there isn't an alternative that we know about just yet.

[imind]

I think what Behe is arguing is that we need to be careful of what we take as scientific fact, when it hasn't been proven as fact at all.

that we have evolved from a common ancestor is fact. the only theoretical area of evolution remains in its mechanistic process(es).

and behe's motivations are far from altruistic to science, as he favors broadening its considerations to include psuedo sciences. did you watch the video? effectively thrusting ID into science curriculum through court order versus peer review. as a scientist, i am suprised at your stoicism towards this.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by imind

the above, i'm afraid, probably sums up your knowledge of science. you really don't belong in this thread, IMO.

There has been a lot of this mentality going around the forum lately. Every person who has an account on this forum is welcome to post in any thread. No person is above another person nor is their opinion more valuable. Some may be more educated on the subject, but as in all debates people are wrong. That is why things are debated.

All users are free to express their opinions in threads without being told "they don't belong" or they're not smart enough, etc. When posting in threads please stick to the material and not the posters.

[Dumpy Dooby]

I think this thread has run its course. I'll lock it. If anyone wants to start a new discussion about the subject, feel free to do so, but let's keep focused on the opinions and expressions themselves, not the people that hold them.