Can any creationist tell me ...

[Guy Threepwood]

I hope that you understand why we would prefer a scientific theory that unifies a mountain of observations, makes predictions about what can and cannot be found that have never been falsified, offers a mechanism for the production of the living and extinct forms we find, and has practical applications that have improved the human condition rather than replace it with an unsupported claim that has no explanatory mechanism, makes no predictions, and cannot be used for anything helpful.

.

^ argument against Darwinism

 

[Yerda]

too many to list here, but here's some

I may get back to you when I've had a chance to read through some of these. In the meantime, thank you.

 

[Sapiens]

Often we see religious believers try to recast science in terms of faith because they recognize how fragile faith is, thus imparting the same weakness to scientific endeavors and conclusions. It's a purposeful attack that, in my opinion, is best ignored.

Guy Threepwood's remark,

"Once again Lemaitre and Planck's theories were considered faith based at one time"​

was done either out of ignorance of the meaning of "faith" and/or the actual circumstances, or plain ol' crankiness.

.

The latter.

 

[Muslim-UK]

This is a variation of Hoyle's fallacy, which has already been refuted on this thread. I reproduced Polymath's objections. You didn't address the specifics of the rebuttal, so there is no need to pursue that further. The argument still stands as it did when it was posted.

At the end of the day the "RNA-world" hypothesis remains problematic. RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize under the best of circumstances, in a laboratory, let alone under plausible prebiotic conditions. Once RNA is synthesized, it can make new copies of itself only with a great deal of chemical coaxing from the scientist. Overbye notes that "even if RNA did appear naturally, the odds that it would happen in the right sequence to drive Darwinian evolution seem small."

The RNA world is so dissatisfying that some frustrated scientists are resorting to much more far out—literally—speculation. The most startling revelation in Overbye's article is that scientists have resuscitated a proposal once floated by Crick. Dissatisfied with conventional theories of life's beginning, Crick conjectured that aliens came to Earth in a spaceship and planted the seeds of life here billions of years ago. This notion is called directed panspermia. In less dramatic versions of panspermia, microbes arrived on our planet via asteroids, comets or meteorites, or drifted down like confetti.

Pssst! Don't tell the creationists, but scientists don't have a clue how life began

You realize I hope that code is metaphorical here, do you not? RNA is a molecule that passively obeys the laws of physics and chemistry. There is no evidence that a code was written or deliberately implemented. What you call information is more properly called form. The molecules have a certain shape, permissible modes of movement, and distribution of charge that causes them to mindlessly reproduce themselves. You might as well call the movement of the planets around their stars a program.

RNA contains information and looks to me to be just as important as DNA:

How could monomers (building blocks) like amino acids or nucleotides have assembled into polymers, or actual biological macromolecules, on early Earth? In cells today, polymers are put together by enzymes. But, since the enzymes themselves are polymers, this is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem!

The First RNA Replicase
The notion of the RNA World places emphasis on an RNA molecule that catalyzes its own replication. Such a molecule must function as an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, acting on itself (or copies of itself) to produce complementary RNAs, and acting on the complementary RNAs to produce additional copies of itself. The efficiency and fidelity of this process must be sufficient to produce viable “progeny” RNA molecules at a rate that exceeds the rate of decomposition of the “parents.” Beyond these requirements, the details of the replication process are not highly constrained.

The RNA-first view of the origin of life assumes that a supply of activated ß-d-nucleotides was available by some as yet unrecognized abiotic process. Furthermore, it assumes that a means existed to convert the activated nucleotides to an ensemble of random-sequence polynucleotides, a subset of which had the ability to replicate. It seems to be implicit in the model that such polynucleotides replicate themselves but, for whatever reason, do not replicate unrelated neighbors. It is not clear whether replication involves one molecule copying itself (and its complement) or a family of molecules that together copy each other. These questions are set aside for the moment in order to first consider the question of whether an RNA molecule of reasonably short length can catalyze its own replication with sufficiently high fidelity.

Accuracy and Survival
The concept of an error threshold, that is, an upper limit to the frequency of copying errors that can be tolerated by a replicating macromolecule, was first introduced by Eigen (1971). This important idea has been extended in a series of mathematically sophisticated papers by McCaskill, Schuster, and others (McCaskill 1984a; Eigen et al. 1988; Schuster and Swetina 1988). Here only a brief summary of the subject is provided.

Eigen's model (1971) envisages a population of replicating polynucleotides that draw on a limited supply of activated mononucleotides to produce additional copies of themselves. In this model, the rate of synthesis of new copies of a particular replicating RNA is proportional to its concentration, resulting in autocatalytic growth. The net rate of production is the difference between the rate of formation of error-free copies and the rate of decomposition of existing copies of the RNA. For an advantageous RNA to outgrow its competitors, its net rate of production must exceed the mean rate of production of all other RNAs in the population. Only the error-free copies of the advantageous RNA contribute to its net rate of production, but all the copies of the other RNAs contribute to their collective production. Thus the relative advantage enjoyed by the advantageous individual compared with the rest of the population (often referred to as the “superiority” of the advantageous individual) must exceed the probability of producing an error copy of that advantageous individual.

The Origins of the RNA World

No wonder that one of the leading researchers into ‘RNA World’ models, Gerald Joyce, wrote:

The most reasonable assumption is that life did not start with RNA …. The transition to an RNA world, like the origins of life in general, is fraught with uncertainty and is plagued by a lack of experimental data.
Joyce, G. F. RNA evolution and the origins of life. Nature, 338:217–224.

My answer is the same to all of your, "You can't explain"s. I don't need to to. Science doesn't need to. It hopes to, and very well might succeed at explaining any number of these as yet unresolved issues.

But even if it never does, you cannot eliminate the naturalistic hypotheses from contention. Only your faith does that, and I've explained my objection to faith based thinking. How can faith be a path to truth when it lets you believe any idea or its polar opposite to the same degree.By faith, I could drop gods from my list of candidate hypotheses. It just doesn't seem right to me, therefore it's not.

Or, I can make the same argument that you're making. You've never seen a god create a cell, you can't explain how one could, so there is no reason to consider the idea further.

The Qur'an explains God did the coding:

THE PROGRAMMING IN GENES

From what thing did He create him? From a drop of sperm He created him and proportioned him. Then He eases the way for him. (Qur'an, 80:18-20)

The word "qaddarahu," translated as "proportioned" in the above verse, comes from the Arabic verb "qadare." It translates as "arranging, setting out, planning, programming, seeing the future, the writing of everything in destiny (by ALLAH)."

Here's a transliteration of the verses: https://www.quran411.com/surah-abasa.asp

You can look up the word 'qaddarahu' for yourself.

You don't have a supernatural explanation now, and never have had one - just an unsupported claim.

Considering Gene coding wasn't discovered until 1953, it is truly amazing that 7th Century Arabs could have pointed to the concept of "genetic planning" in an age when mankind's knowledge was very limited.

FYI (from pie in the sky - Wiktionary ):

Pie in the sky - etymology - 1911, phrase originally in reference to the promises of religion taken from a song written by Joe Hill, "The Preacher and the Slave"

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die​

The phrase has now been generalized to mean any unrealistic hope

This made me chuckle.

 

[leibowde84]

As of 2017, belief in a purely naturalist / materialist/ Darwinist process: 19%,

Not surprising, but this has nothing to do with the number of people who believe in evolution. According to Gallup (from the same article you cited from), 57% of Americans believe in evolution (In US, Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low).

"Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life."

That was the whole point of the theory, to try to explain the diversity of life by a purely natural process-natural selection without any help from God

Evolution does not speak to the origin of life, so there is certainly room for God to have initiated the process. I agree that the theory is a natural one, but since it does not speak to the creation of life itself, there is no problem with God having a part in the processes that led to evolution.

"For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution" The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.249

This quote is not saying that the theory requires materialism or naturalism. It is just saying that the speciation is a natural process. Since evolution does not speak to the origin of life, God still has room to fit in.

Didn't read past this- if you have any substantive point to make, try to do so without the ad hominem insults, that only discredits your beliefs

Evolution is not "unable to account for the origin of life". It simply does not speak to the origin of life. Is the theory of gravity weak because it does not account for the origin of life? Is the theory of relativity weak because it doesn't account for the origin of life? Is quantum theory weak because it doesn't account for the origin of life?

Like the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, the theory of relativity, quantum theory and practically every other scientific theory simply do not speak to the origin of life. That in no way makes them weak. It is absurd to contend that a scientific theory not speaking in any way to the origin of life makes that theory weak.

 

[Sapiens]

too many to list here, but here's some

Selected List of Peer-Reviewed Scientific Publications Supportive of Intelligent Design
...

"Dave" debunks the list:

One of the many variations of modern creationism (the folks that claim ‘god did it’ is the right answer) is called “Intelligent Design”. There they attempt to refute evolution via the promotion of scientific evidence for an intelligent designer, and also attempt to make it more palatable by omitting all religious terms from what is essentially a religious claim. Well, if they wish to take a scientific approach, then this becomes quite interesting because this is a measurable claim, all we need to do is to take a look and see if they have published any credible peer-reviewed articles within any recognised scientific journals.

Does this matter? Sadly yes it does, a good percentage of the public do still seriously doubt the reality of evolution as a well-established scientific fact, they have been successfully conned by some supposedly credible claims, so it is indeed appropriate to throw a spotlight upon the intelligent design community and reveal that their aura of credibility is simply an illusion.

Almost two years ago, I went through the list of Peer-reviewed articles posted up by the Discovery Institute, a well-financed US-based group that promotes Intelligent Design. What did I find? … (Oh come on, you can guess) … yes, that’s right, exactly nothing, they did not have anything credible, not one jot.

They have since then revised their list and greatly extended it, so the time is now right for a return visit to this bastion of creationist “peer-reviewed” fodder.

The title remains the same, “PEER-REVIEWED & PEER-EDITED SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING THE THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN (ANNOTATED)“. My approach will be the same as last time – basically apply an initial filter to remove the junk, then take a look at what remains. But first, there is an observation to be made about some initial commentary they have added. They now make this claim …

Despite ID’s publication record, we note parenthetically that recognition in peer-reviewed literature is not an absolute requirement to demonstrate an idea’s scientific merit. Darwin’s own theory of evolution was first published in a book for a general and scientific audience — his Origin of Species — not in a peer-reviewed paper.

Seriously!! … Origin of Species, published in 1859, was not published in a peer-review journal, so that justifies adding books to their list. Do they not know that the Peer review process has only been a touchstone of the modern scientific method since the middle of the 20th century. No, the bottom line here is simple, books are out, anybody can publish anything (Harry Potter is evidence that Magic is real … right?), if they wish to refute evolution and propose an alternative, then they need to engage with the scientific community with real data, and publish it within a credible and appropriate scientific journal.

The Filter

OK, on to my initial filter:

• There are articles from a Journal called BIO-Complexity : This is not a credible peer-review journal, instead it is a creationist journal issued by the Biologic Institute. They in turn are funded by the Discovery Institute … yes, it is their own pet journal and has exactly zero credibility within the scientific community, we can ignore all that.
• There are also articles from Life : Yet another journal that has no scientific credibility and is treated as something to laugh at, we can ignore that as well.
• The International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics : This is a fringe publication of the featherweight Wessex Institute of Technology, in other words it is also not a real scientific journal, but is simply a vanity journal that publishes papers written by its own editors. McIntosh, the author of a listed paper, is on their Editorial Board, and one of their other editors is the young earth creationist Stuart Burgess
• Papers published as part of the proceedings of a conference are not recognised peer-reviewed journals, we can ignore these.
• Chapters within books are not peer-reviewed journals, so they can also be tossed.
• Peer-Edited and Editor-Reviewed articles are not peer-reviewed articles … finding these tossed in to inflate the list really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
• Articles in Philosophy journals … er no, we can ignore these, if you want to make claims regarding biology, you publish in a biology journal, and you also need real data.
• Anything by David Abel, all his papers consist entirely of non-evidentially supported, non-laboratory confirmed, pure fabrication (I let a couple through this filter so that you can see what I’m on about). About 17% of the list is by him and can happily be ignored.
  • Least you pause on the thought of a named individual being a filter, it is simply a short-cut to eliminate papers that are long-winded assertions that contain no data at all — no experiments, no measurements, and no observations … nada. Should he write a paper that contains some analysis of actual data, then this filter does not apply.
  • So who exactly is this guy? He is David Abel, Department of ProtoBioCybernetics/ProtoBioSemiotics, Director, The Gene Emergence Project, The Origin-of-Life. Science Foundation, Inc., 113 Hedgewood Dr. Greenbelt, MD 20770-1610 USA, at least that is the title on his papers. Wow, sounds impressive … but google that address and you discover it is an ordinary residential house. Yes, the entire foundation is in his garage, and he is the sole representative. Somebody checked him out, this impressive sounding title and organization is a sham and is not real. The claimed title is completely fraudulent.
  • But why does he get published? … well because Abel is making an argument, of sorts, and is backing it up with a reasonable amount of scholarship and some fancy sounding mathy stuff. On the surface it looks credible, so you need to read it all several times to work out that the assertions being made are not actually credible. Rarely do you find bull**** so tortuously Byzantine as the stuff churned out by him, which I guess is by intention.

 

[Sapiens]

What do we have left after filtering?

Well, lets take a look at the remains.

Joseph A. Kuhn, “Dissecting Darwinism,” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Vol. 25(1): 41-47 (2012).

• This is a medical journal, a rather odd place to attempt to refute evolution.
• The article itself is poorly written, dreadful, and full of scientific errors. It’s an embarrassment to the author, to the journal, and to the field of medicine as a whole. In essence we have a medical doctor claiming evolution is bunk and repeats the usual debunked Discovery Institute claims.
• Is it credible? Nope, a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, explains why it is not. – Fail

Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations, and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution,’” The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4):1-27 (December 2010).

• Jerry Coyne has a good summary, he writes “this paper gives ID advocates no reason to crow that a peer-reviewed paper supporting intelligent design has finally appeared in the scientific literature. The paper says absolutely nothing—zilch—that supports any contention of ID “theory.” – Fail

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some further research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,”Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology, 1-21 (2010).

• Published where? Yes, that is indeed a very obscure journal.
• An Australian science communicator and biology student, explains here why this is just another daft paper that is not credible. – Fail.

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol. 14 (5):475-486 (2010).

• There is quite a problem with Dembski’s and Marks’s definition of a search – it seems to be rather pointless, hence they really struggled to get this published.
• You can find quite a lot of criticism regarding this specific paper here.
• Here is a criticism of an earlier draft of the paper. Some of these concerns raised were fixed and some were not.
• So is this a good paper? No it’s not.
• How did the authors respond to the criticism? They attempted to sue … seriously!!! getting published is about engaging in a conversation with the scientific community, not suing them when you face criticism – Huge Fail

David L. Abel, “Constraints vs Controls,” The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal, Vol. 4:14-27 (January 20, 2010).

• Yes indeed a paper by Mr Abel, and sure enough, no actual data, no experiments, no measurements, and no observations
• The first eight references in it are him simply citing other similar papers he has written.
• And what about the journal? It is an obscure IT journal that handles articles that relate to human computer interaction. – Fail

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-Part A: Systems and Humans, Vol. 39(5):1051-1061 (September, 2009).

• What do others have to say about this, do they find it credible as an ID paper? Nope, see reviews here, and here, and here.
• Dembski has, for years, been pushing an argument based on some work called the No Free Lunch (NFL) theorems. The NFL theorems prove that average over all possible search landscapes, no search algorithm can outperform a random walk. The NFL theorems are true and correct – they’re valid math, and they’re even useful in the right setting. In fact, if you really think about it, they’re actually quite obvious. Dembski has been trying to apply the NFL theorems to evolution: his basic argument is that evolution (as a search) can’t possibly produce anything without being guided by a supernatural designer – because if there wasn’t some sort of cheating going on in the evolutionary search, according to NFL, evolution shouldn’t work any better than random walk – meaning that it’s as likely for humans to evolve as it is for them to spring fully formed out of the ether. This doesn’t work for a very simple reason: evolution doesn’t have to work in all possible landscapes. Dembski always sidesteps that issue.
• So yes, this is an appropriate publication in its context, and the maths is OK, but claims that it supports ID when applied to Evolution are not in this paper. Nor can that claim be substantiated by any data from either here or anywhere else
• Status as a paper that supports ID – Fail.

Richard v. Sternberg, “DNA Codes and Information: Formal Structures and Relational Causes,” Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 56(3):205-232 (September, 2008).

• Sternberg’s paper is a theoretical one in which he takes a structuralist approach and proposes “that a variety of structural realism can assist us in rethinking the concepts of DNA codes and information apart from semantic criteria”
• Little problem … no empirical data, so as a paper that actually support ID in our reality – Fail

Douglas D. Axe, Brendan W. Dixon, Philip Lu, “Stylus: A System for Evolutionary Experimentation Based on a Protein/Proteome Model with Non-Arbitrary Functional Constraints,” PLoS One, Vol. 3(6):e2246 (June 2008).

• This paper describes a computer program (Stylus) that was used for the study of protein evolution using Chinese characters
• The paper does not offer any support for ID. Indeed, Konrad Sheffler (the PloS editor for the manuscript) explicitly notes that he “did not detect any such [ideological] bias [towards ID] in this manuscript; nor do the results support intelligent design in any way.”
• As he also points out, “there is still no substitute for empirical data” when examining biological processes – Fail

Michael Sherman, “Universal Genome in the Origin of Metazoa: Thoughts About Evolution,” Cell Cycle, Vol. 6(15):1873-1877 (August 1, 2007).

• This a paper that makes some dodgy claims from ignorance that evolution can’t explain the Cambrian explosion or the evolution of body plans. It is then followed by an alternative hypothesis which explains nothing that can’t be explained by evolutionary biology, and simply relies on gaps in our knowledge to create doubt. (rebuttal here) – Fail

Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, “Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins,” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007).

• Ah yes a “ground breaking” paper that is cited many times, but mostly by the authors (Especially Mr Abel), and has failed to be of interest to anybody else.
• There’s no reference to ID theory anywhere in this paper, nor is there any reference to the terminology used in ID. The paper does not actually support ID in any way at all, it simply describes a method to measure the functional sequence complexity. – Fail

Felipe Houat de Brito, Artur Noura Teixeira, Otávio Noura Teixeira, Roberto C. L. Oliveira, “A Fuzzy Intelligent Controller for Genetic Algorithm Parameters,” in Advances in Natural Computation (Licheng Jiao, Lipo Wang, Xinbo Gao, Jing Liu, Feng Wu, eds, Springer-Verlag, 2006); Felipe Houat de Brito, Artur Noura Teixeira, Otávio Noura Teixeira, Roberto C. L. Oliveira, “A Fuzzy Approach to Control Genetic Algorithm Parameters,” SADIO Electronic Journal of Informatics and Operations Research, Vol. 7(1):12-23 (2007).

• “Advances in Natural Computation” are the proceedings of a computer science conference and is not a peer-reviewed journal – Fail
• “SADIO Electronic Journal of Informatics and Operations Research” – An Argentinian Computer Science journal that is not actually peer-reviewed – Fail

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Kurt Stüber, Heinz Saedler, Jeong Hee Kim, “Biodiversity and Dollo’s Law: To What Extent can the Phenotypic Differences between Misopates orontium and Antirrhinum majus be Bridged by Mutagenesis,”Bioremediation, Biodiversity and Bioavailability, Vol. 1(1):1-30 (2007).

• Ah yes, Dollo opus by Mr Lönnig and his former boss at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding, plus others. This of course is the same chap who is on the editorial board of BIO-Complexity, the Discovery Institute’s pet journal.
• This paper has not exactly caused much interest, it has been cited exactly four times … by Lönnig himself, and nobody else.
• The term “Intelligent Design” is deployed exactly once in this paper – at page 18 about half way through.
• It is all rather weird really, they explain that they tried to use mutagenesis experiments to cause some related plants to revert to a more “primitive” forms, but failed to do so, and thus suggest that this confirms Dollo’s law. They then proceed to use this as an excuse to plug a bunch of pro-ID people into the paper for no reason at all other than to promote their ideas, but none of it is justified in any way by their failed experiments – Fail

 

[Sapiens]

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutations: The Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture, Ornamental and Plant Biotechnology, Vol. 1:601-607 (2006).

• This was from an invited paper to a book on commercial flower growing.
• This so-called “law” seems to exist only in the imagination of Lönnig. No one else has ever referenced, or ‘applied’ it, and it has been cited exactly 4 times by (oh I’m sure you can guess) Mr Lönnig himself and nobody else.
• It boils down to the (apparent) limit of induced mutation within plants to alter phenotype (esp. outward appearance) before the chemicals, or radiation used kills the organism. This is hardly big news. Particularly in plants, more new species are the product of polypoid hybrids then any point mutations alone.
• Includes references to Behe (his long discredited Irreducible complexity), and also Dembski (no free lunch of course) – yes, he is indeed rather desperately plugging in all the ID stars.
• Does this paper actually support Intelligent Design in any way at all? Nope, it is just another of Lönnig’s failed experiments being used as an excuse to promote ID thinking without any justification at all. – Fail

Øyvind Albert Voie, “Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent,”Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Vol. 28:1000–1004 (2006). –

• It’s a paper in a maths journal; what we have here is an attempt to take Gödel’s theorem and try to apply it to something other than formal axiomatic systems … oh that’s such a bad idea. This is a journal for fractals, so it is no shock that the reviewers had the wool pulled over their eyes. If they were familiar with Gödel and information theory it would not have been published. Here is a link to an appropriate Subject matter expert who attempts to digest this and ends up spitting it out.
• So in summary, it is not just a paper out of context, it is a bad paper that does not hold together – Fail

Kirk Durston and David K. Y. Chiu, “A Functional Entropy Model for Biological Sequences,” Dynamics of Continuous, Discrete & Impulsive Systems: Series B Supplement (2005).

• And here we have a paper that is filled with unsupported assertions and unnecessary verbosity (this is very much becoming a theme with many of these paper). What it completely lacks is any evidence for any of the claims. If you disagree, then you might want to read the discussion with Durston on Jeff Shallit’s blog here – Fail

David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors, “Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information,” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling, Vol. 2(29):1-15 (August 11, 2005).

• Yes, another Abel paper consisting entirely of non-evidentially supported, non-laboratory confirmed, pure fabrication as usual. – Fail

John A. Davison, “A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis,” Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum, Vol. 98: 155-166 (2005). –

• This is a non-peer reviewed proprietary journal. The article was only published here after the DI sponsored it – no regular journal would have it.
• However, it was recognised, and did indeed win an award; it was voted “crankiest” on crank.net – Fail.

Douglas D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341:1295–1315 (2004).

• Yet another article that does not support Intelligent design theory. That fact was established during the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, you can read the testimony here that proves this.
• If that is not enough, then here is a detailed analysis of the paper. – Fail

Michael Behe and David W. Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science, Vol. 13 (2004).

• This article was indeed peer-reviewed according to the normal procedures. The conclusions, however, were rapidly and voluminously disputed by others in the field, and the controversy was addressed by the editors. It argues against one common genetic mechanism of evolution. It says nothing at all in support of design. It’s assumptions and conclusion have been rebutted (M. Lynch 2005). – Fail

Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. 117(2):213-239 (2004)

• All we actually have here is a very bad attempt to reorganize already existing information. This article was not peer-reviewed according to the standards of the Biological Society of Washington, but rather slipped into the journal by an editor without proper review.
• The publisher later withdrew the article, but that well-known fact does not appear to deter the DI from claiming it – Fail.

Frank J. Tipler, “Intelligent Life in Cosmology,” International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2(2): 141-148 (2003).

• Nothing resembling an actual scientific hypothesis or theory is presented by this paper and it contains exactly zero evidence.
• It does however give a great example of a truly weird bit of wishful thinking, and yes he is a kook, but then most creationists are, so I guess he fits right in. – Fail

David K.Y. Chiu and Thomas W.H. Lui, “Integrated Use of Multiple Interdependent Patterns for Biomolecular Sequence Analysis,” International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, Vol. 4(3):766-775 (September 2002).

• Chiu and Lui do mention complex specified information in passing, but go on to develop another method of pattern analysis.
• This paper does not actually support ID – Fail

Michael J. Denton, Craig J. Marshall, and Michael Legge, “The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 219: 325-342 (2002).

• Here we find that Denton and Marshall and Legge et al. deal with non-Darwinian evolutionary processes, but they do not support intelligent design. In fact, Denton et al. explicitly refers to natural law. – Fail

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Heinz Saedler, “Chromosome Rearrangement and Transposable Elements,” Annual Review of Genetics, Vol. 36:389–410 (2002).

• Annual Review of Genetics does not publish new research results; it publishes review articles, which summarize the current state of thinking on some topic. Although the thrust of the article is in opposition to the modern evolutionary picture, nowhere does it mention “design”. It references Behe and Dembski only in a couple long lists of references indicating a variety of different options. Neither author is singled out. This article does not support ID – Fail

Douglas D. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301:585-595 (2000).

• Axe finds that changing 20 percent of the external amino acids in a couple of proteins causes them to lose their original function, even though individual amino acid changes did not. There was no investigation of change of function. Axe’s paper is not even a challenge to Darwinian evolution, much less support for intelligent design. Axe himself has said at the time that he has not attempted to make an argument for design in any of his publications (Forrest and Gross 2004, 42). – Fail.

Solomon Victor and Vijaya M. Nayak, “Evolutionary anticipation of the human heart,” Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Vol. 82:297-302 (2000).

• Quick summary, “Gosh this is really complicated, I have no idea how it could have happened naturally, so God must have done it“, and so this is what happens when you stray outside your area of expertise – Fail

Solomon Victor, Vljaya M. Nayek, and Raveen Rajasingh, “Evolution of the Ventricles,” Texas Heart Institute Journal, Vol. 26:168-175 (1999).

• Yes, it is just an earlier draft of their appeal to ignorance – Fail

Stanley L. Jaki, “Teaching of Transcendence in Physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 55(10):884-888 (October 1987).

• A rather daft paper that gives guidance on how to teach “God did it”, but does not offer any actual evidence – Fail.

William G. Pollard, “Rumors of transcendence in physics,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 52 (10) (October 1984).

• Another daft and rather old paper that claims that because our mathematical laws of nature explain the world, it is a miracle — er no, it can’t be otherwise. The laws of nature describe the world we know and that world is a reflection of our thinking and our language. – Fail

… and that is it, the entire list, every possible vague reference that they could dig up from a trawl through all the scientific literature going back over almost thirty years, and we end up with nothing credible, not one jot, nada … zilch … exactly zero. You see, the reason that 99.9% of biologists reject creationism is not because they are biased or brainwashed, but because there is no credible evidence.

In stark contrast to the output of scientific creationism, hundreds of papers are published each month by authors that find that evolution explains their results. One would think that, if intelligent design had any scientific merit, then there would be a significant number of papers published each month presenting evidence of supernatural intervention by an intelligent designer. Surely the many religious scientists, in particular, wouldn’t fail to publish results that support intelligent design.

Conclusion
The complete lack of any credible scientific evidence tells you all you really need to know. Is there any scientific foundation for Intelligent Design? The quick one word summary is “No“.

With no credible evidence on the table, any and all creationist claims need not be addressed, but instead should simply be dismissed. If they wish to ever assert a claim that is not dismissed, then they need to first go do some science that backs it up.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Agreed. The planet would be in better hands with humanists running it than apocalypse-welcoming, science-denying theists:

• "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand" - James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan (note his position ad responsibilities)

• "My point is, God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous." - Sen. Inhofe, R-Okla

• "The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a flood. . . . I do believe God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect." - Rep John Shimkus, R-Ill.

• Those quotes make me go These are people in power, it is scary. Ignorance and superstition in equal measure.

Here's what a prominent humanist had to say:

• "It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver-lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ ... Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. " –Sam Harris

Yes, I'm a fan of Harris, he speaks with a lucidity and honesty that puts the average theist speaker to shame. I love to listen to him.

 

[Grandliseur]

I'd agree that in some respects science has led to a world massively over populated by people, who are putting a strain on natural resources as a result. That is because science has helped to massively reduce disease, infant mortality, it has made mass production of safe food possible, and then there is the technology that makes life so much easier, people are living longer as a result of all these things. What we need if we are going to avoid "biological annihilation" is a reduction in population, along with less personal greed in the world, and with more care of our planet of course. Religion could help the population decrease by not wailing about birth control measures as a "sin", especially in countries already poor and bursting at the seams with people.

Science may well be the only way we avoid annihilation, I'd give it more chance than turning to a holy book.

You don't have much of a choice, really. Ponder what a small book said circa 2000 years ago, and don't forget that then the earth was fairly pristine, man's ability to destroy the earth, not even thought possible: "18 And the nations were wroth, (speaking of right now)
and thy wrath came (time for God to show his anger), and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth. "

God is permitting us to bring the earth to its knees so that never could we survive the destruction wrought on earth on our own. This is to show us what happens when we rule. Those who rely on man, science, to rectify this, those who do not also accept God's path for salvation, will be left to their own devices. The teaching is that a terrifying extra sun-like body is going to nearly wreck the earth, that about 90% of all humanity shall perish.

Have you ever seen the more and more spoken of two suns? While it is being smart to be skeptical, some of the reports have real time feeds.

 

[blü 2]

Guy Threepwood

I looked at the first article in your list ─ I remember Meyer as one of the three who fled from Dover ─ and all I saw was a god-of-the-gaps argument ─ we dunno so god dunnit.

Is it your claim that any of those articles has led to a creationist-based change in the theory of evolution?

If so, grateful if you point out which one.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

You don't have much of a choice, really. Ponder what a small book said circa 2000 years ago, and don't forget that then the earth was fairly pristine, man's ability to destroy the earth, not even thought possible: "18 And the nations were wroth, (speaking of right now)
and thy wrath came (time for God to show his anger), and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth. " .

A religious person warning us the world is going to end any day soon? I hate to burst your bubble but every generation has had religious people claiming this. There is reason to believe Jesus himself was an apocalyptic preacher;

“But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. ... Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Mark 13:24-27, 30)

That generation did pass away before all those apocalyptic things happened btw!

God is permitting us to bring the earth to its knees so that never could we survive the destruction wrought on earth on our own. This is to show us what happens when we rule. Those who rely on man, science, to rectify this, those who do not also accept God's path for salvation, will be left to their own devices. The teaching is that a terrifying extra sun-like body is going to nearly wreck the earth, that about 90% of all humanity shall perish.

Like when "we rule" life expectancy goes up from around 40 years when Jesus was alive, to 81 years in my part of the world thanks to scientific advancement? Like we no longer die from simple infections, or bad teeth, thanks to scientific advancement? Like we no longer cower in fear when thunder and lightning happen, wondering why god is angry thanks to scientific knowledge? Sure, this science thing has been a real millstone around our neck!

Have you ever seen the more and more spoken of two suns? While it is being smart to be skeptical, some of the reports have real time feeds.

I don't know what denomination you belong to mate, but the "two suns" thing doesn't sound like orthodox Christian teaching. Looks like I'm going to need my factor 50 sun cream!

 

[Guy Threepwood]

"Dave" debunks the list:

One of the many variations of modern creationism (the folks that claim ‘god did it’ is the right answer) is called “Intelligent Design”.

There you go again, evolutionists go straight to the ideology rather than the science- not a good way to determine truth


It makes no difference if you do not like what you see as inherently theistic implications, in progressing beyond the status quo- this is exactly what put many atheists off the primeval atom and quantum mechanics also- and kept other Victorian age theories alive long past their sell by date.

Put the ideology aside and follow the evidence where it leads, and just like those other examples- don't worry- it's not going to mean being forced to accept God, that is a matter of personal faith.

Hoyle himself famously saw the hand of intelligence behind life, while being a staunch atheist- many atheists today are becoming increasingly open to the concept of 'alien intelligence' as a way to solve the fundamental problems classical evolution does not.

 

[blü 2]

Guy Threepwood

Put the ideology aside and follow the evidence where it leads​

All the examinable evidence leads to materialism.

Indeed, none of the supernatural terms ─ 'god', 'spirit', 'immaterial', 'soul' &c ─ has a definition sufficient to identify any of them if we were to find a real candidate. Once you attribute objective existence to these things, their concepts are found to be incoherent.

 

[YmirGF]

Nothing in Evolution theory goes against creationism in Islam. God is the who and Science tells us the how. Nothing random, and nothing by chance, all of it planned and designed.

That certainly explains why the majority of Muslims here on RF are staunch creationists. Most cannot vilify "Evolutionists" and the ToE enough. I'd suggest, therefore, that yours is a fringe viewpoint and not mainstream.

 

[Sapiens]

There you go again, evolutionists go straight to the ideology rather than the science- not a good way to determine truth


It makes no difference if you do not like what you see as inherently theistic implications, in progressing beyond the status quo- this is exactly what put many atheists off the primeval atom and quantum mechanics also- and kept other Victorian age theories alive long past their sell by date.

Put the ideology aside and follow the evidence where it leads, and just like those other examples- don't worry- it's not going to mean being forced to accept God, that is a matter of personal faith.

Hoyle himself famously saw the hand of intelligence behind life, while being a staunch atheist- many atheists today are becoming increasingly open to the concept of 'alien intelligence' as a way to solve the fundamental problems classical evolution does not.

There is no ideology involved in demonstrating that what you posted is a lie. If you can back up your false claims, please feel free, but stop pretending that your personal faith and hand waving has any effect on reality.

 

[Grandliseur]

A religious person warning us the world is going to end any day soon? I hate to burst your bubble but every generation has had religious people claiming this. There is reason to believe Jesus himself was an apocalyptic preacher;

“But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. ... Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Mark 13:24-27, 30)

That generation did pass away before all those apocalyptic things happened btw!




Like when "we rule" life expectancy goes up from around 40 years when Jesus was alive, to 81 years in my part of the world thanks to scientific advancement? Like we no longer die from simple infections, or bad teeth, thanks to scientific advancement? Like we no longer cower in fear when thunder and lightning happen, wondering why god is angry thanks to scientific knowledge? Sure, this science thing has been a real millstone around our neck!

I don't know what denomination you belong to mate, but the "two suns" thing doesn't sound like orthodox Christian teaching. Looks like I'm going to need my factor 50 sun cream!

For sure:

Looks like I'm going to need my factor 50 sun cream!

Many Christians do not go into the nitty-gritty stuff, others barely know their Bibles. Though you aren't a believer, I'm going to give you a few tidbits.
The teaching that is quite well known, even quoted, yet, ignored - is this: "and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. . ."

Since a young man, it always fascinated me that this sign is shown to cause the nations to lament. Surely, most of earth's population know not Christ, nor do they care about him and his doings, many do not even think he exists. The question then arises, why would the nations lament when the sign of Christ is seen in the heavens? Because nobody needs to know that it has anything to do with Christ; it is obvious all on its own that this sign means terror for the earth.

I have done a little study of this, and you may if you like access it here: Link: Sign of Son of man

If you don't find the information informative, perhaps, you will get a such a laugh out of it that you even might send me a box of chocolates! (Ever expecting the best, ready for the worst, and skeptic as all hell when it comes to scientific claims. Also, love math and physics, and addicted to coffee to keep the aging brain operating a nominal speed.)

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

For sure:

Many Christians do not go into the nitty-gritty stuff, others barely know their Bibles. Though you aren't a believer, I'm going to give you a few tidbits.
The teaching that is quite well known, even quoted, yet, ignored - is this: "and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn. . .

Always sounds like a hell of a claim when one Christian says other Christians do not go into the "nitty-gritty" or "barely know their bibles". There are many Christians who spend a lot of time delving into the "nitty-gritty", just that they come up with very different conclusions to the ones you have reached! The bible is like that, ancient thoughts conveyed in dead languages, no wonder people can never agree on the "true" meaning!

I have done a little study of this, and you may if you like access it here: Link: Sign of Son of man

If you don't find the information informative, perhaps, you will get a such a laugh out of it that you even might send me a box of chocolates! (Ever expecting the best, ready for the worst, and skeptic as all hell when it comes to scientific claims. Also, love math and physics, and addicted to coffee to keep the aging brain operating a nominal speed.)

No, definitely not getting a box of chocolates for that! I'm not here to ridicule people (well maybe just some of the time!), your claims are typical of the average Christian apocalypticist, the internet is full of them. I don't view the bible as an authoritative source on anything, so you can probably guess my views on these forecasts of impending doom.

When you say you are "as skeptic as hell" about scientific claims, I'd venture to guess you are not sceptical about modern medicine, modern technology and all the personal benefits it provides you with? Prepared to trust in the science behind mains electricity, the science behind automated transportation, the science behind germ theory etc.? If not perhaps you should consider joining the Amish!

 

[Grandliseur]

Always sounds like a hell of a claim when one Christian says other Christians do not go into the "nitty-gritty" or "barely know their bibles". There are many Christians who spend a lot of time delving into the "nitty-gritty", just that they come up with very different conclusions to the ones you have reached! The bible is like that, ancient thoughts conveyed in dead languages, no wonder people can never agree on the "true" meaning!



No, definitely not getting a box of chocolates for that! I'm not here to ridicule people (well maybe just some of the time!), your claims are typical of the average Christian apocalypticist, the internet is full of them. I don't view the bible as an authoritative source on anything, so you can probably guess my views on these forecasts of impending doom.

When you say you are "as skeptic as hell" about scientific claims, I'd venture to guess you are not sceptical about modern medicine, modern technology and all the personal benefits it provides you with? Prepared to trust in the science behind mains electricity, the science behind automated transportation, the science behind germ theory etc.? If not perhaps you should consider joining the Amish!

Physics and math has been two of my favorite studies; together with hands on mechanics - I believe in these sciences where you have no trouble proving what is and what isn't. Medical science: I have found that an individual must determine what kind of treatment to accept. Much medicine is simply poison to the body so that less is more, and more is less. Here, it is paramount that the individual is personal involved and responsible for their own health care (plenty of exercise and healthy food). It is about money in that business, not about helping the sick. Look at how diabetes has succumbed to greed in regard to insulin.

I hope you did get to understand what is claimed in scripture about the 'sign of Christ.' That could prove interesting in our lifetimes. And, in a few years, you might change your opinion on the box of chocolates.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Here, it is paramount that the individual is personal involved and responsible for their own health care (plenty of exercise and healthy food). It is about money in that business, not about helping the sick. Look at how diabetes has succumbed to greed in regard to insulin.

I'd agree with you about plenty of exercise and healthy food, I'm very much into both. As for the money thing, yes medicine is a business, even where I live in the UK where we have free health care for the poor and the vulnerable. However, so what? It doesn't make it evil, undertakers make money out of death but that doesn't make them ghouls, who wants to work for free? Where there is a human need people will make a business out of it, just plain old reality.

I hope you did get to understand what is claimed in scripture about the 'sign of Christ.' That could prove interesting in our lifetimes. And, in a few years, you might change your opinion on the box of chocolates.

I've lived through a lot of "end of the worlds", there is one scheduled for the 23rd of September this year, you can find the thread in the jokes section. I think I'll watch it come and go like all the other apocalypses, perhaps nibbling on an apple - much healthier than a box of chocolates!