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If Intelligent Design is a scientific theory...

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
The real point of any science is to try to find rational ways to explain what we see and experience. Gravity helps explain why we don't fly off this spinning ball, but then it also (almost magically) explains why and how planets orbit stars and satellites orbit planets and a whole lot of other things (including our sense of balance).

The Theory of Evolution, which is a scientific theory, attempts to explain our trillions of actual observations of what life is, what forms there are, how they are related, what forms there were (i.e. exist as fossils only, with no living examples), and how all this happens. It also tries to explain why the fossils of life forms past appear only separately in the geological strata -- the "written history" of the earth itself.

For most (actually, nearly all) people in the sciences, ToE does this with absolutely stunning accuracy. That makes it -- for them at least -- kind of compelling.

So, let's allow, for the sake of discussion, that ToE is wrong and Intelligent Design is the correct "scientific theory." Well, how might we examine that? We could, of course, do what science always does, and ask, "how does ID explain those things that we observe?"

So, let's propose some questions to see how well it might do that -- and alternately, whether it might not do it very well. I'll post some, and encourage others to think of more in this thread -- but most of all, I'm hoping that the supporters of ID, instead of saying "ToE is impossible" (which is what we always get), instead try to live up to their own belief in their theory, and actually try to answer the questions asked.

I'll start with one of the most obvious questions that I think needs explaining if ID is true:
  1. There are literally thousands of life forms that by their very nature cause immense suffering -- and death -- to many other life forms (including humans, guilty and innocent, very young and very old) quite apparently at random. The list is simply enormous and the suffering often terrible beyond description. So, I ask myself, why would a Designer fashion me -- and at the same time something that can cause me unbearable agony and eventually destroy me? And not just me -- the newborn child who can't possibly be guilty of anything warranting such pain, not to mention the grief of family. If you accept ID, there must be an intelligent, or intelligible answer to this. The theory of ID should be able to explain it. The ToE, by the way, can explain it with almost trivial ease.
  2. Somebody, earlier in this thread, said something like "if ToE is true, then we would have an appendix or wisdom teeth." Apparently this means he thinks that those are artefacts mandated by the Intelligent Designer. There are many other things that are sub-optimal about our design(eyesight and blind spot, dangers of giving birth to a large-brained baby, etc.), and yet an Intelligent Designer should not be expected to choose bad designs, and a perfect designer should select only optimal designs. This is clearly not the case with the human body. Blind selection by ToE would be expected to produce frequently optimized designs, but hardly ever optimal ones -- which is exactly what we see. So, how does ID explain why we are as we are?
  3. The question of why the evidence of life that has existed is so stratified cannot be ignored. Layers happen in chronological order, and nobody gets to insert one geological layer underneath another one crust of the earth. And the fossils found in those layers -- all over the earth -- show a clear progression of species. So, if ID is true, we need an explanation for why the Designer tried so very hard to fool us. ToE, of course, provides a perfectly rational explanation, but does ID?
I will have more questions as the thread progresses -- I hope others will, too!
 

Neo Deist

Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
Let's add one more element to the discussion and go from there...

God designed the laws of nature billions of years ago, set everything in motion, and everything runs according to those laws, which can be viewed as scientific theories, even though they were "intelligently designed" long ago.

Welcome to deism! :D
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
What is the definition of 'Intelligent Design' that we are discussing? It is the very narrow Genesis kind? If so, you might not find many takers here.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Let's add one more element to the discussion and go from there...

God designed the laws of nature billions of years ago, set everything in motion, and everything runs according to those laws, which can be viewed as scientific theories, even though they were "intelligently designed" long ago.

Welcome to deism! :D
Fine, but the questions remain! If God (rather than an Intelligent Designer, which is what I was discussing) laid out the design and caused its expression into reality, then the questions apply equally to God.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
What is the definition of 'Intelligent Design' that we are discussing? It is the very narrow Genesis kind? If so, you might not find many takers here.
No, I am talking about the kind promulgated Behe and others, generally expressed by the Institute for Creation Research (ICS).
 

Neo Deist

Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
Fine, but the questions remain! If God (rather than an Intelligent Designer, which is what I was discussing) laid out the design and caused its expression into reality, then the questions apply equally to God.

For the record, deism agrees with science, to include evolution. The difference is whereas science can't explain what caused the Big Bang, deism simply states that God caused it as the initial point of creation, and it is during that point that the laws of nature were created and set in motion. We view God as the "intelligent designer." The deistic position can't be refuted scientifically.

I'll watch the thread to see what develops.
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
For the record, deism agrees with science, to include evolution. The difference is whereas science can't explain what caused the Big Bang, deism simply states that God caused it as the initial point of creation, and it is during that point that the laws of nature were created and set in motion. We view God as the "intelligent designer." The deistic position can't be refuted scientifically.

I'll watch the thread to see what develops.
Where does the "scientific theory" begin?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
For the record, deism agrees with science, to include evolution. The difference is whereas science can't explain what caused the Big Bang, deism simply states that God caused it as the initial point of creation, and it is during that point that the laws of nature were created and set in motion. The deistic position can't be refuted scientifically.
In which case, of course, it is not a "scientific theory." That's perfectly okay, just not for this thread. (By the way, this is the same sort of thing as the Big Bang or abiogenesis -- we think we know they happened, but we don't presently know how, so there are open questions yet to be resolved.)
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Do you know if they have presented a short description of their position that I could see?
The following are not my words.

Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
Let's add one more element to the discussion and go from there...

God designed the laws of nature billions of years ago, set everything in motion, and everything runs according to those laws, which can be viewed as scientific theories, even though they were "intelligently designed" long ago.

Welcome to deism! :D

Where so you get this knowledge of what happened so long ago?
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
The real point of any science is to try to find rational ways to explain what we see and experience. Gravity helps explain why we don't fly off this spinning ball, but then it also (almost magically) explains why and how planets orbit stars and satellites orbit planets and a whole lot of other things (including our sense of balance).

The Theory of Evolution, which is a scientific theory, attempts to explain our trillions of actual observations of what life is, what forms there are, how they are related, what forms there were (i.e. exist as fossils only, with no living examples), and how all this happens. It also tries to explain why the fossils of life forms past appear only separately in the geological strata -- the "written history" of the earth itself.

For most (actually, nearly all) people in the sciences, ToE does this with absolutely stunning accuracy. That makes it -- for them at least -- kind of compelling.

So, let's allow, for the sake of discussion, that ToE is wrong and Intelligent Design is the correct "scientific theory." Well, how might we examine that? We could, of course, do what science always does, and ask, "how does ID explain those things that we observe?"

So, let's propose some questions to see how well it might do that -- and alternately, whether it might not do it very well. I'll post some, and encourage others to think of more in this thread -- but most of all, I'm hoping that the supporters of ID, instead of saying "ToE is impossible" (which is what we always get), instead try to live up to their own belief in their theory, and actually try to answer the questions asked.

I'll start with one of the most obvious questions that I think needs explaining if ID is true:
  1. There are literally thousands of life forms that by their very nature cause immense suffering -- and death -- to many other life forms (including humans, guilty and innocent, very young and very old) quite apparently at random. The list is simply enormous and the suffering often terrible beyond description. So, I ask myself, why would a Designer fashion me -- and at the same time something that can cause me unbearable agony and eventually destroy me? And not just me -- the newborn child who can't possibly be guilty of anything warranting such pain, not to mention the grief of family. If you accept ID, there must be an intelligent, or intelligible answer to this. The theory of ID should be able to explain it. The ToE, by the way, can explain it with almost trivial ease.
  2. Somebody, earlier in this thread, said something like "if ToE is true, then we would have an appendix or wisdom teeth." Apparently this means he thinks that those are artefacts mandated by the Intelligent Designer. There are many other things that are sub-optimal about our design(eyesight and blind spot, dangers of giving birth to a large-brained baby, etc.), and yet an Intelligent Designer should not be expected to choose bad designs, and a perfect designer should select only optimal designs. This is clearly not the case with the human body. Blind selection by ToE would be expected to produce frequently optimized designs, but hardly ever optimal ones -- which is exactly what we see. So, how does ID explain why we are as we are?
  3. The question of why the evidence of life that has existed is so stratified cannot be ignored. Layers happen in chronological order, and nobody gets to insert one geological layer underneath another one crust of the earth. And the fossils found in those layers -- all over the earth -- show a clear progression of species. So, if ID is true, we need an explanation for why the Designer tried so very hard to fool us. ToE, of course, provides a perfectly rational explanation, but does ID?
I will have more questions as the thread progresses -- I hope others will, too!
How is ID testable?
 

Neo Deist

Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
Where so you get this knowledge of what happened so long ago?

I receive some deep space radio waves through some old fillings I have in my teeth. I was going to have the new composite, tooth colored ones put in but then I'd lose the treasure trove of knowledge.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
The following are not my words.

Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

I have not seen a "theory" of intelligent design. Does this theory take into account all 200 some odd years of accumulated biological, geological, genetic, and cosmology information and not simply cherry pick what seems to support it when taken out of the overall context of information we have? Does it make accurate predictions that are testable? That is a basic element of a sound scientific theory.

"Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. "

Never heard of a design theorist. Does not sound like a branch of science, but rather a branch of religion. How does one analyze something to determine if it is natural or designed, since everything we know of seems to be natural in origin. What does one compare this to? What does a natural thing look like as opposed to a designed thing? what are the criteria?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
I have not seen a "theory" of intelligent design. Does this theory take into account all 200 some odd years of accumulated biological, geological, genetic, and cosmology information and not simply cherry pick what seems to support it when taken out of the overall context of information we have? Does it make accurate predictions that are testable? That is a basic element of a sound scientific theory.

"Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. "

Never heard of a design theorist. Does not sound like a branch of science, but rather a branch of religion. How does one analyze something to determine if it is natural or designed, since everything we know of seems to be natural in origin. What does one compare this to? What does a natural thing look like as opposed to a designed thing? what are the criteria?
Well, of course, part of the problem is that -- while the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) claims to be doing "science," they have not yet produced a single peer-reviewed paper. This, by the way, according to Michael Behe at the Kitzmiller v Dover trial.
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
To be scientific, any hypothesis or theory or model has to make testable propositions, usually related to currently observed phenomena.

As far as I can tell, ID begins with the same observations of the physical world as do non-ID scientists. As do the regular scientists, they see some amazing complex phenomena. Rather than seeking to understand how those complex phenomena might arise from the interaction of simpler components, it appears that beyond some arbitrary level of complexity, they assert that some intelligent designer (to be named later) has designed those complex phenomena.

On the other hand, in the same observations of the natural world, regular scientists see evidence of complex systems growing out of simpler systems.

Interpreting observations as "being too complex to have occurred without a designer" is not a testable hypothesis, as far as I can tell.
 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
The real point of any science is to try to find rational ways to explain what we see and experience. Gravity helps explain why we don't fly off this spinning ball, but then it also (almost magically) explains why and how planets orbit stars and satellites orbit planets and a whole lot of other things (including our sense of balance).

The Theory of Evolution, which is a scientific theory, attempts to explain our trillions of actual observations of what life is, what forms there are, how they are related, what forms there were (i.e. exist as fossils only, with no living examples), and how all this happens. It also tries to explain why the fossils of life forms past appear only separately in the geological strata -- the "written history" of the earth itself.

For most (actually, nearly all) people in the sciences, ToE does this with absolutely stunning accuracy. That makes it -- for them at least -- kind of compelling.

So, let's allow, for the sake of discussion, that ToE is wrong and Intelligent Design is the correct "scientific theory." Well, how might we examine that? We could, of course, do what science always does, and ask, "how does ID explain those things that we observe?"

So, let's propose some questions to see how well it might do that -- and alternately, whether it might not do it very well. I'll post some, and encourage others to think of more in this thread -- but most of all, I'm hoping that the supporters of ID, instead of saying "ToE is impossible" (which is what we always get), instead try to live up to their own belief in their theory, and actually try to answer the questions asked.

I'll start with one of the most obvious questions that I think needs explaining if ID is true:
  1. There are literally thousands of life forms that by their very nature cause immense suffering -- and death -- to many other life forms (including humans, guilty and innocent, very young and very old) quite apparently at random. The list is simply enormous and the suffering often terrible beyond description. So, I ask myself, why would a Designer fashion me -- and at the same time something that can cause me unbearable agony and eventually destroy me? And not just me -- the newborn child who can't possibly be guilty of anything warranting such pain, not to mention the grief of family. If you accept ID, there must be an intelligent, or intelligible answer to this. The theory of ID should be able to explain it. The ToE, by the way, can explain it with almost trivial ease.
  2. Somebody, earlier in this thread, said something like "if ToE is true, then we would have an appendix or wisdom teeth." Apparently this means he thinks that those are artefacts mandated by the Intelligent Designer. There are many other things that are sub-optimal about our design(eyesight and blind spot, dangers of giving birth to a large-brained baby, etc.), and yet an Intelligent Designer should not be expected to choose bad designs, and a perfect designer should select only optimal designs. This is clearly not the case with the human body. Blind selection by ToE would be expected to produce frequently optimized designs, but hardly ever optimal ones -- which is exactly what we see. So, how does ID explain why we are as we are?
  3. The question of why the evidence of life that has existed is so stratified cannot be ignored. Layers happen in chronological order, and nobody gets to insert one geological layer underneath another one crust of the earth. And the fossils found in those layers -- all over the earth -- show a clear progression of species. So, if ID is true, we need an explanation for why the Designer tried so very hard to fool us. ToE, of course, provides a perfectly rational explanation, but does ID?
I will have more questions as the thread progresses -- I hope others will, too!


So there is a weakness of Intelligent Design that Creationists bring up and it is indeed the explanation for suffering and death
The good design is before the fall when human sin against God brought death and suffering

hence

a good but now somewhat broken design
and that is what we see
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
So there is a weakness of Intelligent Design that Creationists bring up and it is indeed the explanation for suffering and death
The good design is before the fall when human sin against God brought death and suffering

hence

a good but now somewhat broken design
and that is what we see
And your evidence for "the fall" and "human sin against God" and how that brought death and suffering is....what, exactly? And how does a "good design" go so abruptly wrong, anyway?

And can we assume that, since animals can equally suffer and die, they have likewise sinned against God? In what way, and again, your evidence?

Have you, by the way, understood the actual meaning of either the word "science" or evidence?" Do they convey anything to your mind?
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
And your evidence for "the fall" and "human sin against God" and how that brought death and suffering is....what, exactly? And how does a "good design" go so abruptly wrong, anyway?

And can we assume that, since animals can equally suffer and die, they have likewise sinned against God? In what way, and again, your evidence?

Have you, by the way, understood the actual meaning of either the word "science" or evidence?" Do they convey anything to your mind?
One of the problems with the word evidence is that its most generic definition is simply "that which convinces someone of something".
So without the conditional modifier of "scientific" in front of the word evidence, pretty much anything could be evidence...

Given the laymen definition and the scientific definition are almost polar opposites, the word "theory" also causes much confusion.
 
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