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The flaws in Intelligent design

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I am beginning to get annoyed. You are referring to science as if it is a religion. It's not. It is a method of examining things, depending upon objective observations and evidence. it has no business dealing with the idea of God, or an 'Intelligent designer."

What it CAN be used for is to examine the 'design.' to see how it works. Whether ultimately the universe was 'designed' by a crestor, or it just some how flashed into being all by itself, the process of examining it remains the same; the scientific method.

There is no difference in the 'design', whether it had a creator God or not, and no difference in the way we find out about it. Whether it was created or not is a matter that CANNOT be examined by the scientific method, and doesn't need to be. That is a matter for subjective stuff...'faith,' if you will, and doesn't make tiddley winks worth of difference to the scientists who examine the universe.

How am I making science a religion? It is a specific way of looking at things. ID believers do not follow that method.

And one very important feature of science is that terms have to be very well defined. You seem to realize that you cannot define "design". That alone sinks your claims.

What is "design"? How do we tell if something was made by an intelligence or if it was natural?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
You said faith IS evidence. Do you really believe faith IS evidence? Im asking you a question, can you answer it?
Do you have any evidence for your claims about intelligent design? I have asked for that before. Others have asked and continue to ask, without your ever supplying it. You seem more intent on starting a fight than supporting your claims. I am not interested. I have nothing to prove to you in that regard.

Anyone reading my posts would recognize that I was stating that the Bible is calling faith evidence. Why are you trying to twist that in this off point pursuit? It is obvious why.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
You've never heard of a scientist being slammed by colleagues or blackballed for publishing material contrary to the accepted beliefs?


I thought they were good books with good science.


No, I don't realize that at all. The theory is easy to refute, being that it is illogical, full of holes, impossibilities, and dead ends, and has no supporting evidence at all.


Evidence of Satan's influence is everywhere, much of it not even hidden anymore. Now we have a statue of Baphomet unveiled in U.S. cities, public desecrations of sacred images and a public black mass in Oklahoma City, Satanic lyrics in popular music, and on and on. Of course Satan's influence is a driving force in so-called science perpetuated for the purpose of disputing God's existence. He is the Father of Lies, as we well know.

Satan is said to be very smart. How do you know
creationists are not among those unwiitingly doing his work?

We see this big talk of errors, holes, impossibilities-
easy to refute, even, but....when we ask, there is zero
forthcoming.

The inability to show any error in ToE, leading
to wild accusations against people you do not
know...how does this seem to you?
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
There can be remarkable variations within a species, as we have learned through selective breeding of plants and animals and as we have observed in the natural world. This property enables adaptation, and survival, so it's obviously part of the design and already within the genetic code as written for each species. It does not require that God make any changes or corrections as a species or members of a species change.

What selective breeding and adaptation cannot do is change a species beyond its parameters. It cannot turn one species into another. There is no empirical evidence that such a thing has ever happened and the fossil record offers no evidence either.
But ... what has been discovered concerning ring species proves that what you claim is wrong. Please, stop wasting everyone's time and learn some basic biology.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
You said faith IS evidence. Do you really believe faith IS evidence? Im asking you a question, can you answer it?

"That passage does not say that. It says that having faith is the evidence." <your words.
I am asking you for evidence to support your claims. You are not going to provide that evidence are you. You are just going to dance around and make ad hominem attacks out of questions that have been asked and answered.

I have noticed that when you get caught and your logic is revealed to be only belief, you get rather belligerent and start persecuting those that you cannot answer.
 
Well, at least part of the issue is the nature of evidence.

What is evidence, define evidence, also define proof, define philosophy and define inference too.

Everyone knows that the universe exists and that there are natural laws. The question is whether an intelligence above and beyond this is required to understand the structures and order we see.

Hmmm :cool: , i got an idea. Let me put it like this: if we fully understood our biology PERFECTLY and had the resource materials to build another human, then we very well COULD do so, theoretically.

So, yea, science tries to understand how things work and then use that knowledge for predictions and for technology. But, theres a seperate issue going on here between Intelligent design and naturalism. That issue is explanatory power of origins.

Atheistic naturalism has very little explanatory power of origins, while intelligent design has very good explanatory power in that department.

So, to *be* evidence for an intelligence, at least some discussion is required comparing the predictions of the systems 'natural laws without a designer' and 'natural laws with a designer'. Any evidence that fits equally well into both isn't really evidence one way or the other.

So, what evidence of an intelligence is there that cannot be equally well explained without an intelligence? We *know* that complex structures can be and are formed just from the actions of the physical laws. We know that information can be and is increased in systems having replication, mutation, and natural selection.

What evidence can you point to that goes above and beyond what is already known can be accomplished just by the known natural laws?

Physical laws are not the only thing. There is information too. Also you cant account for physical laws by physical laws. What caused the laws?

Also replication does not account for the code of information itself and its origin.

Also mutation usually degrades a organism, not helps it.

Natural selection accounts only for the most fit surviving, it does not account for how the most fit ARRIVED in the first place in order to survive.
 

Sapiens

Polymathematician
One of the growing disadvantages to evolutionists ever since the theory was published has been all the scientific progress that disputes it. But since the scientific community wants to keep it viable despite that, new theories must be introduced to support the old one. So now we have theory upon theory going on.
There has been no significant argument in the scientific community about Darwinian Evolution in a century and a half. All the serious argument is about details and starts with agreement that variation and natural selection are the basis of the origin of all species.
 
I am asking you for evidence to support your claims. You are not going to provide that evidence are you. You are just going to dance around and make ad hominem attacks out of questions that have been asked and answered.

I have noticed that when you get caught and your logic is revealed to be only belief, you get rather belligerent and start persecuting those that you cannot answer.

So according to you, asking a question is an ad hominum attack? Oh ok, well, what in the world can i say to that?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
So according to you, asking a question is an ad hominum attack? Oh ok, well, what in the world can i say to that?
This is according to you. I never said that. I understand it is your way to win arguments by twisting the truth, but even you should be aware that your previous posts still exist on here to reveal your means to others.

You are asking a question that is not correct in order to divert from the fact that you have provided no evidence to support your claims. The only support you have provided is in the form of fairly common and typical logical fallacies. So much for the logic being on the side of creationists.

Since they are your words and not mine, and you seem to have no end to making up new ones, say whatever you like.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
We dont have much faith anyway, too much logic is on our side. Its atheists who have LOTS of faith. Faith that chance and nothing made it all. Thats REAL magic and that takes ALOT of faith.

Oh come now you are not really going to chant that
moldy nonsense? You are better than that,
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
What is evidence, define evidence, also define proof, define philosophy and define inference too.



Hmmm :cool: , i got an idea. Let me put it like this: if we fully understood our biology PERFECTLY and had the resource materials to build another human, then we very well COULD do so, theoretically.

So, yea, science tries to understand how things work and then use that knowledge for predictions and for technology. But, theres a seperate issue going on here between Intelligent design and naturalism. That issue is explanatory power of origins.

Atheistic naturalism has very little explanatory power of origins, while intelligent design has very good explanatory power in that department.

I disagree. The explanatory power of naturalism grows each day because we collect more data and experience each day. The explanatory power of intelligent design is actually quite minimal. It gives no mechanism. it provides nothing testable. It doesn't explain what the powers are of the supposed intelligence involved. And, in essence, it only pushes the question of origins back one step: you still have to answer how that complicated intelligence came about.


Physical laws are not the only thing. There is information too. Also you cant account for physical laws by physical laws. What caused the laws?

Meaningless question. To even talk about a cause means there are physical laws. That is because causality only makes sense within the universe and under some sort of physical laws.

Information is nicely understood under physical laws. Shannon did a fair amount of work, but a lot has been done since his time. In essence, information is equivalent in many situations to negative entropy. And, which entropy increases overall, in far from equlibrium systems, a great deal of localized entropy decrease can often be found. This *is* information.

Also replication does not account for the code of information itself and its origin.

No, replication accounts for the information increase afterwards. It explains why later stages of evolution tend to have more information than earlier ones.

But initially, the code was simply the workings of chemistry: when a first self-replicator arose (which requires very minimal information), the road was paved for further information increase.

Also mutation usually degrades a organism, not helps it.

Key word: usually. Not to mention the ambiguity of the word 'degrade' in this context. Is a duplication of a gene with subsequent mutation making two genes with different reactivities a degradation or not? it is certainly an information increase.

Natural selection accounts only for the most fit surviving, it does not account for how the most fit ARRIVED in the first place in order to survive.

Mutation covers that issue. There is always variation in any populations because of mutations. Those that survive best in that environment pass on their genes. Further mutation then creates variation around the new average.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Evolution is not a "law" it is a scientific theory and scientific theories (providing as they do the "why") rank above laws (that only provide the "what").

I did not say it was a law... Hmph. Go your way in peace.
 
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