nPeace
Veteran Member
Not just how, but why.
You see intelligent design on a daily basis, and you see why it happens. Agreed?
Scientists demonstrate it every time, don't they?
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The Miracle of Water.
- Thread starter Deeje
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You see intelligent design on a daily basis, and you see why it happens. Agreed?
Scientists demonstrate it every time, don't they?
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
Go ahead. Show me a single example demonstrating HOW ID happens?
That's standard nomenclature, like medical science or geological science.
I don't find the phrase evolutionary science to be persuasive. It's descriptive. What makes the theory of evolution believable is its supporting evidence, which includes not just things like fossils and genes, but also the success the theory has had avoiding falsification, making predictions, and its practical applications. These are the signs of a correct idea. An incorrect idea like astrology wouldn't be expected to do any of those things.
I'm not sure what you are asking, but science welcomes challenges.
There are a few of these linguistic sleights of hand popular in creationist apologetics.Probably the best known is referring to the patterns in natures as designs, a word that suggests the need for a designer. If we look at a pattern like that of a meandering river, we don't have much trouble understanding how the serpentine path of the river can be the result of blind physical forces. But call it a design, and a designer is implied.
Would you like to make that argument? What I've seen so far are fallacious arguments such as the incredulity arguments discussed earlier, baseless claims such as that there is an unseen barrier preventing small increments in evolution from accruing over geological time into larger changes - what some call macroevolution. I have yet to see a mechanism offered that would prevent that.
We would love to see creationists make a contribution to the world's fund of useful knowledge.
If the ID people make useful discoveries, we will welcome them, not become uncomfortable. We will develop a respect for them that they presently only enjoy with other creationists.
Every existing scientific theory functions well without an intelligent designer injected into it, a change that would add nothing to to any scientific theory except unnecessary complexity. Why not add two intelligent designers? Or seven? That also adds nothing to the power of the theory to explain and predict.
Nature seems to be up to the task without help, or if you prefer, there is no reason to assume that it isn't.
Darwin famously and accurately predicted the existence of a bird or insect with a long beak or proboscis capable of pollinating a trumpet shaped flower on one of the Galapagos islands. Moth tongues, orchids and Darwin – the predictive power of evolution | Dr Dave Hone
The theory also predicts that man will find intermediate forms connecting the forms already found, creatures like Tiktaalik and archeopteryx.
The theory also predicts that irreducible complexity will never be found, and so far, it hasn't.
Notice that I said that the theory predicts things that in principle can and cannot be found in nature if the theory is correct, not specifically what we will find. Of course there will be surprises, but none that contradict the theory.
We have a mechanism, and we can observe it working. In fact, evolution cannot be stopped. Every generation of a population has a different gene pool and allelic frequencies, which is what biological evolution is. Do you have children? If so, they are genetically different from you and their other parent.
We know that DNA, determines the structure and function of an organism, mutates and is shuffled as germ cells are formed guaranteeing genetic variation between generations. And we know that some number of these changes will confer a reproductive advantage to the lucky offspring inheriting them, which will facilitate the increase in frequency of these change in the population. What changes will be selected for? Those that best suit the population to its environment, which often includes an increase in complexity, thus transforming the last common ancestor of all life into the tree of life we find today.
These are examples of the unsupported claims of creationist apologetics. Every one of those statements is contradicted by the evidence. If you are unable to see the evidence, then you will unable to see that the theory is correct. I can see the evidence, and I understand why you cannot. It's called antiprocessing. It's what a faith based confirmation bias does. It selectively allows only what it wants to be seen into consciousness. I learned a lot about this from a geologist and Young Earth Creationist turned Old Earth Creationist named Glenn Morton, who reported his own transformation, and used the device of an imaginary demon to represent the confirmation bias:
"When I was a YEC, I had a demon that did similar things for me that Maxwell's demon did for thermodynamics. Morton's demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data ... The demon makes its victim feel very comfortable as there is no contradictory data in view ... one thing that those unaffected by this demon don't understand is that the victim is not lying about the data. The demon only lets his victim see what the demon wants him to see and thus the victim, whose sensory input is horribly askew, feels that he is totally honest about the data."
I find Morton sincere and credible. If he says that he was blind to this process, as counterintuitive as that claim may seem, I believe him. And this is how I view most creationists. I think that they are wrong, but not lying, and really cannot see the evidence.
I turns out that it's nearly impossible to make a man see what he has a stake in not seeing.
And I suspect that that will always be true for you. But it is not true for me. I can see not only how naturalistic evolution could have occurred, but that it must and did. How can we decide whether I am seeing something that is not there, or you are not seeing something that is?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
"Evidence", which is overwhelming with the ToE, is not the same as "assumption".
OTOH, for you to take literalistic stance on the interpretation of the Creation accounts as being literal is very much of an "assumption" as I can guarantee that you cannot produce one single piece of objectively-derived evidence for it. If it was possible, it would have already been done by now and shouted from the rooftops every day of the week.
Actually it is. Ever here of "forensic evidence"? How many people have been rightfully convicted because investigators were able to basically connect-the-dots? Probably millions by now.
On top of that, what we see with smaller life forms is evolution, including "speciation". The idea that this only happens on a "micro-" scale is absurd and, again, I can guarantee you that you simply cannot produce one piece of objectively-derived science that proves that "micro-evolution" somehow miraculously stops before hitting "macro-evolution". If you think I'm wrong about that, produce it. And if you were supposedly right, then why is it that geneticists are not on your side?
They are "creation accounts" (two of them, and their order doesn't match). I see them as allegorical, although it's really hard to say if the authors saw them as such.
In Torah study a few years ago, we listened to and then discussed an archaeological source that seemingly indicates that early Jews in eretz Israel took a larger and earlier Babylonian epic and reworked it to reflect Jewish beliefs and values. This is not at all unusual as cultures pretty much do this all the time, and Jewish and Christian culture certainly was and is no different, especially since Hellenization is easily found in the NT, especially Paul's writings but certainly not limited to him.
The issue of "divine inspiration" is much more of a question than an answer as there are many differing theories. And, quite clearly, the scriptures are not inerrant. For example, the oldest existing manuscript of the Gospel of John contains literally hundreds of spelling errors, according to the historians.
Again, allegorical, even though we see references to Adam later on in the scriptures. However, this is not unusual in the scriptures to treat a made up character as if (s)he actually existed, such as what we find in Jesus' parables for example. As an example, the early (2nd century) Church debated as to whether the "Good Samaritan" was a real person or not, eventually deciding that it didn't make a difference because it's the message of the parable that's important. Allegory works much the same way.
ecco
Veteran Member
But it doesn't matter what you say. The term "evolution" encompasses all of microevolution and macroevolution.
You can't go around redefining words to suit your own purposes.
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
That won't stop 'em from trying.
My favorite was how @Deeje kept repeating "that's adaptation, not evolution", but when I started a thread to figure out the difference between "adaptation" and "evolution", it laughably ended when she tried to quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica, which actually stated that populations adapt by evolving! Of course Deeje just ran away from that as fast as she could. (CLICK HERE if interested and masochistic)
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
You have the wrong video - it is unbalanced. The debate between this gentleman and Lawrence Krauss and Myer is a much better balance presentation. Post that one for a better discussion so that it is not just a one sided view.I'm not sure where you got this information, but it seems different to the ID argument, I understand is being presented.
First - I want to say that my view of ID is not exactly the same as the group of ID scientist, although I agree with some of their arguments, and I like their work, to a degree.
I find it differs from how I see it presented on Wikipedia, as well as here.
Intelligent Design: Is it scientific?
Intelligent Design has been defined by its proponents as the idea that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause." This "intelligent cause" is often assumed to be God. Despite this, some have tried to portray Intelligent Design as a fledgling scientific theory, almost ready to be embraced by mainstream science. Detractors have argued that Intelligent Design is nothing more than creationism in disguise.
These seem wrong, or am I missing something?
Steve Meyers does explain that members of the group may have slight variations in their views, so I can't say I know if anyone presented an argument for God. I don't know, but I am aware that Methodological Naturalism does not consider supernatural cause. I'm sure ID scientists know this better than I do.
There is a video here where a representative of the group gives a thorough explanation on the ID argument.
Or you can read the explanation here.
However, in my view, I believe that ID as Meyer describes, without extrapolating (see FOOTNOTE) toward a particular designer, can be considered a scientific hypothesis, and can even become a theory - not that I believe it will get any further, for obvious reasons.
FOOTNOTE
Interestingly a great deal of extrapolating is done with the evolution theory. For example, the millions of years required for one body plan to take on a whole new one. Yet no one complains that there is no way to test that, but rather they are quite happy with their assumption. They even apply that to soft tissue lasting hundreds of millions of years, even though they can't possibly falsify that either.
For obvious reasons, I also don't see the theory of evolution being falsified, nor moving off its props until God's time to make it extinct, along with its supporters.
For now, you seem satisfied with what you believe, so what more can I say, other than, enjoy it... while it lasts, but it's not for me, as I believe I already made clear.
I am sure you will continue to sing the song, that it's a religious agenda, but I know it's not, and I think it's just a matter of removing the blindfolds, and you would realize that. I don't know how much more we can say than we have already said, that will convince anyone otherwise.
However, like the millions of opposers opening the eyes of the blind, and preventing the unsteady from being duped into believing the lies, I will continue to proclaim the truth.
What's my truth? What you call myth.
Your truth, is what I call myths.
So it would seem we may be individuals looking at two different stories, and both having the same reaction.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, so I think this picture well illustrates the theory of evolution as I see it.
[GALLERY=media, 8802]E-Cell by nPeace posted Dec 11, 2018 at 7:15 PM[/GALLERY]
To me, it doesn't matter how often atheist and other intelligent designer deniers repeat themselves, in an effort to convince themselves.
"Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact...That didn't have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn't. It didn't have to be true, but it is....Evolution is the only game in town, the greatest show on earth.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Reasoning people know what is fact from fiction.
[GALLERY=media, 8803]E-Fact by nPeace posted Dec 11, 2018 at 7:16 PM[/GALLERY]
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
Which intelligent designer is behind this. One suggestion is aliens but that still leaves us with the problem with their origin and there are more than enough gods and goddesses to chose from. Then would the designer just start the process or continuously making adjustments.
nPeace
Veteran Member
I could give you thousands, but you say you only want one, so here you go.
It only about 13 minutes long, but for particulars you can start from 2:40-4:20 then from 10:00-the end.
If you would like me to explain those portions, I'd be happy to.
nPeace
Veteran Member
This is not an ID argument either. It's a mistaken view of design.
Patterns can be design. Design is not just patterns. I tried to explain this before. See the definition here.
When we see design, we rightly conclude that there is a designer.
Have you seen a mechanism that does it? Why is that not a baseless claim?
Is that not the same as my saying, "We know there are various forms of energy, and matter. All life forms are creators or designers. What is to prevent there being a form of life greater than what we know, that is also a creator or designer"?
Why is your extrapolating good, and ID bad.
You don't know that.
Now, I will have to say that you are making baseless claims, because you do not know that anything in the universe is not functioning without an intelligent designer. The number does not matter.
The fact that you said 'seems', leaves room for one to assume that it does depend on help.
Since the evolution theory is based on assumptions, then you should be okay with such an assumption.
nPeace
Veteran Member
I can understand why you might only want to believe what you want, despite evidence to the contrary - even though there is public knowledge of the contradictions and problems with the theory.
There are enormous problems reconciling fact with the evolution theory. The evolutionary tree, as well as common descent has problems where data is concerned.
Those problems however, are fixed with evolution's main mechanism - assumptions.
So the theory is supported by not real evidence, but mere human conjecture.
To illustrate.
It's like a 'dirty' cop returning to the scene of the crime, and planting evidence, or removing evidence that reveals the conclusive evidence in the case. So the evidence always looks like there is no evidence to refute it. Case closed.
The amount of lateral gene transfer (LGT) that has occurred in microbial evolution is heavily debated.
Few topics in evolutionary microbiology are as controversial as lateral gene transfer (LGT). Views on the issue span from one extreme that LGT exists but is insignificant in terms of its overall impact on the evolutionary process, such that a tree of microbial phylogeny can be reliably constructed (1–3), to the other extreme that LGT occurs in nature to such an extent that a simple bifurcating tree is an inadequate metaphor to represent the process of microbial evolution (4, 5). Efforts to resolve this debate have focused on attempts to quantify LGT frequency through evolutionary genome comparisons but are impaired by methodological issues.
........
Evolutionary Model Reconstruction and Calculation of Ancestral Genome Size. In the loss-only model, all gene families (57,670) are assumed to have originated at the root. The loss events for each gene are estimated by using a binary recursive algorithm that scans the tree and infers the minimum number of losses. When a gene is absent in a whole clade, a single loss event is inferred in the common ancestor of that clade (e.g., Fig. 2a, clade III). In the SO model, each gene family is assumed to have originated at its first occurrence on the reference tree. A binary recursive algorithm scans the tree root to tips to identify the first hypothetical taxonomic unit (ancestral node) that is the common ancestor of all gene “present” cases (e.g., the common ancestor of clades I + II in Fig. 2b).
In the LGT≤1 model, each gene family is allowed to have two gene origins, where one is an LGT. The first origin is inferred as in the SO model, followed by researching for a gene origin in each of the two clades branching from the first-origin node (e.g., Fig. 2c). If the hypothetical taxonomic unit that was inferred as the first origin has no gene “absent” descendants, the gene family is inferred to have a single origin. Once the nodes of the two origins are set, losses are inferred as in the loss-only model.
We tested additional models allowing 4, 8, 16, and 32 origins, where one is an origin, and the rest are LGTs. These are implemented in the same way as in the LGT≤1 model, except that the origin search is iterated.
A Tree or a Web?
They still need to rely heavily on assumptions, nothing observable.
That goes for transitional fossils as well.
nPeace
Veteran Member
The overwhelming assumptions are what makes the evidence. I gave these before - 1. a proposition; 2. what is being looked for; 3. natural science.
One may believe it's an assumption, if one does not accept the scriptures in its entirety.
One who accepts that all the other texts make up one complete book, or message, would not be assuming, since texts verify others.
One need not assume that the Bible is true in what it says, since they have supportive evidence.
The Bible contains a historical record of which many details have been verified.
This is different to making assumptions about the past, with little or no evidence that is confirmed by anything, other than more assumptions.
If persons make assumptions about archaeological finds to support the Bible, then that would indeed be the same as with the theory of evolution.
Extrapolating won't help an argument.
Anyone can then use the same method and extrapolate on anything, including a supernatural being and miracles.
Moreover, no one can say that any mechanism will work to produce a whole new body plan.
What is required for this to happen can only be speculated, and amounts to wishful thinking - fantasies.
Even scientists cannot recreate such an event. They can build bacteria, and replicate it, but it will always be bacteria.
The information in it needs a new program. If scientists insert a new program, will they build something new? No.
Do you have any observable data that says otherwise?
So you don't trust the Bible. Only the parts that you choose to use, and interpret in the way you want. Is that what you are saying?
Sorry, what I meant when I asked, How do you view, is how do you interpret the text. Genesis 2:18-22?
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nPeace
Veteran Member
What video are you referring to?
Sorry. I am not following you.
Why do they need to find out the intelligent designer? They were not so bothered about the origin of life.
The intelligent designer can likewise be another field of study. Why not?
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
That doesn't demonstrate it happening in nature. Try again.
It is an ID argument. I've seen it made many times.
There you go. This is a nice demonstration of such an argument.
What do we rightly conclude when we see a pattern, such as the form of a cumulus cloud, or waves repeatedly lapping onto a shoreline? Do creationists posit intelligent patterners to account for them, or just write them off to blind forces?
This is why apologists prefer the word design. It implies agency the way that the word pattern does not, and that is the intent. It facilitates slipping an intelligence in through the back door with a circular argument that assumes a designer just by using the word design, then concludes that since there is a design, there must be a designer, ostensibly demonstrated what has been assumed.
I guess not.
You have written a few times that this or that is not the ID argument, but you seem to decline to want to make that argument yourself. That's your prerogative, but I'm sure that you understand that the rational skeptic isn't affected by claims unaccompanied by a compelling, evidenced argument.
I think so.
Darwin proposed that genetic variation + natural selection + time leads to biological evolution, with more time corresponding to more evolution. That is the mechanism driving the changes in life over single generations as well as over geological time.
Those that argue that this process is not up to that task because of an unseen and undemonstrated barrier halting the process right where microevolution is poised to become macroevolution need to explain to the rational skeptic what could do that - but only if he wants to be believed. You have no burden of proof for your claims if you are content to have them viewed as unsubtantiated beliefs.
Let me add here that there are processes that are self-limited. They can't continue indefinitely because they stop themselves. Consider a rising body temperature in a febrile patient. The temperature cannot continue to rise indefinitely. At some point, the patient will become cooked and die, putting an end to his rising temperature.
Or consider an icicle growing downward from your eave to your doormat. This process cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually, either the icicle breaks off due to its own weight, or it reaches the ground and ceases growing downward, or the spring thaw put an end to it. The process of the icicle growing downward has a natural barrier that limits its growth.
Although it may be, there is nothing to suggest that evolution is such a process. Simply claiming that it is is not persuasvie.
Actually, I do know that.
No scientific theory incorporates an intelligent designer, and none would be made more useful by so doing. If you think otherwise, you can make the opposite case. How can you make either of Einstein's relativity theories more effective by adding an intelligent designer. Or atomic theory. Or plate tectonics. Or any other scientific theory of your choosing. I'm pretty sure that you can't.
This is a frequent criticism from apologists - language that is not emphatic enough.
But this is the proper way to express what we know. Its a way of saying that there is no apparent barrier to nature generating the tree of life from a last universal ancestral population, while leaving room for the possibility that there may be one as yet unidentified. The disciplined critical thinker does not rule out the possibility of gods, nor other things that have never been seen, but can't be demonstrated to be impossible.
I would also add that if you read into the word seems what is meant by the words can't without help, then you have projected your own thoughts onto mine.
Nothing. Such life very likely exists somewhere.
I am not claiming that there is no intelligent designer, just that we have no need for that hypothesis at this time, and of course, if no such thing exists, all of reality is explainable without invoking one.
Evolutionary theory is based on observation and other evidence already presented such as the theory's ability to successfully predict things that can and cannot be found, and its applicability to various fields such as medicine and agriculture. In the world of reason and evidence, such things are viewed as evidence of a correct idea. Wrong ideas can't do that. If we have two competing ideas, one that can accurately predict and at times control outcomes, and another that can't, we're going to consider that evidence that the first idea more correct. That's a long way past assumption. That's empiric support.
Is that how you see science - scientists fraudulently manipulating evidence to stage the appearance of something having happened that never did? Scientists have no reason to do that. The odd rogue scientist might assemble a Piltdown man, but not only is that not typical of science or scientists, it will be scientists that expose the matter and make the correction.
Extrapolation is a fundamental process in much of academia and rigorous thought. It's how NASA decided where Pluto would be when New Horizons got to the outer solar system. It's how scientists knew that the earth would be warming more, its ice melting more, its sea levels rising more, and its extreme weather becoming more frequent and more severe over time. One just follows projects past trends into the future.
Extrapolation is the underlying process occurring when somebody says, "At this rate, ..." and is a sound basis for much argumentation. Look at America's debt problem. We can extrapolate the past into the future and argue that if nothing is done to modify the matter, "at this rate," certain consequences can be expected - a clear example of extrapolation helping an argument.
ecco
Veteran Member
I, for one, would like you to explain those portions, in your own words.
ecco
Veteran Member
The problem is you see design in everything in nature. Therefore, your conclusion is based on a faulty premise.
Did your god design quarks for the sole purpose of confusing mankind?
ecco
Veteran Member
Nothing in the universe can function without an intelligent designer - except the Intelligent Designer. The Intelligent Designer gets a pass from all of your logical thinking. Why?