Intelligent Design - theory, examples, implications

[Tormod]

Experience shows us that intelligence comes from a mind, so after observatin after observation, it's logical to deduce that other signs of intelligence came from a mind unless proven otherwise.

 

This is a logical fallacy, Lolic. What observational evidence do you have that intelligence comes from a mind? In fact, how would you separate the intelligence from the mind in the first place? Can we have intelligence without a mind?

 

How do you decide whether a "sign of intelligence" is exactly that? Or - following the same path - how do you go about to prove it? It is just as logical to deduce that anything that appears to have been designed by an intelligence could be a random result of an unintelligent process, because you cannot show that there is an initial intelligence at work - you can only assume it.

 

Your task is to use scientific methods to prove this instead of using circular logic.

[Tormod]

So now that I have left the "evolutiion" thread and I'm in the "philosophy and Humanities" thread, can other issues be discussed?

 

Like what? You pose the exact same questions, don't you? You even posted the same post!

[Lolic]

Like what? You pose the exact same questions, don't you? You even posted the same post!

You accused me of being anti-evolution, etc. You clearly did not want me in the other forum so I moved to a new location. I am clearly not soley interested in the science of evolution. Is there or is there not intellectural freedom to discuss ideas, theories, and philosophy here?

[Lolic]

Hi James,

 

Are you familiar with Phd A. E. Wilder-Smith's work or writings in the area of origins?

Or with Phd Dean Kenyon's book, "Chemical Predistination" which he later repudiated?

 

thank you

[TeleMad]

TeleMad, I would not be surprised to see more success in this area. What would be a key ingredient in this success? The intelligent application of information, biochemical expertise, etc. In short, properties of Intelligent Design would be used.

 

But where's God? This would be mere HUMANS creating life. If you accept that such could occur in the future as our technology and understanding advances, then you accept that it doesn't require a God to create life.

 

Lolic: I don't expect to see a repudiation of the second law of thermodynamics with matter organizing itself into states of higher organization unless there is some form of intelligence design involved providing the information that enables the organization.

 

So an ordered arrangement of gas in a star can't form from the gravitational collapse of a cloud of disorderly gas molecules without some intelligence directing the process?

[Lolic]

But where's God? This would be mere HUMANS creating life.

 

So an ordered arrangement of gas in a star can't form from the gravitational collapse of a cloud of disorderly gas molecules without some intelligence directing the process?

 

My point of course is that intelligence would be involved. It's not a random process simply explained by natural law. I realize you want to push that further but I'm not bitting. :cup:

 

An ordered arrangement in this case sounds like it would be following natural law, such as gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc.

[Lolic]

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul wrote, near the beginning of his letter to the Romans, “for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

 

The evidence for a Designer is clear in creation, but we often take it for granted.

Stating the argument more formally,

1. Every design has a designer

2. As shown by the anthropic Principle, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe is designed.

3. Therefore, the universe had a designer.

 

There is no plausible explanation for the Anthropic Principle and the fine-tuning of the universe other than an intelligent cosmic designer. Atheists must take extreme measures to deny this. When they dream up hypothetical theories that are not supported by any evidence they have left the realm of reason and rationality and entered into the realm of blind faith.

 

Physicist Paul Davies writes, “One may find it easier to believe in an infinite array of universes than in an infinite Deity, but such a belief must rest on faith rather than observations.”

 

Believing without observation is exactly what atheists accuse “religious” people of doing. But, ironically, it’s the atheists who are pushing a secular religion of blind faith. People who believe in an intelligent desinger have good reasons based on observation (such as the Big Bang and the Anthorpic Principle) for believing what they believe. Atheists don’t.

 

It takes a lot of faith to believe that something as complex and finely tuned as our universe came from nothing.

 

This blind faith of the atheist reveals that the rejection of the Designer is not a head problem; it’s not that we lack evidence or intellectual justification for a designer. On the contrary, the evidence is impressive. This is a will problem – some people simply don’t want to admit there is a Designer.

 

For those not familiar with these concepts or think the evidence is not there, I recommend the book, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. This will provide a greater understanding of the anthropic principle, fine tuning, and other evidence of design.

[Lolic]

Has anyone listening watch the DVD or Video, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life"

 

Here's a typical write up of the vidoe.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published, On the Origin of Species. In it, he argued that all of life on earth was the product of undirected natural processes. Time, chance, and natural selection. Since Darwin, biologists have relied on such processes to account for the origin of living things. Yet today, this approach is being challenged as never before. "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is the story of top-notch, contemporary scientists who are advancing a powerful idea -- "the theory of intelligent design." Using state-of-the-art computer animation, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" transports you into the interior of the living cell to explore systems and machines that bear the unmistakable hallmarks of design. Discover the intricacy of a microscopic bacterial rotary motor, which spins at 100,000 rpm. Within the nucleus explore the wonder of DNA, a thread-like molecule that stores instructions to build the essential components of every living organism. It is part of a biological information processing system more complex and more powerful than any computer network. This compelling documentary examines an idea with the power to revolutionize our understanding of life... and to unlock the mystery of its origin.

 

"The science is solid and the computer animations are superb. Unlocking is a great film."

Philip S. Skell, Ph.D., Member, National Academy of Sciences, Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University

 

"Outstanding computer animations. Some of the best I’ve ever seen. I am a cell biologist and I want to congratulate you." Marvin J. Fritzler, Ph.D., M.D., Professor of Molecular Biology, University of Calgary

 

"It’s as good as anything I’ve seen on NOVA. The program is a delightful presentation that will be of interest to scientists and laymen alike." Edward T. Peltzer III, Ph.D., Senior Research Specialist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

 

"Extremely thought provoking (and a lot of fun to watch). Unlocking the Mystery of Life highlights the big questions about the origin of life here on earth." Guillermo Gonzalez, Ph.D., Astrobiologist, Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Iowa State University

 

"This video does an excellent job of presenting some of the hot issues in modern biophysics. In recent years we have begun to really understand how the machinery of the cell works and no physicist who has studied this field can avoid a sense of amazement at the delicately balanced designs." David Snoke, Ph.D., Co-Director Nanotechnology Center, University of Pittsburg

[TeleMad]

Has anyone listening watch the DVD or Video, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life"

 

No, but I have watched the following ID videos:

 

1) Creation of the Cosmos: Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design, Dr. Walter Bradley

 

2) Focus on the Origin of Life: An Interview with Dr. Charles Thaxton

 

3) Focus on the Origin of Life: An Interview with Dean H. Kenyon

 

4) Irreducible Complexity: The Biochemical Challenge to Darwinian Theory, by Michael J Behe

 

The last two were the better ones...didn't care much for the first 2.

[TeleMad]

There is no plausible explanation for the Anthropic Principle and the fine-tuning of the universe other than an intelligent cosmic designer.

 

Lolic, you're all over the place. You mention the eye as being designed and I give reasons to believe it could have evolved, then you mention hemoglobin. I give reasons to believe it's not designed then you mention the heart. I give reasons to believe it evolved and you mention the origin of life. I ask if you want to discuss abiogenesis or evolution and you metion the bacterial flagellum. I ask you to support your position on it and now you switch to the origin of the universe.

 

Why don't we stick to one topic at a time and see which side has the better argument? What happened to the eye?

[Lolic]

:eek: More later on that one!

[Tormod]

You accused me of being anti-evolution, etc. You clearly did not want me in the other forum so I moved to a new location.

 

Hm..."accused" is hardly the word. You *very strongly* came out attacking evolution in a standard ID non-scientific, circular logic way. You are of course welcome to discuss in any forum here as long as you follow our rules.

 

I am clearly not soley interested in the science of evolution. Is there or is there not intellectural freedom to discuss ideas, theories, and philosophy here?

 

May I remind you that you titled this thread "Intelligent Design - theory, examples, implications". Show us the theory. Show us how the scientific method has been applied to it.

 

And please...stop bashing others before you can show us a theory that actually works and does not require a) ridiculing others in an attempt to force ID down their throats, and :eek: can be tested by others.

 

You nicely ignored my pleadings that you read about the scientific method. I hope this implies that you know how it works.

 

And...by the way - evolution is not "a science". It is a process occuring in nature. Evolution is studied in different scientific disciplines. This has been discussed here several times already.

[Tormod]

1. Every design has a designer

 

No. This is only true if you by "design" mean "design by intelligence". The pattern on a rock left by running water is a random pattern.

 

2. As shown by the anthropic Principle, we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe is designed.

 

No, we don't. This is your intepretation of it. I once asked John Barrow, the co-author of "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" about this. His reply was that the anthropic principle is not an explanation for intelligent design but an attempt to understand why our universe is finely tuned for life. The multiverse theory is one answer. There are many other answers, too.

 

3. Therefore, the universe had a designer.

 

No.

 

There is no plausible explanation for the Anthropic Principle and the fine-tuning of the universe other than an intelligent cosmic designer. Atheists must take extreme measures to deny this. When they dream up hypothetical theories that are not supported by any evidence they have left the realm of reason and rationality and entered into the realm of blind faith.

 

So any atheist automatically subscribes to any cosmological theory? Man, your logic is strange.

 

Believing without observation is exactly what atheists accuse “religious” people of doing. But, ironically, it’s the atheists who are pushing a secular religion of blind faith.

 

Again, there is no basis for such a claim.

 

It takes a lot of faith to believe that something as complex and finely tuned as our universe came from nothing.

 

No. And remember the theory is not that it came from nothing. The theory is that we are unable to probe into the history of the universe at moments earlier than 10^-43 seconds due to the planck time. I am an atheist, I do not "believe" the universe came from nothing. I have no clue where the universe came from.

 

To jump from that to taking up a faith in an Intelligent Designer is not exactly logic.

 

I read with interest your move from attacking folks who accept evolution as a natural process, to attacking anyone who does not believe in ID. Nice.

[Tormod]

This blind faith of the atheist reveals that the rejection of the Designer is not a head problem; it’s not that we lack evidence or intellectual justification for a designer. On the contrary, the evidence is impressive. This is a will problem – some people simply don’t want to admit there is a Designer.

 

Just like some people don't want to admit they're on a crusade. Exactly when did Intelligent Design become the same as Creationism? I thought the idea of ID was to build a theory of how the universe came about without needing to appeal to any specific god.

 

Atheists do not appeal to any specific god, so we necessarily do not think Creationism has anything going for it.

 

I don't buy arguments like "the evidence is impressive". You have yet to show a single shred of evidence, Lolic, except post a lot of ID literature/movie titles.

[DStickler]

you take them to the biology department and they say oh that evolved over billions and billions of years! From the Goo to You via the Zoo.

 

Perhaps this is the crux of the problem. I don't really think that supporters of ID understand how much time is really envolved here. It's difficult for finite personalities to envision centuries, let alone billions of years. Consider the fact that the basic structure of all DNA for all creatures on earth is exactly the same. The only differences are how the genes represented are expressed. These DNA expressions are created by random mutations over VAST amounts of time, and caused by innumerable environmental variables.

 

If you want to believe that, you have to free will to do just that. You have a different world view than I do. Because of that, you see incredible odds after incredible odds and still believe it could all happen by chance. To me, that is ignoring the evidence.

 

Again, the problem of the sheer volume of time we're dealing with. Look at it like an equation; E=T(((rm)e)c). Evolution is the rate of mutation times environmental factors multiplied by competition for resources multiplied by the total time a system has to evolve.

 

The tendency to grow toward complexity is caused by the very fact that the simplest get eaten! I believe entropy plays a factor as well. But the bottom line has been "get bigger, faster and stronger, or get eaten". To get that way you need more muscle. More muscle calls for a better nervous system. A better nervous system demands a better brain.

 

BTW- If we were created, how is there free will? Not to open a metaphisical can of worms, but I'm just interested in your view.

[Lolic]

Why don't we stick to one topic at a time and see which side has the better argument? What happened to the eye?

Your responses are analogous to the following:

“I went to a junk yard today and saw a truck tire. Therefore I believe that a tornado or hurricane going through the junk yard many years ago turned tires and other parts into trucks and that’s how we have trucks today.” A very strong appeal to “correlation” but little on “causation”. Many things are correlated in life, that does not mean that one caused the other or one derived/evolved/was the ancestor of the other. This appeal to commonality as evidence of evolution is common, but it can just as well be attributed to a common designer using common aspects of design in different species.

 

Again, you find a little commonality in items (sometimes confusing correlation with causation) then extrapolate it to forward the argument that a tire evolved into a truck. However, you leave out the part about:

1. negative mutations (which far outweigh positive ones)

2. assembly instructions being needed to assembly new biological structures

3. the need for a functional advantage for mutated parts to be selected in future generations while waiting for the other needed parts to mutate into being.

4. you forget about the important parts like a million nerves growing from the eye and defying great odds and finding the corresponding individual nerve growing from the brain….but you say how a light spot has an advantage (implying the organism would select it and future mutations would turn it into a fully functional eye)

5. You’re arguments make huge leaps of faith that the evolutionary genie can accomplish what modern biochemical expertise cannot.

6. Your arguments defy the second law of thermodynamics and assume blind natural forces can create a more ordered state of information.

 

My agenda is clearly communicated in the topic of this thread, to discuss the theory, examples, and implications. If the implications are theistic, so be it. Please note I am no longer in the evolution thread and no longer discussing only that one topic. You followed me here, at your choice and you choose to be the defender of macro evolution.

 

I’ve tried to give you numerous examples of design, you don’t like them. Ok, that’s your opinion and we all get one. I plan on spending less and less of my time debating with you because it is fruitless. You constantly return to your same basic arguments which do not address the facts.

 

I used the following quote:

Dr. John Stevens make the following comparison in an article in Byte magazine back in 1985,

 

“To simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous non-linear differential equations one hundred times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways it would take a minimum of a hundred years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second.”

 

Do you address how natural law could account for non-linear differential equations? No, you respond with something like the common structures or chemical components of the eye. Again, correlation is not causation.

 

I bring up the point of what value is the first mutation and a partially formed heart (mass of cells), and you change that into a heart with two chambers. Nearly everything I post you miss the point and skew it in the response.

 

What’s the value of my responding to your comments any longer? I see none. This topic can be better discussed with other people. Good luck to you, I wish you nothing but the best. I once believed much like you did, but there is other evidence out there and I believe it is much stronger than the case you and others make for macro evolution being the cause of the diversity we see in life. On this I’m sure we disagree.

I truly wish you well. :eek:

[Lolic]

You have yet to show a single shred of evidence, Lolic, except post a lot of ID literature/movie titles.

 

I've given a number of examples of ID:

-eye

-neural connections between eye and brain

-non-linear differential equations

-origin of DNA not accounted for by natural causes

-bacterial flagellum

-fine tuning of the universe

 

you, of course, interpret them differently. I don't believe that time, mutation, natural selection or other natural laws can account for these and many other examples. Others do not agree.

 

why does it bother you so much that people do not agree with you?

 

Science is not just as you discribed it. There is also forensic science, and others that look at evicence or artifacts and we must draw conclusions from evidence and logic because the situation cannot be recreated in lab. You can critize my posts by saying it does not follow scientific tenants, but I'm not too hopeful that I'll be able to recreate the big bang or the first DNA for anyone.

 

Sometimes we have to use what we know via obdservation and induction, then make deductions from there.

 

I have articulated the ID theory.

 

A SCIENTIFIC DISSENT FROM DARWINISM

 

“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

 

and provided a list of scientists who are skeptical of Darwinian evolutionary claims. This is the first of 10 pages. If interested, you can find the entire list at:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vi...nd=view&id=2114

in total there about 300 people who signed it.

 

I've tried to provide quotes of information, you removed it to protect your site from copyright problems, not realizing there were no copywright probelms, I understand that.

 

When I summarize things, I have given books or the source so people can check it out in detail, but you criticise me for not giving more detail. I can't include the detail of a 400 page book. You choose not to read it, yet say the evidence or theory is bad. That's your choice to be informed or not informed. I con't do your research for you. I want to engage with people who are interested in ID, that's why I moved to this thread. You use your power as a moderator to degrade my posts...imagine how fun that is for me!

 

Why don't you read the book, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" then talk to me about how stupid the ideas are. if you don't like my summary of a chapter that is fine, but it hardly puts you in the postion to say the concepts or logic is not correct if you haven't seen the detail and evidence.

 

The person you know who authored the cosmological book may not believe the anthropic prin. leads to design, many others do. The odds of the constants being what they are by chance is astronomical. I will discuss more later.

 

I would live to talk about this information in more detail, but you and TeleMad have been quite successful in diverting my attentions and getting me to respond to you comments. My fault for getting sidetracked.