Vatican: Intelligent design is not science

Actually, if you look deeper into the way the word christian was used in the the context of that place and time, it was used to mean any person, mankind as a whole.
Apparently in that day, western christendom couldnt imagine any rational person not having a christian viewpoint...........
Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose
If my french is bad, I apologise to any french speaking users

Hehe, your French is fine. I don't speak it and I was able to guess the translation

Yes.

Intelligent design is crazy bullshit spouted by crazy people, not christians.

Evolution is nearly scientific fact, with millions of pieces of evidence backing it up.

End thread here.

Edit: I will pay 100L$ to anyone showing me one piece of evidence backing up intelligent design. If you tell me "the bible" I'll start spouting harry potter trivia as fact.

Probably. But we are not posting in a vacuum either. There may be lurkers who are not familiar with the debate, who can be swayed by rational discourse.

Kevn, I hesitate to ask... but my last post... not interesting enough?

And the name calling is most likely obtuse enough to not step over the TOS line, but come on, it is obvious to whom it is directed, and frankly I'll level the same criticism that I did to Kevn - that the name callers are less interested in getting to the bottom of the matter than doing something else, in this case derailing the debate with insults.

But Harry Potter books are really witchcraft textbooks

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/abomination_of_harry_potter.htm

(OK, these people are SCARY)

I wasn't making an argument. I was pointing out a flaw in someone else's.

I could be swayed by rational discourse; but I see very little in this thread. For example:

If "appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy, how much more fallacious is "appeal to a lack of authority"?

I don't think any of us are confused about Chip's position on God. Most of this thread has been arguing about the meanings of words. But meanings are (mostly) arbitrary and invariably so around philosophy; so the only way such a disagreement could possibly be resolved is by appeal to authority.

For those of you with those neat "science", "pseudo-science" buckets, where do you put string theory? Where would you have put continental drift before 1950 (from Wikipedia -- "Many geologists focused on a lack of a demonstrable mechanism and rejected and ridiculed Wegener for his ideas, noting that he could not explain how continents were able to move."?

I say intelligent design is compatible with evolution exactly *because* it is not science. Evolution is elegant once you have a self-replicating system; it says nothing about how such a system developed. And note that life appeared on earth very quickly (essentially as soon as things cooled down enough so that it wouldn't be instantly destroyed). The most dubious step in the whole proposed chain of events and it was the quickest!

--Allie

Seifer, there is no debate.
ID is out there with 6 foot talking rabbits called Harvey, or thinking you are Napoleon.
Its delusional thought dressed up as science, and as anyone working in mental health can attest, its next to impossible to convince someone with delusions they are wrong.

Likewise, there was no debate. Continental drift was out there with six food talking rabbits called Harvey ("I've wrestled with reality for many years and I'm happy to say that I've finally won out over it..." or thinking you were Napoleon ("I'm moving to _where_?). It was delusional thought dressed up as science ...

Intelligent design can be criticized as being the first step in the religious right's effort to take back the school system; but as science it's no more "out there" than the anthropic principle:

To wit, the laws of physics are almost exactly what is needed to allow life to develop because:

(a) they were chosen to be that way (ID); or
(b) if they were anything else we wouldn't be around to ask the question (AP).

Actually, I'd say (b) was sillier and less constructive.

--Allie

Look. ID isn't science. It doesn't meet the basic criteria for being science. By all means have it under some other topic, but it's not science, it's not falsifiable, it's not in the same category.

All I've seen in this thread is a CLEAR and TOTAL misunderstanding of evolution. This is not an insult, it's an observation.

“Evolution is so simple, almost anyone can misunderstand it” – David Hull

Evolution is a theory and a fact. And a scientific theory does *not* mean someone just made it up for shits and giggles.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.

Infact, scientists are ruthless people who want nothing more than to disprove each other... much like the action seen on this forum. So when a theory lasts this long... It's just shy of being a law. It does not mean it's refutable by subeducated hicks or right wing nutjobs just because they use the term "Theory" which is also clearly misunderstood.


In addition, ID does not at all conflict with Evolution. It is very compatable, but you must understand that ID and Evolution /compliment/ each other. If you are a christian, you ALREADY believe in ID (That God created the heavens, the earth, and everything on it). Evolution would then be an explanation of God's work - how god did it. I don't see any reason that Evolution would cause such an uproar, when say, Meterology and the Water Cycle don't cause some kind of anti-noah stink.

People just don't want to believe that we evolved from other primates.

In addition, in order to "Observe" evolution, you don't need to see the actual changes, you can observe the record, specifically the fossil record. That's just an example, and saying it's not observed is both ignorant and incorrect. Evolution, even "macroevolution" has been "observed" for scientific theory. It is this same methodology that allows us to find stars too far away for a telescope to see, so we use the theory of gravity (which is a theory mind you), to use math to find them.

Also, Mutations are not BAD. They are neither good nor bad, they just are. The concept is that if a mutation is bad, and is hindering, it will not survive to pass on it's genes. (And that could be in the long term) Some mutations are good, very good, and you see them in use today. Example? Feathers - modified scales that seem to have done a lot of good for birds.

An example of where a mutation would come in handy right now is the cheetah, doomed with a very low genetic diversity. They have reached a bottleneck in their genetics, and any devastating disease would wipe out all of them, easily.

Unfortunately, when one is not willing to open their eyes to other possibilities, trying to explain to them becomes a moot point.

Let's get into this Whole Big Thing again!

Especially with anyone meeting the parameters described by Chance Abattoir's highly apropos dictionary citations!

I have no idea --- not the foggiest --- who that may be, of course ... since Everybody In These Forums Is A Sparkling Example Of Pure Rationality And Would Never Argue From A Point Which Begins At What They Only *Fervently Wish* Were True ...

I'm merely postulating an instance in which we could all get into that (aforementioned) Whole Big Thing again --- because it's ever so fun to do so, and it's positive and constructive and not the least bit frustrating, especially not to those of us falling outside Chancey-chan's proffered definitions, because, well, gee, fuck me if any of us have anything better to do with our time, hmmm?

Like: make Memory Harker some spiced apple pie, for instance? Like: show Memory Harker the secret stash of round-cornered prims that the Lindens have stored in those hidden caverns beneath Grignano, for instance?

You, Chip Midnight: watch your blood pressure, dear man. Better for you and all the rest of SL if you spent your time making something --- even dresses only one-tenth as gorgeous as the ones you already make --- rather than casting your pearls before swine. Hell, better you just stand around picking your avatar's nose than waste your time trying to talk sense to the cerebrally discombobulated ...

*hugs Chip*


Or, perhaps:

AIEEEEE! AIEEEEE! THE FORUMS ARE ON FIRE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!















Oh yeah, and Soylent Green is people, too!

I was trying to understand your argument against the statement by Ulrika that "ID and evolution as explained by natural selection are incompatible.". Even if Ulrika's statement were an argument, an objection to someone else's argument is an argument. The text of your post was:

Your argument is presumably that there is a flaw in this (possibly straw man) version of how you think the argument behind Ulrika's statement goes. I objected to what I thought was your argument, you have yet to tell us precisely what your argument is, or defend it. I do think this is an interesting point, which is why I'm persevering with it, and with your assistance, perhaps we can air some differences and maybe learn something.

If they follow the teachings of Christ, they are Christian by definition. One of Christ's teachings is to tell others about Him, do they do that? He taught how to pray too, if they pray as He taught, then they are Christian. Do they pray as Jesus taught?

"Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:


1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true."

As you can see, quoting a dictionary wouldn't fit this fallacy, as I'm appealing to legitimate authority.

The word Christian in this context is this time and place, according to a standard defintion.

What would you accept as evidence that life has a design?

I can't agree more, some people close their eyes to some possibilities, and it's a waste of time trying to enlighten them. That's why I don't respond to some posts, there is no opening closed eyes.

It's very sad when people refuse to see any other side than the one they believe.

Remember, I'm the one suggesting both sides be heard.

Trouble is
a) Science is about theories based and backed up by evidence.
b) ID is what the fundametalist christian Reich came up with after they got a beating for there Creatonist ideas, nothing else.

IF you say God made the Universe and the physical laws in a way they demand that life happens, one thing.
But ID aims at declaring evolution nonsense, something everyone in research for new vaccines for example will tell you is plain and simple idiotic.

The "Micro and Macro evolution.
Thats purly a ID invention, mainly because they couldnt explain away genetical changes wich are mutation and NOT harmfull but BENEFICIAL (One of the main arguments creatonis... er ID is about that mutation is always harmfull, at least a big part of the followers do so)

ID is nothing else than the poorly veiled attempt to get christian fundamentalist dogma of the USA evangelists (calvinist) type back into school <shrug>

Touchée.

It was a bit of a straw man, because she didn't make an argument, she made a proclamation. Without an argument to knock down I needed, well, I needed at least a straw man. Starting from Rick's elaboration, or attempted explanation: it seemed fair to move to the more concrete example (which you brought in to an earlier thread, I believe) about the illogic in the design of the human eye.

Twisted, I admit; so let's just start directly from the eye argument.

To make a logical argument, you must begin from shared premises. If you find that you can not agree with someone on the premises, then you have not made a compelling argument (for them). What I notice is that key premises often go unstated, and that these are often the most dubious links in the argument.

In this case, the surface argument goes: since it doesn't make any sense to design the eye this way, God can't have been involved.

But "make sense" is a two-place predicate: A makes sense to B. I think this surface argument is deliberately phrased to obscure the two-place nature of "make sense"; but let's assume that instead it is short-hand for the stronger predicate "A makes sense to reasonable people". That's kind of circular, isn't it? But I'm willing to let it stand, because the argument is still defective. The missing premise is:

God, by his very nature, will never do things unless they make sense to reasonable people.

You must assume the existence of God because you are constructing a proof by contradiction. But the conclusion now comes only: either God doesn't exist, or occasionally he does things that do not make sense to reasonable people.

I'm willing to go with that conclusion.

If you want to convince me that God doesn't exist, you need to make an argument for that hidden premise.

On a more philosophical level, the nature of reality is such that the more carefully you look at it the less "common sense" applies; so common-sense arguments don't much impress me.

I have put words into your mouth here, so feel free to re-state the argument if I have (inadvertently) made it into a straw man.

ID does not assume evolution is false. ID can be the theory a creator made the first life form, made it able to reproduce and heal itself, then let evolution take over. Even macroevolution would be acceptable under this theory. That theory would predict evolution, as a matter of nature, using the natural laws placed in motion. It would predict natural selection.

Another form of ID would suggest life was created in the form we find it in the oldest fossils. It might predict some additions to the "farm" over time. These sudden bursts of new life found in the fossil record would agree with that hypothesis.

There are other theories that can be explored, as they fit the record. The idea these creatures evolved suddenly, when we don't even have a known mechanism for evolution to occur, is not reasonable with the available data. The leap of faith required to believe macroevolution is far greater than any of theories involving Intelligent Design.

Still, the main thing to remember, ID and macroevolution can mesh with some of the theories.

[/i]

<3 That's why I only made a brief cameo appearance

ID is pseudoscience.

~Ulrika~

False presumption: there are more than two sides, and you have steadfastly refused to accept or refute the Flying Spaghetti Monster creation myth so you are manifestly as closed-minded as all the rest of us dimwits.

Furthermore, if the father, son, holy ghost, and batman were to get in a fist-fight with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it would kick all four of their butts. So there!

I think this is a fair statement of one of the arguments against ID, at least ID where the designer is supposedly good and so on. It isn't an argument against the possibility of a designer who designs things badly for some reason. There are other arguments against that kind of possibility. Why a designer would set it up to look so much like we evolved by common descent (down to statistical information in the DNA), for instance.

Well there are (at least) two possible ways to satisfy "occasionally he does things that do not make sense to reasonable people": Either the designer doesn't have our best interests at heart, or that he does, but we can't understand the logic behind such a design choice. Which do you subscribe to?

I would point out that the existence or otherwise of God is not the point under discussion at the moment. If you want, there is always a place for God as the original creator of life on earth, or of the universe itself, and one can keep moving back that "original creator" spot for God as science explains things naturalistically. Here we are arguing more about if a designer had a hand in making us directly, or if we evolved from primates and so on.
This is something of a fair point, although it makes more sense in the realms of quantum physics and so on. The workings of large scale chunks of matter (eyes and so on) are really very well understood. Yes, biological systems are hugely complicated, so it can be very difficult for us to ascertain that a certain feature is without a doubt detrimental to us in comparison with how it could be. Allergies, susceptability to disease and debilitating pain (for which there is no possibility of avoidance, a useful feature of many pains) spring to mind as a few things a supernatural designer could have done without if it wanted the best for us.