Vatican: Intelligent design is not science

ID needs an god by whatever name or religion is your choice.

Science deals with empirical data based on hard evidence, be it meassurements (gravity, einsteins theorie of relativity is based on measurements, but strange thing is, no religious organisation claims "Its a secret plot to kill god", makes one go hmmmm)

The definition of any for fo god, creator force or what ever with any form of intelligence is per definition supernatural, wich by definition is out of reach for science.

The problem is as soon you force it into science in education you make clear that the answer "It magically happend someway by some unamed deity/force/misterQ" is a valid one and all this hard work to gather data think about this data and come up with an answer wich has to pass peer review by a lot of scientists wich really like to see copetitive ideas sink is naught because you have this cool joker, mister supernatural undetectable force.



Burst of new life forms are very easy to explain, the enviroment changed violently and fast wich means new mutations have a easier chance of survival for the simple reason that a lot of the established lifeforms vanish for the simple reason that there advantage is gone.
Happend each time for example a warm or cold climate change happend, and you can date theese pretty precisly and way back.



Science is not about faith into anything, science is about hard evidence, the data you obtain from this evidence, and the interpretation of said data WICH HAS TO STAND PEER REVIEW.

No creature evolves "Suddenly" species in itself are not homogenous, think about dogs in there very diverse forms, wich includes wolves, all can interbreed as long it is physical possible, now say they are wildliving, humans are gone and BANG you will have a few new species for the simple reason that different breeds have different chance of survival in different climatic zones, a few generations later interbreeding will be impossible because the genetical diversity will grow fast.

This happens btw round the orld with seagulls, neighbouring populations can interbreed, as soon they are too faar away from each other this stops, and they are all seagulls of the same species and with minimal different genetical changes.


As long thers no peer revied theorie of ID theres nothing to intermesh, its religion and not science, science is about hard evidence, data gathered from this evidence, and finally peer reviewed theories wich pass the tests other scientists, the "competition".

ID is based on religion, the supernatural, it is per definition not science and science is by definition not religion for the simple reason that science aims at explaining the natural world.

Ok, wonderful. Please show me the "hard evidence" that macroevolution is built on? Would it be the few fossils of fully formed animals that might have had common ancestors? If that is your "hard evidence", then it's a religion.
Show me the prior fossils, before the sudden burst of new life. Why are there no links to them before that period? Why are all the links missing? Why can't we easily follow the links through the process?

There is no scientific proof for macroevolution. It's a THEORY build on very weak premises.

If you want me to agree with you, prove Macroevolution, do science a favor, then we can call it the Law of Macroevolution.

BTW, what church do you attend? If you believe in God, how can you assume God had no role in creation? Sorry if I assume you have a faith in God. It's just that 90% of the world does believe in God. Only a tiny minority is atheist or agnostic.

I would reply to this post, but every point made has been made several times.

Show me the hard evidence for macroevolution.

Macroevolution is based on logical deduction from the facts we have. There are gaps in what we have found out so far, but we have facts to go on. Science does not always have to deal in absolute certainties from the get go - Conclusions are reached progressively, learning a little bit here, a little bit there. That doesn't mean it's not science - if that were true, we would have never progressed beyond the dark ages (You will note we almost *didn't* progress beyond the Dark Ages, hence why they are named as such). You may choose not to believe in some facet of science, if it controdicts your religion, or even if you don't think it's fully formed yet, but the theory was reached through scientific methodology.

No fact or logic backs up ID. You either believe it or not. There has never been any science that supports ID, only science that doesn't *not* support it. ID can look at any science and plug in "God" as the first variable, and be done with it. If you want to do that, that's great - But it's not a logicly reached step, which is why it doesn't belong in a /science class/, while /science/ does.

"We don't know, but here are some logical deductions why, based on the facts we do have availible to study" is science.

"We don't know, so God did it" is not.

:Macroevolution: is an concept ID followers came up with for the simple reason theres no way to explain evolution in itself away, the evidence existing is way to overhelming, so they divided evolution up into into micro and macro evolution and for the simple reason no time travel exists claimed you cant prove this so called "macroevolution" because "you cant see it happen with your own eyes"

Beside that i already gave you one example of "macroevolution"

Question, is, why is there no movement against einsteins theorie of relativity, i cant see it with my own eyes, its based all on meassurements and indirect evidence, even less physical evidence than the theorie of evolution, every shred of evidence backing einsteins theories is indirect meassurements.

Furthermore you are saying "write down data here worth several years high school and university studies" ?

It took me about 6 years study in school and university to understand the mechanics and principles the theorie of evolution is based on, and you expect that i condense all that into about 500 words in a forum post for easy reading?

The evidence is based on Fossil record. Geological studies. genetical studies. research of icecores. mathematical modells of competitive systhems to solve problems. zoological studies. microbiological studies.

Each of this areas good enough to study a lifetime to master and you ask me to "show me the evidence" here in a few easy to understand posts.

But heres the news, i gave you already evidence of this so called "Macro evolution" and you never answered it so did you simply overread it or is your knowledge about the topic you try to discuss here not that big to start with?

The choice "we don't know so God MAY have done it" is at least as scientific as the choice "we don't know, so random chance and an unknown mechanism caused macroevolution", both are equally valid ideas.. Both are based 100% in faith at this time, although the fossil record supports the theory of ID over the theory of macroevolution.

Your religion, the belief there is no God, forces you to reject the first possibility. Where as my faith allows either theory to be plausible. My faith doesn't care if macroevolution is true or not. The only reason I reject it at this time is it's NOT supported by the current evidence. When it has the evidence required, and a mechanism is found within nature to show macroevolution to be a natural phenomenon, then I'll accept it. But even then, ID will still stand. As I said before, ID and macroevolution can stand together.

If you want to convince me life started without a designer, you would need to show abiogenesis works. Which is another huge step. At this time it's a matter of faith, and science shouldn't teach children matters of faith as a scientific theory, unless all theories based on faith are allowed. Science should not delve into origins, because there is no scientific method to test it or review its evidence. If it does delve into origins, ID must be included as a possibility.

Macroevolution is not something created by those who reject evolution. Before I respond to you further it's imperative you read about macroevloution, and understand the differences between macro/micro evolution. In order to discuss the issue, you must understand the difference, and accept the term macroevolution isn't a concept of those who feel it's not a valid science.

The latter, despite your false claims otherwise, has a certain amount of facts backing it up. ID, despite your (also) false claims, has no facts backing it up.



Spare me a sermon on your faith. I happen to believe in the big G myself.




I'm not out to convince anyone of anything.

If you believe in God, as most do, then why would you throw out the possibility God created life? Does that make sense to you? Why would you, a believer in God, straight out reject the possibility God started life? Also, why would you refuse to at least consider the possibility? Also, to understand nature correctly, wouldn't it be helpful to understand the force that gave birth to existence? Scientists of today are handicapped in that they can't make any theories that allow for a creator, even if there is a creator.

If there is a God, as you believe, wouldn't it be helpful to science to allow for the testing and experimentation of theories that suggest a creator? Or do you believe, as a believer in God that for science to be correct, scientists must assume there is no God?

Who said I am?




Neither.

Hey brother, it takes entire books to clearly demonstrate the complex, detailed evidence that you keep asserting isn't there but is in abundance. So your argument is "because someone can't demonstrate to me in a forum post that which I'm too busy to read about, it must not be true".

Good argumentation; for a forum about a game, that is. Say hi to the big guy for me? Thanks.

How could science test those theories? Heck, you *can* prove things are created (I have children, I know how they were created and who was there when they were created)... but how would you go about proving there was someone who ultimately created all life?

You can't. It's a false arguement.

Yep

Thanks for the laugh!

Have you? Someone was even kind enough to post a link so that you don't even have to leave your machine. It does not appear that you have read about macroevolution.

But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. (Matthew 23:3)

So in other words, discussion yes but only on your terms, in your turfs and only following your rules, and accept everything you say is this way because?

I feel this is a very onesided discussion.

You demand that i read up your stuff (wich i did by the way already) but everything regarding evolution you demand to get served here.

You demand that people here take everything you say as fact without backing it up but you dont bother to acknowledge any form of evidence presented to you.

So what exactly do you want here beside telling everyone "The theorie of evolution is wrong because... Kevn Klein says so?

I think you are stating the position of ID too strongly here. It only says that the current state of affairs cannot have happened by accident. It would satisfy the precepts of ID if God created the first living being and let evolution take it from there.

Moving it back even farther, and saying that God established the laws of physics at the beginning of time in such a way as to make life inevitable, I think does not work; because ID starts from the laws of physics and probability to establish the impossibility of life coming into existence by chance; essentially saying that the universe was not created in such a way as to make life inevitable.

What I believe personally is complicated and likely to take the conversation off at a tangent; but can be summarized by saying that God wants us to grow. Now I believe this with full conviction; but am at the same time afraid that God does not exist. If this seems like a contradiction, note that I am still afoot on my spiritual path.

To elaborate:The universe becomes increasingly challenging the better we get at perceiving it. Eyes are relatively easy to perceive, and relatively easy to understand. Black holes and atoms are harder to perceive and harder to understand. Dark energy and state function collapse are nearly impossible to perceive; and we don’t have a solid handle on either yet. Did God set things up like this to taunt and humiliate us? That isn’t the God I believe in. Isn’t it more likely that this nature of creation is intended to keep us challenged and growing?

Paul says:

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 (Romans 1:20).

That is, creation is what it is. God did not create a world which leads to false understanding. But how to reconcile this with the fact that the world is clearly flat when you first open your eyes; but clearly round after looking for a while?

The contradiction is illusory. The world is flat, which is to say, flat enough, on first glance. It is the definition of “flat” which later changes. Did we assume that that flatness would behave the same way on the scale of the earth as it did on the acre of land around our home? Guess so, but it’s time to grow up a bit. In our pride and ego we may resist for while; but note that to do so we must have our eyes closed again. But the good news is: God has structured creation in such a way that eventually we are going to be tempted to peek.

Similarly, the universe is billions of years old; and human beings and apes have a common ancestor. The evidence is overwhelming if you open your eyes. It’s not the world we had become attached to; but I promise it’s going to get even more challenging before things are all over.

The religious right has gotten very politically savvy. They make long-term plans and are willing to win a small piece at a time. ID is, I am convinced, part of a carefully planned campaign to chip away at the public education system.

That said, there is no evidence available to science that bacteria did not appear on the Earth the very moment it cooled down enough that they wouldn’t be fried. ID and science are compatible today.

I am sympathetic to the religious right, by the way. They are forced to send their children to schools where people like Ulrika are teaching. Doesn’t this feel at least a little bit like cultural hegemony?

--Allie

You've been listening to way too much Christian propaganda. 80% or more of the population in this country is religious. Are you suggesting that teachers only come from the other 20%? Christians are the majority in this country, not a persecuted minority, and teaching science is not a form of religious persecution.

Sure, and such a thing is very hard to get evidence on, because it happened so long ago. I have specifically tried to pin you down on what you mean by ID, there are certainly stronger and weaker versions. For instance, you seem to subscribe to a weaker version than Kevn, although I get the sense that you don't have a more precise position to defend. I.e. you don't want to tell me where you think a designer did some designing. Fair enough, you don't know, but the problem is that there is zero evidence for any of these possible versions of ID.

Of course nobody will be able to prove to you that God didn't create the first human, or the first mammal, or the first ameboa (to take it to the other extreme, nobody can prove that God didn't create the entire world fully formed 5 minutes ago, with false implanted memories and all). These are all possible, but without any evidence these aren't science, and for me personally, they aren't worth considering. Many many things are possible, that we were created by aliens, or by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. On the other hand, if you start off with the premise that there is a God (another zero evidence idea), then you do have an obvious candidate.

So you're saying that the reason it looks so much like we and all the rest of the animals look like they evolved is that they did?

To be perfectly fair, it has been my experience that the majority of college professors that I have known are not Christian. A metric assload of athiests, agnostics, and "lapsed" Christians, A few from the eastern and alternative (IE, wicca, etc) religions, and a surprisingly large scattering of Jewish ones, but not a lot of Christians.

The issue is between urban and rural culture. Plenty of people in the cities will say that they are religious, but still believe in evolution (and availability of abortion). Rural Christians don't want their children taught that everything can be explained without God; but they either have to send their kids to a public school (which is governed from the city), home-school them, or spend money on a private school. The vast majority of people can't afford either of the last two options.

In fact, both Democrats and Republicans (at least the intellectual leadership of both parties) represent urban culture. A lot of apparent contradictions go away from this perspective. The "liberal media" is very real: it is the constant stream of urban culture (sex and violence) being pumped into every household that can't afford to keep at least one parent home whenever the kids are home, in order to monitor their viewing habits. It's not going to be very long, between the entertainment industry and the public schools, before that rural culture is a thing of the past.

The neo-cons are as urban as they come (the Bush administration will not do anything substantial to restrict the freedom of the entertainment industry to grow and continue producing whatever people -- mostly urban -- want to watch), but they have successfully injected this "liberal media" paradigm into the discussion, tying the Democrats to this industry. We should start talking about the "corporate media", not because they side with the administration; but because they produce sex and violence in order to make obscene amounts of money. This will sell in Middle America.

But of course some of us like the fact that their kids are slowly being drawn into our culture. My guess is that you would think it a was good thing if the child of a fundamentalist family came out of the school system questioning his faith. How do you square that with the fact that he is required to go to school? Pretty convenient, huh? So how do you think it looks from the other side?

Finally, I'll note that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights includes a requirement of mandatory education. It's a bit strange for a document granting rights to place limits on freedom (a less salient clause might require simply that all children have an education available). It's the only limitation on rights in the whole document; and I believe consciously inserted, not for the purpose of empowering the children, but rather for homogenizing the world culture around our Western liberal model.

--Allie

I don't mean to be slippery. I am not defending any single version; only challenging the statement that none of those versions are compatible with evolution.

Well, the "Earth is only 6000 years old" version is pretty silly.

Personally, I just don't know. When you're talking about God you're not talking just about a sort of super-human, who is ten times smarter. God is beyond that:

Perhaps God set the parameters of physics in the first few minutes and constrained himself to operate only within the limits of the uncertainty principle thereafter (how long would it take, picking the points where the wave function collapses, one at a time, till there was a self-replicating system of molecules in the universe? -- but you think it can happen just by chance, I gather)

Perhaps God lives outside of time and created all of history at once. If we're going to have any success framing God we're going to need to think out of the box.

There is evidence for ID. Life is stunningly complicated. Even that ancient earliest bacterium must have had thousands of genes. Yet it all happened in less than a hundred million years. Now tell me that you don't find it compelling, but don't say that there's no evidence.

There is evidence for God. The testimony of thousands of bright, deeply thoughtful people at a minimum. You may say that this is not compelling; but it is still evidence. And it may not be scientific, but science is not the only path to knowledge.

There is, by the way, no evidence for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and it will serve us both if you leave the straw men out of the discussion. Aliens, on the other hand...

God did not create the world five minutes ago, because creation is not an elaborate lie.

By the same token God did not create DNA and the historical record to deceive us and test our faith. The world is what it appears to be.