Judge Says No to ID

However, we cannot disprove ID. Nor can we disprove Creationism. Nor can we disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory. Nor can we disprove my own assertion that I created all life on earth personally. Nor can we disprove any number of other things. I could sit here and engage in idle speculation all day, coming up with reams of things that cannot be disproven. Scientific method requires a means of disproving something, so that it can be tested.

You also cannot prove that ID is correct, nor can you mount a credible scientific argument in its favor. Micro-evolution is fact, nobody (sane) is disputing it. Macro-evolution is apparently a bit up-in-the-air, but... if micro-evolution is indisputable, small-scale changes occur, why is it unlikely that large-scale changes can also occur? Perhaps macro-evolution is as difficult to test as has been suggested (recording instances of speciation, taking thousands of millenia)... but I've yet to hear anyone suggest any means at all of testing ID.

I'm also amused that the folks posting in support of ID are apparently strongly Christian, yet claim that their belief in a creator does not bias their faith in ID. I am an agnostic... I do not believe that anyone, anywhere, has all the answers, and I believe that truly outlandish things are possible, but unlikely. Frankly I think it would be wonderful if God, or aliens, or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster were real... but I also require some actual evidence, before I will believe a thing. ID does a very poor job of convincing those who are not already believers in a higher/other power.

Yet you will accept abiogenesis and macro-evolution without any testing at all. It shows you have a bias against any notion of a creator.

Re: spirituality -vs- consciousness.

Depending upon the bias of who you talk to, 'spirit', 'consciousness', 'soul' or 'atma' are generally far more similar amongst themselves than say, 'soul' is to 'spoon'.

The question of self awareness provides a major clue that science has not even touched upon vast, vast fields of study, and that we are still babes in the woods.

Such a crazy thing as self awareness - and through it: love, honour, justice, pain, hate, aesthetics, bliss - is proof that the universe is far more wondrous than physics and chemistry. Even if everything is based on physics and chemistry.





Personally, I have no problem with ID and any number of topics being broached in schools. In fact, a good philosophy class, including critical thinking skills, would do more good than say, chemistry for most people. Toss ID into the philosophy class; it won't take long. Evolution only gets a week or two in front of middle school biology students anyway.

What we are running into is this: school time is too 'short'. I've been lucky to have had courses in physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy to a depth far beyond middle school. Was I indoctrinated? I don't think so. I've been highly critical throughout my education.

Things I don't believe in that were taught:
1. standard model of the electron (point charges create an 'infinity' rare in nature)
2. black holes (violate a number of well-proven physical laws)
3. some social theory and economics (show me accurate forecasts with error-bars)

Things I bought into:
1. genetics, natural selection, evolution
2. atomic theory, the standard model of physics (for the most part)
3. organic chemistry and molecular cell biology
4. geology, plate tectonics, age of the earth

I think that most people are heavily indoctrinated when they are young - in fact, whatever the indoctrination was, even if a person changes ideas completely - the surety remains. Why? I'm guessing human nature. People like me seem wishy-washy by comparison. Yet, sometimes it's plain to me that "I don't know" is the course of wisdom.

Kevn, what it comes down to would be this. Say we are in a jungle somewhere, and we saw an organism, and a bunch of its living relatives. Plus fossils that looked similar and different to varying degrees.

What conclusions could we draw, what predictions could we make using various theories? In my case at least, it's not about bullying you. Bullying anyone is a phenomenally pointless endeavor, and would make me into... a bully. Some victory that would be. At any rate, your different beliefs do not threaten me. It's surety that scares me, for those who are 100% sure of themselves may be prone to rash, unstoppable action. You have a good dose of surety yourself, but by no means have cornered the market on it in here.

I think it's unlikely we'll be looking over say, a living monkey and some monkey fossils together (or would even have an enquiry with regard to them in the first place) - but if we did, I think only then could the predictive power of modern biology be proven or disproven to your satisfaction.

1: I'm open to any reasonable, testable theories that would replace abiogenesis and macro-evolution. I currently accept them because they seem more likely to me than other theories being presented.

2: Are you admitting that a personal bias toward belief in a creator of some sort is necessary, for belief in ID?

Micro-evolution isn't disputed. It doesn't suggest any new DNA is formed, only reorganized. The Darwin finches are still finches.

Adaptation is a natural occurance found in creatures, much like their ability to self-heal. It's not evolution as we are discussing. Macro-evolution requires new DNA to be formed from nothing. To make a fish become a frog, new DNA would need to be added to the current DNA. That hasn't been tested or reproduced.

If Macro-evolution and abiogenesis is considered science without the ability to be tested or reproduced, why would ID be excluded for those same reasons?

Have you been into space? Are you entirely sure that the pictures you see weren't faked by some massive conspiracy?

I am of course, not seriously putting it forward as a rival theory to the mainstream Earth-is-round theory... that would be ludicrous, and we certainly shouldn't be teaching both sides of this debate... right?

But there is a serious point here. Everything we see is open to doubt. All we have is evidence in varying amounts.



You're changing the subject. We were talking about the origin of species, now you're talking about the origin of life.

But anyway.

Evidence isn't tested... it's something one collects, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

If we make a prediction and then observe that it is borne out then that would be evidence for the theory that made the prediction. Hence a test of that theory. I have yet to see any prediction made by ID, that's why it's untestable.

We seem to be using the words "test" and "evidence" differently. Or otherwise I'm misunderstanding you in some other way.

I am quite sure the earth is round, I have traversed it more than once.

As for my changing of the subject, that's not correct. The true competing theory with ID is the theory of Abiogenesis, not macro-evolution. ID is only concerned with how life originated, not how life changed after coming into being. The reason evolution is even discussed here is many are confused as to the difference.

Lastly, we can agree ID can't be tested, we can't have a creator make a life for us. But, neither can Abiogenesis or macro-evolution be tested, there is no way to go back to the beginning of life on Earth. Yet you are perfectly happy accepting them as science, because they don't leave an opening for an incredible creator that some might call God.

Actually... why can't we have a creator make a life for us?

I'm not being flip; one of the problems I have with religious thought is that if there is/are creator(s), where are they? I have the same problem with anyone proposing that intelligent alien life is responsible for life existing on earth... where are they?

Bit of a tangent, and just as unanswerable as the abiogenesis/ID debate, or why 'apartments' are so close together... but it's late and I'm sick, so I'll post it just the same.

I imagine the reason we don't know the creator is the creator so desired, or perhaps the creator left after creating. Under the teaching of ID the creator doesn't have to be a God, the creator under ID could be a human in another, larger world. Or even a dog who created man to have a best friend..

The very fact we are sitting in different cities in the World discussing these issues leads me to believe there is more going on than some flesh struggling to survive. If that's our only purpose, why do we even consider our origins?

How can you be so certain? You never slept while you were (apparently) circumnavigating? How do you know they didn't just move the plane somewhere else whilst you were asleep? They could have built fake landmarks whereever you thought you were going, they could have messed with your compass... I don't know the details of your circumnavigation, but if I were to do something similar it would involve a lot of being in airplanes, apparently travelling somewhere, when it could quite easily be going in very wide circles and landing pretty near where it took off from.

I'm happy to discuss abiogenesis as well. If you're willing to concede that the theory that God created a few cells in the promordial soup, which then went on to evolve to form everything we see today, is a better theory than that He created them all fully formed, then we're making some progress.



For the third time in this thread:

The theory (of evolution) can be tested. It makes predictions, and we can check if those predictions agree with the observations we make. Abiogenesis makes fewer testable predictions, which is why we are less certain of it than we are the theory of evolution. It is however the best theory we have so far.

Micro-evolution can be seen to occur, macro-evolution can't be tested, as there has not been new DNA created. No new DNA has been added. Reorganizing DNA to create changes in appearance is adaptation. It's accepted because it has been observed in nature to occur. Macro-evolution (the adding of new DNA to existing DNA to buildup a more complex creature) has not been observed in nature, or found within the fossil record.

Many honest evolutionists admit there are holes in the theory big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

Here's one way to test the theory of evolution (this is heavily paraphrased from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html):

There are a bunch of slightly different kinds of proteins that perform some vital task within a cell of some organism. Everything we see today has one of these proteins to perform that very basic but vital task. The proteins are functionally equivalent - they all do the same job, but we can tell them apart. However, different organisms have different versions of these proteins.

Evolutionary theory, or the theory of common descent, predicts that two organisms that come from a recent common ancestor should have more similar proteins than two organisms that come from a more distant common ancestor.

How do you test this? Just go out and check if this is true with some organisms that you haven't checked before.

If all organisms had been created at the same time, one might expect that the proteins they use would be randomly chosen amongst the large number of functionally equivalent ones. This isn't what happens. The proteins in mammals are more similar to each other, than they are to, say, the same protein from a sea anemone.

Evolutionary theory makes a prediction, which is testable.

(Thank you by the way, everyone, for this debate - I've learned some things looking stuff up that I didn't know before).

Kevn, whatever your worldview, forget about evolution for a moment and have a look at a book on modern genetics. Even a first year college textbook. Just check it out. It will be too busy explaining genetics to even get near macroevolution.

There is an incredible amount of genetics you can do with little more than high school lab equipment, it's readily verifiable, and it's radically different than the way you've been characterising it.

Did you know you can *literally* splice genes across species, just by *mildly heating* a cell?

Elementary school children do this experiment sometimes, with the gene that causes bioluminescence in marine life, and common bacteria. That's the same gene with which scientists made a strain of mice that had glowing green fur.

I've read your words, I've read your religious texts, and have some basic sense of it. I really recommend reading a basic textbook on genetics with experiments - even a high school textbook. Get a basic sense of it.

You'll see instances of DNA being added, subtracted, broken, spliced, what-have-you. Furthermore, chromosomes are visible with high-powered microscopes - you can actually see the DNA replicate, correctly and incorrectly, in many cases.

kevn, here's your problem:

Your argument is essentially this -

Defined: ID is a theory of creation that precludes the modern evolutionary theory. It assumes that a higher power created all species of animals, that the earth is only a few thousand years old, etc.

Assume: If modern evolutionary theory is true, ID is false.
Assume: Modern evolutionary theory has holes in it that are unexplained.
Conlusion: ID is true.

Unfortunately, it's classic fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Even if Evolutionary theory has holes, which is debateable, it does not mean ID is true.

What really is happening is this:

You: ID is true.
Us: No it's not ... because evolutionary theory disproves it.
You: Evolutionary theory has holes. I challenge its validity as a scientific fact.
Us: Challenge accepted. The overwhelming majority of scientists support this, extensive research and evidence is behind this, therefore its validity is not in question.

still with me? at this point, you have no new evidence. When confronted with things like "geology" and "carbon dating" and "dinosour bones" and "the paltry 2% difference in DNA between man and ape" and a host of other scientific facts, you ignore them. Until you can address them head-on and bring evidence against them, you have no argument.

But instead, we wind up with this:

You: You can't disprove that ID is not true.

This is, of course, classic fallacy of appeal from ignorance.

You've been stating this over and over again for ten pages now. If you please, would you address the criticisms of ID rather than continuing to rely on logical fallacy?

Here are some excerpts from the judge's ruling in the Dover case for your reading pleasure...



and



and

Desmond,

If only I would read a basic biology book, or even an elementary book? Please!!!

I almost ignored your post because of the attitude, but I know you didn't mean to be disrespectful.

Since you seem to think I'm the one who doesn't have a clue, I will instead qoute the words of people you may respect.

I'd like to point to evolutionism as a religion to start, and may post more later...

"Another reason that scientists are so prone to throw the baby out with the bath water is that science itself, as I have suggested, is a religion. The neophyte scientist, recently come or converted to the world view of science, can be every bit as fanatical as a Christian crusader or a soldier of Allah. This is particularly the case when we have come to science from a culture and home in which belief in God is firmly associated with ignorance, superstition, rigidity and hypocrisy. Then we have emotional as well as intellectual motives to smash the idols of primitive faith. A mark of maturity in scientists, however, is their awareness that science may be as subject to dogmatism as any other religion."

Peck, M. Scott [psychiatrist and Medical Director of New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic, Connecticut, USA], "The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth," [1978], Arrow: London, 1990, p.238.

"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."

Provine William B., [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], "Darwin Day" website, University of Tennessee Knoxville, 1998.

It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing)."

Shallis, Michael [Astrophysicist, Oxford University], "In the eye of a storm", New Scientist, January 19, 1984, pp.42-43.

At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don't usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position.

Boyce Rensberger, How the World Works, William Morrow, NY, 1986, pp. 17 18. Rensberger is an ardently anti-creationist science writer.

"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it."

H. J. Lipson, F.R.S. "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics Bulletin, vol 31, 1980

The fact many scientists accept your faith in macro-evolution means it's true. Wow, the logic is astounding. Now you can say it's the law of evolution, huh? Gee whiz, cool.

Now, when confronted with facts like, the missing links are STILL missing, you plug your ears and yell "LALALA, I'm not listening... Read the web page talkorigins.org, my faithful web page" When you can't show any examples of DNA adding new useful traits to a creature you say, "ah well, give it time, someone will post a site from a faithful evolutionist that will support anything we say about evolution". BTW, did you know ID is supported by the closeness of DNA in species? I doubt you know that. What about Geology supports evolution, please enlighten us all. Dinosaur bones prove something about evolution or ID. Please, tell me what dinosaur bones prove.

As for the point of Argument from ignorance, it is talking about people like you, who have no imagination to even consider ID. So you insist it's not possible.

Lastly, If you have any criticisms concerning ID, bring them on. All I've heard, and it wasn't from you, is ID is untestable. ID can be tested and is being tested.

Here is a test you can do yourself, if you dare...

Get 2 boxes, shoe boxes with lids will do, and a stack of 10 quarters. In box one stack the quarters neatly heads up on top of one another. In box two place the quarters in and shake the box. Now, have a friend open both boxes and see if he/she can determine which box was arranged with ID. Do this experiment several times and see if your friend is ever fooled. If not, this test of ID is confirmed.

Shake that second box enough times, over a long enough span of time, and the quarters it contains will stack. That doesn't prove evolution. Neither does your shoebox experiment even suggest that some outside agency created life on earth. It just establishes that an intelligence can arrange physical objects, provided it has access to the objects, a desire to arrange them, and the ability to arrange them. I don't think man's ability to manipulate his environment was in question. For that particularly exercise to be acceptable as proof of ID, you would also have to establish that man will be able to travel back in time, so as to manipulate/create life. Time travel is still somewhat in doubt, as I'm sure you're well aware.

I fully agree with you, that imagination is necessary to believe in ID. It is also necessary for belief in witchcraft, vodoun, the Easter Bunny, unicorns, and honest politicians.

To me this is the nub of your argument. You *have* the imagination to think that ID might be true.

I would admit that like anything, ID *is* possible and cannot be effectively *disproven* however unlikely one may view the case for it to be. If you have the imagination to concieve of it, and the will to believe in it, then to you, it's simply the way the universe is. This is not the same as having a logical or scientific argument for this to be the case, but why should that matter?

Since it's Christmas and a lot of spiritual thoughts are crossing a lot of peoples minds at this very moment, why not just go with your belief and your faith that this is true and forget about trying to convince the scientists and sceptics? Trying to convince people of a religious belief by using science is kind of a lost cause from the start isn't it?

In short, why don't you just believe?

Kevn I'm glad that you have some idea about me, insofar as you know deep down, I'm not out to get you.

But I must say, what kind of person would I be, if you made a statement that directly went counter to my own experience with my own two eyes, and said... 'sure... that's right!'

Your statements with regard to DNA really don't match easily made, religiously unaffiliated observations. That's where I cried foul, as peacefully as I could.

I've worked in academia, and there is nothing a scientist likes more than to find a breakthrough or discrepancy. If there was *anything* wrong with the DNA model, ten thousand researchers would come up with a reproducible experiment showing it, and it would be published in Nature the next day.

If you recall the fuss over something called cold fusion, within weeks of its announcement people tried duplicating the effect all over the world - instantly discrediting it. If you look at the recent 'breakthrough' in biology in South Korea, you can see how quickly science jumps all over anyone who comes out with questionable results.


Now, let's have a look at your experiment.

Yes, in the presence of ten quarters neatly stacked, in a world full of humans, I'm going to say that one was intelligently designed.

But we are looking out into a universe full of quarters and shoeboxes bouncing around, 14 billion lightyears across. There are no plainly visible quarter-stacking creatures in sight anywhere - and 99.9999% of the boxes and quarters are in a chaotic mess.

Furthermore, the stacked quarters we do find happen to be only in a rare, self-organising form called DNA, and we readily observe two chickens self-organise into more chickens without godlike powers.

All emotions aside, I think you can see how your experiment doesn't correlate to evidence of intelligent design in the universe. Even if ID is true.



I would like to take a brief break from the angst that is this discussion, and wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Solstice, Hannukah, and whatever else the atheists do.

I think ID's supporters are wrong, and I think that many of them (particularly stellar examples like the Discovery Institute, and a certain school board) are quite simply lying about the nature of their beliefs, in a weak attempt to discredit evolutionary theory. I also believe that many of ID's supporters are quite earnest in their belief, however... and while I'm being all honest and stuff, if I felt that ID was a credible theorem, I'd be pushing for it to be included in our children's book-larnin' also. I do not feel that it comes close to being acceptable as science (... heck, I don't think it's even good philosophy), and I believe that the overwhelming majority of ID's supporters are influenced by their preexisting faith in the existence of a creator, and are therefore willing to accept tragically flawed and untestable theory.

So... I think ID is wrong, but I don't think it's evil. I don't think ID's supporters have some secret agenda to abolish scientific method and return Western civilization to the Middle Ages. I think that, for the most part, they firmly believe that the only reason ID is not accepted by the scientific community is because of bias on the part of said community. Again: I think they're wrong. But if I believed as they do, I'd be as insistent, and indignant, as they are.

I do

Will destroy ya

Perhaps you heard yourself saying that ID is untestable? From page 7:

Testable or untestable? And if you say testable... how? What prediction does it make?

Here are some criticisms of ID, reposted, without any sort of reply, for the second or third time (I've lost count) in this thread:

Translation:
"Rather than combat the evidence, I am avoiding the argument."


Only 2% of DNA is "missing". The other 98% is accounted for in both human and ape DNA.

Whereas there is 0% direct evidence that God *poofed* animals into existance.

This is a matter of having 2 possibilities, one is extremely likely, and the other extremely unlikely.

Standing by the argument "you can't prove it" is meaningless, since technically you can't prove anything - every possible theory has a small but finite possibility. So going with an overwhelmingly strong argument over a post-hoc literalist interpretation of a re-re-translated book is pretty Intelligent.



We can't *prove* that the Himalayas were made by plate techtonics, either, but we can observe "smaller" tectonic events, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, or the magnetic striping of sea-floor land around mid-Atlantic faults, and come to a pretty good conclusion.



Carbon dating. Proof that animals existed far before a few thousand years BC, as literalist ID supporters claim. Of course, I suppose you're going to dismiss radiological science too, even though we've harnessed the A-Bomb and have nuclear reactors based on our understanding of the radiation of the atom.


I happen to be a Christian who believes that God and Evolution can exist. Your statements are an ad hominem attack, at best, and ergo a fallacy.

I also do *not* insist it's not "possible", but instead state that it's very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely. Again, I may point out that the Flying Spaghetti Monster being the creator of the universe is also "possible".

Why don't you try *reading* the link that I posted about Argument from Ignorance - and realize that logical syllogisms cannot be proven in a way that you have stated them. In that case, either prove that you have stated your case in another fashion, or find a fallacy in my logic.


Here are a few. I'd like to hear you dismiss each and every one of these:

1. Carbon dating.
2. DNA similarity in ape and man.
3. Tectonic theory showing the earth to be a few billion years old.
4. Basic relativistic physics - since light travels at a finite speed, and we can see deep, deep into space, that proves that the universe is about 10 billion years old.
5. Advanced astrophysics - big bang theory, observation of formations of galaxies, things we can directly observe.
6. The Bible has been translated multiple times, and subtleties in one language can be lost in another. Do you know Aramaic? Ancient Hebrew? Ancient Greek? Have you studied the texts in their original languages?
7. It's possible to interpret things in the Bible in different ways. "Let there be light" - Hmm, maybe the Big Bang? Maybe it's an elegant way of saying that God set forth the universe with the same principles that science upholds?
8. SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL!
9. Basic principles of science - ID is fallacious because it pre-supposes a conclusion - namely God's existence and the literal truth of certain holy passages.



Once again, this is an Argument from Ignorance - meaning that disproving the antecedent of a syllogism does not prove the consequent.
if P is true, then Q is true.
P is not true.
Therefore Q is not true.

This is a fallacy.

Here's a good example why:

If your car is out of gas, it will not run.
Your car has gas.
Therefore your car will run.

FALSE! You could just as easily not have the key, or have a malfunctioning starter or motor.

This is the same logic you are using to "prove" ID and it's invalid in the same way.

These are your given assumptions:
If Evolution is True, then ID is false.
Evolution can't be proved.

And your conclusion:
ID is true.

Where P = "Evolution", Q = "ID is false"

Your logic is flawed. Period. End of story.