Hi, here's a thread for evolution vs. intelligent design discussion

I have more faith in humans then you do I guess

Wow, nice observations!

Oh what the hey --let's look at this post point by point.

1)You sound almost as bad as the religious zealots. For all your great wisdom, all you've done is replace irrational belief in an infallible deity with irrational belief an infallible ideal.

Science is by definition rational. Whether or not one subscribes to rationality is, I suppose, another matter. Science does not claim to be infallible, it merely claims to be based on what is observable.

2)Blind faith is bad no matter which side of the aisle you are on, and it's ideas such as yours, which are inculcated by universities throughout the world, which threaten to do the most harm

True --but Science is not based on faith, unless you are saying it is faith in the human senses --which is, of course an entirely different conversation better suited to Philosophers than Scientists or Theologists. I'm curious about the "harm" comment. Can you elaborate?

3)Students hold Science in such high esteem that they rarely question it, and seldom explore alternate theories.

Alternate theories to what? To Science? Science is a methodology --not a monolithic ideology.

4) the Piltdown incident proves that the pure wellspring of science can become tainted.

The Piltdown incident proves scientific methodology isn't dogmatic, and is in fact self correcting.

5)There are more pernicious toxins floating in that water, and they all come back to basic human behavior. So-called fringe sciences are dismissed with extreme prejudice because prevailing scientific theory (and the egos of prevailing scientific giants) do not allow for the possibility that the fringe may be right.

Fringe science often doesn't adhere to the basic methods of scientific research, and are for those reasons suspect in their conclusions. Intelligent Design being an example.

6)Ultimately, the truth is obscured and perturbed by the pretension of established scientists.

That's just embarrassing as a statement.

This is an argument used frequently by religious zealots. They claim that atheism is faith, that belief in the scientific method is faith. It isn't. It's a reliance on rationality, belief in what can be seen, measured and understood. Not faith in some amorphous deity among hundreds of similar deities that exist or have existed in the superstitious minds of men.

As is superstition. If I refuse to believe that by walking under a ladder I will receive bad luck, am I being close-minded?

Also tooth decay.

Those great big white labels inside sheer black underwear that scratch or tickle and can't be fully removed without damaging the fabric are a powerful argument against the idea that human brains were created by an intelligent and merciful god.

Every advancement in medicine, technology, engineering, manufacturing, and every other practical human advancement is the direct result of science and the scientific method. If not for science our life expectancy would be half as long as it is today. To discredit science as part of some misguided desire to prop up superstition is not only the height of conceit, but also the pinnacle of ignorance. When you are stricken with disease what will you be depending on to save your life? Will you be telling the doctors and pharmacists that you don't want their help because they're frauds? Maybe you can find a traditionalist to apply leeches while mystics chant around your bedside if you feel that's more honest. Personally, I'll take the help of science, thanks.

Given the "great unknowns" in the universe, why is it superstitious to hypothesize that intellegint design had something to do with life as we know it? Looking at the theoretical constructs underlying such things as QM, String Theory and/or Fractoids (which, by the way, collectivley seem almost as incredulous as many religious maxims), why isn't there room for the consideration of an intelligent agent(s) of change? Looking at just the possibility of fractoids -- those x and y axes that shape matter -- how hard would it have been for an intelligent designer to "program" a few fractoids, and set them free to do their deeds?

I agree that we don't want to inject theology into the natural sciences, per se, but why is it so egregiously offensive to even consider the possiblity that another intelligence had a role to play? (Having already had this debate with Chip, I can forecast the responses, but I am a masochist, I guess.)

Paolo, there is really nothing wrong with postulating that there may have been an intelligence of some kind involved in creation. There's nothing wrong with any hypothesis you care to put forward. However, without any supporting oberservational evidence that can be used to make predictions that verify the veracity of the thesis (which evolution has in spades), the idea of an intelligent designer has no greater intrinsic value than any other non-observable, non-testable, evidence bereft supposition, including the notion that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a giant roller derby queen. All ideas are not equal.

You demonstrate your profound ignorance here, Chip. Every advancement is the direct result of science and the scientific method? There are a vast number of advancements which were accidental. There are a vast number of advancements which were made before the advent of organized science. There are a vast number of advancements which have been made with complete and utter disregard for what prevailing scientific theory suggested.

You can write me off as a mystical crank if it makes you feel better. Your belief in the sublime power of science and your completely ridiculous attribution of every human advancement to the great throne of Science demonstrates that your belief is as irrational as those whom you dismiss with extreme disdain.

Simply because something is discovered by accident, doesn't mean that it can't be testable and repeatable -- a quality which intelligent design lacks. It's the difference between fantasy and reality, religion and science.

~Ulrika~

The worst part about intelligent design is, that it required euphemistic labeling to be repacked and resold to another generation. Requiring rotating euphemistic labels is never the sign of a solid argument.

~Ulrika~

So now you're saying accident is a more common and dependable means of human advancement than science? Alrighty then! I'm not sure how to respond to such a preposterous statement. Of course many discoveries have been made by accident. They were not understood, repeated, and refined by accident. Bypass surgery wasn't the result of an "oops!" The irony of an ID proponenet (who rejects the idea that evolution progresses by random mutation) making the claim that scientific progress is accidental is not lost on me.



Thanks.

I agree with this statement, it's not logical to asume any major advancements were by accident. That is why the notion of random mistakes in genetic code of swamp slime could, over many millions of years, create a human...... or mouse for that matter, is not logical.

You misrepresented Chip's statement.
Accident is not a more common and dependable way to advance human cultures and societies, but it would work.

I'm not going to argue the second part of your statement, due to it's vague nature.

I'm not quite sure what direction Kevn was coming from, but he said something earlier in the thread that I agree with completely... which is that ID would be okay in science classes if it were taught as genuine science. In order for that to happen it would need to have sufficient observational evidence to support the notion of a designer, be testable, and be capable of making accurate and verifiable predictions. If it met those basic standards of scientific merit I'd have no problem with it being taught in science classes as a competing or complimentary theory to evolution. Unfortunately for ID, it doesn't meet a single one of those requirements. As such, it can in no way be considered a scientific theory. If it could be, then any notion meeting the same standard of evidence would also have to be given equal time. Absolutely every idea, no matter how hair-brained, meets that standard of evidence.

Proponents of ID want it taught because they want it to be true, not because there's a shred of evidence to suggest that it is. ID amounts to nothing more than saying "anything that complicated must be magic." If ID ever manages to amass real evidence so that it's able to make verifiable predictions of observable phenomenon then, and only then, should it be considered seriously. I actually don't have a problem with it being mentioned in science classes now, as long as it's presented honestly (meaning it's explained why it's so lacking as a scientific theory). That's not what will happen though, because the vast majority of teachers who are enthusiastic about teaching it all have religious motivations. The simple truth is that anyone who currently believes that ID is a truly competing theory with equal merit to evolution is either very ignorant about ID, evolution, and how science works, or they are willing to engage in a very dishonest intellectual relativism in order to justify belief in mysticism and mythology as fact.

But, as I pointed out, it's not nearly as "random" as all that.

It is egregiously offensive to the way science operates to inject god into any theorhetical system because given the inherent properties of "god" as typically construed it is equivalent to putting "inquire no further" in the explanation.

That probably needs some elaboration. If god exists and is omnipotent, uncaused, and inscrutable, literally any consequence can be inserted with absolutely no way to distinguish the validity of it. I'll give an example:

1. god created the earth 5 minutes ago
   
2. god loaded all the people and all the observable world with memories and evidence that make it appear as if the universe was created 13 billion years ago
   
3. Therefore, regardless of what our inquiries might tell us, the universe is only 5 minutes old
   

Given an omnipotent god proposition (1) is certainly within her power. Given an inscrutable god, proposition (2) is indeed possible. The conclusion (3) which logically follows says that not only would looking at origins or cosmology not yield "truths", even statements about what one had for lunch today would be manifestly invalid.

Let me give an example smaller in scope, as the first one is pretty big:

1. John killed his wife, Mary.
   
2. Mary had been sexually unfaithful to John
   
3. John was god's vehicle for exacting retribution for Mary's violation of biblical injunction
   

Here is a clearer example of "seek no further". The questions "Was John guilty of murder?", "why might a cuckolded spouse be moved to murderous rage?", "might John have been mistaken about Mary's conduct?", "is there anything we can do to avert murders by people who believe they have been cuckolded?" are all stopped dead in their tracks. So not only the sociologic question of how might we reduce murders cut off, but so is the judicial question of culpability, as is the psychologic question about rage, as is the forensic question of John's motive. With this "explanation" in hand, we are cut off from all sorts of inquiries that we currently think interesting and that matter.

A still shorter one:

1. god created the heavens and all the features of them because it pleased her
   

Poof, there goes astronomy, cosmology, space exploration and collateral technologies, etc. even, for that matter, astrology.

None of these say anything about the existence or non-existence of god; they simply act as an impenetrable roadblock to curiousity and further inquiry. One could argue well we're too damn curious as is and you know about what happened to the cat and all. The counter-argument would then be: why did god make us so damn curious if she didn't intend for us to use it?

If you remove "god" from the explanatory examples above it at least affords us the oppotunity to understand more. I'll finish with a more topical explanatory example:

1. New Orleans was devestated by two hurricanes causing destruction and death
   
2. god willed it to be so
   

Now some questions that we think very important are cut off before they can be asked: Could we have averted it? What of our past actions contributed to it? Can we act in a manner to prevent future events elsewhere? and so on.

This isn't just about origins, this is about everyday explanations and what one ought do. Here is the paradoxical twist: given the conventional injunction to "love thy neighbor" and "do what you can for others on this earth" (which are nice ideas regardless of their source) if god so enjoined us to do this, then inserting god into explanatory systems makes it impossible to fulfill these injunctions as shown above.

That's why god is a bad addition to explanatory systems.

That reminded me of Chance Abattoir's signature: Google: "The Dragon In My Garage"

What an absolutely superb write up. Your effort is appreciated.

~Ulrika~

The theory of evolution doesn't suggest an answer to the beginning of life. The theory of evolution suggests to answer the question of why there are so many different animals.

I agree life has a mechanism that allows for adaptation. Just as life has a built-in mechenism to repair itself when it suffers an injury. I don't beleive evolution created these qualities.

The theory of evolution suggests small changes to the genetic code of early creatures created advanced creatures. It suggests people evolved over a long time, from other, lower animals. It suggests my brain, my eyes, my senses evolved from a very low life form which had no brain, eyes, sense of smell or touch.

The evidence for this is a handful of bones and fossils. We have "scientists" who will take a portion of a jaw bone and a small piece of skull and declare it the "missing link" everyone has ben searching for, so we can call it the LAW of evolution instead of the THEORY of evolution.

Many great evolutionists have questioned the theory. Mostly noting the huge gaps in the theory. Many noting the religious fever surrounding the debate on both sides. Believing anything without proof is showing a sign of faith, praying to God is an act of faith. Accepting anything without personal experience is to accept it by faith.

Accepting the notion life started as single cell creatures that over time changed, from tiny mistakes in the genetic code, into highly organized, intellegent creatures able to contemplate their beginnings, shows a much higher level of faith than that of the snake handling Christians.

If you believe that the only supporting evidence for evolution is the fossil record then I strongly suggest you do some serious reading on the subject. Fossils are only one small part of the puzzle.

All science, no matter how proven and accepted as fact, is theory. At no point do things stop being theories and become unquestionable fact. We can never know anything with absolute certainty. We can only observe, hypothesize, test, and refine. A scientific theory is like a lens. The image it provides starts out blurry and undefined. As more is learned it gets more and more focused. At no point does it ever reach the stage where it couldn't be any sharper. To characterize that process as being anything akin to faith shows a lack of understanding of what science is.

We have scientific law. The law of gravity isn't a theory. When there is proof of evolution(showing evolution to be recreatable every time we test) it will be called the Law of evolution. But at this time there is no proof. We can drop an apple a million times and it will always fall.

There are many laws, evolution isn't one.

Newton's "Law" of universal gravitation was indeeed the standard theory of gravity until Einstein's theory of General Relativity. However, since calculations in general relativity are complicated, and Newtonian gravity is sufficiently accurate for general calculation it is used as a reasonable mathematical formula for utilitarian purposes.

I want to point out a small misconception here that I see on both sides of this debate quite a bit.

Evolution is an observed fact that is explained by the theory of natural selection. Thus, it's technically a mistake to refer to the theory of evolution. Instead one should refer to evolution as an observed fact and natural selection as the theory which explains it.

~Ulrika~