Creationism v. Intelligent Design v. Evolution

[Al_Moritz]

A specialist will be able to tell you in more detail, but abiogenesis is looking at a simple proto-cell with a lipid bilayer membrane filled with self replicating RNA ribozymes.

That is almost correct. Abiogenesis is not even looking for a lipid bilayer, but a simple fatty acid membrane. Szostak’s reserach shows that this is perfectly feasible, and would serve all the functions required for a primitive protocell.

So far abiogenesis has the lipid bilayer, all the required RNA bases and RNA chains up to about 120 bases. ID abiogenesis research has nothing: no bases, no RNA and no lipid bilayer.

rossum

Abiogenesis has pyrimidine nucleotides (C, U), but not purine nucleotides (A, G) – yet. But given the recent success with the former, a breakthrough with the latter, i.e. a demonstration how nature may have assembled these bases spontaneously on the prebiotic Earth, is only a matter of time. Any other assumption (i.e., that direct “intelligent design” from God would be needed for the synthesis of A, G) has no rational basis at this point.

 

[vz71]

If we believe God that put it there, yes.

So you do claim it is theologically based, but then have to add a condition that was not originally there to maintain the meaning?

I submit that having to move the target invalidates the claim.

 

[vz71]

A specialist will be able to tell you in more detail, but abiogenesis is looking at a simple proto-cell with a lipid bilayer membrane filled with self replicating RNA ribozymes. I am sure there is more to it than that, but that is the level of detail I am aware of. Beyond that you are going to have to do your own research.

Faith.
You do not know the details and cannot provide the facts, but you believe it nevertheless.
Now that we have finally broken down your reasoning to the faith it is, kindly refrain from accusations towards ID for this same faith.
It smacks of the pot calling the kettle black.

So far abiogenesis has the lipid bilayer, all the required RNA bases and RNA chains up to about 120 bases.

But they haven’t life.
Nor have they a clue what exactly makes something alive.

And back to an older argument, it is impossible to tell how long the journey will take or how you will get there without knowing the destination.
And without having made life, they have no idea.

 

[vz71]

But given the recent success with the former, a breakthrough with the latter, i.e. a demonstration how nature may have assembled these bases spontaneously on the prebiotic Earth, is only a matter of time. Any other assumption (i.e., that direct “intelligent design” from God would be needed for the synthesis of A, G) has no rational basis at this point.

Well, then you have to do a statistical analysis of the probability of the exact lab conditions occurring without some kind of outside intervention.
And you have to do a statistical analysis of the probability that the product will reproduce before being killed off by something.

You still end up with ridiculously low probability.

Of course, this all depends upon the ‘breakthrough’ you are speaking of, which may or may not ever come about.

 

[buffalo]

Your view of science is too parochial! Multiverses have been hypothesized by reputable scientists in cosmology, physics and psychology. You should find Tegmark’s classification of universes interesting and worthy of consideration.

What is Buddhism divided by scepticism about Buddhism?!

As an authority for what purpose?

What is the mathematical probability that the principle of induction will continue to be valid?

You are unwisely equating evolution with the theory that life is an accident…

                That is your standard reply but I have shown it is inconsistent with your belief that Buddhism is true. Do all your important views and decisions depend on your calculations?

A propos of the human brain Jacques Monod - who was no fool - wrote that its chances of appearing were “infinitely slender”. Does your request invalidate his judgment and that of other atheists who regarded each stage of development as increasingly improbable - without producing precise ratios for their considered verdicts?

Here is the Pope on Monod:

…The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature “there is revealed such a superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection.” In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed a powerful reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: “Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb.”

Jacques Monod, who rejects as unscientific every kind of faith in God and who thinks that the world originated out of an interplay of chance and necessity, tells in the very work in which he attempts summarily to portray and justify his view of the world that, after attending the lectures which afterward appeared in book form, François Mauriac is supposed to have said: **“What this professor wants to afflict on us is far more unbelievable than what we poor Christians were ever expected to believe.”
**
Monod does not dispute this. His thesis is that the entire ensemble of nature has arisen out of errors and dissonances. He cannot help but say himself that such a conception is in fact absurd. But, according to him, the scientific method demands that a question not be permitted to which the answer would have to be God. One can only say that a method of this sort is pathetic. God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence…"
Pope Benedict XVI - (Munich 1981)

 

[minkymurph]

So you do claim it is theologically based, but then have to add a condition that was not originally there to maintain the meaning?

I submit that having to move the target invalidates the claim.

I don’t follow. What condition am I adding that was not originally there to maintain the meaning, what target I am I moving, and what claim is therefore invalid?

 

[tonyrey]

Multiverses have been hypothesized by reputable scientists in cosmology, physics and psychology.

They are only spurious in your opinion. Was Monod’s estimate that the chances of the appearance of the human brain were infinitely slender spurious? Does your request invalidate his judgment and that of other atheists who regarded each stage of evolution as** increasingly improbable** - without producing precise ratios for their considered verdicts?

The sound of one hand clapping.

That is a typical Buddhist statement!
Do you think all scientific hypotheses are based on probabilistic calculations? Or all philosophical explanations?

Ironically the physicalism you espouse - with Buddhism - is based on inference from intangible thoughts, feelings and perceptions!

What is the mathematical probability that the principle of induction will continue to be valid?

Mathematical induction will always be valid because it is axiomatic.

You are evading the question. What is the mathematical probability that the principle of induction will continue to be valid?

Scientific induction may fail in future, but then science will find some other principle to work with in the changed universe.

If scientific induction fails science will be useless as far as the future is concerned - which suggests that it will be of very little use at all!

You are unwisely equating evolution with the theory that life is an accident…

Chemistry is not an accident. It is not an accident that water is exactly two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

Now you are equating life with chemistry! And according to you chemistry is the result of an accident because there is no reason why atomic particles or the elements or chemistry or life or anything else exists…

Since you are quoting odds it is not unreasonable to ask for your calculations. My Buddhism is not a matter of either odds or calculation. Pascal’s Wager played no part in the process.

What is it a matter of then? Intuition?
At all events your Buddhism does not come up to the standards of proof you demand for the probability of Design or the improbability of abiogenesis. You are trying to have it both ways to suit your preconceptions…

Do all your important views and decisions depend on your calculations?

You have neglected the following facts:

1. Most life on this planet has almost become extinct several times.
2. Immensely complex organisms are far less likely to survive than simple ones, e.g. dinosaurs and amoeba.

 

[vz71]

I don’t follow. What condition am I adding that was not originally there to maintain the meaning, what target I am I moving, and what claim is therefore invalid?

This one:

If we believe God that put it there, yes.

ID does not add the specific designer, just that there is one.
You add the “if” to it to force ID to be a theology instead of a science.

Of course, I have to wonder…why should something be considered a theology if it leads to a belief in God?

If I study the world around me and come to the conclusion that there is a God for it, does that make the study of the world around me theology?

 

[Simon62]

It seems I’m unable to vote for some reason, maybe because I have only written a couple of times on this forum, but I’m a creationist through and through. My RSV Catholic Edition bible starts out as we all know “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s good enough for me! We know the rest.
God being entirely omnipotent, whereby absolutely nothing is impossible to Him, it is comforting to acknowledge that as mere humans, albeit the masterpiece of His creation, there are certain mysteries within His creation, as there are in the Holy Trinity, which gear us to a greater sense of humility and wonder. The wonders of science which have brought us a microscopic view of nature and the wonders that astronomy has brought us only makes me feel more humility before the Lord my God.
I may appear simplistic in my belief, but I don’t believe in ‘ID’ and certainly not ‘Evolution’.
Too much denial of God there for most of it’s followers.
God created, out of nothing and that’s that!

Simon

 

[buffalo]

I may appear simplistic in my belief, but I don’t believe in ‘ID’ and certainly not ‘Evolution’.

Simon

How about IDvolution?

 

[tonyrey]

I may appear simplistic in my belief, but I don’t believe in ‘ID’ and certainly not ‘Evolution’.
Too much denial of God there for most of **its **followers.
God created, out of nothing and that’s that!

Welcome to the forum, Simon!

Do you know the Church accepts evolution?

If you reject Design it implies God didn’t know what He was doing!

God created everything by Design - directly in some cases like our souls - but mainly through evolution, which He guided by intervention when necessary.

 

[minkymurph]

This one:

ID does not add the specific designer, just that there is one.
You add the “if” to it to force ID to be a theology instead of a science.

ID doesn’t need any help from me in that regard. Is not the whole purpose of ID to establish through the use of scientific evidence we were created and our creator is God? I’m not saying this to be insulting or dismissive of anyone else’s beliefs. I’m saying it to establish what the purpose of ID is. I’m not convinced the purpose of ID is purely to establish, for example - empirical evidence relating to the age of the earth - in an objective way and scientific way purely to find the age of the earth. Why do they want to find the age of the earth? Why do they want to establish empirical evidence relating to DNA, fossils, carbon dating? I’m not convinced they don’t seek to establish all this purely to prove scientific findings that challenge literal interpretations wrong.

Of course, I have to wonder…why should something be considered a theology if it leads to a belief in God?

If the purpose of the inquiry is to promote belief in God or establish His existence, it involves theology.

If I study the world around me and come to the conclusion that there is a God for it, does that make the study of the world around me theology?

That depends on what it is you want to know. It study involves God interaction with His creation, the origins of humankind in relation to creation, or a study of nature for the purpose of proving an intelligent God was behind the design, yes, it is theology.

 

[grannymh]

It seems to me that Intelligent Design is only concerned with the material/physical aspects of the world in the first two chapters of Book of Genesis. It appears to slide by human nature and ignores chapter three of* Genesis* which is crucial for Catholicism.

 

[tonyrey]

It seems to me that Intelligent Design is only concerned with the material/physical aspects of the world in the first two chapters of Book of Genesis. It appears to slide by human nature and ignores chapter three of* Genesis* which is crucial for Catholicism.

Design is concerned with human nature because it regards our rationality, conscience, free will and capacity for love as evidence that we are created in the image and likeness of God.

 

[Simon62]

I know the Church accepts the theory of evolution, but I don’t. I just don’t. I Believe God created all this in six days.

I’m not rejecting God’s Almighty ability to design, He is the source of all good design. I’m an artist/sculptor by the way and of course acknowledge God as the greatest Artist.

But no evolution for me. The human race started with Adam and Eve, who looked and behaved the same as we do now, and didn’t ‘evolve from some humanoid creature’.

 

[ricmat]

Do you know the Church accepts evolution?

A minor clarification - the Church allows us to accept evolution that has God involved somehow, and insists that we reject any evolutionary theory that denies God’s hand in it. Evolution as most people define it is purposeless and Godless.

God created everything by Design - directly in some cases like our souls - but mainly through evolution, which He guided by intervention when necessary.

With reference to my point immediately above, this is a form of evolution which the church would accept.

 

[Simon62]

Great, I was allowed to vote, so that brings Creationists up to 22.

Off to bed as I’m on French/European time and it’s late.

God Bless

Simon

 

[edwest2]

Hi Simon62,

I invite you to read this:

timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1645453.ece

Peace,
Ed

 

[ricmat]

It seems to me that Intelligent Design is only concerned with the material/physical aspects of the world in the first two chapters of Book of Genesis. It appears to slide by human nature and ignores chapter three of* Genesis* which is crucial for Catholicism.

You lost me here grannymh. Could you elaborate?

 

[grannymh]

Design is concerned with human nature because it regards our rationality, conscience, free will and capacity for love as evidence that we are created in the image and likeness of God.

I would appreciate a citation or reference for that from the scientic position since ID is considered science. Thank you.