Yet it relies on something unknowable. Scientists should properly continue to study how things work. One step at a time. By all means, let one explanation be “intelligent designer“. Would you suggest that science then should cease study once intelligent design has been postulated?At present, the origin of DNA code is best explained as having been designed by intelligence. That is a better explanation than having arisen from blind, unintelligent natural causes.
That’s a common objection. That “science will stop” if we presently find the best explanation as intelligent design. But there’s no reason that should or would happen. Believers in God will always have motivation to know how God designed things - we look to see the marvels of nature and to understand them. As the idea that blind, mindless material substances cause the emergence of functional DNA in life becomes more difficult to accept - intelligent design is a stronger explanation. But that explanation can always be tested and falsified, as soon as we discover some way that random combinations of particles for example, create sophisticated functional code. We can always search for that.Yet it relies on something unknowable. Scientists should properly continue to study how things work. One step at a time. By all means, let one explanation be “intelligent designer“. Would you suggest that science then should cease study once intelligent design has been postulated?
Sure. Same is true for physics. There is unending layers to peel.What was thought to be simple for science to explain, from Darwin’s day - has proven to be almost impossible even to describe fully, much more to explain the origin of.
I am grateful to hear that. When you did not immediately oppose the ID hypothesis I found your view to be more open to the evidence and perhaps I was not as defensive at that point. I have been on CAF many years ago when the mention of ID drew tremendous hostility and even to the point where evolution discussions were banned. I was almost always the only non-evolutionist among a group of aggressive pro-evolution defenders. Arguments became very heated with a lot of personal attacks.I think as the thread has progressed your objections have been better defined and now appear not so extreme as initially put.
Can you name some of these characteristics?If we analyze artifacts that we know have been designed by intelligence - say something like functional software code, and then we find something in nature that shows the same characteristics as that which is only designed by intelligence - then it’s a good inference to say: “Our best explanation for the origin of this aspect of nature is that it was designed by intelligence, since it has all the characteristics of those things we know to have been designed by intelligence”.
Oscillation is a change, a change is a measurement, a measurement is an observation- if there’s no observation, nothing happens.Right, so atoms continue to oscillate then.
So for you, the earth can be no older than…what?Oscillation is a change, a change is a measurement, a measurement is an observation- if there’s no observation, nothing happens.
For me, the material universe is nothing more than a perception, a false perception, only our collective consciousness is real.So for you, the earth can be no older than…what?
You flopped so badly on this one.It turned out to be human language.
No need for ‘colossal amounts of evidence’, any evidence that clearly demonstrates speciation through beneficial mutation and natural selection will do.Perhaps you could quit picking opposite ends of the spectrum and pretending the colossal amounts of evidence in between don’t exist then?
No.Could we agree at least then that it’s much more plausible that humans and great apes share a common ancestor,
I agree:But I don’t expect science to ever say “and this bit here is done by God”. Science is likely to continue digging through infinite detail.
Not in scientific terms. The differences in DNA are finite and quantifiable. If we are discussing science, then you are wrong here.There is an infinite difference between ape and human.
Two errors here. First, evolution is not a random process because natural selection is not random. Second, there is evidence that evolutionary processes can create functional information. See Lenski (2003) The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features. That gives the entire line of descent for the evolution of new functional information.Random (as evolution is) processes cannot create new functional information.
If environmental changes are random then natural selection, a function of the changing environment, is also random.First, evolution is not a random process because natural selection is not random.
Unless the genetic makeup of species can change over time, at which point two isolated populations of the same species could change in different ways. Enough small changes and you get big changes. Once those two species can no longer interbreed, the populations can even reconnect.No.
Logically, if parent(s) bring forth offspring of the same species as they are, then there should only be one species in the universe.
If you don’t see how being able to communicate is a survival advantage I really don’t know what to say.You flopped so badly on this one.
A functional design would have complex, multi-layered ordered processes that are resolved in a purposeful endpoint. An example of this is a communication network.Can you provide an example of something that does not have characteristics of design?
Exactly.If environmental changes are random then natural selection, a function of the changing environment, is also random.
So, do parents always bring forth offspring of the same species as them?Unless the genetic makeup of species can change over time, at which point two isolated populations of the same species could change in different ways. Enough small changes and you get big changes. Once those two species can no longer interbreed, the populations can even reconnect.
And all of that is around you right now. Ring species are one of the best examples.
Sure it is but there’s zero data to support your ideas on origins of human language. What is known is the fact that human language is acquired through learning from knowledgeable sources. If we are to fall back in time, we can only go as far as the original, common knowledgeable source, not some single celled organism.If you don’t see how being able to communicate is a survival advantage I really don’t know what to say.
Environmental changes are not generally random. Earthquakes have geological causes. Ice Ages have causes in the Sun. Tidal flooding is caused by the moon. I will grant you that meteorite impacts are in effect random, given the lack of information on the paths of every orbiting body in the solar system.If environmental changes are random then natural selection, a function of the changing environment, is also random.
Ice age selections change in non-ice age eras. Only in stable environments can one claim natural selection is non-random. There are no stable environments.