C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
itinerant
catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=4340
Then how do you explain that?!
Thank you in advance.
catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=4340
Then how do you explain that?!
Thank you in advance.
- Status
E
edwest2
Guest
Don’t combine Intelligent Design with Creationism. Looking for Intelligent Design in nature is the same as an archaeologist finding a bit of clay. It can be a piece of dried clay or a shard from some ancient pottery. One was designed by an intelligence. The SETI project is looking for intelligence by monitoring electromagnetic activity in space. These scientists have criteria for determining if a signal was sent by an intelligence. The criteria are there but some prefer ignoring all this. It appears it’s because it might lead to a greater awareness of God.
Peace,
Ed
E
edwest2
Guest
As a Catholic, I see their self-appointed job as denying the sacrifice on the Cross. It denies the one who is the way, the truth and the life. Against a backdrop of nihilism and indifference fed by the global media, it might affect some people. It could put them on a path that denies God in their lives.
Peace,
Ed
D
Detales
Guest
Methinks the [believer] doth protest too much. Men have indeed created an anthropomorphic god in their image and likeness. Christianism is full of it. What underlies Christianism, Judaism, and Mohammedanism? What was Abraham really about? Curiously, all three members of the family have forgotten their root.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
Detales
*Men have indeed created an anthropomorphic god in their image and likeness. Christianism is full of it. What underlies Christianism, Judaism, and Mohammedanism? What was Abraham really about? Curiously, all three members of the family have forgotten their root. *
Why don’t you tell us what root they have forgotten? It certainly wasn’t that all three religions created the same God.
*Men have indeed created an anthropomorphic god in their image and likeness. Christianism is full of it. What underlies Christianism, Judaism, and Mohammedanism? What was Abraham really about? Curiously, all three members of the family have forgotten their root. *
Why don’t you tell us what root they have forgotten? It certainly wasn’t that all three religions created the same God.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
The problem so far with this thread is that we have not centered our discussion on one main theme: How could Intelligent Design belittle God, as Father Coyne argues?
I don’t see how it does, unless one chooses to believe that the Intelligent Designer is a Thinker only, and not a Lover. That seems to be the view of Einstein and others who are comfortable with the idea of an impersonal God, but not a personal God.
Even so, a thinking God is an appropriate subject for science, since science is concerned with thinking more than with anything else; that is, with posing questions and finding answers; with discoverning patterns and laws of nature that can be deduced by induction. The notion that science, which is occupied mostly with designing intelligent proofs for this and that, should be baffled or frightened by Intelligent Design when it sees it, is simply absurd.
I don’t see how it does, unless one chooses to believe that the Intelligent Designer is a Thinker only, and not a Lover. That seems to be the view of Einstein and others who are comfortable with the idea of an impersonal God, but not a personal God.
Even so, a thinking God is an appropriate subject for science, since science is concerned with thinking more than with anything else; that is, with posing questions and finding answers; with discoverning patterns and laws of nature that can be deduced by induction. The notion that science, which is occupied mostly with designing intelligent proofs for this and that, should be baffled or frightened by Intelligent Design when it sees it, is simply absurd.
R
ricmat
Guest
Well, I’m sure the Cardinal knows Fr. Coyne better than we do. And I haven’t ever seen a Coyne response saying “That’s not what I meant.”
OK - "Der Spiegel Number 52, December 22, 2000.
Read it in it’s full context and tell us about it. Oh. It’s in German (which the Cardinal also speaks better than I do). Here’s the translation by google of the key part of Coyne’s essay on THIS PAGE:
I’ve seen similar statements by Coyne elsewhere in English.
They should be disturbing to all Catholics.
To those Catholics who think Coyne to be a great hero, I have the following advice from St. Escriva who was addressing similar situations in his own time. From “The Way”, number 836:
I
itinerant1
Guest
I think you are reading something into it that is not there. I will try to explain that in another post, that is, the distinction between “intelligent design” and Intelligent Design theory.
“As I see it, [it is] the mistake of the “Intelligent Design” school of thought (with which people always wrongly associate me). The attempt of this school to assess high complexity in nature as evidence or proof of “intelligent design” suffers from the fundamental failure in thought, that “design,” plan, directedness to an end cannot be found on the level of causality with which the scientific method (in natural science) is concerned.”
(from Cardinal Schönborn lecture on March 4 to the Austrian Academy of Sciences on "Creation and Evolution)
I
itinerant1
Guest
I am not sure how familiar you are with ID theory. Nonetheless, Behe asserts that some things in nature have evolved while other exhibit the characteristics of being designed plus their complexity prohibits them from having come into existence by evolution.
ID is creationist in two senses of the term. In the first sense, it believes that God is the Creator of all things. In this sense all Catholics believe in creation. In the second sense of “creation” ID asserts special creation for individual organisms of “irreducible complexity.” This puts one of their feet in the fundamentalist creationist camp.
ID theory involves much more than just analyzing nature and asserting that it exhibits evidence of an intelligent designer. Accordingly, your pottery and SETI examples have missed the mark. Behe is claiming much more.
E
edwest2
Guest
My SETI and archaeology examples were precisely what I meant. In finding an object, the archaeologist can only draw two conclusions:
- The object is natural. That simply means that it shows no signs of modification due to specific and complex changes. These changes must always be specific and complex.
- The object, whether it is rock, clay or metal, has been specifically modified in a complex manner.
Example 2: A triangular rock. It has almost perfect bilateral symmetry. It shows regular chip marks along two opposite edges. It also shows a small hole drilled at one end to accept the tip of an arrow shaft. It is intelligently designed. It is an arrowhead.
This is the intelligent design I am referring to. If a complex, metallic device was found on the surface of Mars, would you assume God made it? Of course not, but you would indeed be forced to conclude that it is an example of design by an intelligence even though you have no other information about that intelligence.
In the last example, I need to know nothing about the particular intelligent designer. The artifact he has left behind bears the characteristics of intelligent design.
There is no such thing as Creationist Intelligent Design.
There is, however, the problem of explaining the highly complex, coded and self-correcting DNA in a cell. Probability theory indicates it is impossible to form on its own. Of course, a few here might be comfortable thinking about that idea but only if it could somehow be shown that, say, aliens made it. But the lack of being comfortable with the idea only occurs if it might, even a little, support the idea of God.
Peace,
Ed
I
itinerant1
Guest
You have talked around the issue I presented without addressing it directly. Perhaps you would see what I am getting at if you answer the following situation:
Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate?
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
What continues to be a much avoided theme by evolutionists is how abiogenesis happened by chance. Abiogenesis has to be by chance because there is no way evolution could have produced abiogenesis. But the odds that it would be produced by chance need to be calculated as somewhere along a continuum from extremely likely to extremely improbable. To date I am not aware of any such calculation that strongly demonstrates likelihood, never mind extreme likelihood; but the math certainly suggests very strongly the unlikelihood of abiogenesis by chance.
This the soft underbelly of atheistic scientists who oppose any possibility of Intelligent Design. They cannot prove their ASSUMPTION that abiogenesis happened by chance, and they cannot refer to Darwin for help. In fact it was Darwin, himself unaware of the coming science of microbiology, who posited that if an organ could be said to have come into existence without evolving, it would throw his hold theory into turmoil. Little did he know that it would be a whole organism … the first living cell, that would do just that.
Behe is right. Irreducible complexity is right. It is for evolutionists to prove that a living cell can come into existence by a chance assembly of its parts. Science has not done that. It is not doing that. And it knows it can never do that.
Where’s the beef?
This the soft underbelly of atheistic scientists who oppose any possibility of Intelligent Design. They cannot prove their ASSUMPTION that abiogenesis happened by chance, and they cannot refer to Darwin for help. In fact it was Darwin, himself unaware of the coming science of microbiology, who posited that if an organ could be said to have come into existence without evolving, it would throw his hold theory into turmoil. Little did he know that it would be a whole organism … the first living cell, that would do just that.
Behe is right. Irreducible complexity is right. It is for evolutionists to prove that a living cell can come into existence by a chance assembly of its parts. Science has not done that. It is not doing that. And it knows it can never do that.
Where’s the beef?
E
edwest2
Guest
First of all, every organism that has ever existed still exists in some similar form today. Bacteria, viruses, lizards, amphibians, large land animals, though not as large as dinosaurs. This is what so-called evolutionary theory is based on. This is what the so-called changes are based on. We still have fish, we sill have amphibians. There is no real evidence that something changed into something else. I have seen photos of supposedly ancient insects trapped in amber. They had legs and wings and were perfectly functional.
Is the common seal on its way to developing hands because it can walk on its flippers? I’m sure it would stop doing that if it was painful but, apparently, it is not.
From an engineering standpoint, if something is missing a part, it cannot function. That is what is meant by irreducibly complex. I have a four legged chair but then I cut off a leg, and it falls over. Same thing.
Premise 1) Life cannot arise from nonlife.
Premise 2) In the process of assembly, an organism must have all of its parts in the correct location and connected in precise ways. In irreducibly precise ways.
I can have all the parts to build a complete car engine but no instructions. But, I decide to put them together in some random way. Will the engine run?
The idea that all of the parts for a living thing could be floating around in some soup like mixture and then, without instructions, assemble themselves in precisely the correct way is beyond statistical probability. But, if, by some miracle, that occurred even once, then there would be a bigger problem: there would be no instructions or machinery in place to allow for the organism to reproduce.
This is irreducible complexity. To answer your question: some type of guiding intelligence is required to assemble a living thing.
Peace,
Ed
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
itinerant
*Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate? *
Can you document such a case?
Elso Barghoorn, a paleontologist, in the 1970s discovered micro-fossil bacteria that existed 3.5 billion years ago. Water only appeared on the earth about three hundred million years earlier. In geologic time, this is a a narrow window of opportunity for the first cell to appear by the accidental combination of amino acids. It’s a much shorter period than George Wald gave the process in the 1950s, when he thought there was a 2 billion year stretch between early water and the first sign of bacteria. (It is, of course, possible that bacteria began even earlier, but that the fossil record is either not yet found or has been destroyed by the ravages of time.)
Why would a Catholic scientist think that the argument for intelligent design diminishes the image of God in our minds and hearts? I wish Father Coyne were here to defend that remark.
*Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate? *
Can you document such a case?
Elso Barghoorn, a paleontologist, in the 1970s discovered micro-fossil bacteria that existed 3.5 billion years ago. Water only appeared on the earth about three hundred million years earlier. In geologic time, this is a a narrow window of opportunity for the first cell to appear by the accidental combination of amino acids. It’s a much shorter period than George Wald gave the process in the 1950s, when he thought there was a 2 billion year stretch between early water and the first sign of bacteria. (It is, of course, possible that bacteria began even earlier, but that the fossil record is either not yet found or has been destroyed by the ravages of time.)
Why would a Catholic scientist think that the argument for intelligent design diminishes the image of God in our minds and hearts? I wish Father Coyne were here to defend that remark.
I
itinerant1
Guest
I don’t see how any of this addresses my post. Perhaps you can pick an example of an organism or system Behe considers “irreducibly complex” and then address the question accordingly.
I
itinerant1
Guest
“Some type of guiding intelligence.” Okay, but that is not much of an answer. Not very satisfying for my curiosity. Be more specific. Flesh it out. How is it guided? What is guided? What is the nature of the guidance? When in time was it assembled? How was it assembled, by direct causation from the so-called guiding intelligence, or were intermediate causes used? Is miraculous intervention required? Your puzzleboard only has one piece in place.
Let’s have some real answers. We are Catholics are we are supposed to know stuff because we can know stuff, if we apply ourselves to the task.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
itinerant
“Some type of guiding intelligence.” Okay, but that is not much of an answer. Not very satisfying for my curiosity. Be more specific. Flesh it out. How is it guided? What is guided? What is the nature of the guidance? When in time was it assembled? How was it assembled, by direct causation from the so-called guiding intelligence, or were intermediate causes used? Is miraculous intervention required? Your puzzleboard only has one piece in place.
I wish you were asking the evolutionists the same kinds of questions about abiogenesis by chance. They don’t have an answers at all!
ID challenges the Darwinians to explain how life came into existence without being intelligently designed. And how do they explain it? What’s their mechanism? There is none. If there is, show the science.
I’ll say it again: it amuses me that Catholics on this board are quick to defend that for which there is no scientific evidence, and at the same time are all so willing to deny that life originate by an intelligently designed process.
Is there a disconnect here?
*Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate? *
Can you please rephrase the question so that it makes more sense? When you ask how this organism originated, how am I supposed to know since I wasn’t there at the time. But neither was Richard Dawkins. We can only have a hypothesis: it originated by accident or by design. There is no other alternative. You go with the math.
Please cite the math that argues a likelihood of accidental abiogenesis.
It’s way overdue for a Nobel Prize in bio-chemistry.
“Some type of guiding intelligence.” Okay, but that is not much of an answer. Not very satisfying for my curiosity. Be more specific. Flesh it out. How is it guided? What is guided? What is the nature of the guidance? When in time was it assembled? How was it assembled, by direct causation from the so-called guiding intelligence, or were intermediate causes used? Is miraculous intervention required? Your puzzleboard only has one piece in place.
I wish you were asking the evolutionists the same kinds of questions about abiogenesis by chance. They don’t have an answers at all!
ID challenges the Darwinians to explain how life came into existence without being intelligently designed. And how do they explain it? What’s their mechanism? There is none. If there is, show the science.
I’ll say it again: it amuses me that Catholics on this board are quick to defend that for which there is no scientific evidence, and at the same time are all so willing to deny that life originate by an intelligently designed process.
Is there a disconnect here?
*Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate? *
Can you please rephrase the question so that it makes more sense? When you ask how this organism originated, how am I supposed to know since I wasn’t there at the time. But neither was Richard Dawkins. We can only have a hypothesis: it originated by accident or by design. There is no other alternative. You go with the math.
Please cite the math that argues a likelihood of accidental abiogenesis.
It’s way overdue for a Nobel Prize in bio-chemistry.
C
Charlemagne_II
Guest
itinerant
Do you agree with Father Coyne that Intelligent Design belittles God? If so, in what way?
Do you agree with Father Coyne that Intelligent Design belittles God? If so, in what way?
I
itinerant1
Guest
There are numerous points of disagreement between my views and those of Darwinian ideology. I debate it when and where I can.itinerant
“Some type of guiding intelligence.” Okay, but that is not much of an answer. Not very satisfying for my curiosity. Be more specific. Flesh it out. How is it guided? What is guided? What is the nature of the guidance? When in time was it assembled? How was it assembled, by direct causation from the so-called guiding intelligence, or were intermediate causes used? Is miraculous intervention required? Your puzzleboard only has one piece in place.
I wish you were asking the evolutionists the same kinds of questions about abiogenesis by chance. They don’t have an answers at all!
ID challenges the Darwinians to explain how life came into existence without being intelligently designed. And how do they explain it? What’s their mechanism? There is none. If there is, show the science.
I’ll say it again: it amuses me that Catholics on this board are quick to defend that for which there is no scientific evidence, and at the same time are all so willing to deny that life originate by an intelligently designed process.
Is there a disconnect here?
*Suppose you have studied an organism and you consider to be “irreducibly complex”. And there are no early fossil records to suggest that this species existed during the early stages of life on the planet. How did this organism originate? *
Can you please rephrase the question so that it makes more sense? When you ask how this organism originated, how am I supposed to know since I wasn’t there at the time. But neither was Richard Dawkins. We can only have a hypothesis: it originated by accident or by design. There is no other alternative. You go with the math.
Please cite the math that argues a likelihood of accidental abiogenesis.
It’s way overdue for a Nobel Prize in bio-chemistry.
As for re-phrasing my question, Post #36 should give you the drift of what I am looking for.
I
itinerant1
Guest
I don’t want to answer that question just yet, as I detect differences in understanding between Fr. Coyne, Cardinal Shonborn, and various members of CAF regarding what ID actually teaches. Definitions should be clarified and agreed upon first.
- Status