ID is not a valid scientific hypothesis, so ID should not be taught in science class

[The_Barbarian]

“In my introduction to God and Philosophy, I said, ‘I am myself delighted to be assured by biological-scientist friends that proto-biologists are now well able to produce theories of the evolution of the first living matter and that several of these theories are consistent with all the so-far-confirmed scientific evidence.’ But to this I must add the caveat that the latest work I have seen shows that the present physicist’s view of the age of the universe gives too little time for these theories of abiogenesis to get the job done.”

Anthony Flew, being a philosopher, thinks scientists are wrong about abiogenesis? That’s at least consistent. He’s wrong about Christian belief, too.

I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins. It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose. Anthony Flew

Anthony seems to have developed a number of odd ideas as he got older. He’s close to the truth in regard to faith, in that he now admits there is a God. But he seems to also now think he’s competent in geochemistry and biology.

 

[The_Barbarian]

What does created mean?

It means “produced by God, either ex nihilo, or from previously created things.”

What does designed mean?

It means that some intelligent agent considered various alternatives and planned something to meet a specific need.

In other words, creatures design. God creates.

And yes, I’m aware of the colloquial use of “design” as “intent.” But I don’t think that’s an adequate description of what God has done. It seems ID/creationists are uncomfortable with an omnipotent God.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Anthony seems to have developed a number of odd ideas as he got older. He’s close to the truth in regard to faith, in that he now admits there is a God. But he seems to also now think he’s competent in geochemistry and biology.

I don’t think he considers himself competent, where did you get that impression? He has read the conclusion of physicists whom he does regard as competent.

 

[Leela]

When you reject the notion of a creator God then there is a vacuum which is usually filled with the phrase "Create your own reality ". This seems to be the situation - a mass rejection of revealed truth in favour of fairy tales - billions of years, big bang and school children being indoctrinated to reject the truth of the Scriptures. Science has limitations . Science can describe life but it certainly cannot explain life. Thats already been done in the Bible - God’s letter to his children . And what a wonderful book that is - too sublime, too complex, too powerful to be the product of a man’s mind.As relevant today as when it was written. Best wishes M

I haven’t found it to be that way at all. It reads to me as an ordinary book written by human beings a long time ago before we knew much of anything about the world. As far as it being God’s letter to his children, it made me wonder why God would decide to make Shakespeare a better writer than himself.

Have you read the holy scriptures from any other religion? You aren’t missing much. They are no better. A few glimmers of human brilliance here and there, but nothing to suggest authorship by some infinitely superior being.

Best,
Leela

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

I haven’t found it to be that way at all. It reads to me as an ordinary book written by human beings a long time ago before we knew much of anything about the world. As far as it being God’s letter to his children, it made me wonder why God would decide to make Shakespeare a better writer than himself.

There isn’t any single passage in Shakespeare that reads better than the Sermon on the Mount. I ought to know. I used to teach Shakespeare.

“There never was a more pure and sublime system of morality delivered to man than is to be found in the four Evangelists.” — Thomas Jefferson

 

[Leela]

Leela

I haven’t found it to be that way at all. It reads to me as an ordinary book written by human beings a long time ago before we knew much of anything about the world. As far as it being God’s letter to his children, it made me wonder why God would decide to make Shakespeare a better writer than himself.

There isn’t any single passage in Shakespeare that reads better than the Sermon on the Mount. I ought to know. I used to teach Shakespeare.

I agree. Paul wrote some extraordinary stuff, too. But on the whole it has a lot of room for improvement, and I find nothing to convince me that the Bible is not an ordinary book written by human beings.

 

[edwest2]

I agree. Paul wrote some extraordinary stuff, too. But on the whole it has a lot of room for improvement, and I find nothing to convince me that the Bible is not an ordinary book written by human beings.

So the matter now rests on what you find convincing. Even though the Catholic Church reaches back to Jesus Christ Himself, you are choosing the idea or premise that the Bible was written by men. On what do you base your premise on?

But back to ID. Obviously, there is no empirical evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence but the scientists at SETI are looking for it and based on the premise that they will be able to recognize such intelligence when they detect it. Even though they have not the first idea of the nature of any presumed intelligence that might exist.

Every living thing that lives and dies has a first cause. If you look back, there was a beginning.

Your computer was made by an intelligence. An arrowhead or ancient shard of pottery was made by an intelligence and such intelligent agency is reliably identified by scientists all the time.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Leela]

So the matter now rests on what you find convincing. Even though the Catholic Church reaches back to Jesus Christ Himself, you are choosing the idea or premise that the Bible was written by men. On what do you base your premise on?

It isn’t a premise. It’s the conclusion I draw from reading and thinking about the Bible. I find nothing to convince me that it was not written by men. I am as unconvinced of the supernatural involvement with the Bible as I assume you are in the Koran or the Book of Mormon.

But back to ID. Obviously, there is no empirical evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence but the scientists at SETI are looking for it and based on the premise that they will be able to recognize such intelligence when they detect it. Even though they have not the first idea of the nature of any presumed intelligence that might exist.

Every living thing that lives and dies has a first cause. If you look back, there was a beginning.

Your computer was made by an intelligence. An arrowhead or ancient shard of pottery was made by an intelligence and such intelligent agency is reliably identified by scientists all the time.

No problem. Go ahead and search for nonhuman intelligence if you have the time and can get funding for it. My point is that such a search may be scientific in its approach, but it is not a scientific theory that could possibly be in competition with Darwinism which is a theory. ID is no more a scientific theory than SETI is.

Best,
Leela

 

[Pauley]

Talk about a straw man argument. To say that looking at something we can not deduce that there an intelligent s behind it like looking in the mirror and then deny what you look like. Take a read on Michael J. Behe s book Darwin’s Black Box. He is after all just a biochemist. He describes how a mouse trap can not work unless all of the parts are present at the same time. I won’t go into it fully as I want to keep it short. Read the book. He also describes how blood clouts and all that is necessary for this to happen and there is much more.

So the point I make is that there is ID behind everything in the universe. Take a simple cup. If you found one you might think that it could have happened, but take ten or more and they are all the same maybe something made them? Or a bic pen, pencils etc on examining them you can see they require to many different parts in order to work. Again take a computer and tell me how there is no ID behind it and that you cannot prove it by what does from the OS to the programs you use within it.

Paul

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ID is no more a scientific theory than SETI is.

We actually agree here. Aquinas, Newton, Jefferson, Einstein, the authors of the Bible and the man on the street would agree that ID is more a self-evident observation than a theory. But surely not everything taught as science has to be a theory and can just be an observation, such as that the earth revolves about the sun or that the blood circulates through the body … both observations that would be taught in any astronomy or biology textbook. Scientists and mathematicians for several decades now have been building the the strongest case ever that the universe seems to have been created in such a way as to make evolution possible, and that the evolution of the universe and of our planet in particular was made possible not by blind chance but by a well planned combination of circumstances that any thoughtful person can observe. The combination of circumstances needed to evolve the creature Man alone is so staggering in number that it is hardly possible to name them all, though Jefferson, relying on the limited scientific knowledge of his day, give us a wonderful short list for starters.

Here it is again for those who missed it earlier:

“I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and infinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, the generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and, were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos.” Letter to John Adams

 

[yppop]

In my opinion, the theory of evolution can be considered as science and taught in the schools and ID should not be taught as science for the reason Leela states in the OP— that ID lacks a valid scientific hypothesis. I contend that the theory of evolution has earned its stature as a scientific discipline not because it is falsifiable or testable, but because it is "a plausible description verified by logical deduction of known facts." However, this contention does not in any way diminish my belief that our reality was designed; that designer was God; that there will eventually be a “scientifically valid hypothesis” with a scientific stature equivalent to the theory of evolution; that the hypothesis will explain how God implements the design; and in the next shift in the scientific paradigm, science will have to renounce Logical Positivism as its philosophical principle and in doing so will find God at the ground of reality. The signs are already present in the scientific literature that a deeper level of reality will be revealed. I predict that at this deeper level, time and space will be quantized just as energy and matter were in the last century; the models that describe reality will be algorithmic instead of mathematical, and the impetus providing the dynamics of reality will be information, not energy.
Yppop

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I contend that the theory of evolution has earned its stature as a scientific discipline not because it is falsifiable or testable, but because it is "a plausible description verified by logical deduction of known facts.

And I contend the same for Intelligent Design. Not only is ID plausible, the random, accidental course of evolution is decidedly implausible. Even Darwin thought so.

“[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin.

So with that, and the sense that I am repeating myself by answering the** same** arguments over and over, I’ll end my part in this dialogue.

God bless you all.

 

[The_Barbarian]

And I contend the same for Intelligent Design. Not only is ID plausible, the random, accidental course of evolution is decidedly implausible. Even Darwin thought so.

Indeed. Darwinism is the result of his discovery that it wasn’t random.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Take a read on Michael J. Behe s book Darwin’s Black Box. He is after all just a biochemist. He describes how a mouse trap can not work unless all of the parts are present at the same time.

A lot of people have had a good time, showing how the supposedly irreducibly complex mousetrap can function with one or more of its compenents missing.

I won’t go into it fully as I want to keep it short. Read the book. He also describes how blood clouts and all that is necessary for this to happen and there is much more.

Behe doesn’t want to talk about blood clotting now. A number of biologists have shown that his supposedly irreducibly complex clotting system exists in simpler forms in many organisms.

Even more damaging, Behe has conceded that irreducible complexity can evolve, although he still says he doesn’t think it’s very likely.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian chuckles:
Anthony seems to have developed a number of odd ideas as he got older. He’s close to the truth in regard to faith, in that he now admits there is a God. But he seems to also now think he’s competent in geochemistry and biology.

I don’t think he considers himself competent,

Apparently so. He has concluded that evolution doesn’t work fast enough for billions of years to be sufficient. And there’s no reason to think he has any competence in biology.

where did you get that impression?

He made the claim. You showed it to us.

He has read the conclusion of physicists whom he does regard as competent.

They merely told him of the age of the universe. The rest of it he just made up on his own.

 

[ricmat]

I actually have a graduate degree in statistics. There is a big problem with the above in the interpretation of the probabilities involved. If evolutionary theory is correct, then what we observe are the winners of the evolutionary lottery. It is always unlikely that a given person will win the lottery, yet we know that someone will win. And after the fact, it would be pretty silly to look at the winner and say to him, “the chances of you actually having the right lottery number is so small that you must not have actually won” or that he actually must have had some supernatural guidance in picking the number he picked.

I’m an engineer with much less statistics background than you have. I see what you’re saying, but what if the same person won the lottery 100 million times in a row. You would probably think that something non-random was going on. Perhaps that the lottery was designed such that this person would win all the time.

 

[buffalo]

It means “produced by God, either ex nihilo, or from previously created things.”

It means that some intelligent agent considered various alternatives and planned something to meet a specific need.

In other words, creatures design. God creates.

And yes, I’m aware of the colloquial use of “design” as “intent.” But I don’t think that’s an adequate description of what God has done. It seems ID/creationists are uncomfortable with an omnipotent God.

So are humans part of His intent?

Can design be a subset of create?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Barbarian
*
They merely told him of the age of the universe. The rest of it he just made up on his own. *

No, he is a man of integrity. You obviously haven’t read his book. He cites scientific pioneers right and left on the statistical improbabilities of the universe producing life as we know it without Intelligent Design. Everyone associated with him says he follows the truth where it leads. For a long time he carried the banner for atheism, because he saw no reason to believe in God. He doesn’t make up things out of whole cloth, as you snarlingly suggest. He follows very closely what is going on in the scientific community and is one of the rare philosophers who has a thorough grasp of scientific ideas, much as Bertrand Russell did in his day. As he saw the paradigm shift in scientific knowledge over the past fifty years, he slowly but surely saw the light … that if anything, science is more likely to support Intelligent Design than random evolution (and atheism).

But it is to be expected that atheists will lay on the ad hominem attacks fast and furious, as you have proven in this forum.

Again, so long.

 

[The_Barbarian]

I don’t think he considers himself competent,

Barbarian observes:
Apparently so. He has concluded that evolution doesn’t work fast enough for billions of years to be sufficient. And there’s no reason to think he has any competence in biology.

where did you get that impression?

He made the claim. You showed it to us.

He has read the conclusion of physicists whom he does regard as competent.

They merely told him of the age of the universe. The rest of it he just made up on his own.

He doesn’t make up things out of whole cloth, as you snarlingly suggest.

“Snarlingly?” Calm yourself. I’m just pointing out that physicists never told him that there wasn’t time for life to form. He just made it up. That’s one of the drawbacks of holding forth on things you don’t really understand. You’re easily persuaded by “experts” who hold odd ideas.

Flew’s opinion that abiogenesis is impossible is no more reliable than yours. He’s a philosopher. And because he considers our God to be a “cosmic Saddam Hussein”, he doesn’t accept God’s word in Genesis, that the earth brought forth living things. I’m sort of surprised that you won’t. Why not?

But it is to be expected that atheists will lay on the ad hominem attacks fast and furious, as you have proven in this forum.

I accept Genesis as true, and you don’t, and you think I’m an atheist?

 

[JDaniel]

Let’s test that idea. Show me a science textbook that denies God, or a public school that has denial of God in the curriculum. It appears that there have been far more agenda-driven theistic teachers who have imposed their ideas on students than atheistic ones. There are far more theistic teachers, after all.

Barb, now that’s some real science! How old are you?

Selective perception, it seems. Show me a school that actively tried to turn children into atheists. I’ll show you some examples of those who tried to make them conform to the administration’s religious beliefs.

You are changing my position again. You can’t be serious.

jd