Intelligent Design, most scientific

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Einstein did NOT believe in intelligent design at the beginning. He was forced to believe in it, just like most astrophysicists BECAUSE of the scientific facts he learned about the universe.

In other words, most astrophysicists, did not force the scientific facts to fit their preconceived beliefs, but the scientific facts forced them change their preconceived beliefs to accept the fact that some intelligent being outside of time and space had to create the universe. They had to give up their previous theories that all developed by chance or that the universe always existed, **because of the scientific facts they learned. **

Thus, intelligent design.

The truths of intelligent design are evident in other sciences as well. Anyone who knows the immense complexity of a single celled organism knows that it is impossible for a life to begin from a primordial soup. Even just the cell wall of the single cell organism is so complex, so intricate, so alive with its active regulation of salts, wastes, intake of food, oxygen, etc., that no one actually believes that even a cell wall could form BY CHANCE from a mixture of amino acids and lipids and the other complex chemicals needed to form and maintain this living cell wall. Then the necessary coding for this exact cell wall at the same time had to develop BY CHANCE in the DNA and RNA of this living being. Then this coding also had to acquire the knowledge BY CHANCE of how to reproduce and form another exact being. No one actually believes this could happen by chance. So the secularists and those opposing intelligent design simply ignore the facts relative to the beginning of life. There is no way that a single cell organism, the simplest of life forms could develop by CHANCE. No one has ever been able to propose how this could happen, even at the basic level I have described. And it gets far more complicated than that.
Thus again it is scientific knowledge that forces the belief in intelligent design. It is lack of scientific knowledge by Darwin, to whom cells were mysterious black boxes, that allowed his theory to develop.
Again, I repeat, it is knowledge of the scientific facts that proposes the obvious theory of intelligent design.
The ONLY reason intelligent design is not accepted by all is because of the pre-conceived, narrow minded, archaic 19’t and 20’th century conservative view, due to lack of knowledge, that somehow all theories must fit the Darwinian theory that everything MUST develop BY CHANCE. Why should it? Since when is Darwin infallible? Who made him God? Why should scientific facts be ignored just because they don’t fit the old evolutionary theory? Who says we must stay with old hackworn theories? It was an ok theory while it lasted, but it is now out. If you study the history of science, the last people to accept new scientific theories are the old scientists. Some of them went to their grave refusing to believe the truths that had come to light.

Lets break with the past and go with the scientific facts. Intelligent design was an ancient theory (and teaching of the Church) that was given new life because of scientific facts discovered by scientists and it has been pushed and defended by scientists who are experts in their fields and who had to go against their preconceived beliefs.

Thus the idea that intelligent design is not scientific, simply because some fundamentalists have picked it up, just makes me smile.
Let the old fogies get angry and pout because their long loved theories are falling apart and they may lose the respect they once had. We know from history that they will not change. So lets just ignore them and get on with the truth.

There is no contradiction between saying that:​

• the biological processes which have resulted in the coming to be of the human race are a result of randomness
• the same processes are a result of Divine Providence, & therefore, are intended by God
  To squish the two together as though they were the same sort of approach, is to assimilate God to His works, or else to deify them & to deny His uniqueness. That is what ID does - it makes God into a cause purely immanent in the processes of the natural world, by denying His transcendence. This is nothing but a form of idolatry

This is the same error of perspective as that which leads to scolding Biblical scholars for not invoking the supernatural to solve critical questions - both errors come of refusing to allow these disciplines the autonomy proper to them. No questions are or can be resolved by invoking supernatural causation in the sciences, just as no questions are resolved by invoking supernatural causation in Biblical studies - God cannot be used as a deus ex machina. So scientists & scholars quite properly ignore & reject the idea of using God to explain things. To use God like that debauches academic disciplines & theology alike.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Einstein believed in intelligent design. I never mentioned whether he believed in God or not, or what his version of God was. But, just like most astrophysicists, he believed that some intelligent being outside of time and space had to create the universe, BECAUSE OF HIS SCIENTIFIC STUDIES.

**NONO…your continuing to jump a step, and its crucial. Einstein viewing the beauty of the math and how it all fit together suggested to him that God was real and the author of the universe. It wasn’t science that led him there, it was the simply beauty of what he saw in the math. Most all physicists would admit that they cannot penetrate before the big bang. They would allow that does not rule out God. This is the way Einstein saw it. If science proved it, then it would be predictive and would be reproducable experimentally. **
Again, his belief in intelligent design was NOT the result of a religious belief, though it can certainly be in conformity with religion. It was the result of scientific studies.

Again, there seems to be some preconceived belief that intelligent design cannot occur or cannot be true because everything must be explained as always having existed or everything must occur by chance.

**You are so thoroughly confused on this issue its impossible to know where to start. There is no preconceived idea ID cannot occur. Most of us believe it in deed did. But it has nothing to do with science. **

I have noted that those who have responded seem to have blindly accepted these preconceived beliefs as THE TRUTH.

Since intelligent design cannot be discredited on the scientific arguments ( because science led Einstein and others to believe in intelligent design), then they must try to claim that prior religious beliefs were the source of the scientists belief.
**No you would first have to prove that Eistein did come to belief in ID by scientific means before we have to disprove it. **

Again, this is false. Einstein and the other scientists did not accept Intelligent design based on religious beliefs. They based it on pure science.
You have offered nothing but pure assertion

 The sole reason that some secularists don't accept it is because intelligent design fits perfectly with religious beliefs, especially with beliefs that have been handed down by the only person in history who founded a religion who claimed to be God, Jesus Christ.

**Now what do secularists have to do with this. Now you’ve introduced a new group of people who believe in separation of church and state. What gives? **
And the Catholic religion, which He founded, has always taught this belief. The specific difference is that the Church teaches the intelligent designer must be God, whereas scientists do not make that assumption. They just say that an intelligent designer must have created everything. It does not have to be God.

**This is simply inaccurate. Scientists make no such claim whatsoever. **

Thus, while the Church has always taught that God created everything, and thus is the intelligent designer, the recent promotion of intelligent design is NOT the Church, but scientists, who through their scientific studies alone, conclude their must be an intelligent designer. They don’t even claim to know who that designer is. It could be some alien being. It could be satan. It could be God. Since they don’t claim to be theologians, most don’t claim to have any expertise in this matter.
Thus, it doesn’t matter if the scientists are Muslims, Christians, Atheists, agnostics, Deists, etc. Their proposal of intelligent design is based on science, not religion.

Point out these scientists please and the journal papers they have published these assertions.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Absolutely. Behe has always said that personally he believes IC can evolve by God’s active intervention.
What he argues, and no one has proven otherwise, is that IC cannot evolve by pure chance, as the Darwinian theory of evolution teaches. That is the scientific part of his argument that he puts forth and that is what scientists must answer.
And no one has given any logical explanation how IC could evolve.
Of course there are lots of far out proposals, which make no sense at all that militant secularists put forward. But no one accepts them except those who will not give up their preconceived beliefs of evolution by chance. And we don’t expect them to change. History has proven that there are always scientists who refuse to believe newly discovered truths no matter how obvious. That is because scientists are humans with human faults. They do not like to be proven wrong. Others reject God and thus will not accept any scientific theory that makes God probable. Others don’t want to give up the respect they earned over many years through their teachings, books they have written, papers published, etc. I understand that. We are all human.
So there are always some who claim the Behe’s irreducible complexity has been proven wrong, when they know it hasn’t. Just as they claim “evolution is a fact”, when it is not. It is a theory, which simply does not fit the evidence any more.

And the more they claim that Behe has been proven wrong, with explanations that make no sense, and the more they say intelligent design is NOT scientific, despite the overwhelming evidence, and the more they simply assert “evolution is a fact” the more I see their personal preconceived beliefs affecting their work. They are simply not objective at all. And I don’t expect them to be objective. They are human, with a fallen nature. It is only through God’s grace that any of us can approach objectivity.

Take global warming for example. Their are fierce fights and arguments, by scientists, on the cause of global warming, and whether it is really happening, or not. The opposing positions are not based on religious grounds. Yet there are total disagreements. That is because we have a fallen human nature.

In the same way, intelligent design will always have those who reject it. But, lets be honest. The scientists who have been proposing it, such as Einstein and the astrophysicists, have done so on scientific grounds, not on preconceived religious beliefs.

And that is all I am trying to make clear.
Intelligent design is being accepted BECAUSE it is proposed by scientists based on scientific knowledge, and not because of their preconceived religious belief.

Hon you need to catch up on the news. BEHE has no credibility. It was destroyed in the Dover school case. so was IC.

 

[edwest2]

Ed, you might want to study a bit of science before you post things like this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_bilayer
blanco.biomol.uci.edu/Bilayer_Struc.html
uic.edu/classes/phys/phys450/MARKO/N016.html

Those are just the first 3 sites that came up when I Googled “lipid bilayers”. A very little effort is necessary to keep from looking foolish.

Besides, you have repeatedly said that you enjoy and accept chemistry. This ought to be right up your alley.

Peace

Tim

You’re joking, right? If it was so easy, why aren’t cells being made in the lab - living cells?

God bless,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

Absolutely. Behe has always said that personally he believes IC can evolve by God’s active intervention.

Unfortunately for that idea, an irreducibly complex enzyme system was directly observed to evolve in bacteria with no apparent intervention from God.
millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/Parts-is-Parts.html

Kenneth Miller, (a devout Catholic, BTW) neatly demolishes Behe’s assertion therein.

What he argues, and no one has proven otherwise, is that IC cannot evolve by pure chance, as the Darwinian theory of evolution teaches.

Someone has greviously misled you about evolutionary theory. Darwin’s great discovery was that it was not by chance.

 

[Laurence_of_PA]

Lipid bilayers? You’re joking, right?

Come on! We made them out of household products in High School Biology just last year!

but anyway…

That’s phospholipid bilayers to you!

 

[edwest2]

Did you make a living cell too?

God bless,
Ed

 

[Laurence_of_PA]

Did you make a living cell too?

God bless,
Ed

Nope. I think that’s next year!

But anyways, it’s funny of you to criticize abiogenesis as being unscientific while at the same you try and *scientifically *promote…well…you know…

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes that Darwin’s great discovery was that evolution is not by chance.

Mutations are by chance.

So are shuffled decks of cards. If you think that the winners in poker games are simply a matter of chance, I want you to come over and play cards with me. The key is, natural selection is the antithesis of chance, and a random process plus a non-random process is a random process. If card games won’t convince you, would you like a more rigorous demonstration?

Darwin taught that the nature would select those mutations of chance that are beneficial.

Not chance, after all, um? BTW, he never taught that. You’ve been snockered on that point, too.

Thus he taught that life developed from by chance mutations.

Nope. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn what he actually wrote, before telling us about it?

"In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker on February 1, 1871, Charles Darwin made the suggestion that the original spark of life may have begun in a “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes”.

Note the blind acceptance that life began without intelligent design.

The guys who fed you that quote carefully edited out the context. Here’s what Darwin actually thought about the origin of life, from “The Origin of Species” (last paragraph of the book, my copy is the 1872 edition)

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

Not quite what they told you, is it? I was once where you are. And it’s disheartening that people who profess to be Christians will lie to you. But that’s how it is.

Go read the book and learn.

"Biologists have long subscribed to the powerful, unifying idea that all life on Earth arose from a common ancestor"

Blind acceptance of Darwinism in other words.

Wrong again. A conclusion based on massive evidence:
Fossil record showing transitionals
DNA analyses showing common descent
Conserved molecules showing common descent
Nested hierarchy of taxa, only explicable by common descent
More, if you’d like more.

From that theory, which is full of holes

Now would be a good time to show them to us, if you’re serious.

Note how he now goes from a very weak theory of evolution, supported and pushed and forced on people, only because it claims to explain life developing without God,

See Darwin’s statement above. It’s simple; they lied to you. Once you start investigating for yourself, you are no longer theirs.

Note that there is NO evidence for such an ancestor to have ever existed.

• HOX genes, showing a common ancestry for all metazoans
• Biochemistry, showing that you are biologically similar to a bacterium than ways you are different
• DNA, which is the same in all organisms
• The few variations in DNA expression fit nicely into the nested heirarchy

None.

Surprise.

He doesn’t even begin to explain how one of the simplest parts, which is a cell wall, could develop from non-living sources.

Cell walls came a lot later. None of your cells, for example, have them.

Cell walls are not inert, like a plastic film. They are living entities, which must take in oxygen, and selective nutrients, excrete wastes, CO2, etc.

Ah, you mean “cell membranes.” And no, they are not living. They are merely phospholipic bilayers, penetrated in places by various proteins, none of which are essential to the bilayer. Such bilayers can easily be synthesized, and they spontaeously form into vesicles.

He doesn’t even begin to explain what would make RNA to even think of forming a cell wall or how in the world chance mutations of RNA would occur that could even form a cell wall.

The evidence indicates that cell membranes preceded RNA. Phospholipids can form rather easily abiotically.

Of course, none of this is about evolution, which does not make any claims about the origin of life.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

There is no contradiction between saying that:​

• the biological processes which have resulted in the coming to be of the human race are a result of randomness
• the same processes are a result of Divine Providence, & therefore, are intended by God

I think there is a contradiction with these two sayings.

I also think that people who say that creation science is “intellectually bankrupt” because of the “Trickster God” idea are also equally intellectually bankrupt when they tell us that the God of order actually uses random and unpredictable processes to bring about order.

To squish the two together as though they were the same sort of approach, is to assimilate God to His works, or else to deify them & to deny His uniqueness.

I didn’t think that saying nature “reflects” God’s beauty necessarilly meant “squishing” God and nature together into pantheism.

That is what ID does - it makes God into a cause purely immanent in the processes of the natural world, by denying His transcendence. This is nothing but a form of idolatry

I don’t agree with this assertion and would like to hear it more clearly explained as to why intelligent design is a form of idolatry.

Thank you.

 

[The_Barbarian]

(Barbarian observes that Darwin’s great discovery was that evolution isn’t by chance)

Mutations are by chance.

So is the order in a shuffled deck of cards. If you think that means the outcome of poker games is by chance, I want to play poker with you.

A random process plus a non-random process is a non-random process. If you’d like to see the math, I’ll try to explain that (assuming you haven’t already figured it out)

Darwin taught that the nature would select those mutations of chance that are beneficial.

No. He had no idea of mutations. He merely noticed that random variation is a fact, and that of this variation, some tend to survive more often than others. Knowing about genetics could have saved him a lot of grief. On of the more common objections to his theory was solved by Mendel’s discovery.

Thus he taught that life developed from by chance mutations.

Nope. Not part of his theory, and of course, he never knew about mutations.

Wiki states:
"In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker on February 1, 1871, Charles Darwin made the suggestion that the original spark of life may have begun in a “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes”.

As you seem to realize, he’s not “teaching” anything. He’s speculating. BTW, Darwin’s only assertion about the origin of life, can be found at the end of “The Origin of Species.” Here it is:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Charles Darwin, last paragraph of “The Origin of Species” 1872 edition.

Not what they told you, um?

*Biologists have long subscribed to the powerful, unifying idea that all life on Earth arose from a common ancestor" *

Blind acceptance of Darwinism in other words.

Let’s take a look…

• Nested hierarchy of taxa, which happens only in common descent
• Fossil record showing transitionals between these adjacent taxa, but not unrelated taxa
• DNA analyses, using the same criteria we use to find human relationships, which confirm common descent
• Variation in DNA coding which follows common descent
• The fact that all these diverse sources give the same phylogenies

Not as “blind” as they told you, um? BTW, what you call a “cell wall” apparently you mean “cell membrane”, is not alive. It can easily be formed in a testtube. It’s a simple phospholipid, which spontaneously assembles into sheets and vesicles with no intelligent intervention at all.

Some cells do have cell walls; none of yours do. The basic structure of the cell membrane is astonishingly simple. But because it was such a fundamental part of early life, it has never been replaced.

 

[Orogeny]

You’re joking, right? If it was so easy, why aren’t cells being made in the lab - living cells?

God bless,
Ed

No, I’m not joking. Learn some science before you make statements like that. It’s chemistry, Ed. You know, the science that you like and accept as true science.

Peace

Tim

 

[edwest2]

Let me know when they make living cells from scratch in the lab.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Orogeny]

Let me know when they make living cells from scratch in the lab.

God bless,
Ed

Which has what exactly to do with the chemical composition of a cell wall? I guess you really don’t accept chemistry after all.

Peace

Tim

 

[edwest2]

I have been involved in these exact, same dodge 'em cars discussions elsewhere.

Point One: It’s so easy to make a cell wall. Anyone can do it.

Point Two: This strongly implies that anyone can make a living cell from scratch but noone can do it.

But, the reply I get is the dodge and not, of course we can’t do it. The correct answer.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Orogeny]

I have been involved in these exact, same dodge 'em cars discussions elsewhere.

Point One: It’s so easy to make a cell wall. Anyone can do it.

Point Two: This strongly implies that anyone can make a living cell from scratch but noone can do it.

But, the reply I get is the dodge and not, of course we can’t do it. The correct answer.

God bless,
Ed

A dodge? How about those citations I asked for in another thread, Ed? If you can’t provide them, retract your claims (and you know what I am refering to).

I don’t know that anyone has created a living cell from scratch in a laboratory. I do know that the chemistry involved with cell walls is known. Abiogenesis, as rossum noted, is a chemical process. You have claimed on multiple occasions that you accept chemistry. Do you deny that cell walls are lipid bilayers?

The implication you place on the FACT that cell walls are lipid bilayers and the FACT that lipid bilayers are easily made in the laboratory means that anyone can make a living cell is not supported by any claims made in this discussion. It is a reflection of your fear of what rossum’s information may mean to your faith.

Peace

Tim

 

[edwest2]

Too bad. This is about politics, a nonsense word having to do with power and control.

I believe Intelligent Design will supplant evolutionary theory since it involves known engineering principles and probabilities. And, most important, it posits an Intelligent Designer.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Orogeny]

Too bad. This is about politics, a nonsense word having to do with power and control.

I believe Intelligent Design will supplant evolutionary theory since it involves known engineering principles and probabilities. And, most important, it posits an Intelligent Designer.

God bless,
Ed

Dodge? Dodge? Did someone bring up the accusation of a dodge earlier?

Sorry, Ed. You cannot even support your own silly claims. You have absolutely no chance to support the silly claims of ID.

Peace

Tim

 

[edwest2]

Do you think I am the only Catholic supporting ID?

catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=3&subclassID=20&articleID=2315&class=Features&subclass=Books

God bless,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

I believe Intelligent Design will supplant evolutionary theory since it involves known engineering principles and probabilities.

Ironically, engineers are now finding ways to mimic evolution to solve problems that are too complex to design. The use of genetic algorithms applies evolution to engineering and it is very effective.
ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/4235/4079606/04079607.pdf

Turns out that natural selection works much better than design. God, once again, proves to be greater and more competent than the IDers are willing to let Him be.

And, most important, it posits an Intelligent Designer.

That is, of course, why ID has failed to be accepted by scientists. It is not only contrary to probability, it’s unworkable in science, as all religious doctrines are.

If it worked, scientists would use it no matter who disapproved. And as long as it doesn’t work, they won’t use it. Creationism isn’t going to solve its problems with a new name or a new PR campaign. All it needs to do is do something useful.

And if it doesn’t, what good is it?