Intelligent Design - What is the strongest evidence for it?

[Richard_Powers]

So…the same evidence you accept for (example) evolution, is the same evidence ID accepts. You make the claim that things happened randomly and with no purpose (which cannot be proven). ID claims that these same things happened with a design in mind.

Do not put words into my mouth. I never made any such claim. …

 

[ricmat]

Do not put words into my mouth. I never made any such claim. …

OK - sorry. How do you think things evolved?

 

[Richard_Powers]

The concept of Irreducible Complexity

Ditto.

I thought this was a great article from the Discovery Institute. If you want a light, nutshell version, scroll down to the “Arch” analogy part. But the whole article is good as I recall, although long.

I also believe this was written after a court case whose ruling mocked intelligent design.

This is not evidence for ID. It is evidence against the specific mechanisms of certain abiogenesis hypotheses. It is not evidence for ID, but evidence against abiogenesis and common descent. It sets up a false dichotomy that either the specific mechanisms of certain abiogenesis hypotheses and evolution or design must be correct. It could be some other mechanism is correct. The most irreducible complexity can do is knock down parts of abiogenesis and evolution. It does not provide evidence that demonstrates things were designed or propose any test that could show things were not designed.

And add to that the fact that things Behe proposed as being irreducibly complex have been debunked.

 

[Richard_Powers]

OK - sorry. How do you think things evolved?

I do not want to hijack this thread with a discussion of evolution.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The concept of Intelligent Design is credible and logical. Archaeologists regularly unearth artifiacts that need to be separated from those designed and those produced naturally. The methodology consists of characteristics that are recognized as evidence for design: stone arrowheads, for example, are identified by bilateral symmetry, consistent chip marks along both edges, and a particular size range.

The concept of Irreducible Complexity assigns to living organisms the fact that without certain parts, they would die. A cell is a dynamic, interconnected machine not unlike a car’s engine. One doesn’t remove a working part without causing the engine to stop. Also, one does not just add a part, especially while the engine is running, just anywhere. The new part would have to be the right size, the right shape and be in the right position to add function. There is no evidence that this can be done. Also, it would need to be able to reproduce along with the rest of the cell.

Self-directed assembly of living things is not possible without instructions.
**Too bad you missed the Nova Ed. Behe and his irreducible complexity was thoroughly trashed. The scientist Behe relied on for the proposition, was on camera and totally refuted Behe’s conclusions of his work. You can indeed take a number of parts of the “machine” away and it can be found fully functioning in its new configuration in another lifeform. **
Finally, if a designed artifact were found on Mars, the evidence of design would be a fact even though the designer remained unknown.
**Well sure…so what? **

God bless,
Ed

OK, some comments on several of the above posts.

ID is NOT creationism in disguise. The only thing it has in common with (young earth) creationism, is the fact that God was responsible for it in both cases.

Yes it is, or at least can be. That’s exactly what was proved by the folks in Dover against the Discovery/ID people. They took the same tracts and just erased creationism and replaced it with ID. Both papers were introducted into evidence and there was actually a smoking gun…an erasure that didn’t quite erase…

When the only available theory of how we came to be is “it happened by random natural events”, and the math just doesn’t support that, then some sort of guided design MUST be correct.

**What math are you talking about? A scientific theory tells how the process works not how it started. **

ID looks at the SAME evidence, i.e. the age of the earth/universe as found in various dating methods, and the development of complex life based on less complex life - and DOES NOT have any problems with that.

**How are you defining ID? You see its just a bad phrase now since its been misused by the fundie right to hide their creationist nonsense. It’s better not to use the term. Stick to a theological explanation and call it that. ID is not science, never was, never will be. **

It has been proven that “random events” is wrong. It just can’t happen that way. There is no way to prove that any particular designer made the universe the way it is, but designed it was.

**Where has it been proven that it didn’t happen by evolution. I’m not sure what you mean by random events…if by random mutation then you are quite wrong. Again, there is no scientific proof of design. It’s a theological statement. **

ID does not offer supernatural explanations for anything. It simply says that there is evidence of design at all levels of creation. Gee whiz…if you agree that your car shows evidence of design, how can you simply dismiss something immensely more complex as having come about by random events?

**Well of course it does. It posits an “intelligent designer” and that would be God presumably and that would be supernatural. There simply is not scientific proof of any design. **

For the OP - You don’t have time to read the books I recommended. Too bad. If everything could be summed up in a paragraph or two, then there’d be no need for books at all. It seems that you want us to put forth a sentence or two, which of course by definition can’t have much supporting evidence embedded in it, and for which reason it can be attacked successfully.

I think your problem is that you think that any road that might possibly perhaps lead someone to belief in God cannot be tolerated, even when the evidence shows it.

Read the books and then let’s talk.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Seems to me that we taking part in a discussion such as this is rather convincing evidence. Keep in mind that evidence and proof are two different things - as somebody has mentioned about scientific proof not be available.

One book I found rather helpful:
Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe

Behe’s work was totally discredited on the Nova documentary. Behe was offered the opportunity to speak on this show and declined apparently from over-embarassment. His irreductable complexity argument was refuted by the scientist upon whom he based his argument. He agreed that under his defintion of “theory” astrology would be a scientific theory.

Ditto.

I thought this was a great article from the Discovery Institute. If you want a light, nutshell version, scroll down to the “Arch” analogy part. But the whole article is good as I recall, although long.

I also believe this was written after a court case whose ruling mocked intelligent design.

AGain, totally discredited, by the very case you allude to. The judge was a Santorum boy and a Bush nominee. He was a YEC believer. He could not stomach the lies, untruths, and just plain ridiculous assertions of the Discovery Institute people. It was the Dover School board case. Part of the Evangenlical rights new way of attempting to infiltrate creationism into the schools masked as a “science of ID”. Total rubbish.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

My main problems with ID are:
I) While it has some merits as a theistic comment on evolution it is not valid science and should not be presented as science. Science should offer selfexplanatory answers without using supernatural explanations.
2) It has been coopted by YEC. Only as a way to disprove evolution and not to support the idea of a God directed cosmogenesis and evolution.

Your objection 1) is decisive by itself. I like 2) - wish I’d thought of that one ​

In addition, it is objectionable because it objectifies God, by making Him a non-transcendent cause of observable phenomena.
And it is far from clear (to say the least) that the “God” of ID is not a mere god-of-the-gaps, who has an explanatory function as cause of phenomena until - & only until - a scientific explanation for them is found.

If everything in the universe could be explained without reference to God (as everything should be) that would have no effect on the need for faith in Him: His non-necessity within scientific research is not the reason for faith in Him, so the lack of necessity for “explanation by God” has no bearing on faith in God (Who is in any case not an explanation).

I can’t see any merits in ID at all.

 

[ricmat]

Spiritmeadow and Richard Powers:

Reading between the lines perhaps, but your position seems to be that “If it can’t be proven by Science (as in predictable, and verified by experiments) then it can’t be true.”

Frankly, I don’t care if science can prove if it’s true or not. I’m looking for Truth, and Science is not the only way to get there.

This whole discussion of “it’s not science” / “yes it is” is totally unrelated to the question “IS IT TRUE?”

Questions like - “Does God Exist?” Or “Is there design built into the laws and nature of the universe which biases it towards the development of human beings?” can be answered in a logical fashion, without experimentation, without measurements, without equipment.

I recommend (again) these books -

The Science Before Science - this goes into much detail about how scientists deceive themselves and isolate themselves from truth. And how they reach absurd conclusions like “things don’t exist unless someone is actually looking at them.” And how the existence of the immortal soul can be proven & lots of other interesting things - for people with an open mind.

A Meaningful World - this shows how science has been hijacked by materialist reductionism, and the (again) absurd conclusions which science (particularly Darwin and Freud) promotes and others accept.

So…how many books like this HAVE you read? Or do you only read the Amazon reviews to be sure you agree with it before you read it?

Gottle: Separate comment for you – The merit in ID can be seen in today’s first scripture reading (at least in the USA) - Wisdom 13:1-9. God WANTS us to understand his universe, in a scientific sense, in an artistic sense, so that we can offer praise and glory to him in a more meaningful way. ID is not about “The bible says God did it, and that’s that.” ID is discerning the Artisan.

 

[ricmat]

*piece probably isn’t the best word. It could be a whole area of evidence.

OK - for me, the strongest piece of evidence (or area of evidence) used to be the “fine tuning” of the natural constants. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips but as I best remember, if the energy (name removed by moderator)utted to the big bang was different by ± 1 out of 10 to the 20th (or was it 80th?) power, the universe would not have formed - period.

This doesn’t happen by accident.

Of course, to get around this apparent “design”, scientists now propose that there are actually an infinite number of universes, and ours just happened to be the “one that came out right”. LOL x 10 to the 20th!!!

I’m not going to debate this. You can look it up. Google “anthropic principle” or read some of the books I recommended.

Oh…I forgot. A Meaningful World goes into quite a bit of detail about the workings of a single body cell. That might be even more impressive than the “accident” I describe above.

 

[Richard_Powers]

Spiritmeadow and Richard Powers:

Reading between the lines perhaps, but your position seems to be that “If it can’t be proven by Science (as in predictable, and verified by experiments) then it can’t be true.”

Frankly, I don’t care if science can prove if it’s true or not. I’m looking for Truth, and Science is not the only way to get there.

If it is not science, why are ID proponents trying to get it taught in science classes? Do you want ID taught in a science class?

I never said ID might not be true. But it has no place in a science class. This thread is an exploration to see if there is any scientific evidence for ID. If there is not, ID proponents should stop trying to get it taught in science classes.

I recommend (again) these books -

Again, I’ll ask you to just present some of the best evidence from these books. How hard is that?

So…how many books like this HAVE you read? Or do you only read the Amazon reviews to be sure you agree with it before you read it?

I don’t know what you mean by books like that. I have read a number of books on evolution and ID. One of my favorites is Catholic author Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God. I have read Behe’s book and few others on ID. I have yet to see any evidence presented in these books that is evidence for ID. They all seem to just present evidence against the mechanisms of abiogenesis and evolution.

Except from Ken Miller’s book:
findingdarwinsgod.com/excerpt/index.html

 

[ricmat]

If it is not science, why are ID proponents trying to get it taught in science classes? Do you want ID taught in a science class?

I never said ID might not be true. But it has no place in a science class. This thread is an exploration to see if there is any scientific evidence for ID. If there is not, ID proponents should stop trying to get it taught in science classes.

Again, I’ll ask you to just present some of the best evidence from these books. How hard is that?

I don’t know what you mean by books like that. I have read a number of books on evolution and ID. One of my favorites is Catholic author Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God. I have read Behe’s book and few others on ID. I have yet to see any evidence presented in these books that is evidence for ID. They all seem to just present evidence against the mechanisms of abiogenesis and evolution.

Except from Ken Miller’s book:
findingdarwinsgod.com/excerpt/index.html

I think it’s reasonable to teach in the classroom that evolution has “problems”, and is NOT proven to be true. That’s what the court case was about. Not replacing science, but correctly describing as not necessarily true something that is…not necessarily true.

Let’s define what we mean by “Intelligent Design.”

I do NOT mean Young Earth Creationism (and neither do real ID folks - although YECs might be trying to ride some coattails).

I DO mean - any evidence (scientific) which points to the existence of design in the universe, and therefore the existence of a designer. As in my post above regarding natural constants. That particular argument is not in the books I recommended - it is from an older book by Gerald Schroeder (as I recall) from the 1980’s. He’s written a number of good books on this subject.

ID is not a comprehensive theory, to me it just means keeping an open mind to the possibility of purpose and meaning to the universe, and the hand of the Master Engineer (I’m an engineer, so I had to throw that in.)

 

[Richard_Powers]

This doesn’t happen by accident.

How do you know this?

OK - for me, the strongest piece of evidence (or area of evidence) used to be the “fine tuning” of the natural constants. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips but as I best remember, if the energy (name removed by moderator)utted to the big bang was different by ± 1 out of 10 to the 20th (or was it 80th?) power, the universe would not have formed - period.

You are misstating the fine tuning argument. It is not that the universe would not have formed. You can change the numbers and still have a universe form. It is just that these universes would not be able support life as we know it.

And there are major problems with these arguments. First, it is really just an argument of ignorance. 50 years ago the evolution of blood clotting in humans would have appeared a similar miracle. But we now know how this evolution occurred.

See: millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html

We may have a better understanding of how the universe formed in another 50 years. And thing about the naturalistic hypotheses is that they are testable unlike the ID arguments.

Second, is the argument is really just a case the prosecutor fallacy.

See: quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html

Third, you have to take into that life is fine tuned to the universe through natural selection.

 

[Richard_Powers]

I think it’s reasonable to teach in the classroom that evolution has “problems”, and is NOT proven to be true. That’s what the court case was about. Not replacing science, but correctly describing as not necessarily true something that is…not necessarily true.

Why do ID proponents always want to about the “problems” of evolution and that is NOT proven to be true without at the same time wanting to talk about about the “problems” of atomic theory, gravity, the relationship between germs and disease? None of these things are proven to true either. Why make a special case for just evolution.

The court case was about an attack on science. If wasn’t the stickers would not have been so misleading.

Ken Miller on the stickers:

ISN’T EVOLUTION a theory? Of course it is. So why did a federal district court judge last week order a board of education in Georgia to remove stickers from biology textbooks that seemed to tell students that evolution was just a theory? Is this a case of censorship? Is a closed-minded scientific establishment trying to keep evidence against evolution out of the classroom? Is a federal court telling educators that evolution is now federally protected dogma?

The answer is far simpler. The judge simply read the sticker and saw that it served no scientific or educational purpose. Once that was clear, he looked to the reasons for slapping it in the textbooks of thousands of students, and here the record was equally clear. The sticker was inserted to advance a particular set of religious beliefs – exactly the argument advanced by the parents of six students in the district who sued the Cobb County Board of Education to get the stickers removed.

So what’s wrong with telling students that evolution is a theory? Nothing. But the textbook they were using already described evolution as a theory, and I ought to know. Joseph Levine and I wrote the biology book Cobb County’s high school students are using. Chapter 15 is titled “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.” Hard to be clearer than that. So why did the Cobb County Board of Education slap a warning label inside a book that already refers to evolution as a theory? Cooper hit correctly he wrote that “by denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories.”

Exactly. What the sticker said was that “Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.” The problem with that wording is that evolution is both a theory and a fact. It is a fact that living things in the past were different from living things today and that the life of the past changed, or evolved, to produce the life of the present. Recent news reports the discovery of a new mammalian fossil in China that has a small dinosaur in its stomach. This fossil is a fact – clear evidence that some early mammals were able to prey upon dinosaurs, at least little ones. And it is just one of millions of fossils that support the fact that life has changed over time, the fact of evolution.

How did that change take place? That’s exactly the question that evolutionary theory attempts to answer. Theories in science don’t become facts – rather, theories explain facts. Evolutionary theory is a comprehensive explanation of change supported by the facts of natural history, genetics, and molecular biology.

Is evolution beyond dispute? Of course not. In fact, the most misleading part of the sticker was its concluding sentence: “This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” Think about that. The sticker told students that there was just one subject in their textbooks that had to be approached with an open mind and critically considered. Apparently, we are certain of everything in biology except evolution. That is nonsense. What that sticker should have told students is what our textbook makes clear: Everything in science should be approached with critical thinking and an open mind.

The forces of anti-evolution will pretend that the sticker case is an example of censorship and that the sinister forces of science have converged on classrooms to prevent honest and open examination of a controversial idea.

There is great irony in such charges. As conservative icon Alan Bloom pointed out in his landmark book “The Closing of the American Mind,” one of the worst forms of intellectual intolerance is to promote a false equivalence between competing ideas. Acting as though all ideas (or all theories) have equal standing actually deprives students of a realistic view of how critical analysis is done. That’s as true in science as it is in the cultural conflicts.

continued at the link below

millerandlevine.com/km/evol/globe.html

 

[ricmat]

1. How do you know this?
2. You are misstating the fine tuning argument. It is not that the universe would not have formed. You can change the numbers and still have a universe form. It is just that these universes would not be able support life as we know it.
3. And there are major problems with these arguments. First, it is really just an argument of ignorance. 50 years ago the evolution of blood clotting in humans would have appeared a similar miracle. But we now know how this evolution occurred.

See: millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html

1. We may have a better understanding of how the universe formed in another 50 years. And thing about the naturalistic hypotheses is that they are testable unlike the ID arguments.

Second, is the argument is really just a case the prosecutor fallacy.

See: quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html

1. Third, you have to take into that life is fine tuned to the universe through natural selection.

1. Perhaps one constant being “right” is an accident. Dozens of constants, and hundreds of other factors (i.e. in cosmology) being “just right” cannot be seen by any reasonable person as not having some intelligence behind it. This is the argument I feared when you wanted one silver bullet argument. You think you’ve knocked it down, and proven your point. Look at the big picture!!
2. I misstated nothing. Depending on the degree of energy variation, either no universe would form, or for less degrees of variation, a universe would form but with e.g. no potential for heavy elements, only hydrogen and helium would ever be created. Obviously, I was referring to a universe which supports life.

BTW - “life as we know it” implies the star trekkian vision that there can be all sorts of life, all much different than as we know it. This actually is far from the truth. Life as we know it is virtually the ONLY way life in any sense could form. That’s current scientific thinking (even among traditionalists). And thank you, I do understand random mutations and natural selection. But the fact is that the universe is BIASED toward the creation of human beings. Really. Of course, I can’t speak to the other infinite number of universes. And how are you going to prove the existence of those? Tell me when you have the experiment working.

1. So tell me how the fine tuning arguments are arguments of ignorance. This has nothing to do with blood clotting. You seem to be saying that given time, your position will be proved. And you are saying this on faith, apparently.
2. So how are you going to test the ±1 times 10 to the 20th factor. Run a few hundred universe creations and see how they come out? LOL!!!
3. Yes, life and the universe are created for each other. But life did not have to form, and intelligent life did not need to form given more primitive life. There isn’t enough time, or enough random mutations, or enough populations of each new generation to account for anything more advanced than dirt. And if you say "Well, everything just happened to go ‘just right’, then you’re actually saying “God did it.”

 

[jimmy85]

Alan Guth the Pioner of Inflation, stated something interesting that support the intelligent design in the big bang and in the creation.

He said that the speed of the expansion of the unvierse was the correct one.

If the big bang would have been some thousandth of a second after the moment it was, that would have caused an eternal expantion and it wouldnt have been possible the creation of gallaxies and stars in the universe.

On the other hand if the big bang had occured in some thousandth of a second before. the universe would have had an inmediate and total collapse.

In order for life to be possible as it was the big bang would have to have been at a perfect speed of expansion, otherwise nothing would have ever been formed the way it is.

you can easily attribute that to intelligent design.

 

[Richard_Powers]

1. Perhaps one constant being “right” is an accident. Dozens of constants, and hundreds of other factors (i.e. in cosmology) being “just right” cannot be seen by any reasonable person as not having some intelligence behind it. This is the argument I feared when you wanted one silver bullet argument. You think you’ve knocked it down, and proven your point. Look at the big picture!!

Please describe any experiment that falsify your idea that there is intelligence behind the universe.

1. I misstated nothing. Depending on the degree of energy variation, either no universe would form, or for less degrees of variation, a universe would form but with e.g. no potential for heavy elements, only hydrogen and helium would ever be created. Obviously, I was referring to a universe which supports life.

You said “the universe would not have formed - period.” Now, you changing that claiming you didn’t misstate it. This is just not honest.

BTW - “life as we know it” implies the star trekkian vision that there can be all sorts of life, all much different than as we know it. This actually is far from the truth. Life as we know it is virtually the ONLY way life in any sense could form. That’s current scientific thinking (even among traditionalists). And thank you, I do understand random mutations and natural selection. But the fact is that the universe is BIASED toward the creation of human beings. Really. Of course, I can’t speak to the other infinite number of universes. And how are you going to prove the existence of those? Tell me when you have the experiment working.

What is your evidence that the universe has a bias? What experiment can be used to falsify the idea that the universe has a bias?

1. So tell me how the fine tuning arguments are arguments of ignorance. This has nothing to do with blood clotting. You seem to be saying that given time, your position will be proved. And you are saying this on faith, apparently.

Because we don’t know how the universe works. There might be an explanation of how the constants came to have the value they do. We might find the answer one day. We just do not know how they got this way, but as we learn more we might find the answer. You don’t know if there is intelligence behind the constants. Can you please describe any experiment that could falsify the idea that there is intelligence behind the constants?

1. So how are you going to test the ±1 times 10 to the 20th factor. Run a few hundred universe creations and see how they come out? LOL!!!

What does this have to do with anything.

1. Yes, life and the universe are created for each other. But life did not have to form, and intelligent life did not need to form given more primitive life. There isn’t enough time, or enough random mutations, or enough populations of each new generation to account for anything more advanced than dirt. And if you say "Well, everything just happened to go ‘just right’, then you’re actually saying “God did it.”

No, I am not.

You are supposed to provide scientific evidence, but everything you have presented is unfalsifiable. How are unfalsifiable ideas scientific evidence?

 

[Richard_Powers]

Alan Guth the Pioner of Inflation, stated something interesting that support the intelligent design in the big bang and in the creation.

He said that the speed of the expansion of the unvierse was the correct one.

If the big bang would have been some thousandth of a second after the moment it was, that would have caused an eternal expantion and it wouldnt have been possible the creation of gallaxies and stars in the universe.

On the other hand if the big bang had occured in some thousandth of a second before. the universe would have had an inmediate and total collapse.

In order for life to be possible as it was the big bang would have to have been at a perfect speed of expansion, otherwise nothing would have ever been formed the way it is.

you can easily attribute that to intelligent design.

And what experiment could falsify the idea that intelligence was behind this? How is an unfalsifiable idea scientific evidence?

 

[john_doran]

Why do ID proponents always want to about the “problems” of evolution and that is NOT proven to be true without at the same time wanting to talk about about the “problems” of atomic theory, gravity, the relationship between germs and disease? None of these things are proven to true either. Why make a special case for just evolution.

i gotta say that i, for one, also despise the gloss that all of the physical sciences are given in schools: we are taught at our mother’s knee that physics, for example, is a single, monolithic enterprise that is carried inexorably forward by completely impartial, and completely unanimous physicists…what utter hogwash.

it drives me nuts to see just how little interesting physics is taught in school - i’ll be shooting my son straight right out of the gate, to be sure.

which is simply to say that i would teach all science as simply provisional; teaching any of it as indisputable “fact” is ridiculous and egregious.

 

[tdgesq]

Have you been drinking John.

 

[ricmat]

You said “the universe would not have formed - period.” Now, you changing that claiming you didn’t misstate it. This is just not honest.

I originally said that I didn’t know the exact numbers. With the numbers that I suggested (but admitted might not be right), it is quite possible that the universe would not have formed, period. You seem to be intentionally missing main points and quibbling over minor details. You insist in all your posts on falsifiable experiments, but when I ask how you would do an experiment to prove the multi-universe theory in lieu of fine tuning, you say that this has nothing to do with anything.

Note: I am looking for the Truth of the universe, not necessarily a scientific explanation in the traditional sense. You seem more interested only in explanations which fit your definition of science and its limited methods, whether they are true or not.

So how long is Beauty? How much does Justice weigh? What is the reflectivity of Love? I believe that these things exist even though they cannot be measured, or falsified in experiments. Frankly, I don’t care whether or not the existence of a Designer can be extracted from experiments. It just isn’t important. But the Designer exists just as beauty, justice, and love do.

Read the books.