Intelligent Design

[geebob]

Buffalo’s write up on intelligent design is probably much better than the wikipedia article, which if I recall correctly when I looked at it last highlights the potential problem of wikipedia where the majority bullies the minority.

But intelligent design is not a scientific theory that can be tested and falsified in a few discreet experiments. But for that matter, neither is naturalism.

Intelligent is a scientific paradigm, or maxi-theory. A paradigm provides a means to integrate theories and to create new hypothesis. They are also allowed to have untestable assumptions (just like science itself which is a paradigm). They can withstand anomolies without being proven false (just like evolution).

And so there are a variety of hypotheses and theories (which have more immeadiate potential for falsification). A group of them revolves around irreducible complexity which I don’t believe is the same as “complex specified information” which I believe provides for a different set of hypotheses. I say that these provide for a group and not that IC and CSI are just two theories because each alleged instance if IC and CSI provides for a testable hypothesis, or theory, even an unrecognized theory that is already established by years of testing that merely demonstrates that too many parts is integral and necessary to the whole, demonstrating a problem with the idea that it developed gradually.

The equation of ID with creationism is bad since you have the major proponent of ID, Michael Behe who in fact believes in common descent.

 

[chessmane4e5]

Because I find it pretty ignorant to not believe in evolution. That’s like saying gravity doesn’t exist.

From what I understand, ID proponents believe in MIRCO-evolution, but not MACRO-evolution. Obviously, micro-evolution is true, scientists have observed it and verified it and no sane person would deny it. Macro-evolution is not so clear cut. Evolutionists will say it has been observed but then they usually give an example of micro-evolution.

The book “Signature in the Cell” by Stephen Meyer is a great read if anyone is interested in ID. You can also check out This for more information.

**

 

[Sair]

One issue with Intelligent Design theory is that it seems to have progressed (if that is the right word) in a similar manner to “god of the gaps” reasoning - it seems to have started with the notion of irreducible complexity, and when that was shown to be bunk, it progressed to borrowing ideas from information theory, seeing in this a way to squeeze intelligent design into the physical and chemical processes of life. “Complex Specified Information” is a term that only ever seems to crop up in websites discussing intelligent design, without any real overlap into other areas of study - a bit like presuppositionalist evangelicals and their “preconditions for intelligibility”. But I digress. Complex Specified Information seems to me to be just a fancy way of saying “these molecules in these particular arrangements perform particular tasks” - which is nothing unusual as far as biological systems are concerned.

Also, until there’s specific evidence of the actual designer, ID theorising suffers from the vagueness of claiming that their “complex specified information” can only exist if it’s been programmed by intelligent (name removed by moderator)ut of some sort. We are hardly even on the cusp of understanding how conscious intelligence itself works, let alone identifying its specific (name removed by moderator)ut from amongst all the other natural processes that biologists and chemists investigate. What if ID proponents actually were to discover genuine evidence that specifically pointed to an intelligent agent? Would they like what they found? (I recall reading that Behe and Dembski, at least, are acknowledged Christians of the evangelical protestant stripe) The problem being that the intelligent agent, if they actually found it, might have to be admitted to be a natural, material entity, not an immaterial, supernatural deity.

Oh, and just a quick aside - evolutionary biologists generally don’t distinguish between “macro” and “micro” evolution. The processes involved in each are the same.

 

[buffalo]

Oh, and just a quick aside - evolutionary biologists generally don’t distinguish between “macro” and “micro” evolution. The processes involved in each are the same.

So? They can’t by a priori positions. There is a big outcome difference between the two.

 

[CEM5]

I believe that everything was created by God, and who besides Him has more intelligence? Who besides Him can create/design something from nothing?

No matter what name anyone gives to the “designer” or “chance” or whatnot, bottom line, God is the creator of all.

Now, whether God made everything as evolutionists theorize, does not really matter to me, for regardless, God was the one who then made that one-celled brainless amoeba come together with other brainless blobs and commenced with the bonding of these cells and morphed into various creatures, plant life, etc.

All this would have had to occur on a simulaneous evolutionary line since no life could function and exist without another lifeform from which to feed off of, and male and female would have had to be created together so that mammals, sealife, fowl, etc. could reproduce.

Who other than God - our great intelligent designer - could have accomplished this?

As for evolution happening by chance…why then, if that were the case, aren’t there more and more new lifeforms being formed continuously by those brainless, one-celled amoebas? You would think this would still be happening if that were the case - that we all just happened by chance.

That is my two-cents worth of thoughts.

 

[Sair]

So? They can’t by a priori positions. There is a big outcome difference between the two.

How many grains of sand make up a pile? How many ‘micro’-evolutionary changes make a ‘macro’-evolutionary change?

 

[honestquestions]

1858: Wow look how everything seems to be purposeful, like it was designed.
1859: Oh, evolution, natural selection, and random genetic mutation explains it. Maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions anymore and press the easy button.

 

[rossum]

Intervention? Not necessarily so.

If the designer didn’t intervene then the designer has not done anything and his/her/its/their non-actions cannot be scientifically detected.

Political subterfuge? Who here does not want the truth taught to children?

The Constitution is a political document that prevents religion being taught in science classes in public schools in America. ID2 is a political movement that tries to smuggle religion into science classes. There is a lot of truth that is not taught in science classes: History, French, English, Geography and many other subjects. The place for religion is in a comparative religion class, not a science class.

A judge determines what is true or not?

No. A Judge determined what was legal or not. It is not legal to teach ID in a science class in an American public school.

Dover means nothing. The Truth About the Dover Intelligent Design Trial

The DI would like you to think that. Since the Dover trial the DI has switched from “Teach ID” to “Teach the Controversy”. The Dover trial certainly had an effect on the Discovery Institute.

rossum

 

[rossum]

So design has nothing to do with science? Engineers should be told that immediately!

No. I said that ID1 has not necessarily got any problem with science and vice versa. A Catholic like Keith Miller is an excellent biologist and accepts ID1.

“Denies the sufficiency of…” But isn’t the scientific method all about questioning the current system, making improvements to the model, looking for a better solution, etc.

Yes. However at the moment ID2 is not a “better model”, it is not even a scientific model yet. It might become so in future, but currently it isn’t. There are many huge gaps in the ID2 hypothesis:* When did/does the designer operate?

• How does the designer move molecules of DNA around?
• Hos can ID2 be observed in the laboratory?
• How can the ID2 hypothesis be falsified?

Copernicus denied the sufficiency of the Ptolemaic system.

And Copernicus had a detailed, testable, falsifiable model to replace the Ptolemaic model. Currently ID2 has no such model. All it has it the equivalent of “It sure looks designed to me”.

“Denying the sufficiency of…” I’ve heard Protestants use this same phraseology when accusing Catholics of denying the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. I guess Rossum interprets this as a religious battle of his dogma over ID dogma. And to deny his dogmal is a sort of “mortal sin.” Well, I guess that happens when certain aspects of science take on religious overtones. It’s funny that I don’t hear it coming from the ID side.

I suggest that you take a look at the ISCID website, and ID2 site, and read its definition of ID:Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence. It contends that the directed organization of living things cannot be accounted for by purely blind natural forces but also requires intelligent agency for its proper explanation. (emphases added)

Source: ISCID Encyclopedia: Intelligent Design.

rossum

 

[chessmane4e5]

Also, until there’s specific evidence of the actual designer…

That seems like a logical flaw to me. If a police officer found a dead body, should he not suspect murder until specific evidence is found? No, he should suspect all PLAUSIBLE causes until the crime scene can be thoroughly investigated.

So what are the plausible causes of “intelligence”?

1. Random Chance
2. Other intelligence
   3)…
   Feel free to add others to this list.

Last time I knew, Meyer’s showed that Random Chance is not all that plausible of a cause for “intelligence”. Clearly we know that intelligent beings are able to produce more “intelligence”, humans do it all the time. So why must we know anything about the intelligence that created us in order for us to postulate theories about it? In fact, many scientific discoveries were made without the scientist knowing the exact cause. And then the exact cause was later discovered, increasing our knowledge.

 

[Sair]

That seems like a logical flaw to me. If a police officer found a dead body, should he not suspect murder until specific evidence is found? No, he should suspect all PLAUSIBLE causes until the crime scene can be thoroughly investigated.

It’s good that you emphasised “plausible” - in the case of the police officer, plausible causes of death include things like disease, accident or murder; they generally don’t include things like demon possession, misadventures with a disgruntled poltergeist or any other cause involving beings who have never been demonstrated to exist - just as we have no evidence that an immaterial ‘intelligence’ - which is the kind that ID proponents seem to be pushing for - is even possible, never mind plausible.

So what are the plausible causes of “intelligence”?

1. Random Chance
2. Other intelligence
   3)…
   Feel free to add others to this list.

Nonrandom processes like natural selection.

Last time I knew, Meyer’s showed that Random Chance is not all that plausible of a cause for “intelligence”. Clearly we know that intelligent beings are able to produce more “intelligence”, humans do it all the time. So why must we know anything about the intelligence that created us in order for us to postulate theories about it? In fact, many scientific discoveries were made without the scientist knowing the exact cause. And then the exact cause was later discovered, increasing our knowledge.

Humans make other sources of intelligence? (I assume you’re not referring to reproduction here…) Perhaps you have more knowledge of AI research than I do, but I had understood that they still had a long way to go before creating anything close to human-like intelligence; even if we grant your point here, that still leaves human-like beings as the most plausible candidate for the creation of other intelligent beings.

Secondly, why do so many people think that chance is the only alternative to intelligent design? How many times does it have to be explained that natural selection is not random?

Lastly, you ask, “why must we know anything about the intelligence that created us”, thereby already throwing your belief behind the notion that we were designed. The problem with positing an intelligent designer for which there is no evidence other than vague suggestions of “specified information” is that it offers no predictions as to where or how such a designer might be identified. ID proponents stop their investigations at the point where they think they’ve found anything at all that might suggest intelligent design - they don’t go on, as genuine scientists do, to propose how we might proceed to discovering the designer, where we might look, or even what kind of being we might expect to find. One is tempted to suggest that they are leaving their ‘conclusions’ deliberately nebulous, counting on the belief that if they can convince enough people that life looks like it was designed, it’s a small step from there to belief in God.

 

[vz71]

What are your thoughts on intelligent design?

First let us start with the definition of ID.

Definition of Intelligent Design

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

See New World Encyclopedia entry on intelligent design.

I think I prefer the definition brought forth by buffalo.

And I am puzzled why many people cannot see the designer.

If I see a 300 page book, no one denies that someone wrote it.
Yet many wish to claim a genetic code (which is immensely more complex then any 300 page book) was not designed.

 

[vz71]

Hos can ID2 be observed in the laboratory?
How can the ID2 hypothesis be falsified?

The interesting thing about ID is that many of the questions and accusations proposed to make it appear a religion instead of a science also work just as well against other processes.

Indeed, there is no process that can explain other species appearing that can be observed or repeated in a lab.
Evolution itself cannot be tested or falsified.

 

[rossum]

The interesting thing about ID is that many of the questions and accusations proposed to make it appear a religion instead of a science also work just as well against other processes.

Indeed, there is no process that can explain other species appearing that can be observed or repeated in a lab.
Evolution itself cannot be tested or falsified.

Discussion of evolution is not currently allowed.

You are being lied to by your creationist sources. Speciation has been observed both in the wild and in the laboratory.

rossum

 

[balt_orioles54]

an intelligent mind created this.Theists believe God created this but don’t claim to knnow how He created it.He could have created it ov er time or instantaniously.Evolution is not disregarded.But theists don’t believe everything evolved from a dense point which exploded.Humans and species were created uniquely.A man didn’t evolve from an ape through natural selection.An ape can evlove into numerous varieties but he can’t evolve into a dog in no matter how many changes take place.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was DNA. God’s language. That’s the crux of intelligent design. And the word became flesh, literally, and God’s commands and ways of living came in the flesh of Christ. Microevolution or “adaption” is conceivable, but evolution directly from a monkey to a man is not anymore; much more time would have had to take place for this to remotely happen, secondly, it’s the same random argument that if you place 1,000 monkeys in front of keyboards, over the years they will type something coherent. Macroevolution like this is what intelligent design, over time will prove is impossible, the more we learn about the structures of DNA, cells, etc. A good site to explore: discovery.org/csc :ballspin:

 

[ricmat]

How many grains of sand make up a pile? How many ‘micro’-evolutionary changes make a ‘macro’-evolutionary change?

Can you make a 1000 foot high pile of sand in 3 billion years by dropping a grain on it every 100 years? And oh by the way, the wind is blowing.

If you toss a coin once per second, on average, how long will it take you to get 1000 heads in a row? And the second question - can you do it in under 1000 seconds?

 

[rossum]

Microevolution or “adaption” is conceivable, but evolution directly from a monkey to a man is not anymore; much more time would have had to take place for this to remotely happen, secondly, it’s the same random argument that if you place 1,000 monkeys in front of keyboards, over the years they will type something coherent.

Your model is incorrect, or perhaps rather the model your lying creationist sources are pushing is incorrect. The “monkeys at a keyboard” model does not include natural selection. Any model that does not include natural selection is not a model of evolution and so is completely useless for determining what evolution can and cannot do.

Macroevolution like this is what intelligent design, over time will prove is impossible,

You are correct to include “over time”. As things stand currently ID has failed to show that macroevolution is impossible. Unless and until ID actually produces the goods evolution remains the best explanation we currently have.

rossum

 

[rossum]

If you toss a coin once per second, on average, how long will it take you to get 1000 heads in a row? And the second question - can you do it in under 1000 seconds?

Yes, with a population and with natural selection. Unless your model includes a population and natural selection then it is not a model of evolution.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

I believe that everything was created by God, and who besides Him has more intelligence? Who besides Him can create/design something from nothing?

No matter what name anyone gives to the “designer” or “chance” or whatnot, bottom line, God is the creator of all.

Now, whether God made everything as evolutionists theorize, does not really matter to me, for regardless, God was the one who then made that one-celled brainless amoeba come together with other brainless blobs and commenced with the bonding of these cells and morphed into various creatures, plant life, etc.

All this would have had to occur on a simulaneous evolutionary line since no life could function and exist without another lifeform from which to feed off of, and male and female would have had to be created together so that mammals, sealife, fowl, etc. could reproduce.

Who other than God - our great intelligent designer - could have accomplished this?

As for evolution happening by chance…why then, if that were the case, aren’t there more and more new lifeforms being formed continuously by those brainless, one-celled amoebas? You would think this would still be happening if that were the case - that we all just happened by chance.

That is my two-cents worth of thoughts.

You would like IDvolution.

 

[buffalo]

How many grains of sand make up a pile? How many ‘micro’-evolutionary changes make a ‘macro’-evolutionary change?

You tell me.

Consider the latest info that DNA actively fights through several iterations against mutations.

Then play The Richard Dawkins Mutation Challenge