Overwhelming evidence for Design?

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Farsight001 said:
Lol, no. Clearly, you have not even read the wedge strategy. They blatantly say that their intent is to instill in people’s minds the idea that evolution is intrinsically atheistic to convince them to pick one or the other. They injected atheism into evolution to dupe you.
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I just went back over the whole document and could not find one instance of anything of the sort being said.

They specifically address neo-Darwinism. They believe they have a lot of evidence that weighs against it, and, true, they also believe that it has had “deleterious cultural effects,” which is an undeniable fact. If you think that predominant versions of neo-Darwinian theory have not contributed to the materialism and moral decline of our culture… I don’t even know what to say. But, anyway, if they believe they can debunk it through scientific evidence alone–not by convincing people that it’s evil–what’s the problem?

In any case, can you provide a quote which to support your accusation?
 
Farsight001 said:
Lol, no. Clearly, you have not even read the wedge strategy.
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Clearly I did read it because it does not say what you intimate it does.
Farsight001 said:
They blatantly say that their intent is to instill in people’s minds the idea that evolution is intrinsically atheistic to convince them to pick one or the other. They injected atheism into evolution to dupe you.
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I suppose Dawkins and all the others I listed also injected atheism into evolution to dupe me as well. I guess they are all in it together! Dawkins is a closet ID proponent apparently.
 
Farsight001 said:
Uh…the definitions of evolution within that article are all pretty consistent and similar to the definition I provided, with different levels of technical speech and precision because they’re geared towards different audiences. Your article actually proves that it is precisely as I said it was.
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Apparently, you missed this link on the sidebar:

bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/Theistic_Evolution.html

In particular the last paragraph.

In my version, theistic evolution ain’t science. Admittedly, it is closer to the dividing line than the explanations of Young Earth Creationists but “close” isn’t good enough. Theistic evolution is still in the “Non-Science” half of the diagram. There is no middle ground.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
How about no religion at all?

David Berlinski - Agnostic Jew
Michael Denton - Agnostic
Paul Davies - Agnostic.
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Berlinski hasn’t published any reviewed papers on ID, Denton’s book ‘Nature’s Destiny: how the laws of biology reveal purpose in the Universe’, shows he’s anything but agnostic and I’ve read more of Paul Davies than most people have and in no way has he published any peer reviewed literature in any way supporting ID.
 
jimmy said:
  1. Design implies that neither reason nor the universe is an accident.
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👍
2. An accidental universe is not a credible basis for order, value, purpose, meaning or a rational existence.
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  1. Why?
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Accidents have never produced great works of art or scientific achievements.
3. We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational…
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  1. Some of those modifiers are acceptable to atheists, and they would agree with them. They would admit that in general the universe is chaotic, valueless, purposeless, and meaningless.
But why does it have to be unpredictable, unintelligible and irrational? This isn’t an argument for a designer, only a statement that the universe should be unpredictable and irrational. But the fact is that it isn’t.
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It is an argument for Design because there has been progressive development which cannot be explained by fortuitous events. No reasonable person would rely on accidents to make important decisions.
Second, why would I ague about the existence of God from an objective perspective when it is my subjectivity that leads me to believe that God exists? Arguing about the existence of God from an objective perspective is meaningless. An atheist can always deny your argument, and his argument will be just as rational as yours. It is a matter of perspective.
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According to that argument all our knowledge is meaningless because it is all subjective - and a matter of perspective! Disagreement does not imply that all views are correct…
If I keep my self separate from the question, it is easy to say the universe simply exists. It is easy to say life in general, or intelligence is the product of evolution and consequently it is simply a part of the universe.

But it is hard to say I am a product of evolution. I know that I exist, and I know that others exist. Why is it that I exist, with this body? It is really a question of consciousness. I exist, and many others exist. I don’t feel what they feel, and they don’t feel what I feel. There has to be some way to explain the many individual existences.
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Precisely! Consciousness is the insurmountable obstacle for the materialist.
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tonyrey said:
The Design that has been recognised since the dawn of civilisation.
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Well, I guess that would mean: As Designed By God. Which is what Intelligent Design means. Unless you want to try to convince me that it could be some other ‘intelligent designer’. Isn’t there just the one? So Intelligent Design is not irrelevant - it’s what we’re actually discussing.
tonyrey said:
For the umpteenth time the topic is Design not the Designer.
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Let me know how you can have one without the other. Let me know that ‘overwhelming evidence for design’ does not mean ‘God’. How can you have a discussion about purported design without mentioning the designer?

You’re starting to sound like the Design Institute: ‘Whatever you do, don’t mention God!’
 
Peter_Plato said:
What you are describing is “young earth creationism.”

Yes it may be a knock-out method of winning an argument to pigeonhole the opponent’s thoughts in the worst possible light and dictating to them what they think.
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What I am describing? I’m not describing anything. I am quoting directly from Design Institute material. I am not pigeonholing thoughts. I am not dictating what anyone should think.

To repeat, again, this is what the Discovery Institute proposed themselves as a rival explanation to evolution. This isn’t a matter of subtle differences of interpretation. It bears no relationship to how you personally view ID and how you might describe it.

It’s what the Institute believed then and it’s what the Institute believes now and it’s what the Institute means to introduce into science classes any way it can. The judge at Dover tore them another one and they slunk off and have been rephrasing their argument to make it seem to those not following this situation that they’re reasonable guys and - hey, what they’re asking for seems quite reasonable. It is not.

And to say they weren’t present? Meyer, Dembski and Campbell are all fellows of the Institute and were all present at the case and the Institute itself submitted a brief to allow testimony from Meyer and Dembski to be accepted without the opportunity for them to be cross examined. The brief itself was called: ‘Brief of Amicus Curiae, the Discovery Institute’.
 
Peter_Plato said:
Clearly I did read it because it does not say what you intimate it does.
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Well you should read it again. Find some of their leaked e-mails back and forth too.
I suppose Dawkins and all the others I listed also injected atheism into evolution to dupe me as well. I guess they are all in it together! Dawkins is a closet ID proponent apparently.
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Not really because they’re not injecting atheism into evolution. They are atheists who talk about and promote their atheism who also happen to be evolutionary biologists. They do not insert atheism into the theory.
Peter_Plato said:
Apparently, you missed this link on the sidebar:

bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/Theistic_Evolution.html

In particular the last paragraph.
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Ah yes, because when you provide a link to an article, I’m supposed to magically know you really want me to click a link in the sidebar and read that instead of the article directly linked to. Get real.
In my version, theistic evolution ain’t science. Admittedly, it is closer to the dividing line than the explanations of Young Earth Creationists but “close” isn’t good enough. Theistic evolution is still in the “Non-Science” half of the diagram. There is no middle ground.
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And after reading it, I say so what? Theistic evolution, technically speaking, isn’t science. It invokes God. Anything scientific cannot invoke as a cause or study the supernatural. It is not to say the supernatural does not exist, but that it is outside science’s realm of study.
 
Farsight001 said:
And after reading it, I say so what? Theistic evolution, technically speaking, isn’t science. It invokes God. Anything scientific cannot invoke as a cause or study the supernatural. It is not to say the supernatural does not exist, but that it is outside science’s realm of study.
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What is the proper object of science’s realm of study? Physical nature, perhaps?

Is consciousness physical in nature? Or is it “super” natural? Is it composed of matter? Can you locate it precisely in space?

Is mind a credible object of scientific study seeing as it is not directly observable?

Yet Scientific American makes no qualms about the science of mind.
scientificamerican.com/sciammind/

Now if you claim the the effects of mind can be the object of scientific study, that merely presumes mind is real with no direct physical evidence that it is.

Nature could be claimed to be the effect of a supernatural mind and so as credible a science as, say, psychology, could be proposed for the supernatural mind, presuming that it exists. Of course, psychologists likewise merely presume minds exists as their objects of study.

Are motives physical, observable entities? Yet there is an entire science built up around unobservable entities called motives. It is called forensic psychology.

It seems to me that mind/consciousness and motives are not physical (which is what scientific methodological materialism premises its a priori dismissal of God as a proper object of study upon) and yet there are sciences based upon these supra-natural entities.
I detect some inconsistency here.

There is a field of study called cognitive science which has as its object of study, intelligence proper. Yet, I fail to see how “intelligence” qualifies as a physical or material entity.

It would seem to me that if cognitive science qualifies as a proper science, then “intelligent design” which is merely how design can be brought about by cognitive faculties, i.e., intelligence, must also be a candidate for a potential realm of scientific study.

With all these non-physical sciences hanging about, you cannot expect me to believe that science is purely about physical entities. Are you ready to likewise dismiss all these sciences as outside the proper realm of science?

What about mathematics? Is mathematics not about conceptual rather than physical objects?

What about quantum mechanics? Many of the objects of that science are theoretical entities.
Not a science?

It seems there are great inconsistencies in how definitions are applied regarding the nature of science.
 
Peter_Plato said:
Nature could be claimed to be the effect of a supernatural mind and so as credible a science as, say, psychology, could be proposed for the supernatural mind, presuming that it exists
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I don’t think that you’ll get many people to disagree with you. Even an atheist, If he’s honest, must say: yes, it could be…

And it seems there’s a huge difference between what you understand or believe to be ID and what our good friends at the Design Institute believe. Despite their rewording of their stance, which is simply peddling back far enough so that it sounds acceptable to the people whom they would wish to convince.

Unfortunately, people coming late to this debate might not put too much emphasis, if any at all, on their previous stated position and think that they’ve actually moved on. That they’ve had a change of heart. That some degree of scientific rationality has now come to the fore. That there is no longer any fundamentalist religious underpinnings to their position.

You seem to have a reasonable position. It’s not one with which I’m personally likely to agree, but you are doing yourself no favours in hitching your wagon to people who want to undermine science. Maybe it would be better for the debate to skip further references to them.
 
buffalo said:
ID, the science

ID the philosophy
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So immediately after I suggest that we don’t mention the Institute, I’m going to mention the Institute…

But really. Is this, from the science link above, in any way credible?

‘Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.’

So if they find some evidence for design and we ask them who the designer could be, they’ll. sit there with their arms folded and say: we have absolutely no idea in that regard.

That is the most laughable comment I have seen in quite some time. It really belongs on the Today Show. Are you sure the web page is genuine? If I was satirising their position I would have written exactly the same. These people have zero credibility.
 
Farsight001 said:
Well you should read it again. Find some of their leaked e-mails back and forth too.
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I read it again from this source:

libcom.org/library/wedge-document-intelligent-design-exposed

It is not the nefarious document you make it out to be. Yes, these are believers in God with an agenda and they believe their goals can be achieved through scientific discourse. I would applaud any successes they have. Frankly, I am tired of hearing the likes of Dawkins, Atkins and Wolpert drone on with their own small minded agendas.

As for leaked emails, where did you locate these? I can’t seem to source them.
Farsight001 said:
Not really because they’re not injecting atheism into evolution. They are atheists who talk about and promote their atheism who also happen to be evolutionary biologists. They do not insert atheism into the theory.
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They don’t need to because its presumed in the theory. The process is assumed to be unguided and purely the result of natural causes. What is that besides materialistic atheism?
 
Peter_Plato said:
Yes, these are believers in God with an agenda…
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You wouldn’t believe it from the quotes earlier. God? No, no, it’s some sort of ‘intelligent designer’.
Peter_Plato said:
They don’t need to because its presumed in the theory. The process is assumed to be unguided and purely the result of natural causes. What is that besides materialistic atheism?
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That’s completely wrong. The theory doesn’t presume anything about a deity one way or another. Why would it? The causes are natural but if you want to say that God is guiding it at every stage, then go for it. Even Dawkins leaves a small window open for the existence of God. If you asked him if God could be guiding it he’d say yes. He wouldn’t believe it personally, but he wouldn’t and hasn’t discounted it.

If Dembski and friends said God was guiding evolution at every stage, then no-one in his right mind could argue. But he’s not. He’s saying…look, I’ve found proof. Scientific proof. But then he’s shown to be wrong.
 
tonyrey said:
  1. Design implies that neither reason nor the universe is an accident.
  2. An accidental universe is not a credible basis for order, value, purpose, meaning or a rational existence.
  3. We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational…
Click to expand...
tonyrey said:
  1. Design implies that neither reason nor the universe is an accident.
  2. An accidental universe is not a credible basis for order, value, purpose, meaning or a rational existence.
  3. We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational…
Click to expand...
The ancient Greeks certainly had it all over on us. Plato and Aristotle and Plotinus all would laugh at the idea of an unordered universe. Then Thomas Aquinas showed that to exist at all, even an eternally existing universe had to be caused. And of course he would call those who deny efficient, formal, final cause as not quite up to the mark mentally.

The only reason for all the hub hub about evolution the past three hundred years or so and especially today is because modern " intellectuals " have an atheistic/agnostic agenda. As one modern Philosopher said “…it isn’t that I just I don’t believe in God…I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that…” ( Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, pg 130-131, Oxford University Press, 1997 in Edward Feser, The Last Superstitution, pg 10).

The upshot is that these people will reject any argument or fact that even hints that anything exists but matter and most of them will reject out of hand formal and final causality outright and if they acknowledge efficient causality it is a distorted concept. 👍
 
Linusthe2nd said:
modern " intellectuals " have an atheistic/agnostic agenda.
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There always seems to be an ‘agenda’. And words like ‘intellectuals’ always have to be put in ‘quotes’. I’m not really sure ‘why’.

Don’t you think it’s possible that someone who doesn’t agree with you has reached his or her position honestly and independently? Do you think that all positions other than those to which you prescribe are ‘agenda’ driven?
 
tonyrey said:
Second, why would I ague about the existence of God from an objective perspective when it is my subjectivity that leads me to believe that God exists? Arguing about the existence of God from an objective perspective is meaningless. An atheist can always deny your argument, and his argument will be just as rational as yours. It is a matter of perspective.
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That isn’t exactly my point. My point is that it is my own subjective experience that makes me believe God exists, not some objective reasoning that separates me from the question. It is a question of my existence, not of life and the universe in general.

As long as you take it as simply a question of the existence of the material universe, attempts will be made to explain it through material means only. As long as I am only examing life in a general fashion, rather than in a personal manner, it will always appear to just be matter. I don’t know that other people exist through some objective means. Every person could just be chemical reactions or a robot. Even if only subconsciously, everything is reduced to physical laws. But as a subject I know that I exist, and I can assume that those like me also exist and feel and think similarly to me.

You must always keep the subject in the subject-object relationship. These proofs for design or the existence of God attempt to remove the subject, and then say God exists without it. It is kind of like if I were to try to prove the existence of beauty through science. It is an impossible feat. Beauty must be experienced, it can’t be rationalized.
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