Why is Intelligent Design not offered in schools?

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Strider:
Oh, but you misunderstand. The origin of life has everything to do with evolution.
Would evolution have occurred if life came to the earth from another planet? If some chemical reaction created the first life? If God said “let there be life”? If not, why not? If so, your statement is false.

Peace

Tim
 
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Strider:
Oh, but you misunderstand. The origin of life has everything to do with evolution. For evolution to have a life form to mutate, there had to be a life form. Where did it come from? How did the phospholipids arange themselves around the nucleic acids and aminio acids required for the molecules that are required for life? What animated the first cell?
Those are two separate problems, and just because you wish to connect them they will not connect.

I already said that we simply do not know how life emerged on Earth. Can anything be clearer than that? The data is missing, therefore we don’t know. That does not mean that we shall never know, nor does it mean that it is justified to posit a supernatural origin. There are lots of things we don’t know yet. No problem, and no big deal.

The usual objection of incredibly low probability is hogwash. Just a quick explanation: the chance of one specific person to win the lottery is very small. But the fact that many people play the lottery for extended period of time makes it absolutely certain that one of them will win, eventually.

Translate that to the billions of planets with a couple of billion years on each with millions of random interactions occurring in every millimeter on the surface to wait for the “jackpot” (life). Which one will be the winner, no one knows. That one of them will be a winner (life emerges) is certain.

Another example: since roulette was invented, quite a few million games have been played. If we would write the winning numbers down and ask what was the chance of this particular sequence, the probability would be MUCH lower than life emerging on a planet. Even the number of electrons in the universe is incomparably smaller than this chance. Still, the sequence happened. The incredibly small probability did not prevent it from happening. What is truly impossible is not this sequence, rather that someone would predict this sequence. Mathematicians understand this. Others ususally do not.
 
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Melchior:
Do you not understand that 1 and 3 apply equally to Macro-evolution?
Hi,

The journal Science just named its “breakthrough of the year” as “evolution in action”, citing a number of recent and important studies. Hopefully, the next 10 or 15 years will see this “macro” and “micro” evolution language among popular culture come to an end. From the ABC coverage:

===================
Research into the formation of new species as they evolve to differ from others:

In 2005, scientists found a type of warbler known as the European blackcap that was separating into groups with differing migration patterns.

Another study found European cornborers in the same field dividing into two types, one of which sticks to corn while the other eats hops and mugwort. The borers have developed different pheromones, scent chemicals that help them breed with only their own group.

And formerly ocean-living stickleback fish that were left stranded in lakes at the end of the last ice age have evolved into several different species.

That study was done by David Kingsley of Stanford University, who reported in March that 15 isolated populations of freshwater sticklebacks had all lost their bony armor through mutations in the same gene.

While scientists had previously shown evolution in biochemical processes, such as antibiotic resistance, some critics had argued that it would be impossible to evolve large changes in the forms of natural populations.

“That is obviously false,” said Kingsley. “Sticklebacks with major changes in skeletal armor and fin structures are thriving in natural environments. And the major differences between forms can now be traced to particular genes.”

======================
 
Hitetlen said:
…….The usual objection of incredibly low probability is hogwash. ……… the lottery ……… roulette ……

Roulette and the lottery are probably bad examples to use since they are both random processes while biochemistry is deterministic.

For some reason there are folks on this board who get all bent out of shape at the very suggestion of “random”
 
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mlchance:
The idea that all processes are entirely material and reducible to naturalistic explanations is not a scientific statement.
Right. It is an axiom, a guiding principle whereby we investigate processes to see to what degree we may predict outcomes of experiments. We may or may not be ultimately successful in explaining a given process to an arbitrary (or achievable) level of precision.
It is a scientistic metaphysical proposition pushed by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, which is almost entirely membershipped (a new word!) by atheists.
I don’t suppose you have any sort of numbers to back up this wildly strong assertion.
 
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Hitetlen:
ID is not science, it is religion. Science only deals with falsifyable ideas, that is propositions which can be proven false, which can be tested by experiments.
Are the experiments alluded to below “science”?

Proctor, Robert N. 1988. Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 414pp. On 6:
Code:
 "The published record of the German medical profession
 makes it clear that many intellectuals cooperated fully in
 Nazi racial programs, and that many of the social and
 intellectual foundations for these programs were laid long
 before the rise of Hitler to power.  What I want to argue in
 addition to this, however (and here I shall be drawing
 upon a growing body of recent German scholarship on
 this question) is that biomedical scientists played an
 active, even leading role in the initiation, administration,
 and execution of Nazi racial programs."
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2004 Richard Weikart: “physicians… were committed to a racist eugenics ideology that the Nazis favored”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407120310.7d3f3929%40posting.google.com
 
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steveandersen:
Roulette and the lottery are probably bad examples to use since they are both random processes while biochemistry is deterministic.

For some reason there are folks on this board who get all bent out of shape at the very suggestion of “random”
You are absolutely correct, but I wanted to illustrate that even without the self-organizing process of biology something that is very “improbable” will happen if the experiment is conducted sufficiently numerous times. It was just an illustration, not an analogy. 🙂
 
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steveandersen:
They most certainly do not! :eek:
And as I’m fond of saying, that micro/macro distinction is a bunch of hooey. Once you concede that things can evolve then your stuck with it. You can’t just be a little bit evolved. 😉
That is absurd. No offense. Chane within a species and change form one species to another are completely different things. Talk about oversimplifying things. A son being taller than his father and a squirrel becoming a bird are two very different concepts. One is observable. The other is not. So I will have to say my claim of hooey is much stronger than yours. 😉
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steveandersen:
Why would scientists propose an idea if there is no way to test it or prove it wrong? :confused: It would be worthless.
Exactly!
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steveandersen:
Make up your mind; are they random scratches or do they look like an animal may have made them?
Scientists would have to compare the scratches to scratches known to be caused by an animal to make that assertion.
I said two different rocks. One with scratches. One with drawings.
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steveandersen:
If the archeologist found one and only one stone on it with drawings on it an no human being ever drew anything afterward then you may have a point that it would be a leap to ascribe that one artifact to humans. However, artifacts are rarely found alone or without context, science doesn’t make assertions based on one piece of data, we have quite a lot of known human carving to compare it to, and we can even carve our own to test ideas on how old marks might have been made so I don’t see what your point is.
So you mean we know how to recongnize design?

Mel
 
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wanerious:
Hi,

The journal Science just named its “breakthrough of the year” as “evolution in action”, citing a number of recent and important studies. Hopefully, the next 10 or 15 years will see this “macro” and “micro” evolution language among popular culture come to an end. From the ABC coverage:

===================
Research into the formation of new species as they evolve to differ from others:

In 2005, scientists found a type of warbler known as the European blackcap that was separating into groups with differing migration patterns.

Another study found European cornborers in the same field dividing into two types, one of which sticks to corn while the other eats hops and mugwort. The borers have developed different pheromones, scent chemicals that help them breed with only their own group.

And formerly ocean-living stickleback fish that were left stranded in lakes at the end of the last ice age have evolved into several different species.

That study was done by David Kingsley of Stanford University, who reported in March that 15 isolated populations of freshwater sticklebacks had all lost their bony armor through mutations in the same gene.

While scientists had previously shown evolution in biochemical processes, such as antibiotic resistance, some critics had argued that it would be impossible to evolve large changes in the forms of natural populations.

“That is obviously false,” said Kingsley. “Sticklebacks with major changes in skeletal armor and fin structures are thriving in natural environments. And the major differences between forms can now be traced to particular genes.”

======================
Change within a species is micro-evolution (mutation). Change from one species to an entirely different one is macro-evolution. They are two different things and it would not be scientific or even precise to blur the two. It is like saying toothpaste and a dentists chair are the same thing.

Mel
 
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davidford:
Hitler encounters the T0E as a child: A Victory for Atheism

Stalin encounters the T0E in seminary: A Victory for Atheism
they also both encountered Christianity as children…your point?
 
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Melchior:
Change within a species is micro-evolution (mutation). Change from one species to an entirely different one is macro-evolution. They are two different things and it would not be scientific or even precise to blur the two. It is like saying toothpaste and a dentists chair are the same thing.

Mel
What is the difference between micro and macro?

How small does a micro have to be? How big is a macro?
What happens when you have lots of micros?

You can’t just be a little bit evolved. If the process happens it happens. It makes no sense to make a distinction. There is no stop sign that comes out and say “Oops, wait right there, that’s enough micros”

Besides, since speciation has been observed in both in the lab and in the field the point is moot.
 
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steveandersen:
they also both encountered Christianity as children…your point?
To be fair both specifically rejected Christianity and specifically cited Evolution in support of their attrocities.

Not that that is an argument against evolution per se. But it’s fruits should give us pause.

Mel
 
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Melchior:
Change within a species is micro-evolution (mutation). Change from one species to an entirely different one is macro-evolution. They are two different things and it would not be scientific or even precise to blur the two. It is like saying toothpaste and a dentists chair are the same thing.
Mel
I don’t understand. Right above your post is recent and ongoing observational evidence for one species branching out into several new species. This is observed speciation. This is what you and other non-specialists call “macro” evolution. What’s the problem?
 
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steveandersen:
What is the difference between micro and macro?

How small does a micro have to be? How big is a macro?
What happens when you have lots of micros?

You can’t just be a little bit evolved. If the process happens it happens. It makes no sense to make a distinction. There is no stop sign that comes out and say “Oops, wait right there, that’s enough micros”

Besides, since speciation has been observed in both in the lab and in the field the point is moot.
But the distinction is there! And it is the scientific distinction. Having a crooked toe that your grandmother had is mutation within a species and it is an observable fact. Leaping from one species to another is non observable and has never been proven to have happened and in fact the more time goes by the less likely it is to be proven. They are two different things by definition. Steve, you are now not even arguing from an informed evolutionary perspective. You are trying to make two different things the same thing when they are not.

Mel
 
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Melchior:
But the distinction is there! And it is the scientific distinction! Having a crooked toe that your grandmother had is mutation within a species and it is an observable fact. Leaping from one species to another is non observable and has never been proven to have happened and in fact the more time goes by the less likely it is to be proven. They are two different things by definition. You are now not even arguing from an honest and/or informed evolutionary perspective.

Mel
I wouldn’t be so smug. Are you sure you really understand evolutionary theory? It sounds to me like you think scientists believe one species can “leap” into another, genetically. Do you know that no scientist believes this? You are arguing against a theory that doesn’t exist? Species all had common ancestors. We don’t believe that present birds can evolve into present reptiles, or squirrels can evolve into fish. They simply (genetically) diverged at some point in the past. This divergence (speciation) is what is observed today, like in the instances I posted above. This is evolutionary theory. It does no good to rail against something you misrepresent.
 
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wanerious:
I wouldn’t be so smug. Are you sure you really understand evolutionary theory? It sounds to me like you think scientists believe one species can “leap” into another, genetically. Do you know that no scientist believes this? You are arguing against a theory that doesn’t exist? Species all had common ancestors. We don’t believe that present birds can evolve into present reptiles, or squirrels can evolve into fish. They simply (genetically) diverged at some point in the past. This divergence (speciation) is what is observed today, like in the instances I posted above. This is evolutionary theory. It does no good to rail against something you misrepresent.
You are reading too much into what I wrote. And there was nothing smug about it. It is common knowledge. And you are not telling me anything I have not heard before. There was nothing misrepresented since it is you who suggested specifics that I did not. In fact the one I did mention is quite common in evolutionary theory.

And you should no that there are several, not just one theory of mutation. Gradual or Punctuated Equilibrium are two opposing examples.

You guys just keep changing the subject or imply we said things we never did so you can frame the argument to you liking. This let’s you think that you have somehow answered or adequately addressed what you have not.

Peace,

Mel
 
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Melchior:
And you should no that there are several, not just one theory of mutation. Gradual or Punctuated Equilibrium are two opposing examples.
No smugness in that reply. Is it possible that there are a few scientists on these forums that might, just might, have a clue about science?

Peace

Tim
 
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