Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[buffalo]

The proposal that life has been designed by a divine creator has practical scientific uses? Tell Ed. He’s trying to think of some.

Absolutely. Understanding design and purpose helps solve problems.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

The proposal that life has been designed by a divine creator has practical scientific uses? Tell Ed. He’s trying to think of some.

Absolutely. Understanding design and purpose helps solve problems.

Gosh, thanks for that. I think everyone is a little wiser for having read it. But it’s an answer to a question that wasn’t asked.

What we need to know, if ID is the process whereby God created all living things (and Ed for one seems to think that the ToE serves no useful purpose, although tens of thousands of people claim to use it in their work) what are the practical uses of that proposal.

I can’t, for example, see someone using it to design the suspension on a new Ford. So where it it used?

 

[edwest]

Young people, especially those going into some branch of Biology, have been brainwashed into believing evolution can help them with research into living things today. The only practical solution is Bioinformatics. “Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combines biology, computer science, information engineering, mathematics and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data.”

They now know that designed living things are designed and that their parts are highly complex and interrelated in very complex ways. To get useful information, they have to take things apart like a very complex machine. They have no other choice.

Something designed has parts that need to be identified and they have to do it the hard way. Genetic knock-out experiments, tests to determine which molecular switch does what, and identifying the reason why certain things can happen or cannot happen. Then they try to discover how and why a molecular switch stays open when it has become known that this particular switch needs to close after a certain process is completed. If it stays open, a problem occurs that can affect the organism.

That is why ‘enemy aircraft’ and engines were taken apart, examined and that new information was used in a variety of ways to help the good guys.

So while scientists may have the ‘evolution is true’ idea floating in their heads, it offers no guidance. Human intervention through gene editing, which has a long way to go, has been moving from inefficient to more efficient.

Studying biological design and function is all scientists have to work with. Design is real. Figuring it out is hard.

 

[Bradskii]

Young people, especially those going into some branch of Biology, have been brainwashed into believing evolution can help them with research into living things today. The only practical solution is Bioinformatics.

Why are you asking for practical uses when you already know at least one (and have been told that thousands of people useit in their specific line of work)?

Anyway, now you have answered your own question, what practical use is there is proposing that God created all living organisms?

 

[laylow]

" What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence "

 

[Metis1]

We keep reading by some that all we see is a product of “intelligent design”, and yet they cannot provide scientific evidence of such. But it’s actually even more bizarre than that.

Let’s say that there’s some sort of circumstantial evidence for “intelligent design”, but where does that really leave us? Does that prove God did it? How can one be sure that it’s not “Gods”? Does it prove that the God in our Bible did it? How can one be sure that it wasn’t a different God-- or Gods? Try and prove that it’s YHWH and not Vishnu for example.

IOW, “intelligent design” really isn’t so “intelligent” after all because it leaves us with no hint of what supposedly was and is the “intelligent” part. Nor does it intrinsically explain how the “design” was designed?

I’m hoping on Monday to find the time to go through the 1:1 creation account and dealing with it one verse at a time and comparing it to known science, which will be quite lengthy, and I don’t have time for that now nor tomorrow.

Again, I do believe in God but it simply is not and cannot be based on objectively-derived evidence, so it must be based on faith.

 

[Vonsalza]

edwest:

Nice try. No cigar.

OK, fair enough. All these people in all these areas of industry that state unequivocably that they are using evolutionary theory to further their business are…lying? A random guy on the internet knows more than the people who actually use it.

I think “it’s a global conspiracy ran by the devil”, or the antichrist, or other some such…

It just makes me so glad that both the Catholic Church and broader Christianity don’t require folks to take the position Ed has resigned himself to.

Galileo Affairs break faith. And I think people need faith on an evolutionary basis (as I’m unaware of any aboriginal atheists). Ed’s position places faith and reason in conflict with one another and reason tends to win when that happens. So it would behoove people of all faiths to employ reason within their faith.

[Note: More a message to the gallery than either you or Ed - if there is still a gallery here].

 

[buffalo]

Let’s say that there’s some sort of circumstantial evidence for “intelligent design”, but where does that really leave us? Does that prove God did it? How can one be sure that it’s not “Gods”? Does it prove that the God in our Bible did it? How can one be sure that it wasn’t a different God-- or Gods? Try and prove that it’s YHWH and not Vishnu for example.

Right you are. ID, the science, stops short of who this designer may be. It simply shows design is present. It is the job of philosophy to tell us who the designer is.

 

[buffalo]

Again, I do believe in God but it simply is not and cannot be based on objectively-derived evidence, so it must be based on faith .

God can be found through logic and reason.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

edwest:

Nice try. No cigar.

OK, fair enough. All these people in all these areas of industry that state unequivocably that they are using evolutionary theory to further their business are…lying? A random guy on the internet knows more than the people who actually use it.

I think “it’s a global conspiracy ran by the devil”, or the antichrist, or other some such…

I wonder why it doesn’t work the other way.

Apropos Metis’s post above, if one held to the specific position of the DI, they are saying it’s not necessarily God who is the creator, but an ‘Intelligent Designer’ (see Buff’s post above for confirmation). Which is a position, I have to say, that if I were a Christian would mightily tick me off.

I would be thumping tables and telling anyone who would listen that it was not some unknown designer but God. And that He has left us the evidence which our God-given intellect leads us to the undeniable fact that He used the process of evolution to fullfill His will. And that the demon infested DI are the ones that are promoting the devil-run conspiracy that says some obscure designer is reponsible!

 

[edwest]

Objectively - design exists. Just imagine taking apart a very complex device with a built-in instruction system. Or an old-style TV with tubes and such. If you have no idea which part does what, the only way to determine how each part functions is to remove each one, determine its function AND how that function is related to other components.

 

[buffalo]

Galileo Affairs break faith.

You really think ID is equal to Galileo? It is science that is bringing intelligent design to the forefront. Science is now able to look at the cell with much more detail and witness the cell machinery working. Looking ahead 100 years we may find today’s Galileo is the belief in macro-evolution.

 

[Metis1]

Ah, I just have to respond directly to the above as you just inadvertently proved my point by using the singular-- “God”. You’ve used an assumption that cannot be established as being true, so thanks for the confirmation of one of my points.

 

[buffalo]

the singular-- “God”

You think a singular God is an assumption?

There is more than one uncaused cause?

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

Galileo Affairs break faith.

You really think ID is equal to Galileo?

In that ID enjoys roughly the same level of objective support as geocentrism?

Yes.

It is science that is bringing intelligent design to the forefront.

The majority of the news I see about it comes from one site that openly mocks Dawkins in an ad hominem sort of way.

I don’t want to throw all my eggs into one basket, but a legitimate science periodical wouldn’t openly mock a man who was bold enough to propose that selection occurs on the genetic level.

I disagree with him. But it promotes thought within the field, which is always a good thing.

And “macro-evolution” can’t be used to support ID Buff. It only exists if you already believe in ID.

 

[Bradskii]

Objectively - design exists. Just imagine taking apart a very complex device with a built-in instruction system. Or an old-style TV with tubes and such. If you have no idea which part does what, the only way to determine how each part functions is to remove each one, determine its function AND how that function is related to other components.

You really must start using the features of the forum to their best advantage so that we could know that you are not making a random comment but answering someone’s specific question. But at this point, I’ll assume that you may be answering my question.

Which you didn’t.

We know how design works. We know that things are made of composite parts, including biological entities. That doesn’t change whether organisms evolved or were created. They will look exactly the same.

I want to know specifically what practical use is the proposal that God was responsible for the creation of organisms in the manner described by the DI.

 

[edwest]

Design it is then. Form follows function. Birds are designed to have good aerodynamics and good eye-wing coordination.

 

[Bradskii]

Metis1:

the singular-- “God”

You think a singular God is an assumption?

There is more than one uncaused cause?

As far as Christians are concerned. And that cause is God. But you are claiming an unknown designer. Not God.

Kinda strange for a Christian to propose that God isn’t necessarily the creator of all life.

 

[Bradskii]

Design it is then.

Good grief, would it kill you to reference to that which you are responding? It certainly ain’t to anything I posted.

 

[Vonsalza]

buffalo:

Metis1:

the singular-- “God”

You think a singular God is an assumption?

There is more than one uncaused cause?

As far as Christians are concerned. And that cause is God. But you are claiming an unknown designer. Not God.

Kinda strange for a Christian to propose that God isn’t necessarily the creator of all life.

I think that’s a very important concept for @edwest to parse.

We’re not attacking God. We’re attacking ID.

Plenty of theist evolutionists are happy to say that God designed evolution to work in a way that didn’t require His continual intervention and then sent the “ball” rolling.