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

[Edgar]

So unless you can comeup with a use for ID, then its only use appars to be to…prove ID.

As far as I know, I’ve never argued for “ID”. I have never claimed that “ID” is science. I don’t know why are you asking me to provide a scientific use for ID or to “prove ID”.

For Biometrics, read this: Bioinformatics for Evolutionary Biologists - A Problems Approach | Bernhard Haubold | Springer

I think you mean bioinformatics, not biometrics. You made the claim that bioinformatics needs the science of Charles Darwin, so I asked you for a specific example of this. In response, you have referred me to a book. Sorry, it is unreasonable to expect someone else to read an entire book to verify your claim. May I suggest you go through the book yourself and then find a specific example that verifies your claim, which you can then cite.

And in regards to the heart, I really don’t believe you are suggesting that hearts evolved and then, by chance, some function of the brain evolved to somehow start it beating.

So what started the beat in the first place? A “random mutation”? And what started beating if a chambered heart hadn’t evolved yet?

If you reject the ToE in principle …

Do I reject “ToE in principle”? I don’t know. What is your definition of “ToE”?

If you reject the concept …

I don’t reject the concept because it explains evolution within a species (aka microevolution). But as a concept that explains the fossil record, I reject it because it fails in explaining certain realities - such as two organs evolving separtely but ending up perfectly synchronised with each other.

If you don’t understand evolution …

I do understand evolution - I’ve understood it ever since it was taugth to me at school when I was thirteen years old. It ain’t rocket science.

is it possible for you to imagine that if an organism has a vascular system then if a very minor mutation causes a fold in a part of the system this would act, very inefficiently, as a one way valve. And then…

Point 1. More childish oversimplification. There is no doubt much more to a heart valve than simply being a “fold” of organic matter. And as you said, “There are no partially formed bits and pieces” (#8321) … so are we to believe a “random mutation” produced a perfectly-formed heart valve?
Point 2. How did this one “fold” inside the vascular system confer a survival advantage and thus come to be naturally selected?
Point 3. There is a lot more to the function of heart than its valves. How did a vascular tube evolve into a central pump with multiple chambers? And how did each evolutionary step confer a survival advantage? Note: Please be advised that “Oh, it just DID, okay?!” might suffice in evolutionary biology, but I don’t consider it a safisfactory explanation.

Go back to be astonished by facts like both legs just happen to be the same length. Surely designed!

Besides sounding suspicoiusly like another of your straw-man arguments, ToE actually provides a reasonable argument for why both our legs are the same length.

 

[Edgar]

ToE - it cannot be a philosophical view because it is only based on science, but materialism.

While ToE is purely scientific and not philosophical in content, I believe it is the PRODUCT of a philosophy - to wit: Atheism. If all scientists in the world were Christians or Muslims (ie, creationists), it is highly unlikely they would place much importance on a SCIENTIFIC explanation for the fossil record (especially if the best theory they could come up with is weak), as they would merely attribute the fossil record to the work of God. And they would certainly not preach any such scientific explanation as a dogmatic truth that must be accepted if one is to be respected as a rational and educated human being.

 

[Edgar]

I believe ToE is the “best scientific explanation” for the fossil record, but I also believe it isn’t a good or convincing explanation. While certain aspects are ToE are logical, scientific and based on empirical evidence, it is also often, as you say, simplistic, far-fetched and irrational and is the product of atheist philosphy. Atheists accept it because it’s all they’ve got … and since the scientific community is dominated by the spirit of atheism (a sign of the times, I’m afraid), they accept it also.

The fossil record can only be explained by divine creation and the miracles that that entails, so any explanation that precludes the supernatural - such as the scientific explanation - is bound to be hopelessly flawed and inadequate.

How would the good Lord’s access ToE? He might call it, “infantile nonsense”.

 

[Bradskii]

ProdglArchitect:

To be clear, I believe God guided evolution

Like the poster Rubee said, if God is guiding evolution, then there’s nothing random about it.

You’ve been told umpteen times that it’s not random in any case.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Aloysium:

I just wanted to describe how a pantheist, believing that nature is god, could also hold to the idea of intelligent design…

Nonsense. We know how nature works. It doesn’t ‘poof’ organisms into existence, fully formed.

Not sure what you are talking about. I’m the creationist, the “poof” guy, if you like.

Intelligent design, as far as I understand, simply states that there is an intelligent order to things, that there is something other going on than the random activity based on principles defined by the fundamental laws of nature. It fits a deistic and pantheistic understanding of how things are, in addition to a creationist perspective.

I really think that you need to talk to Buffalo. And there’s this nugget from Ed:

The fossil record can only be explained by divine creation…

Honestly, if you think that ID represents a deistic view after a gazillion posts then I despair.

 

[Bradskii]

I reject it because it fails in explaining certain realities - such as two organs evolving separtely but ending up perfectly synchronised with each other.

Again, it sounds like you’ve just realised this. It’s no more than an expression of disbelief that we can scratch our noses or have sex.There’s no need to go any further with the argument.

If you think that without divine intervention we wouldn’t be able to chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time, then there’s nothing I can say that will disavow you of that impression.

Atheists accept it because it’s all they’ve got … and since the scientific community is dominated by the spirit of atheism (a sign of the times, I’m afraid), they accept it also.

Straw man and a false dilema. Evolution does not deny God. And just because all of one group accepts Proposal A because it is true doesn’t mean that if they believe Proposal B then that must also be true.

 

[rossum]

One can teach about fossils and such and never have to mention evolution.

I see that you have no answer to my point about ID being self-refuting. It requires at least one complex entity to have originated without any design (name removed by moderator)ut.

 

[Aloysium]

I believe ToE is the “best scientific explanation” for the fossil record, but I also believe it isn’t a good or convincing explanation.

I don’t, because I believe science can reveal the truth, and the ToE has no foundation, being valid only once organisms exist, and the concept of life emerging from inert matter is fatally flawed. Once one accepts that simple life forms must have been created, it is no leap to consider that the same happened with more complex living beings, especially ourselves. We can do better.

 

[Aloysium]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Stick in “then random stuff happens” and the cartoon tells it like it is.

 

[Aloysium]

I really think that you need to talk to Buffalo.

Honestly, if you think that ID represents a deistic view after a gazillion

I believe this has been posted before by @buffalo:

What Is Intelligent Design? | Intelligent Design

The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. 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.

If the topic were Why you should think that ID is true, I’m sure people who are on the same side, if you will, here, would find themselves disagreeing on some fundamental points. While there is one reality, and although sometimes there is the thrill of a meeting of minds, who we are has to do with our particular relationship with it, which is unique and individual.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

I really think that you need to talk to Buffalo.

Honestly, if you think that ID represents a deistic view after a gazillion

I believe this has been posted before by @buffalo:

What Is Intelligent Design? | Intelligent Design

But good grief. Have you not read the post where it was shown beyond any doubt whatsoever (let alone beyond reasonable doubt) that ID is creationism.

The DI and their cronies have been trying to convince people that that is not the case. But answer me as to why you think that in the creatonist book ‘Panda’s thumb’ all references to creationism or a creator were simply replaced with ID and Intelligent Designer. Does that fool anyone at all?

Who on earth do you think they are referring to when they say Intelligent Designer? Atlas? Shiva? And this is not a hypothetical question, Al. I want you to tell me who you think they are referring to.

 

[Aloysium]

This illustrates how, outside of a relationship with God, and attempting to understand Him using concepts that belong to the mundane, it is impossible to conceptualize who He is. And, so it should be; if one were born blind, how would it be possible to know what is a blue sky.

God is in everything, yet He is no-thing. He exists, yet does not exist; being Existence itself, a Divine Eternal Act of Love, whereby everything is brought into being. Simple and unchanging, He is the Source of all the complexity of creation, in perpetual flux, transcendent and reaching into all He has created.

 

[Aloysium]

In the search for truth, separating the messenger from the message, I would say, is as important as trying to understand the message of a messenger we trust.

That’s what I do when I read scientific articles which couch the actual scientific data in evolutionary terms, while trusting that the data collection and statistics were done properly.

Whether or not, and seeming so, the DI is staffed by creationists, or conversely, university biology departments are replete with atheists, is irrelevant unless their belief system is introducing bias into their conclusions.

The intelligence found in nature is clear to me, and I get how people would understand it differently depending on how they conceptualize the fundamentals of reality.

Intelligent design might not be the best way to phrase what is a different ordering principle to the way things work, that would bring together inert matter, in the first place, and then use it in the formation of first, single cells, and from there, into plants and animals. There is more to what is going on than the fundamental forces of nature, and it includes the psychological, and that which organizes things into holistic systems, greater than the sum of their parts.

 

[rossum]

This illustrates how, outside of a relationship with God, and attempting to understand Him using concepts that belong to the mundane, it is impossible to conceptualize who He is. And, so it should be; if one were born blind, how would it be possible to know what is a blue sky.

The Bible is composed of mundane words in mundane human languages. Therefore the Bible cannot conceptualize who He is.

All the pronouncements of the Catholic Church, and of the Church fathers, are composed of mundane words in mundane human languages. Hence, all those writings cannot conceptualize who He is.

All the many posts on this, and other threads here, are composed of mundane words in mundane human languages. Hence, all those writings cannot conceptualize who He is.

You have just destroyed the whole documentary basis of Christianity. Well done.

 

[Aloysium]

The words we use to describe a blue sky will remain unintelligible to a blind man, who does not wish to know of what exists beyond the realm of his experience. But, here we are not talking about a permanent blindness, but of insights which we can ask to be made open to us. It’s a leap at that stage, usually coming when we are trapped, and given the option of doing so, or remaining in our rut.

 

[Rubee]

I think it is philosophically possible for God to have breathed life into our planet by either the normal cause and effect He put into the universe–that is, that the breath was planned and built into the order of things from before “let there be light”–or that a divine intervention beyond that order was always planned.

This seems to me either pantheistic or panpsychic. “Everything is alive” if inorganic matter is inherently imbued with life so that it can arise “naturally” when certain things combine with certain others. Otherwise, it will make little sense why any combination of any inorganic matter would acquire the self-preservative “agenda” that we know to be life, leave alone consciousness and then self-consciousness.

Darwinian biologists will not go for the panpsychic idea, I don’t think, though Buddhists and Hindus will see it as very natural.

In any case, I don’t personally see the idea you propose as being compatible with a monotheistic (in general) or Catholic (in particular) world view, since life is not just a certain arrangement of atoms and molecules.

In addition, I think if it was we could build life from scratch in our labs. But we know we can build physical replicas of life forms but we cannot make them live. We cannot imbue them with this “agenda” and power of living. It’s like putting wood together but lacking the fire that makes heat.

 

[Bradskii]

In the search for truth, separating the messenger from the message, I would say, is as important as trying to understand the message of a messenger we trust.

That’s what I do when I read scientific articles which couch the actual scientific data in evolutionary terms, while trusting that the data collection and statistics were done properly.

Whether or not, and seeming so, the DI is staffed by creationists, or conversely, university biology departments are replete with atheists, is irrelevant unless their belief system is introducing bias into their conclusions.

The intelligence found in nature is clear to me, and I get how people would understand it differently depending on how they conceptualize the fundamentals of reality.

Intelligent design might not be the best way to phrase what is a different ordering principle to the way things work, that would bring together inert matter, in the first place, and then use it in the formation of first, single cells, and from there, into plants and animals. There is more to what is going on than the fundamental forces of nature, and it includes the psychological, and that which organizes things into holistic systems, greater than the sum of their parts.

I don’t want a soliloquy. I don’t want to dig through the verbiage to determine if it’s actually been answered or not. I just want a simple answer to a simple question. It is possible, you know.

To whom are the Design Institute referring when they use the term Intelligent Designer?

It’s a magnificently easy question to answer. They have actually answered it themselves, so it’s not like you need a Rosetta stone to translate some indecipherable hidden meaning.

So who do you think it is? A one word answer is all that’s required thanks.

 

[Aloysium]

I thought it would be clear that, for me, it is (It seems impossible for me to respond with one word.) God.

Warning, more verbiage to follow:

Actually, that message would be the reason for most of my posts, so you may wish to stop reading them; science for me reveals His glory, and these discussions concerning how we got here are a very good way to share that vision.

Nature appears to be intelligently designed.

If one pursues the matter at all, what we observe can be considered random, I would imagine, only by believers, who think at a distance from the object. Biologists in the field, as opposed to biochemists in a lab, generally speak of nature with an attitude that betrays their love for it. They easily enthrall you with its wonders. One shouldn’t label people, but most would be pantheists, seeing each species being a pleasant surprise, offered by Mother Nature.

One need not have a designer, although it does logically follow, and considering the global picture of what constitutes existence, neither pantheism nor deism capture the fulness of Reality.

 

[Bradskii]

I thought it would be clear that, for me, it is God.

For everyone Al. Not just for you. For everyone who believes, promotes or even started the ID movement. Even to all those who know that ID is abject nonsense. The designer is and always will be…God.

So let’s have no more proposals that ID could be pantheistic or deistic or simply another definition of nature itself. It is the Abrahamic God. Period.

Glad we have that sorted out.

 

[Rubee]

. . .since life is not just a certain arrangement of atoms and molecules.

@PetraG, I should state further that I mean life is something transcendent to the arrangement of molecules that make up life forms. In that sense, it’s immaterial, even when we speak of the vegetative soul or animal souls.

Sure, they are not immaterial in the sense of ‘spirit’, but these souls (lives!) are an intangible thing that makes a certain mass of atoms and molecules behave as “one thing” in a very tight and marvellous organisation in an absolute unity and co-operation. The most opposite thing to chaos or entropy that we can imagine is a life form.

This is the “agenda” of which I speak. A power existing in a mass of molecules to perpetuate itself vis-a-vis the rest of the cosmos. Some portion of the cosmos demarcating a boundary between itself and all else and then working forever to preserve that “identity” above all else.

There is some invisible “glue” that defines each life form and I don’t think this “invisible glue” is the result of a mechanical arrangement of atoms and molecules.

I am highly skeptical that some kind of physical “switch” exists in inorganic matter that gives this mass of molecules that identity (or “selfishness” lets call it). Something that makes a bunch of chemicals, essentially, start acting like they’re not just a bunch of chemicals. Living, like existence, is an act, it seems to me, that must be granted by a being with the power to literally create it out of nothing.