The logical end result of Intelligent Design

[El_Machinae]

One can easily learn all the already-known facts of modern biology without 'believing' in evolution. It's discovering new facts where the ToE really kicks in, as well as understanding the history of the current biology.

One can appreciate the Mona Lisa without knowing anything about history, but knowing history enhances the appreciation.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

That is a point which so many evolutionist

No such thing.

fail to realise, the ID can be compatible with evolution but in the haste of trying to evolution only teaching

I have asked you before and I ask you again, fix your grammar so that one can have coherent discussions without needing to extrapolate your position.

they are just too worried about the implications of ID that it will lead people to question the paradigm of evolution, because evolution does not explain how all the design that we see in this world come into this world.

What design? And fix your tenses.

Random chance does not explain the complex nature of DNA.

Stop being wilfully ignorant. "Random chance" is a strawman, as has been said many many times, most recently here.

Their is no naturalistic way how DNA came to be and yet without it life does not exist.

Wrong. Educate yourself.

Now Young Earth Creationism is most definitely the exact opposite of evolution and even Darwin made that clear when he wrote his book on it, that he was invalidating God as creator.

Source please. The evidence known to me is contrary.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

 

[Gooblah]

Where are you getting the "fact" that evolution is 'random' from?

There are random parts to it (genetic drift, gene flow are two examples) but that's not the entire theory.

Genetic Drift: The random events that affect a gene pool, such as natural disasters, and other forms of environmental change. Smaller gene pools are affected more heavily. While a large population and a small population affected by the same event may lose the same amount of members, the small population loses a much greater percentage of alleles, reducing allele frequency; if the genetic drift event truly selects individuals, then microevolution (the change in a population over generations) will occur. If the event just kills randomly (like a flood), where alleles don't really matter, then it can lead to inbreeding and eventual death of the small population.

Gene Flow: The migration of organisms from one gene pool to another, adding or subtracting alleles. This can reduce, increase, or simply not change allele frequency.

 

[Phlegmak]

I think I've gotten all I can out of this thread. I had hoped that ID proponents actually had some interest in who the designer was and learning more about it, but they seem to not want to go in that direction. As I understand it from the responses in this thread, ID simply IS creationism, specifically Jewish creationism, and the word Intelligent Design should just not be used anymore. Maybe I can try reasoning with the Discovery Institute or whatever it's called and see if I can find some reasoning for what they're trying to accomplish.

 

[LightFang]

Where are you getting the "fact" that evolution is 'random' from?

There are random parts to it (genetic drift, gene flow are two examples) but that's not the entire theory.

Genetic Drift: The random events that affect a gene pool, such as natural disasters, and other forms of environmental change. Smaller gene pools are affected more heavily. While a large population and a small population affected by the same event may lose the same amount of members, the small population loses a much greater percentage of alleles, reducing allele frequency; if the genetic drift event truly selects individuals, then microevolution (the change in a population over generations) will occur. If the event just kills randomly (like a flood), where alleles don't really matter, then it can lead to inbreeding and eventual death of the small population.

Gene Flow: The migration of organisms from one gene pool to another, adding or subtracting alleles. This can reduce, increase, or simply not change allele frequency.

Maybe you'd just do better to list the five things necessary for a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

1. No natural selection
2. No genetic drift.
3. Random mating.
4. No mutations.
5. No gene flow.

 

[Simple Simon]

It's a noble goal, but the Intelligent Design vs Evolution debate is a farce. Any supporter of evolution must acknowledge at the start that he has already lost the debate. Not because his opponent is right, but because there is no way to show his opponent is wrong.

Buddy, read up on the issue! So far, the ID proponents have made around 1,000 testable claims in public, and had their heads handed to them in paper bags on all of them. Need more proof they are wrong?

Really need more?

Here's your head in a paperbag...

 

[Slobadog]

Posted by LightFang:Wasn't the point of science to find knowledge? So, you know, if there is an intelligent designer, yeah, he did it, so that's what you should be teaching.

Plus, you know, it's not like you have to throw out all of biology. Things like human systems and anatomy of cells and all that stuff is good. And, assuming there is an intelligent designer, that doesn't necessarily throw out evolution, you know. Although, if it did, then all you'd have to do is throw out the evolution part.

Posted By Slobadog:
What about how the human systems and anatomy of cells changes and thus evolves over the generations? Would selective animal breeding no longer be proper to teach to young aspiring farmers? Should SETI and prayer be encouraged as the alternative strategy for the purpose of getting your farm products to turn out right?

Posted by LightFang
When I took two years of biology in high school, it was an evolution-based course. That means that things were supposed to tie in with evolution.

Well, guess what? The idea of muscles containing sarcomeres and the calcium surge and the neurons with the Na+/K+ pumps and all that are still there, regardless of whether or not it was intelligently designed. The process of cellular respiration with glycolysis and the glucose splitting into 1,6 biphosphate and the energy harvest and the deoxidative carboxylation and the Krebs cycle and chemisosmosis with the electron transport system and all the other topics that I hardly remember would still be the same. The only difference would be "this was intelligently designed" compared with "this evolved". It doesn't mean, "let us throw out science."

Call on God, but row away from the rocks. You know. If there ever were proof of this mysterious intelligent designer, I don't think it would be the end of science.

You did not address my point, which is that if evolution is thrown out then so is the field of biology that relates to biological changes. Unless of course IDists would simply say that whenever you mate the fat cows with the other fat cows then your intelligent designer decides to often *Poof* design a new baby cow that matches your breeding pattern. Throwing out the concept of biological changes is like trying to decribe desktops and laptops and palm pilots without any explanation for why if computers started out as only desktops why do we also have laptops and palm pilots. Even if you are going to say that computers were intelligently designed by humans which of course they are you still would need to explain how and why it was designed if you want people to really accept that different kinds of computers did not always exist. Or dose everything in life just constantly poof into existence. Is life nothing but random actions? Does falling a thousand miles kill you today but not tommorow? Is cause and effect not relevent. Do we all just live in the moment without the slightest memory of what happened a few seconds ago?If not then the history of how and why things are the way they are is very important to a complete and balanced knowledge of any subject. Yes you could dissect a frog and learn all about it and call it a biology study of the frog. But you could not call it a complete biological study of the frog.

Originally Posted by Arwon
What biology isn't rooted in evolution? That's pretty much what modern biology is.

Posted by classical_hero:
Of course, such as the fact that antibiotics would wipe out all disease, but they did not recognise the possibility of mutations that could make antibiotics ineffective, but those antibiotic resistant bacteria are much weaker that their non resistant ones so they die out amongst their stronger brethren. Or shall we talk about vestigial organ, where people had supposedly useless organs that were the remnant of evolutionary past, but in recent time we know every organ in the human body serves a purpose, even when we were not sure what it was. Or shall we talk about junk DNA? The idea that most of our DNA was remnants of our evolutionary past, but that has been discarded and shown how wrong and how useful the non coding parts of DNA actually is. It is common knowledge now, but earlier is was not predicted that way, so again another example of evolutionary biology being proven wrong by modern biology. So clearly they are not the same thing if modern biology corrects the false premises of evolutionary biology.

But the antibiotic resistant bacteria are not going extinct. Their infections of humans are not ending. Thus the new bacteria is surviving. Maybe not among the old bacteria but certainly amongst themselves and certainly among humans. Evolution is not about organisms becoming better. Its about them becoming different. These new bacteria are different and thriving in the human enviroment are they not? Certainly they are doing better among humans then their non antibiotic resistant brethern. Thus they are better suited to survive the human enviroment than their old style cousins. To live they don't need to survive everywhere. Just to survive somewhere.

 

[LightFang]

You did not address my point, which is that if evolution is thrown out then so is the field of biology that relates to biological changes. Unless of course IDists would simply say that whenever you mate the fat cows with the other fat cows then your intelligent designer decides to often *Poof* design a new baby cow that matches your breeding pattern. Throwing out the concept of biological changes is like trying to decribe desktops and laptops and palm pilots without any explanation for why if computers started out as only desktops why do we also have laptops and palm pilots. Even if you are going to say that computers were intelligently designed by humans which of course they are you still would need to explain how and why it was designed if you want people to really accept that different kinds of computers did not always exist. Or dose everything in life just constantly poof into existence. Is life nothing but random actions? Does falling a thousand miles kill you today but not tommorow? Is cause and effect not relevent. Do we all just live in the moment without the slightest memory of what happened a few seconds ago?If not then the history of how and why things are the way they are is very important to a complete and balanced knowledge of any subject. Yes you could dissect a frog and learn all about it and call it a biology study of the frog. But you could not call it a complete biological study of the frog.

Your post was incredibly hard to understand because 1. your mechanics are fairly poor and 2. it was one huge paragraph with no rhyme or reason. It wasn't coherent.

However I choose and will invalidate what I perceive to be your argument (I have to extrapolate from your mangled words) by saying that ID does not necessarily preclude evolution.

And anyway the whole point was this: of course there are changes in gene frequencies within populations; breed pink snapdragons and you'll get 1/4 white, 1/4 red, and 1/2 pink in theory; any deviation means that frequencies have changed. It's when you talk about different things like the evolution of man from monkeys and stuff that proponents of ID would argue, and that's the portion you'd throw out if it were proven that it was false. You would agree, wouldn't you? To disagree would be rather intellectually dishonest of you.

And, presupposing that there was some intelligent designer, which the OP did stipulate, then it was created because of an intelligent designer. That's just a tautology and you can't argue against that.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

Evolution is stupid.What about those male fish who bite the females and sort of melt into them and only release sperm when the female tells them to. Where is the middle ground. Its absurd.

 

[AngryZealot]

Buddy, read up on the issue! So far, the ID proponents have made around 1,000 testable claims in public, and had their heads handed to them in paper bags on all of them. Need more proof they are wrong?

Really need more?

Here's your head in a paperbag...

I'm on your side! I can name countless cases where only a drunken fool would design something the way it exists. That doesn't stop the argument that "God did it", because you know, who are we to question His divine judgement . ID would still exist even if it didn't try to make boneheaded predictions .

 

[Phlegmak]

EDIT: I sent this email to Discovery Institute. Let's see if I get something from it.

Dear Discovery Institute:

I apologize if I'm sending this email to the wrong person. Please forward this email to the right person within the Discovery Institute, who can answer my questions.

I've been wondering what is the goal of Intelligent Design? Shouldn't these questions be answered, if Intelligent Design is true:

1. What is the name of the designer or designers?
2. How do we communicate with this designer or designers, if they're still alive?
3. What do we do with Intelligent Design in schools? In Biology class, should teachers simply say, "A designer did this," and then continue with normal cirricula? Specifically, what changes in science classes?
4. How did the designer actually design life? If this is unknown, what can be done by humans to determine how the designer designed life, and how the designer actually built it?

Please note that I'm uninterested in detecting the design in this email. I'm simply assuming that design is detectable -- in other words, that Intelligent Design is true.

If you can point to a Discovery Institute webpage that actually addresses these particular issues, that would be most helpful and would save you the trouble of typing a lengthy response.

I thank you very much for your time.

(my name which I'm censoring here)

 

[BasketCase]

Evolution is stupid.What about those male fish who bite the females and sort of melt into them and only release sperm when the female tells them to. Where is the middle ground. Its absurd.

In the beginning, most fish simply swam near each other and spewed clouds of eggs and sperm.

Then some male fish decided to bite the female and latch onto her to keep her nearby for a longer period during the spewing part. The "melting into" part developed from that.

There's the middle ground.


Geez. I actually got lured into a thread with the words "spewing" and "sperm" in it.

 

[Slobadog]

Originally Posted by Slobadog
You did not address my point, which is that if evolution is thrown out then so is the field of biology that relates to biological changes. Unless of course IDists would simply say that whenever you mate the fat cows with the other fat cows then your intelligent designer decides to often *Poof* design a new baby cow that matches your breeding pattern. Throwing out the concept of biological changes is like trying to decribe desktops and laptops and palm pilots without any explanation for why if computers started out as only desktops why we also have laptops and palm pilots. Even if you are going to say that computers were intelligently designed by humans which of course they are you still would need to explain how and why it was designed if you want people to really accept that different kinds of computers did not always exist. Or dose everything in life just constantly poof into existence. Is life nothing but random actions? Does falling a thousand miles kill you today but not tommorow? Is cause and effect not relevent. Do we all just live in the moment without the slightest memory of what happened a few seconds ago?If not then the history of how and why things are the way they are is very important to a complete and balanced knowledge of any subject. Yes you could dissect a frog and learn all about it and call it a biology study of the frog. But you could not call it a complete biological study of the frog.

Originally Posted By LightFang:
Your post was incredibly hard to understand because 1. your mechanics are fairly poor and 2. it was one huge paragraph with no rhyme or reason. It wasn't coherent.

It was not my intention to create a poem. Thus i made no effort to include rhymes.




Hmmm...... i have erred much in my previous post's design. Very Queer. I will try to reform it.


Reformed post:






It seems to me that you did not address my earlier point. My point is that if evolution is thrown out of biology class then the study of biological changes that occur in organisms over the generations would by neccessity be thrown out too. Instead textbooks would teach that everything that exists never changes over the generations. Throwing out the concept of organisms biologically changing from biology textbooks would be comparable to writing computer textbooks that teach that desktop computers and laptop computers exist but not explaining why or how laptops were made by humans to be different or why or how humans upgraded them. Perhaps this is a bad comparison because computers are intelligently designed and do not evolve. Although the term evolution is used to refer to the concept of computers changing and advancing over time. But the fact that their evolution is intelligently designed does limit the effectiveness of this comparison.







Another way that i could state this:




1.)It is a undisputable fact that organisms can biologically change over generations . The issue of how many biological changes can occur in a organism and what kind of biological changes can occur in a organism may be open to debate. But the fact that changes take place is not in dispute.



2.)The study of biology involves the study of organisms.


3.) Studying the changes that organisms biologically go through over the generations greatly increases a student's understanding of organisms.




4.) If the study of the changes that organisms biologically go through over the generations is removed from the school curriculem then students will understand the organisms less.



5.) Evolution is about any biological changes in organisms that occurs over generations.



6.) Conclusion: Evolution can not be seperated from biology class without damaging the point of studying biology.




There is a difference between a organism changing color and a organism changing from a monkey to a man. Both however would be classified as evolution. Thats why people here should specify what kind of evolution they are talking about. It will reduce confusion in this debate and simplify it to a degree. (On a different note: Monkeys are not considered by evolutionists to have evolved into man. Instead they are considered to share a common ancestor with man.

 

[GoodGame]

Survey says, Good answer!

The problem with that answer is that some ID proponents will pull out completely factual scientific examples and say such things are too complex to self-assemble, too complex to arise by themselves, so they will gray the terms of the discussion by correctly citing standard examples from curriculum, and possibly use that to demand that it be lumped in with science. My comprehension of that is going to remain strictly laziness.

I love Plegmak's approach though, since he's correctly pointing out that they are lazy also for making their simple arguement, and then not carrying it to any point. It's just straight orthodoxy, dressed up, rather than being a serious use of scientific method.

No. You place the Intelligent Design argument out of the science class (keeping the biology curriculum intact), and place it in the philosophy class. Where free discussions about religion and science can be taken place.

 

[aelf]

How about Intelligent Evolution, then? Is that an acceptable notion?

 

[Phlegmak]

And anyway the whole point was this: of course there are changes in gene frequencies within populations; breed pink snapdragons and you'll get 1/4 white, 1/4 red, and 1/2 pink in theory; any deviation means that frequencies have changed. It's when you talk about different things like the evolution of man from monkeys and stuff that proponents of ID would argue, and that's the portion you'd throw out if it were proven that it was false. You would agree, wouldn't you? To disagree would be rather intellectually dishonest of you.

And, presupposing that there was some intelligent designer, which the OP did stipulate, then it was created because of an intelligent designer. That's just a tautology and you can't argue against that.

Honestly, I must disagree with that. I think it's entirely possible for an ID proponent to say that the designer built DNA and the other base components of life and allowed life to progress on its own. Also, one other possibility which ID proponents typically don't say is that some species could be designed and built as they are, and others could have evolved. Isn't that possible? It seems so to me if you believe in ID.

A huge problem I have with ID is that ID proponents typically say that species are fixed. That's just an impossibility in my opinion, since species don't truly exist. (I think that's a huge discussion for another thread.)

 

[LightFang]

Honestly, I must disagree with that. I think it's entirely possible for an ID proponent to say that the designer built DNA and the other base components of life and allowed life to progress on its own. Also, one other possibility which ID proponents typically don't say is that some species could be designed and built as they are, and others could have evolved. Isn't that possible? It seems so to me if you believe in ID.

A huge problem I have with ID is that ID proponents typically say that species are fixed. That's just an impossibility in my opinion, since species don't truly exist. (I think that's a huge discussion for another thread.)

Well, in my humble experience, most people who believe in ID have just dressed up creationism, so...

Although that was indeed a distinction that I had been trying to make with other people. I guess it's tantamount of how ID is just another moniker for creationism that I fell into that trap too.

Note: Excepting theistic evolution, of course.

Also, congratulations on your letter. Post the response for us!

You may also wish to try Answers in Genesis. They might publish your e-mail and post the response up publicly!

 

[AngryZealot]

A huge problem I have with ID is that ID proponents typically say that species are fixed. That's just an impossibility in my opinion, since species don't truly exist. (I think that's a huge discussion for another thread.)

Not to derail too much, but I think this is an important point that doesn't get discussed enough. Biologically speaking, "species" is just a fuzzy concept so we as humans can categorize things. The term doesn't make any sense from an evolutionary perspective. Moreover it's entirely skewed to a multicellular viewpoint, and completely breaks down for single-cell organisms. Nature doesn't care what a species is or isn't. When a creationist talks about turning one species into another, how do you respond to that? How do you explain without looking arrogant that much of their perception of biology is wrong?

 

[BasketCase]

How about Intelligent Evolution, then? Is that an acceptable notion?

Nope. In fact, that first word might actually be counterproductive.

Bacteria are not intelligent at all--but they evolve. In fact, they evolve much faster than humans do.

 

[aelf]

Nope. In fact, that first word might actually be counterproductive.

Bacteria are not intelligent at all--but they evolve. In fact, they evolve much faster than humans do.

As in God makes living things evolve, or makes living things such that they would evolve. We already have Occasionalism and Perfect Harmony anyway.