moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<!--QuoteBegin-radforChrist+Aug 4 2005, 02:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (radforChrist @ Aug 4 2005, 02:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Black Mage+Aug 4 2005, 02:21 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Black Mage @ Aug 4 2005, 02:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> rad, i want this "scientific evidence" <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Search for it. Not my job to prove it, just tell you it's not something to casually throw out. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> No, but you do have to show <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability' target='_blank'>Falsifiability</a>.
Here's a better, completely hypothetical, example. For this example, we will assume that Earthlike evolution has a 1/10 percent chance of happening on a planet. If it happens, the planet will be like Earth. If it does not happen, the planet will be like Mars.
Now, imagine ten planets all with that same 1/10 chance for successful evolution (and as such, all of these planets are very similar in physical makeup). Imagine if you examine these same ten planets many thousands of years afterwards and you find, on one out of the ten, a race with the exact same mental capacity as a human being. The other nine planets are deserted.
You talk with these creatures and you learn from them that they, by some means, know that they and the other creatures on their planet are the only sentient beings that they know of in their immediate vicinity. As far as they are concerned, they are the only living planet in existence.
Now, when asked the question of how they believe they got there, what do you think they would answer?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Around the net I’ve seen this expression come up called ‘turtles all the way down’, usually referenced to intelligent design. The term comes from a story, of unknown source as it seems to come up often from different people, where essentially a famous lecturer was giving a talk on astronomy. After he was finished a little old lady came down and told him he had it all wrong.
“The world is really on the back of a giant tortoise” the woman said to which the scientist asked, in an attempt to stump her most likely, “Well then, what is the tortoise standing on?” To this the lady triumphantly replied “You’re very clever young man, but it’s of no use – it’s turtles all the way down”.
In many respects this is the problem that intelligent design faces when it proposes a ‘designer’ is natural. For example, when we take Dembski mathematics, fancy as they are and apply it to the designer we find, unsurprisingly, that the designer must himself be designed. If we do the same thing again, we find that each designer in turn requires another designer. Eventually, we have an infinite regress of designers, each one designing the previous one; turtles all the way down in other words.
The solution to this problem from ID, but the one they refuse to admit, is that inevitably they must admit somewhere down the line that there is a supernatural designer. Essentially a designer that according to their own ideas doesn’t require being designed first by something else and can do the ‘initial’ designer. Now this doesn’t invalidate immediately that we may have been designed as some assert. We could be the product of design from an alien race that was really created by a supernatural entity to begin with for whatever purpose- it is just that we have a perfectly good explanation in evolution already.
Unfortunately, when we meet that race and share tea we suddenly end up at square one anyway: What designed our designers? It’s not surprising to me that those who want to masquerade ID as some form of ‘valid’ science suddenly become completely allergic to this concept and try to explain it away as fast as possible. Essentially, they want to have their pet concept that things were ‘designed’ yet they don’t want to deal with explaining how it was designed.
For example, let us just say that there is some biological structure we want to know is designed. As scientists, natural questions arise such as how did the designer produce the structure in question, what method did the designer use and why did the designer make the particular structure in that matter. More importantly, they need to make a hypothesis that competes with the evolutionary hypothesis and provides a better explanation not just a explanation. The explanation of a designer must account for the methods, reasons and motivations for making that structure to be conclusive.
For example, let’s say there is a new terrible disease that has struck the world and is beginning to kill hundreds of people world wide. How could we tell if this is an organism that has evolved by chance or that it has been designed by terrorists wanting to use it as a biological weapon (say it escaped). We would have two competing hypotheses immediately for the origin of this disease, but not because of the ideas of the ‘intelligent design’ movement, but rather because of something we do know: We know about human designers.
Firstly, I would try to isolate the organism that is responsible, most likely a virus of some sort and then isolate its DNA to sequence it. Once sequenced, in other words we have the ‘code’ of nucleotides (Adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) that make up this organisms DNA. We could infer it to be designed by humans or that it evolved by looking at this organisms genome.
In the case of a human designer, we could look at the series of genes and how they are linked together in the organisms DNA. Commonly used in the laboratory are enzymes called ‘restriction enzymes’ that cut DNA at specific locations. Importantly in genetic engineering, they leave little overhangs of the DNA strand they cut allowing you to ‘stitch’ the DNA fragments they produce together. This is important in making transgenic animals and producing novel gene clusters (for example to insert a gene into an expression system like a plasmid).
If we saw a series of genes along the organisms genome that look to have restriction enzymes placed exactly between each one, that would almost be ‘smoking’ gun evidence that this may have been an organism designed by human beings. If we look further and we find genes that would have been difficult, if not impossible to have been captured through horizontal gene transfer, such as entire genes of the human immune system like IL-4 (which when inserted into mousepox virus made it much more lethal) then that would be even better evidence for this organism being designed.
On the other hand, this hypothesis still has to compete with the current scientific understanding of evolution. We already know that viruses can exchange segments of DNA if they co-infect the same cell as another virus, and that bacteriophages can capture pieces of DNA from bacteria and transfer them togother species. Additionally, retroviruses can insert themselves into the genomes of their host, being a potential explanation for the origin of a human gene.
But again, I want to emphasise something we’re talking about an organism being detected by design yes, but because we know of the methods of the potential designer. As ID proponents often point out while they sneeze half to death, ID isn’t about trying to work out what the designer is or the methods that it used, just that somehow life is designed.
But let’s review that more carefully:
1) Life is designed 2) The mechanism of this design is not something we want to talk about 3) Ergo, if we don’t want to talk about a mechanism then by default we are admitting we can’t talk about the designer 4) With no mechanism or designer, how do you infer design at all to begin with?
Let’s go back over my potential bioweapon example
1) A new organism is discovered and it may have been a designed weapon 2) We know 1 could be possible, because human beings have the ability to manipulate the genetics of living organisms, using restriction enzymes, plasmids we’ve ‘domesticated’ and other techniques. 3) We know that humans would have the motivations to make such a deadly organism because biological weapons have been used in the past. 4) As we know 2 and we know 3, we can directly test 1 to establish if it was designed or not because we have suitable grounds to determine this by the methodology and knowledge of a potential designer (human beings).
Additionally, unlike claims of ‘design’ from most ID members, this is also inherently falsifiable logic because we can rule that another mechanism (evolution) may be a much better explanation. In fact, it may be it was simply an example of a newly evolved pathogen but it would at least in both cases be testable as to the origin of the newly derived organism.
Inherently ID has the problem where it is incapable and indeed unwilling to talk about their ‘designer’. They know, just as well as their opponent’s, that ultimately ID rests on no true empirical or testable ground without having an actual verified designer. There is no way for them to ever rule out evolution, which itself, has numerous testable and falsifiable claims about the organisms and structures we see. Without a way of providing the mechanism of design or the designer, they provide no logical reason to infer any sort of design in human beings or anything else for that matter.
ID is, without a designer and refusing to talk about anything to do with said designer isn’t “God-of-the-gaps”. ID is “No-designer-at-all-to-put-into-the-gaps” which is even worse, because at least with “God-of-the-gaps” you at least have named the designer. Even when you have you then end up at square one if that designer was natural, who designed them? Then it's back to turtles all the way down.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm just going to save Aegeri the trouble of having to write something out and post this. We all know that he's going to come along eventually and destroy ID, but this will speed things along. I really recommend you read that entire thread I linked to.
<!--QuoteBegin-moultano+Aug 4 2005, 02:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (moultano @ Aug 4 2005, 02:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-radforChrist+Aug 4 2005, 02:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (radforChrist @ Aug 4 2005, 02:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Black Mage+Aug 4 2005, 02:21 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Black Mage @ Aug 4 2005, 02:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> rad, i want this "scientific evidence" <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Search for it. Not my job to prove it, just tell you it's not something to casually throw out. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> No, but you do have to show <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability' target='_blank'>Falsifiability</a>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Touche. Agreed. Well, there are great books out there, but the real web based resources to links I know of are somewhat political in basis, and, although there are resources to scientific arguments, there are political and grassroots campainging too. Please understand I am not necessarily endorsing such activities, I am just providing these as a resource for those interested. I am not a scholar in this information, and I will gladly discuss to a point, however I am in no way an authority.
Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span>
From the Wikipedia page: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Occam's Razor is now usually stated as follows:
<i>Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.</i>
As this is ambiguous, Isaac Newton's version may be better:
<i>We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Creationism and evolution are hardly equivalent. (:
well... using ockham's razor what would make lightbulbs work? the complex physics of electricity currents we use to super-heat a filament that glows with such brightness it's enough to light a room... or that light-bulbs are run by elves? :p
seriously though; evolution isn't complex. You can pretty much sum it up in 4 words; "survival of the fittest".
oh and... <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A more straightforward application of the Razor is when we are faced with two theories which have the same predictions and the available data cannot distinguish between them. In this case the Razor directs us to study in depth the simplest of the theories. It does not guarantee that the simplest theory will be correct, it merely establishes priorities.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since we can't really 'study' ID too much people moved onto evolution and found a lot of stuff that was convincing :p
<!--QuoteBegin-Quaunaut+Aug 4 2005, 07:34 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Quaunaut @ Aug 4 2005, 07:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Even the statistics say that there are more people believing in evolution than Christianity, and thats a wholly view, not a crisscross view. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> >_>
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Its not as simple as "god did it"
First you have to suppose that there is some metaphysical other realm that interacts with our universe in ways undetectible to science, but that can have definite effects on the physical world. That is to say, these interactions only exist where no one can see them. This requires a whole lot more invented structure than the various formulations of evolution which merely requires that physical law works as we have observed it to.
<!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Occam's razor also states that the fewer assumptions made, the better. Seeing as how the only evidence of God is faith (as far as I am concerned, God is one big assumption), I fail to see how creationism has any relevance or sensibility.
If I wanted to describe the process of evolution I would say: "nature created everything."
Lightbulbs would be much more fun if there were little fairies trapped in them though. You could even shake them if you needed more light. "Shine brighter, little fairy thing!" *shake shake* But thanks for the clarification.
AllUrHiveRblong2usBy Your Powers Combined...Join Date: 2002-12-20Member: 11244Members
<!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
QuaunautThe longest seven days in history...Join Date: 2003-03-21Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--QuoteBegin-AllUrHiveRblong2us+Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AllUrHiveRblong2us @ Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions?
<!--QuoteBegin-Geminosity+Aug 4 2005, 04:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geminosity @ Aug 4 2005, 04:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> seriously though; evolution isn't complex. You can pretty much sum it up in 4 words; "survival of the fittest". <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> If this were 1870, you'd be correct. However, Darwin's original theory about natural selection was quite incomplete because he never met a priest by the name of Gregor Mendel.
Now, evolution can be summarized by defining it as change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.
<!--QuoteBegin-Quaunaut+Aug 4 2005, 04:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Quaunaut @ Aug 4 2005, 04:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-AllUrHiveRblong2us+Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AllUrHiveRblong2us @ Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Hold on hold on. What possible proof has anybody ever found of creationism?
I just use ID with the 'clockwork' setup from 1800s Transcendentalism to explain the beginning of the universe. Sure, we've got "The Big Bang"...but where doees this bang come from. And thus, I'm forced (at the moment) to restort to a possibly metaphysical being.
...it's either that or that the universe has been expanding and contracting (and thus making time infinite and non-existant) for all eternity...and for an instant...except that the universe seems to be permanently expanding, so I had to debunk this after I found out 8 years ago.
Anyway, I just think that 'the creator' set up every atom, sub-atomic particle, photon, etc. Just how he wanted them, and then let them explode into the universe. And if he was truly omni-potent (or at least all-knowing), he knew what the result of his creation would be (as in, he would know evolution would lead where it leads), but it isn't personally directed. It's just the result of how it was in the beginning. And thus my idea (maybe it doesn't quite match the definition) of ID fits perfectly well with evolution because my ID functions as the initial point in time.
This is kind of the problem with the Big Bang...as in, sure, it might be plausible...but explosions don't just start...stuff doesn't come from nothing (sure break out the nuclear physics...but then the energy to make that stuff doesn't come out of nothing).
...And that's kind of how it has to be anyway; you've got to start somewhere to get to where you are now.
Hopefully that makes sense.
On to a few other things: Depot: Your 'young hipster' antics scare me. I'm only 20 and I've never dared spell dude as "dood" or USA as "you ess uv ay." And thusly, you are weird.
At school stuff: My school (which apparently must have been liberal or sane or something), did not require the Pledge of Allegience, although it was optional during annoucements at 3rd period; with or without God. Also, Religion is only taught as a sub-order of Social Studies. And finally: evolution was only taught as an off-shoot of genetics, as a theory (...because it is one <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ). ID was actually taught as a small unit in Literature History (or...11th Grade English...whatever), since it was popular with Intellectuals in the 1800s and such. Though, they tended to be Christian IDs (...but I have no idea how <i>that</i> works...).
Science is very picky. There are very few laws. Gravity, Newtonian mechanics, Thermaldynamics [and entropy is ever-increasing in the universe (unless it starts shrinking), but that doesn't mean order does not occasionaly arise. Not much else comes to mind off-hand...
<!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Aug 4 2005, 05:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Aug 4 2005, 05:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> On to a few other things: Depot: Your 'young hipster' antics scare me. I'm only 20 and I've never dared spell dude as "dood" or USA as "you ess uv ay." And thusly, you are weird. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Why thank ya! <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Quaunaut+Aug 4 2005, 04:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Quaunaut @ Aug 4 2005, 04:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Wiggy wiggy what?
Evolution is fact. It's been witnessed in many species, all of which reproduce at a rate a little faster than 5 to 7 generations per century. Bacteria can develop antibiotic resistance very quickly. Mosquitos developed resistance to DDT. It's amazing just how fast a species can evolve if it can reproduce rapidly.
To preempt any "micro- vs macro-" debate, macroevolution is just microevolution over a long period of time.
ID requires a huge amount of assumptions even if you don't stipulate a supernatural creator. First, it requires life from some other part of the universe. This life must not only exist, but possess intelligence, presumably well beyond our own if it is to be capable of designing the ecosystem of this world. That raises the rather thorny question of "where did the aliens come from?" In an astounding display of undermining their own credibility, IDers won't go anywhere near that. Either aliens evolved naturally, meaning evolution is true or something designed the aliens. If we apply Dembski's fuzzy maths to our naturalistic designers, we find that they must have a designer as well.
To keep ID within the sphere of science, we are left with an infinite regression of designers. The only way to escape this regression is to introduce a supernatural designer, which is the entire point of the ID movement.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just use ID with the 'clockwork' setup from 1800s Transcendentalism to explain the beginning of the universe.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The watchmaker argument has been refuted numerous times.
<!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Aug 4 2005, 01:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Aug 4 2005, 01:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just use ID with the 'clockwork' setup from 1800s Transcendentalism to explain the beginning of the universe. Sure, we've got "The Big Bang"...but where doees this bang come from. And thus, I'm forced (at the moment) to restort to a possibly metaphysical being. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The big bang comes from a moment before our linear conception of time (i.e., the only form of time that has meaning to us). Thus, not only is it pointless to think about where it "came from", it is also impossible to know.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->At school stuff: My school (which apparently must have been liberal or sane or something)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow... must be nice to go to a place like that. Me, I spent a good portion of the last year trying to convince people that evolution was true, homosexuals were not evil, that we DID land on the moon, and that, essentially, science exists.
<!--QuoteBegin-Quaunaut+Aug 4 2005, 01:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Quaunaut @ Aug 4 2005, 01:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-AllUrHiveRblong2us+Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AllUrHiveRblong2us @ Aug 4 2005, 02:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-lolfighter+Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (lolfighter @ Aug 4 2005, 03:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Well then, let me play the <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate' target='_blank'>devil's advocate</a> here, and challenge the 'scientific camp': How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything. Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this? The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I'd just like to say that we shouldn't drag Occam's Razor into this. Occam's Razor works for things like a scene where theres a dead body, and a man holding a gun. Once you get into more complex scientific topics, such as a good deal of biology, quantum physics, et cetera, it shouldn't be used as the end-all-be-all of arguements.
Marik_SteeleTo rule in hell...Join Date: 2002-11-20Member: 9466Members
edited August 2005
I doubt people would disagree with my decision if I moved this from off-topic to Discussions. Here it goes...
[edit]I also took the liberty of changing the thread title. Bush dislikers, don't worry, I didn't do it because I wanted a less anti-Bush title. I did it because Bush (hell, any politician, for that matter) does nutty stuff too often for the previous title to be descriptive <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Mantrid+Aug 4 2005, 05:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Mantrid @ Aug 4 2005, 05:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Aug 4 2005, 01:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Aug 4 2005, 01:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just use ID with the 'clockwork' setup from 1800s Transcendentalism to explain the beginning of the universe. Sure, we've got "The Big Bang"...but where doees this bang come from. And thus, I'm forced (at the moment) to restort to a possibly metaphysical being. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The big bang comes from a moment before our linear conception of time (i.e., the only form of time that has meaning to us). Thus, not only is it pointless to think about where it "came from", it is also impossible to know. exists. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> But in truth, that relies just as much on untested science as ID does. The fact that the initial explosion had to have been infinitely existant, but to have suddenly exploded becomes just as plausible as 'maybe it was just spontaneously apparent' thing I've got going on. Either way you need an initial event to change it in some fundamental way.
[Which turns out to be more efficient as saying for The Finch what I typed out before this was phased: Comparing life to an actual clock is idiotic. There's a reason I'm not living in a hut writing about nature while I throw my 'rock paperweight' out the window for wasting my time. It's more like finding a nugget of pyrite and thinking, "Hmmm, I wonder why Pyrite exists..." than finding a clock and thinking, "Hmm, this clock was made by someone and dropped here."
And my aspect of 'this creator set up stuff how he wanted' can be removed as well, as it could just be a "Hey, Godscomputer [God used for lack of appropriate creator word or just spontaneous creation], randomly generate me a world."...but that seems useless...but just as plausible.
<!--QuoteBegin-Metalcat+Aug 4 2005, 12:35 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Metalcat @ Aug 4 2005, 12:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-moultano+Aug 4 2005, 12:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (moultano @ Aug 4 2005, 12:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Regardless of the plausibility of Intelligent Design, there is one reason that it can never be considered science. You can not create an experiment whose outcome could disprove it. The most accurate way to think about science, is that it isn't in the business of proving things right. It is in the business of proving things wrong. Those things that it can't prove wrong after years and years of trying, science gradually accepts to be right. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> i say its damn easy to disprove it, you just look at the world, does a new planet suddenly pop up? no, it comes from the result of supernovas <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Everything was created by nightowls. Yup. This post is relevent
Of course, with a lot of ID arguements, that ask, "How could life be so complex but be naturally occuring?", you can usually just employ the Anthropic Principle, and state that it couldn't be any other way, or we wouldn't be here.
<!--QuoteBegin-The Finch+Aug 4 2005, 03:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Finch @ Aug 4 2005, 03:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Aegeri! I choose you!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->CLIP But let’s review that more carefully:
1) Life is designed 2) The mechanism of this design is not something we want to talk about 3) Ergo, if we don’t want to talk about a mechanism then by default we are admitting we can’t talk about the designer 4) With no mechanism or designer, how do you infer design at all to begin with?
CLIP
Inherently ID has the problem where it is incapable and indeed unwilling to talk about their ‘designer’. They know, just as well as their opponent’s, that ultimately ID rests on no true empirical or testable ground without having an actual verified designer. There is no way for them to ever rule out evolution, which itself, has numerous testable and falsifiable claims about the organisms and structures we see. Without a way of providing the mechanism of design or the designer, they provide no logical reason to infer any sort of design in human beings or anything else for that matter.
ID is, without a designer and refusing to talk about anything to do with said designer isn’t “God-of-the-gaps”. ID is “No-designer-at-all-to-put-into-the-gaps” which is even worse, because at least with “God-of-the-gaps” you at least have named the designer. Even when you have you then end up at square one if that designer was natural, who designed them? Then it's back to turtles all the way down.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You don't honestly think most IDers haven't thought about what designer they are implying, do you? There may indeed be some, but most IDers know perfectly well that their line of logic leads straight to a supernatural creator.
So why do they usually refuse to mention him in debates? Because as soon as someone mentions a supernatural <i>anything</i>, all the people on your side of the aisle leap up, point their fingers, and shout, "Hah! We knew all along you were just a religious zealot! Begone, and take your God theory with you!" And thats the end of the debate.
The only way to have any rational debate is to intentionally avoid mentioning God until the very end, even if it is somewhat illogical.
We're all part of a complex simulations run in the 'real' dimension, where the people running the simulation actually know answers to the questions like these for their 'universe.' Of course, it's kind of like that episode of Home Improvement where Wilson says, "My greatest fear is that the the world is someone's dream, and eventually they'll wake up." And I thought, I've had a thought like that [but without the fear, because who really cares?].
Although, that might be going off the topic of Intelligent Design. I'd still like to stress that for me, it's not a God, so much as it's a necessary point of origin for the big bang.
This whole "origin of the big bang" question is one of the biggest proofs for me that there MUST be a God. I went through this in some detail in an older thread--cant remember which one now. I don't really feel like reposting the arguments right now, unless someone asks me too.
<!--QuoteBegin-The Finch+Aug 4 2005, 04:39 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Finch @ Aug 4 2005, 04:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Now, evolution can be summarized by defining it as change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I just had to pick on this one.
While this is a nice definition of Evolution for the sake of proving it real (how can anyone argue that allele frequencies don't change?), its an ineffective definition for several other questions that Evolution is commonly used to answer.
Specifically, this definition provides no explanation for the ORIGIN of either those alleles, or that population. Both of them have to pre-exist for this evolution to accomplish anything.
Now, I know that there are THEORIES to account for both of these questions, but they have been left out of the definition precisely because they are not as easily established as fact. If you use the above definition, Evolution just about proves itself. But it doesn't make very many useful predictions until you start including mechanism theories, none of which are proven.
Refusing to provide the mechanism theories while arguing for Evolution is in fact very similar to refusing to identify the Creator while discussing Intelligent Design--funny how that works both ways, huh?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You don't honestly think most IDers haven't thought about what designer they are implying, do you? There may indeed be some, but most IDers know perfectly well that their line of logic leads straight to a supernatural creator.
So why do they usually refuse to mention him in debates? Because as soon as someone mentions a supernatural anything, all the people on your side of the aisle leap up, point their fingers, and shout, "Hah! We knew all along you were just a religious zealot! Begone, and take your God theory with you!" And thats the end of the debate.
The only way to have any rational debate is to intentionally avoid mentioning God until the very end, even if it is somewhat illogical.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course IDers know that the designer must be supernatural. IDers don't mention God, or even a natural designer because both questions demolish ID as a scientific theory.
1. ID maintains that our designers could be natural, but ID offers no explaination as to who these designers are or how they came to be. 2. ID stipulates to a supernatural creator, firmly removing ID from the bounds of anything remotely scientific since it can't be falsified.
Your attempts to paint this as evil dogmatic atheists and mean evolutionary scientists persecuting the hapless Christians and IDers has failed. It is not short-sighted, malicious or bigoted to reject ID as unscientific. If you want to have a metaphysical discussion about the ramifications of a supernatural being, particularly an all powerful one, by all means let's start a new thread. However, that discussion doesn't belong in a biology classroom and it certainly doesn't deserve equal weight or consideration as evolution.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just had to pick on this one.
While this is a nice definition of Evolution for the sake of proving it real (how can anyone argue that allele frequencies don't change?), its an ineffective definition for several other questions that Evolution is commonly used to answer.
Specifically, this definition provides no explanation for the ORIGIN of either those alleles, or that population. Both of them have to pre-exist for this evolution to accomplish anything. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What you're describing is known as <i>abiogenesis.</i> It is not an unpioneered field and to say that we know nothing of it is erroneous. There have been many experiments into the origin of amino acids and the conditions in which they could exist.
<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey' target='_blank'>Miller-Urey Experiment</a> <a href='http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_33AR.html' target='_blank'>Deep Space Amino Acids</a> <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis' target='_blank'>Wiki on Abiogenesis</a>
The inherent difference between ID and science is that science doesn't know, but has a few ideas. ID has no qualms about saying that it was a creator that can't be falsified and they know nothing about.
Comments
Search for it. Not my job to prove it, just tell you it's not something to casually throw out. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, but you do have to show <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability' target='_blank'>Falsifiability</a>.
Now, imagine ten planets all with that same 1/10 chance for successful evolution (and as such, all of these planets are very similar in physical makeup). Imagine if you examine these same ten planets many thousands of years afterwards and you find, on one out of the ten, a race with the exact same mental capacity as a human being. The other nine planets are deserted.
You talk with these creatures and you learn from them that they, by some means, know that they and the other creatures on their planet are the only sentient beings that they know of in their immediate vicinity. As far as they are concerned, they are the only living planet in existence.
Now, when asked the question of how they believe they got there, what do you think they would answer?
<a href='http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=191383&highlight=' target='_blank'>http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtop...1383&highlight=</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Around the net I’ve seen this expression come up called ‘turtles all the way down’, usually referenced to intelligent design. The term comes from a story, of unknown source as it seems to come up often from different people, where essentially a famous lecturer was giving a talk on astronomy. After he was finished a little old lady came down and told him he had it all wrong.
“The world is really on the back of a giant tortoise” the woman said to which the scientist asked, in an attempt to stump her most likely, “Well then, what is the tortoise standing on?” To this the lady triumphantly replied “You’re very clever young man, but it’s of no use – it’s turtles all the way down”.
In many respects this is the problem that intelligent design faces when it proposes a ‘designer’ is natural. For example, when we take Dembski mathematics, fancy as they are and apply it to the designer we find, unsurprisingly, that the designer must himself be designed. If we do the same thing again, we find that each designer in turn requires another designer. Eventually, we have an infinite regress of designers, each one designing the previous one; turtles all the way down in other words.
The solution to this problem from ID, but the one they refuse to admit, is that inevitably they must admit somewhere down the line that there is a supernatural designer. Essentially a designer that according to their own ideas doesn’t require being designed first by something else and can do the ‘initial’ designer. Now this doesn’t invalidate immediately that we may have been designed as some assert. We could be the product of design from an alien race that was really created by a supernatural entity to begin with for whatever purpose- it is just that we have a perfectly good explanation in evolution already.
Unfortunately, when we meet that race and share tea we suddenly end up at square one anyway: What designed our designers? It’s not surprising to me that those who want to masquerade ID as some form of ‘valid’ science suddenly become completely allergic to this concept and try to explain it away as fast as possible. Essentially, they want to have their pet concept that things were ‘designed’ yet they don’t want to deal with explaining how it was designed.
For example, let us just say that there is some biological structure we want to know is designed. As scientists, natural questions arise such as how did the designer produce the structure in question, what method did the designer use and why did the designer make the particular structure in that matter. More importantly, they need to make a hypothesis that competes with the evolutionary hypothesis and provides a better explanation not just a explanation. The explanation of a designer must account for the methods, reasons and motivations for making that structure to be conclusive.
For example, let’s say there is a new terrible disease that has struck the world and is beginning to kill hundreds of people world wide. How could we tell if this is an organism that has evolved by chance or that it has been designed by terrorists wanting to use it as a biological weapon (say it escaped). We would have two competing hypotheses immediately for the origin of this disease, but not because of the ideas of the ‘intelligent design’ movement, but rather because of something we do know:
We know about human designers.
Firstly, I would try to isolate the organism that is responsible, most likely a virus of some sort and then isolate its DNA to sequence it. Once sequenced, in other words we have the ‘code’ of nucleotides (Adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) that make up this organisms DNA. We could infer it to be designed by humans or that it evolved by looking at this organisms genome.
In the case of a human designer, we could look at the series of genes and how they are linked together in the organisms DNA. Commonly used in the laboratory are enzymes called ‘restriction enzymes’ that cut DNA at specific locations. Importantly in genetic engineering, they leave little overhangs of the DNA strand they cut allowing you to ‘stitch’ the DNA fragments they produce together. This is important in making transgenic animals and producing novel gene clusters (for example to insert a gene into an expression system like a plasmid).
If we saw a series of genes along the organisms genome that look to have restriction enzymes placed exactly between each one, that would almost be ‘smoking’ gun evidence that this may have been an organism designed by human beings. If we look further and we find genes that would have been difficult, if not impossible to have been captured through horizontal gene transfer, such as entire genes of the human immune system like IL-4 (which when inserted into mousepox virus made it much more lethal) then that would be even better evidence for this organism being designed.
On the other hand, this hypothesis still has to compete with the current scientific understanding of evolution. We already know that viruses can exchange segments of DNA if they co-infect the same cell as another virus, and that bacteriophages can capture pieces of DNA from bacteria and transfer them togother species. Additionally, retroviruses can insert themselves into the genomes of their host, being a potential explanation for the origin of a human gene.
But again, I want to emphasise something we’re talking about an organism being detected by design yes, but because we know of the methods of the potential designer. As ID proponents often point out while they sneeze half to death, ID isn’t about trying to work out what the designer is or the methods that it used, just that somehow life is designed.
But let’s review that more carefully:
1) Life is designed
2) The mechanism of this design is not something we want to talk about
3) Ergo, if we don’t want to talk about a mechanism then by default we are admitting we can’t talk about the designer
4) With no mechanism or designer, how do you infer design at all to begin with?
Let’s go back over my potential bioweapon example
1) A new organism is discovered and it may have been a designed weapon
2) We know 1 could be possible, because human beings have the ability to manipulate the genetics of living organisms, using restriction enzymes, plasmids we’ve ‘domesticated’ and other techniques.
3) We know that humans would have the motivations to make such a deadly organism because biological weapons have been used in the past.
4) As we know 2 and we know 3, we can directly test 1 to establish if it was designed or not because we have suitable grounds to determine this by the methodology and knowledge of a potential designer (human beings).
Additionally, unlike claims of ‘design’ from most ID members, this is also inherently falsifiable logic because we can rule that another mechanism (evolution) may be a much better explanation. In fact, it may be it was simply an example of a newly evolved pathogen but it would at least in both cases be testable as to the origin of the newly derived organism.
Inherently ID has the problem where it is incapable and indeed unwilling to talk about their ‘designer’. They know, just as well as their opponent’s, that ultimately ID rests on no true empirical or testable ground without having an actual verified designer. There is no way for them to ever rule out evolution, which itself, has numerous testable and falsifiable claims about the organisms and structures we see. Without a way of providing the mechanism of design or the designer, they provide no logical reason to infer any sort of design in human beings or anything else for that matter.
ID is, without a designer and refusing to talk about anything to do with said designer isn’t “God-of-the-gaps”. ID is “No-designer-at-all-to-put-into-the-gaps” which is even worse, because at least with “God-of-the-gaps” you at least have named the designer. Even when you have you then end up at square one if that designer was natural, who designed them? Then it's back to turtles all the way down.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm just going to save Aegeri the trouble of having to write something out and post this. We all know that he's going to come along eventually and destroy ID, but this will speed things along. I really recommend you read that entire thread I linked to.
Search for it. Not my job to prove it, just tell you it's not something to casually throw out. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, but you do have to show <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability' target='_blank'>Falsifiability</a>. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Touche. Agreed. Well, there are great books out there, but the real web based resources to links I know of are somewhat political in basis, and, although there are resources to scientific arguments, there are political and grassroots campainging too. Please understand I am not necessarily endorsing such activities, I am just providing these as a resource for those interested. I am not a scholar in this information, and I will gladly discuss to a point, however I am in no way an authority.
<a href='http://www.discovery.org/csc/' target='_blank'>Link1</a>
<a href='http://www.trueorigin.org/' target='_blank'>Link 2 (better IMO)</a>
<a href='http://www.designinference.com/' target='_blank'>Link 3</a>
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Occam's Razor is now usually stated as follows:
<i>Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.</i>
As this is ambiguous, Isaac Newton's version may be better:
<i>We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Creationism and evolution are hardly equivalent. (:
seriously though; evolution isn't complex. You can pretty much sum it up in 4 words; "survival of the fittest".
oh and... <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A more straightforward application of the Razor is when we are faced with two theories which have the same predictions and the available data cannot distinguish between them. In this case the Razor directs us to study in depth the simplest of the theories. It does not guarantee that the simplest theory will be correct, it merely establishes priorities.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since we can't really 'study' ID too much people moved onto evolution and found a lot of stuff that was convincing :p
>_>
<_<
...Maybe even a...<b>holy</b>...view...
On the other hand, Evolution explains everything while using only the things that we know.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its not as simple as "god did it"
First you have to suppose that there is some metaphysical other realm that interacts with our universe in ways undetectible to science, but that can have definite effects on the physical world. That is to say, these interactions only exist where no one can see them. This requires a whole lot more invented structure than the various formulations of evolution which merely requires that physical law works as we have observed it to.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Occam's razor also states that the fewer assumptions made, the better. Seeing as how the only evidence of God is faith (as far as I am concerned, God is one big assumption), I fail to see how creationism has any relevance or sensibility.
If I wanted to describe the process of evolution I would say: "nature created everything."
But thanks for the clarification.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions?
If this were 1870, you'd be correct. However, Darwin's original theory about natural selection was quite incomplete because he never met a priest by the name of Gregor Mendel.
Now, evolution can be summarized by defining it as change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hold on hold on. What possible proof has anybody ever found of creationism?
...it's either that or that the universe has been expanding and contracting (and thus making time infinite and non-existant) for all eternity...and for an instant...except that the universe seems to be permanently expanding, so I had to debunk this after I found out 8 years ago.
Anyway, I just think that 'the creator' set up every atom, sub-atomic particle, photon, etc. Just how he wanted them, and then let them explode into the universe. And if he was truly omni-potent (or at least all-knowing), he knew what the result of his creation would be (as in, he would know evolution would lead where it leads), but it isn't personally directed. It's just the result of how it was in the beginning. And thus my idea (maybe it doesn't quite match the definition) of ID fits perfectly well with evolution because my ID functions as the initial point in time.
This is kind of the problem with the Big Bang...as in, sure, it might be plausible...but explosions don't just start...stuff doesn't come from nothing (sure break out the nuclear physics...but then the energy to make that stuff doesn't come out of nothing).
...And that's kind of how it has to be anyway; you've got to start somewhere to get to where you are now.
Hopefully that makes sense.
On to a few other things:
Depot: Your 'young hipster' antics scare me. I'm only 20 and I've never dared spell dude as "dood" or USA as "you ess uv ay." And thusly, you are weird.
At school stuff:
My school (which apparently must have been liberal or sane or something), did not require the Pledge of Allegience, although it was optional during annoucements at 3rd period; with or without God. Also, Religion is only taught as a sub-order of Social Studies. And finally: evolution was only taught as an off-shoot of genetics, as a theory (...because it is one <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ). ID was actually taught as a small unit in Literature History (or...11th Grade English...whatever), since it was popular with Intellectuals in the 1800s and such. Though, they tended to be Christian IDs (...but I have no idea how <i>that</i> works...).
Science is very picky. There are very few laws. Gravity, Newtonian mechanics, Thermaldynamics [and entropy is ever-increasing in the universe (unless it starts shrinking), but that doesn't mean order does not occasionaly arise. Not much else comes to mind off-hand...
Depot: Your 'young hipster' antics scare me. I'm only 20 and I've never dared spell dude as "dood" or USA as "you ess uv ay." And thusly, you are weird. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why thank ya! <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Wiggy wiggy what?
Evolution is fact. It's been witnessed in many species, all of which reproduce at a rate a little faster than 5 to 7 generations per century. Bacteria can develop antibiotic resistance very quickly. Mosquitos developed resistance to DDT. It's amazing just how fast a species can evolve if it can reproduce rapidly.
To preempt any "micro- vs macro-" debate, macroevolution is just microevolution over a long period of time.
ID requires a huge amount of assumptions even if you don't stipulate a supernatural creator. First, it requires life from some other part of the universe. This life must not only exist, but possess intelligence, presumably well beyond our own if it is to be capable of designing the ecosystem of this world. That raises the rather thorny question of "where did the aliens come from?" In an astounding display of undermining their own credibility, IDers won't go anywhere near that. Either aliens evolved naturally, meaning evolution is true or something designed the aliens. If we apply Dembski's fuzzy maths to our naturalistic designers, we find that they must have a designer as well.
To keep ID within the sphere of science, we are left with an infinite regression of designers. The only way to escape this regression is to introduce a supernatural designer, which is the entire point of the ID movement.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just use ID with the 'clockwork' setup from 1800s Transcendentalism to explain the beginning of the universe.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The watchmaker argument has been refuted numerous times.
<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy</a>
The big bang comes from a moment before our linear conception of time (i.e., the only form of time that has meaning to us). Thus, not only is it pointless to think about where it "came from", it is also impossible to know.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->At school stuff:
My school (which apparently must have been liberal or sane or something)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow... must be nice to go to a place like that. Me, I spent a good portion of the last year trying to convince people that evolution was true, homosexuals were not evil, that we DID land on the moon, and that, essentially, science exists.
How does the theory of evolution hold up against <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor' target='_blank'>Ockham's razor</a> when wielded by creationism? On one hand, we have evolution, which is arguably a complicated and detailed theory. On the other hand, we have creationism, which is very simple: God created everything.
Ockham's razor states that "The simplest explanation is the best." Now, one of these explanations is immensely complicated, the other one is three words. Doesn't this mean that, according to Ockham's razor, God created everything? How can evolution stand up against the simplicity of this?
The challenge is given. Who will answer it?
<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Disclaimer: Don't try unless you understand Ockham's razor better than I do. I know that evolution must stand up against Ockham's razor for it to have survived as a theory for so long, but I'm curious as to exactly how, and I can't figure it out.</span> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You didn't even read your own wikipedia article.
Occam's razor is not "The simplest solution is the correct one" it is "The solution requiring the smallest number of assumptions is the correct one." In this case, evolution wins hands down.
We can see the mechanics of short-term and micro-evolution working today, we can observe these natural laws within our own lifetimes. We can see beings change from generation to generation. So we merely assume that these mechanics date back to before our lifetime, and that all species have arisen from this change.
ID on the other hand, requires a massive amount of assumptions. We must assume that there is a creator, we must assume this creator had the means to manipulate the natural world in such a way as to create life. We must assume that this creator (or the creator of this creator, and so on) did not require a creator and was some sort of supernatural being. We must then assume that supernatural beings exist, ect.
Evolution wins according to Occam. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait wait wait- ID requirs a massive amount of assumptions, but Evolution doesn't? Still to this day they've proved nothing in Evolution other than natural selection. Many things point to evolution, yes, but that is not fact. Just as many point to ID- so how does ID require more assumptions? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd just like to say that we shouldn't drag Occam's Razor into this. Occam's Razor works for things like a scene where theres a dead body, and a man holding a gun. Once you get into more complex scientific topics, such as a good deal of biology, quantum physics, et cetera, it shouldn't be used as the end-all-be-all of arguements.
[edit]I also took the liberty of changing the thread title. Bush dislikers, don't worry, I didn't do it because I wanted a less anti-Bush title. I did it because Bush (hell, any politician, for that matter) does nutty stuff too often for the previous title to be descriptive <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The big bang comes from a moment before our linear conception of time (i.e., the only form of time that has meaning to us). Thus, not only is it pointless to think about where it "came from", it is also impossible to know.
exists. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
But in truth, that relies just as much on untested science as ID does. The fact that the initial explosion had to have been infinitely existant, but to have suddenly exploded becomes just as plausible as 'maybe it was just spontaneously apparent' thing I've got going on. Either way you need an initial event to change it in some fundamental way.
[Which turns out to be more efficient as saying for The Finch what I typed out before this was phased: Comparing life to an actual clock is idiotic. There's a reason I'm not living in a hut writing about nature while I throw my 'rock paperweight' out the window for wasting my time. It's more like finding a nugget of pyrite and thinking, "Hmmm, I wonder why Pyrite exists..." than finding a clock and thinking, "Hmm, this clock was made by someone and dropped here."
And my aspect of 'this creator set up stuff how he wanted' can be removed as well, as it could just be a "Hey, Godscomputer [God used for lack of appropriate creator word or just spontaneous creation], randomly generate me a world."...but that seems useless...but just as plausible.
i say its damn easy to disprove it, you just look at the world, does a new planet suddenly pop up? no, it comes from the result of supernovas <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Everything was created by nightowls. Yup. This post is relevent
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->CLIP
But let’s review that more carefully:
1) Life is designed
2) The mechanism of this design is not something we want to talk about
3) Ergo, if we don’t want to talk about a mechanism then by default we are admitting we can’t talk about the designer
4) With no mechanism or designer, how do you infer design at all to begin with?
CLIP
Inherently ID has the problem where it is incapable and indeed unwilling to talk about their ‘designer’. They know, just as well as their opponent’s, that ultimately ID rests on no true empirical or testable ground without having an actual verified designer. There is no way for them to ever rule out evolution, which itself, has numerous testable and falsifiable claims about the organisms and structures we see. Without a way of providing the mechanism of design or the designer, they provide no logical reason to infer any sort of design in human beings or anything else for that matter.
ID is, without a designer and refusing to talk about anything to do with said designer isn’t “God-of-the-gaps”. ID is “No-designer-at-all-to-put-into-the-gaps” which is even worse, because at least with “God-of-the-gaps” you at least have named the designer. Even when you have you then end up at square one if that designer was natural, who designed them? Then it's back to turtles all the way down.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't honestly think most IDers haven't thought about what designer they are implying, do you? There may indeed be some, but most IDers know perfectly well that their line of logic leads straight to a supernatural creator.
So why do they usually refuse to mention him in debates? Because as soon as someone mentions a supernatural <i>anything</i>, all the people on your side of the aisle leap up, point their fingers, and shout, "Hah! We knew all along you were just a religious zealot! Begone, and take your God theory with you!" And thats the end of the debate.
The only way to have any rational debate is to intentionally avoid mentioning God until the very end, even if it is somewhat illogical.
We're all part of a complex simulations run in the 'real' dimension, where the people running the simulation actually know answers to the questions like these for their 'universe.' Of course, it's kind of like that episode of Home Improvement where Wilson says, "My greatest fear is that the the world is someone's dream, and eventually they'll wake up." And I thought, I've had a thought like that [but without the fear, because who really cares?].
Although, that might be going off the topic of Intelligent Design. I'd still like to stress that for me, it's not a God, so much as it's a necessary point of origin for the big bang.
I just had to pick on this one.
While this is a nice definition of Evolution for the sake of proving it real (how can anyone argue that allele frequencies don't change?), its an ineffective definition for several other questions that Evolution is commonly used to answer.
Specifically, this definition provides no explanation for the ORIGIN of either those alleles, or that population. Both of them have to pre-exist for this evolution to accomplish anything.
Now, I know that there are THEORIES to account for both of these questions, but they have been left out of the definition precisely because they are not as easily established as fact. If you use the above definition, Evolution just about proves itself. But it doesn't make very many useful predictions until you start including mechanism theories, none of which are proven.
Refusing to provide the mechanism theories while arguing for Evolution is in fact very similar to refusing to identify the Creator while discussing Intelligent Design--funny how that works both ways, huh?
So why do they usually refuse to mention him in debates? Because as soon as someone mentions a supernatural anything, all the people on your side of the aisle leap up, point their fingers, and shout, "Hah! We knew all along you were just a religious zealot! Begone, and take your God theory with you!" And thats the end of the debate.
The only way to have any rational debate is to intentionally avoid mentioning God until the very end, even if it is somewhat illogical.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course IDers know that the designer must be supernatural. IDers don't mention God, or even a natural designer because both questions demolish ID as a scientific theory.
1. ID maintains that our designers could be natural, but ID offers no explaination as to who these designers are or how they came to be.
2. ID stipulates to a supernatural creator, firmly removing ID from the bounds of anything remotely scientific since it can't be falsified.
Your attempts to paint this as evil dogmatic atheists and mean evolutionary scientists persecuting the hapless Christians and IDers has failed. It is not short-sighted, malicious or bigoted to reject ID as unscientific. If you want to have a metaphysical discussion about the ramifications of a supernatural being, particularly an all powerful one, by all means let's start a new thread. However, that discussion doesn't belong in a biology classroom and it certainly doesn't deserve equal weight or consideration as evolution.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just had to pick on this one.
While this is a nice definition of Evolution for the sake of proving it real (how can anyone argue that allele frequencies don't change?), its an ineffective definition for several other questions that Evolution is commonly used to answer.
Specifically, this definition provides no explanation for the ORIGIN of either those alleles, or that population. Both of them have to pre-exist for this evolution to accomplish anything.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What you're describing is known as <i>abiogenesis.</i> It is not an unpioneered field and to say that we know nothing of it is erroneous. There have been many experiments into the origin of amino acids and the conditions in which they could exist.
<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey' target='_blank'>Miller-Urey Experiment</a>
<a href='http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_33AR.html' target='_blank'>Deep Space Amino Acids</a>
<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis' target='_blank'>Wiki on Abiogenesis</a>
The inherent difference between ID and science is that science doesn't know, but has a few ideas. ID has no qualms about saying that it was a creator that can't be falsified and they know nothing about.