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Rotten Tanx wrote:Sorry, I couldn't let this one pass.

matthew wrote:I think that attributing the origin of life to a happenchance collision of molecules in a "warm little pool" under JUST the right circumstances is such a naive notion given what is known about organisms.

I know, it's ridiculous isnt it? Seems like the odds must be about 100000000000000000000000000 to one.

Actually the odds are 10 x 99,999,999,873rd power. The odds of striking a powerball lottery here in the U.S., by comparison, are only about 1.47x8th power- and not many people actually win.

Incidentally, do you happen to know, roughly, how many planets there are in the known universe?

This statement you mention is based on bad science in that it is based on an algorithm rather than a direct observation. So to answer your question, no I do not know, nor does anyone else.

galanter wrote:The argument that intelligent design can be refuted by pointing out design flaws pokes at non-essential aspects of the issue and ultimately proves nothing. It's a waste of time.

For example...it's not clear that "intelligent design" has to claim infinitely wise design...just an intelligent designer who may very well have a finite number for "his" IQ. In other words, just because a design has flaws doesn't mean it's not intelligent.

Additionally, if one is referencing a prime mover as the intelligent designer of human life (and might not that relatively tiny task have been handed off to some lesser mover, later on and further down the line?), criticizing the work of an intellect far beyond ours is bound to be frought with difficulties. For example, we can't criticize the design without knowing the intent of the designer. As someone (William James?) said, "what is order for the woodpecker is chaos for the tree". Maybe the intelligent designer had something in mind when he included various physical frailties. Maybe physical suffering is literally good for the soul.

Anyway, my larger point is that just as so called intelligent design can't erode science (can't show evolution "isn't real"), science can't erode intelligent design (can't show God "isn't real"). The differences in method between the two regimes make them incommensurable.

So I see hubris on both sides. People commonly understand that you can't prove unicorns don't exist. Yet how many seem to say with the fullest of confidence that they can know that God doesn't exist.

I tend to thnk anyone who isn't an agnostic hasn't really thought the problem through.

A little modesty on the part of the anti-intelligent design crowd would be more intellectually honest.

This is all well and good, but you're forgetting the most important point, which is that Don Wise is hilarious.

Personally, i have no idea why people are so gung-ho to want to claim some sort of scientific "proof" that there's an intelligent designer. Haven't we all learned the lesson of the babelfish?

Douglas Adams wrote:"I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But", says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Not really, if it is put in context of the supposed perfection of the Christianity cult's god. How can a being that is perfect in every way be so careless as to make so many complete fuckups?

As for your "science can't be proven" statement. Firstly a negative cannot be proven, so it is impossible to "disprove" God, so this is pointless statement. Secondly, why do people such as Matthew "believe" science where it suits, but try and refute it when it doesn't fit in with their Biblical expectations? Does Matthew go to a "faith healer" when he is ill or does he go to a doctor using modern science? Does he believe that the sun travels around the earth, that the earth is flat or that the earth is 6000 years old? If the Bible was wrong, and it was, about these things why is it right about the creation of the earth and life? In fact, if the Bible/church was so wrong about almost everything, why should it be give it any credence at all?

Hey, Matthew--

Explain to me why any perfect Unseen Being/"Creator" capable of designing, say, our world and life would place so many deleterious commodities in the living organisms It created.

Tell me why we (as humans) still choke on our food and die, for instance. I'd love to hear this. I'll provide you with a hint right here and tell you to check the evolutionary biological reasons why this happens.

I won't be able to spar with you for a few days or so, as I'm in currently in Chicago having fun and teaching drunken punk boys how to polka in living rooms and vehemently debating the flaws in the public educational system with guys I'm not even certain that I disagree with, but, hey...it's fun. I look forward to your very well researched answer, however.

Tell we why the Intelligent Designer made us flawed.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:...
Tell me why we (as humans) still choke on our food and die, for instance. I'd love to hear this. I'll provide you with a hint right here and tell you to check the evolutionary biological reasons why this happens.
....

Tell we why the Intelligent Designer made us flawed.

This is where the “the will of God is mysterious” argument kicks in. Everything is flawed, because we are flawed after The Fall and all the other cyclical arguments… You’ve got to remember that Christians and their buddies will always return to “faith” in the face of overwhelming evidence. They’ve done that for every other argument they've lost, and that would be all of them, over the past 500 years.

American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote:Is evolution "just a theory?"
In detective novels, a "theory" is little more than an educated guess, often based on a few circumstantial facts. In science, the word "theory" means much more. A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.

Is there "evidence against" contemporary evolutionary theory?
No. There are still many puzzles in biology about the particular pathways of the evolutionary process and how various species are related to one another. However, these puzzles neither invalidate nor challenge Darwin's basic theory of "descent with modification" nor the theory's present form that incorporates and is supported by the genetic sciences. Contemporary evolutionary theory provides the conceptual framework in which these puzzles can be addressed and points toward ways to solve them.

Gramsci wrote:

Mandroid2.0 wrote:...
Tell me why we (as humans) still choke on our food and die, for instance. I'd love to hear this. I'll provide you with a hint right here and tell you to check the evolutionary biological reasons why this happens.
....

Tell we why the Intelligent Designer made us flawed.

This is where the “the will of God is mysterious” argument kicks in. Everything is flawed, because we are flawed after The Fall and all the other cyclical arguments… You’ve got to remember that Christians and their buddies will always return to “faith” in the face of overwhelming evidence. They’ve done that for every other argument they've lost, and that would be all of them, over the past 500 years..

Lost every argument? Hardly. Unless you've read Saints Anselm, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas you've not even started hearing the argument at all. While faith is part of the Christian system, that system is remarkably rational and well thought out. Like any logical system (e.g. high school geometry, modern science) it rests on axioms that are held as unproven but reasonable. Modern science rests on other but different unproven but reasonable axioms.

Who is to say this isn't, as Pascal said, the best of all possible worlds? Judging creations as being "flawed" would require a God-like understanding of ultimate value. How can finite beings possess infinite wisdom? How can we critique a design when we can only have an imperfect understanding of the intent of the designer?

This isn't a retreat to faith. It's a rational and honest implicataion of man's own limitations.

galanter wrote:

Lost every argument? Hardly. Unless you've read Saints Anselm, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas you've not even started hearing the argument at all. While faith is part of the Christian system, that system is remarkably rational and well thought out. Like any logical system (e.g. high school geometry, modern science) it rests on axioms that are held as unproven but reasonable. Modern science rests on other but different unproven but reasonable axioms.

Who is to say this isn't, as Pascal said, the best of all possible worlds? Judging creations as being "flawed" would require a God-like understanding of ultimate value. How can finite beings possess infinite wisdom? How can we critique a design when we can only have an imperfect understanding of the intent of the designer?

This isn't a retreat to faith. It's a rational and honest implicataion of man's own limitations.

So which Biblical arguments on the nature of the universe have trumped the post-enlightenment scientific method?

You are offering examples of men that didn't have all of the evidence in front of them. In fact they had no understanding of the universe except on a supernatural level. For all of their rationale they were starting from a flawed point, literal belief in the Bible. The explanations the Bible offers are only "well thought out and rational" in this context, however they are most certainly not "reasonable". Are the myths of ancient Greek "reasonable". Why should Christian myths be treated any differently to any other Iron Age belief system?

“How can we critique a design when we can only have an imperfect understanding of the intent of the designer?”

This is the weakest argument possible and always the retreat of the theist. You personify the “design” that is “indefinable” and therefore beyond critique. This is a retreat into faith in the face of defeat.

It is a retreat into faith because the beliefs of Christianity and the Church on the nature of the universe are based on long discounted ideas, conjecture and basically just making shit up. The difference between the scientific method and religion is science starts with a question and religion starts with an answer. The religious approach to understanding the universe is illogical and wrong.

As I said above, if the Church was wrong about the cosmology of the solar system, why is it right about its creation?

To be honest, I have more respect for fundamentalist Christians than I do whishy-washy moderates and apologists. At least fundamentalist Christians have the courage of their convictions. Moderates deny their religion and reason.

Question: when you are ill, do you go to the doctor or pray?

1. Intelligent Design is a species of Creationism.

2. Creationism is an idea which can not be supported or weakened by evidence.

3. Because of this, Creationism can not in any way be said to be a scientific theory.

4. The theories which I'll call, for short, Evolution, are based upon data and observations. As evidence is found which supports Evolution, it is taken more seriously. As evidence is found which contradicts it, it is revised to fit the data.

5. Because of this, Evolution is a scientific theory.

6. Because of the very different natures of Creationism and Evolution, there can not be any meaningful debate between them. We can all guess as to which one we believe, or say that we believe something else. But we can't debate on the merits. If you choose to believe Creationism, you should recognize that such a belief is not rational. We can have a debate over whether it's worth using non-rational means to decide what to believe. Creationism has no merit, and needs none. Is a score of zero out of zero 100%, or 0%? By my personal standard, it's 0%. By, say, scott's, it appears to be 100%. Scott's defenses of Creationism are intelligent and able, but ultimately useless. If you choose to believe it, it needs no defense; there is nothing anyone can say to disprove it. If you choose not to believe it, there's probably not any reasoning that's going to convince you. It's just a matter of faith. You have faith in Creationism, or you have faith in something else, or you are without faith and make decisions based on evidence. I'm okay with all of these things, outside publicly funded science classrooms. Within them, science only please.

scott wrote:But I am genuinely curious... why isn't it the Theory of Thermodynamics, or the Theory of Gravitation, etc.

It is. That is, those laws are also theories. The piece you link to doesn't say as much, but I would say that a scientific law is a certain kind of scientific theory: one that is supported by an overwhelming body of evidence, one that appears to have no exceptions, and (usually) one that is concisely expressed.

To sum up: The "Debate" Between Creationism (in the guise of Intelligent Design) and Evolution = Crap.

Linus Van Pelt wrote:To sum up: The "Debate" Between Creationism (in the guise of Intelligent Design) and Evolution = Crap.

That´s it. What the creationist guys are doing is digging up non-existent controversies, just so that they can position themselves in a debate with Darwinist, making them seem scientifically sound and respected.

There is, however, no controversy, no debate. Just strategy.

Go home, creationists.

skatingbasser wrote:In speech and debate calss yesterday people were throwing around topics. Some kid in a shirt that read "IRISH" wearing a Fightin' Irish hat took a break from saying how much he could bench and said to me "You're one of them pro-evolution people. Wanna do that?"

I was confused, and said "As in, you believe in intellegent design?"

"Shyeah"

I shook his hand and said "I'm sorry, I didn't know you people still existed."

Hey! Where does the right wing get off calling us "elitist"?