Intelligent Design

by Delta20 234 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  jst2laws

  Hello Delta,
  
  Good summary. I have read most of Bebe?s book and also a good one called ?The Case Against Darwin? (or close). I go along with ID to the extent that I agree that evolution?s contention that mutation and natural selection are NOT complete explanations of our present life systems.
  
  
  However, complexity does not alone support intelligent design, although I personally believe in intelligence and design were involve. If we allow science to stick to science we can understand their resistance to
  
  
  1 Conceding to ?intelligence? because that would require a possessor of intelligence which CANNOT be supported by any evidence or even a theory.
  
  
  2 Complexity can be explained by means other than an intelligent designer.
  
  
  3 Even defaulting to an intelligent designer does not substantiate an invisible Guy in the Sky. With our limited knowledge science could argue an AI system did it all without any real intelligence our even consciousness. It could also be argued that, rather than an invisible Guy in the Sky, the intelligent design was the result of a guy named Steve who had a great chemistry set and access to a Worm Hole and as a hobby made all conditions right for life and started the ball rolling. I realize this is preposterous but it is also as un-provable scientifically as the Guy in the Sky explanation.
  
  
  Despite the above comments, I personally believe there was intelligent design. But that is my faith, not science.
  
  
  I hope the two, faith and science, will work together some day. But for now the line is often blurred in the minds of those who think their faith is scientific.
  
  
  Good post, Delta
  
  
  Jst2laws

  sorry for the editing, I'm having an awful time converting from MSword to a readable post
• 

  nicolaou

  "There is no God!" So shouts this fool
• 

  Midget-Sasquatch

  Actually, today Darwinism, or I should say neo-Darwinism, is a theory that explains everything. It can explain social structures, natural laws, etcetera. So defining it as a theory that only explains OBSERVED changes is a wrong definition.

  Not to be a stickler, but I think you're going by the evolutionary concept as a whole and lumping in several related fields into one.

  The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis is as QUOTES mentioned the theory specifically dealing with descent with modification (observed changes). It notes that random mutations in genes/genetic information brings about different genotypes and so very likely, different phenotypes (refers to the resulting physical attributes of the organism). Natural selection then acts upon the phenotypes thereby driving its evolution.

  Sociobiology or more recently evolutionary psychology deals with the evolution of social structures. Its basic premise is that social behaviours are genetically based and can be adaptive, so that combination would make social behaviours subject to selection as well.

  I know its the same premise in the end, but I think its better to have the distinctions especially because of the social darwinism crud of the past.

  Darwinists actually try to make predictions on the bases of their theory. Problem is that everything can be interpreted on a Darwinian way so its very hard to make concrete arguments against them.

  OK, some of the claims are as S.J. Gould put it, "just so stories", and one could come up with some plausible scenarios by which some traits are deemed adaptive, with no hard eviednce to back it up. But those just remain conjectures thrown out there. There's good research out there too. The study on higher rates of deaths among step-children for instance. Why that one is very good is that the researchers even considered other factors that may be involved.(one e.g step children wree the overwhelming target even when biological children were living there as well). Didn't meant to hijack the thread just addressing those particular points.
• 

  jst2laws

  Nic and Valis,

  prophetic nonsense in the bible

  "There is no God!" So shouts this fool

  I think Delta is asking for rational discussion of the subject of ID. He seems to be making an honest investigation into the evidence and would like to discuss this. While many will agree "there is not God" or the bible contains "nonsense", wouldn't it be kind to Delta and JW lurkers to stick to the evidence regarding ID rather than make judgements of matters of faith?

  I apologize to you both if I seem critical. I'm only suggesting we NOT be critical. Faith has value. It simply needs to find its place in the scientific world.

  Jst2laws
• 

  nicolaou

  Oh darn! You are are right of course, I just get so tired of the same debate all the time.

  Fine. God. Well where did he come from? If evolution is to be dismissed for it's 'irrational' insistence on life arising from non-living matter surely belief in a 'Living God' should be discarded on equal grounds? No?
• 

  jst2laws

  Nic,

  Good. That is a rational point of reason to debate.

  even if you are tired of these discussions.

  Jst2laws
• 

  Valis

  jst2..I did not dismiss the entire bible, and I used one part of it, that even those who have faith, surely must not only question, but eventually deny if they want to live in the world of faith AND science. That IMO is not an unreasonable expectation for anyone.

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  Irreducible Systems is one of those things that sounds good -- I certainly bought into it -- since it makes a very good opening statement. Something like, "What good is an eye without a retina?" The mousetrap is given as a simple example. Without the supporting base, the spring, the trip switch, and the trap bar, none of it works. Take out any part and it would fail.

  But this assumes you have some sort of target, like a mousetrap. What if that isn't the case? What if you have a mouse, so you set out a bit of cheese and just wait. When the little bugger shows up, you try to whack him, perhaps with a volume of Insight on the Scriptures. It works, but it probably takes several tries, and wears you out. So for your next mouse, you put out cheese in a box, with a stick (like in the cartoons). This time you only need to trip the trap, so you don't reveal your presence. It works better, but you still have to get him out of the box and kill him somehow. Eventually you build and build on this design until you come up with what we consider to be a mousetrap.

  Each step along the way worked, and new things were added if they helped. The current "evolution" of the mousetrap is what we have today. Maybe tomorrow someone will build a better one and we'll all beat a path to his door. The old mouse trap will either cease to exist (because he will compete for the same consumers as his better-equipped descendant) or he will continue in a more specialized environment (maybe he's cheaper, so cheapskates will still buy him.)

  In this case, each new iteration of the trap "survived" or "died" based on the rule "does it catch and kill mice better?" In life, new iterations survive or die based on the rule "does it make the creature able to survive and/or reproduce better?" So a bird that due to mutation or good combination of parents has keener eyesight than others in his population will survive better (perhaps) and that better eyesight would be passed on to his children, which would also be better equipped to compete with their peers.

  From that, I would expect to find birds with specialized eyesight for their environment. Telescopic eyes for prey animals, magnifying glass eyes for birds that depend on snapping up bugs at close range. And that's what you find in birds today.

  Because I can see how these supposed "irreducible systems" can be created a piece at a time by the forces of the physical world (granted, only to my satisfaction), I don't buy that line of argument for suggesting a creator.

  Dave
• 

  ellderwho

  IMO, The evolutionist is subjected to the laws(of nature) that have brought him forth, neither can he break these laws(of nature) to rise above them.
• 

  Narkissos

  I'm no scientist, not even a really scientific mind.

  And I would willingly admit that I am not inclined to believe in "intelligent design", or "God" for that matter, for highly subjective reasons.

  Nevertheless I intuitively suspect that ID theories cheat on the respective validity area of synchronic and diachronic approaches.

  Let me take, as an analogy, the field of language -- just because I am a little more familiar with it. Every language is a self-contained system of signifiers which as such must be studied synchronically (etymology has little to do with semantics). A language works with a community of speakers who share the same system in a given space-time area.

  But arguing from the synchronic approach against a diachronic approach would be an outright fallacy: language did evolve in time, even though at any given time a synchronic approach is due to understand what words mean(t).

  I guess in biology we have the same problem, and the same possibility of fallacy. In any given time there was a structural consistency which allowed for species, individuals and organs to function fully. But this doesn't speak against the fact that structures did change in time -- which is the object of the diachronic approach of evolution.

  The fact that 21st-century French is a self-contained system does not imply that it was created ex nihilo by intelligent design. It was not.