News and Politics Forum

glfredrick wrote:

Nak,

You continually insist that I have no idea about what I argue...

If you argue that CS/ID is anything more than a philosophy that requires a leap of faith in order to accept it's central premise, that the Universe was created by an intelligent designer; then you DON'T know what you are talking about.



The Central Tenet of Evolutionary Biology is that Life changes under environmental pressures.

THAT is both observable and testable.



Where is the observation or test for your "creator"?



Yeah...
That's what I thought.



I don't insult you idiots because I don't understand what you're saying.

I do it because I DO.

glfredrick wrote:

You ask for "tests" to  prove a creator...  I'm not stipulating proving a creator -- you are.  I'm stipulating demonstrating design.

What are you, an idiot?

You can't stipulate DESIGN without also stipulating a DESIGNER.

You think that just because you don't actually utter the words that you're off the hook?

When you claim that something is DESIGNED, the claim that a DESIGNER must exist is IMPLICIT in your initial claim.


Christ, I feel like I'm explaining color to a blind man.

MC Escher wrote:

glfredrick wrote:

You ask for "tests" to  prove a creator...  I'm not stipulating proving a creator -- you are.  I'm stipulating demonstrating design.

What are you, an idiot?

You can't stipulate DESIGN without also stipulating a DESIGNER.

You think that just because you don't actually utter the words that you're off the hook?

When you claim that something is DESIGNED, the claim that a DESIGNER must exist is IMPLICIT in your initial claim.


Christ, I feel like I'm explaining color to a blind man.

Why can we not stipulate design without stipulating a designer?  I agree that we'll end up there, but initially, can we not simply admit design or is that "off limits."  If it is off limits, why?

I don't know a single name of a single designer at Intel, but I sure do know that their CPU chips are designed...  I also don't know a single designer's name at Chevy, but I'm driving one of their vehicles.  In fact, as I look around, it would seem that I don't know the name of hardly ANY designer that has designed the stuff I use every day, but I sure know that it is designed.  I guess, once I know that it is designed, I can go looking for the name of the designer, huh?

Also, why would I need to come up with a better argument than the design argument...  It is sure working right now...  You have yet to offer a SINGLE refutation to it.

Just keep slinging the BS.  I'm sure that some newbie out there will be impressed with your verbal prowess.  I'm not...  Haven't been for a REALLY long time now...

What can I say in response to such a scholarly quip as that?  You've finally succeeded in setting me at a loss for words...

I just look at the human body (just for example) and see several examples where, if there were really a designer, he/she/it was definitely asleep when it designed those parts. Some examples - blind spot in the eye, location of the nerve on the elbow (funny bone), location of waste removal systems relative to reproductive systems. These are pretty poor 'designs' in each case.

Not to mention vestigal organs like the appendix, or vestigal legs in snakes and whales, or flippers in seals and whales having a full set of hand bones, just for a few more examples. Why would an omnipotent designer go through all the trouble of making such unnecessary things? These things are far more convincing evidence of evolution, in my view. The fossil record, which creationists speak of as evolution's greatest weakness is actually its greatest strength - it shows, without any shadow of a doubt, that life has become more and more complex over time, and that now extinct animals have similarities to animals existing today (dinosaurs to birds, for a very good example), giving us clues to common ancestry.

Seabird wrote:

Seems like you're contradicting yourself a little there Chemist with the dinosaur to bird analogy. If birds are the ancestors of dinos (which is widely assumed and accepted now I guess), then they've actually evolved into something far LESS complex. My knowledge of the geologic record is that pivotal, world-altering events essentially vagina-blocked some evolutionary paths (dinos for example), while kickstarting new ones (like mammals).

How is a bird less complex than a dinosaur? Just because it's smaller doesn't mean it's any less complex. And in fact, an argument could be made that a bird is MORE complex than a dinosaur, given the requirements for the ability to fly.

Besides, I was only speaking in generalities when I talk of complexity. The fossil record goes from single celled organisms to invertebrates to vertebrates with the progression of time - this is all I meant when I talked about increasing complexity.

I would argue against the entire concept of "vestigial" organs and body parts -- that is a non-starter with no actual proof (another "just so story" useful in explaining evolution, but well within the realm of design).

As for "second guessing" the designer -- why or how?  Life, as designed, seems to be very resiliant, and works in remarkable ways that interlock on multitudes of levels.

Additionally, there is so far, no proof whatsoever that anything evolved from one species to another.  That is spoken of in the evolutionary literature as if it were so, but they cannot bring an actual example to the table.

What they CAN and DO bring are a handful of bones that they claim descended from each other, but they have no mechanism to demonstrate how, nor is there any sort of ACTUAL progression.

The Chemist wrote:

I just look at the human body (just for example) and see several examples where, if there were really a designer, he/she/it was definitely asleep when it designed those parts. Some examples - blind spot in the eye, location of the nerve on the elbow (funny bone), location of waste removal systems relative to reproductive systems. These are pretty poor 'designs' in each case.

Not to mention vestigal organs like the appendix, or vestigal legs in snakes and whales, or flippers in seals and whales having a full set of hand bones, just for a few more examples. Why would an omnipotent designer go through all the trouble of making such unnecessary things? These things are far more convincing evidence of evolution, in my view. The fossil record, which creationists speak of as evolution's greatest weakness is actually its greatest strength - it shows, without any shadow of a doubt, that life has become more and more complex over time, and that now extinct animals have similarities to animals existing today (dinosaurs to birds, for a very good example), giving us clues to common ancestry.

You have missed the entire concept of ID, in my mind.
God created evolution.  He designed in processes.  Deus ex machina.

That life itself, started by God, might go off on tangents, or not end
up with the ideal design, is further proof, actually, of the concept of
Deus ex machina, and the concept of evolution, that things evolve
and get tested over time. 

Now, there are Christians who say that God is perfect, and this would
suggest then that God is not perfect.  (And I believe that those Christians who
are restricted in their thinking of God like this are probably also
near-earth creationists.) 

But just as we have been given the ability to change
our own destiny, life is general is free to explore and change and grow also. 
Taken from this viewpoint, it's a pretty cool setup.

This is why something like ID is so important to good scientific research:
if you take, as a given, that there is some underlying mechanism/law
behind a given phenomena that you don't yet understand, it helps
the research process along.  And perhaps even more important, it
allows for the key components of humility, the sense of wonder and
amazement, that is so often lacking from modern scientific research,
and so greatly limits it in scope and imagination.

I believe the entire problem non-religious folk have with ID is that is
somehow necessarily must include near-earth creationism.  It may very
well be that ID proponents are only using that as a cover for their
real agenda, and scientists "smell a rat".  Then no progress is made
in a very interesting subject as each side stops listening to the other.

Another downside is that this becomes a Christian only thing, this concept
of God's design, which is very unfortunate, in my mind, because humans
are very subject to the "us vs. them" mentality, when truth is very relative,
and many different views from many different religions could in fact shed
a great deal of light on the subject.

Last edited by adoniram7 (07-09-2008 01:22 PM)

zukiphile wrote:

The idea that organisms change and evolve does not exclude them as evidence of having been created and designed.

I agree and was mostly taking issue with glf's last post - especially the first sentence.

glfredrick wrote:

I would argue against the entire concept of "vestigial" organs and body parts -- that is a non-starter with no actual proof (another "just so story" useful in explaining evolution, but well within the realm of design).

So you're saying the remnants of hip/leg bones as seen in the skeletons of whales and snakes don't actually exist? I'd say the proof is in their existence - what other possible reason could there be for them being there?

What I AM saying is that there is NO PROOF that the bones, organs, etc., that WE DO SEE are actually vestigial.  That is someone's interpretation of the evidence.

Just as there is no proof of design in the bones and organs we do see, that being someone's interpretation of the evidence.  If you're going to outright reject the abundant examples of redundant genetic material, organs, behavioral traits and the like on the basis of their subjectivity, that sword cuts both ways - and it may come back, snicker-snack, to cut a few of your own arguments off at the knees.  Sure you want to go this route?

AC wrote:

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

...cut a few of your own arguments off at the knees.

A few?

Heh, yeah, a few of them.  And by "few" I mean "practically all."