Posted on 10/24/2005 5:27:52 PM PDT by gobucks
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Hundreds of supporters of "intelligent design" theory gathered in Prague in the first such conference in eastern Europe, but Czech scholars boycotted the event insisting it had no scientific credence.
About 700 scientists from Africa, Europe and the United States attended Saturday's "Darwin and Design" conference to press their contention that evolution cannot fully explain the origins of life or the emergence of highly complex species.
"It is a step beyond Darwin," said Carole Thaxton of Atlanta, a biologist who lived with her husband, Charles, in Prague in the 1990s and was one of the organizers of the event.
"The point is to show that there in fact is intelligence in the universe," she said. The participants, who included experts in mathematics, molecular biology and biochemistry, "are all people who independently came to the same conclusion," she said.
Among the panelists was Stephen C. Meyer, a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that represents many scholars who support intelligent design.
He said intelligent design was "based upon scientific evidence and discoveries in fields such as biochemistry, molecular biology, paleontology and astrophysics."
Many leading Czech thinkers, however, boycotted the conference, insisting the theory - which is being debated in the United States - is scientifically groundless.
Intelligent design holds that life is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying a higher power must have had a hand. Critics contend it is repackaged creationism and improper to include in modern scientific education.
Vaclav Paces, chairman of the Czech Academy of Sciences, called the conference "useless."
"The fact that we cannot yet explain the origin of life on Earth does not mean that there is (a) God who created it," Paces was quoted as telling the Czech news agency CTK.
ID observes that man evolved over millions of years from simple organisms AND that there is no evidence of intervention by God in man's evolution AND therefore, we should teach our children that God may be dead.
See Mr. Behe's sworn testimony.
A little difficult, but you can foward reference using View Replies.
See post #92.
(Hint, its not missing.)
"Anybody find that missing link, yet?
See post #92.
(Hint, its not missing.)"
So the scientists were lying all that time?
Please expound.
===========
See post #92.
(Hint, its not missing.)"
===========
So the scientists were lying all that time?
Please expound.
===========
I posted substantial data in #92. Others have posted substantial data as well.
But all you have done in about your last six posts is nitpick; you have posted no substance at all. Unless you can come up with something better, why should I bother to respond?
I think you are probably a YEC and that you won't believe any data which contradicts your beliefs, no matter how well-documented.
Fine. No problem. Believe what you wish.
But what you are doing is trying to bend the long-established rules of science, with no good reason, and trying to destroy the public's confidence in science's methods and findings, only to try to wedge your beliefs in through the back door.
Do you really think that this will benefit either you or your beliefs in the long run?
Its not missing.
Mostly within the past 60 years, our culture has had a wondrous gift bestowed upon us - fossils showing the evolution of our species from an upright-walking creature with a brain the size of an ape's. And in the same time we've been gifted with other wonders - the understanding of the genetic code (which was a great test of evolution's validity -- it passed) and the inner workings of all life necessary to learn more and more about the mechanisms and origins of our planet's life,
and the deeper understandings about our universe and the structure of matter that allow us to understand the mechanisms and origins of the universe we inhabit.
Actually, I see no reason why God could not have created our beautiful world via evolution.
However, the more I read about evolution, there is really no firm evidence to back it up.
There is a large and growing number of sciences who are very skeptical of the evolution theory.
These are the curious scientists, who will look at new evidence, and are not stuck in the past.
For your reading pleasure re: fossils:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=119
In those days the cell was a black box, a mystery. But in the 20th century, scientists were able to open that black box and peek inside. There they found not a simple blob but a world of complex circuits, miniaturized motors, and digital code. We now know that even the simplest functional cell is almost unfathomably complex, containing at least 250 genes and their corresponding proteins.
Explains New Zealand geneticist Michael Denton, each cell “is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms.”
The odds of a primordial soup randomly burping up even one protein strand of moderate length are dramatically less than 1 chance in 10150.
It’s hard to grasp how long these odds are—one followed by 150 zeros. We know that a lot of strange things can happen in a place as big and old as our universe, but as mathematician and philosopher William Dembski explains in the Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, the universe isn’t remotely big enough, old enough, or fast enough to generate that much complexity.
Nor have attempts to explain this complexity as the natural outworking of the laws of nature proven successful. The best explanation? Intelligent Design.
excerpt from http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vi...nd=view&id=2350
Yeah? And your breath stinks.
Darwin had nothing to do with the origin *of life* and when he is applied to such, the resulting "science" is a mockery to what is plainly observable.
Life gives birth to life, intelligence to intelligence and until you can prove/show otherwise then all the proposed change-over-time solutions to life's origins are wishful thinking.
And ironically the attempts at starting life up are a model for what you think you're disproving: intelligent design.
Sorry if my terminology isn't just right.
I was using organic in a more generic way to describe life as a living and self-replicating organism. To my knowledge that line has not been crossed.
Am I wrong?
Well is that what an ID scientist would say about himself?
If not, it is possible that you have created a straw man.
I personally don't believe that the ID starting point and Genesis are related in any way.
Which is what I also have been taught, which is why I am confused when folks use Darwin in the same sentence with an origin of life idea.
"I'm not sure there have been any serious experiments attempting to replicate the origin of life on earth in any of the ways it has been believed to have happened. Many experiments have tested components of it. The reason for not replicating the whole shebang is pretty simple - you'd need a lab the size of the earth in which you recreated the primordial atmosphere. If you could do this, I suspect you'd get your replication in a fairly "short" time, like maybe a hundred million years."
Ah, the special ingredient: time ..."a hundred million years." And that's supposed to do the trick? Somehow? While nobody is looking? In some isolated place? When in fact we cannot replicate such a perfect primordial ennvironment in any lab?
That is why ID says the sophistication of what has begun points to the need for more than time and chance, i.e., a designer.
Time plus a lab can't do it but a primordial environment plus time could?
It sure appears to me that in this case time is being given too big a job, one that it cannot accomplish. That's why I am sympathetic to ID as an observation from nature (not Genesis) that the problem and the solution don't match.
Proof by assertion.
And ironically the attempts at starting life up are a model for what you think you're disproving: intelligent design.
Lovely variant on a standard creationist canard.
Creationist: evolution has never been proven. You can't even duplicate it in a lab.
Scientist: sure I can, look, I grow this population under selective pressure, it changes, that's evolution.
Creationist: but you did it in a lab. It's a designed experiment! That's noi evolution, it's ID!
Well put.
"We're always clear that the origin of life is on the bleeding edge of biological science."
Again, well put. That's what I've been taught.(if I understand you correctly)
The introducing of Darwin to explain the origin of life is probably one of the most frustrating misconceptions in this whole discussion.
"This is clearly impossible, as multicelled organisms are way too complex to spontaneously come together from random arrangements of organic chemicals."
"way too complex" Interesting choice of words given our topic under discussion. There are limits and boundaries for scientific conclusions to be viable.
ThirstyMan: Every experiment to prove spontaneous generation is initiated by a scientist yielding the very model of intelligent design.
jennyp: Now this I consider an evil argument. (But it's subtle, so I don't blame you for using it.) If the very fact that an experiment is intelligently designed invalidates any finding of non-design in nature, then that automatically invalidates every experiment that has ever been made about anything.
Yes you are very right. In our situation though, the lab environment, primordial as has been said, must have been able to exist without the aid of a controller/designer. From what I've seen so far that environment cannot have existed outside of a lab (due to the presence of hydrogen?).
Nice discussion jennyp, thanks. Sorry for my disjointed participation, my wife went in for surgery yesterday and my 'puter time is very limited.
Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out!
WT,
You posted a chart to me about Ev/ID. It is interesting,
but why did you post to me?
ampu
I do believe in a Creator. Does that make me a creationist?
Secondly, if you look at how jennyp answered my questions, she dialogued with me and lit a path for me to follow. I did not get labeled and dismissed by her as I did with you.
If this is a quest for truth, as I believe it is, then why not hold back on the labeling?
She has reserves of patience I lack. I've read the same tired old arguments repeated again and again, and in general I know they're not made with any intent to engage in debate. In your case in particular, I haven't seen any particular tendency to open-mindedness. You treat 'materialist' as a pejorative, in the same manner you criticize in others. Couple that with gross ignorance about science (c.f. that stuff about inorganic formed into organic) , and you fit the standard model of the Ugly Creationist. Sorry.
> Ah, the special ingredient: time ..."a hundred million years." And that's supposed to do the trick? Somehow? While nobody is looking? In some isolated place? When in fact we cannot replicate such a perfect primordial ennvironment in any lab?
We'll never be able to replicate the way fusion happens in the sun (through compression just from having a lot of hydrogen in one place) in a lab either, so I guess we'd better "teach the controversy" on that one too. Actually I guess we'll probably need to throw away any science that can't be replicated in a short time in something the size of a science lab, which throws out pretty much all of astronomy and geology too. whoops, I guess we can't sustitute ID and creationism since they can't replicate that in a lab either.
>Time plus a lab can't do it but a primordial environment plus time could?
Yes. If the primordial earth was only a few gallons of water and organic molecules in a lab and it only had one year to create life, we all accept that life was created in some other fashion (either the creationist "poof" hypothesis or aliens). If it was instead the whole earth and there were millions upon millions of years available (as there were), than I accept the scientific explanation. If you don't understand how having millions of years and the whole earth as a lab changes the probabilities, well then I don't know what to say.
Likewise, if you are an young earth creationist, you have no argument with evolutionary biology - your argument is with geology, physics, and astronomy - no biologist believes in common descent happening in only 6000 years. In fact, biologists won't even accept the ridiculous rate of evolution that the noah's ark creationist "theory" relies on.
>Which is what I also have been taught, which is why I am confused when folks use Darwin in the same sentence with an origin of life idea.
Darwin didn't have much to say about the subject. It would have been hard to say much at the time, since they knew essentially nothing (compared to now) about the chemical structure of life.
The reason people say this is:
(a) the first replicators didn't come into existence through evolutionary mechanisms (natural selection, mutation, etc).
Biological evolutionary mechanisms rely on reproduction and inheritable traits.
(b) if it were discovered that abiogensis were impossible on this planet or evidence were discovered that the first replicators came from elsewhere, evolution and common descent would still be just as true.
>>>If we don't allow a tiny possibility that what we believe may be wrong, it's not science. It's called faith.<<<
LOL. Some of that 'faith' can be attributed to the need for job security and self-preservation. Many unproductive scientific careers could be destroyed if the myth of Evolution is exposed. LOL.
Please post some examples of unproductive scientific careers that would be destroyed. Be specific.
Or are you just making things up?
When one thinks of the kudos, wealth, and everlasting fame that would accrue to anyone who broke ranks and produced evidence that ToE is wrong (and note that even people like Behe, Denton, and Dembski accept common descent and the great age of the earth) and the zero benefit of keeping quiet than you have to be particularly paranoid believer in giant conspiracies to think that somehow scientists are all engaged in some pointless con-game to perpetuate a falsehood aimed at discrediting a particular branch of Christianity, to no benefit to those in the conspiracy.
Secondly, if you look at how jennyp answered my questions, she dialogued with me and lit a path for me to follow. I did not get labeled and dismissed by her as I did with you.Thanks, but I thought RWP's response was nice & succinct, as was js1138's. :-) The internal contradiction of your "lab experiment inherently proves ID" argument is something you do have to consider.
And ironically the attempts at starting life up are a model for what you think you're disproving: intelligent design.
Lovely variant on a standard creationist canard.
Creationist: evolution has never been proven. You can't even duplicate it in a lab.
Scientist: sure I can, look, I grow this population under selective pressure, it changes, that's evolution.
Creationist: but you did it in a lab. It's a designed experiment! That's no[t] evolution, it's ID!
I think perhaps you are only looking at old information. Please start reading new information. Curious scientists do that. All scientists should be curious.
Besides the more than 400 scientists that do not believe in the evolution theory that you probably heard about, or are skeptical, here are more:
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103ap_czech_intelligent_design.html
Monday, October 24, 2005 · Last updated 11:28 a.m. PT
'Intelligent design' supporters gather
By ONDREJ HEJMA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Hundreds of supporters of "intelligent design" theory gathered in Prague in the first such conference in eastern Europe, but Czech scholars boycotted the event insisting it had no scientific credence.
About 700 scientists from Africa, Europe and the United States attended Saturday's "Darwin and Design" conference to press their contention that evolution cannot fully explain the origins of life or the emergence of highly complex species.
"It is a step beyond Darwin," said Carole Thaxton of Atlanta, a biologist who lived with her husband, Charles, in Prague in the 1990s and was one of the organizers of the event.
"The point is to show that there in fact is intelligence in the universe," she said. The participants, who included experts in mathematics, molecular biology and biochemistry, "are all people who independently came to the same conclusion," she said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=b&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103ap_czech_intelligent_design.html
Has anyone got a list of these 700 delegates, their institutions, and qualifications?
Sorry if this question has already been asked.
P.S. 700 is included in the title of this thread alone, so I don't know why you think it's only 401. 700 + 401 = 1101. :)
From just what you said, you could be a theistic evolutionist like probably half the evo posters, but of course you aren't. What makes a creationist? Argument from religious horror. Religious horror tells one that the more of science we refute and discard, the better. Religious horror says 150 years of evidence equals "no evidence." Religious horror says that what we prefer to believe trumps fact.
Maybe the poster who started the thread might have info., but I don't know about the 700.
HOWEVER, here are 400 scientists with their institutions, etc.
Updated July, 2005
Here are over 400 scientists, and their credentials who are skepitcal and say "Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be examined.":
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=443
Now as an aside, the ACLU in Dover is suing a school board for simply reading a 4 paragraph statement to the students saying that there is another theory, Intelligent Design. The ACLU censors any HINT of God whenever they can.
Firstly that list of 400 is not mostly biologists. Secondly the exact statement that they signed up to is one that any scientist could say about any scientific theory. Thirdly it is possible to doubt natural selection as the sole mechanism for evolution without doubting for example common descent. Now, have you got that delegate list, given the poverty of the 400 so far I'd be really interested in seeing who went to the prague conference.
...and finally, several have asked to be removed.
"Firstly that list of 400 is not mostly biologists. Secondly the exact statement that they signed up to is one that any scientist could say about any scientific theory. Thirdly it is possible to doubt natural selection as the sole mechanism for evolution without doubting for example common descent. Now, have you got that delegate list, given the poverty of the 400 so far I'd be really interested in seeing who went to the prague conference."
1) I never said they were mostly biologists.
2) I am glad that these 400 scientists are open minded, rather than blindly believing Darwin's theory. I wish the scientists that are stuck on believing evolution would be more curious, too.
3) Already told you in a previous thread that I did not have the credentials of the 700. Am I supposed to have it? Have you done a search yourself?
4) "poverty of the 400" - sounds like some kind of pseudo put down to discredit them. Don't you like scientists who are open-minded, and look to new information, rather than being stuck in the past?
"...and finally, several have asked to be removed."
Several doesn't sound like many to me. :)
Would you happen to know who they are, and why?
No matter, their exact field of relevance is still important however, and to get to 400 they had to include MDs, dentists, computer scientists, particle physicists, philosophers etc
2) I am glad that these 400 scientists are open minded, rather than blindly believing Darwin's theory. I wish the scientists that are stuck on believing evolution would be more curious, too.
Who says they aren't curious. Show us the evidence that they should be examining that undermines 150 years of sucessful predictions by ToE. Show us the successful predictions and startling insights that ID has led to. Oh sorry, 10,000 years is too soon to expect any results from religion-centred beliefs. The IDers need more time...
3) Already told you in a previous thread that I did not have the credentials of the 700. Am I supposed to have it? Have you done a search yourself?
If you want me to take them seriously I'd like to know who they are. You haven't told me anything about them in a previous thread, so you must be mistaking me for someone else.
4) "poverty of the 400" - sounds like some kind of pseudo put down to discredit them. Don't you like scientists who are open-minded, and look to new information, rather than being stuck in the past?
The idea that is stuck in the past is creationism in its many forms, that include ID. It is about 10,000 years old and has so far produced no results of any value. All the achievements of science in the last 400 years come out of methodological naturalism.
None so blind as those who don't want to see.
I think we are having trouble communicating here, and I only have a minute, so I'll leave you with this food for thought:
The Bible said the world was flat 2,000 years before Columbus was even born:
Flat Versus Round Earth
For thousands of years people believed the earth was flat. If one went too far, he would fall over the edge. This was taught in both Hindu and Buddhist scripture. In the 1500s, the first ship sailed around the world. This provided empirical proof for many that the world was round. But the round earth was recorded in the Judeo-Christian Bible long before.
The prophet Isaiah (40:22) spoke of the "circle of the earth." Solomon wrote, "He [God] set a compass [circle] upon the face of the deep." Proverbs 8:27. In our century, Arabs spoke of infidels being pushed over the edge into space. About 3,000 years ago, our Bible said the earth was round. Indeed, the Judeo-Christian Bible is the inspired Word of God.
excerpt
http://www.godsplan.org/nl_godofscience.cfm
Yes. Non-profit corporations pay their employees.
Numerous easy observations available for example to any mariner show instantly that the earth is a sphere. Its approximate size was calculated to reasonable accuracy by the ancient greeks and ancient egyptians amongst others. But Columbus took no notice.
Further, many biblical verses are at best ambivalent about the geometry of the earth. Amongst many examples that wouldn't help your case Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth from a high mountain, possible on a flat earth and impossible on a sphere.
>>>>When one thinks of the kudos, wealth, and everlasting fame that would accrue to anyone who broke ranks and produced evidence that ToE is wrong (and note that even people like Behe, Denton, and Dembski accept common descent and the great age of the earth) and the zero benefit of keeping quiet than you have to be particularly paranoid believer in giant conspiracies to think that somehow scientists are all engaged in some pointless con-game to perpetuate a falsehood aimed at discrediting a particular branch of Christianity, to no benefit to those in the conspiracy.<<<
I thought it was the other way around. I thought any scientist who strayed from the Evolution Plantation would be ostracized and marginalized by the elite?
Sorry Vade, not interested in "religious horror".
Though I have seen plenty of what you're talking about....narrowness... from both sides.... the crevo horrors actually....
"what we prefer to believe trumps fact".
3,000 years ago the Bible said the world was round. It is very clear: Isaiah (40:22)
Actually atheists tried to ridicule religious people by CLAIMING religious people thought the world was flat, which was not true.
Did you ever stop to think that the pro-Evolution scientists would lose money if their THEORY was debunked?
You are laughably misinformed about how science works. New ideas that have evidence to back them are avidly seized upon. Everyone wants to be the amongst the first into new fields, with all the opportunities for new discoveries that exist in a ground-breaking area. What creationists never explain is what motive individual scientists would have for taking part in an insane worldwide century-long conspiracy to attack fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, when to break ranks carries such huge rewards if your beliefs are true. The problem with creationism/ID isn't that it is new, it is that it is a ten-thousand year old idea that has produced no results to-date. 150 years of evolutionary-biology OTOH has produced numerous stunning predictions, and been vindicated in numerous ways that Darwin couldn't have imagined, as our scientific techniques deepen and widen. I remember when the creationists predicted that the molecular genomic data would falsify evolution. Well, they were sure wrong about that, instead the genomic data has provided yet another vindication of evolution; all the predictions made by ToE about how the genomes would stack up have been met. Copying errors, viral insertions, and neutral mutations are preserved in the same tree of life as is indicated by morphology and other cladistic techniques.
Well, actually the word circle means that Isaiah is implying that the world is a disc, not a globe, sphere, or orb. The belief that the world is a disc was common amongst the less advanced ancient civilisations, particularly those who like the Hebrews were not seafarers, and as I have already pointed out this belief can be derived from many more biblical verses than those that clearly indicate that the earth is a sphere (right now I cannot think of any that are clear that the earth is a globe, but maybe you'll find one so I won't assert that there are none)
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in
Sure sounds like God sitting above a disc to me, tell me, how does He spread out a tent over a sphere? The verse makes no sense if you think of the earth as a sphere, and plenty of sense if you think of it as a disc.
Actually atheists tried to ridicule religious people by CLAIMING religious people thought the world was flat, which was not true.
So I'm sure you'll be able to come up with an actual example of an atheist ridiculing religious people in that way in the last ten years... I've never come across an atheist ridiculing for that once.
The actual false claim I repeatedly come across from creationists in these threads is the one that "scientists" pre Columbus thought that the world was flat but Columbus proved them wrong. Maybe once a month I get that canard as a kind of "scientists don't know squat" post so I assume that it is on some creationist websites out there.
Would you mind sharing a few of those "stunning predictions"? The idea that the evolutionary model predicts something is curious to me.
This makes no sense. These people aren't paid by the pro-Evolution Board of the US government. The overwhelming majority of them work for private firms in health care fields.
ID's problem is that it has nothing going for it. Most biologists already believe that God created the universe. Since ID won't do science, it has no appeal to Christians who work in biology.
It's only appeal is to people who have little or no science background who've bought into the fantasy that scientists are evil doers working for Satan. And the people who sell this nonsense make quite a bit of money doing it. ID'ers are the ones who stand to lose income if their ideas are debunked.
So that's what I think. :)
Well, why don't you dispose of the ones I already cited in the OP? When you've done that we can look at some more. I'll leave you with an interesting little one. Evolutionary biologists predicted that marsupial fossils would be found in antarctica, but nowhere else (apart from Australasia of course). And when people looked, they were. Here's another nugget. It was predicted early on that no two oceanic islands would share the same species of flightless bird, and they don't. That is because flightlessness is a positive mutation for a bird that makes it to an oceanic island with no natural predators; working wings cost so if you don't need them then lose them. But naturally once they are flightless they cannot make it to another island, so every island has its own flightless bird species, or none at all. You might respond that an Intelligent Designer would do that too, and that is true, but there is no way that anyone could predict in advance that an Intelligent Designer would design a different flightless bird species for every oceanic island, so finding the truth of that is a confirmation of ToE. Put it another way, if any two oceanic islands HAD shared the same flightless bird species that would present ToE with severe problems.
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