[Bishop_Malachi]

Thank you for reading it. Sometimes I hate it when other posters give me a mound of material to read instead of explaining something briefly themselves.

I want to mention one last point, and then I'll drop the whole discussion (It's almost bedtime). What I want to focus on here is not the testing of Darwinism and design against the broad body of biological data, but the related question of which theory can accommodate the greater range of biological possibilities. Think of it this way: Are there things that might occur in biology for which a design-theoretic framework could give a better, more accurate account than a purely Darwinian and therefore non-teleological framework? I think the answer is "yes". But that's just my humble opinion.

Last but not least, let's be clear that design can accommodate all the results of Darwinism. Intelligent design does not repudiate the Darwinian mechanism. It merely assigns it a lower status than Darwinism does. The Darwinian mechanism does operate in nature and insofar as it does, design can live with its deliverances. Even if the Darwinian mechanism could be shown to do all the design work for which design theorists want to invoke design (say for the bacterial flagellum), a design-theoretic framework would not destroy any valid findings of science. To be sure, design would then become superfluous, but it would not become contradictory or self-refuting. ID may turn out to be a flash-in-the-pan. But I'd like to see where ID scientists take their arguments in the future. Below is a list (which I hear is growing) of scientists/researchers who are quite skeptical of methodological naturalism/Neo-Darwinism:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

Again, thanks for the feedback. G'night.

[Filo]

Thank you for reading it. Sometimes I hate it when other posters give me a mound of material to read instead of explaining something briefly themselves.

I've been known to do that... ;)

which theory can accommodate the greater range of biological possibilities.

Clearly ID can accommodate a wider range of possibilities. Any imaginary source could, be it magic, science fiction or religion. The fact that known organisms, extant and extinct aren't as fantastical as to be unbelievable is the very reason you can dismiss a mythical "creator" and focus on the real reasons these species exist.

Last but not least, let's be clear that design can accommodate all the results of Darwinism. Intelligent design does not repudiate the Darwinian mechanism. It merely assigns it a lower status than Darwinism does.

Clearly, as do all other forms of mysticism up to and including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, when you realize that these creators aren’t needed to actually explain what happened (and continues to happen) you can dismiss them as superfluous quite easily.

It is quite impossible to prove that an intelligence or creator does not exist. It is, however, quite easy (with current knowledge and evidence) to prove that Evolution does exist and to document what methods it follows.

Many scientists still believe in god and consider him to have created the ground rules by which evolution (and the rest of science) work. They do, however, still feel obligated to continue trying to figure out the intricacies.

IDers and their ilk prefer to remain ignorant and to assign anything they don't understand to their chosen higher power.

It is that laziness and self deception that I abhor.