Posted on 04/20/2008 8:49:48 AM PDT by Soliton
“Intelligent Design” is of no scientific value in determining the origins of life in the universe. A designer would have to be supernatural (i.e. not subject to the laws of physics) or natural and subject to those laws. If the designer is natural in origin, then it would have to have been designed by another designer –again supernatural or natural. Ultimately come to an original designer that either evolved from a lower state of matter, or was created by a supernatural being. You will note that this is back to where we started. Science does not deal with supernatural phenomena by definition. Scientifically, the only answer is evolution. ID, however, is really about the cosmology of the Book of Genesis anyway, but if that is admitted, it can’t be taught in school. And there’s the rub.
The term “Intelligent Design” was adopted by the Discovery Institute, the originator of the ID movement, and a non-profit company that was incorporated specifically to get the story of Genesis taught in public schools (as specifically stated in the incorporation documents). To that end a Creationist textbook was published called Of Pandas and People.
In 1987, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violated the separation of church and state in Edwards vs. Aquilard.
In a similar later case, Kitzmiller vs. The Dover Area School District involving the school’s acquisition of Of Pandas and People, it was proven in court that the publishers and the people who financed the purchase lied in depositions when they stated that Intelligent Design wasn’t just another term for Creationism. They did this by showing that dozens of passages in the pre-1987 Edwards vs. Aquilard copies of the book used “Creation”, while later versions substituted “Intelligent Design” in its place.
The entire Intelligent Design movement is a dishonest, legalistic Trojan horse specifically intended to teach creationism in public school even though it is against the law.
Complete transcripts of Kitzmiller vs. Dover can be found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html
I've never seen the first bit of evidence that God has ever operated outside the laws of physics or mathematics. The impression I've always had is that if you want supernatural, you need to be talking to the evolutionists. Propounding a theory which requires infinite sequences of absolute zero-probability events, now THAT is supernatural.
Maybe it's because science breaks its own rules when in attempts to explain the origins of life.
e.g. "A bolt of lightening struck a mud puddle".
Evolution is a theory that is the only acceptable “scientific” theory that is acceptable in accademia.>>
No it isn’t. Almost everything in science is theory waiting to be disproven or expanded, or even just left alone. If we simply accepted things as facts then we wouldn’t have the continual expansion of scientific knowledge that we do.
Supernatural simply means "not subject to the laws of nature". Are you suggesting that your god IS subject to thae laws of nature?
These evolution threads are retarded. Don’t people have better things to do on a spring Sunday afternoon than argue about this? Aren’t there a lot more important issues in this world? You people (on both sides) are a bunch of freaking weirdos.
Science must kill God or even the concept of God, that is their ultimate goal. imho.
Then we can all agree that we came from lightening striking a mud puddle. God is dead, Nietzsche was right and can be printed on our money now./sarc
Because it is masquerading as something it is not. Would you teach alchemy in a chemistry class? Astrology in an astronomy class?
Every scientist would love to see this happen. Go do it and come back with scientific evidence
Hahahaha, pot/kettle. You left yourself wide open for that one.
And Darwin said (the last page of The Origin of the Species). Please note his reference to the Creator.
“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
Yeah, but I’m weird in a cool way, kinda like Zappa.
Teories require scientific evidence. Here is an example. Bring me some supporting ID.
The evolutionary split between human and chimpanzee is much more recent -- and more complicated -- than previously thought, according to a new study by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and at Harvard Medical School published in the May 17 online edition of Nature. The results show that the two species split no more than 6.3 million years ago and probably less than 5.4 million years ago. Moreover, the speciation process was unusual -- possibly involving an initial split followed by later hybridization before a final separation.
"The study gave unexpected results about how we separated from our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. We found that the population structure that existed around the time of human-chimpanzee speciation was unlike any modern ape population. Something very unusual happened at the time of speciation", said David Reich, the senior author of the Nature paper, and an associate member of the Broad Institute and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School's Department of Genetics.
Previous molecular genetic studies have focused on the average genetic difference between human and chimpanzee. By contrast, the new study exploits the information in the complete genome sequence to reveal the variation in evolutionary history across the human genome. In theory, scientists have long known that some genomic regions must be 'older' than others, meaning that they trace back to different times in the common ancestral population that gave rise to both humans and chimps (see Graphic). But, the new study is the first to actually measure the range of ages. It gave three surprising results:
the time of from the beginning to the completion of divergence between the two species ranges over more than 4 million years across different parts of the genome. This range is much larger than expected.
the youngest regions are unexpectedly recent -- being no more than 6.3 million years old and probably no more than 5.4 million years old. This finding implies that human-chimp speciation itself is far more recent than previously thought. if one looks only at the X chromosome, it almost entirely falls at the lower end of the time frame. In fact, the average age of the X chromosome is ~1.2 million years "younger" than the average across the 22 autosomal (non-sex) chromosomes. "The genome analysis revealed big surprises, with major implications for human evolution," said Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute and co-author of the Nature paper. "First, human-chimp speciation occurred more recently than previous estimates. Second, the speciation itself occurred in an unusual manner that left a striking impact across chromosome X. The young age of chromosome X is an evolutionary 'smoking gun.'"
The estimate that humans and chimpanzees probably split less than 5.4 million years ago is more recent by ~1 to 2 million years than a previous estimate of 6.5-7.4 million years based on the famous Toumaï hominid fossil (Sahelanthropus tchadensis), which has features thought to be distinctive to the human lineage.
"It is possible that the Toumaï fossil is more recent than previously thought," said Nick Patterson, a senior research scientist and statistician at the Broad Institute and first author of the Nature paper. "But if the dating is correct, the Toumaï fossil would precede the human-chimp split. The fact that it has human-like features suggest that human-chimp speciation may have occurred over a long period with episodes of hybridization between the emerging species."
The possibility of "hybridization" -- that is, initial separation of the two species, followed by interbreeding and then final separation -- would also explain the strange phenomenon seen on chromosome X. Interbreeding is known to place strong selective pressures on sex chromosomes, which could translate to a very young age for chromosome X.
"Hybridization" is commonly observed to play a role in speciation in plants, but evolutionary biologists do not generally view it as an important way to produce a new species in animals.
"A hybridization event between human and chimpanzee ancestors could help explain both the wide range of divergence times seen across our genomes, as well as the relatively similar X chromosomes," said Reich. "That such evolutionary events have not been seen more often in animal species may simply be due to the fact that we have not been looking for them."
As the researchers note in the Nature paper, it should be possible to refine the timeline of speciation and test the possible explanations based on complete genome sequencing of gorilla and other primates, which is already underway at several centers including the Broad Institute.
### Paper reference:
Patterson N et al. (2006). Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees. Nature (advance online publication) DOI: 10.1038/nature04789
A complete list of the study's authors and their affiliations: Nick Patterson1, Daniel J. Richter1, Sante Gnerre1, Eric S. Lander1,2 & David Reich1,3 1 Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA 2 Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. 3 Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ,
LOL, good one.
I know Darwin used the word. What’s your point?
I’m saying that anything that can be observed should be within the realm of science. We may not yet know how to observe God directly. But to the extent that Scientific Observations imply design, then design should be considered as a hypothesis, whether or not you can identify and test the designer.
You’re really upset about this, aren’t you? Why are you so afraid of God? I haven’t seen the movie, and don’t plan to, but it’s just a movie. What’s so bad about having an open mind toward both sides?
Subtle evidence for crossing of species...a Wolphin. See if you can find it. http://www.hotspots.hawaii.com/wolphin.html
Can you show me where big bang theory states the existance of a supernatural cause (or any cause) for the big bang?,/p.
It is an hypothesis and will remain nothing more until someone finds a way of supporting the hypothesis. This is a job for those that support it. Until there is more, ID will go nowhere.
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