Posted on 10/21/2014 6:58:05 AM PDT by Heartlander
It would take God to design such a system of organisms, their complexity, diversity, and marvelous contrivances, as the result of natural processes," without the need for intelligence.
Deep and enriching philosophy; great stuff.
The more I’ve read evolutionist arguments for purely materialistic origins of life on earth (autocatalysis, self-assembly, emergence, etc.), the more convinced I become that they have no leg to stand on. The lack of coherence on their part is stunning.
What about the instances in which the “intelligent” design comes up with problems? As a for instance that is in the news now, our immune system doesn’t do a great job with Ebola or even TB as both, one a virus and one a bacteria, have evolved to defeat not only our natural immunities but also, in the case of TB, antibacterial drugs, or in the case of Ebola, has become more easily transmitted.
This is just one question for Dr. Behe but just now I need to put some heat on my less than optimally designed lower back.
Bump...
Intelligent design is not perfect design and Dr. Behe believes in common descent – so what is the problem again?
God seems to have taken billions of years and used natural means for his design. It fits a desist model, even though deism isn’t popular or successful as a religion.
Makes you wonder if religion is actually a cultural manifestation used to explain the supernatural.
Oh, I agree -
Consider this, to remove any ‘creator’ from our very existence including the beginning of our universe is to remove any ‘thought or intelligence’ from the equation. By definition, you are ultimately left with an existence from stupidity.
Here is an example of this ‘stupidity’:
Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates.The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. (….)
The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak. To see why we make these mistakes and why it’s so hard to avoid them, we need to understand the source of the illusion that thoughts are about stuff.
-Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide To Reality, ch.9
I wonder if Rosenberg believes his thoughts are about stuff in the world, or just an entrancing introspective illusion?
Since he says thoughts are just an entrancing introspective illusion, why even bother listening to him? According to this passage from his book, he has no more insight than a plant.
What is the use of designing something that doesn’t work all that well? Intelligent design is not a falsifiable argument as I can’t disprove that the designer doesn’t exist and Dr. Behe cannot prove that he does. He can bring up instances which he feels (cannot prove however) shows a designer. By the same token, I can demonstrate evolution but cannot prove or disprove a supernatural designer.
You presume you know the purpose of the design. How very god-like of you.
Well, you mean I don’t know why my mouth was designed, what my legs are for? Oh? The designer is unknowable (I think I just said that as he can’t be proven or disproven by science, only by faith)? Dr. Behe doesn’t seem to have any problem knowing what his famous flagellum was designed to do.
“Revolutionary”, or just reactionary with a spin job?
My take is ID is not the focus or intent; perhaps the motive but it is irrelevant to possible utility of the perspective.
What is useful perhaps is disregarding mechanics and focusing on interactions or as referred to in this as ‘a set of relations’. How much farther can science be advanced by this approach? I think a lot.
Other questions beg, can a set of relations be mapped independent of the organism’s anatomy (mechanics)? I think in some cases yes. What relations are ‘introduced by’ or more correctly ‘created by’ distinctions in anatomy? Etc.
There is one tautology to all of science:
“All models are false, some are useful.”
So, what is the purpose of living beings?
The premise of theistic evolution is incoherent. The “theistic” part connotes a creator God who knows what he wants to do and does it. The “evolution” part connotes a process that is random and in no need of supervision by any conscious agent because it is sufficient unto itself. So theistic evolution might be rephrased as “a system whereby God creates using a process that he cannot influence in any way and which has no need of him.” Huh?Now, as to your claim that ID is not falsifiable – I’ll let Behe respond:If the theistic evolutionist responds, “Oh I don’t mean that kind of evolution. I mean the kind of evolution which is guided by God to fulfill his purposes,” then the true evolutionist will reply, “Well, that’s no kind of evolution. That’s some sort of creation scenario and you have no right to use the evolution word.”
“But!,” protests the theistic evolutionist, “I want you to know that I have nothing to do with those Intelligent Design idiots. I’m one of you! I’m one of the smart guys who is up on science, not some primitive religious fanatic. I truly do believe that Darwin got it right and random mutation coupled with natural selection is all there is. All I’m saying is that God uses that process to create all the living things on Earth.”
“Oh brother,” says the true evolutionist, “You just don’t get it do you? As soon as you toss God into the equation you blow evolution to smithereens and reveal yourself as exactly what you say you aren’t—a religious nut case. Evolution doesn’t need god, or goals, or interference by any intelligent agent. All evolution needs is a steady supply of random mistakes and the process of elimination called natural selection. That will get you to any form of life no matter how complex. It’s beautiful and you’re just too stupid to understand that its self sufficiency IS its beauty. Now get lost. You bore me.”
As I’ve played out this imaginary dialogue, I hope I’ve made clear that the last thing a theistic evolutionist wants is to be invited into the ID camp. The whole point of being a theistic evolutionist is to be good buddies with the smart guys of the world, the evolutionists; yet, to keep a toe in the belief system they grew up with and towards which they retain warm and fuzzy feelings. In any showdown, whether it be abortion, euthanasia, or school textbooks, staying in harmony with evolution will trump warm and fuzzy feelings about religious heritage.
-Laszlo Bencze
The National Academy of Sciences has objected that intelligent design is not falsifiable, and I think that’s just the opposite of the truth. Intelligent design is very open to falsification. I claim, for example, that the bacterial flagellum could not be produced by natural selection; it needed to be deliberately intelligently designed. Well, all a scientist has to do to prove me wrong is to take a bacterium without a flagellum, or knock out the genes for the flagellum in a bacterium, go into his lab and grow that bug for a long time and see if it produces anything resembling a flagellum. If that happened, intelligent design, as I understand it, would be knocked out of the water. I certainly don’t expect it to happen, but it’s easily falsified by a series of such experiments.Now let’s turn that around and ask, How do we falsify the contention that natural selection produced the bacterial flagellum? If that same scientist went into the lab and knocked out the bacterial flagellum genes, grew the bacterium for a long time, and nothing much happened, well, he’d say maybe we didn’t start with the right bacterium, maybe we didn’t wait long enough, maybe we need a bigger population, and it would be very much more difficult to falsify the Darwinian hypothesis.
I think the very opposite is true. I think intelligent design is easily testable, easily falsifiable, although it has not been falsified, and Darwinism is very resistant to being falsified. They can always claim something was not right.
This video is one of many examples of biologists taking on the challenge of Dr. Behe's claims.
But evolution cannot have a goal – is unguided and blind. A creator that sets things in motion with a purpose and plan does not conform with the theory of evolution. Furthermore, as a Christian you do believe in a designer who ‘is intimately involved in each and every new creature’.
As to your presentation (Boston? Really?) – it’s funny that you think Matzke (a militant atheist) has falsified ID – as you think ID can’t be falsified…He presented a ‘just-so’ ‘nature-did-it’ story. Possible and probable are not the same. His claim that ID does not do research is false – see here. In fact, some of Behe’s latest predictions are being shown as true.
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