Posted on 11/09/2004 11:21:22 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
The problem is, that ID is not "clearly silly." In fact, it is a quite reasonable theory.
Consider: we humans have been engaged in Intelligent Design for thousands of years. What else would you call the results of selective breeding and, more recently, direct genetic manipulation, if not Intelligent Design?
As humans gain increasing facility in genetic
What seems to me "silly" is your willingness to cast aside real, hard evidence to the effect that ID is at least a viable theory: human experience provides abundant evidence of its efficacy.
Are you really being reasonable here, or are you being "scientific" only in the ideological sense of the term?
I won't say that ID is the explanation. I'm merely suggesting to you that your rejection of ID is not based on evidence, which argues to its efficacy as an explanation.
> Consider: we humans have been engaged in Intelligent Design for thousands of years.
What evidence do you have for some Intelligent Designer intentionally and specifically manipulating Every Single Species Ever over the course of more than a billion years?
Your example, instead of supporting ID, in fact bolsters basica evolutionary principles. Selective breeding is no different from evolution, in that certain inheirited characteristics are passed on preferentially over others.
> ID is at least a viable theory
Your example shows that purely natural forces can change a species. You have not provided a shred of evidence that someone actually "bred" or gengineered every single species ont he planet.
ID remains no more than Poofism with a gloss of pseudoscience.
Anyone familiar with evolution is familiar with Richard Dawkins:
There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.I suppose it is gratifying to have the pope as an ally in the struggle against fundamentalist creationism. It is certainly amusing to see the rug pulled out from under the feet of Catholic creationists such as Michael Behe. Even so, given a choice between honest-to-goodness fundamentalism on the one hand, and the obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink of the Roman Catholic Church on the other, I know which I prefer.
When Religion Steps on Science's Turf
Yes, I missed it.
Do you have a link?
The human eye is a bit of interest to me lately, as I've just had eye surgery, on each one, to repair retinal tears, three in each.
As we age, the fluid inside the eye tends to shrink a bit, causing less pressure that holds the retina against the back of the eyeball. As the eye rotates, the edges of the retina can snag on this fluid ball and detach in small places. If not corrected, this can lead to a detached retina and blindness in the affected area.
When you go to the specialist for a more detailed checkup (from suggestion of your eyeglass person), you do NOT expect to be told that hey want to operate to repair problems with your eyes; RIGHT NOW! (It'll take your breath away and cause you to think REALLY hard, REALLY quick!)
They can use a laser to basically spot weld the loose edges of the tear to the underlying structure, but since mine were so far at the sides of the eye, I had to get an older technique, which uses supercold Nitrous Oxide gas to spray on the outside surface of the eye, which is so thin that the cold penetrates to the interior and freezes the retina to the structure.
Even with painkillers and anesthetics, the pain is superlatively exquisite! Think ice cream headache, multiply by 6 and increase the time of it by 15 minutes: for each eye!
Thankfully, my 6 month checkup reported good healing and no further problems are anticipated.
Just like the 'information' in the fossil record, this data is NOT there.
However, by using the same techniques as "E" folks, one can assume that A&E were the producers of Cain's wife (just like in Appalaichia, sometimes)
Connect the dots......
Biologists tend to worry than a small population of a certian creature (cheetahs, for example) will go extinct, due to too small a 'gene pool'.
I find it FANCINATING that on the EARLIER end of this 'population' (the "E" end), NO ONE ever uses the same argument to state that the CHEETAH would never get bumped into existance from the pre-cheetah, because of 'too few individuals'.
It's called the fossil record, toots.
Like some have said on these threads, "Are you SURE you're interpreting that right?"
(concerning the Bible record.)
Toots: COOL!
Rhymes with cute!
I'm not claiming any such thing. I am merely suggesting to you that ID is not "silly," as you claimed it to be. This is a blatantly obvious point: ID explains the defining characteristics of many of the plants and animals we see and use on a daily basis.
Your example, instead of supporting ID, in fact bolsters basica evolutionary principles. Selective breeding is no different from evolution, in that certain inheirited characteristics are passed on preferentially over others.
Selective breeding is obviously different from evolutionary principals, in that it is guided by intelligent agents, as opposed to uncontrolled natural forces. And, of course, direct genetic manipulation is even more obviously a case for intelligent design.
Your example shows that purely natural forces can change a species.
Quite the opposite, in fact. My example shows that very significant changes within a species can and HAVE been caused by intelligent agents, as opposed to "purely natural forces." Intelligent agents probably WILL create an actual new species at some point in the relatively near future. Which is to say: we KNOW that intelligent agents can and do account for some of what we see in nature, and we can expect more of the same.
You have not provided a shred of evidence that someone actually "bred" or gengineered every single species ont he planet.
Gosh -- perhaps that's because I never made the claim in the first place. In fact, I stated clearly that I was not making that claim. You've created a strawman -- though I hesitate to call it an example of "intelligent design."
ID remains no more than Poofism with a gloss of pseudoscience.
LOL!!!! You can only say that by denying the evidence all around you. Humans are doing ID every day. I'd say that the "poofism" charge sticks better to those who stoutly deny the facts in front of them.
> ID explains the defining characteristics of many of the plants and animals we see and use on a daily basis.
Well, they can also be explained by assumign that we live in The Matrix. However, fantastical explanations, like explaining every single organism in the world as being the product of some VAST bioengineering effort (was it a government or private enterprise project?), require fantastical evidence. What evidence do you have that someone actually genetically engineered, say, the North American Flying Squirrel?
> Selective breeding is obviously different from evolutionary principals
No, it's not. The principles remain entirely the same. Some naturally occuring phenomenon (in this case, human farmers), mean that some characteristics are more capable of successful reproduction than others. Humans simply sped up evolution for some species.
> Which is to say: we KNOW that intelligent agents can and do account for some of what we see in nature, and we can expect more of the same.
Yes, and we KNOW that natural selection accounts for the rest.
The reasoning goes as follows. We know from Scripture that Jesus died for our sins and that we are all sinners by virtue of our first parents' sin.
Romans 5:12This defect of original sin has been inherited by all mankind, although more in a spiritual sense than a material sense. Therefore, we could not have descended from various parents. Otherwise, some of us would be tainted by original sin while others wouldn't.Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men
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As estimated by evolutionary biologists, the development of a new species must take at least thousands of years for a sufficient number of mutations to alter the genetic code sufficiently to identify a new species.
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In a steady state process, such as evolution, time cancels out of the equation. Since speciation should be occuring on a continual basis it should be at ALL stages at any given point in time throughout the biosphere, and we should be able to see it by taking a representative sample.
The fact that we don't is a major predictive problem with the theory of evolution.
Your response is quite dishonest. But then, I have learned that about your responses in general. Have a good day.
> Your response is quite dishonest.
So, you choose to see facts as lies. I can't help you, then. Have fun in The Matrix.
> This defect of original sin ...
Huh. I wonder how often proponants of "Intelligent Design" recognize that their "Designer" wasn't very good at his job? Very, very sloppy.
Where's that Land Of Nod, anyway?
Your post is so ignorant of evolutionary theory that I cannot even begin to respond to it.
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