Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution

LiveScience.com ^ | 22 September 2005 | Ker Than

[SeaLion]

Editor's Note: This article is the first in a special LiveScience series about the theory of evolution and a competing idea called intelligent design.

TODAY: An overview of the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the proponents of intelligent design.

COMING FRIDAY : Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't pass scientific muster.

Science can sometimes be a devil's bargain: a discovery is made, some new aspect of nature is revealed, but the knowledge gained can cause mental anguish if it contradicts a deeply cherished belief or value.

[snip]

Darwin's truth can be a hard one to accept. His theory of evolution tells us that humans evolved from non-human life as the result of a natural process, one that was both gradual, happening over billions of years, and random. It tells us that new life forms arise from the splitting of a single species into two or more species, and that all life on Earth can trace its origins back to a single common ancestor.

Perhaps most troubling of all, Darwin's theory of evolution tells us that life existed for billions of years before us, that humans are not the products of special creation and that life has no inherent meaning or purpose.

For Americans who view evolution as inconsistent with their intuitions or beliefs about life and how it began, Creationism has always been a seductive alternative.

Creationism's latest embodiment is intelligent design (ID), a conjecture that certain features of the natural world are so intricate and so perfectly tuned for life that they could only have been designed by a Supreme Being.

[article continues...]

[Lexinom]

And it certainly isn't the religious one, but I expect you'll disagree.

Which religious one? The one based on the religion of theism or atheism? You've brushed aside the constancy of rates issue, and simply stated by fiat that the Genisis account could not have happened, but have not backed up that assertion.

Really it comes down to what one wants to believe. Many feel uncomfortable with the notion of accountability for the actions, and of divine retribution. Secular humanism is a faith that tries to accommodate an allaying of those fears. The Word of God, however, is very clear in Romans chapter 1: every person knows there is a God, and some suppress the truth. Evolution is simply a systematized form of that suppression.

[curiosity]

Darwin explains nicely how DNA allows creatures to adapt. Darwin fails miserably in explaining how DNA comes into being

Since Darwin never even tried to explain the origin or life, and was quite up front about the fact that his theory assumes life already exists, I can hardly see how you can say he "failed miserably."

Dawinism is just a theory about how life diversifies, how new speices form from older species, and the like. It has nothing to do with the origin or life.

You are quite right that scientists do not understand how life origniated, and they openly admit it.

But Darwin has problems with fossil records too.

Such as...

Where are all these intermediate transition species that failed?

In the fossil record.

[Doc Savage]

What debate? Evolution is a THEORY. Prove it and your detractors will go away! I will bet you geniuses that you were taught that Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny and you blindly accepted it as fact based on proven fraudulent drawing. You were also taught One Gene - One Enzyme, which has also been proven incorrect. You were taught the Miller and Urey PROVED the "creation" (knew you'd like that word!) of life. All false. All proven false.

Just produce the peer-reviewable and reproducible research proving Macro-Evolution actually occurred and was the singular force in the "creation" "knew you would love that word!) of life and we will all go away quietly. But you can't.

You will never be able to overcome the black box of molecular structure and design. But you guys love pretending Macro-Evolution is fact. It's theory! You guys really need to get outside your bathrooms more. Maybe catch a ball game or hunt mushrooms!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I am saying that anyone that is 30 years of age or older in America can hear changes in language, and we can view adaptations of usage of words, and the addition of new words and usages in almost every new edition of Webster's Collegiate dictionary.

But it's still English. It's no new language.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Hey! Watch that "religious people" stuff.

Some of us are ticklish. ;)

[newsgatherer]

Then who's the Designer?

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

That is who the designer is, GOD!

[NonLinear]

Since Darwin never even tried to explain the origin or life, and was quite up front about the fact that his theory assumes life already exists, I can hardly see how you can say he "failed miserably."

OK, I accept the stipulation that Darwinism does not claim to explain the origin of life. Does it claim to explain the origin of DNA?
I'm new to this debate.
I keep seeing the ID people saying the evolutionist are claiming that evolution does not explain the origin of the species. As I understood it, "The Origin of the Species" was the title of Darwin's book. I keep seeing the evolution people saying that ID should not be taught as a possible origin of life, i.e. the species, so I (perhaps incorrectly) inferred that the evolutionist HAD an explanation as to the origin, since they seemed to be so sure the ID folks were wrong.

The evolutionists say that the ID people have it all wrong, when the ID people say there is a creator behind the design, and the design of DNA is what makes the whole evolution/adaptation thing work. So, again I thought they had an explanation.

In fact, the origin seemed to be the most contentious issue in the whole debate, as far as I could see. Admittedly, the signal to noise ratio is quite low in most of the threads, and there are folks who have spent a LOT more time looking at this than I have. This isn't my day job, and I'm just a simple mind looking for truth where I can find it, just because I find this life and universe fascinating.

Where are all these intermediate transition species that failed?

In the fossil record.

Ok, fair enough. Could you please point me to a link? I've missed it, and the subject seemed to keep coming up in the debate. Again I, perhaps incorrectly, thought that to be an unsettled part of the debate since it kept cropping up.

[js1138]

I didn't say anything particularly critical of "religious people". I didn't call them stupid or ignorant.

I said they will be unhappy with the results if religious concepts like ID are taught in the public schools. If ID is taught in science classes, the designer will be portrayed as the author of disease. There is no logical way around this.

[curiosity]

OK, I accept the stipulation that Darwinism does not claim to explain the origin of life. Does it claim to explain the origin of DNA?

Nope. Darwin did not even know DNA existed.

I keep seeing the ID people saying the evolutionist are claiming that evolution does not explain the origin of the species. As I understood it, "The Origin of the Species" was the title of Darwin's book.

It was The Origin of Species,

and it refers to the formation of new speices from older, pre-existing ones.

so I (perhaps incorrectly) inferred that the evolutionist HAD an explanation as to the origin, since they seemed to be so sure the ID folks were wrong.

You are incorrect as to both what evolution and ID say. The IDers claim that certain biological organs and organalles are too complex to have evolved through natural selection from older, simpler life. From this they say one must conclude that these things must have been designed.

Evoltionists dispute the IDers claim that certain things are to complex to have evolved in a Darwinian fashion. They also point out that the IDers' claim that these things were designed is unscientific, for it is not exmpirically testable.

[curiosity]

Ok, fair enough. Could you please point me to a link?

Sorry, forgot about this part. Here's a good link that list but just a small sample of transitional fossils:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

[curiosity]

Oh, one last thing. Let me post from Darwin the last paragraph of the Origin, so you can see that Darwin was making no bones about the fact that he was NOT attampting to explain the origin of life:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed 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. "

[NonLinear]

Thanks!

[Coyoteman]

The bristlecone pine chronology in the White Mountains currently extends back almost 9,000 years continuously. That's to 7,000 BC! Several pieces of wood have been collected that will extend this date back even further. The hope is to push the date back to at least 8,000 BC. This will be important as the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, and to have a record of this transition period would offer scientists a wealth of information.

=====

Only in the circular reasoning of Darwinian scientists, who are described in Pslam [sic] 14:1.

Nice refutation! [NOT]

You ducked the entire issue and simply cited the bible.

I think you just forfeited the entire argument right there.

[curiosity]

I just realized something. I said that the transitions are in the fossil record, and indeed many are. However, it now appears to me that my statement can give the mistaken impression that all transitional species left fossils. This is, of course, incorrect, since the probability that any given animal will leave behind fossil remains is very small.

So I would say, the fossil record has many transitional species, but by no means does it have them all. However, given the probability of fossilization, the number of transitionals we do see is about what one would expect if evolution were true.

[NonLinear]

Thanks for the clarification.
I had actually picked that up from the link you provided, but appreciate the follow-up.
It looks like it will take me a few days to get up to speed. Maybe, I should say a little while. It looks like a rather involved trail!

Thanks again!
-NL

[curiosity]

Enjoy your reading! It's been a pleasure chatting.

[WildHorseCrash]

Well, if you want to slink away from a question like a coward, that is your right. It is interesting to me that those that profess so much faith in their God and their bible, will never answer this simple hypothetical.

[WildHorseCrash]

Which religious one? The one based on the religion of theism or atheism?

The one that says the Hebrew creation myth actually happened.

You've brushed aside the constancy of rates issue, and simply stated by fiat that the Genisis account could not have happened, but have not backed up that assertion.

I've not brushed them aside. As I've said, this material has been posted so many times on these forums, and is available in so many forms on the internet, that one has to be willingly ignorant not to have access to this material.

More to the point, no one's asked me to (re-)post it. But if you're interesting in learning about science, start with the Great Freeper, PatrickHenry's "about" page.

Really it comes down to what one wants to believe. Many feel uncomfortable with the notion of accountability for the actions, and of divine retribution. Secular humanism is a faith that tries to accommodate an allaying of those fears. The Word of God, however, is very clear in Romans chapter 1: every person knows there is a God, and some suppress the truth. Evolution is simply a systematized form of that suppression.

I don't go for those conspiracy thories. Further, I don't care what Romans say about the subject; I don't beieve that book is correct. Would you care that the Muslim Holy Book says that every soul is Muslim and is only peverted into being Christian or Jewish or Hindu? You saying that everyone knows there is a God but some suppress it, and, as proof, you point to your Holy Book is circular argument at its best (or worst)...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

That is who the Designer is, GOD!

Thank you. I agree with you.

However, that's not ID.

[G Larry]

Bump!