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...]

[RogueIsland]

Shall we add magic potions to our chemistry curriculum?

If there's a potion that will render either Kate Beckinsale or Charlize Theron hoplessly attracted to me, I demand it be added to the curriculum.

[editor-surveyor]

"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."

Is this an attempt at humor?

For those too impaired to accept the proven word of God, I suppose that evolution may be an attractive 'alternative' but really it is for those who wish to be their own god.

[fizziwig]

Here we go again with the evo ID debate. Each side setting up a straw man and then knocking him down. Its hopeless...I'm out...sayonara.

[From many - one.]

"God created English, see Genesis 11"


Thank you. So, when God creates something it doesn't have to appear right away and it can evolve.

[editor-surveyor]

" what non-documentary evidence do you have that there is such a thing as a God?"

A challenging question when you examine it foundationally. One has to agree on just what a god is, and also what is or is not 'documentary.'

The evidence that best lends itself to abstraction is based in an understanding of the area of applied mathematics known as "probability and statistics." Back in the mid 90's Michael Drosnan, an unbeliever of Jewish descent, wrote an assuming and self indulgant book entitled "The Bible Code." Much of the book was downright silly, such as attempting to predict the future by information extracted from equidistant letter sequences found in the Masoretic text. The value of the book in a real-world sense is it's explanation of the mechanics of equidistant letter sequences themselves, rather than his 'messages.'

Many jumped on this phenomenon from both sides of the aisle. Hebrew scholars produced many coherent sentences, many of which repeated 3 or more times in succession, while others claimed to have 'debunked' the phenomenon by finding similar 'codes' in other hebrew texts. Since the publication of the original book, much genuine study has progressed, and a recent book, "The Bible Code Bombshell," presents presents powerful statistical evidence, consisting of long, coherent ELS sentences, pertinant to the topic of the surface text wherein they are contained. While some short ELS sentences can be found in some other hebrew texts, they lact the surface text pertinance, and also fail the statistical probability tests that many of the biblical ELS sentences pass with flying colors. To get a proper understanding of the issues, one must read the book, but the evidence is conclusive: The Bible had to have been written by an entity that had full control of the formation of language itself, and accurate knowledge of the future.

Does that entity fit your definition of "God?" You can lead a horse to water...

[Mulch]

Do you see any inadequacies in Evolution as a theory? If so, what would they be?

[Coyoteman]

Teach the controversy! Present alternatives!

Digueño Creation Story

When Tu-chai-pai made the world, the earth was the woman, the sky was the man. The sky came down upon the earth. The world in the beginning was a pure lake covered with tulles. Tu-chai-pai and his younger brother, Yo-ko-mat-is, sat together, stooping far over, bowed down by the weight of the sky. The Maker said to his brother, "What am I going to do?"

"I do not know," said Yo-ko-mat-is.

"Let us go a little farther," said the Maker.

So they went a little farther and sat down to rest. "Now what am I going to do?" said Tu-chai-pai.

"I do not know, my brother."

All of this time the Maker knew what he was about to do, but he was asking his brother's help. Then he said, "We-hicht, we-hicht, we-hicht," three times. He took tobacco in his hand. and rubbed it fine and blew upon it three times. Every time he blew, the heavens rose higher above their heads.

Younger brother did the same thing because the Maker asked him to do it. The heavens went higher and higher and so did the sky. Then they did it both together, "We-hicht, we-hicht, we-hicht," and both took tobacco, rubbed it, and puffed hard upon it, sending the sky so high it formed a concave arch.

Then they placed North, South, East, and West. Tu-chai-pai made a line upon the ground. "Why do you make that line?" asked younger brother. "I am making the line from East to West and name them so. Now you make a line from North to South."

Yo-ko-mat-is thought very hard. How would he arrange it? Then he drew a crossline from top to bottom. He named the top line North, and the bottom line South. Then he asked, "Why are we doing this?" The Maker said, "I will tell you. Three or four men are coming from the East, and from the West three or four Indians are coming."

The brother asked, "Do four men come from the North, and two or three men come from the South?"

Tu-chai-pai said, "Yes. Now I am going to make hills and valleys and little hollows of water."

"Why are you making all of these things?"

The Maker explained, "After a while when men come and are walking back and forth in the world, they will need to drink water or they will die." He had already made the ocean, but he needed little water places for the people.

Then he made the forests and said, "After a while men will die of cold unless I make wood for them to burn. What are we going to do now?" "I do not know," replied younger brother.

"We are going to dig in the ground and find mud to make the first people, the Indians." So he dug in the ground and took mud to make the first men and the first women. He made the men easily, but he had much trouble making women. It took him a long time. After the Indians, he made the Mexicans and finished all his making. He then called out very loudly, "People, you can never die and you can never get tired, so you can walk all the time." But then he made them sleep at night, to keep them from walking in the darkness. At last he told them that they must travel toward the East, where the sun's light was coming out for the first time.

The Indians then came out and searched for the light, and at last they found light and were exceedingly glad to see the Sun. The Maker called out to his brother, "It's time to make the Moon. You call out and make the Moon to shine, as I have made the Sun. Sometime the Moon will die. When it grows smaller and smaller, men will know it is going to die, and they must run races to try and keep up with the dying moon."

The villagers talked about the matter and they understood their part and that Tu-chai-pai would be watching to see that they did what he wanted them to do. When the Maker completed all of this, he created nothing more. But he was always thinking how to make Earth and Sky better for all the Indians.

[Coyoteman]

the when is right on 6,415 years ago

What about the Carbon-14 date I got recently at 5190 B.C. (>7100 years ago)?

[editor-surveyor]

Tu chai pi's creation story is obviously lacking. The earth was already there when he started, so just what does he claim to have created?

Also, does his writing contain all the interlaced numeric proof of authenticity that the real creator placed in his word?

[SeaLion]

a recent book, "The Bible Code Bombshell," presents presents powerful statistical evidence...[snip]...The Bible had to have been written by an entity that had full control of the formation of language itself, and accurate knowledge of the future. Does that entity fit your definition of "God?" You can lead a horse to water...

And if you run the stylus backwards over a vinyl copy of the Beatles' Abbey Road album, you discover that Paul McCartney is dead.

My friend, believe as you will--and I will defend to the utmost your right to believe it. But on this particular creed you are setting forth...sorry, this horse ain't that thirsty.

But always (I hope), cordially.

[WildHorseCrash]

I think that if a person can demonstrate that there are such things (not necessarily God) that exist apart from being placed under a "microscope" of sorts, then it can set the stage for a more productive discussion on the questions you have asked.

How, I would ask, can a person "demonstrate" anything and not use what you term the "naturalist perspective"? The only alternative I can see is simply people arbitrarily agreeing to the truth of something. That, however, demonstrates nothing but the agreement, and certainly not the truth of the matter. For example, if someone says, "such-and-such is true because it says so in my holy book," that does not demonstrate the truth of the statement, even among the speaker's co-religionists.

What other possible way is there to "demonstrate" anything?

[Coyoteman]

Tu chai pi's creation story is obviously lacking. The earth was already there when he started, so just what does he claim to have created?

Also, does his writing contain all the interlaced numeric proof of authenticity that the real creator placed in his word?

Thank you for helping to illustrate the point I am trying to make with the creation stories I post.

The most common reaction I get is the equivalent of "that's not the creation I meant!"

Your comment, if you'll pardon the paraphrase, is "My creation story is better than your creation story." This is similar.

What these reactions illustrate is that the ID folks do not want intelligent design in all its breadth and detail (such as the Native American creation stories). Rather, ID is a device to get a particular creation story (the bible) into classrooms.

Thank you for helping me illustrate this.

[betty boop]

Bookmark for later -- thanks for the ping, editor-surveyor!

[WildHorseCrash]

The creations speak for themselsves, do you really need to do other than look around at the of earth? Can you not see that even the little bombadire bettel could not have evolved, that there had to be a Creator?

Thanks for the reply.

Well, I don't think that biological entities themselves bespeak creation, let alone the existence of a God. Those people whose job it is to examine biological entities are nearly unanimous in the opinion that they evolved. This would, of course, include those who believe that evolution to be the direct or indirect work of a deity, but it opens the possibility of it be fully naturalistic evolution.

The evolution of the bombardier beetle, for example, is by no means impossible nor even improbable. Many of the necessary intermediate features are common among related beetles.

So, I don't think that qualifies, but I respect your right to hold that opinion.

What about the other questions? (Let me repeat them:)

Second, what non-documentary evidence do you have that, if there is a God, that it is Yahweh/Jehovah and not, for example, Vishnu or Oden?

Third, what evidence do you have that the Muslim interpretation of things, in which the Koran was given to the Jews and Christians who then perverted it into the current forms of those religions, is false (assuming that you do, in fact, believe it to be false)?

Fourth, on your believe in the Bible; if the Bible said something that you knew, from non-biblical sources, for an absolute fact was not true, would you believe the Bible? For example, if the Bible said "all cats reproduce by laying eggs out of which kittens hatch," would you believe cats lay eggs or would you conclude that the text is wrong and believe what you know to be the truth?

[Free Baptist]

Evoltion can be assalted? Is evolution a religion? Is Darwinianism a kind of faith?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

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

Space aliens are fact?

[WildHorseCrash]

The evidence that best lends itself to abstraction is based in an understanding of the area of applied mathematics known as "probability and statistics."

Thanks for the reply. There are many, many problems with Mr. Sherman's book, the execution of his idea, ELS, and "holy book codes" themselves. (For example, there is a "Koran code" that purports to do exactly what you claim for the Bible: proof its validity through the detection of coding.)

But, even putting that aside, improbability is not proof of the existence of a God, but of improbability. The computation of a statistic includes many, many variables, many of which are assumed. But more to the point, even something that is exceedingly unlikely (even to the order of 1 in 1x10^100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) CAN occur without the existence of a God.

But thank you for your reply. I don't think "Bible codes" fits the bill of "non-documentary evidence", but I respect your right to hold that opinion.

What about the other questions? (Let me repeat them:)

Second, what non-documentary evidence do you have that, if there is a God, that it is Yahweh/Jehovah and not, for example, Vishnu or Oden?

Third, what evidence do you have that the Muslim interpretation of things, in which the Koran was given to the Jews and Christians who then perverted it into the current forms of those religions, is false (assuming that you do, in fact, believe it to be false)?

Fourth, on your believe in the Bible; if the Bible said something that you knew, from non-biblical sources, for an absolute fact was not true, would you believe the Bible? For example, if the Bible said "all cats reproduce by laying eggs out of which kittens hatch," would you believe cats lay eggs or would you conclude that the text is wrong and believe what you know to be the truth?

[Free Baptist]

"God spoke in English?"

He is able to, and has done so. It is in writing, preserved by Divine superintendence. After giving His word by inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16, 17), God did not lose interest in the transmission of His words in written form from generation to generation, but had promised their preservation. In fact, there are more references to the promise of preservation than there are to the fact of inspiration itself.

God well knew what language would be the major language of trade and commerce, technology and science, medicine, diplomacy and everything else in these current generations. He not only knew, but had something to do with the history and geopolitics that made it so (Acts 17:26). It is English. There is a preserved and authoritative English text. And thus it can be said with no tongue in our cheek that God speaks in English.

[Free Baptist]

"Thank you. So, when God creates something it doesn't have to appear right away and it can evolve."

Etymology and Philology are sciences. "Evolution" that is the subject of these sciences is observable (or audible, if you will). In fact, anyone 30 years of age and older, scientist or not, has observed evolution of language.

Animal species evolution is not true science, because it cannot be observed happening in any kind of laboratory (a man-made lab or otherwise). It has never been observed happening in all of man's recorded history. And no dating method is accurate beyond 10,000 years (to be most generous). Darwinian-ism is a faith; a religious faith.