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Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution
LiveScience.com ^ | 22 September 2005 | Ker Than

Posted on 09/22/2005 4:15:34 AM PDT by 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...]

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: allcrevoallthetime; boooooring; creationism; crevolist; crevorepublic; darwin; enoughalready; evolution; intelligentdesign; makeitstop; notagain
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To: RadioAstronomer
No flappadoodle. To assert a positive identification of a particular ring in a dead tree to correspond to one in a living tree is arrogant foolishness, but exactly what one would expect from an evolution true believer.

As for ice cores, the same argument is applicable. There is no possible way to determine how many times a patch of ice froze or thawed in any year, nor how many years it may have remained frozen without freezing. It's all circular assumption. The ends justify the means for all old earthers.

81 posted on 09/22/2005 2:33:38 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: WildHorseCrash

What you are forming is a classic strawman. The situation you wish to present is impossible; if it were possible, someone would have found the boner long ago. Give me some reality.


82 posted on 09/22/2005 2:37:38 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: editor-surveyor
No flappadoodle. To assert a positive identification of a particular ring in a dead tree to correspond to one in a living tree is arrogant foolishness, but exactly what one would expect from an evolution true believer.

The rings are read in groups, not in isolation. Similar ring patterns can be discerned in various trees.

As for ice cores, the same argument is applicable. There is no possible way to determine how many times a patch of ice froze or thawed in any year, nor how many years it may have remained frozen without freezing. It's all circular assumption.

It is not "ice" being read, but remnants of annual snowfalls. The ice cores are calibrated by checking for inclusions from known historical events, such as volcanic eruptions or forest fires.

The ends justify the means for all old earthers.

It seems that, by purposefully misrepresenting the science involved, this statement would be more applicable to YEC types.

83 posted on 09/22/2005 2:38:39 PM PDT by Junior (Just because the voices in your head tell you to do things doesn't mean you have to listen to them)
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To: RadioAstronomer

Frozen without thawing I meant


84 posted on 09/22/2005 2:39:27 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: Junior

Junior, I didn't expect you to understand. Annual snowfall cannot be asserted nor proven. It's all circular assumption.


85 posted on 09/22/2005 2:41:31 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: Junior

As for the 'similar' ring patterns, I can demolish that nonsense on my own property. The difference in the growth of digger pines that grow side by side can be remarkable, and I find myself puzzled by those differences often. Also, older trees often grow at different rates than young trees. This can be due to available ground water, or differences in the terrain that the tree is encountering as its roots grow.


86 posted on 09/22/2005 2:48:46 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: editor-surveyor

Will you be replying to my post #70?


87 posted on 09/22/2005 2:49:06 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: Coyoteman

Your #70 seems to have the same illogic embeded as Radio Astronomer's post. Trees simply don't grow in unison, so you cannot assume something that was not observed. Also, living trees are only agglomerating c14 in the living portions, not the core. There is no measureable exchange between the cambium and the core wood.


88 posted on 09/22/2005 2:55:56 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: Coyoteman
Welcome to the "Festival of Denying All Evidence"....

(it makes argumentation easier)

89 posted on 09/22/2005 2:56:38 PM PDT by longshadow
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To: editor-surveyor
What you are forming is a classic strawman. The situation you wish to present is impossible; if it were possible, someone would have found the boner long ago. Give me some reality.

I am doing no such thing. I was questioning your thought process. It has direct applicability here.

But, no matter. You want reality? Okay, here's reality. There is a set of irrefutable scientific arguments for the fact that the events in Genesis simply could not have occurred as described. Impossible under the laws of the physics and the universe.

Now, given that extra-biblical knowledge and that the text of Genesis says different things that cannot be reconciled, the obvious question is presented: does a believer in the bible reject the sure knowledge outside of the bible and believe the words in the book? Or does he believe that the bible is in error or his understanding is in error and believe what reason tells him to be the truth? Or does he simply disbelieve, a priori, anything that he fears conflicts with the text by asserting that "it's not true"?

90 posted on 09/22/2005 2:56:44 PM PDT by WildHorseCrash
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To: editor-surveyor
Your #70 seems to have the same illogic embeded as Radio Astronomer's post. Trees simply don't grow in unison, so you cannot assume something that was not observed. Also, living trees are only agglomerating c14 in the living portions, not the core. There is no measureable exchange between the cambium and the core wood.

Right! And the Carbon-14 begins to decay in the dead parts.

Take a look at the site below. Note however that the calibration curve has been extended past what this site has--it must be a couple of years old. http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html.

If you still refuse to see this evidence I'm going to have to stop trying. If you are a young earth creationist and will not entertain any other view, then spending my time trying to explain things is useless. If that's the case just say so.

91 posted on 09/22/2005 3:02:26 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: SeaLion
"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"
Actually for many millennium apparently using the evolution theory's time-line, creation had no competition and the theory of evolution as postulated by Darwin is a very late arrival.
92 posted on 09/22/2005 3:07:22 PM PDT by kublia khan (absolute war brings total victory)
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To: WildHorseCrash

The laws of physics were born with creation. Our space-time continuum was created. It will also be destroyed. There is an existance outside of time; that's God's existance as well as the heavenly host (angels) and after the ressurection and the white throne judgement there will be time no more. Without this universe, where will the 'laws of physics' be?


93 posted on 09/22/2005 3:14:18 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: Coyoteman
My friend, the feeling is mutual :o)

The real difference to me is that you are in eternal peril, and clinging to your old earth security blanket is preventing your eternal security.

94 posted on 09/22/2005 3:17:49 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Atheist and Fool are synonyms; Evolution is where fools hide from the sunrise)
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To: WildHorseCrash
There is irrefutable scientific arguments that the dead cannot come back to life, yet it happened and I believe it no matter what science says to the contrary.

JM
95 posted on 09/22/2005 3:23:35 PM PDT by JohnnyM
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To: NonLinear
But the ID people could just as easily say: "It *examines* disagreements among biologists, pointing out gaps in their understanding of evolution in order to *expose* evolution as a "theory in crisis."

Of course, that would be a lie - so yes, I guess not only *could* IDists say that, they *would* say it.

96 posted on 09/22/2005 3:38:43 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: newcthem
...yet when a view is proposed that doesn't fit their template, it is termed an assault.

You don't know what you're talking about. The creationists speak openly of a "wedge strategy." Try reading Mere Creation for an eye opening look at their thinking. It is clear that creationism is a political and social effort only, not scientific. The term assault is wholly warranted.

97 posted on 09/22/2005 3:51:53 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: newsgatherer
...the who is God, the when is right on 6,415 years ago, and the where is, well, look around, earth and the heavens.

Dude, shhhh, haven't you gotten the talking points yet? ID makes no claims about the nature of the "designer" (wink, wink).

98 posted on 09/22/2005 4:03:38 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: Free Baptist
Evoltion can be assalted?

I find it doesn't need any seasoning, but de gustibus non est disputandum.

99 posted on 09/22/2005 4:07:40 PM PDT by edsheppa
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To: Coyoteman; Free Baptist
The curve has been extended past 20,000 years using other materials.

Actually quite a bit further (up to maybe 50Kya). One way radiocarbon dating has been calibrater is by examining ancient lake sediments. It is reliable because they can literaly see the years as layers.

100 posted on 09/22/2005 4:13:00 PM PDT by edsheppa
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