Is Intelligent Design a Bad Scientific Theory or a Non-Scientific Theory?

Tech Central Station ^ | 11/10/2005 | Uriah Kriegel

[andysandmikesmom]

Bravo for your post #126...I read these ID/evolution threads with great interest, and every single day, I learn more and more, with great posts such as yours...

I look for those posters such as yourself, who contribute reliable information, for those of us who are primarily lurkers and I am sure that there are those, like myself, who are really unlearned in so many areas of science...reliable information helps many of us along...

And also I have found out on these threads, that there are also posters who post nothing but old, outdated, incorrect information, and others who have no information to share, but like to get on these threads, call people names, and then run away...

It is all very enlightening, not only for the information provided, but also for shedding light on the horrible behavior of some posters...

Carry on...it is appreciated by this poster...

[highball]

Again, citation for the 99.9% number.

Why?

Because these threads are ultimately about science. When you make claims like that one, you're supposed to back them up with evidence. That's what science is, and it's why evolution is good science and ID doesn't qualify.

[Zathras]

Lets put the best possible face on ID.

Ok, you are God trying to explain to Moses, Creation so he can write the book of Geneses.

Do you try to explain DNA to someone who could never understand it or...
Do you describe Creation in terms he can grasp... A parable similar to how Jesus taught his followers.

[blue-duncan]

"why would you even think that a fictionalized account of how the Hebrews arrived at the same rules means that Jesus or Moses were frauds or fantasies?"

Because both claimed they were direct revelations from the God, not myths or legends. But I'm intrigued by your "*Aside from the first couple of commandments, the rest are simply common sense measures to allow people to live together peacefully."

Why, if there is noone to ultimately answer to, should anyone worry about "living peacefully" with neighbors? That is a principle for the weak to live by, not the strong and clever. If I have the most powerful navy, why not impose "gunboat" diplomacy on lesser nations? If I have the most powerful army, why not impose my will on weaker peoples? If I'm stronger than my neighbor why not take his wife, car, house and money? The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre says that "If God is dead, everything is permitted." In other words, if there is no supreme being to lay down the moral law, each individual is free to do as he or she pleases. Without a divine lawgiver, there can be no universal moral law.

If we are just random "accidents", products of chemicals, why should we care about anything but ourselves and why should we speculate about origins, purpose or being?

[ml1954]

How would you falsify creation theory, ID theory or evolution?

Evolution is falsifiable. Any fossil found that didn't fit the predicted evolutionary progression would falsify it. For example, a 2 billion year old rabbit fossil or a T. Rex fossil only 6000 years old would do it. Every time a fossil is found evolution is tested.

[Sofa King]

"You're taking away all my options. Im reminded of the Life of Brian skit:"

Are you denying that musculature is based off of the skeleton?

Are you denying that body posture is mostly a product of the skeleton?

You haven't refuted either of these points, but seem to wish to implicitly argue that they aren't fair because they leave you with nothing to back up your argument with. If all of your examples of a difference between the "outer shell" of a chimp and a human that is not reliant on the skeleton turn out to be fallacious, then that is a problem with your reasoning, not mine.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Why are you talking about God writing the 10 Commandments when you originally said,

" When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" was he lying or just mistaken?"

You therefore claimed he wrote Genesis 1 and 2 with his own hand on tablets made of stone (that's where the creations stories are). Why are you talking about the 10 Commandments?

So when you said, "When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.", were you mistaken or lying?

[RightWhale]

It's an interesting point of departure. There has been an amount of thought about this in the past several millenia, some of which is still available in book form, and translated into modern languages. Not all of it makes reference to religious matters.

If in conquering everybody and taking their stuff, one manages somehow to avoid early retirement due to a dirk in the ribs, one may reflect in old age on whether working cooperatively in a community might not be less arduous and far more productive of happiness.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre says that "If God is dead, everything is permitted."

Sarte was wrong.

[bert]

Id is like the rats who crave power making up all kinds of stuff to win the argument. There is a hope that if you tell repeat the fiction long enough and loud enough it will turn in to truth.mthe

[js1138]

Careful, or he'll sic Pat Robertson on you.

[conserv371]

My point being that the laws and the waves that we encounter in life have a logical and intelligent use to them. The being is the Author of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, etc. It all came from a Super Intelligent Being. The major problem of evolution is that it operates within a finite boundary while dismissing things that are infinite and transcendent.

While evolutionist have the process of life taking so many billions of years, creationists who believe in an infinite God realize that the whole process could have taken one day or one hour. Why six days? For our benefit in order to give us a pattern for work. In regards to age, everything was designed mature.

Is that saying, micro-evolution has not occurred? No. There have been changes within the cat family and the dog family but that is after their kind.

[Stultis]

The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre says that "If God is dead, everything is permitted."

I thought that was Ivan in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov? (But then maybe this naive formulation isn't as persuasive coming from a fictional character that turns around and kills himself.)

[ml1954]

That's because defining a specie, from an evolutionary standpoint, basically involves drawing arbitrary lines to break up a smooth continuum. 'Species' are a human-imposed division used to make classifying things easier for study. There is no absolute natural definition for one.

Well said. It can't be repeated enough.

[JohnnyM]

This is from Ichy's post:

"Creation, defining things as kinds that were created once and for all, implies that all species should be clearly demarcated and that there should be a clear and universal definition of kind or species."

An example is then given with fossil hominid skulls (and I'm assuming nothing else) where creationist scientists are fuzzy on what skull belongs to which kind/species (ape or man), thereby making their previous claim of easy validation wrong.

But this is an invalid test, since the creationists did not claim to be able to classify species simply by a single fossil (in this case a skull), and I'm sure they would agree that they could not. Classification is based on more than just a single fossil or a skull.

JM

[JohnnyM]

Im sure there are differences in certain organs and the like, but I couldn't tell which ones and how so. Our nose and ears are different. Our brains are different sizes. Our skeleton defines our "appearance" for the most part. So if your point is that the skeleton defines how we look and how we are primarily differentiated from other species, than I agree.

And I agree that you can classify/identify a species if you had its whole skeleton (I did not mean to imply otherwise), but we are not talking about a full skeleton, because the same cannot be said for a single bone fossil. So to say that creationist got "some splaining to do" if they can't is disengenous.

I would like to see how the creationists and other scientists would classify these specimens if they had the whole skeleton, rather than just a fragment.

JM

[ml1954]

At some level I don't like idiots in ivory towers telling me what I have to believe and teach my children.

What about idiots behind pulpits?

[YHAOS]

"Do you think we can create a "Church of Advanced Physics" and get a tax exemption?"

Would you be unreservedly dedicated to not making a profit under any circumstance whatsoever?

[ml1954]

Be better to look to Hitler or Marx and their advocates for those answers.

LOL.

Will these behaviors and other things happen from the dementeds of the cult of evo..??

ROFLOL.

[MindBender26]

>When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" was he lying or just mistaken?

Did Methuselah really live to be 969 years old?

Did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego really walk in the fire.

Did one man, Noah, really build a boat large enough to contain two of every species and the food required to feed them for 40 days and the time afterwards required for the waters that covered the Earth to receed?

And when the water receeded, where did it go? Since all the Earth was covered with water, it couldn't have gone into the oceans, since they were already filled with water. Where did the water go?

Don't confuse Bible stories with God's works. They can be very different.