POINT #1:
George Lemaitre's assertion of a Big Bang: 1927.
Not proven until scientists confirmed prediction associated with BB, the CBR, in 1965.
38 years.
Miller-Urey: 1953.
We've had 52 years for someone to advance the theory of abiogenesis.
(We're still waaaaaiiiiting....)
The fact that nothing has happened along these lines (abiogenesis) doesn't necessarily prove anything, but it is, at the least (now let's be honest, guys) indicative that, perhaps, if abiogenesis were easily provable...someone would have LOVED to have been the prover, and win the prize that let's you travel to Stockholm and meet Swedish royalty.
No one has.
When a golden apple is put up for anyone to grasp...and no one does...it means the apple is a little tougher to grasp than people are admitting.
My thinking is that it would seem that the irreducible complexity of biological organisms at even the smallest levels seems to be the roadblock preventing us from, after 52 years, being able to settle this point.
It ain't settled.
Why has no one been able to build upon the Miller-Urey experiment toward something--anything--more substantial? Certainly, you would think someone would at least try.
It's very telling.
Yet...and I don't want to play both sides, here, but Genesis does say this: the Earth created ("produced, brought forth") life. The waters created life. Some Christians won't want to hear this. But there it is. Genesis supports evolutionary abiogenesis.
There. Now, I've got BOTH sides on the Crevo debate mad at me. ;)
POINT #2:
This thread was initiated by the article in Science & Theology News. The article correctly pointed out that science is ill-equipped and not in the position to ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of the Creator.
I am in full agreement. I wish I weren't. We have to rely on circumstantial evidence for deducing the existence of the Creator, of which we have plenty.
The article's main point, however, was of the dissimilarity of the Big Bang and Intelligent Design, how the BB was later supported by the evidence in 1965, and how ID doesn't have that level of supporting evidence--and so the analogy breaks down that ID and BB, according to Michael Behe, are analogous.
*** I think the author missed a vital point: When Lemaitre argued for a Big Bang, and when the CBR (cosmic background radiation) was discovered in 1965 supporting it, the new discovery didn't prove the existence of a Creator, merely that the universe had been created. It did take us a step closer, to be sure, and I'm glad for it.
When Intelligent Design was proposed and is defended, we have a problem in that there is nothing like a CBR to be found that might prove/disprove it. The analogy between the astronomical and the biological discovery doesn't hold--the best that can be done in biology, sad to say, is to note the piling up of uncanny coincidences (anthropic argument, to be sure, but the sword of the anthropic can cut for or against both sides in the debate).
I think there's a lot going for irreducible complexity. Activity at the sub-cellular level is astonishingly SPECIALIZED. Not many on this list can make the claim that they understand this high degree of specialization, which is itself irreducibly complex.
POINT #3:
Kalam Cosmological Argument. No such thing as infinity. Can't be. The universe has not always been here. What created it?
I bring this up repeatedly because NO ONE HAS ATTEMPTED TO ANSWER IT. I know it's cosmogeny, and we started this as a biologically-based discussion, but as I pointed out, supra, it is my belief that biology can't move us any closer to understanding the Creator than humanity taking note of the apparent design inherent in living organisms. Still can argue that one either way, and it doesn't seem to nail the lid shut.
But when you take into account issues in cosmogeny, the origin of the universe, you quickly realize (ahem, Kalam) that the Big U didn't self-create, and you cannot argue that some other universe created this one (brane theory--stupidest thing I've heard of, begs the whole question!) because you then ask: what created THAT universe? And on, and on.
At some point, there has to be a First Cause of it all.
And then one realizes that any First Cause cannot exist either within THIS universe, nor within another universe that might have caused this one, but must exist OUTSIDE of it all. One simultaneously realizes that whatever caused this universe to spring into existence wasn't inanimate matter itself, but something intelligent. Intelligent things act upon things. They cause. Things don't cause things. Things don't cause things to exist.
Biology hints at a Creator.
Astronomy SHOUTS at a Creator.
My $0.02. YMMV.
Sauron
"Not proven until scientists confirmed prediction associated with BB, the CBR, in 1965. "
Not proven even now. It is strongly supported though.
"Miller-Urey: 1953.
We've had 52 years for someone to advance the theory of abiogenesis.
(We're still waaaaaiiiiting....) "
We're still waiting for you to understand that the above experiment was NEVER meant to produce life. And no, we are not *still waiting* as if there have been no advances since Miller-Urey. The field is progressing, but it is going slow because it's a tough puzzle to solve.
"My thinking is that it would seem that the irreducible complexity of biological organisms at even the smallest levels seems to be the roadblock preventing us from, after 52 years, being able to settle this point."
There is no such thing as *irreducible complexity*. The phrase was bastardized from a legitimate term in engineering called *irreducible simplicity*. Most of the *IC* examples that ID'ers have provided turn out to be not *IC*.
"When Intelligent Design was proposed and is defended, we have a problem in that there is nothing like a CBR to be found that might prove/disprove it."
It's been around for over 2,000 years.
"Not many on this list can make the claim that they understand this high degree of specialization, which is itself irreducibly complex."
*Specialization* is not *IC*.