Posted on 03/07/2009 4:26:11 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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The next for consideration is Jonathan Wells and his Icons of Evolution. A stinging critique of ten familiar textbook evidences for evolution, Wells’ book provoked shrill cries of dismay from Darwinists, including Jerry Coyne and Eugenie Scott. Wells’ reply is highlighted as a rhetorically powerful rebuttal in which he catches his critics in scientific carelessness and in the debate tactic of ‘shifting the goalposts’. An example is the issue of embryonic homology—the Darwinian claim that embryos in various vertebrates look alike at various stages of development, and that this indicates common ancestry. Wells pointed out the extensive dissimilarities between embryos, blowing the traditional textbook image out of the water. Coyne argued that if only Wells understood their evolutionary history, then he would see the differences as evidence for evolution. This is shifting the goalposts, and as Wells remarked,
So let me get this straight. Some of the strongest evidence for Darwin’s theory is that vertebrate embryos are most similar in their early stages—except that they’re not. But if we just interpret the embryos’ dissimilarities in the light of Darwin’s theory, they then have “evidential value”. … Darwin’s theory wins no matter what the evidence shows’ (quoted p. 94).
Woodward reviews in detail the arguments of Wells, Stephen Meyers and others based on the fossil record. The debate focuses on the Cambrian explosion and the lack of evolutionary ancestors, and Woodward notes that this is just the very visible tip of a very large iceberg of recalcitrant fossil issues for the evolutionists. A delicious irony Woodward points out is that though the Darwinists have always said that the fossil record problems would decrease as more fossils are uncovered, the situation on the Cambrian is worse now that it was just a few years ago for the evolutionists...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
One key fact: It is not survival of the fittest! It is survival of the sufficient. You must run just fast enough to catch the slowest of the prey. You must be just strong enough to dethrone the weakest leader.
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NO WONDER liberals cling to it so!
"The Science of Intelligent Design" is a contradiction in terms.
So how you doing on that?
The Science of Intelligent Design is sort of like the Moderate Taliban or the fiscally conservative Democrat — a great hypothesis that happens not to reflect anything close to reality.
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As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry – and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area.
Edward Peltzer
Ph.D. Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)
Associate Editor, Marine Chemistry
“Darwinists” don’t stop questioning at all.”
Darwinists — the outspoken ones, such as Coyne, Scott, Dawkins, et al., — tolerate questioning ONLY within the framework of more Darwinism. Anything that falls outside of “randomness” and “natural selection”, they reject out of hand. For them, “randomness” and “natural selection” are touchstones of “being scientific.” Darwinists have been almost as brutal toward atheist-non-Darwinists, such as Stuart Kauffmann, or theories that posit any sort of biochemical determinism or “predestination.” That’s one reason that some of the non-Darwinist atheists have thrown in with the ID crowd; it seems the latter is willing to examine a theory on its merits.
“The court thing is about curriculum.”
And the curriculum thing is about shaping young minds. Clearly, Darwinists believe it’s appropriate to use the threat of force against those who would criticize their worldview. Even you admitted that ID has brought attention to weaknesses in Darwinism; why shouldn’t those weaknesses be taught?
“Intelligent design is, at best, an expose of the weaknesses of evolutionary theory.”
See above.
“ID only offers a black box as an alternative.”
Wrong. It’s the exact opposite. Each of us knows from first-hand introspective experience what it is like to solve a problem through thinking. In fact, “mind” is the only thing with which we have direct, first-hand experience. A “black box” refers to something that is shrouded in mystery, but which accomplishes lots of things...the cell, for example, was a “black box” for many decades, until biochemistry and molecular biology threw light into it and found it to be a stupendously complicated FACTORY that works according to a biochemical computer program...CODE.
Codes don’t exist in physical nature. They are always artifacts of intelligence, purposiveness, and goal-directedness.
Great response. However, randomness itself is not tenable as a specific force. No one has been able to replicate randomness. It has not been observed in nature.
IMHO this is the divide between believers and atheists. There is no “random” mutation, only yet to be understood processes. Whether mutation is divine or not is not, for me, a question. If it is something better described other than mutation, I welcome the interpretation.
The Young Earth Creationists are constantly telling us that the Universe is not what it seems, that it may seem ancient but it is only a few thousand years old, that the speed of light is not what it seems, that God, who cannot lie, nevertheless created a funhouse mirror universe where everything is illusion and trickery. Could it be that God is bigger than any human-devised timeline, be it a six thousand year timeline or a six billion year timeline?
ROFLOL, still have that obsession thing going on!!
Thanks for the ping!
[[While many in the intelligent design movement believe in God, not all do; what unites them is the understanding that living things have solved certain problems to come into existence; problems that could not have been solved by any sort of random process.]]
Yup- ID’s only intent is to investigate the most probable, beyond reasonable doubt evidences- when there is both enough evidence to show an intelligence is needed, and that nature is simply incapable of causing life, then their case is one of having established a ‘most probable’ case- beyond reasonable doubt- Any forensic investigation does exactly this- establish that the evidences do NOT fit natural causations, models, and that an intelligence was needed behind hte designs discovered. Finding say 1000 intricately carved idols, a forensic scientist rules out natural causation, and investigates the DESIGN to establish a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ explanation.
As you said, the strict science of ID is NOT concerned with who or what, only in the how- whether the objects or designs are natural, or whether an intelligent agent caused the design.
[[Codes don’t exist in physical nature. They are always artifacts of intelligence, purposiveness, and goal-directedness.]]
Neither does Metainfo exist in a world devoid of life. Chemicals certainly were incapable of providing anythign even remotely close to metainfo seen in even hte simplest organisms. While simple code could theoretically be assembled in a by gosh by golly manner of accidental conglomerations, metainfo is a whole ‘nother story- it can NOT come from nature, and it can NOT ‘assemble’ via mistakes in a genome- infact, Metainfo MUST exist BEFORE genetic mistakes can be assimilated and utilized (adapted to)- without metainfo- mistakes are simply ‘noise’ which disrupts any present code- it’s much like throwing goobaldy-gook into computer code and hoping the computer code can somehow ‘adapt’ without any instrucitons to do so- it can’t happen- it NEEDS a higher metainfo already present to direct and adapt to, and such intrusions or mistakes.
[[Whether mutation is divine or not is not, for me, a question.]]
YES- mutaitons ARE devine- they however were NOT a problem or force in prefall man- they were however a ‘problem’ after sin and disease and death entered the equation when man sinned- However, our Omniscient God PREDESIGNED species and created a metainformation system to be ableto deal with hte disease and death causing mutaitons and entropy and to adapt to changes caused by environmental stresses- this metainfo controls everything, and even predicts’ or rather anticipates changes yet to come, as this higher code of metainfo adapts NOT just hte cell affected, but directs EVERY system and subsystem that is affected by any such changes. Code all throughout the incredibly complex species systems is already precoded to adapt to changes i nthe future- Let’s see Macroevolutionists explain this by appealing to nature!
There is no way to scientifically define divinity. This is the problem with “intelligent design”. How can you prove the designer is intelligent? In other words, how do you define the mind of God - even further, does God even have a mind? How would you demonstrate that scientifically?
You are left with questions of faith that have nothing to do with the scientific method, where facts are only those that can be observed. The so-called complexity of the human eye is only complex to our minds. We don’t know whether anything we consider complex is complex to a so-called divine being.
[[There is no way to scientifically define divinity. This is the problem with “intelligent design”.]]
That is NOT the problem with ID- A fortensic scientist does NOT have to identify the intelligence- they ONLY need to show that an intelligence IS NEEDED (CPS to stress importan points- I’m not shouting)
[[How can you prove the designer is intelligent?]]
Again- there is NO need to ‘prove a designer’ only to show that intelligence IS NEEDED, and that nature is incapable of hte IC we see-
It is a very common misconception about ID that htey need to identify a Designer, or the intelligence- this is simply NOT TRUE-
[[We don’t know whether anything we consider complex is complex to a so-called divine being.]]
YES we DO- Forensics CAN and DO determine whether an intelligence is behind causaitons all the time- archeological forensics determine structures or items were CREATED and did NOT occure naturally, all the time- Crime forensics RULE OUT natural causes, and establish BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that an intelligence was behind the crime. DNA establishes a very high probability that strongly indicates an intelligence is the object of hte investigation all the time-
Sciences job, if done purely objectively, is to determine if nature did it, or if nature is incapable, or if an intelligence is behind the IC we KNOW to exist in nature- IF nature is incapable of hte IC, then we MUST find another explanation- period- we do NOT need to identify the designer, we only NEED to hsow enough evidence, to establish beyond a reasonable doubt, that an intelligence of some sort was necessary for the causation of IC witnessed and testified to in nature-
You are goign WAY beyond what ID actually does and is responsible for- you are assigning requirements that simply are NOT a part of ID, and most anti-ID folks try to assign responsibilities to ID that simply are false and do NOT reflect what ID is all about.
To prove intelligence is needed, you have to define intelligence. What if the designer was unintelligent? How would you know? Maybe the designer was provident? Maybe the designer was coerced? All these labels are meaningless.
Forensics works upon know methods of behavior. Intelligent design is only a description/analogy of human based design. The rest is still a matter of faith.
Good post. Human Evolutionists hate the fact that they believe in a descriptive science, but they want to trick you into thinking that it is an exact science. Ultimately it all boils down to an “anything but God” mentality that reeks just like the statement you quoted in your post about space aliens. In their mind, as long as God didn’t do it, they are happy. Evolution (particularly Human Evolution) is an anti-God religion.
[[To prove intelligence is needed, you have to define intelligence.]]
It’s generally understood what intelligence is- there is NO problem in courts understanding what constitutes intelligence
[[What if the designer was unintelligent? How would you know?]]
By deductive reasoning- if nature isn’t capable of IC then there really is no other explanation other than an intelligence needed.
[[Maybe the designer was provident? Maybe the designer was coerced? All these labels are meaningless.]]
Now you’re just getting silly- And maybe some extinct undiscovered colony of omniscient, omnipotent ants did al lthe creating, or maybe an avaocado that died out long ago and dissappeared had capabilities that we will never know about and created higher life forms, or intelligently designed systems ... Your argument is venturing into the absurd, and wouldn’t hold up in court because it is beyond reasonability and just shows a desperation to ignore the beyond reasonable doubt arguements
[[Intelligent design is only a description/analogy of human based design. ]]
Says who? You? And your declaration relates to the factshow again? Moving goalposts are we? Intelligence is NOT relegated to human description- intelligence is apparent all around us, and closely resembles human intelligence in designs- once again you are simply attempting to dismiss with absurd goal-post moving claims- anythign can be ‘explained away’ using absurd explanations, however, they simply don’t hold up under reasonable examination.
I have. ID is 'man developed over millions of years from organisms that developed in chemical pools'. According to Mr. Behe, the #1 expert in ID, God may be dead since there has not been any sign of ID in the last few hundred million years.
That is not mainline ID...and for what it is worth, I am a young earth creationist.
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