PBS Offers Intelligent Design Documentary

CREATION - Evolution Headlines ^ | 04/28/2003 | Illustra Media/CREATION - Evolution Headlines

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

If it is not random, then there are rules. If there are rules, then ID is implied.

[Axolotl]

The ID people are simply using an updated version of Paley's watch...a watch is to sophisticated to NOT be the result of design. Then they argued the eyeball is too complex, now Behe says biochemical pathways are too complex...

It's been the same basic argument for the past 150 years, but every time stemming from a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of the process.

[jlogajan]

Don't forget, they do a good bit of handwaving to "prove" that things are too complicated to be designed. What I have not seen, however, is a basis of comparison. I have not seen a single test for 'design' in the universe. The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference.

I like to ask them "Who designed the designer?" Suddenly something extraordinarily complex doesn't need to be designed. It's the old turtle standing on a turtle theory -- a child-like conceptual ability. And they're so cute when they're asleep.

[Dimensio]

I imagine evolution is a funny funny joke that the world has played for some time.

good for you. Just try to remember that what you imagine -- that is, "make-believe" -- does not necessarily have any bearing on reality whatsoever.

God is not a pseudo religion.

God is a word with multiple definitions. It can refer to the nature of a generic deity of a religion that may be polytheistic or that may be monotheistic, or it could be a proper name-type reference to a single monotheistic entity that controls the universe.

He is real. He is apparent to some, others not so apparent

I take it then that you are applying the proper name type usage. I also take it that you don't have any evidence that "He is real", or you would have presented it.

But we will all know soon enough, won't we?

Logical fallacy: begging the question.

[Axolotl]

Never met them...

If they do succeed, it doesn't really say anything about evolution, it's just neat.

[Not Insane]

"The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference. "

Trying to explain the concept of "light and dark" to creatures without eyes does not mean light and dark do not exist.

Try to explain "wet" to a creature that lives in water. It cannot comprehend, yet it is always "wet."

[Dimensio]

You base your "science" on the fact that life must have existed to evolve. Where did the life come from?

I don't claim to know, since I'm not a biologist. From the standpoint of evolution, it doesn't matter. The first life forms may have resulted from an electrical charge hitting a puddle of amino acids, they may have been brought to earth by some alien life forms from another planet or another dimension, it might have been humans who created them in a lab two hundred years from now and then travelled back in time to plant them or it could have been some divine entity zap-poofing them into existence. Any of those could be how the first life forms got here, or it could have been something that I didn't consider, but it doesn't matter since evolution doesn't start happening until those life forms exist. How they got there is irrelevant to evolution.

[jlogajan]

You base your "science" on the fact that life must have existed to evolve. Where did the life come from?

False assumption. There are non-"life" based chemical cycles going on all the time in the universe and on the face of the earth. There are all sorts of feedback, feedforward and other complex chemical circuits.

[Dimensio]

What do any of those people have to do with the theory of evolution?

[Not Insane]

"The ID people are simply using an updated version of Paley's watch...a watch is to sophisticated to NOT be the result of design. Then they argued the eyeball is too complex, now Behe says biochemical pathways are too complex...
It's been the same basic argument for the past 150 years, but every time stemming from a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of the process."

The new examples are not replacing the old ones. They are ADDED to a growing MOUNTAIN of evidence.

The more we know, the more we know we don't know.

50 years ago, Creationists were catastrophists and evolutionists were uniformitarian. Everyone is now catastrophist.

Which group had to change?

[Dimensio]

If there are rules, then IDis implied.

Why?

[balrog666]

They will produce/broadcst anything that has information/education value & even sometimes things that are entertaining. I don't think you would ever see this type of program on a commercial station/network (FOX, CBS,...), because it would not (probably) generate enough interest to make it profitable.

Uh ... sure. Without PBS, we'd never see any shows on cosmology, biology, archeology, paleontology, geology, anthropology, evolution, philosophy, or even those YEC favorite subjects like alchemy, shamanism, mysticism, witchcraft, crop circles, false gods and religions (to quote the Highlander, "There can be only one!"), and, of course, those money-grubbing, televangelist con-men.

On the other hand, if you have cable or satellite TV, you can have all of the above 24/7 without viewing PBS at all.

[Aric2000]

Only because you do not understand it and it is a threat to your worldview.

You claim that god exists, Prove it, scientifically.

You can't, and that is why god cannot be used as a causation in science, and that is why ID is NOT science.

Just because it shakes your worldview, does not prove therefore that evolution is wrong.

Why can you not believe in your god, and believe in the scientific validity of evolution as well.

If god is ALL powerful and science is proving that evolution is indeed what happened, then why can you not say to yourself, OK, evolution is what happened, and god is the one that put it into motion?

Why is that so hard? oh, that's right, if evolution is correct, then creationism is wrong, which means genisis is a myth, not fact, and therefore the bible becomes questionable.

Never mind, I think I answered my own question.

If the bible is not perfect, then houston, we have a problem.

[Not Insane]

"What do any of those people have to do with the theory of evolution?"

They used it to support their various versions of genocide.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Read their writings, listen to their ravings. They were very much social darwinists.

[familyofman]

If you read anything by the ID'ers, you'll find that they don't address HOW (or WHEN or WHO). They only address the concept of "this is so complex that it must have been designed."

Don't forget, they do a good bit of handwaving to "prove" that things are too complicated to be designed. What I have not seen, however, is a basis of comparison. I have not seen a single test for 'design' in the universe. The problem is that because they claim that the universe is designed, there's nothing 'not designed' to which they can point as a frame of reference.

For me at least it has always come down to the fact that we don't know how matter/energy/life came to be. For some, saying that it came about by ID is sufficient. Then I ask the awkward question of - where the designer of ID come from. If the answer to both questions is something like - always been there, we have reached the same end by different routes.
I guess you have a choice between the St Thomas Aquinas crowd & the Renee DesCarte group - you pays your money & take your chances.

[Axolotl]

Everyone is now catastrophist.

huh?

[Dimensio]

Trying to explain the concept of "light and dark" to creatures without yes does not mean light and dark do not exist.

True, but to have the concept requires that someone has a frame of reference. Are you saying that ID proponents have a frame of refernece, perhaps through some extra sensory perception, to have discerned between 'designed universe' and 'not designed universe' and that any lack of comprehension is simply the result of physiological limitations amongst a certain percentage of the population?

[Not Insane]

"If there are rules, then IDis implied.

Why? "

When I see anything complex, I assume somebody made it, until I can prove otherwise.

We see an old car rusting in a field and assume it was manufactured. Why? Because we know the manufacturer (it's a Chevy)

We see a weed growing out of the engine block of that car, a weed that is FAR more complex in one of it's cells than the entire car and we assume it came about accidentally (no designer). Why? Because we don't know the designer.

Well, some of us DO know the Designer and actually have a PERSONAL relationship with Him. He is as real as my wife and you will not convince me that either doesn't exist.