Posted on 02/19/2009 9:24:24 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
What Is Science?
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
—Dr. Scott Todd, Kansas State University, Nature 401(6752):423, Sept. 30, 1999
What You Will Learn
Many people do not realize that science was actually developed in Christian Europe by men who assumed that God created an orderly universe. If the universe is a product of random chance or a group of gods that interfere in the universe, there is really no reason to expect order in nature. Many of the founders of the principle scientific fields, such as Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, were believers in a recently created earth. The idea that science cannot accept a creationist perspective is a denial of scientific history...
(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...
There is no possible way to prove that things aren’t designed by an all-powerful (from our point of view) agent.
The question science asks is whether it is possible for living things to be the result of inherited incremental changes. And that’s exactly what genomes look like.
In any question presented to science, the critical question is not whether a phenomenon could be the result of miraculous or extraordinary intervention, but whether it could be the result of ongoing regular processes.
Speaking of unique, I wonder if Darwin would recognize his works for the cult they have become today?
I can think of no other "theory" that is so insecure that it's adherents sue people to remove stickers from textbooks reminding students it's indeed theory and not fact.
Which is precisely why each and every criticism of common descent is met with a flurry of "anti-science" or "that's religion" rhetoric almost without exception, which ultimately means it's not REALLY a problem for ID after all.
And frankly, every single instance of scientific inquiry into common descent is intelligently designed one way or another. (Not to mention so many of your side believe in God/or even admit evoluton itself IS I.D.!)
You know very well that it is. Copernicus, Galileo, and other scientists who should have been praised were instead silenced; more were killed. Their “crimes” are today accepted as scientific fact even by creationinsts. In 500 years, even evolution may be accepted by creationists.
“I thought that not knowing the reasons was why people investigated things. Silly me....”
Correct. But creationists aren’t doing any investigating!
As we get farther and farther from this principle in archaeology, the claim of artifact becomes more and more controversial.
In the case of living things we have no objects whose creation we have witnessed. Nor have we seen any designer in action. Other than variation and selection.
OK, we have seen engineered organisms, but they hurt your case rather than help it, because they can easily be distinguished as artifacts.
Other than plants and animals that have been bred through selection, we have no examples of living artifacts that fit the genomic nested hierarchy. And of course, breeding programs are exactly what led Darwin to his theory.
Stunning.
Let's see...where to begin?
The biggest problem with ID is that when we go about looking for artifacts as opposed to natural formations -- say in archaeology -- we need to have examples of objects whose history is known. Watches, for example. Or clay pots or arrowheads.
Why? We don't know the history of things when we look at "common descent"...as a matter of fact, what we do know is fossils have been faked. Who's to say in the future we're not able to determine scientifically more fossils were faked? Or that we've made mistakes in dating them? And above all, that just because we share DNA with monkeys doesn't necessarily mean we share a common ancestor?
In the case of living things we have no objects whose creation we have witnessed. Nor have we seen any designer in action. Other than variation and selection.
That depends completely on the premise and your ideology, because I haven't seen a living thing that HASN'T been created and designed!
OK, we have seen engineered organisms, but they hurt your case rather than help it, because they can easily be distinguished as artifacts.
Non-sensical because of faked fossils AND you've yet to come up with a batch of chemicals in soup suddenly crawling and breathing all by themselves, and that's even WITH intelligently designed experiments!
Other than plants and animals that have been bred through selection, we have no examples of living artifacts that fit the genomic nested hierarchy. And of course, breeding programs are exactly what led Darwin to his theory.
Intelligently designed experiments are what led Darwin, and basically every scientist, to their conclusions. Observing that things just up and form, and walk all by themselves with no Creator is pure conjecture. Supposing that man and apes, and indeed all life came from a single celled organsim is again sheer conjecture.
You continue to hold ID to ridiculous rules that you totally ignore when it comes to Darwinism, etc.
Are you about 15 years old?
Nope. When looking at the evidence of the human insulin gene, we can justifiably hypothesize an agent without regard to his capabilities. What you're describing is an attempt to define the characteristics of the agent, based on the fact that certain evidence points to his existence -- which is a much different problem then trying to determine how a bacterium came to be producing human insulin.
Humans certainly aren't capable of fortelling the future and knowing exactly what adaptations will be beneficial in the future.
That's clearly an improper characterization of genetic engineering as it's practiced today -- which is primarily driven by achieving specific, beneficial, and future goals. Your complaint seems to be that the current state of technology is geared toward "the next step," and does not exlpicitly include longer-term goals. But that's simply the current state of technology and commerce; there is no reason to assume that advances in the field will not include longer-term predictability in the future?
If Humans were attempting to engineer systems as flexible and as adaptive a living things, they would turn to genetic algorithms.
Well, OK -- so you've answered your own complaint, haven't you? Humans are already attempting to engineer living things from scratch, based on an algorithmic approach; moreover, the Human Genome project seems to be yielding something of an inverse effect, in that decoding the genome apparently shows the presence of "genetic algorithms," including levels over and above the strict DNA sequence. In either case, an "algorithmic" approach to genetics seems within reach (albeit perhaps not particularly soon).
I’m sorry—was that meant to be an insult (in which case I should alert the mods), or are you in fact claiming that creationists ARE doing some investigating?
Oh, gotta run—Mom’s taking me to the orthodontist for a tightening!
We have no examples of a human gene winding up in a bacterium through descent.
Viruses have the capability of injecting genes, and bacteria exchange genes. These are capabilities.
When you speculate about ID you are speculating about history. (Assuming you are not just blowing smoke.) When you speculate about history you are making assertions about the capabilities of historical agents.
No. My complaint is that claiming something to be an artifact implies that you have some examples of known artifacts with which to make comparisons. This is how archaeology works.
I'm saying that given examples of organisms known to have been engineered because we know their history, and unknown organisms believed not to have been tampered with by humans, that common descent with small, inherited, incremental change is the better fit to the data.
Which is a completely fallacious argument, in the context of our discussion. You insist that a design hypothesis must include "all-powerful" -- but you've already agreed that it's not necessary!
The question science asks is whether it is possible for living things to be the result of inherited incremental changes. And that’s exactly what genomes look like.
That's certainly one question it asks. But you've got your blinders on. The problem is that you seem to be demanding that it be the only question science asks, which is both silly and demonstrably wrong -- archaeology, for example, has a well-established process for differentiating between manufactured and natural origins.
Your real issue seems to be limited to biological changes, and on that point you have already agreed that "genomes" don't always "exactly look like" they've resulted from inherited incremental changes. And yet you're demanding that "science" cannot look for anything other than inherited incremental changes.
The person who makes an ID hypothesis is not absolved from the duty to collect evidence to support it -- but surely you see from our example the problem with your take on what "science" can properly ask!
In any question presented to science, the critical question is not whether a phenomenon could be the result of miraculous or extraordinary intervention, but whether it could be the result of ongoing regular processes.
LOL! That's a really indefensible claim!
In the case of our insulin-producing bacterium it was not necessary to hypothesize a miracle. However, the type of evidence available (which you agree is valid) does point most plausibly to "extraordinary intervention," as a far more likely explanation than some "ongoing regular process." There are various means by which that "extraordinary intervention" might occur -- including both natural and directed processes. The question in that case becomes one of likelihood, given the specificity of the gene in question.
When I speculate about ID, I can point to the existence of a money-making industry based on the principle. It is a fact.
I strongly suspect that your real complaint isn't scientific at all -- your position is primarily a religious one.
I’m sorry—was that meant to be an insult (in which case I should alert the mods), or are you in fact claiming that creationists ARE doing some investigating?
Oh, gotta run—Mom’s taking me to the orthodontist for a tightening!
I stand corrected...are you about 12? ;)
I’ve heard scientists that don’t swallow Darwinism without question aren’t “real” scientists...
but this is truly the first time I’ve heard they don’t even bother “investigating”...
I guess all these guys jhust go to Johns Hopkins, MIT and Princeton and prop their feet up and read scripture all day!
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
“I strongly suspect that your real complaint isn’t scientific at all — your position is primarily a religious one.”
DING_DING_DING_DING!!!!!!!!
Any thinking person comes to this conclusion pretty much without fail.
What the Pope did has nothing to do with what I would have done.
It was the prevailing position of the church and all in it at the time. In 2009, creationists demonstrate the same intolerance but lack the power of enforcement.
Demonstrated to be false.
“Demonstrated to be false.”
What, heliocentrism?
Whoops—I thought you were responding to a different post!
And no, it hasn’t been.
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