Intelligent Design POLL

[TheFaithfulStone]

Questor, I don't make any claims as to the "truth" of intelligent design. That's an argument about the existence of God.

I'm making claims as to it's scientific legibility. As a scientific theory, it's bogus. (That's a period.)

As to it's "truth." I don't know.

Seriously though, the experiment you need to be able to do is to contact the intelligent designer and ask him if he (or she) intelligently designed the universe and everything in it.

Since that ain't gonna happen - ID ain't science.

It's not it's CLAIMS that are dispute, it's the METHODOLOGY. There is no Intelligent Design experiment that is repeatable. It makes NO testable predictions.

What does Intelligent Design PREDICT? That's a simpler question than explaining the meaning of life the universe and everything, but I suspect you can't answer it within the intellectual framework of Intelligent Design.

You are however, perfectly free to believe that the universe is so complex and weird and perfect and simple that it must have been design by "God." This is not an absurd belief. But neither is it a scientific one.

TFS

[KickAssClown]

Even in ID god did not design himself, and I will point out once again if in Definition we define God as the Universe, then the universe can logically have designed everything else. Creation, creator. Just my opinion on it.

It's all rhetorical really, you have to agree on so many terms.

[questor]

Ugh, your answer is as expected. it shows a total lack of understanding on
my position and the questions i asked.
i don't know of anyone on the site who has said that ID is scientific or has been proved. that is why it shouldn't be taught as science. evolution has many holes, so perhaps it should be thought of as a theory. for instance;
why did certain animals develop wings? you might say to avoid predators. why did not all prey animals then develop wings? evolution advocates seem to imply evolution upon demand. any unique body part was developed because the animal would find it useful. that makes no sense to me. evolution
should not be taught as science because it does not fulfill scientific requirements. truth means certainty and some day we will know the truth. at that time all rational people will have to agree. we only have arguments when the truth is not known. you don't have to take a poll when one knows truth.

[ughaibu]

Okay, thanks. So you agree that intelligent design is a mental construct of human beings, based in the imagination. As there are no known examples of intelligently designing creators or instances of creation by intelligent design, the probability of intelligently designed creation being the correct explanation is no greater than the probability of any other explanation that is based on imagination. As there is an infinite number of possible explanations that can be imagined, you will agree that creation by intelligent design is infinitely improbable as the correct explanation.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Originally Posted by questor

Ugh, your answer is as expected. it shows a total lack of understanding on
my position and the questions i asked.

You should seriously stop starting all your posts with "ugh"

It's condescending.

I don't think it's incumbent upon me to "prove" to you a theory that is accepted by millions of scientists around the world because you don't understand it. There are gaps in our knowledge sure, but your assertion that evolution implies "evolution on demand" is absurd.

We can (fairly) clearly trace the evolution of avian wings for example in the fossil record.

TFS

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by TheFaithfulStone

... There are gaps in our knowledge sure, but your assertion that evolution implies "evolution on demand" is absurd...

There are "gaps" in our understanding of gravity. So go take a flying leap off the edge of the Grand Canyon. There's no danger, surely, because we really don't understand everything about gravity.

Seriously folks, The Theory of Biological Evolution is a successful theorem and a stalwart of modern science because it DOES answer so many questions that previously had no answers at all. There are numerous books out there written at a college freshman level that could clear up a lot of your criticism.

For example, evolution implies "evolution on demand" -- really?

In Richard Dawkin's "Climbing Mount Improbable" he describes what I think he calls a Fitness Map. The map takes place in Genome Space, is abstract, and contains a vast number of dimensions, but it helps to think of it as a 3-dimensional topological map. X and Y are the axes of two genomes (selected from many thousands!) and Z is the "altitude" showing environmental fitness for a specific selection of X&Y Genome combination, and a specific external environment at time T.

The way evolution works, you find that successful critters cluster around the "peaks" in the Fitness Map. Small mutations that take a critter higher up a local peak, makes the critter fitter. Large mutations are more likely to take a critter further away from a local peak and therefore doom the critter. So, successful evolution tends (I stress the word tends) to move critters up local peaks, or up the gentle slopes to higher peaks that may be "near" in the Map.

A critter finds itself stuck at the top of a peak. What to do? There may be a slope leading "up" but only in ONE direction, say longer legs. The critter is not placed in a location of Genome Space, where a mutation is gonna produce something like a wing or flapping thing. Or perhaps a mutation might, but it would lead "downhill". So, if the critter mutates, it leads only in those dimensions permissible by the critter's current Genome, and only in directions that lead "uphill".

Conditions change and environments do too. So, a stuck critter on a local peak may eventually find the topology shift under it, creating a slope where there was none before. The critter, if lucky to have a good mutation or two, will tend to climb up the slope, becoming ever fitter for its new (evolving) environment.

No critter just grows wings, bang! Wings aren't created on demand. A critter may have grown something to fan food its way, or a modified leg that propelled it across the water, while its other legs supported it. The modified leg may later be "adapted" for higher speed and then for jumping, guiding, even flying. A related critter almost the same, may be in the wrong place of the Fitfness Map at the wrong time, and have a Genome that is just slightly wrong, in the sense that no evolution of its limbs will ever become a wing, or will take it "uphill" on the Fitness Map.

Life is hard. It's a crapshoot out there. The opportunity to grow a wing-like structure that enhances fitness is NOT available to ALL lifeforms ALL the time! In the history of dinosaurs, it happened perhaps once, and then it was gone, baby! Those that were well placed on the Fitness Map, took it and ran. Those that weren't, well, mostly died.

Tinier critter, like bugs and such, with their simpler bodies, simpler Genomes, and fewer physical restrictions, may have encountered this "wing" opportunity many times. Those whom it immediately made more fit, survived. Those for whom it made no "upward" difference found themselves with a negative mutation that killed them off.

Now--this explanation, though simple, offers detailed explanations on how and why evolution works. And works for one critter and against another at different times and in different places within the Fitness Map. It's an explanation with "explaining power" and elegance. No other "theory" of Life comes even close to this power.

[KickAssClown]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

There are "gaps" in our understanding of gravity

No longer true, mano. I can descirbe Gravity Via Quantum Mechanics and GR. Check it out: Unified Field Theory

[questor]

infinite now, since UGH has chosen this name himself and has not complained,
why do you consider it is your business to tell others what to do?
i do not yet see a reason to refute evolution upon demand as the most frequent answer given for development of unique appendages. some other examples:
tortoise shells, woodpecker bills, long legs on storks, squid ink, human brain size, ad infinitum. how did animals and other life forms just happen to develop
protective and enabling apppendages which totally differentiates them from other similar sized animals if we all descended from the original single cell, and were lhe same environment?

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by questor

...if we all descended from the original single cell, and were lhe same environment?

That is a very brash and unfounded assumption. The Earth does not now nor likely ever had just ONE heterogenous environment. The variability of descent and development is quite largely dependent on environment and environmental change.

This should be obvious.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by questor

infinite now, since UGH has chosen this name himself and has not complained,
why do you consider it is your business to tell others what to do?
i do not yet see a reason to refute evolution upon demand as the most frequent answer given for development of unique appendages. some other examples:
tortoise shells, woodpecker bills, long legs on storks, squid ink, human brain size, ad infinitum. how did animals and other life forms just happen to develop
protective and enabling apppendages which totally differentiates them from other similar sized animals if we all descended from the original single cell, and were lhe same environment?

Perhaps ensuring you are addressing the proper person may be a good start. If something as simple as a name or post can be misunderstood, imagine what happens when one considers the complexity of natural selection...


Cheers.