Intelligent Design-Warning some Religion

[Vic]

Even accepting the idea of ID, the human body does not have to be perfect. Take teeth for example. A human's teeth only have to be good enough so that they can survive to breed and reproduce at least once. And that's how most human's teeth are. Hence, bad teeth are something that humans will never evolve out of naturally.
Eyes are the same. They don't have to be perfect -- just good enough to ensure survival long enough to allow for reproduction. And the imperfections make possible other advancements. For example, why do humans have imagination? Because they can't see what's behind them. Think about it. With imperfect senses, our brains developed the ability to conceive and plan for dangers that we would otherwise be vulnerable to. Had our senses been more perfect, we might never have developed such abilities.
Perfection implies and involves the cessation of advancement, and that in itself is imperfect. There is no joke being played on you besides that which you imagine.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: cquark

No one who understood evolution would compare it to a random process. It's called natural selection for a reason.

The genetic variation already exists in the species so the natural selection isn?t producing anything that wasn?t there already. The only thing natural selection ?selects? is one of the already existing genetic variants. This is light years away from explaining how new structures and species are produced, which is required for evolution.

So you want to claim that there is no possible way that changes can occur to ones DNA and passed on to create genetic variants? If yes go look up down's sysdrome you might have it.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Blastman
The only thing natural selection ?selects? is one of the already existing genetic variants

Mutations.

It has everything to do with a deity. Well, unless you believe (in magic) ? ie. ?that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing -- all by itself.

As ElFenix noted, this happens all the time. I asked above if you've been keeping up with the latest research in the area and you brushed it aside, I see now that you did this because you haven't. Personally I stay out of things when I don't know what I'm talking about, I guess maybe you find the risk of looking like a doofus fun? Must suck when you lose the gamble though... Btw belief in a deity = belief in magic... *mutters something about the connection between religion and hypocrisy*

And lots to do with evolution in the sense that God decided the physical and chemical laws of the universe. And that humans have a spiritual soul.

What a load of BS, I knew it'd come back to this layman's verbal diarrhea.

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Blastman
that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing

actually, matter does exactly this all the time...

Any Proof.

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: Vic
Even accepting the idea of ID, the human body does not have to be perfect. Take teeth for example. A human's teeth only have to be good enough so that they can survive to breed and reproduce at least once. And that's how most human's teeth are. Hence, bad teeth are something that humans will never evolve out of naturally.
Eyes are the same. They don't have to be perfect -- just good enough to ensure survival long enough to allow for reproduction. And the imperfections make possible other advancements. For example, why do humans have imagination? Because they can't see what's behind them. Think about it. With imperfect senses, our brains developed the ability to conceive and plan for dangers that we would otherwise be vulnerable to. Had our senses been more perfect, we might never have developed such abilities.
Perfection implies and involves the cessation of advancement, and that in itself is imperfect. There is no joke being played on you besides that which you imagine.

Some of what you say is interesting, but some of it's tripe. Forgive me for that, but honestly, you say that planning ability arose because we didn't have a sense to, um, predict the future? Also, I take issue with this statement:

Perfection implies and involves the cessation of advancement, and that in itself is imperfect.

That doesn't make sense. If you want to say that perfection is impossible for some reason, come out and say that-- not some nebulous crap like that. Very few things are their own antitheses. Try to flesh that statement out and you'll understand what I'm saying. It is impressive-sounding, though; I'll grant you that.

There is no joke being played on you besides that which you imagine.

Free your mind, eh? Heh.

The single biggest reason not to believe in ID is that there's no good reason to believe in it, at least no logical reason. I don't (can't) believe in things without some basic foundation of logical sense.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Blastman
that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing

actually, matter does exactly this all the time...

Any Proof.

You'd think it'd be easy to google a good reference, but the garbage you get!

Nonetheless, it is true that particles can essentially pop into being out of nothingness because the indeterminate nature of the very small scale (i.e. quantum) universe allows this to occur. I recall that the particles created are essentially inverses of each other, and will most often destroy each other shortly after being formed. Some however do escape their inverse clone. I believe that this "fizziness" in space contributes to the decay of black holes.

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: His Lord Uberdude

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: His Lord Uberdude

Originally posted by: ElFenix
and if people were designed intelligently, whoever designed us is either playing a joke on us or doesn't know anything about optics. the human eye is one of the worst pieces of design you could imagine.

What would you do different?

Put the retina on the right way around, and thus eliminate the human blind spot.

Squid have it right, and so have no blind spot as we do.

For every thing that you think isn't quite right, and thus pointing towards evolution, I can name a million that are perfect. Shall I list some;
The heart
the digestive tract
the brain

need I go on?
I can't claim to have researched this, but I'm sure there's some reason this 'error' exists.

I can readily believe that you've never researched this. I'm reaaally curious: what on Zog's green Earth would make you think that any one of those things is perfect? What does it mean to you to say that they're perfect? They all fail. They also exhibit a wide range of efficiencies in different people, and in different ways.

Imagine that you pick someone with what you call The Perfect Heart; let's say it's Lance Armstrong. Never in human history has a heart so perfect beat in a human breast. You assume by this that there can't be one that comes after that's better-- but I guarantee there will be. Even if there won't be, by what criterion would you have foretold the coming of the perfect heart before Lance Armstrong was born?

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Blastman
that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing

actually, matter does exactly this all the time...

Any Proof.

You'd think it'd be easy to google a good reference, but the garbage you get!

Nonetheless, it is true that particles can essentially pop into being out of nothingness because the indeterminate nature of the very small scale (i.e. quantum) universe allows this to occur. I recall that the particles created are essentially inverses of each other, and will most often destroy each other shortly after being formed. Some however do escape their inverse clone. I believe that this "fizziness" in space contributes to the decay of black holes.

particle/anti-particle pairs

 

[BurnItDwn]

ID = creationalism
creationalism = ID

They are one in the same.

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: cquark

You're right. Biological or physical entities do not have a purpose. Purpose is only comes from the perception of intelligent entities such as ourselves, and we've overprogrammed to see it, assigning purpose to things like the genetic algorithm designed software and hardware mentioned above, when it has none in itself.

I said inanimate matter doesn?t act with a purpose -- biological entities act with purpose with structures designed for specific purposes. A cow uses its teeth and mouth in a very purposeful manner, eating, drinking, etc. The cow is a programmed (brain) biological machine. The purposeful action of animals to survive requires intelligence about what is and isn?t correct behavior. Inanimate matter does not act with a purpose.

The starting point of evolution is that inanimate matter could all of a sudden gather itself up and start producing these complex machines that we eventually call animals that are running around acting in a purposeful manner. So how does inanimate purposeless matter through the process of this so-called evolution produce things that act with a purpose? If evolution is blind purposelessness, then how does it produce things with a purpose? If you don?t see a problem here -- then you have a problem. The blind and completely dumb watch maker making a watch. To get from inanimate matter to animals composed of this matter that are acting for a purpose requires knowledge and intelligent design. Genetic mutations and natural selection are simply not capable of providing this.

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Blastman

All the structures in any biological unit assume a detailed and extensive knowledge of exactly how molecules and chemicals and the structures interact.

No, those structures may be as effective as having such knowledge, but they don't assume, require, or encode such knowledge, any more than a piece of software designed by a genetic algorithm understands or assumes knowledge of sorting theory, data structures, tactics (for the RAF flight simulator AI), or any of the things that a human engineer would have to understand to build the same item.

This is ridiculous. How does a cow even know it can eat the grass that will provide it with nutrition in the first place -- why doesn?t it try and eat rocks? Does it know the chemical makeup of grass will provide it with nutrition -- and the 100's if not 1000?s of chemical processes in it?s digestive system to process the grass? How does a cow even know that it has to eat to survive? The cow doesn't know any of this. All these things require a detailed and extensive knowledge of the biochemical makeup of the environment -- what's edible, what isn?t, and the 1000's of complex chemical processes inside the cows body. Information. Information that is detectable and measurable scientifically.

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: Blastman

You're right. Biological or physical entities do not have a purpose. Purpose is only comes from the perception of intelligent entities such as ourselves, and we've overprogrammed to see it, assigning purpose to things like the genetic algorithm designed software and hardware mentioned above, when it has none in itself.

I said inanimate matter doesn?t act with a purpose -- biological entities act with purpose with structures designed for specific purposes. A cow uses its teeth and mouth in a very purposeful manner, eating, drinking, etc. The cow is a programmed (brain) biological machine. The purposeful action of animals to survive requires intelligence about what is and isn?t correct behavior. Inanimate matter does not act with a purpose.

The starting point of evolution is that inanimate matter could all of a sudden gather itself up and start producing these complex machines that we eventually call animals that are running around acting in a purposeful manner. So how does inanimate purposeless matter through the process of this so-called evolution produce things that act with a purpose? If evolution is blind purposelessness, then how does it produce things with a purpose? If you don?t see a problem here -- then you have a problem. The blind and completely dumb watch maker making a watch. To get from inanimate matter to animals composed of this matter that are acting for a purpose requires knowledge and intelligent design. Genetic mutations and natural selection are simply not capable of providing this.

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Blastman

All the structures in any biological unit assume a detailed and extensive knowledge of exactly how molecules and chemicals and the structures interact.

No, those structures may be as effective as having such knowledge, but they don't assume, require, or encode such knowledge, any more than a piece of software designed by a genetic algorithm understands or assumes knowledge of sorting theory, data structures, tactics (for the RAF flight simulator AI), or any of the things that a human engineer would have to understand to build the same item.

This is ridiculous. How does a cow even know it can eat the grass that will provide it with nutrition in the first place -- why doesn?t it try and eat rocks? Does it know the chemical makeup of grass will provide it with nutrition -- and the 100's if not 1000?s of chemical processes in it?s digestive system to process the grass? How does a cow even know that it has to eat to survive? The cow doesn't know any of this. All these things require a detailed and extensive knowledge of the biochemical makeup of the environment -- what's edible, what isn?t, and the 1000's of complex chemical processes inside the cows body. Information. Information that is detectable and measurable scientifically.

trial and error

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: TheBDB
trial and error

What exactly is this biological unit trying to do? Why would it be trying anything?

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: TheBDB
trial and error

What exactly is this biological unit trying to do? Why would it be trying anything?

how does a cow know it has to eat? because cows that didnt know they had to eat didnt live and reproduce

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Nonetheless, it is true that particles can essentially pop into being out of nothingness because the indeterminate nature of the very small scale (i.e. quantum) universe allows this to occur

Read exactly what I said ?

Originally posted by: Blastman
that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing

50 years ago the steady state theorists proposed that hydrogen was popping into existence out of nothing. With no evidence to back this claim up. Is this just quantum theory -- speculation ..ie. based what scientists think happens based on the current tide of Q. theory, or do scientists have actual evidence for this? The jury is still out on a lot of aspects of quantum theory.

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Nonetheless, it is true that particles can essentially pop into being out of nothingness because the indeterminate nature of the very small scale (i.e. quantum) universe allows this to occur

Read exactly what I said ?

Originally posted by: Blastman
that matter popped into existence for no reason at all and from nothing

50 years ago the steady state theorists proposed that hydrogen was popping into existence out of nothing. With no evidence to back this claim up. Is this just quantum theory -- speculation ..ie. based what scientists think happens based on the current tide of Q. theory, or do scientists have actual evidence for this? The jury is still out on a lot of aspects of quantum theory.

If you think quantum theory is just speculation then you don't have much hope of understanding this "science" stuff.

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: TheBDB

how does a cow know it has to eat? because cows that didnt know they had to eat didnt live and reproduce

To know = information. Something a blind purposeless process can?t provide.

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: TheBDB
If you think quantum theory is just speculation then you don't have much hope of understanding this "science" stuff.

No ones debating the idea that energy comes in quanta. Or that light/particles have both wave and particle properties. But there is still a lot of issues in QT that are being hotly debated. If you don?t know that you?re pretty misinformed.

 

[TheBDB]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: TheBDB

how does a cow know it has to eat? because cows that didnt know they had to eat didnt live and reproduce

To know = information. Something a blind purposeless process can?t provide.

Where are you getting this from?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: jvarszegi
Some of what you say is interesting, but some of it's tripe. Forgive me for that, but honestly, you say that planning ability arose because we didn't have a sense to, um, predict the future? Also, I take issue with this statement:

Perfection implies and involves the cessation of advancement, and that in itself is imperfect.

That doesn't make sense. If you want to say that perfection is impossible for some reason, come out and say that-- not some nebulous crap like that. Very few things are their own antitheses. Try to flesh that statement out and you'll understand what I'm saying. It is impressive-sounding, though; I'll grant you that.

There is no joke being played on you besides that which you imagine.

Free your mind, eh? Heh.

The single biggest reason not to believe in ID is that there's no good reason to believe in it, at least no logical reason. I don't (can't) believe in things without some basic foundation of logical sense.

I wasn't suggesting that you (or anyone else) believe in ID. Especially not the way the Fundies are jumping all over it. Nor would I suggest that people believe in random chance or monkeys at typewriters.

But if you didn't understand a single word I posted, why didn't you just come out and say that?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Blastman
The starting point of evolution is that inanimate matter could all of a sudden gather itself up and start producing these complex machines that we eventually call animals that are running around acting in a purposeful manner. So how does inanimate purposeless matter through the process of this so-called evolution produce things that act with a purpose? If evolution is blind purposelessness, then how does it produce things with a purpose? If you don?t see a problem here -- then you have a problem. The blind and completely dumb watch maker making a watch. To get from inanimate matter to animals composed of this matter that are acting for a purpose requires knowledge and intelligent design. Genetic mutations and natural selection are simply not capable of providing this.

No one's claiming that happened; evolution led to the complex organisms we see today. The most widely known starting point theory is the one I've mentioned and you've brushed off because, even though it's strong evidence, it counters your argument...

This is ridiculous. How does a cow even know it can eat the grass that will provide it with nutrition in the first place -- why doesn?t it try and eat rocks? Does it know the chemical makeup of grass will provide it with nutrition -- and the 100's if not 1000?s of chemical processes in it?s digestive system to process the grass? How does a cow even know that it has to eat to survive? The cow doesn't know any of this. All these things require a detailed and extensive knowledge of the biochemical makeup of the environment -- what's edible, what isn?t, and the 1000's of complex chemical processes inside the cows body. Information. Information that is detectable and measurable scientifically.

Animals - ourselves included - owe a lot to genetic programming. It actually affects our lives a lot more than most people, especially those in western societies less likely to believe in fate, would like to admit. I fail to see how the fact that a cow doesn't know the finer details of biochemistry proves the existence of god to you, but then...

Actually, forget it. You're either extraordinarily stupid, stubborn or a troll. You're going over points you've already lost, this is about the fifth time you've made the watchmaker argument. Whichever of the three above possibilities is true, you've got enough problems as it is. Have a good one.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: BirdDad
I believe in ID.
I am Christian but I don't believe in the creation myth of Genesis(and a lot of other stuff in the Bible-I was taught that is something is crap don't use it use only the parts that are good and toss the rest away.
My wife is an aetheist ,I don't try to persuade her to my beliefs(never have)
and our daughter will not be taught religion-I think that is something that is best discovered on their own
how many here believe in ID over creation,evolution and why
Sorry I shold have posed his in offopic and houh I was bu I had 2 windows open one poliics the othe Offopic and got the wrong one

First, Creationism, Evolution, and ID don't contradict one another, unless you're a wild-eyed zealot. Creationism is the only one that requires a deity, as well.
Evolution is a real theory, though, with no faith necessary. Decades of observing insects have shown that much (could account for ethnic differences, as well, depending on how long each continent lacked migration).
Creationism is just shy of being silly.
We can get from St. Bernard to yappy-terrier-that-needs-a-gag, but there's still no explanation as to how we got from a random planet, with nothing special going on, to us existing as dominating creative entities.
I'm all for ID as a hypothesis, but unless we can get in contact with our collective progenator(s), there is no testing it one way or another.

Aside: if this were in P&N, I wouldn't touch it with a 100000000000000000000000000000000000000' pole. Of course, in P&N, and argument would be expected, too. Even in OT, I won't touch the concept of God with a 10' pole. Oh, and zealot would have been spelled Zellot in P&N .

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: Blastman

Originally posted by: TheBDB

how does a cow know it has to eat? because cows that didnt know they had to eat didnt live and reproduce

To know = information. Something a blind purposeless process can?t provide.

The process isn't blind.

 

[Babbles]

Just when I thought ATOT would finish out the month without yet another evolution/creationism/God/athiesm thread, somebody came through and stirred the pot - yet again.

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Actually, forget it. You're either extraordinarily stupid, stubborn or a troll. You're going over points you've already lost, this is about the fifth time you've made the watchmaker argument. Whichever of the three above possibilities is true, you've got enough problems as it is. Have a good one.

Man, give it a rest. You haven't presented any credible arguments at all in this thread or refuted anything related to ID in the least. Your first post started with rhetoric and posturing -- and you ended with the same --- """ ?oh my, how are we going to reason with people that don?t believe in evolution ? """ and so on, and so on ....... .

It would seem the ID challenge to evolution has gone over your head. ID has sunk the evolution boat, people like you just don't realize it yet.

You have a good day too.

 

[Gurck]

No, last I checked we were still moving forward