Question about intelligent design theory

[PhineasJWhoopee]

When I was in my early twenties, I went into an auto parts store for something or other. There was this stunning woman fumbling with a quart of oil, trying not to get it all over herself. I went over and helped her out and we started to chat. To my surprise she said she was on her way home and said she was going to make lunch and would I like go come over.

So naturally I said "Yes". When I got there she said it was refreshing to meet someone with manners and a sense of humor. Anyway the afternoon wore on and yes, one thing led to another and she was great.

Now the punchline- As I left she handed me her business card, which described her as a "masseuse". She was a high powered hooker who thought she'd give me a freebie as a reward

And that is my thought for today on ID and evolution. Thanks for your attention.

Did she give you anything else.

 

[Born2bwire]

When I was in my early twenties, I went into an auto parts store for something or other. There was this stunning woman fumbling with a quart of oil, trying not to get it all over herself. I went over and helped her out and we started to chat. To my surprise she said she was on her way home and said she was going to make lunch and would I like go come over.

So naturally I said "Yes". When I got there she said it was refreshing to meet someone with manners and a sense of humor. Anyway the afternoon wore on and yes, one thing led to another and she was great.

Now the punchline- As I left she handed me her business card, which described her as a "masseuse". She was a high powered hooker who thought she'd give me a freebie as a reward

And that is my thought for today on ID and evolution. Thanks for your attention.

Dear Mr. Rider,
You thoughts and views greatly intrigue me. I wish to subscribe to any newsletters, pamphlets or other publications that you may produce in the future.

Regards,
B2B.

 

[02ranger]

It's rather interesting on how insistent we are on recognizing patterns. For example, the way that we automatically associate humanistic facial features. Look at a smily face, , it is nothing more than two lines and two dots but arranged correctly it is instantly universally recognized as a face and one that expresses a specific emotion.

Carl Sagan had an interesting thing about some of the UFO stories in his television show. Supposedly a UFO abductee drew a star map which was later connected with the arrangement of actual stars. But he shows that the star map is contrived because of they way that they connected the stars in the pattern. If we were to change the pattern of how they connected the stars on the map, it loses all of the similarities with the true map. In essence, people took a bunch of dots, drew some lines and then found what they could fit to that.

Yep. The human brain is amazing. That's like how we always assume that everything that happens is about us. Recently, I had an incident at work where they were talking about somebody doing something they shouldn't, but didn't say who it was(I overheard this). I had been guilty of this thing before, so automatically I assumed it was me they knew of. For the next two weeks, I "saw" so much evidence that they were onto me and I just knew I was gonna get in trouble for something I hadn't done in months. I found out yesterday that they never thought it was me, never suspected me, and still don't. We can see patterns where none exists and it seems perfectly logical to us.

 

[PhineasJWhoopee]

Amazing indeed. It weighs about 3 pounds, contains over 100 billion neurons, each linked to an average of 100,000 others forming more than 10 quadrillion connections. It's like taking all of the telephone systems in the world and putting them into a thimble.

 

[0roo0roo]

wheres your god now? :awe:

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Hmmm I didn't need to see that. I love penguins

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It is a good assumption insofar as it appears to work. Science is nothing if not pragmatic.

With all respect, if we do that, then when or if it ceases to work, we'll never find out.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

It's a silly question because it's an impossibility.

Things are only impossible if they are incoherent or otherwise contradictory. The idea of an undesigned universe is neither of those, so your claim is just a dodge because you do not know how to answer it.

Of course, I know you don't know how to answer it, because ID isn't a scientific hypothesis. You cannot describe how it could be false, despite your dishonest insistence to the contrary.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

With all respect, if we do that, then when or if it ceases to work, we'll never find out.

Well a lot of things could be true that we'll never find out. I could be a brain in a vat in the laboratory of an evil genius. My mind could be in The Matrix. This could all be a dream. I cannot rationally exclude these possibilities, but I assume them to be false because it works.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

A house won't appear without someone building but the universe suddenly appeared from nothing????

Nope.

What observations are there of the big bang?

Already answered.

What observations are there for matter magically arrnaging itself into conscious life????

We don't observe magic.

We have an inherent sense of design and beauty imbued by our Creator.

And the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.

Not every arrangement of letters and words corresponds to reality, dumbass.

 

[sourceninja]

In order for something Complex to exist it must have Order. Order looks like Design to the feeble minded.

You obviously have never programmed in perl.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I'm thinking that maybe there actually is no design. Maybe because we evolved in this environment we see the world as having design and thus make things with a design to match. If the world was totally different, if a tree looked like a tangled jumble of limbs similar to a tangled cord, and leaves were not all the same general shape , would we still call that a design because that's what we evolved in?

We would call it a design if it made sense.

Human design uses things we've learned about the way the universe works to make things that serve a purpose. Basically, we sift through ideas until we come up with something that experience with reality shows us should work and that a real path exists from here to there. i.e., no magic poofing, a la, "I will mentally implant antigravity spheres into a cat. Thus, a design for a flying cat." That's not a design . There is just no path from here to there.

Because design is predicated on making things that work in reality, it has much in common with reality at its baseline.

Design : Concerned with getting from here to there.
Reality: Is there. And the present came along a path from past; so there is always a path from here to there.

Design: Uses mechanisms learned from reality.
Reality: Its use of those mechanisms is where the designer learned about them in the first place.

Design: Concerned with an end product that works.
Reality: As far as life goes, anything unfit to survive, dies. That's natural selection. Nothing that is terminally broken survives. It's tautological.


So the reality of a purely natural universe is unliving things operating by a superset of the mechanisms a designer would recognize he uses, and living things that fit the same niche that a designer designs for (fit for existence within the natural laws of the universe).


And, funny enough, "design" is evidence against supernatural influences.
Imagine you have a set of blocks in front of you. You want to make a castle out of them. But how do you do that if they don't operate by any natural laws?
You start to build your castle: three blocks turn into chickens; six burst into flames; one tries to sexually molest you; another starts laughing maniacally and converts its mass into energy exploding with a force of several tons of TNT, killing everyone within a two block radius.
See? It just doesn't work. "Design" is a meaningless concept in a universe that makes no sense because supernatural influences predominate. You just cannot get from here to there in an orderly fashion.

 

[Tweak155]

We would call it a design if it made sense.
...
And, funny enough, "design" is evidence against supernatural influences.
Imagine you have a set of blocks in front of you. You want to make a castle out of them. But how do you do that if they don't operate by any natural laws?
You start to build your castle: three blocks turn into chickens; six burst into flames; one tries to sexually molest you; another starts laughing maniacally and converts its mass into energy exploding with a force of several tons of TNT, killing everyone within a two block radius.
See? It just doesn't work. "Design" is a meaningless concept in a universe that makes no sense because supernatural influences predominate. You just cannot get from here to there in an orderly fashion.

Ok I refrained from responding until I saw this. If we're assuming a designer, those "natural" laws of yours would have been by design.

 

[sandorski]

Son of Grog: Papa, why mountain rumble?
Grog: Mountain god angry.
Scientist: Actually it's due to magma pressure or tectonic plate movement.
Grog: We throw you into mountain now, to appease angry god.

 

[meltdown75]

Most creationists/ID'ers/idiots

and that's when i stopped reading a promising thread

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Theory? Woudln't that imply scientific method?

 

[dawp]

Theory? Woudln't that imply scientific method?

It's a hypothesis that is impossible to prove.

Like I asked earlier, how can you prove that man was created in the image of god and not the other way around. You can't.


And I never got an answer to that.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Ok I refrained from responding until I saw this. If we're assuming a designer, those "natural" laws of yours would have been by design.

That doesn't solve anything.

Design exists within a framework (that includes the design of frameworks). If God had to design instead of being able to act out arbitrarily, the question arises, who created the framework within he operates?

You can't get around either an infinite regression of designers or arbitrariness at some point. If nature's nature implies God, God's nature would imply God's God.

Theists would place the level of arbitrariness right above God. But that gives us an unneeded additional entity. By Occam's Razor we cut God and place the level of arbitrariness above Nature.

You do with less until more is needed. Gods are not needed.

 

[MJinZ]

That doesn't solve anything.

Design exists within a framework (that includes the design of frameworks). If God had to design instead of being able to act out arbitrarily, the question arises, who created the framework within he operates?

You can't get around either an infinite regression of designers or arbitrariness at some point. If nature's nature implies God, God's nature would imply God's God.

Theists would place the level of arbitrariness right above God. But that gives us an unneeded additional entity. By Occam's Razor we cut God and place the level of arbitrariness above Nature.

You do with less until more is needed. Gods are not needed.

Point source progression seems to create a conundrum - can an original design be inherently meaningful?

Infinite and cyclical progression should and can not be categorically dismissed just because it is both a difficult and enormous concept to grasp. In fact, in consideration of huge expanses of time, both relative and absolute, there is no reason why one should dismiss it.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

It's estimated that @ 99% of all life to have ever existed on this planet no longer exists. There have been at least 5 major extinctions and other minor ones.

It doesn't seem to jibe that an entity so powerfull as to be able to create an entire universe and create it specifically for man, as many major religions claim, would have the vast majority of its creations destroyed and/or have to wipe the slate clean and start over 5 times or more. Shouldn't an omnipotent being be able to get it right the first time around?

 

[MJinZ]

Nope.


Already answered.


We don't observe magic.



And the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.

Not every arrangement of letters and words corresponds to reality, dumbass.

Big Bang Theory is an answer to a different question. It's fascinating and all, but it basically has nothing to do with supporting or disproving Design.

 

[MJinZ]

It's estimated that @ 99% of all life to have ever existed on this planet no longer exists. There have been at least 5 major extinctions and other minor ones.

It doesn't seem to jibe that an entity so powerfull as to be able to create an entire universe and create it specifically for man, as many major religions claim, would have the vast majority of its creations destroyed and/or have to wipe the slate clean and start over 5 times or more. Shouldn't an omnipotent being be able to get it right the first time around?

1) How do you know he's not getting it right the first time? He/She/It could just be bored as shit and want a new toy to play with.

2) Why do you assume omnipotence? Humans can create a computer that will beat the strongest human Chess Players, but nothing points towards our omnipotence.

But you are right, the Christian/Muslim/etc models simply don't jive for many many more reasons.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Big Bang Theory is an answer to a different question. It's fascinating and all, but it basically has nothing to do with supporting or disproving Design.

Cool story bro. :thumbsup: Was it supposed to challenge any statement made by me?

 

[MJinZ]

Cool story bro. :thumbsup: Was it supposed to challenge any statement made by me?

Not really, was too lazy to find the originating quote that referred back to the Big Bang. ()

 

[Platypus]

Yes you are.

yuuuuuuuuuuup