Forums > Social Discussion > Intelligent Design vs Evolution

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ben-ja-menGOLD Member
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia


Posted:
ok so first read this https://www.venganza.org/
i mean really!!!! wtf?!?!?!?! i just cant get over how censored censored censored censored censored censored censored censored this is.

*deep cleansing breath*

ok so how is it that any educated person (as one would assume the Kansas School Board would be required to have some level of education?) or even a mildly retarded chimp for that matter would even consider adding something like ID to a science curriculum?

Now if the ID group where to be taking a page or two from Cellular Automata (which evolution essentially is just in a much more complex environment with more complex survival/interaction rules) and add that the resulting now is possibly the result of design by choosing the rules such that it would evolve in such a way to have created the given now, or that the soul's link to the real world might be the apparently random quantum tunnelling effects that take place in the microtubules (yet another CA) in the brain then i wouldnt have such a big problem with their proposal. both of which are horribly speculative and cant be proven but both allow for the concept of "god" to be introduced to highlight that science doesnt have all the answers

i suppose next we will be using the fox network for our history classes? confused
/end vent

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?


MikefromGlosSILVER Member
Hitman
985 posts
Location: Gloucester England


Posted:
bingo

he he i am mike the amazing gloscircus person who is mike.

Officaly an exception to the Poi Boys are Girls Thing


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
 Written by: Patriarch917


You don't know what he's talking about, but you don't think it's true? smile



Yep, I followed your lead on the rest of science wink

hug

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
Does that mean we can calculate the probability of God's existance and compare it to the probability of abiogenesis.?

My money's on a few random molecules bumping into each other and creating proteins that eventually bumped into other proteins, and stuck.

What's beaufort?

DrudwynForget puppy power, Scrappy's just gay
632 posts
Location: Southampton Uni


Posted:
Merely because we do not know the origin of the very first life form does not mean it is down to either pure chance or God/an Intelligent Designer.

There are hypotheses based on materials such as clay (rather ironically) which has the attribute that shapes and patterns in a layer are copied on the layer above and so on. Surely in an intense and chemically rich environment, eventually (and I do realise I'm going down the pure chance route) a chemical pattern that copies itself will occur.

Going off topic a little:

If the same amount of evidence existed for a Christian God as it did for Evolution, then I would believe. However, as I've just spent the past few months discussing the origin of religions with my mother and various lecturers, the chances of the Bible being the literal word of God are even less likely than me being a small rubber ball.

It's a book written by men for men, unless of course that God's word was designed to be translated from one language to another a couple of times, edited by a Government or 2, argued over and had the test of changed by a few reformations; in which case, he's doing a damn good job of testing his faithful!

Spin, bounce, be one with the world, because it is yours to enjoy...


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
So we're still left waiting for how an A level student can show that evolution can't explain what created us when the wolds top intellectuals think it's the best theory we have.

DNA in its current form is no doubt something that cannon just happen 'by chance' and carry on remaking itself. However the whole point of evolution is that things change a very little bit over a very long time. Anyone who thinks that the world as we know it more or less happend in a day (or 6) would be called mad by most people who actually thought about it.

Sure, we don't know the exact way that the first self-replicators, but then you can't tell me the way that a cloud will form and move about, or a wave will break. Thats not to say that this can't happen though.

Maybe renaming 'God' 'random chance within statistically acceptable limits' would be a good idea, then I would be happy to say that god made us all. But not in 6 days. wink

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


Patriarch917SILVER Member
I make my own people.
607 posts
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, USA


Posted:
 Written by: Sym


So we're still left waiting for how an A level student can show that evolution can't explain what created us when the wolds top intellectuals think it's the best theory we have.



Rubbish. All of the world’s top intellectuals think that ID is the best theory... otherwise they wouldn’t be top intellectuals. ;-)

 Written by: Sym


DNA in its current form is no doubt something that cannon just happen 'by chance' and carry on remaking itself. However the whole point of evolution is that things change a very little bit over a very long time.



Whether a book is written in a single day, or one letter a day for a very long time, doesn’t change the odds of the book being written by chance. Besides, one DNA molecule being put together bit by bit over a long period of time wouldn't work. The new information must be added faster than the old information will get degraded. Random chance works both to create the new... and destroy the existing.

 Written by: Sym


Anyone who thinks that the world as we know it more or less happend in a day (or 6) would be called mad by most people who actually thought about it.



There are people who believe that the parts needed to make the first life form could occur by chance at the same location, at the same time, and assemble themselves within the time period it would take for the component parts to decompose... yet we do not call them mad.

 Written by: Sym


Sure, we don't know the exact way that the first self-replicators, but then you can't tell me the way that a cloud will form and move about, or a wave will break. Thats not to say that this can't happen though.



I cannot explain how a car could assemble itself by chance. However, I can explain how it could be assembled by someone else with the proper capacity. Favoring chance over design as the “best” explanation for certain phenomenon is a matter of faith that must be entertained despite the strength of the evidence... not because of it.

 Written by: Sym


Maybe renaming 'God' 'random chance within statistically acceptable limits' would be a good idea, then I would be happy to say that god made us all. But not in 6 days. wink



Let’s define our statistical limits, and put the “random chance” theory to the test.

If our null hypothesis is that life formed by random chance, at what statistical limit shall we reject it? At what point down a normal curve should we decide that there is evidence to suggest that a phenomenon cannot be explained by chance, but probably occurred because of non-random factors?

Such a discussion will quickly become technical, but I seem to recall that you and several others here are familiar enough with the math involved to be able to discuss it. I’m taking a class on empirical methods at the moment. We’ve done a lot of work lately testing whether things (such as a low number of minorities at a company) are due to random chance, or to design (such as racial discrimination). Quite a bit of our time has been devoted to agreeing on the statistically acceptable limits.

What do you think the statistically acceptable limits should be? If I propose to you that such-and-such happened because of chance, at what point will you reject that theory as in implausible, unsatisfactory explanation?

Stout has his money on the null hypothesis. I’ll put mine on rejecting it. As soon as we can agree where to set the level of statistical significance, we can know who wins.

UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
 Written by: Stout

What's beaufort?



Its a scale for measuring wind speed

ubbrollsmile

MikefromGlosSILVER Member
Hitman
985 posts
Location: Gloucester England


Posted:
Also a school in gloucester which i go to which we argued the arguement i pointed out before it became well almost famous

he he i am mike the amazing gloscircus person who is mike.

Officaly an exception to the Poi Boys are Girls Thing


DrudwynForget puppy power, Scrappy's just gay
632 posts
Location: Southampton Uni


Posted:
Pat, once again you come to the Blind Watchmaker argument, one which is 200 years old, has been brought up numerous times (with references) in this discussion, outdates Wallace and Darwin's writings and has had more shootings down than I care to number.

I'm no bio chemist, and I do not know how life started, but I'll put vast amounts of money, my soul, my life and what ever else you ask for on the side of God not creating us in 6 days, 6000 years ago.

Also, if intellectuals are putting themselves behind ID as a theory, they deserve to be shot, because ID is not a theory. It barely passes as a hypothesis! It's a wolf is sheep's clothing, religion masquerading as science.

Spin, bounce, be one with the world, because it is yours to enjoy...


MikefromGlosSILVER Member
Hitman
985 posts
Location: Gloucester England


Posted:
prehaps the answer is to look inside oneself for the answer

he he i am mike the amazing gloscircus person who is mike.

Officaly an exception to the Poi Boys are Girls Thing


UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales


Posted:
No.. it clearly isnt the answer tongue

Once you look inside yourself and have a poke around, you will shortly die from major blood loss.

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
the "where did dna come from" argument being persued here is indeed another instance of the watchmaker argument:



see something complex.

look for a way as to how it came about.

lack the evidence necessary to come up with a satisfactory explanation.

blame it on god.



we can apply the same (absence of) logical thought to a whole range of unexplained phenomena but it will never be a sound line of reason.



i.d. seems to herald the age old idea that phenomena that (as yet) lack a rational explanation (especially in terms of origin) are literal proof that god exists.



that is counter-intuitive to me - what happens when someone works out how self replicating dna molecules originated...?



oh, i know - we can just force them to recant, shut them in a house and ban all their publications wink





the buddhists have a much more sane approach imho - god exists in everything and if you can't see the buddha then you're the blind one smile





cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


jo_rhymesSILVER Member
Momma Bear
4,525 posts
Location: Telford, Shrops, United Kingdom


Posted:
As someone who strongly believes in God, and strongly believes in evolution, I think that continuing this thread is stupid.
ok, God exists - however that's a belief and not a "fact".

Evolution is a fact. smile
Sorted biggrin

Hoppers are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
 Written by: coleman


the "where did dna come from" argument being persued here is indeed another instance of the blind watchmaker



Not wanting to be too much of a geek, but it's actually the Watchmaker argument. Richard Dawkins called his book 'The Blind Watchmaker' because of the old idea, but in his case (aka the real world) the watchmaker was evolution and it was blind in that it didn't ahve a direction for us. Therefore the blind watchmaker argument is pro-evolution.

Paley's watch maker is, as Drudwyn said, over 200 years old. Just look at the wikipedia page on it.

MikefromGlos, again I'm pleased that your argument is so good, but you've not actually said what it is yet. I'm sure the scientific world will be keen to test so we can progress our thinking on the subject. Once we know what it is we can start talking about it, until then we can't do anything about it.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
 Written by: jo_rhymes


Evolution is a fact. smile




No, it's 'only a theory' wink

ubbangel

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
thank-you - edited for correctness smile


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


jo_rhymesSILVER Member
Momma Bear
4,525 posts
Location: Telford, Shrops, United Kingdom


Posted:
i think when you can show enough evidence to support a theory, it is then fact smile

Hoppers are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.


jeff(fake)Scientist of Fortune
1,189 posts
Location: Edinburgh


Posted:
 Written by: Sym



 Written by: jo_rhymes



Evolution is a fact. smile







No, it's 'only a theory' wink



ubbangel





Actually, it's both. Evolution is change, and can be seen in the wild, in the lab and in the fossil record, making it fact. The modern synthesis explains the change in a scientific manner, which is the theory. The idea that it can't be both is just part of the false dichotomy that is prevalent in this debate (like the concept that the entire bible has to be literaly true for god to exist).



Like it's said above, both evolution and god could be true, but young earth creationism is bible worship rather than god worship. Ken Millar makes some very good points on this topic, as did the Vatican's last astronomer.



(unless of course a global flood managed to deposit many gigatons of sediment in only a few hundred days, layer all the animals so they are in a vastly unlikely order that could also be produced by an evolutionary proscess but avoiding any anachronisms such as rabbits in the Carboniferous, or human artifacts before the tertiary, rejig all the different kinds of radioactive isotope ratios used in proportion to their layering, not to mention creating all those red herring like the extra telomeres and centromeres on human chromosone two and co-speciesation of gophers and their lice, but hey, if god has gone through all that trouble, perhaps he wants people to think the earth is old) wink

According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Dynamics, we may already be making love right now...


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
From wikipedia:

 Written by: wikipedia


Stephen Jay Gould explained that "evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome.... "Moreover,Fact does not mean absolute certainty." In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."





The reason I said that it's only a theory was because some schools put disclaimer stickers on textbooks about evolution, saying that it was 'only' a theory.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


jo_rhymesSILVER Member
Momma Bear
4,525 posts
Location: Telford, Shrops, United Kingdom


Posted:
IMO belief in God is subjective. I know that I believe in god, and i know that alot of my friends and family don't.
I can't prove why I believe in Him/Her- I just do!

Whereas evolution is there for the whole world to see happening, and to me is a fact. I don't understand what's up with these crazy Christians.
Evolution happened, let's not teach lies. smile

Hoppers are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
I agree. However the real point of ID vs. evolution is that the ID supports are saying what they have is science and not belief. As soon as someone says that what they have is science then it needs to be testable and stand up to the scientific method. ID supports say it's science, science tested it and it turned out that it can't stand up to the logical tests it needs to, so it's rejected.

This is something that happened about 150 years ago in the rest of the world, but in the last few years creationism has been renamed ID and the same arguments started up all over again.

As soon as the ID supports stop saying they are doing science and start saying that it is just faith and religion then science wont have a problem with it.

In addition to ID not being scientifically testable, they seem to have the very poor argument that just because evolution isn't 100% solid and there are some finer points that we don't know about yet then ID must be true.

There are loads of books on the subject, “How we believe” by Michael Shermer is very good as well as any of Dawkins books.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
By the way, I love this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/Creationist_car.jpg

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
this is the book people:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosmic-Landscape-String-Illusion-Intelligent/dp/0316155799

the man who discovered the (borderline scientific) string theory compares his framework with that of id - with a few questionable conclusions.



cosmology has always been a very grey area of science because the answers it seeks draw it dangerously close to metaphysics.



hawking's latest theory for example works by applying the uncertainty principle to the universe as a whole - that the measurements we make today shape the history of our universe.



will this theory ever be testable?



also, how come id is only used to counter evolution?

surely it is a theory of everything?





this article has a pretty decent explanation of what constitutes a good scientific theory:

https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000608/00/superstr.doc



smile





cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
Cole, do you have the string theory book? I'll swap you that for How we believe...

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
What the *bleep* do we know anyways? wink runs back, trying to put the lid back on the can... rolleyes

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


ChellySILVER Member
Niraffe
884 posts
Location: Up north, Scotland (UK)


Posted:
*ahem* Jeff, I like your style.... ubblol

I have to agree that it's absolutely awful that Americans are teaching CHILDREN that creationism or ID is a "science". It's a system of IDEAS and BELIEFS. Where exactly are the "facts"? It's based on stories that were put in writing a couple of hundred years after the supposed incidents, passed to people through word of mouth, which in turn makes them chinese whispers. You believe all the gossip you hear? Or how about all those folk stories that grandparents tell children? Or dracula? He was based on stories passed through generations about real people, but he didn't have fangs, suck blood, live in a coffin or fly. I mean, come on.....

I don't disagree with teaching children ID, I do believe that people should be able to hear every side of the story, particularly where a strong set of morals are being taught, which I think that any sensible person reading the bible should be able to pick up on. I was brought up going to church, but stopped going because I felt that it wasn't right for me, and my family support me in this. This is good christian morality.

I work as a biochemist studying for my PhD, and to be honest, everything they teach you at A level biology in school they tell you to scrap as soon as you go to university. In school you only get the dumbed-down version of scientific theories anyway. It's because the real theories take years to study and explain properly, which they don't have time for. (Oh, and the chicken and the egg - dinosaurs laid eggs - as do fish - so um, ha!!)

I do believe in something, but my "God" is more to do with the energy that is everything. We (like everything else on this planet) are made of atoms. These atoms are in the air around us, in our blood, our muscles, the flowers, the trees, the rocks (I would go on, but this could take a while). Whether we like it or not, we are connected to everything and everyone in this world by that same energy, regardless of religious beliefs, colour, languages spoken, or what the name of your aunts-boyfriends-sisters-nephews-cousin-dog is. I believe that everyone has a viewpoint, an argument, ideas on what is right and what is wrong, and I believe that we should respect that and embrace people for who and what they are. There are so many religions in the world that they can't all be right - and neither can they all be wrong.

But PLEASE - don't try and force feed children "science" based on mythology. Let them see all sides, and make up their minds for themselves.

"Lots of beeping. And shaking and tinfoil." Chelly

"Are you sure it's a genuine test and not a robot heroin addict?" Cantus

---set free by the rather lovely FireTom---
--(right arm owned by Fyre)--


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
i don't have the book and haven't read it - i have read lots of excerpts and reviews and decided against getting it in the end.



it definitely seems to be the closest published text to this discussion here though.





i.d. is not a scientific theory imo - with no basis for and absolutely no sign of peer review, coupled with the fact that it meets very few of the criteria required of a sound scientific theory, it remains to be just a group of cleverly worded faith-based ideas touted by religious powermongers worried about the future of the church.



the discovery institute's 'teach the controversy' campaign and its core (the wedge strategy), were quite clearly 'intelligently designed' to present religious belief as an equally valid alternative to rational free thinking and was hoped to challenge the materialistic world view that has grown out of the scientific leaps of the past few centuries.



the nature of the i.d. 'theory' however requires a new definition of science to be accepted if it is ever to stand side-by-side with (or against) evolution and as such, comparing the two seems to ultimately lead back to an argument of what science is.



it is not an attempt to reconcile science with religion and never will be - in fact it directly challenges scientific thinking to the point of declaring that the axioms of scientific theory do not need to apply to it (i.e. it does not need to be consistent, parsimonious, economical, pertinent, falsifiable/testable, reproducible, correctable and so on).



it began as a propaganda exercise (that being "bring into question the scientific community's opinion on the validity of the theory of evolution") and in my eyes, only continues to be such.





cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom


Posted:
Cole, I agree, as does the US legal system.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District_et_al.

Or

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/4:Whether_ID_Is_Science

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees


ChellySILVER Member
Niraffe
884 posts
Location: Up north, Scotland (UK)


Posted:
 Written by: coleman




i.d. is not a scientific theory imo - with no basis for and absolutely no sign of peer review, coupled with the fact that it meets very few of the criteria required of a sound scientific theory, it remains to be just a group of cleverly worded faith-based ideas touted by religious powermongers worried about the future of the church.

the discovery institute's 'teach the controversy' campaign and its core (the wedge strategy), were quite clearly 'intelligently designed' to present religious belief as an equally valid alternative to rational free thinking and was hoped to challenge the materialistic world view that has grown out of the scientific leaps of the past few centuries.

the nature of the i.d. 'theory' however requires a new definition of science to be accepted if it is ever to stand side-by-side with (or against) evolution and as such, comparing the two seems to ultimately lead back to an argument of what science is.

it is not an attempt to reconcile science with religion and never will be - in fact it directly challenges scientific thinking to the point of declaring that the axioms of scientific theory do not need to apply to it (i.e. it does not need to be consistent, parsimonious, economical, pertinent, falsifiable/testable, reproducible, correctable and so on).





Did you see the programme that was on channel 4 a couple of months back called "Gods next army"? Scary stuff. University kids being trained in politics, mainly all home educated from EXTREMELY religious families. One kid was talking about how homosexuality, blacks (in his words) and Muslims were all sinners, and how when his generation got into the whitehouse they would continue to stamp out these evils until the "free" world was clear of such dangers to humanity.

This particular university only taught creationism as a science. They believe the theory of evolution is an evil which threatens the (again this word) "free" world.

wow. eek And these are a lot of the kids doing internships in the whitehouse. Scary stuff.

"Lots of beeping. And shaking and tinfoil." Chelly

"Are you sure it's a genuine test and not a robot heroin addict?" Cantus

---set free by the rather lovely FireTom---
--(right arm owned by Fyre)--


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
eek thanks chellybean.



https://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/godsarmy.html

i hadn't seen that show but i did look up the college you mentioned...



patrick henry college, virginia: https://www.phc.edu/



its a little scary how the education there orbits around such a fundamentalist christian theology and seems to be almost entirely focused on producing ready-made, power-hungry, fervently christian, conservative politicians.



put that next to the fact that they have their very own bible-sourced definition of government and how it should operate ("God himself has ordained government and commands that everyone must submit to government; moreover, there is no authority except that which God has established. (Romans 13: 1-5)") and it starts to look very questionable...



i also noticed that there are no photos of any black students.

in fact there are no pictures of any black people at all on the site.

none of the students, none of the teaching faculty, none of the board and none of the admin/support staff.





sorry if this is a touch off topic.



i'll leave you all with the wholly ridiculous phc directive on what their students are instructed to think in terms of human origin:



 Written by: phc website



PHC in particular expects its biology faculty to provide a full exposition of the claims of the theory of Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and other major theories while, in the end, teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data.





i.e. you may (and are expected to) learn about and understand scientific theories, so long as you always return to the conclusion that any theory that contradicts the bible must be inherently wrong umm



i.d. 'rationality 'taken to the nth degree... ubbcrying





cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


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