Journal bmetzler's Journal: Intelligent Design? 57
Intelligent design has become a major issue recently. But what is it? It seems that people are quick to attack it. But does anyone know what intelligent design is?
I done a little studying as I have time to learn the science of intelligent design. I am not a science major, so I don't have a background to really understand science. I haven't talked a lot about intelligent design, because I don't really feel comfortable arguing for or against something I don't understand.
But I noticed that a lot of people are quick to attack and critize something that even they don't seem to understand. In fact, it has become increasingly popular recently to use intelligent design as a political attack. Is this surprising?
It seems to be obvious on a fundamental level that there can only be 2 posibilities for why things are. For example a horse was either always a horse genetically, or a horse came from something else which ultimately genetically came from a primordial soup. Scientifically, there cannot be any other choice. At least it has alluded me.
That means that everyone either believes that we came from primordial soup or we always were. And so the battle lines are drawn. Now, people will take a side and have many different reasons for believing it. I don't consider having various reasons for believing something bad or even wrong. But the only reason that is important in my consideration is the science supporting each view.
There is science that supports each view. The tricky part is being willing to have an open mind and taking the time to find out what that science is. When we understand both sides scientifically, we will be able to have a better debate then just yelling that intelligent design is too "religious."
So, that's what I want to do as I have time. I want to do my part to stop this scientific ignorance, and learn the science behind intelligent design. I'm sure that my willingness to have an open mind and question evolution will irritate many people who are intolerant to such skepticism, but that is their choice. I am interested in science, and I'm sure that my search for it will be rewarded.
I could say more I suppose, but it is late. I'll probably revisit this issue as I learn more about the science behind intelligent design.
"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:1)
It might be more worshipful of God to believe in theistic evolution, but in this JE I am trying to deal with the science of intelligent design, not which theory is more worshipful.
-BrentRe:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
You see, I believe that the universe was designed intelligently, too. I believe that when God was assembling the universe, He laid out all the rules of physics, made all the universal constants just right, made sure carbon molecules behaved the way they do *before* the big bang. When God said/did something similar to "let ther
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:1)
What laws? How do we prove them? I'm looking for science here, not just some personal opinion about what God did.
-BrentRe:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Actually, the one devil's advocate attack that book falls to is in it's basic two axioms
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
also, how can one deny that objective evidence exists? the fossil record correlates with the theory laid down by darw
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
I've got a problem with randomness in mutation as well- to my way of thinking every mutation has a purpose. That purpo
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Wow. Basically stating that 180 years of scientific endeavor and peer review is a failure of imagination and willingness to study? So, fundamentally, you've figured out what the best minds in science couldn't? That's quite a discovery! When you start talking about "personal beliefs" as opposed to a scientific method, there's no point in discussing anymore--although I'd like to try I guess. You might as well say, "I believe that blue greml
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Peer review and theology have a lot in common- both are about weeding out unorthodox ideas and limiting data.
So, fundamentally, you've figured out what the best minds in science couldn't?
The best minds in science are still human- and thus biased. Letting go of bias is the first step- but once you understand that human beings are built to be biased, it's a step that can't b
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
i'd like to leave you with something, though, that completely destroys your idea of "arrogance" in science. A theory is not scientific unless it is falsifiable. That principle ends all arrogance. Every person who is convinced by scientific theory must accept that it is possibly provably wrong and must accept it in the face of contradictory evidence. If you bel
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
Works for me.
i'd like to leave you with something, though, that completely destroys your idea of "arrogance" in science. A theory is not scientific unless it is falsifiable. That principle ends all arrogance. Every person who is convinced by scientific theory must accept that it is possibly provably wrong and must accept it in the face of contradictory evidence
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
I think you’ve overlooked something: Those points you bring up don’t prove that there is no intelligent designer. They prove that there is no benevolent intelligent designer.
Yes, that’s right folks, I’m saying explicitly that it’s either Darwin o
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
You know, laws like the speed of light is about 3E8 m/sec, the acceleration of gravity of a body, all the known properties of the elements, you know, other laws that have been proven (at least, proven beyond most doubt) scientifically. My point was that I believe that these laws were determined (yes, by God), before the universe existed. Everything science says about the universe after the big
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:1)
Well, these laws are not conflictory with ID. I could teach a science class from an Intelligent Design framework and be able to teach all of these laws. So, what's the problem here?
-BrentRe:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:2)
I'm not sure we have one!
There is not a whole lot of science in the kind of intelligent design that's popular right now.
I mean, I can say all day that God set the electronegativity of Carbon to 2.55 when the he created the universe, because that was precise factor that was needed for life to evolve. Honestly, that's what I think
Re:"Intelligent" Design? (Score:1)
I would think it exactly the other way around: it cheapens one's view of God to think that He could (or would) only create the basic building blocks of the Universe, then let everything go randomly from there, than it would
Real Science (Score:2)
I think science is just as much saying "we don't know" as much as we are saying "we do know". I think ID has a place in the classroom as an alternative that helps little scientists learn self-deprecation.
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
This will revolutionize homework!
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
I don't know which is worse, your grasp of math or theology.
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
I don't see anyway around it, unless you happen to be omniscient.
Of course that is an argument for teaching science instead of religion
Science is tested and valuable, but much of the theory (theory has the same root as theology, btw) that ties these facts together in an understandable package are untested and non-falsifiable at the time they are taught.
But if you want children bewildered at the universe changing so definitively every 25 y
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
Re:Real Science (Score:1)
See, that's the problem. What are the scientific claims that Intelligent Design scientists make and what are the comparable claims that evolution scientists make. I know what supporters of evolution and supporters of intelligent design say about their respective believes, but that's not scientific. I'm not going to believe in evolution because an evolutionist tells me that evolution is more "worshipful", or Intelligent Design is too "
Re:Real Science (Score:2)
Re:Real Science (Score:1)
Yes, that is an ongoing project of mine.
instead of asking us to provide second and third-hand accounts of their claims?
You and others seem quite confident of what their claim are for only having second and third-hand accounts. But this is one of the points I was trying to make. Instead of rejecting ID because of religious or emotional responses, why not research the claims and focus on the science of ID. It might be easy to attack ID from
The Science of God (Score:1)
My father is a voracious reader, and he stumbled onto a book called The Science of God by Gerald L. Schroeder. This book attempts to draw together Biblical knowledge and scientific findings and theories into a unified whole. I haven't read it yet, but my father told me it makes some good sense. I have a copy here in front of me; it is my next reading project.
Re:The Science of God (Score:2)
Intelligent Design, as I understand it (Score:1)
There are actually three major classes of theories on how life got to the place it is on Earth right now:
1. "Darwinian evolution": This is the theory that chaotic natural forces, collectively known as "natural selection", caused animals to change phenotype, genotype, and species by the following method: A) a beneficial genetic mutation occours, by whatever m
Re:Intelligent Design, as I understand it (Score:1)
The debate being carried on in public fora is really unrepresentative of ANYONE'S best evidence or positions, and is seemingly led by the spokespersons who are shrillest (as opposed to best-informed or most-s
Re:Intelligent Design, as I understand it (Score:1)
True. That's because when people argue about ID today, they ignore science and move to the more juicy subjects of religion and emotion. Who wants to argue about something as dry as science when we could argue over
Re:Intelligent Design, as I understand it (Score:1)
The part that hangs me up is that there's really no debate whatsoever from inside the actual biology community--the scholarly papers have come
Re:Intelligent Design, as I understand it (Score:2)
Zeriel,
I thought I'd put my commentary here, as I really like the points you have made. I would further suggest that exactly the points you have made are exactly the "in" for theology classes. That is, by describing "random" in terms of "god", a child's religious training can be used to redirect scientific learning through these little "ins".
When I went to school, the rest was done directly by my science teacher, by explaining that science is built upon evidence, and that an
Be open to the third option (Score:2)
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
Huh? How do we teach that in science class? What science is there in that belief?
-BrentRe:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
The exact same science that led to the idea of "random mutation" to begin with- the fact that the scientific method is good for finding models of possible reality, but can never be complete enough to describe reality itself. The other piece of science is that you can study evolution looking at your own family- geneology is a great way to study evolution.
One of the big problems with YEC and ID and evolution is the idea that
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
Uh, not really. As far back as I can track my family tree, they were all humans. Same with everyone else's family tree. In fact, no one has every found in their study of their family tree that they any anything but humans in their family tree as far back as recorded history goes. It might be that someone does have a primitive life form in their family tree, but it cannot b
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
One common point is life span- it's increased greatly and dramat
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
OK. That's interesting. What is this change? Are our ancesters 4 generations ago less human because they didn't live as long? Were people less human 500 years ago because
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
All very interesting questions that deserve study. The ultimate point of the Jesuits is that speciation doesn't matter much to the study of evolution- and I have a tendency to agree with them somewhat. All speciation is just changes piled on top of change
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
Could questions like that be studied in science class? What about if they were in a chapter on intelligent design? Could they still be studied?
-BrentRe:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
It seems to me that the Jesuit version of Theistic Evolution IS the only form of Intelligent Design that can be studied in a chapter on Intelligent Design- and most of the actual scientists behind Intelligent Design would have no problem with it. You said before that you ignored this option because there weren't enough differences with evolution to consider it; I'
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
By the Jesuit version of Theistic Evolution are you talking about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's works? Because it is my understanding that his work falls on the evolutionary side of the debate, not the intelligent design side. Therefore it wouldn't be useful in a chapter studying the science of intelligent design.
Furthermore, his work is about incorpo
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
Depends on your definitions. A strict evolutionist believes in random mutation; a theistic evolutionist believes that *nothing* happens without a purpose behind it. It's really about competing r
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
Well, you can't scientifically prove that there was a purpose behind a mutation, as least not a supernatural purpose, so we are back to random mutations. Scientifically, I believe that "regular" evolution and theistic evolution look the same.
It's really about competing religions, not about science at all, since there's no scientific way to prove that randomness exists.
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
Why does it have to be a supernatural purpose? Or to put it another way- if there was a God who was able to set up all the rules the universe depends on at the start, why would he have to violate those rules to get something done?
But other than that, you're absolute
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:1)
I think I used a distracting word. Maybe phantom is better. If God has a purpose for a certain mutant, how do we determine that a mutation is not really random, but actually has a purpose. Scientifically, there is no difference from a random mutuation and one that only God kno
Re:Be open to the third option (Score:2)
Exactly- which is why I say randomness does not exist. It's just a code word for God, a replacement for people who are nervous about the
Re:bmetzler vs TxMxP (Score:1)
Intelligent design is a relatively recent branch of science. Although I have studied evolution and creation quite extensively in the past, I haven't studied Intel
Re:bmetzler vs TxMxP (Score:1)
From the exchange:
TMP: A typical claim in evolution is "a porcupine grew spines for defense". This can be proven wrong by observing numerous porcupines and seeing spines consistently failing to defend them.
Brent: No, your hypothesis may prove why porcupines got quills, but cannot
prove how porcupines got quills.
It doesn't even do that.
Re:bmetzler vs TxMxP (Score:1)
Thanks Bill Dog for responding. This is my greatest problem with evolution and one that I am carefully working to prove in a debate. If ID can't be taught if it has claims (not all of them, mind you) that aren't falsifiable, then why can evolution be taught if it also has claims
Re:bmetzler vs TxMxP (Score:1)
I thought Evolution was about the evolving of things. If it really is nothing more than theories about the retention of traits, and not their evolving, it should be called Retainment instead.
It almost seems like you've backtracked so far to get to something finally falsifiable, that you've left Evolution, and are into a non-representative, neutered version of it.