Intelligent Design is not creationism

[Teleologist]

ddunbar:

It's not that 99% of the ID critics pin creationism on ID. It's that 99% of ID proponents are theists and therefore creationists. And everyone knows that.

Nonsense. Most persons don't consider someone a creationist simply because they are a theist. And you know darn well that the ID critics don't pin the label "creationist" on ID proponents just to out them as theists. IDers that are theists don't attempt to hide the fact that they are theists. ID critics call IDers creationists because of the derogatory connotations the term carries. The derogatory connotations have nothing to do with theism. It's the derogatory connotations that IDers want to distance themselves from because they don't apply to ID. Your broad definition of creationism is not the definition the ID critics go by. They go by a much narrower definition of creationism and it's this version of creationism they pin on ID. I point this out on the first page of this thread.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Hi Teleologist

This is a repost because you seem to be back after a couple of days away and may have missed my last post.

You mentioned that you had empirical data to support your inference that the first cells were designed. Can you provide a link to the research?

Thanks
Nik

 

[Teleologist]

ddunbar:

The references T used are all creationist references. His anecdotal proofs, while not entirely creationist, are routinely used by creationists to bolster their claim of ID being science.

Your broad definition of creationist includes just about everyone but atheists. So your statement above translates to this:

The references T used are all non-atheist references. His anecdotal proofs, while not entirely non-atheist, are routinely used by non-atheists to bolster their claim of ID being science.

 

[2cents]

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Scientists_Build_A_World_In_A_Grain_Of_Silicon_999.html

Scientists Build A World In A Grain Of Silicon

by Chad Boutin
Princeton NJ (SPX) Feb 09, 2007
Ever since Charles Darwin proposed that animals adapt to their environment, scientists have dreamed of experimenting with this theory in a real-world landscape. Holding them back was the difficulty of creating a complex ecosystem that could be manipulated and controlled without placing wildlife at risk.
Now, Princeton scientists have found a way around this problem by fashioning a living, changeable ecosystem out of a tiny chip of silicon. Their creation is one of the strangest and smallest environments ever seen, but it could provide a valuable model to help researchers better understand how organisms survive in the natural world.

...

 

[neophyte321]

Quote from 2cents:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Scientists_Build_A_World_In_A_Grain_Of_Silicon_999.html

Scientists Build A World In A Grain Of Silicon

by Chad Boutin
Princeton NJ (SPX) Feb 09, 2007
Ever since Charles Darwin proposed that animals adapt to their environment, scientists have dreamed of experimenting with this theory in a real-world landscape. Holding them back was the difficulty of creating a complex ecosystem that could be manipulated and controlled without placing wildlife at risk.
Now, Princeton scientists have found a way around this problem by fashioning a living, changeable ecosystem out of a tiny chip of silicon. Their creation is one of the strangest and smallest environments ever seen, but it could provide a valuable model to help researchers better understand how organisms survive in the natural world.

...

Now that is irony. ..... MORE evidence, from the least likely source, of a "Designer", "Creator", "God" .... or whatever else you'd like to call him/her/it/them/us/we/

 

[2cents]

Quote from neophyte321:

Now that is irony. ..... MORE evidence, from the least likely source, of a "Designer", "Creator", "God" .... or whatever else you'd like to call him/her/it/them/us/we/

i never said we can't engineer life... i pretty much believe we can actually... and that we as a genus will be replaced sooner or later... and that when the "replacement" comes, from within or from outerspace, the theists will be the first to go... in the form of shoes, handbags for the new predator perhaps, although that's just an inference i am making based on empirical evidence

 

[Teleologist]

ddunbar:

What possible use is teleology and ID? What? To bolster the weak in faith? It's a useless field of study that can make no useful predictions.

More nonsense. Just 40 years ago scientists viewed the cell as no more complicated than a blob of Jell-O. Scientists are now describing the cell thusly:

Each cell is packed with tiny structures that might have come straight from an engineer's manual. Miniscule tweezers, scissors, pumps, motors, levers, valves, pipes, chains, and even vehicles abound. But of course the cell is more than just a bag of gadgets. The various components fit together to form a smoothly functioning whole, like an elaborate factory production line.

Explain how the blind watchmaker perspective was any help at all in guiding scientists away from the simplistic view of the cell as a bag of goo to recognizing it as a technological marvel? If anything it was a hinderance. And I would be interested to know of any useful predictions the blind watchmaker perspective led scientists to make regarding the cell.

The fact is that scientists often employ teleological thinking when seeking to understand the function of biological systems. In many cases these systems are treated as if they were actually designed; assembled to perform a function. This is discussed in a book by Michael Ruse:

Both history and present Darwinian evolutionary practice have shown us that design-type thinking is involved in the adaptationist paradigm. We treat organisms – the parts at least -- as if they were manufactured, as if they were designed, and then we try to work out their functions. End-directed thinking – teleological thinking – is appropriate in biology because, and only because, organisms seem as if they were manufactured, as if they had been created by an intelligence and put to work.
Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design: Does evolution have a purpose?, p. 268 (Harvard, 2003)

 

[I am...]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:



Universe is eternal, God is eternal, so no creator, no creation...so ID is not creationism at all, from this point of view.

There is no designer in this concept, as there is no creation, there is just cycles, which are not random or ignorant at all...by eternal nature, or eternal design if you will.

You mean like a perpetual motion machine?

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from Teleologist:

Explain how the blind watchmaker perspective was any help at all in guiding scientists away from the simplistic view of the cell as a bag of goo to recognizing it as a technological marvel?

It's scientific inquiry in general that guided scientists to that recognition, as opposed to faith-based conjecture like

"Life on earth is designed because it appears to me and my congregation to be designed"

or metaphysics like

"Magistrates were materialized out of pure potentiality"

or canards like

"Can you prove that life wasn't designed? You can't? Well then! That means that life was designed, doesn't it."

which is all we've had from the ID/Creationists in this thread.

Quote from Teleologist:
This is discussed in a book by Michael Ruse:

Still on and on with the appeals to authority, huh? I would have thought that after the humiliation of having your lack of familiarity with the works you cite revealed by kjkent, you would try a different tack.


Oh yes, that's right. You did try a different tack. You claimed to have empirical evidence for the assertion that the first cells were designed. Then when asked to cite the data in question, you...

disappeared.

ID/Creation is a faith-based rebranding of traditional Creationism. It belongs in churches and at Scientology gatherings.

 

[Teleologist]

It's your blind watchmaker perspective that is faith-based and it is useless to science. Scientists learned nothing useful by viewing the cell as the product of accidental / coincidental processes.

What helped unlock the secrets of the cell was reverse-engineering it. That's why Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences proposes that biologists should think more like engineers to better understand the workings of the cell.

Thinking like an engineer is teleological thinking. Reverse-engineering assumes engineering and engineering assumes design. Thus, scientists employ teleological thinking while doing research on the cell even if they are not aware of it.