Intelligent Design is not creationism

[I am...]

Quote from Teleologist:

I would like to focus on the origin of life on earth rather than the origin of the universe. We can't prove that an intelligence exists that created the universe but we do know that an intelligence exists that has the potential to seed distant planets with life. This is human intelligence. If this is a possible future then it is also a possible past. That a human-like intelligence seeded the earth with life is no less rational or scientific than the notion that life originated from non-life through a series of lucky accidents.

In 1973 British molecular biologist Francis Crick and chemist Leslie Orgel published a paper in the journal Icarus suggesting that life may have arrived on Earth through a process called 'Directed Panspermia.'

Yes, panspermia is how DNA and RNA get around the universe. A migration from Mars to Earth also had an influence here. Before that, there was a migration to Mars from elsewhere.

Having said that, it is really an affirmation of duality. And duality is still a myth. The existence of all things can be traced back to consciousness. But then, consciousness itself may be held up for questioning...whether it exists or not. Bottom line: This universe is built on not more than a belief and its outcomes, in a very powerful mind. It is the exploration of hypotheticals based on a premise of separation.

Time and space, the great separation symbols, remain beliefs subject to acceptance or rejection.

Jesus

 

[stu]

Quote from Teleologist:

I would like to see Stu come up with a definition of creationist that excludes advocates of Directed Panspermia but includes persons like Michael Behe.

Already done Tele, but anyway let's do it again...

Creationist - one who accounts for the origins of life through
the literal belief all creation was by God as portrayed in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
Creationism denies the theory of the evolution of species.

Crick and Orgel do not account for origins that way. They are not creationists.
Behe does. Behe is a creationist.

OK now?



Here are the couple of sentences you left out of that abstract to Crick & Orwell's paper.

We conclude that it is possible that life reached the earth in this way, but that the scientific evidence is inadequate at the present time to say anything about the probability. We draw attention to the kinds of evidence that might throw additional light on the topic.

No adequate scientific evidence or additional light has been put forward over the last near 40 years since their proposal.
However the discovery of Hydrothermal vents as a source for origin of life on Earth would make the P idea unnecessary anyway.

Your problem is that even if Panspermia, directed or otherwise was the case, it still leaves the question begging... what were the origins of who or what created the Panspermia.

From which ever angle your creationist argument is put, it will always contain the same inevitable inelegant wrecking mechanism embedded within .
620 and some pages later and you are still in denial of it.
Infinite regress.

 

[Teleologist]

Stu wrote:

Already done Tele, but anyway let's do it again...

Creationist - one who accounts for the origins of life through
the literal belief all creation was by God as portrayed in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
Creationism denies the theory of the evolution of species.

Crick and Orgel do not account for origins that way. They are not creationists.

Behe does. Behe is a creationist.

OK now?

Your definition of creationist is correct but it doesn't apply to Behe or Intelligent Design which is clearly explained in the opening post of this thread.


Stu wrote:

Here are the couple of sentences you left out of that abstract to Crick & Orwell's paper:

We conclude that it is possible that life reached the earth in this way, but that the scientific evidence is inadequate at the present time to say anything about the probability. We draw attention to the kinds of evidence that might throw additional light on the topic.

I didn't leave anything out. The point I was making is that Crick & Orwell aren't considered to be creationists for proposing directed panspermia which is a form of ID. The extra sentences you added doesn't contradict that.

Stu wrote:

Your problem is that even if Panspermia, directed or otherwise was the case, it still leaves the question begging... what were the origins of who or what created the Panspermia.

I don't see any problem here. Evidence that life on earth originated via directed panspermia would be a major discovery. Not knowing who or what directed the panspermia wouldn't diminish the magnitude of the discovery. It would just be something else for scientists to research.

 

[stu]

Quote from Teleologist:

Your definition of creationist is correct but it doesn't apply to Behe or Intelligent Design which is clearly explained in the opening post of this thread.

"Creationism denies the theory of the evolution of species"

So both here and in the OP you aren't really in agreement with that definition of creationism.
That definition it appears is conditional upon your own personal definition of it. Well, at least you are being consitent in using the convoluted ID approach to everything.

Evolution/origin of Species demonstrates in fact and by well substantiated scientific explanation withstanding 150 years of scrutiny, an observed and unifying naturally self-replicating processes leading to the wide diversity in natural life.

Behe has unsuccessfully argued that certain natural biological processes cannot come about through their own means, (although it is demonstrated to him how they do). Behe says the complexity is irreducible (which has been shown to him it is not), therefore origins of life must first be intelligently designed, (even though the observed evolutionary processes is nothing to do with the origin of life).

Behe puts forward a mystical intelligent designer (God) outside the scientific method for life's origin and whilst doing so, without any substantiation past uncorroborated assertion, denies the observed biological processes which work evolution and the origins of species the way they do.

Ipso facto Behe is a creationist and Intelligent Design is Creationism.

Quote from Teleologist:

I didn't leave anything out. The point I was making is that Crick & Orwell aren't considered to be creationists for proposing directed panspermia which is a form of ID. The extra sentences you added doesn't contradict that.

Fair enough, but the missing sentances do display how Crick and Orwell were being honest the P idea is not scientific. Behe and his cronies always keep a million light years away from doing similar with their own ideas.

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."
Francis Crick

Quote from Teleologist:

I don't see any problem here. Evidence that life on earth originated via directed panspermia would be a major discovery. Not knowing who or what directed the panspermia wouldn't diminish the magnitude of the discovery. It would just be something else for scientists to research.

You don't see a problem, but nevertheless there are quite a few.
Evidence that life on earth originated via natural means on Earth would be amajor discovery. Knowing there was no direction other than a wholly natural one wouldn't diminish the magnitude of the discovery.

That search however would be complete and would not shove back the origin question yet again as "directed panspermia" does.
The "something else for scientists to research" you mention, would still be origin. The origin of what directed the panspermia, whether it be Intelligent Designer(s)/ God or Aliens or whatever.

Funny how natural self-replication is seen all around on Earth and explained scientifically and biologically , so from that, the ID supposition is natural self-origination can't be.

Instead of addressing that, Behe/ID/Creationism chooses to illogically go off on a tangent to pretend the self-replication process as observed is impossible without a mysterious intelligent designer(s) behind it. All the time disregarding how the intelligent designer(s) would eventually have to answer the same question of self-origination anyway.

 

[Teleologist]

Stu wrote:

Creationism denies the theory of the evolution of species.

But Behe doesn't deny that species evolve. ID doesn't deny that species evolve. Therefore, ID isn't creationism and Behe isn't a creationist.

Stu wrote:

Behe has unsuccessfully argued that certain natural biological processes cannot come about through their own means..

But Behe doesn't argue that species don't evolve which is what you say defines a creationist. Behe applies IC not to species but to molecular machines which go back to the origin of life.

Stu wrote:

Fair enough, but the missing sentances do display how Crick and Orwell were being honest the P idea is not scientific.

But that's another issue. The fact remains that Crick and Orgel are not considered to be creationists for proposing an intelligent design theory. Arguing that Behe is a creationist while Crick and Orgel are not is to employ a double standard.

Stu wrote:

That search however would be complete and would not shove back the origin question yet again as "directed panspermia" does.

Sure, but if the evidence supported directed panspermia then scientists would have to accept it and look for the source of the direction. Following your logic, scientists should reject the SETI program because finding evidence of ETI would pose the problem of where the ETI came from. Better to not discover their existence than be confronted with a possible regress issue, right?

 

[I am...]

Professor wins prize for maths link to God

From The TimesMarch 13, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3540989.ece


Professor Michael Heller, 72, a pioneering cosmologist and philosopher specialising in mathematics and metaphysics, received the £820,000 prize yesterday in New York.

His theories do not so much offer proof of the existence of God as introduce doubt about the material existence of the world around us. He specialises in complex formulae that make it possible to explain everything, even chance, through mathematical calculation.

His greatest scientific influence has been the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who once wrote: “When God calculates and thinks things through, the world is made.”

In a statement yesterday, Professor Heller, a professor in the philosophy faculty at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, said: “If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God’s thinking about the universe, the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing?

“When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes.

“Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made.”

— The work of Professor Heller, above, revolves around the search for a fundamental theory of creation. His research ranges beyond Einstein and into quantum mechanics, cosmology, physics and pure mathematics, including his own version of the Heisenberg equation, below. Although his theories do not prove the existence of God, they may provide circumstantial evidence that He exists

— So long as the Universe had a beginning, we can suppose it had a creator, he says. But if the Universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

— Professor Heller argues against the Newtonian concept of creation, that is, against the idea of an absolute space and an absolute time and of God creating energy and matter at certain times

— He suggests modern theologians should go back to the traditional doctrine that the creation of the Universe was an act that occurred outside space and time

 

[I am...]

RE: Professor Michael Heller

His greatest scientific influence has been the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who once wrote: “When God calculates and thinks things through, the world is made.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3540989.ece


I would concur that the world is made as an idea is thought through. However, in the cosmology that I have been presenting, what Leibniz might call "God", I am calling "ego" or "consciousness". And this I define as a thinking machine that exist solely by fiat of wish and belief. Its power derives from the mind of the Son of God. It is welcome in the Son's mind while there is curiousity about the question the thinking machine is answering. It is answering a very silly question: "What am I?" in negative terms. The Son already knows what he is, so such a question can only lead to an exploration of what he isn't. The world answers that question. The Son of God is not this, not that, not anything that world seems to be. Yet it is powered by the Son of God. So it is a mask.

The thinking machine is interested in survival. It invents time which it borrows from the Son's eternity. It seeks to *prove* that an antithesis of the Son is real...is reality. The antithesis to the Son then is unreality masquerading as reality, and its maker as "God". It is "nothing" parading as "something". The thinking machine exists by faith, and "dies" by the withdrawl of faith. Everything it makes is held together by faith/belief. When faith is reinvested in its source - the Son - then what it builds disappears.

This "God" is a temporary "idol" that will be dismissed from the Son's mind. It is really quite insane, and insanity is its goal. Only this goal would insure its survival. Disbelieved, it will "die" and fade away back to the nothingness from which it came. And all its *symptoms* will go with it.

Atheism is a substitute dismisal of this "God". So long as what this god has produced is believed to be "real", the god is still "worshipped" and idolized. Its "proof" has succeeded in fooling those who value what it made. As far as it is concerned, it IS what it made. If what it made is real, then so must be its maker.

Creationists generally affirm the reality of this "God". As a result, they openly appreciate its 'handiwork', and call it "creation", when in fact it is a miscreation. This upholds the idol.

Thus, the god-of-this-world has succeeded in fooling virtually all participants who ask the question, "What am I?" insincerely. It seems that all are idolators. And yet, to answer the question correctly, all are still the *Son of God*, and what he made can never be his "father". What a creationist might call "God", the Son sees as a toy, to be picked up and looked at and dropped as worthless. What an athiest might call "real", the Son sees as a toy, to be picked up and looked at and dropped as worthless.

Jesus

 

[Trader50]

I have been enjoying this topic.. keep up the good work

 

[neophyte321]

the most ironic thing about this whole argument is that scientists , by-and-large, devote themselves to one idea ... perfection.... an idea laymen and the devout refer to as god

 

[neophyte321]

Quote from neophyte321:

the most ironic thing about this whole argument is that scientists , by-and-large, devote themselves to one idea ... perfection.... an idea laymen and the devout refer to as god

....


the question becomes who is more likely to encounter it ... those who believe in it ... or those who refuse to believe in it