Intelligent Design is not creationism

[Teleologist]

TOMASO wrote:

Point one speaks to a natural, intelligent life form that seeded life on this planet but arose from abiogenesis on their homeworld. Ok, I will bite- this sounds like something science should be able to handle. But note the choice of competing theories isn't ID vs Evolution but abiogenesis here vs abiogenesis elsewhere.

This was merely an example of how one could avoid the "infinite regress problem." ID can hypothesize that a natural, intelligent life form seeded life on this planet, absent a theory of how this life form originated. If a structure similar to Mount Rushmore was found on Mars would scientists refuse to infer it was designed because they couldn't determine who designed the designers?

There is no "ID versus Evolution" because ID isn't anti-evolution. I consider myself to be an intelligent design evolutionist and I don't think that a non-teleological origin of life is better supported by the evidence than is a teleological origin of life.

DRTOMASO wrote:

Theres plenty of evidence for abiogenesis here, and none for elsewhere. Not to say that life couldn't be out there someplace haven arisen by abiogenesis- just that theres no reason to supplant a perfectly working theory with one for which we have no evidence.

I disagree. The evidence for abiogenesis on earth is very weak but I'm not suggesting that scientists committed to abiogenesis research give up and switch to ID.

DRTOMASO wrote:

A point has to be made: if abiogensis can happen elsewhere, and in sufficient quality to foster a race of life-seeding intelligent beings, why is it so far fetched to believe it happened right here?

Further, moving the goal post to another planet, or parallel universe, doesn't help either. We still have to answer the question of where life came from there. We're back to the infinite creators problem.

I don't know that abiogenesis can happen elsewhere. Again, the examples I provided were to show how "infinite regress" could be avoided. I don't consider "infinite regress" to be a problem for the design inference. Again, if a structure similar to Mount Rushmore was found on Mars would scientists refuse to infer it was designed because they couldn't determine who designed the designers?

Design-theoretic explanations are proximal or local explanations rather than ultimate explanations.

Once again, I would like to remind everyone that I started this thread to argue that ID is not creationism. I don't claim that ID is a full-fledged scientific theory or that it should be taught in school.

 

[man]

many thnx for the link. good stuff.

 

[Teleologist]

Thunderdog wrote:

Not so. You need to hear the lecture by Ken Miller regarding what he said happened in 1987, when the term "Creationism" was essentially replaced with "Intelligent Design" by the very people who coined the semantic variation.

I've been following ID long enough to know that it is fundamentally different from creationism. Just changing the name wouldn't fool me. If you claim ID is creationism then define creationism and show me how ID is the same.

 

[Teleologist]

Drtomaso wrote:

ID is not, and never will be science. It is allegory at best and logical fallacy at worst. Its a con game designed to dupe people into beleiving there is some empirical evidence for their faith.

Absolute nonsense. You are totally clueless about ID.

 

[Teleologist]

DRTOMASO wrote:

You must have missed it in my somewhat lengthy post. Creationists believe life was created by a deity.

Yes, I did miss it. ID doesn't posit that life was created by a deity. Therefore ID isn't creationism.

 

[bsmeter2]

Quote from Teleologist:

Intelligent design is often equated with creationism. They are not the same, not even close.

Don't be duped by the ID critics. ID is not creationism.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Do you believe that the earth is flat and 6000 years old?

 

[traderdragon2]

Duh and who cares.

Intelligent design and creationism have one thing in common.

They are both believed by ignorant people.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

"Where's your contentment formula?"

If you need a formula for contentment, you won't find it in science...

"The supernatural, spiritual, etc, is highly subjective and exists outside the realm of science."

Love exists outside the realm of science, but it is not supernatural. Simply because current instrumentation can't measure something, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Quote from drtomaso:

Ok....I see- so this ID that has been going around for going on 10 years isnt the real, scientific ID. The Discovery institute allowed the fake ID to get into court so it could get ruled unconstitutional by mistake.

ID is not, and never will be science. It is allegory at best and logical fallacy at worst. Its a con game designed to dupe people into beleiving there is some empirical evidence for their faith.



We're debating semantics here, but Ok...agreed. I win- there are 0 scientists claiming ID is science. Lots of hacks... lots of con men... 0 scientists. If you wish to disprove me, send me links to published, peer reviewed ID papers in recognized scientific journals. Heres a hint to save you some time: there are none.



The appeal to science made by ID is pure smokescreen designed to dupe people into believing it to be legitimate science. As I have already discussed, it cannot be science, never will be. You can put lipstick on it all you want, its still a pig.



Mutations happen all the time. Grab a petri dish of bacteria, you will see several mutations per second. We can even induce mutations, allowing us to predict when, where, how, etc. This is early 1900s biology. We know of many environmental stimuli that spur mutations. Just because you don't personally know how this works doesnt mean the rest of the scientific community is clueless.

The only perfect science is mathematics. Physics happens to be pretty math intensive, but the underlying process of scientific inquiry is the same whether we talk about physics, chemistry, palentology, zoology or biology. Its on this level that ID fails to qualify.




Agreed. But until one comes up with something other than 'God Did It!', we'll just have to suffer with the theory thats been vetted for over 150 years by intense scientific inquiry.




What are you talking about? There most certainly are formulae. Many causes of mutations are known. This is nothing more than an argument from incredulity. You dont understand biology, therefore, evolution is wrong.



Only if you can prove it. But you can't- its not provable. You either believe or dont- making it a theological, not a scientific argument. And stop calling it random selection - its called natural selection. Its an inherent survival bias. Theres nothing random about that.




What are you talking about? Its been proven, repeatedly. You can watch mutations happen at the cellular level. There is no faith involved. Further, only Creationists call people 'Darwininsts'- thats like calling physicists 'Newtonists' or 'Einsteinists'. All biologists are 'Darwinists'- his little theory has grown to become the cornerstone of modern biological sciences. The fact that you dont like it doesnt detract from it.




So is building a foundation for ID on the ignorance of, to name but a few, science, the scientific method, logic, and honesty.



No one cares what you say. You can deny reality all you want- the rest of us will continue to make progress with out you. You can cover your eyes and ears all you want to shield you from this uncomfortable truth- but it doesnt change the fact that ID is theology, not science. Evolution is tried and tested science.



Its been done. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the evidence is your problem. We know more about the cause of evolution than we do about the cause of gravity.



Like ID you mean?



Where's your contentment formula?

You are confusing materialism (as in Madonna's "Material Girl") with methodological materialism. The latter is just the realization that only material things can be empirically observed, measured, etc. The supernatural, spiritual, etc, is highly subjective and exists outside the realm of science.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from Teleologist:

I've been following ID long enough to know that it is fundamentally different from creationism. Just changing the name wouldn't fool me. If you claim ID is creationism then define creationism and show me how ID is the same.

As I wrote in my earlier post, have a look at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

Ken Miller will answer your question better than I could hope to do. If you are serious about your question, then you will take the time to listen to his lecture. The lecture only covers about 70 minutes of the clip. The remainder is Q&A. Remember, this is the guy who was an expert witness at the ID trials. You won't be wasting your time listening to what he has to say. When you hear what he says happened in 1987, then I think you will have your answer. Even so, his whole lecture was a pleasure to listen to.

 

[kjkent1]

Well, I can see nothing's changed in the past 3 months since I've logged in here.

Whether or not Intelligent Design is equivalent to Creationism is irrelevant. The relevant issue is: Is Intelligent Design "scientific."

I submit that it is not, BECAUSE, Intelligent Design (ID) advocates do not conduct experiments to verify their hypotheses.

The fundamental hypothesis of ID is that organic life is the product of an intelligent designer.

As far as I am aware, no one has yet developed an experiment to successfully test this hypothesis.

William Dembski has proposed a host of mathematical constructs which were claimed to prove the negative, i.e., that organic life is too complex to have evolved in the available time since the Universe's proposed start time (Big Bang), and therefore, said life must be designed.

Unfortunately for Prof. Dembski, Dr. Thomas Schneider's little "EV" software program disproved all of Dembski's math, by evolving a mathematical organic structure in a very short timeframe, and, as of today, no one in the ID community has managed to conduct an experiment which demonstrates that Schneider's software doesn't work as advertised.

Conversely, those who propose the hypothesis that organic life evolves, (1) do not make any claims as to how said life "began," and (2) conduct experiments to verify their hypothesis.

Such experiments are not all empirical studies of fossils -- Dr. Richard Lenski has bacteria in his lab which have evolved new and different traits over the duration of his experiments.

The point here is not to suggest that it isn't possible that a "hidden" designer is responsible for organic evolution, but merely to demonstrate that when an experiment measuring evolutionary change is conducted, the scientist, either records that the change has occurred or that it hasn't. The scientist does NOT impute the change to the unseen hand of an intelligent designer, because that action would not be scientific.

The scientist will simply state that random mutation occurred, causing the organism to evolve.

Could that random mutation be the product of a divine or alien intervention? Absolutely. However, it falls to the Intelligent Design advocate to prove that hypothesis, not to the Evolution advocate to disprove quantum mechanics.

So, until someone in the ID community successfully proves that random mutation is not random, ID will remain a completely speculative, mathematical postulate, rather than a scientific discipline.

It would be no different were scientists unable to set up experiments to confirm Einstein's relativity equations -- they would have remained purely theoretical.

And, so we wait (or, at least I do), for the Intelligent Designer to appear and tell us what he/she/it did to create organic life, or for some person who wants to prove ID is science to conduct an experiment which proves that it is.

But, until that occurs, whether or not ID is Creationism is irrelevant, because ID is not science.