And you are so very shiny...
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Intelligent Design is not creationism
- Thread starter Teleologist
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And you are so very shiny...
Stu wrote:
Maybe intelligence is part of the evolutionary process rather than the cause of it but in Darwinian theory there is no place for intelligence being part of the evolutionary process. As Douglas Futuyma says:
Any investigation into whether intelligence is part of the evolutionary process is going to be done by ID advocates. The Darwinists aren't interested.
As Darwin never did have anything to say on the origin of life itself , and as you are putting it forward that ID'ers concur with the process of evolution as a fact, why would intelligence not be part of the evolutionary process rather than a cause of it?
Maybe intelligence is part of the evolutionary process rather than the cause of it but in Darwinian theory there is no place for intelligence being part of the evolutionary process. As Douglas Futuyma says:
The profound, unsettling, implication of this purely mechanical, material explanation for the existence and characteristics of diverse organisms is that we need not invoke, nor can we find any evidence for, any design, goal, or purpose anywhere in the natural world, except in human behavior.
Any investigation into whether intelligence is part of the evolutionary process is going to be done by ID advocates. The Darwinists aren't interested.
Those on the Dover school board that were pushing to get ID taught in school were creationists. They were clueless about genuine ID. ID is not creationism. ID has nothing to do with religion. ID has nothing to do with the supernatural. And ID is not anti-evolution if one defines evolution simply as âchange over time,â or even that living things are related by common ancestry. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that âhas no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species.â (National Association of Biology Teachers Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges.
ID begins â with a seemingly innocuous question:
Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that would cause a reasonable person to suspect an intelligent cause was behind their origin?
The first thing to note about the question is that you donât have to be a religious fundamentalist to ask it. You donât have to be a religious fundamentalist to consider it. In fact, you donât even have to be a religious fundamentalist to answer it.
The question is a good one, as it stems from the fact that certain things do exist in our reality only because they were brought into existence by an intelligent cause. If human beings did not exist, for example, Mount Rushmore would not exist. Thus, Mount Rushmoreâs existence is dependent on intelligent causation. So one begins to wonder if there are other aspects of our reality that are likewise dependent on intelligent causation. If so, can we detect them? If so, just how reliable is our detection?
Francisco Ayala, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says:
âThe functional design of organisms and their features would therefore seem to argue for the existence of a designer."
So one could be totally non-religious and infer design empirically. But Ayala goes on to say:
"It was Darwinâs greatest accomplishment to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent.â
The question âHow Did the Appearance of Design in Living Systems AriseâHas Long Been Part of Historical and Evolutionary Biology.
As detailed in Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Darwinian theory was developed as a counter argument to the observed fact that living systems appear to be designed. Before Darwin 'there was no alternative explanation for apparent design.' Thus, Darwinian theory is essentially a rebuttal of design. As Dawkins points out so explicitly, it is a theory that seeks to show that the apparent design in nature is actually just an illusion. The denial of actual design in biology is central to Darwinian thought.
While Dawkins could be right, thereâs no proof that the apparent design in nature is just an illusion. As far as physics informs us everything in the non-quantum universe is deterministic which by defintion means that randomness is an illusion caused by incomplete information of the chain of causal events. And even in quantum mechanics itâs arguable whether anything is actually unpredictable or whether the unpredictability is because we donât have a complete theory. The default position should be that randomness is an illusion since all the evidence points that way right now.
Stephen Meyer says:
ID begins â with a seemingly innocuous question:
Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that would cause a reasonable person to suspect an intelligent cause was behind their origin?
The first thing to note about the question is that you donât have to be a religious fundamentalist to ask it. You donât have to be a religious fundamentalist to consider it. In fact, you donât even have to be a religious fundamentalist to answer it.
The question is a good one, as it stems from the fact that certain things do exist in our reality only because they were brought into existence by an intelligent cause. If human beings did not exist, for example, Mount Rushmore would not exist. Thus, Mount Rushmoreâs existence is dependent on intelligent causation. So one begins to wonder if there are other aspects of our reality that are likewise dependent on intelligent causation. If so, can we detect them? If so, just how reliable is our detection?
Francisco Ayala, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says:
âThe functional design of organisms and their features would therefore seem to argue for the existence of a designer."
So one could be totally non-religious and infer design empirically. But Ayala goes on to say:
"It was Darwinâs greatest accomplishment to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent.â
The question âHow Did the Appearance of Design in Living Systems AriseâHas Long Been Part of Historical and Evolutionary Biology.
As detailed in Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Darwinian theory was developed as a counter argument to the observed fact that living systems appear to be designed. Before Darwin 'there was no alternative explanation for apparent design.' Thus, Darwinian theory is essentially a rebuttal of design. As Dawkins points out so explicitly, it is a theory that seeks to show that the apparent design in nature is actually just an illusion. The denial of actual design in biology is central to Darwinian thought.
While Dawkins could be right, thereâs no proof that the apparent design in nature is just an illusion. As far as physics informs us everything in the non-quantum universe is deterministic which by defintion means that randomness is an illusion caused by incomplete information of the chain of causal events. And even in quantum mechanics itâs arguable whether anything is actually unpredictable or whether the unpredictability is because we donât have a complete theory. The default position should be that randomness is an illusion since all the evidence points that way right now.
Stephen Meyer says:
Is design in biology real or apparent? Clearly, there are two possible answers to this question. Neo-Darwinism provides one answer to the question and intelligent design provides the opposite answer. By almost all accounts the Darwinian answer to this question is a scientific proposition. But what then is the status of the opposite answer? If the proposition âJupiter is made of methane gasâ is a scientific proposition, then the proposition âJupiter is not made of methane gasâ would seem to be a scientific proposition as well. If the proposition âhumans have free willâ is classified as a metaphysical (rather than scientific) claim, then the proposition âhumans do not have free willâ should logically be classified in the same way. The negation of a proposition does not make it a different type of claim. Similarly, the claim âthe appearance of design in biology does not result from actual designâ and the claim âthe appearance of design in biology does result from actual designâ are not two different kinds of propositions; they represent two different answers to the same question, a question that has long been part of evolutionary biology. Indeed, it is impossible to understand Darwinâs argument in The Origin of Species apart from understanding how he argues against the 19th-century version of the design hypothesis. The Darwinian mechanism (which functions in Darwinian thought as a kind of âdesigner substituteâ) and the theory of intelligent design are dialectical complements. Thus, if one is scientific, then it would seem, prima facie, that the other is scientific as well.
Uhhh, why does God need a God to create God?
Your thinking is obviously that of a material, limited, time and space bound personality.
I don't understand what is so difficult about the concept of God for you...
The concept of an Eternal Absolute First Cause is really not that hard....
Your thinking is obviously that of a material, limited, time and space bound personality.
I don't understand what is so difficult about the concept of God for you...
The concept of an Eternal Absolute First Cause is really not that hard....
Quote from stu:
....simply begs the question if the universe needs a designer, what designed the designer?
So your reason why âthe creatorâ would not need a designer is because the creator created time? Something that could create time without the time to create time, should need a pretty sophisticated designer too surely ?Quote from jem:
The question of who designed the designer may be a non question if you realize the creator created time as you understand it.
There may be no creator of a creator if the creator is outside of time. Which by definition the creator would be be because time began after the big bang.
You have "the creator" being "outside of time", so why would the creator's designer not be there too?
i am following a meditation technique. i have a
spiritual master. i believe in "sense" in the universe.
BUT where all this intelligent design discussion,
which has become so popular in recent years, is
heading is middle age thinking. evolution in my
eyes is one part of creation. one part of the big
self experiencing itself. it cannot contradict any
kind of "design", because it is part of that very
design.
i think a discussion between a biolologist, a priest
and a buddhist can be very, very entertaining and
fruitful for the three. but currently the issue is
part of political campaigning or is at best abused
by politics.
better believe in charles darwin than assume that
humans and dinosaurs existed parallel. you know
what fundis say when you tell them that you can
prove that dino-bones are hundreds of thousand
years old? they say they were created "old" ...
6.000 years ago. they trust a book more than their
very own eyes. F R I G H T E N I N G .
and do not forget that there is so much evidence
supporting darwin.
spiritual master. i believe in "sense" in the universe.
BUT where all this intelligent design discussion,
which has become so popular in recent years, is
heading is middle age thinking. evolution in my
eyes is one part of creation. one part of the big
self experiencing itself. it cannot contradict any
kind of "design", because it is part of that very
design.
i think a discussion between a biolologist, a priest
and a buddhist can be very, very entertaining and
fruitful for the three. but currently the issue is
part of political campaigning or is at best abused
by politics.
better believe in charles darwin than assume that
humans and dinosaurs existed parallel. you know
what fundis say when you tell them that you can
prove that dino-bones are hundreds of thousand
years old? they say they were created "old" ...
6.000 years ago. they trust a book more than their
very own eyes. F R I G H T E N I N G .
and do not forget that there is so much evidence
supporting darwin.
MAN wrote:
Did you bother to read my posts? ID is not creationism! ID does not posit that humans and dinosaurs existed parallel. ID does not posit that natural history only goes back 6,000 years.
Better believe in charles darwin than assume that
humans and dinosaurs existed parallel. you know
what fundis say when you tell them that you can
prove that dino-bones are hundreds of thousand
years old? they say they were created "old" ...
6.000 years ago. they trust a book more than their
very own eyes. F R I G H T E N I N G .
Did you bother to read my posts? ID is not creationism! ID does not posit that humans and dinosaurs existed parallel. ID does not posit that natural history only goes back 6,000 years.