Intelligent Design is not creationism

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

"That explanation is now more complete, because of recent work by researchers at the University of California at San Diego. They have developed a computer model to show how under the right conditions over hundreds of years, stone and soil organize themselves into patterns, through cycles of freezing and thawing."

So stone and soil organize themselves...

Too funny. As if stones and soil "organize themselves."

Oh man, too freaking funny...

Next I can imagine these same hacks saying water and cold weather organizes itself into this:

<img src=http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/snowflake.jpg>

It is more than obvious that nature itself has organizing power...but nature has this quality or organization simply as a result of random ignorant chance...not from some organized foundation.

Sure, of course...whatever...

The logic is so bizarre...

Quote from james_bond_3rd:

Simple. Just show how it can be done by a random cause. For example, look at the beautiful patterns in this picture

Are these "designed?" They appear to be. What is the scientific answer to this phenomenon? Should we simply say "these patterns cannot happen by random chance. Someone must have designed them" and stop there? No. As a scientist, one wants to find out what are the natural forces that caused these patterns. This turned out to be one of the classical examples of nonlinear dynamics in chaotic systems. See here for the story:
http://fpnew.ccit.arizona.edu/kkh/climate/regional.htm
Put two forces of nature, gravity and temperature, together with random chance, you get these beautifully "designed" patterns.

So if you don't know the cause of a phenomenon, it would appear to you to be "designed." But once you get to the bottom of it, it's just random "ignorant" chance.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

Okay.

The universe appears organized and designed.

So, what is the simpliest possibility?

That the universe is a product of design, or that gazillions of accidental seemingly impossible to calculate the chance happenings produced a universe out of noting, and that the universe exists in the most intricate balance and existence of opposite values by random chance, that can sustain life, that is both ordered and seemingly chaotic at the same time....

Oh man, toooooooooo funny.

Oh, and I don't care what Christians think, but if your conclusion is that God is mischievous, that suggests that God operates on a human level...and that you could do a better job.

Quote from james_bond_3rd:

There's something called "Occam's razor." Haven't you heard of it?

If you see dinosaur fossiles, you can choose between these equally valid theories: 1. There were dinosaurs that lived 65 million years ago, the age determined from carbon dating; 2. God placed these fossiles there to test our faith, and made the carbon isotope in exact the correct amount so that the fossiles would appear 65 million years old. The first choice doesn't require any additional assumption other than the data we already have. The second choice requires not only the assumption of a God, which may not be a problem by itself, but it assumes a mischieveous God. Now even a lot of Christians would object to that!

Likewise, when you hear an echo, you can choose to believe that there was a "bang" from an explosion, or that Invisible Freddie was playing tricks with your ears. One is science, the other is delusion. Your pick.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

My prediction is that in your lifetime you will see more and more scientific theories fall by the wayside replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be eventually replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of....all by design.

Quote from james_bond_3rd:

Go ahead, make a bold prediction based on your ID theory. Very few "theories" can make actual predictions. Fewer still get their predictions right. If the Big Bang theory is only a "guess," then it is one heck of a guess to get everything that it predicts correct.

As for the "problems" with the Big Bang theory, the first link on your google search states, "These difficulties are not so much errors as they are assumptions that are necessary but that do not have a fundamental justification." In other words, these are more like unanswered questions rather than deficiencies of the theory as you implied. No scientific theory can answer all questions. We make progress by answering more of them everyday. But each time we anwer a question, new questions come up. The more we know, the more we know how little we know.

Except for people like you who refuse to learn.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from Teleologist:

Teleologist asked:
How does one determine if something in nature is not designed?

The same way you determine if something is not an Alien artifact

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

My prediction is that in your lifetime you will see more and more scientific theories fall by the wayside replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be eventually replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of scientific theories that will be replaced by a new set of....all by design.

This comes closer than any post in this thread to explaining the ID'ers blind faith. The fact is, religion is above all a comfort for those who fear death.

The unnecessary "...all by design" in the above represents the leap of faith. In fact no such leap is necessary. Science will indeed continue to generate theopries which will be proved wrong and will subsequently be replaced by other theories.

The uncertainty in this process does not bother me. But it bother Z and those of his ilk, because it generates fear in them, just like death does.

 

[Teleologist]

Teleologist asked:

How does one determine if something in nature is not designed?

TraderNik answered:

The same way you determine if something is not an Alien artifact.

Really? You have a method to distinguish things in nature that are designed from things in nature that are not designed? So how come when I previously asked you what you would count as evidence that something in nature was designed you were stumped?

 

[jem]

Just to clear something up, james.

Science does not know what happened during the first few moments after the big bang.

I provided a quote, I think from Hawking on that point on another thread.

And also note in your quote the author was accurate enough to use the word believe.

 

[Teleologist]

James Bond wrote:

For example, look at the beautiful patterns in this picture
Are these "designed?" They appear to be. What is the scientific answer to this phenomenon? Should we simply say "these patterns cannot happen by random chance. Someone must have designed them" and stop there? No. As a scientist, one wants to find out what are the natural forces that caused these patterns.

A mere repetitive pattern as shown in this picture would invoke at best a very weak design inference. Let's see what happens if we make the design inference stronger. What if we had bunches of rocks arranged in the shape of letters that spelled out the message "John loves Mary"? In this case would you conclude "this pattern cannot have happen by random chance, someone must have designed it" or would you go looking for the natural forces that caused this pattern?

 

[james_bond_3rd]

Quote from Teleologist:

James Bond wrote:


A mere repetitive pattern as shown in this picture would invoke at best a very weak design inference. Let's see what happens if we make the design inference stronger. What if we had bunches of rocks arranged in the shape of letters that spelled out the message "John loves Mary"? In this case would you conclude "this pattern cannot have happen by random chance, someone must have designed it" or would you go looking for the natural forces that caused this pattern?

First of all, it's "Joe Loves Mary." You should know that.

Are you conceding that there is no ID for natural phenomena? Now we're making progress. If you want to argue that the Library of Congress had an intellegent designer, no one will disagree with you.

 

[james_bond_3rd]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

"That explanation is now more complete, because of recent work by researchers at the University of California at San Diego. They have developed a computer model to show how under the right conditions over hundreds of years, stone and soil organize themselves into patterns, through cycles of freezing and thawing."

So stone and soil organize themselves...

Too funny. As if stones and soil "organize themselves."

Oh man, too freaking funny...

Next I can imagine these same hacks saying water and cold weather organizes itself into this:

<img src=http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/snowflake.jpg>

It is more than obvious that nature itself has organizing power...but nature has this quality or organization simply as a result of random ignorant chance...not from some organized foundation.

Sure, of course...whatever...

The logic is so bizarre...

This really highlights the ignorance of z10. Self-organization is a well-proven concept in nonlinear dynamics. Many works on self-organization have won Nobel Prizes, including Ilya Prigogyne, chemistry, 1977, Jean-Marie Lehn, chemistry, 1987, Robert Laughlin, physics, 1998. These are just the ones immediately come to the mind. I'm sure there are others that I am forgetting.

Now who should we believe? Numerous Nobel Prize winning scientists? Or an anonymous poster on ET? Whose logic is bizarre?

BTW, snowflakes are a well-understood example of self-organization. I've mentioned this in an earlier post in this thread. Here is a direct quote off the website of the National Science Foundation: "Another rich source of emergent phenomena is self-organization: a general name for what happens when the components of a system create complex structures on their own, spontaneously, without anyone or anything being in charge. (Think of water vapor crystallizing into a snowflake.)"