Intelligent Design is not creationism

Quote from Teleologist:

Posted by Michael Egnor on March 22, 2007
Evolution News & Views

Is Darwinism essential to understanding bacterial resistance to antibiotics? Consider the following conversation, at the bedside of a patient with a serious antibiotic-resistant infection:

Nurse: Nothing’s working, Doctor!
Doctor: I know. All of our antibiotics have failed. Penicillin, Cipro, Tetracycline.
Nurse: Let’s ask the Darwinists for help!
Doctor: (Slaps forehead) Of course! Darwinism is the foundation of our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Darwinists claim that Darwin’s theory, which is the theory that all biological complexity arose by random variation and natural selection, is essential to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. What exactly does Darwinism teach us about antibiotic resistance?

Microbiology tells us that bacterial populations are heterogeneous. Individual bacteria differ from one another. Molecular biology tells us that
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Believe this nonsense at your own risk.

Simple question: When did "individual bacteria" start to differ from one another? Was this "individual difference" designed from the very beginning?

BTW, the last post by Teleo exposed him as a liar. He had claimed in earlier posts that he was not opposed to evolution.
 
James Bond 3rd:
BTW, the last post by Teleo exposed him as a liar. He had claimed in earlier posts that he was not opposed to evolution.
More...

Well, you obviously can't comprehend what you read. The article I posted claims that Darwinism is useless to modern medicine. It is not anti-evolution.
 
Quote from james_bond_3rd:

BTW, the last post by Teleo exposed him as a liar. He had claimed in earlier posts that he was not opposed to evolution.
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Yes, he's been thoroughly proven to be a liar. He also claimed that he had empirical evidence to support the assertion that the first cells were designed. When asked to provide a summary of the research or a link he responded (bizarrely) by saying that everyone was out to get him and no one would believe it anyway. This begs the question - if you think that no one will believe anything you say, what the hell are you doing here??

One of the other mainstays on the ID/Creation side left here after it became apparent that he had fabricated a story about his profession.

ZTroll... well, nothing needs to be said about him.

With friends like these, the ID/Creation side doesn't need enemies.
 
Quote from 2cents:

tease aside, is anyone on this thread willing to argue whether a) "true randomness" per se, is incompatible with the notion of "ultimate causality", and if that should be the case, then b) "randomness" is also incompatible with "theism"?
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Yes, I've been willing to take it on. I'll try again.

I have often emphasized the incompatibility of two completely different thought systems. Such is the difference between ultimate causality, and what seems to cause this universe.

When I say "universe" I mean any time/space/form with it's thought processes reaching to the other side of the big bang/s.

A universe put together with every shade of thought from strict causality to randomness suggests a foundation of chaos...which is what it is. The order you see is an attempt of the mind that makes it to make sense of what does not make sense.

When you see that chaos is a-causal and without foundation, you see that this universe is built on "sand". There's always going to be an element of randomness - doubt - within it. It is elusive regarding it's foundation, and hides it well.

It must hide itself, or it would crumble, because faith is what holds it together. It seems real because of faith, and because of it's seeming reality, you put yet more faith into it. Once again, time and space are beliefs.

This thread shows that this universe cloaks itself in "darkness"...making itself hard to understand, never certain, always divisive.

It does this by presenting paradoxes hard to understand. For example, how can a universe that seems so real - seems to have a cause - be causeless? The universe goes about "proving" it has a cause, while I go about proving otherwise. Till a choice is made, confusion will reign.

The thought system of Heaven is not at all like, or compatible with the system that makes the universe. The universe is "evidence" of a very powerful mind. But it it not rock solid.

Would it be possible to harness some of the "laws" that arise out of the chaos to better one's experience of unreality? Yes. Improvements are relative to following some basic principles and guidelines. Still, existence in any kind of form is perception-based...which is a substitute for pure knowledge and knowing.

Perception does not allow you to "know" anything with certainty. What you can do is allow yourself to be guided in a way that aligns your perceptions with knowledge/reality so closely, that you are able and willing to accept your original state of being having correctly ordered your perception of ultimate causality. At that point, perception is let go forever. It is not wanted or needed.

In other words, this universe is resultant of a reversal of ultimate cause and effect...in mind only. So it's just an opinion...therefore a-causal. It's difficult to pin a cause on this universe when it's foundation is the denial of true cause and effect. The universe is what "happens" when a Son thinks he can be his own Father.

I identified the seed thoughts that went into the "tree" of this universe. They make no sense, so the tree must not either.

Did that answer the question?

Jesus
 
TraderNik:
Yes, he's been thoroughly proven to be a liar.
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Where was I ever proven to be a liar? You're the one that's lying.


TraderNik:
He also claimed that he had empirical evidence to support the assertion that the first cells were designed. When asked to provide a summary of the research or a link he responded (bizarrely) by saying that everyone was out to get him and no one would believe it anyway.
More...
That's a lie. I never said anything about everyone being out to get me.

As far as the first cells being designed, I said that one could build a circumstantial case based on subtle clues that the first cells were products of bioengineering. But you ID critics want "overwhelming evidence" and that translates to "show us the designer designing". That's where the discussion ended.
 
Quote from I am...:

Yes, I've been willing to take it on. I'll try again.

I have often emphasized the incompatibility of two completely different thought systems. Such is the difference between ultimate causality, and what seems to cause this universe.

When I say "universe" I mean any time/space/form with it's thought processes reaching to the other side of the big bang/s.

A universe put together with every shade of thought from strict causality to randomness suggests a foundation of chaos...which is what it is. The order you see is an attempt of the mind that makes it to make sense of what does not make sense.

When you see that chaos is a-causal and without foundation, you see that this universe is built on "sand". There's always going to be an element of randomness - doubt - within it. It is elusive regarding it's foundation, and hides it well.

It must hide itself, or it would crumble, because faith is what holds it together. It seems real because of faith, and because of it's seeming reality, you put yet more faith into it. Once again, time and space are beliefs.

This thread shows that this universe cloaks itself in "darkness"...making itself hard to understand, never certain, always divisive.

It does this by presenting paradoxes hard to understand. For example, how can a universe that seems so real - seems to have a cause - be causeless? The universe goes about "proving" it has a cause, while I go about proving otherwise. Till a choice is made, confusion will reign.

The thought system of Heaven is not at all like, or compatible with the system that makes the universe. The universe is "evidence" of a very powerful mind. But it it not rock solid.

Would it be possible to harness some of the "laws" that arise out of the chaos to better one's experience of unreality? Yes. Improvements are relative to following some basic principles and guidelines. Still, existence in any kind of form is perception-based...which is a substitute for pure knowledge and knowing.

Perception does not allow you to "know" anything with certainty. What you can do is allow yourself to be guided in a way that aligns your perceptions with knowledge/reality so closely, that you are able and willing to accept your original state of being having correctly ordered your perception of ultimate causality. At that point, perception is let go forever. It is not wanted or needed.

In other words, this universe is resultant of a reversal of ultimate cause and effect...in mind only. So it's just an opinion...therefore a-causal. It's difficult to pin a cause on this universe when it's foundation is the denial of true cause and effect. The universe is what "happens" when a Son thinks he can be his own Father.

I identified the seed thoughts that went into the "tree" of this universe. They make no sense, so the tree must not either.

Did that answer the question?

Jesus
More...
yes it does indeed, as if by magick
:)
 
Darwinist Sleight-of-Thumb

By Michael Egnor

If you want a clear example of Darwinist sleight-of-hand, read the Panda’s Thumb tirade about my posts on the relevance of Darwinism to modern medicine. My interlocutors, between puns on my name, insults and obscenities, raise off-point topics that evade the central issue: is Darwinism, which is the assertion that all biological complexity has arisen by random heritable variation and natural selection, relevant to the practice of medicine? Several bloggers raised the standard Darwinist trope about bacterial antibiotic resistance. This issue is an important source of misunderstanding about the application of Darwin’s theory to medicine.

The Darwinist assertion that random variation and natural selection (chance and necessity) account for all biological complexity has nothing to do with the mundane observation that it’s unwise to unnecessarily expose populations of bacteria to antibiotics. The observation that an antibiotic will kill the bacteria that are killed by it, and the antibiotic will not kill the bacteria that are not killed by it, is a tautology. If you expose a population of bacteria to antibiotics, the unkilled ones will, over time, outnumber the killed ones. The unkilled ones will be the ones that are resistant to the antibiotics. Think about it. That's Darwinism's seminal contribution to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Preventing the emergence of resistant strains of bacteria is important work, but the insight that Darwinism brings to the problem — the unkilled ones eventually outnumber the killed ones — is of no help. We can figure that out ourselves. The tough work on preventing the emergence of resistant bacteria is done by microbiologists, epidemiologists, molecular geneticists, pharmacologists, and physicians who are infectious disease specialists. Darwinism, understood as the view that “chance and necessity” explains all biological complexity, plays no role.

The Darwinist modus operandi for a century and a half has been to slip a philosophical agenda — scientific materialism — in with the science. They hijack other fields of biology — microbiology, population biology, epidemiology, genetics, etc — then they assert that Darwinism is essential to those fields, then they claim that the hypothesis that random variation and natural selection is the origin of all biological complexity is a “fact” supported by overwhelming evidence. When challenged, they prove the “fact” of scientific materialism by doing a Pub-Med search for thousands of tangential articles from the fields they've hijacked.

Not a single Darwinist in this debate has addressed the issue of how their trivial contribution to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics-'unkilled bacteria will eventually outnumber killed ones'- in any way supports the assertion that all biological complexity is the result of random variation and natural selection.

Darwinists are hoping that people don’t notice this non-sequitur. The reason for their rage at intelligent design advocates is that we have noticed it.
 
What if Darwinism Were True?

By Michael Egnor


I’m a faithful Catholic. I’ve often thought: what if Darwinism were true? I don’t mean all of the philosophical materialism that Darwinists drag along with the science. Materialism is nonsense, because if matter and energy are all that exist, then truth doesn't exist (it's neither matter nor energy). If truth doesn't exist, then materialism can't be true.

But what about Darwin’s central scientific assertion: that all biological complexity is the result of chance and necessity, at least as well as we humans can discern chance and design. What if experimental evidence demonstrated that we could account for biological information (or whatever we call the astonishing complexity of living things) without inferring design? Would I lose my faith?

No, I wouldn’t. I believe that God created us and all that exists, and that he holds us all in existence. I don’t pretend to understand all his designs, and I have no reason to be confident that I understand any part of his design in biology. We impute randomness where we can’t discern design. My ignorance of God’s design in biology would look to me like randomness, and my failure to discern design in biology would not shake my faith.

I think intelligent design is true because of the science. I believe that some biological complexity — the genetic code, the cellular nanotechnology, the astonishing integration of organs and systems — is best understood as the consequence of intelligent agency. Those who claim that randomness can generate biological complexity seem to lack an understanding of the vastness of what statisticians call “combinatorial space.” A grammatically correct, meaningful twenty-word English sentence cannot be generated by chance without an intelligently designed target that captures grammar and meaning. Did randomness generate the human beings who write English sentences? I have not seen any scientific evidence that would even suggest that it could or that it did.

I have no problem with evolution, understood as change in living things over time. I have no problem with the view that some of the changes were caused by random events. And the evidence that the earth is several billion years old looks good to me. If a “random” origin of biological complexity were shown scientifically to be true, I’d have no problem with it, as a scientist or as a Christian. I’d just figure that it was one more of God’s designs that's opaque to me.

I’d have some problems, of course, with Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett high-fiving, but I'd see it as my penance. Christians deal with suffering.

What if intelligent design were shown to be right, by scientific evidence? Most atheists would feel their faith in materialism greatly endangered, if not untenable. I suspect that is the cause for all their vitriol. Is Darwinism true? I’ll believe it if I see it. Is intelligent design true? Atheists won’t see it, because they won’t believe it.
 
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