Intelligent Design is not creationism

[stu]

Quote from Teleologist:

The article you posted doesn't provide a shred of evidence that Darwinism is useful to medical science

bhumburg posted Entry 2971 on March 9, 2007 08:44 PM.

• 
  ..."Anytime you see comparative medicine, or comparative biochemistry, or comparative pharmacology, or anything comparative, that is evolutionary theory."...
  
  ..." But if you can know the reasons ["Darwinian Science"] why the standard of care is the way it is, why on Earth would you limit yourself by choosing to not know it? "....

Quote from Teleologist:

and medical students are not required to take courses on evolution.

• ..." MCAT is required to get into medical school and, according to the people who make the test, the MCAT in part tests one’s comprehension of evolution. "...

Tele, still after all this time you keep struggling to make a teleological argument sound plausible by dissing Darwin. Even if Evolution were as crap as you would have it be, that would not make teleology any the more likely or interesting.

It's obvious to anyone who cares that Darwin is invaluable when it comes to providing facts and explaintion around testable observations about the living world around us. The understanding of this has confirmed, expanded and progressed medical science beyond all hopes and dreams from the day Origin of the Species was first written down.

It always will provide an extraordinary insight into all of life sciences.
Trying to argue right is wrong as you do, is saying more against your argument than anything for it.

 

[2cents]

Quote from Teleologist:

Do Scientists ever use the Design Inference in Biology? (Hmmm...let me think…)
By Michael Egnor

Orac, a prominent Darwinist blogger who is also a surgical oncologist, recently challenged me:



It took me a while to answer, because there are so many examples of it that I couldn’t decide what to pick first!

The natural place to start showing examples of the inference to design in medical research is the seminal biological discovery of the 20th Century—Watson’s and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA.

To untangle the structure of DNA they didn't use a pair of dice. They inferred design, not chance. They reversed-engineered DNA. They collected physical data about the structure of DNA (X-ray diffraction studies, Chargaff’s rules, the physical chemistry of nucleotides, etc), and then they designed a model of the molecule to understand its structure and function.

What exactly is reverse engineering? From Wikipedia:


Watson’s and Crick’s work of course had nothing to do with Darwinism (except perhaps their laboratory politics, which is another matter).

This is not to say that Watson and Crick believed that DNA was designed by God. They were both atheists. Even molecular biologists who are avowed atheists use the design inference in their work.

Much of modern biological research, and most research in molecular biology, is reverse engineering. Some scientists infer design explicitly. Some use the design inference implicitly, even if they disagree with its philosophical implications. We can’t do modern biology, at least at the molecular level, without using reverse engineering, which is the inference to design.

So, in reply to Orac’s challenge, I ask: Which inference played a greater role in the discovery of the structure and function of DNA: the inference to Darwin’s theory of random variation and natural selection, or the inference to design, applying the principles of reverse engineering?

grasping at straws big time... reverse engineering has nothing to do whatsoever with a design inference... what a sick mind this Egnor dude... its a small miracle in itself that guys like that manage to graduate in anything other than religious studies...

 

[Teleologist]

Stu wrote:

It's obvious to anyone who cares that Darwin is invaluable when it comes to providing facts and explanation around testable observations about the living world around us. The understanding of this has confirmed, expanded and progressed medical science beyond all hopes and dreams from the day Origin of the Species was first written down.

Nonsense. Darwinism hasn't contributed anything to advance medical science. Dr. Egnor succinctly points this out:

Darwinists claim that our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is dependent on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But “natural selection” is a tautology, not a theory. The fit survive. Who are the fit? The survivors. Who are the survivors? The fit. The concept is true (how could it be false?), but it’s worthless to science and medicine. The observation that bacteria that aren’t killed by antibiotics aren’t killed by antibiotics is of no value in understanding or treating infectious diseases. We use microbiology, molecular biology, pharmacology, and statistical methods in population biology to understand and treat infections.

 

[Teleologist]

2 cents wrote:

reverse engineering has nothing to do whatsoever with a design inference...

Reverse engineering is fundamentally a design perspective. Even an atheist like Michael Ruse recognizes this:

Both history and present Darwinian evolutionary practice have shown us that design-type thinking is involved in the adaptationist paradigm. We treat organisms – the parts at least -- as if they were manufactured, as if they were designed, and then we try to work out their functions. End-directed thinking – teleological thinking – is appropriate in biology because, and only because, organisms seem as if they were manufactured, as if they had been created by an intelligence and put to work.” Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design: Does evolution have a purpose?, p. 268 (Harvard, 2003)

Imagine the following scenario. In the future, space travelers land on a sterile planet to colonize it. Upon mapping the planet, they find a strange conglomeration of parts which is quite different from the natural surroundings. Upon analysis, it is determined that this conglomeration is actually a machine that does something. From here, some of our colonists infer the machine is a product of an unknown alien intelligence. But other colonists pooh-pooh this claim and insist they need to determine how the planet's geology spawned this machine-like thing. So two camps emerge.

One camp sets out to figure out how geology spawned the machine. They are baffled, and the more they learn about the machine and the planet, the more baffled they become.

The other camp decides to reverse engineer the machine. They try to figure out what makes it tick so they can copy basic design principles and employ the technology in other areas. This camp makes tremendous progress as it builds on the design inference. After all, if the machine represents superior design, the colonists have much the learn from it.

As we turn from scenarios to reality, biology does indeed work by reverse engineering things to determine the internal logic of any system. Such insights are then used to develop biotechnology and eventually nanotechnology. Biology, with its reliance on teleological concepts and language pays tribute to ID each and every day. But it is not tribute paid with words, it is tribute paid with deeds.

 

[2cents]

Quote from Teleologist:

Reverse engineering is fundamentally a design perspective. Even an atheist like Michael Ruse recognizes this:

doesn't matter who you're quoting, even if its the pope... reverse engineering has nothing to do with a design inference and your Egnor is clearly a sick mind... thks for keeping me entertained

 

[stu]

Quote from Teleologist:

Nonsense. Darwinism hasn't contributed anything to advance medical science. Dr. Egnor succinctly points this out:

Dr Egnor is indeed being succinct. Succinct in his description of how to demonstrate a sheer disregard for knowledge gained. Knowledge which he doesn't hold, but which enables him to be in a position to use terms like..." microbiology, molecular biology, pharmacology, and statistical methods in population biology" in the first place.

Without the application of Darwinian Science, those studies wouldn't be in any shape worth referring to., or indeed may not even exist..

His argument is on the lines of ... ' human beings are vulnerable to bacterial disease. I do not need to know how they are vulnerable...they just are'

He is blatantly ignoring the fact that someone else did bother to understand how humans become vulnerable, and how bacteria reacts and evolves to overcome medicinal treatment.
Dr Edgor realizes that only a currently known-of medicine need be prescribed for disease. He has no idea how it was first developed using evolutionary theory by necessity. or in what way new products should be. Or how a disease might react to a medicine, or how bacteria may further alter or adapt by evolutionary processes to counter a doctors treatment into being useless, or perhaps even rendering the medicine a dangerous toxin..

Well done Dr Egnor. For some brainless reason, he will deny the very foundations of medicinal practice, and his own trade, along with a practical working knowledge supplied through Darwin ,
which sensibly explains the reasons behind why medicine works or doesn't work. And to do so only in order to defend a totally unreasonable extremist fundamentalist right wing evangelical
misguided nonsensical grudge being held against Charles Darwin.

You are no better for quoting that kind of idiocy. Behind your arrogant dismissals of vital scientific evolutionary knowledge, you must be hoping as must Dr Egnor , that whatever infection corrupted your respective thinking processes, it does not spread to those who know how to use essential Darwinian Sciences in the continuance and further development of medicines.
Otherwise you both may pay a very heavy cost and at the same time condemn countless
numbers of others to misery and death through your succinctly unintelligent ideas driven by nothing more than religious politics..

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/04/10/richard-dawkins-talks-to-_n_45456.html

 

[Jayford]

I GIVE UP.

 

[Teleologist]

Stu wrote:

Dr Egnor is indeed being succinct. Succinct in his description of how to demonstrate a sheer disregard for knowledge gained. Knowledge which he doesn't hold, but which enables him to be in a position to use terms like..." microbiology, molecular biology, pharmacology, and statistical methods in population biology" in the first place.

Without the application of Darwinian Science, those studies wouldn't be in any shape worth referring to., or indeed may not even exist.

Wow! I can't believe you said that. Let's see you back up your bold claim. What knowledge has Darwinism contributed to microbiology, molecular biology, and the treatment of infectious diseases?

 

[james_bond_3rd]

Quote from Teleologist:


Wow! I can't believe you said that. Let's see you back up your bold claim. What knowledge has Darwinism contributed to microbiology, molecular biology, and the treatment of infectious diseases?

Idiot. Take a college biology course, then we'll talk.