Intelligent Design

[AAA]

AAA, why do you continue to try and poke holes in evolution, it doesn't get you any closer to proving a designer. If I where to grant you that evolution is false (which its not) and told you to lay out your case for a designer, what would it be? If your case for design is that " To me things look designed", then why should we even listen to you or take you seriously.

It's not "to me things look designed" only. It looks designed to everyone who studies biology. Even Richard Dawkins. If evolution was false, then you would have to accept that either there is some other unknown mechanism to explain it, or that it may have actually been designed.

[The Grand Nudger]

Design is irrelevant to abiogenesis.  Our pro-ID poster here considers the current theory of evolution to be a fact and -also- believe in abiogenesis.  He literally disagrees with -nothing-.

[AAA]

Indeed. Evolution or design; false dichotomy.

Present the third option then, guy who never responds to me yet keeps posting things mocking and oversimplifying my posts.

[The Grand Nudger]

No need, you've already accepted the theory of evolution as a fact. You just so happen to believe in both.

[Cyberman]

That's great. Now all you need to do is write up all your objections in a paper on the subject, then get it published in a proper peer-reviewed journal as distinct from a creationist circle-jerk one. See, what you think is actually not worth a plugged nickel compared to what you can demonstrate. Put in the work first.

Right like a paper on that topic could get peer review.

What makes you say that?

[AAA]

Has AAA mentioned yet what difference it makes if life does turn out to be designed by some sort of intelligence? Just interested if there is any point whatsoever behind this obsession with trying to poison one specific piece of science. Why is it always this one, I wonder? Could it be because it makes the bible look stupid as a side effect? Yes, I think it is. But he's using science to disprove science, by assuming all the rest of science is correct while it would also fall into being useless according to all these "objections". Someone has objected to it, at some point! You can always find someone who thinks gravity isn't real or whatever. What, they aren't a real scientist just because they say that?

I have him on ignore, I'm having a hard time believing he is any kind of science student. If he is, he needs to seriously learn from what people are trying to tell him here. Or the only kind of "science" he'll be doing is creationist science. He seems wholly unconcerned with evidence and instead treats science like some kind of popularity contest. I suppose it is possible to study the theory without knowing much about how science actually works.

Have you seen this?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

It's an organized effort to ruin science, just as AAA and Behe are using. There's nothing the least bit misguided about what Behe's employer, the Discovery Institute has been doing - it's an intentional assault on worldwide intellectual culture, and its success in the US is truly frightening!

Ahh, the truth comes out. You think that people who disagree with evolution are a big conspiracy set on destroying the US by disrupting scientific progress. I don't think they have some sinister plot and master plant to destroy science like you seem to think.

[The Grand Nudger]

How would you know?   You agree with evolution. You're one of us, lol.

[AAA]

Natural selection and mutation are fact. Whether they can lead to improved information content in the organism is up for debate.

Okay, listen... I just got back to this thread, there's pages I haven't read yet, but is this seriously a contention you're making based on your understanding of evolutionary theory? Have you unambiguously defined what you think evolution is here yet?

Because I challenge you to find one single mainstream definition of evolution that even used the words "improved information content," let alone asserts that evolution necessitates that.

Are you seriously implying that neo-Darwinian evolution doesn't have to account for improved information content? Do you agree that information is in the cells? unless you think it all got there right at abiogenesis, then you must accept that evolution does necessitate that. By evolution I mean all of life being related by a single common ancestor. I would say molecules to man, but you had a problem with that before.

[AAA]

It isn't without evidence. Did you read the last response where I listed many intricate systems? Can you honestly tell me that it doesn't at least give the appearance of design? Even Richard Dawkins acknowledges that life gives the appearance of being designed for a purpose. He just thinks that this is an illusion. It is not irrational or an assertion to say that the appearance of design may be due to the fact that it was designed. Why do I have to do mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious conclusion to try to find some other answer that may or may not exist?

It becomes an irrational assertion when you hold fast to it despite strong evidence to the contrary, as in evolution.  Dawkins doesn't just "think" it is an illusion of design.  He used his critical thinking skills and available scientific evidence to come to the most reasonable conclusion.  

Yeah, I know he has reasons for thinking that design is illusory, but there are also very intelligent people who have scientific reasons for thinking the design is genuine.
That's why I think we are better off debating over the evidence than over what scientist thinks what.

[The Grand Nudger]

By evolution...you mean all life being related to a common ancestor?  WTF?


Buddy, that's not evolution.  That's common descent. If we all came from different ancestors, we still evolved. Fact.