13 Questions

[Statler Waldorf]

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I think it's fairly obvious that she's trying to say that not everything that looks like it was designed by a higher intelligence was designed by a higher intelligence.

I admit though, I didn't see that question coming as an Intelligent Design question. But the analogy is bad, because if we see words written in sand and we understand that they are words and their meaning, we know that a human must have written them. But we don't see such definite proof that anything in nature was designed by an intelligent being or beings. Lots of people look at how complexly life evolved and ascribe design to it, but there's no definite evidence which shows that any life at all on earth was designed, except maybe for breeding larger & better livestock or plants to eat.

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I can't say I really agree with your reasons as to why you can say the words were created by man. I think even if they were in a language you didn't understand, or even if it was just the drawing of the sun you would still infer they were created by men. This is because all of these things contain information, and we know that information only originates from a mind. So I think applying this to DNA, the greatest information message we have ever seen is completely legitimate. Your thoughts?

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When we observe something, and claim intelligent design behind it, we have to attribute it to some form of intelligence that has been established to exist. If you are in the desert and stumble upon a Volvo, you aren't going to attribute it to aliens, nor will you say that the volvo has always existed there. While that last bit seems like an argument for creationism, it isn't. You go with the most likely scenario in regards to what you know. We know humans exist, and manufacture volvos, and it is safe to assume that cars do not pop into existence. If someone could attribute the car in the desert to a diety, then anyone could make an outrageous claim with the same merit. As sensible, rational adults we must make the judgement using what we know to be true, and what is most likely. My belief that life was created by BOB, the interdimensional, all powerful toaster has the same merit as life being created by a space god with superpowers.

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I actually think you can use the message itself to infer the existence of the messenger and apparently so does NASA. We have never scientifically observed extra terrestrial life, however the former SETL program was all based on inferring the existence of E.T.L. simply by receiving a message that may have been sent by an E.T.L. mind. They (NASA) even said that a message highlighting all the prime numbers would have been considered positive proof of E.T.L. - but now think about if something as amazingly complex as the DNA-RNA system was transmitted through numbers, the guys at NASA would have gone crazy with joy because they would have realized its implications
As to your second point about Bob- you will find that once you give Bob all the necessary attributes in order to be able to create the universe and life you will find that he quickly becomes the God of the Bible just by a different name and not a toaster at all.

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The thing is that we know what Volvos and other cars are, we know how they're made, and we know that they have to have been designed and created by humans. Where the analogy falls apart is that we also know what plants and animals are and how they reproduce, and know how evolution happened. There's nothing in plant or animal DNA which says that life has to have had a creator. Same goes for our planet. There's just no evidence that it had to have been created and couldn't have come about by natural means.

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I feel you got onto pretty shaky ground when you said we know where DNA came from and how life evolved on Earth, seems to be begging the question a bit. Seeing some mutations and changes in computer code as it is replicated is not nearly enough evidence for me to affirm that Windows 7 arose by natural means even if I didn't know anything about computers. Information always comes from a mind.