Is atheism a scientific perspective?

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Also, it is not really unreasonable to say that because intelligence is the only known cause, an intelligent agent must have been present to cause it. You want me to provide evidence for a designer without appealing to what we see in nature?

It is extremely unreasonable to assert intelligence as the "only known cause," because we simply do not know that.  We have no evidence whatsoever to connect preexisting organic structures to an intelligent agent that predates modern biotechnology.  You are assuming the existence of an intelligent entity that created life, and using existing life as evidence for the entity.  That is simply not acceptable from a logical point of view.

Here are your choices:

• Independently demonstrate the existence of an entity capable of creating life, then explain how it created life.
  
• Explain the mechanism whereby life originated, then trace that mechanism back to an intelligent agent.
  
• Shrug and say "We don't know... yet."
  

Personally I favour the third option.

It's not an assertion that intelligence is the only known cause, that is true. Nobody knows of an adequate alternative, and intelligence is repeatedly observed to be adequate.

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Well I disagree that there is not evidence. Do you agree that nature exhibits evidence of design at least?

I disagree that nature exhibits evidence of design.

Nature evolves.  it changes.  Just as we change.  A designed object doesn't gain nor lose attributes.  It retains them, and doesn't change, without the designer going in and changing them.  One could say that a creator is STILL changing the design--but if that were the case we'd see more significant changes.  It would also suggest that this creator is purposely designing deformed children, and doing absolutely nothing about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.    Not to mention that according to bilblical sources people used to live hundreds of years, but don't anymore.  Christians like to blame sin, but that seems counter to design.  It's not as if 'sin' determines how long we live or how long our bodies last.

That's not true. New artificial intelligence technology is capable of adapting its responses to the environmental stimuli. Just because we haven't designed anything that can adapt as well as individual organisms doesn't mean that they weren't designed. It could just imply that they were designed better.

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What makes you think that chemicals will produce genomes?

Given elements, energy, and time more complex molecules arise.  We see this throughout the universe.

Lone nucleotides or even nucleic acids are not the same as genomes.

No, they are the building blocks.  See above.

Similarly, amino acids are not the same as genomes. Not only do you need nucleotide codes to arise, you also need a system to connect this to a protein code to eventually arise as well.

And that system evolved from less complexity.

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This information is specified.

By what or whom?  

It accomplishes a desired and specific function.

Specific does not mean specified; don't conflate them.

Natural selection is not a shaping force, unless you mean it shaping populations.

Yes, it shapes gene pools by selecting individual organisms for success.

Even then, I would argue that it is a mechanism to prevent genetic degradation by removing the individuals that suffer mutations.

Then you are seeing only half the picture.  Or less.
Not all mutations are "suffered".  Some are beneficial and lead to greater success thus increasing their presence in the gene pool.

And you said it yourself that mutation and recombination are responsible for the new information. This means that you do in fact assume that the best reproducers are the ones that have deviated from the norm (the mutated ones).

They are the ones that deviated only a little from the norm.  You claimed that the ones that deviated the most were selected and that is false.

And we have no idea to what extent mutation/ recombination add information. We don't even know if they can at all.

Of course it can, and does, add information.  Any change is information; any change at all.
Have you ever heard of Richard Lenski's work?

Assuming that it can add seemingly infinite information is way too speculative for me.

Try harder.
What would limit it?  If small changes accumulate, where is the limit?

Well that was about 10 assertions. More complex molecules are not the same as genomes. You can't just assert that given chemicals, life will start. You not only have to form the molecules, but you must explain their sophisticated sequence that allows them to reproduce. It is not a given we are just constantly moving toward a state of higher complexity and functionality. And were you referring to the long term evolution experiment where the bacteria gained the ability to metabolize citrate? They already possessed the enzymes necessary to break it down, it's just that they could not take it in under aerobic conditions. It could easily be explained by a degrading cell wall, which is not even entirely dependent on DNA for its proper replication. And I think natural selection limits the accumulating mutations. Your genome can only take so much mutation before it is rendered functionless.

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I disagree. A lot of Christians can and have always been good scientists. We have an obvious apparent bias. Given that we all know that science should be protected from personal bias, we are forced to take our bias into account at every turn. On the other hand, non religious scientists do not have their biases labelled. They are still incredibly biased people, but they are not necessarily held up to the same bias-avoiding behavior that religious scientists are.

I can't believe you just OMGUS'd* non-Christian scientists over their lack of god belief.  You've identified no personal bias likely to distort their findings yet cast shade on them all gratuitously.  Worse, you seem to feel that dancing around your own easily identifiable bias some how inoculates the lot of you against any further occurrence of personal bias.  You give no reason for either finding non-Christian scientists biased or finding Christian scientists less biased.  I'd say this post of yours indicates your personal bias immunity theory is bunko.


*  http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?titl...d_You_Suck

Do you really think that non-religious scientists are unbiased? That is an unfortunate consequence of how science is portrayed. Many scientists are extremely biased when it comes to results that deal with worldview issues. For example, things like thiomersal being used in medicines, the extent to which obesity is genetic, and scientific questions with religious implications are all topics with which many scientists have already made up their mind. I didn't say that Christian scientists are less biased, I said that because their apparent bias is so obvious, they must be kept in check, while the other scientists whose biases are less obvious can go sort of undetected.