Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[robvalue]

I couldn't care less if it's designed. If I did really think some stupid bastard was responsible for how life has ended up on this planet, the last thing I'd do is worship it. I'd start with a good few hours of pointing and laughing.

What exactly would the scientific community, or anyone, gain from the conclusion "It's designed"? Science is about results. You can't do shit with that. You certainly can't test for it, because no criteria are ever put forward. We need an objective way of distinguishing "designed" life from "non-designed".

Life is how it is, regardless of how it got here. And we're studying it just fine without needing a magic origin story.

---

Also...


Why are people spouting all this on an atheist (not even science) forum, instead of collecting their acclaim for finding damning problems in one of the most well established scientific theories of all time? It's like bragging about your winning lottery ticket on a windmill forum instead of cashing it.

1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

Sure, that's a lot of scientific terms, well done. But it's still a rubbish design, considering the magic designer you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about is meant to have infinite power and resources. Or does it not?

2. The scientific community would have enhanced respect for biological systems. They would not come up with ridiculous theories like neutral constructive evolution to explain away RNA editing machinery. Instead, they would understand that RNA editing has a function (namely to expand the information contained in a given DNA sequence). Nobody would have predicted junk DNA (one of the worst scientific predictions of all time). The conclusion that plant foods are better for us would have come much sooner as well. 

This is all so vague I have no idea how to even respond to it. You seem to be making up ret-con predictions and making meaningless statements. What is "enhanced respect", and why does it matter?

Nobody would have predicted junk DNA? What are you talking about? Are you suggesting there's no such thing as junk DNA? Or that... it was a bad thing it was predicted?

3. Why is design magic to you? Did it take magic to design your laptop? Things are designed all the time without magic.

It's not magic to me. It's magic to you. Remember the God you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about? How does "God" design and create things? Why won't you tell us?

---

Seriously...

You think any actual practical use comes out of believing the statement, "Life is designed"? That's all we're talking about here. No one is offering up any specifics at all.

Obviously, life forms work as a fairly coherent system. That's why they've survived. People are already aware of this. How exactly does "it's designed" make any difference? No explanation was given above for point 2, just strange claims.