Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: Alan McDougall on 05/03/2009 21:01:03
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Hi,
Maybe this topic has been discussed before on the forum, but can there be a case for intelligent design for the universe?
Example, the exactitude of the fundamental constants and if even one differed minutely we would simple have never come into existence
Or the argument against Intelligent Design that there might have been an infinitely of big bangs creating and infinity of different universes and one of them just happen to be just right for life. Like Goldilocks's, not too hot not too cold but just right, but just right due to some accident of blind chance
Alan
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From a purely physics point of view, the idea is plausible; the universe exists, which means it works. Although I only have a hobbiest interest in it, Geology also seems to have a certain elegance and consistency about it, so that too seems plausible.
Biology is a complete joke though; everything works, but only just, and certainly not forever. There's just no evidence of intelligent design when it comes to biology.
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LeeE
Biology is a complete joke though; everything works, but only just, and certainly not forever. There's just no evidence of intelligent design when it comes to biology
Thanks for the response. Yes many things biological don't make good sense. Why has the ID made our earthly existence dependant on "Eat or be eaten"? Surly god could have made a better way of allowing us to absorb energy to sustain life.Make up something like walking solar panels [:D]
However, when we look at the unimaginable complexity of the human brain, or any brain for that matter this might suggest an ID
Alan
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However, when we look at the unimaginable complexity of the human brain, or any brain for that matter this might suggest an ID
Alan
But then we look at the failure rate of the damn thing and it's obvious that no design nor intelligence has gone into it.
I think you are looking at things in the wrong way - it's not a case of "the laws of physics are such so that we can exist", but "Because the laws of physics are such, we can exist".
Example, the exactitude of the fundamental constants and if even one differed minutely we would simple have never come into existence
And if they were any different, we wouldnt exist to discuss them. This doesn't matter on a universal scale though, so it's very human-centric to assume everything exists so we can.
I think the idea of an intelligent designer is a nice bedtime story to make people feel comforted and more important than they are in the big scheme of things.
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When thinking of ID I always end up with the question of: how did the intelligent designer come to exist; and what is the purpose of the design.
There was a science fiction story that explained it; I forget the name of it; but essentially, the intelligent designers were robots doing an experiment to try and determine how their own intelligent designers came to be. Their experiment is attempting to determine whether carbon-based life forms could evolve to become capable of making intelligent robots.
But then if it is true; why do we need the intelligent robots?
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Vern
When thinking of ID I always end up with the question of: how did the intelligent designer come to exist; and what is the purpose of the design.
There was a science fiction story that explained it; I forget the name of it; but essentially, the intelligent designers were robots doing an experiment to try and determine how their own intelligent designers came to be. Their experiment is attempting to determine whether carbon-based life forms could evolve to become capable of making intelligent robots.
It it a matter of turtles all the way down or infinite regression, But there might be an "uncaused cause" The big bang seems to defy the laws of thermodynamics, we are supposed to believe that the big bang had no cause,
But our universe needs this cause and effect, or entropy in order to sustain itself
Alan
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I'm not a big fan of the Big Bang theory. But I don't have a dog in that hunt and so don't worry about it much. I suspect that some other concept will eventually gain favor when we realize how much we are bending nature's laws.
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Vern
While I agree that ID is not science in any sense, the opposite belief that the universe just popping into existence out of nowhere, cannot be proved by empirical scientific method
If the universe is infinite and eternal there is is no possibilty of proving this as a fact
Albert Einstein once quoted "An intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection`.
Einstein also said that he saw no reason for not believing in an ID
The brilliant Fred Hoyle said something very similar , they both made these and other similar quotes from a position of skeptical atheist
Alan
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The concept of Intelligent Design implies that some designer contemplated humanity and produced mechanisms to bring it into being. But looking out into the universe, humanity seems to be so insignificant that it is hard to imagine such a humongous design just to create a human habitat.
It doesn't seem to be a very efficient use of matter and energy. [:)]
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Vern
The concept of Intelligent Design implies that some designer contemplated humanity and produced mechanisms to bring it into being. But looking out into the universe, humanity seems to be so insignificant that it is hard to imagine such a humongous design just to create a human habitat.
But are we really so insignificant? Einstein also remarked that what is really incomprehensible about humanity, is that we can comprehend so much
You mind can expand into infinity and try to comprehend all existence
The greatest as yet unexplainable enigma is the "Existence of Existence"
When I try to comprehend even my own existence it becomes a revelation of awesome truth
Alan
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If a designer has designed a race of people that can destroy a planet and its life in a few centuries than he wouldnt be a very good designer.
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latebind
If a designer has designed a race of people that can destroy a planet and its life in a few centuries than he wouldnt be a very good designer.
Humans are really just puny little naked apes. We simply cannot destroy the earth and if we are not careful she might brush us off her shoulder or crush us with a mighty earthquake.
Of course there remains the free will factor in the equation, withhout it we would have been just robots to this infinite intellect.
Alan
Alan
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But are we really so insignificant? Einstein also remarked that what is really incomprehensible about humanity, is that we can comprehend so much
Yes; we can really comprehend a lot of real things. And we can comprehend many more things that might not be real. We have no way other than our own feelings to determine which comprehensions are real and which are not.
I suspect that most of us just accept as real that which someone we trust tells us is real.
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AMcD
How sure can we be that we do have 'true' freewill? I know we might feel too uneasy to accept that we may not have it but can we prove that we have it. Moreover, what do we actually mean be free will and is it relevant?
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Postulating a designer is useless. It explains absolutely nothing. You then have an infinite regression consisting of questions like "who created the designer?", "what are the properties of the designer?", "how does the designer work?", "how does the designer create?". It does not help our understanding of the universe to say "goddidit".
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"Humans are really just puny little naked apes. We simply cannot destroy the earth "
We seem to be having a jolly good try.
Incidentally, has anyone ever considered the possibillity of "stupid design" ie that there is a "creator" but He's just not very good at this sort of thing. That's why the world is in a bit of a mess and why there are so many cockups with the design of humans- for example, the blood vessels feeding out retina are in the way of the light that the retina is there to sense.
There are plenty of other examples.
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Anything that we cannot understand will seem to be something magical/supernatural.
Once we understand physics fully(if we dont go extinct in the next few centuries) we will have no need for supernatural speculation.
This does not mean we will disprove god, but it does mean we will have an explanation for everything that we cannot understand now.
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Bored chemist
Incidentally, has anyone ever considered the possibillity of "stupid design" ie that there is a "creator" but He's just not very good at this sort of thing. That's why the world is in a bit of a mess and why there are so many cockups with the design of humans- for example, the blood vessels feeding out retina are in the way of the light that the retina is there to sense.
There are plenty of other examples.
Yes I have for example why design the rabbit's digestive system in a way that it must eat its own faeces to survive.
I think that evolution or an ID is experimenting, rather than stupidly designing.
Stefan_
Postulating a designer is useless. It explains absolutely nothing. You then have an infinite regression consisting of questions like "who created the designer?", "what are the properties of the designer?", "how does the designer work?", "how does the designer create?". It does not help our understanding of the universe to say "goddidit".
I like to think that somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe there is/are intelligences far more advanced than we are. There might be beings so advanced compared to humanity that for all tends and proposes they would be undisguisedly to us from out best concept of god
Who created the designer, we must come to a place in out understanding that we have to admit there are mysteries out there in the universe that even the best human mind would never comprehend
What about irreducible complexity, maybe the eye, this amazing biological instruments really seems to me that it was a design be someone
A cockroach is hugely hugely more complex than mans most complex machine, namely the space shuttle
Vern
I suspect that most of us just accept as real that which someone we trust tells us is real.
Our perception on really is very limited we only really observe what we have been programmed by evolution to observe to survive
Stefan_
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Incidentally, has anyone ever considered the possibillity of "stupid design" ie that there is a "creator" but He's just not very good at this sort of thing. That's why the world is in a bit of a mess and why there are so many cockups with the design of humans- for example, the blood vessels feeding out retina are in the way of the light that the retina is there to sense.
There are plenty of other examples.
Why postulate a stupid designer when its actions are indistinguishable from natural, undirected processes, which we are increasingly being able to understand? Occam's Razor, anyone?
I like to think that somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe there is/are intelligences far more advanced than we are. There might be beings so advanced compared to humanity that for all tends and proposes they would be undisguisedly to us from out best concept of god
It would seem unlikely that there is not another vastly intelligent species somewhere else in the universe, simply because of how large and old and full of planets and stars it is. However, those intelligent species would have evolved too, during a span of time after the universe formed.
Who created the designer, we must come to a place in out understanding that we have to admit there are mysteries out there in the universe that even the best human mind would never comprehend
Don't be so defeatist. There's no way to decide that before long term, vigorous scientific investigation of those mysteries. This also seems like a god of the gaps argument, which is illogical. And the origin of the universe itself is mysterious - but how can it possibly help to explain it using another mystery (god)???
What about irreducible complexity, maybe the eye, this amazing biological instruments really seems to me that it was a design be someone
A cockroach is hugely hugely more complex than mans most complex machine, namely the space shuttle
Irreducible complexity is absolutely not an argument against evolution by natural processes; it's an argument from ignorance. Consider this irreducibly complex analogy:
Take 1 chair, and place 1 book on the seat. Then place a large dish on the book, and a mug filled with hot coffee onto the dish.
Now remove the chair without destroying the structure. Of course everything else will fall and be ruined.
So the structure depends on everything being in the right place. But it was built simply enough. It's just that the components of the structure developed a dependance to each other. That's what evolution does.
And we already know how the eye evolved.
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Once we understand physics fully(if we dont go extinct in the next few centuries) we will have no need for supernatural speculation.
Dunno. Maybe we'll get to the point where we can show that it's impossible to make any further progress in physics, without ever reaching a convincing end.
And even if not, we can never know we've got physics right. It's like the black swan; just because things fell down yesterday and the day before and for the last 3 billion years, perhaps tomorrow they will fall up, and we'll be amazed.
It's happened before in physics; plenty of times, well not gravity swapping, but you know what I mean.
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"Why postulate a stupid designer when its actions are indistinguishable from natural, undirected processes, which we are increasingly being able to understand?"
To satirise those who keep on about an inteligent designer which, as a theory, has even more problems than a stupid designer.
Also why do people insist on saying things like "Anything that we cannot understand will seem to be something magical/supernatural. "?
It isn't true, if it were then nobody would ever have tried to understand anything- they would just have said "it's magic" nd given up.
Also, I don't really undersand how this computer works in any detail- but I don't assume it's magic.
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Also why do people insist on saying things like "Anything that we cannot understand will seem to be something magical/supernatural. "?
It isn't true, if it were then nobody would ever have tried to understand anything- they would just have said "it's magic" nd given up.
Also, I don't really undersand how this computer works in any detail- but I don't assume it's magic.
This is a well known fact. If you research it you will find out why. But the essence is that humans need an explanation for everything, and what we cannot explain we categorize as magical/supernatural (sometimes with devastating effects).
You can see this in history, so many examples. Witches, wizards, rain gods, sun gods.
People were even killed for being suspected witches, and this is because no-one understood how the world really worked, and they suspected witches of being behind negative events, and so they killed them.
In Europe when the black plague was devastating everybody, no-one knew what a virus was, so they had no explanation for the way the plague spread and killed so many. They unfortunately linked this to other reasons and killed so many innocent people who were thought to be behind this conspiracy.
Here is a quote from wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Consequences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death#Consequences)
Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague's emergence. No one in the fourteenth century considered rat control a way to ward off the plague, and people began to believe only God's anger could produce such horrific displays. There were many attacks against Jewish communities. In August of 1349, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were exterminated. In February of that same year, Christians murdered two thousand Jews in Strasbourg.
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Some Christians targeted "various groups such as Jews, friars, foreigners, beggars, pilgrims",lepers and Roma, thinking that they were to blame for the crisis. Lepers, and other individuals with skin diseases such as acne or psoriasis, were singled out and exterminated throughout Europe
History has many examples of this trait we have. So to deny the fact that humans have this flaw is to deny the existence of humanity.
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"This is a well known fact."
It isn't a fact at all. I have already pointed out that it isn't true and given a counter example.
What might have been believed a hundred years ago or whatever isn't relevant.
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_Stefan
And we already know how the eye evolved.
Do we really? How did it evolve by blind chance? [???]
Really good comments guys!
Alan
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Even very crummy eyes are very useful to have, and better eyes are more useful, and there's known examples in the animal kingdom with higher and higher efficiencies. There's no mystery at all.
Even bacteria can see light, and the molecular mechanisms to do that are really simple. Adding extra structures to determine direction is straightforward, and easily created by random variations, and would be kept.
Evolution is not simply blind chance, anymore than a man stumbling around in the dark is simply blind chance when he eventually finds a light switch; he'll find it eventually.
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wolfekeeper
Even very crummy eyes are very useful to have, and better eyes are more useful, and there's known examples in the animal kingdom with higher and higher efficiencies. There's no mystery at all.
Oh yes there is a mystery how the eye evolved! Our human eye has been programmed by evolution or an ID to observe only what we need to observe to survive. It is "now out of date" and we only perceive a tiny fraction of reality, like looking through a tiny straw our slit in the electro magnetic spectrum
Oh long a go when the eye "first happened", it found it was leaking water onto the face and getting blurred up with dust particles, so it invented a windscreen wiper (eyelids) But the problem of water overflowing onto the face remained.
So just like to channel tunnel the eyes and the nose had a meeting, the nose was often very dry and the eye often too wet. So the nose began to drill a tunnel from its end and the eye did the same from its end. They met up in great exactitude and the eyeduct tunnel joint venture was successfully finished at great cost and over millions of years [;D] [;D]
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Um, yeah what you said, only... not.
Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff.
It's not trying to burrow holes or anything else except achieve short-term survival that eventually leads to long term survival. A tube that didn't lead anywhere is a complete waste of time, and would probably get infected and then they would die.
The human eye was built by random forces, and kept by reproduction- those eyes that worked better were kept, the others mostly died.
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Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff.
It's not trying to burrow holes or anything else except achieve short-term survival that eventually leads to long term survival. A tube that didn't lead anywhere is a complete waste of time, and would probably get infected and then they would die.
The human eye was built by random forces, and kept by reproduction- those eyes that worked better were kept, the others mostly died.
The best medical science simply cannot make a tear duct!!
Maybe evolution really has no aim but why would a mindless thing want to survive?, how can blind evolution have any aim? , that concepts beats me, something with an aim no matter how stupid suggests an intelligence of some sort!!
Life is said to have started about 3.5 billion years ago on earth. There was a primordial soup of some kind or the other, lightening flashing through methane and ammonia etc mixed with water and crashing boiling rocks and chemistry
But hey who made the rocks, the lightening, the earth the soup the earth and the universe ???
Maybe we are just very very lucky little puny entities stuck out here in a corner of an ordinary galaxy amongst a hundred billion others. And we are very lonely beings the only sentient intelligent life forms in this unimaginably huge vast cosmos.
"What a collosal waste of space"
Life has absolutely no meaning, our beloved children , parents , grandparents wife's just like us, are simply a meaningless accident of blind chance
Heck guys let us run and eat and sleep and do exactly what we like for tomorrow we die
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Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff.
It's not trying to burrow holes or anything else except achieve short-term survival that eventually leads to long term survival. A tube that didn't lead anywhere is a complete waste of time, and would probably get infected and then they would die.
The human eye was built by random forces, and kept by reproduction- those eyes that worked better were kept, the others mostly died.
The best medical science simply cannot made a tear duct!!
But they have evolved several times over.
Maybe evolution really has no aim but why would a mindless thing want to survive?, how can blind evolution have any aim? , that concepts beats me, something with an aim no matter how stupid suggests an intelligence of some sort!!
This is a common misunderstanding. Evolution has no aim. None whatsoever. It's a process by which the more sucessful organisms survive. Over time, this may look like it has direction, but it doesn't.
Life is said to have started about 3.5 billion years ago on earth. There was a primordial soup of some kind or the other, lightening flashing through methane and ammonia etc mixed with water and crashing boiling rocks and chemistry
But hey who made the rocks, the lightening, the earth the soup the earth and the universe ???
Maybe we are just very very lucky little puny entities stuck out here in a corner of an ordinary galaxy amongst a hundred billion others. And we are very lonely beings the only sentient intelligent life forms in this unimaginably huge vast cosmos.
"What a collosal waste of space"
Life has absolutely no meaning, our beloved children , parents , grandparents wife's just like us, are simply a meaningless accident of blind chance
Evolution is also not blind chance. Mutations may be random, but evolution is not.
Heck guys let us run and eat and sleep and do exactly what we like for tomorrow we die
And indeed, in a long enough timescale, chance of survival is reduced to zero.
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Why does there need to be an "Aim" or "Purpose"? An entity doesn't need to want or be wanted to copy itself. If it can be replicated, it will.
In the biological world, the only purposes arise from the functions of structures. This does not imply design.
If you want meaning, make it yourself. This universe is amazing - delight in it!
Please, please, please learn more about the evolution of life of earth, and of the formation of the universe, before you make comments about these topics.
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stefan_
Please, please, please learn more about the evolution of life of earth, and of the formation of the universe, before you make comments about these topics.
Please indicate to to the person whom your posts are directed
I happen to know a great deal about physics, science, astronomy and evolution so your suggestion that I must learn about them is meaningless to me
How on earth can you make an assumption about the knowledge or lack of knowledge about a person who you know absolutely nothing?
Lets use as an analogy the history and development of the motorcar. An alien made out of a metallic compound arrives from a very different world than ours, in the late 1890 and takes a primitive prototype car to its home world to dissect. The tiny engine sputters, blows out smoke and breaks down all the time. Ten years later (an enormous time span for the alien)the alien comes back and finds the cars are a little better, due to some process of evolution.
Life for them can only exist in a metallic chain helix, and biological carbon bases life is considered as non- conscious, driven by instinct
Then the alien continues to return to earth on ten year cycles and each times find this strange self propelled metallic life form more advanced. Evolution is at work here, evolution is nudging this species in a direction of greater efficiency
Of course it is silly to any thinking mind in the alien culture. To think these changes over the huge time scales are anything but an evolutionary process. And to suggestion that some kind of an intelligence was behind the evolution of the animal called car, is blasted out of their scientific order
Alan[/color]
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Lets go back and debate the eye and its origin during the late Cambrian epoch
I've got an idea, let's not do that. There are plenty of other threads debating biological evolution vs design.
Unfortunately Alan, with comments about blind chance and irreducible complexity, you have not demonstrated a very good understanding of evolution, so I can see why Stefan might question it.
Regardless, the original topic of this one is the larger question about creation of the universe, so lets stick to that.
My personal viewpoint on this is:
I don't know if the universe was created by an intelligent designer, but there are lots of things that we do not know, and I do not feel that postulating a designer to explain things we can't explain is useful. I do not assume the existence of any such being, and so this explanation would, in fact, create more questions for me than it answers. So I choose to accept that the universe was almost certainly not created by an intelligent designer, and resign myself to the fact that I may never know the details of the origin of the universe.
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AMcD
Maybe evolution really has no aim but why would a mindless thing want to survive?, how can blind evolution have any aim? , that concepts beats me, something with an aim no matter how stupid suggests an intelligence of some sort!!
Why do you require something to have an 'aim'?
Why should it? You may as well say that an apple 'wants' to fall to Earth. 'Aim' is an unnecessary concept and only used as a short cut in accounting for things which have already happened.
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Lets use as an analogy the history and development of the motorcar. An alien made out of a metallic compound arrives from a very different world than ours, in the late 1890 and takes a primitive prototype car to its home world to dissect. The tiny engine sputters, blows out smoke and breaks down all the time. Ten years later (an enormous time span for the alien)the alien comes back and finds the cars are a little better, due to some process of evolution.
Life for them can only exist in a metallic chain helix, and biological carbon bases life is considered as non- conscious, driven by instinct
Then the alien continues to return to earth on ten year cycles and each times find this strange self propelled metallic life form more advanced. Evolution is at work here, evolution is nudging this species in a direction of greater efficiency
Of course it is silly to any thinking mind in the alien culture. To think these changes over the huge time scales are anything but an evolutionary process. And to suggestion that some kind of an intelligence was behind the evolution of the animal called car, is blasted out of their scientific order
Are you serious? This is a joke, surely. There is no comparison whatsoever here to the real world and the real science of evolution.
I happen to know a great deal about physics, science, astronomy and evolution so your suggestion that I must learn about them is meaningless to me
We now know that at least one part of this sentance is a lie.
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Why do you require something to have an 'aim'?
Why should it? You may as well say that an apple 'wants' to fall to Earth. 'Aim' is an unnecessary concept and only used as a short cut in accounting for things which have already happened.
wolfkeeper said that, not me his quote below
Evolution doesn't have any aim, "except survival". It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff.
Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff.
Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff
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BenV
We now know that at least one part of this "sentance is a lie"
Remark removed
The little story about the evolution of the motor vehicle was a joke man a joke!!
Alan
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I will not tolerate that type of comment by anyone especially from a person who ""man you can not even spell correctly""
The little story about the evolution of the motor vehicle was a joke man a joke!!
Alan
Fair enough. I apologise for my spelling, (I'm guessing it's sentance you're referring to? Should it have been sentence? - actually spelled correctly, merely the wrong word). I also apologise for accusing you of lying.
I'm glad it was a joke, sadly, it's often difficult to communicate subtleties like sarcasm in plain text. I still think that your comments about irreducible complexity and "blind chance" expose a lack of understanding about evolution.
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Quote "Evolution doesn't have any aim, except survival. It tries stuff to boost survival. If that works, great, if not, it tries other stuff"
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. Evolution works that way because that's how it turned out. The statement of what takes place does not imply an 'aim' any more than the die which comes up 6 on ten occasions.
It seems to me that many evolutionists are creationists underneath; they still use emotional methods in their arguments and replace God with the 'God Evolution'.
The word "blind" seems to be used as some sort of quality judgement in so many posts. Why should it not be a 'blind' process if all that is meant is 'random'?
And why does poor old Darwin get all the stick? He only wrote "I think .. .". It's all the subsequent work which, over 150 years, has underpinned and expanded on his original 'thought' and which has provided ever increasing amounts of evidence and explanation. We now 'think' with a lot more justification than he ever did.
Anyone who disagreed with the present state of QM would not use arguments against the original Bohr Model of 100 yrs ago and expect to get taken seriously. Why do 'anti creationists not address the more modern evidence and ideas? It must be either too hard or too compelling.
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Just a quick point which should be obvoious to anyone schooled in physics and chemistry.
Re "Our human eye has been programmed by evolution or an ID to observe only what we need to observe to survive. It is "now out of date" and we only perceive a tiny fraction of reality, like looking through a tiny straw our slit in the electro magnetic spectrum".
The body is mainly water and protein. They eye is made from those materials an in particular the cornea is made from them. It is, therefore, impossible for a human sized eye to "see" in the UV or IR regions because (for a layer that thick) the cornea is opaque.
For an insect, with a much smaller eye and so a much smaller pathlength, it's possible to see further into the UV.
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Alan, you seem to think selectively taking a few of Einstein's quotes should convice people of something. Einstein has me convinced about relativity and all that because of all the evidence behind it, but biology just wasn't his field.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=18520.0
Check number 3.
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BennV
Hey guys take note this post reveals who I really am namely the Beast post 666
Fair enough. I apologise for my spelling, (I'm guessing it's sentance you're referring to? Should it have been sentence? - actually spelled correctly, merely the wrong word). I also apologise for accusing you of lying.
I'm glad it was a joke, sadly, it's often difficult to communicate subtleties like sarcasm in plain text. I still think that your comments about irreducible complexity and "blind chance" expose a lack of understanding about evolution.
Thank you Ben!! [:)] We should make more use of the smileys a quote that is meant to be a joke can be taken seriously
I will remove my uncalled for remark about your creative spelling [:)]
I think it was Benjamin Franklin a notoriously bad speller said "Anyone can spell correctly but only a person with a highly creative mind like mine can come up with spelling I put onto paper every day" [;D]
Madidus_Scientia
That was a realy good link thanks I always quote Einstein and others of like intellects from memory. I used to sometimes use a link to another site and post verbatim from there. I have learned my lesson because I have been wrongly accused for plagiarisation
I do take quotes from my own private librarary, but always indicate the source
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Just a quick point which should be obvoious to anyone schooled in physics and chemistry.
Re "Our human eye has been programmed by evolution or an ID to observe only what we need to observe to survive. It is "now out of date" and we only perceive a tiny fraction of reality, like looking through a tiny straw our slit in the electro magnetic spectrum".
The body is mainly water and protein. They eye is made from those materials an in particular the cornea is made from them. It is, therefore, impossible for a human sized eye to "see" in the UV or IR regions because (for a layer that thick) the cornea is opaque.
For an insect, with a much smaller eye and so a much smaller pathlength, it's possible to see further into the UV.
This reminds me of an article I saw awhile ago about the human eye. The light sensing cells are on the wrong side of the retina. Light has to penetrate the retina skin cells to be sensed. The light sensing cells of birds eyes evolved with the light sensing cells on the forward side of the retina. The article was about evolutionary mistakes of nature.
Edit: Maybe this is not quite right. A quick Google turned up a lot of references that attribute the backwards condition to all vertebrates, with the other condition being prevalent in invertebrates. So poor birds.
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Vern
This reminds me of an article I saw awhile ago about the human eye. The light sensing cells are on the wrong side of the retina. Light has to penetrate the retina skin cells to be sensed. The light sensing cells of birds eyes evolved with the light sensing cells on the forward side of the retina. The article was about evolutionary mistakes of nature
I am not sure if it is birs who have light sensing cells on the forward side of the retina. Birds of prey like the eagle have many more retina cells than we humans and see things in three dimension from a distance that would be invisible to the human eye
Nocturnal animals like the cat family , have eyes that absorb light at the back of the retina, which are then reflected to the front of the retina given them five times the ability to see in the dark than we do.
The cats eyes glowing white and seeming to be beaming back at its prey in the dark are due to their eyes reflecting light to the front of the retina
Alan
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But the inverted retina is also thought NOT to be a 'mistake' because the conditions under the surface are better for the performance of the actual sensors - more oxygen from the blood, for instance. It's another compromise, in fact.
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Not only Darwin but Einstein, too, has his views quoted as gospel. He was very bright, of course, but he didn't know everything and had several flaws, His taste in hairdos was pretty poor, for a start! Just because he didn't have the whole story doesn't mean what has developed since is as incorrect as some of his mistaken ideas.
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HERE ARE A FEW MORE FACTORS THAT SUGGEST THAT THE UNIVERSE WAS DESIGNED
The mass and size of this planet are just right. If it was 10% larger or smaller, life would not be possible upon this planet. It is just the right distance from the sun for heat and cold. Farther and we would freeze, closer and we would be baked.
Consider the tilt of the axis of the earth. No other planet has our 23 degree tilt.
This enables all parts of the surface to have sun light. Without this, the poles would build up enormous ice and the equator would become intensely hot.
Consider the moon. Without the tides created by the moon, all our harbors and shores would become one stench pool of garbage.
The tides and waves based upon the moon's movement and gravitational pull aerate the oceans and provide oxygen for the plankton, which is the very foundation of the food chain of our world.
Without plankton, there would not be oxygen and man would not be able to live on the earth. The moon is the right size and the right distance from the earth.
Reduced
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AMcD
Bite sized chunks would be easier to read. I tend to give up after about a page and I think many others do too - particularly when there are too many purple passages and not enough hard fact.
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Hey sophiecentaur
I took your advice and reduced lenghth of my previous post [;D]
Sorry for that, I agree long rambling posts are hard to respond to
Alan
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With the vastness of the universe, there's bound to be plenty of planets with the conditions you speak of Alan. And here we are
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Hi all I'm new
I would like to add my bit.
It seems like science has a limited opinion of INTELLIGENCE when it comes to the universe.
I've heard science explain that the universe just happened with a big bang - so what was the reaction or action that caused that big bang, I asked, answer 'it just happened'.
That doesn't sound so scientific to me. [:-\]
Now "intelligent Design" well the scientist said "Who" was the designer and if there was a designer there must have been a "CREATOR" as a scientist would think, supposedly [:I]
As science progresses I've been told that DARWINISM is being rewritten, not the same as it was first published, Hummmm.
Recently I heard a scientist on TV state that "Intelligent Engineered Stem cell" grew into...... without being engineered by a scientist 'it just knew what to do itself'.
So now science has accepted that stem cells are intelligent and engineered [8)]
In my opinion if we keep the human factor of GOD out of it and think of the intelligence as something that is in every living thing,with our stem cell research we could be on the way to finding the intelligent we are looking for. In the future we may just find it.
I cant understand why this theory is so unacceptable to science. Are they so limited in their imagination or do they feel the need to control or is it that they think nothing non manlike/god like/alien like is intelligent.
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I've heard science explain that the universe just happened with a big bang - so what was the reaction or action that caused that big bang, I asked, answer 'it just happened'.
That doesn't sound so scientific to me. [:-\]
That's because that's not the scientific answer. The scientific answer is that we don't know yet. There are some theories (for example, we could be the result of different dimensional 'branes' passing through one another) but we're not sure yet. That's a very different answer to 'it just happened'.
As science progresses I've been told that DARWINISM is being rewritten, not the same as it was first published, Hummmm.
Science is pragmatic, it changes with time as we find more evidence and test hypotheses repeatedly. Darwin got the basics right, and laid the foundations for the modern science of evolution - we should expect it to have changed.
Recently I heard a scientist on TV state that "Intelligent Engineered Stem cell" grew into...... without being engineered by a scientist 'it just knew what to do itself'.
So now science has accepted that stem cells are intelligent and engineered
If a stem cell knows what to do it's because of it's genetic programming - it doesn't know anything - it's just a machine.
In my opinion if we keep the human factor of GOD out of it and think of the intelligence as something that is in every living thing,with our stem cell research we could be on the way to finding the intelligent we are looking for. In the future we may just find it.
I cant understand why this theory is so unacceptable to science. Are they so limited in their imagination or do they feel the need to control or is it that they think nothing non manlike/god like/alien like is intelligent.
I'm not sure what theory you mean - if you mean the idea of intelligent design, it's hard to accept scientifically as it's based on non-falsifiable assumptions and cannot be tested. That means it's not science.
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HERE ARE A FEW MORE FACTORS THAT SUGGEST THAT THE UNIVERSE WAS DESIGNED
The mass and size of this planet are just right. If it was 10% larger or smaller, life would not be possible upon this planet. It is just the right distance from the sun for heat and cold. Farther and we would freeze, closer and we would be baked.
Consider the tilt of the axis of the earth. No other planet has our 23 degree tilt.
This enables all parts of the surface to have sun light. Without this, the poles would build up enormous ice and the equator would become intensely hot.
Consider the moon. Without the tides created by the moon, all our harbors and shores would become one stench pool of garbage.
The tides and waves based upon the moon's movement and gravitational pull aerate the oceans and provide oxygen for the plankton, which is the very foundation of the food chain of our world.
Without plankton, there would not be oxygen and man would not be able to live on the earth. The moon is the right size and the right distance from the earth.
Reduced
Again, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not "these things happened/exist so that we can exist", but these things happened/exist and so we exist - the final outcome is not the reason for the history, it's the consequence thereof. It's good that these conditions exist, as that has led to our evolution and our ability to discuss it here and now, but there is no reason to think that it happened in order for us to exist. Basically, you're saying that humans exist and so the universe must have been designed - this doesn't make sense.
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I agree with BenV
One thing to consider is that there are trillions of stars in the universe. The odd's of a planet being in the so called "goldilocks" zone is very low, but when compared with the amount of stars it is probably not such a coincedence.
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BenV
Again, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not "these things happened/exist so that we can exist", but these things happened/exist and so we exist - the final outcome is not the reason for the history, it's the consequence thereof. It's good that these conditions exist, as that has led to our evolution and our ability to discuss it here and now, but there is no reason to think that it happened in order for us to exist. Basically, you're saying that humans exist and so the universe must have been designed - this doesn't make sense.
But Ben why must we dismiss the alternative possibility? - why could the universe our world etc etc not have have the forthought of a great intellect ID if you like, who created the correct conditions so that life could evolve.
Maybe the small changes we see in the tiny progressive evololusionary advantageous mutations, might be just nudges by this ID. Maybe it is experimenting with us, looking down on its equivalent of a petre dish.
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I don't know if the universe was created by an intelligent designer, but there are lots of things that we do not know, and I do not feel that postulating a designer to explain things we can't explain is useful. I do not assume the existence of any such being, and so this explanation would, in fact, create more questions for me than it answers. So I choose to accept that the universe was almost certainly not created by an intelligent designer, and resign myself to the fact that I may never know the details of the origin of the universe.
We can consider any and every alternative, but where does that get us? The idea of an intelligent designer is as logical as the idea that the universe was the result of a giant sneeze from the Great Green Arkleseizure, but I don't see you arguing that this could also be true.
The reason to dismiss an intelligent designer is that there is no evidence, no falsifiable way of testing it, it's based on illogical assumptions and creates more questions than it answers.
Maybe the small changes we see in the tiny progressive evololusionary advantageous mutations, might be just nudges by this ID. Maybe it is experimenting with us, looking down on its equivalent of a petre dish.
Maybe they're the result of the great spaghetti monster, or maybe we're in a matrix-like simulation - maybe we're being experimented upon by pan-dimensional beings that appear in the form of mice, maybe we're all just part of your imagination, maybe we're the dreams of trees...
There are so very many unprovable, untestable maybes - do you think they should all have equal standing?
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If I were the ID who created this planet (and the rest of the universe) I think I would have put right all bits that I got wrong by now.
For example, I created this piece of beauty
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AgqgqhTIDhSgeBM%3A%3Ai1.treknature.com%2Fphotos%2F35%2Fpeacock_butterfly_050813.jpg&hash=aaf60949756c5542b4e15d8100316108)
Yet I also created this piece of beauty
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F6%2F65%2FParus_major_2_Luc_Viatour.jpg%2F220px-Parus_major_2_Luc_Viatour.jpg&hash=1c46e1f124ccb3b1cb13f9c2c7f2c01d)
One will eat the other. What point is there in that, from a creators point of view? Would it not be better to have a stable population of all animals and plants etc. and let them all feed on minerals?
What is the point of creating volcanos, they just mess up my creation. Our planet could be described as more of an experiment than a creation, so why doesn't the Intelligent Scientist pop in to view the results of the experiment once in while. Or are we a petri dish he forgot about?
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If a stem cell knows what to do it's because of it's genetic programming - it doesn't know anything - it's just a machine.
so you are extending that stem cells are not only intelligent and engineered but also programed and they do all this themselves? clever little cells, sorry machine.
Do you think it correct to call stem cells a machine?
How many of these machines do we each have in our bodies.
If you are correct in calling them machines it might be easier for others to accept that the universe was made by a mechine and therfore your comment ads to my "Intelligent design Theory".
As I mentioned science likes to humanise a 'creator/designer' in the theory of "intelligent deign" so I suppose whether it is god and alien or a machine it does just that.
Has the big bang theory been tested?
Has the theory of bacteria developing into another species that then turns into yet another species been tested?
I'm not a scientist but I would love to read about such tests.
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If I were the ID who created this planet (and the rest of the universe) I think I would have put right all bits that I got wrong by now.
For example, I created this piece of beauty
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AgqgqhTIDhSgeBM%3A%3Ai1.treknature.com%2Fphotos%2F35%2Fpeacock_butterfly_050813.jpg&hash=aaf60949756c5542b4e15d8100316108)
Yet I also created this piece of beauty
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F6%2F65%2FParus_major_2_Luc_Viatour.jpg%2F220px-Parus_major_2_Luc_Viatour.jpg&hash=1c46e1f124ccb3b1cb13f9c2c7f2c01d)
One will eat the other. What point is there in that, from a creators point of view? Would it not be better to have a stable population of all animals and plants etc. and let them all feed on minerals?
What is the point of creating volcanos, they just mess up my creation. Our planet could be described as more of an experiment than a creation, so why doesn't the Intelligent Scientist pop in to view the results of the experiment once in while. Or are we a petri dish he forgot about?
Some people cant see the beauty and process of renewable sustainability of our planet. They wish it to be static
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Again it is difficult for some to take out the "human GOD factor" of intelligent design.
Open your mind and think of intelligent design as maybe one of those little machines that programes itself and has intelligently engineered itself to develop into whatever it wants to be, I'm talking about a stem cell of course.
Maye there is somethig more to the stem cell something we have not discovered yet?
Take out the human factor, the god favtor or what ever blocks your mind to make it think that this wonderful place, just happened.
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If a stem cell knows what to do it's because of it's genetic programming - it doesn't know anything - it's just a machine.
Ben V - Please tell me the person, god or other who programmed the stem cell. Is your statement above fact or theory? I dont mean to be rude I am just interested in learning.
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Humans create everything they need, that doesn't already exist. This makes us very bad candidates to ponder the idea of creation. We naturally will wonder who 'created' us and the world we live in, but perhaps it was not an act of creation, it might be something so complex and so out of our range that it is simply incomprehensible to us.
In my opinion we simply dont have the capacity to enquire about creation of the universe.
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I agree, our existence is more than we can comprehend.
So therefore I think that we should not block the thoughts and suggestions that may lead to a better understanding.
I believe that beside "the big bang theory" we should include "intelligent design" keeping human/god/alien and machine out of it. We all need to look much deeper.
But what i am sure of is this wonderful universe being so well coordinated and self sustainable, didn't 'just happen' and until science can say without any doubt how it did happen then our own inability to test the point where our universe came into existence and establish yet another theory, should not be hindered by some trying to bring religion or other mind blocking, prejudice thoughts into the argument.
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If a stem cell knows what to do it's because of it's genetic programming - it doesn't know anything - it's just a machine.
so you are extending that stem cells are not only intelligent and engineered but also programed and they do all this themselves? clever little cells, sorry machine.
Do you think it correct to call stem cells a machine?
How many of these machines do we each have in our bodies.
If you are correct in calling them machines it might be easier for others to accept that the universe was made by a mechine and therfore your comment ads to my "Intelligent design Theory".
Nope - I'm not saying they are intelligent.
Nope - I'm not saying they are engineered - they have arrived through evolution.
Yes, I think it's reasonable to call them a machine.
Nope, it adds nothing to your 'intelligent design hypothesis'.
As I mentioned science likes to humanise a 'creator/designer' in the theory of "intelligent deign" so I suppose whether it is god and alien or a machine it does just that.
Has the big bang theory been tested?
Not directly, in as much as that is impossible - however, the theory of the big bang makes predictions based on existing observations that have since been shown to be true. It may yet be wrong, but right now it's our best model.
Has the theory of bacteria developing into another species that then turns into yet another species been tested?
I'm not a scientist but I would love to read about such tests.
Well, we have seen bacteria evolving new characteristics (characteristics that take the strain away from the defining characteristics of the existing species of bacteria), all in a lab under little selection pressure. The theory of evolution also, again, makes predictions that have since been shown to be true. It's our best explanation of the diversity of life on Earth.
Again it is difficult for some to take out the "human GOD factor" of intelligent design.
Open your mind and think of intelligent design as maybe one of those little machines that programes itself and has intelligently engineered itself to develop into whatever it wants to be, I'm talking about a stem cell of course.
Maye there is somethig more to the stem cell something we have not discovered yet?
I haven't mentioned god, and as a scientist my mind is very open to possibilities, thanks. Stem cells become different types of cell under different conditions - the external environment contributes to experssion of different genes, which have evolved over time. There may be more to learn about stem cells, in fact I strongly suspect there is. I don't need there to be any intelligence behind them, but if evidence comes to light that there is, then fair enough.
Take out the human factor, the god favtor or what ever blocks your mind to make it think that this wonderful place, just happened.
Thinking as objectively as any person is capable of, I would have to assume that this wonderful place is the result of a series of rather wonderful coincidences.
Ben V - Please tell me the person, god or other who programmed the stem cell. Is your statement above fact or theory? I dont mean to be rude I am just interested in learning.
Stem cells are under genetic control, as are all the other cells in the body. These genes have been shaped by a process of natural selection. No person, no god, no 'programming'. Just natural selection of natural gene variation.
I agree, our existence is more than we can comprehend.
So therefore I think that we should not block the thoughts and suggestions that may lead to a better understanding.
I believe that beside "the big bang theory" we should include "intelligent design" keeping human/god/alien and machine out of it. We all need to look much deeper.
But what i am sure of is this wonderful universe being so well coordinated and self sustainable, didn't 'just happen' and until science can say without any doubt how it did happen then our own inability to test the point where our universe came into existence and establish yet another theory, should not be hindered by some trying to bring religion or other mind blocking, prejudice thoughts into the argument.
In essence, I agree. I agree that religion has no place in science, and I agree that the origin of the universe is a very difficult question to answer, and we may never arrive at a solution. But why have you closed your mind to the idea that it did 'just happen'? Instead of opening your mind to the full possibility that we may never know, you have decided that there is something more behind it.
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But if a DESIGNER designed us, then who designed the DESIGNER?
And, if you say the DESIGNER was always there, why couldn't the 'system' have always been there? (I am assuming the System is 'outside' and contains the Universe.
I realise that Logic may not actually apply here (either in the minds of IDists or in the actual system, which may not be logical) but there is no Logic which forces the choice of having an ID.
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Nope - I'm not saying they are intelligent.
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Nope - I'm not saying they are engineered -
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Yes, I think it's reasonable to call them a machine.
on what authority
A machine that is genetically engineered to change itself! Wow.
has the big bang been tested?
I asked
Not directly, in as much as that is impossible - however, the theory of the big bang makes predictions based on existing observations that have since been shown to be true. It may yet be wrong, but right now it's our best model.
theories based on predictions, hmm.
You told me here that a theory had to be able to be tested!!!! now you are changing your mind.
Is the 'Big Bang a theory or not?
Well, we have seen bacteria evolving new characteristics (characteristics that take the strain away from the defining characteristics of the existing species of bacteria), all in a lab under little selection pressure. The theory of evolution also, again, makes predictions that have since been shown to be true. It's our best explanation of the diversity of life on Earth.
Are you saying that one species can evolve into another?
When I go to New Zealand I begin to talk like them too. When I go to the beach I come home with a tan..........when I have the flu I develop antibodies....... forever changing, adapting or as you put it evolving, not back to an ape I hope.
I read in a science journal that humans have 89% same genetic make up as plants
In essence, I agree. I agree that religion has no place in science, and I agree that the origin of the universe is a very difficult question to answer, and we may never arrive at a solution.
so if the big bang cant be tested and it is a theory and stem cells are intelligent, engineered and a machine and can alter their appearance to create a new. Maybe intelligent, engineered design should be a valid option as it is already proven with stem cell research
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Quote
Nope - I'm not saying they are intelligent.
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Quote
Nope - I'm not saying they are engineered -
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Wow. An actual SCIENTIST said it! That's the ultimate authority.
The Big Bang can be called a theory because there is testable evidence for it. Evolution can be seen to happen - it happens when conditions are changed artificially - which speeds it up. There is fossil and other evidence of similar changes. These are also 'tests' which means that Evolution also has the status of a theory.
In what way can the ID idea be tested? Yes- it's an attractive idea. What else?
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Nope - I'm not saying they are intelligent.
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Nope - I'm not saying they are engineered -
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Yes, I think it's reasonable to call them a machine.
on what authority
A machine that is genetically engineered to change itself! Wow.
Oh dear - firstly - I was responding to your comment of "so you are extending that stem cells are not only intelligent and engineered but also programed and they do all this themselves?". Secondly, please tell us who this scientist is, as I think you may have entirely misinterpreted what he meant.
How would you define a machine? I wasn't stating with any authority that stem cells are machines, but I think it's reasonable - all cells are biological machines. Maybe it would be easier to comprehend if I were to say that the components within a cell are machines - they consume energy and perform tasks, such as copying DNA, building proteins etc.
has the big bang been tested?
I asked
Not directly, in as much as that is impossible - however, the theory of the big bang makes predictions based on existing observations that have since been shown to be true. It may yet be wrong, but right now it's our best model.
theories based on predictions, hmm.
You told me here that a theory had to be able to be tested!!!! now you are changing your mind.
Is the 'Big Bang a theory or not?
"Theories based on predictions"? - No. No one said that but you. A theory from which one can make predictions. So yes, the theory has been tested.
Well, we have seen bacteria evolving new characteristics (characteristics that take the strain away from the defining characteristics of the existing species of bacteria), all in a lab under little selection pressure. The theory of evolution also, again, makes predictions that have since been shown to be true. It's our best explanation of the diversity of life on Earth.
Are you saying that one species can evolve into another?
When I go to New Zealand I begin to talk like them too. When I go to the beach I come home with a tan..........when I have the flu I develop antibodies....... forever changing, adapting or as you put it evolving, not back to an ape I hope.
Yes, one species can evolve into another, new species. Should the genetic or morphological differences become so great that the new stock can no longer interbreed with the original stock, it will be defined as a new species. Do you understand the process of evolution?
I read in a science journal that humans have 89% same genetic make up as plants
That figure sounds too high to me. Besides, there's a world of difference between sharing genes and having identical genes. We do share around half our genes with plants, but there can be large differences within those genes. What point were you trying to make with this? We share genes with every living species, as far as I know.
In essence, I agree. I agree that religion has no place in science, and I agree that the origin of the universe is a very difficult question to answer, and we may never arrive at a solution.
so if the big bang cant be tested and it is a theory and stem cells are intelligent, engineered and a machine and can alter their appearance to create a new.
Nope, I don't think you've been reading my posts at all.
The big bang theory has been tested.
Stem cells are not intelligent.
Stem cells are not engineered, but arrived by evolution.
Stem cells cannot alter their appearance. As I stated before, external factors affect gene expression, which leads to the cells producing other types of cell.
Maybe intelligent, engineered design should be a valid option as it is already proven with stem cell research
No it hasn't, and it wouldn't be a valid hypothesis as it's based on unfalsifiable, poor assumptions about intelligence and design.
Please actually read the comments you reply to - you clearly didn't take in anything that I had said.
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What BenV said.
And stem cells don't design themselves, which is what you seem to be thinking echochartruse. They just express different genes based on their environment. Dynamic, not intelligent.
It seems to me that 99% of the opponents of the theory of evolution don't actually properly grasp how it works, or anything about the biology behind it.
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"differnet genes based on the environment" but that is what eveolution is,,,,,
but stem cell scientist said they are intelligent and engineered to develop.........so could evolution be based on intelligent engineering?
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You must have misunderstood him. Please show us the name of the scientist and/or the article you read that in.
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"differnet genes based on the environment" but that is what eveolution is,,,,,
Not quite in this context. With stem cells, all the genes are there, and there are external factors which control which ones will be switched on/off.
but stem cell scientist said they are intelligent and engineered to develop.........so could evolution be based on intelligent engineering?
We really need to know who it was and what he said, as you may have misunderstood him, he may have been taken out of context, or he may have just poorly communicated what he meant. Stem cells are not thought of as intelligent, and they are not engineered, but arrived at by evolution. So no, evolution is not based on intelligent engineering.
Please find us a link to this person so we can see what he was saying/really meant.
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Quote
Nope - I'm not saying they are intelligent.
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Quote
Nope - I'm not saying they are engineered -
no you didn't a scientist working with stem cells did
Wow. An actual SCIENTIST said it! That's the ultimate authority.
Stephen Badylak was the person
Can someone tell me about him?
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and they are not engineered, but arrived at by evolution.
you do mean the 'theory' of Evolution dont you? I wouldn't want to think that people dont say what they mean.
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I read a very good book today (long haul flight from canada) called "13 things that dont make sense". One topic was life and the other was death. Very very deep and clever stuff. Another topic raised was the constants of the universe.
I can't begin to explain the ideas and counter ideas put forward but needless to say it kept me occupied and now my brain hurts. Chances are as more infomation comes to light about the formation of these constants (or possibly just the one) we will understand why this all neatly fits in.
I like the idea that if things weren't so perfect there would be nothing to observe it and therefore it wouldn't technically exist. It reminds me of quantum mechanics. Perhaps the universe, our quantum branch anyway, settled on these friendly constants because it's the only possible way it could exist and be observed. Any extreme combinations wouldn't result in anythin able to contemplate its crappyness and it would simply be a froth of possibilities.
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We really need to know who it was and what he said, as you may have misunderstood him, he may have been taken out of context, or he may have just poorly communicated what he meant. Stem cells are not thought of as intelligent, and they are not engineered, but arrived at by evolution. So no, evolution is not based on intelligent engineering.
"intelligent cells," Dr. Frauscher said. "Not only do they stay where they are injected, but also they quickly form new muscle tissue and when the muscle mass reaches the appropriate size, the cell growth ceases automatically."
Please find us a link to this person so we can see what he was saying/really meant.
[/quote]
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Flybys
I like the idea that if things weren't so perfect there would be nothing to observe it and therefore it wouldn't technically exist. It reminds me of quantum mechanics. Perhaps the universe, our quantum branch anyway, settled on these friendly constants because it's the only possible way it could exist and be observed. Any extreme combinations wouldn't result in anythin able to contemplate its creepiness and it would simply be a froth of possibilities.
Would the universe exist if there were no one observing it?
Quantum physics make no sense and appears to be illogical. But we use it nevertheless by relying on probability
Down there the ID seems to have gone a little crasy
Alan
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I read a very good book today (long haul flight from canada) called "13 things that dont make sense". One topic was life and the other was death. Very very deep and clever stuff. Another topic raised was the constants of the universe.
and here is an interesting website: http://floridapoliticsarticles.blogspot.com/2005/11/stem-cells-are-intelligent-design.html.
To open your mind you have to listen to all sides of the story. But why does everyone think there is a human person called God invloved???? [?] [???] [:o]
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echochartruse:
Where is the significance of the word "intelligent"? Why are you nitpicking about the use of that word?
Humans are intelligent - so are Chimps. Many other organisms display intelligence. If someone described stem cells as behaving intelligently - so what?
Humans 'design' things - so do some apes (at a simple level).
What have either of those terms got to do with proving that there is 'someone intelligent' out there who designed us?
If we are, indeed, a part of some experiment then, as I said before, whoever is responsible for the experiment must have come from somewhere. So it's just another 'turtles all the way down' argument. It's a total waste of time discussing it. If you believe that then you believe it and good luck to you. But don't try to get all logical and try to convince us. You are on to a loser.
If you could, perhaps, tell us (with some evidence) about this designer chap and how he came to be in existence????
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Hey All
Point 1
Asymmetrical universe why??
I started a thread a while back with the question, why is the universe asymmetrical instead symmetrical? There was an equal amount of matter and antimatter at the moment of the big bang, these two opposing energy forms should have annihilated each other leaving the universe just a vast soup of gamma rays.
But luckily for us, this did not happen , the antimatter went elsewhere maybe someone monkeyed with creation back then allowing us to exist?
Point 2
The Big Bang , everything has a cause and effect except the Big Bang why?
One of the most basic laws of science is the Law of the Conservation of Energy: Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another. The universe could not have created itself using natural processes because nature did not exist before the universe came into existence. Something beyond nature must have created all the energy and matter that is observable today.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is often stated as the law of increasing entropy: "A natural process always takes place in such a direction as to cause an increase in the entropy of the universe." (John Williams, "Modern Physics," Page 210). The effect of this law is that unless there is a purposeful source of energy operating in a system, the various parts, molecules, etc., become less and less organized and more and more random. Thus the only means to maintain the theory of evolution in light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is to conclude that, while chance combinations of simple molecules into very complex ones would be extremely rare, given enough time, it could happen.
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When he says "intelligent design", he is simply referring to the development of the technology that he's using. He is absolutely not saying anything relevant to "Intelligent Design" Creationism, or real intelligence built into the cells. Also, often when scientists talk that way about things, they are using a mental shorthand. It's easier to say something that sounds like "the cells are smart" than it is to explain what is actually happening.
and they are not engineered, but arrived at by evolution.
you do mean the 'theory' of Evolution dont you? I wouldn't want to think that people dont say what they mean.
Evolution is a fact. Scientific theory is the highest level of understanding about a group of phenomena. Evolution is not "just a theory", anymore than the theory of gravity is "just a theory".
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Thanks Stefan, I was just coming to that.
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The Second Law of Thermodynamics is often stated as the law of increasing entropy: "A natural process always takes place in such a direction as to cause an increase in the entropy of the universe." (John Williams, "Modern Physics," Page 210). The effect of this law is that unless there is a purposeful source of energy operating in a system, the various parts, molecules, etc., become less and less organized and more and more random. Thus the only means to maintain the theory of evolution in light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is to conclude that, while chance combinations of simple molecules into very complex ones would be extremely rare, given enough time, it could happen.
You've answered your own concern there. The Earth is subject to an enormous energy source - the sun. The second law of thermodynamics requires a closed system, and that is not what we have here. It in no way negates or reflects badly upon evolution.
Anyway - As I have said before, there are many other threads here to debate evolution/intelligent design, and they always go in the same ridiculous loops. The origin of universe is a different issue, but I have already stated that it's pointless to postulate a designer, and daft to presume one.
I'll be locking this thread soon as it has gone very much off topic, and will soon descend into arguements, as these always do.
To those proponents of intelligent design, I will ask a question that I put to another forum member, feel free to reply or take it as rhetorical:
If an alternative mechanism, one that totally excluded any possibility of even considering an intelligent designer, but different to present day science, was proposed and backed up with a great deal of evidence, would you accept it?
I put this to a certain creationist that we have not seen online for a little while. By admitting that he couldn't accept it, he admitted that his problem was not with the current theories, but the perceived threat to his deeply held beliefs.
Might I suggest you ask yourselves the same question?
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BenV
Before you lock this topic maybe I should answer the question I posted when I started the thread.
Could the universe be the result of an Intelligent Designer? "YES IT COULD EVEN EINSTEIN SAID EXACTLY THIS"
I just can not see why you want to lock this thread, no one is arguing, we are just debating in a robust way
Alan[/color]
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Alan, that's not an answer, it's just an assertion with argument from authority, which is a logical fallacy.
In fact, the whole "Argument from Design" has been shown to be completely vacuous time after time even through simple logic. It's mind-numbing to see it repeated so many times.
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Stop flogging the dead horse, please!
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I would be locking the thread because it has gone off topic. Also, everyone has had their say on the original topic, and nobody could possibly get anything more from continuing to discuss this. There are two camps, those who see no point in entertaining the idea of an intelligent designer, and those who are certain it's a possibility. Neither party will shift unless new evidence comes to light (and one party will not shift regardless of the evidence) - so what's the point?
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AMcD
So where did this intelligent designer come from?
You have just offset the problem.
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I have to agree with BenV, this and similar issues have been flogged here many times and none do or can reach a satisfactory conclusion.
We will never discover the true origin of our own tiny little planet, let alone the whole universe, so I think all this postulating gets us absolutely nowhere at all.
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Stefan
Alan, that's not an answer, it's just an assertion with argument from authority, which is a logical fallacy.
In fact, the whole "Argument from Design" has been shown to be completely vacuous time after time even through simple logic. It's mind-numbing to see it repeated so many times
Stefan the question or title of the tread was "could there be as case for an intelligent designer?" and my answer is "yes there could be an intelligent designer" "not there is an intelligent designer" there is a great difference to these two answers!!
There "could be an ID" "not there is an ID"
sophiecentaur
AMcD
So where did this intelligent designer come from?
You have just offset the problem.
If I knew that I would have to be the intelligent designer
Where does the universe come from?. how could it just have popped out of nowhere? did it have an original cause?
I simply cannot accept that there is any difference in trying to convince someone that the universe had no cause but it has an effect, makes no sense. This is just another take on the turtles all the way down dear fellow.
Where did the universe come from ==========================================="??????????????????????????"
Where did an Intelligent Designer come from================================="??????????????????????????"
Exactly the same questions about the exact same enigma
Alan
BenV
Ben,now you can have some fun and exercise your authority "Lock in those lyrics" [;D]
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Yes, but the universe seems to run by simple rules. An 'intelligent designer' would have to be much more complex than that.
That's where Ockham's razor kicks in, right there.
Because science is based on Ockham's razor, an intelligent designer is never realistically going to be the default position; unless there's some serious, reproducible God activity going down; and personally I'll believe that when I see it (I'm not holding by breath).
In fact even if there was evidence of something that looked exactly like a God, Ockham's razor would force you to consider every other possible simpler explanation first.
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"Turtles all the way down" is about the most complicated solution so you have to ditch it. One turtle would be just as bad, so we have to go for no turtles.
Why is that so unsatisfactory for some people? Is it insecurity? Would you like to talk about it? Oh, you have been.
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Stefan the question or title of the tread was "could there be as case for an intelligent designer?" and my answer is "yes there could be an intelligent designer" "not there is an intelligent designer" there is a great difference to these two answers!!
There "could be an ID" "not there is an ID"
The two really mean the same thing. Neither is any more true than the statement, "There are faeries at the bottom of my garden", or "I regularly ride my Invisible Pink Talking Flying Unicorn".
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echochartruse:
Where is the significance of the word "intelligent"? Why are you nitpicking about the use of that word?
Humans are intelligent - so are Chimps. Many other organisms display intelligence. If someone described stem cells as behaving intelligently - so what?
sorry I must be in the wrong forum I thought this was " Could the universe have been an act of an intelligent designer "
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"But Dr. McFadden is pulling a bait-and-switch: he is using relatively trivial examples of evolution #1 to bolster more controversial definitions of "evolution." Thus if by "evolution" one means universal common descent (evolution #2), or neo-Darwinian evolution (evolution #3), where the primary adaptive force building the complexity of life is unguided natural selection acting upon random mutations, then many scientists would argue that such "evolution" most certainly is not a fact."
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/07/is_evolution_a_theory_or_fact_2.html
I think that evolution being a fact is still being disputed in the scientific world, see above link.
Now random mutations may refer to stem cells growing the same as their host- changing from one type to another.
Anyway I just want to open your minds. I believe scientists should be creative thinking and not stop thinking just becasue someone thinks it is now 'FACT'
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Stefan
The two really mean the same thing. Neither is any more true than the statement, "There are faeries at the bottom of my garden", or "I regularly ride my Invisible Pink Talking Flying Unicorn
The thread title again is could there be a Could the universe be an act of an Intelligent designer?, this is a question and my answer is yes there can be a case for an ID
Your fairies and pink unicorns are statements of fact and if taken seriously would put you in a nut house
Wolfkeeper
Yes, but the universe seems to run by simple rules. An 'intelligent designer' would have to be much more complex than that.
That's where Occam's razor kicks in, right there.
Because science is based on Occam's razor, an intelligent designer is never realistically going to be the default position; unless there's some serious, reproducible God activity going down; and personally I'll believe that when I see it (I'm not holding by breath).
In fact even if there was evidence of something that looked exactly like a God, Occam's razor would force you to consider every other possible simpler explanation first.
Highly intelligent people always try to get the simperlest answer to a question, so why do you suppose an ID would not do the same?
I disagree with your statement that the universe is sustained by simple rules, in fact the universe is unimaginably complex
Can you fathom supestring theory where there is a micro world of string particles that only Ed Witten can comprehend
: echochartruse
Now random mutations may refer to stem cells growing the same as their host- changing from one type to another
The view that evolution is driven by tiny random mutation begs the question, can anyone tell me about a positive mutation they have seen or heard about or written about.
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"But Dr. McFadden is pulling a bait-and-switch: he is using relatively trivial examples of evolution #1 to bolster more controversial definitions of "evolution." Thus if by "evolution" one means universal common descent (evolution #2), or neo-Darwinian evolution (evolution #3), where the primary adaptive force building the complexity of life is unguided natural selection acting upon random mutations, then many scientists would argue that such "evolution" most certainly is not a fact."
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/07/is_evolution_a_theory_or_fact_2.html
I think that evolution being a fact is still being disputed in the scientific world, see above link.
Now random mutations may refer to stem cells growing the same as their host- changing from one type to another.
Anyway I just want to open your minds. I believe scientists should be creative thinking and not stop thinking just becasue someone thinks it is now 'FACT'
I'm afraid you can't believe a word that comes from the discovery institute - it's just creationist propaganda.
Evolution is a fact, explained by the theory of evolution. Just as gravity is a fact, and it's explained by the theory of gravitational attraction.
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Highly intelligent people always try to get the simperlest answer to a question, so why do you suppose an ID would not do the same?
I disagree with your statement that the universe is sustained by simple rules, in fact the universe is unimaginably complex
Can you fathom supestring theory where there is a micro world of string particles that only Ed Witten can comprehend
But do you not see that by adding a designer, you immediately add a layer of complexity, and further questions?
If the universe was incredibly simple, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
If the universe is incredibly complex, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
There is no reason to assume a designer, other than the fact that you want to.
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I think that evolution being a fact is still being disputed in the scientific world, see above link.
The link you referenced was not from the scientific world that I know about. That evolution is happening is an obvious fact that you only need look around you to discover. Darwin was simply one of the first to notice it.
Yes, but the universe seems to run by simple rules. An 'intelligent designer' would have to be much more complex than that.
That's where Ockham's razor kicks in, right there.
Occam's razor is a very useful tool. That is what started me on a quest to understand how we went astray in the early 1900's by abandoning the perfectly natural Lorentz treatment of relativity phenomena based upon the premise: The final irreducible constituent of all physical reality is the electromagnetic field. And instead adopted Einstein's theory which clearly violated Occam's razor.
Wiki article about Occam's razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ockham_razor)
Occam's razor, also Ockham's razor,[1] is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony", "law of economy", or "law of succinctness"): entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, roughly translated as "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." An alternative version Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate translates "plurality should not be posited without necessity." [2]
When multiple competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.
Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as an heuristic maxim (rule of thumb) that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity, often or especially in scientific theories. Here the same caveat applies to confounding topicality with mere simplicity. (A superficially simple phenomenon may have a complex mechanism behind it. A simple explanation would be simplistic if it failed to capture all the essential and relevant parts.)
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BenV
There is no reason to assume a designer, other than the fact that you want to.
And like wise there is no reason to assume that "the universe is not the act of a great intellect". Even Einstein(I repeat) said that although in reality he was an atheist
There is no reason to disbelieve the possibilty of an ID other than the fact that you want to
Alan
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There's also no reason to think that the universe wasn't created by a wave of his noodly appendage (pasta be upon you), last wednesday at 3:31pm GMT, unless you want to.
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BenV
There is no reason to assume a designer, other than the fact that you want to.
And like wise there is no reason to assume that "the universe is not the act of a great intellect". Even Einstein(I repeat) said that although in reality he was an atheist
There is no reason to disbelieve the possibilty of an ID other than the fact that you want to
Alan
I think you've missed the point - by introducing an element of design you have added further complication - therefore it is not worth doing. Also, it is unfalsifiable and based on unfalsifiable assumptions, so it is again not worth doing.
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one prefectly good reason to disbelieve it.
If you're happy to accept it, then you must be happy to accept wolfekeeper's noodly appendages or any other explanation that anyone cares to put forward - you have to accept all of science fiction, all of fantasy, all deranged delusions (pink fairies and unicorns), as equally valid. Are you happy to do so? If not, why should your story have any more validity than those?
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Not only do I think this thread should not be locked down.Quite the contrary I think it should be made a sticky at the top of the section so we don't get this subject raised in its many incantations every other day.I would think the creation of the universe by design or any other means is quite a valid subject for new theories.After all I think it will be going on long after this site and all the people here have past on.
Compared to the rubbish and drivel that goes on in the JUST CHAT forum this is at least intelligent.
Cheers
justaskin
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Benv
If you're happy to accept it, then you must be happy to accept wolfekeeper's noodly appendages or any other explanation that anyone cares to put forward - you have to accept all of science fiction, all of fantasy, all deranged delusions (pink fairies and unicorns), as equally valid. Are you happy to do so? If not, why should your story have any more validity than those?
Noodly appendages do not need an intelligence to happen , they are just the result of random knotting, how on earth you can try to equate this really silly statement with the possibility that there is reason ,cause, and action behind the creation and sustainability of the universe that is just not logical
I think you've missed the point - by introducing an element of design you have added further complication - therefore it is not worth doing. Also, it is unfalsifiable and based on unfalsifiable assumptions, so it is again not worth doing.
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one perfectly good reason to disbelieve it.
Ben it is illogical to you and the very essence of logic to much greater minds than yours and you must accept that as an uncomfortable truth, you you that is , not me and billions of others who believe the unimaginable wonder, beauty, harmony and order can only be explained by acception a mind of infinite intellect is behind existence.
"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"
You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop
Somewhere out there are minds infinitely greater than our puny human intellects and I think it is bombastic and arrogant to propose that humanity are the very pinnacle of creation
Alan
The Alpha and the Omega
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The only thing that will solve this debate (and prove who is right) is good hard science, and many years.
I pose a question to those who believe in "Intelligent Designer".
WHY would this designer not make himself known to us? Can he not see how we fight each other all the time over religous nonsense?
Since we are his creations and he cares about us then why does he not step forward and put the record straight? After all we are his design and he should at least feel some responsibility for the pickle that we are in, he created it!
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Well put Latebind.
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Benv
If you're happy to accept it, then you must be happy to accept wolfekeeper's noodly appendages or any other explanation that anyone cares to put forward - you have to accept all of science fiction, all of fantasy, all deranged delusions (pink fairies and unicorns), as equally valid. Are you happy to do so? If not, why should your story have any more validity than those?
Noodly appendages do not need an intelligence to happen , they are just the result of random knotting, how on earth you can try to equate this really silly statement with the possibility that there is reason ,cause, and action behind the creation and sustainability of the universe that is just not logical
I assume in that case you're not familiar with the Flying Spagetti Monster? It's a spoof argument that if creationsism is to be taught in schools, so should the idea that the world was created and is ruled by a flying spagetti monster, and we are "touched by his noodly appendage". It is a spoof, but it makes a very good point.
I think you've missed the point - by introducing an element of design you have added further complication - therefore it is not worth doing. Also, it is unfalsifiable and based on unfalsifiable assumptions, so it is again not worth doing.
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one perfectly good reason to disbelieve it.
Ben it is illogical to you and the very essence of logic to much greater minds than yours and you must accept that as an uncomfortable truth, you you that is , not me and billions of others who believe the unimaginable wonder, beauty, harmony and order can only be explained by acception a mind of infinite intellect is behind existence.
"an uncomfortable truth"? It's not true though, it's a speculation. You believe that to be true, but there is no objective evidence for it - we can't just pick our own truths.
"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"
There is no evidence for one, it raises more questions than it answers, it requires one to make certain illogical assumptions that cannot be proved/disproved. There's three very good reasons for you there.
You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop
Actually, I have answered this question. I've said I don't know. This doesn't leave a gap to be filled with a designer, it's simply something we don't know. I'm confortable with not knowing - I don't have to fill the unknown with postulates of designers.
Somewhere out there are minds infinitely greater than our puny human intellects and I think it is bombastic and arrogant to propose that humanity are the very pinnacle of creation
We have no idea if those minds are out there, but they may be. As we have no idea if they exist, and no way to communicate with them, how do they have any bearing on anything?
I agree, it's bombastic and arrogant to suggest that humans are the pinnacle of creation. In fact, I think it's quite arrogant to suggest that humans are created at all, when the evidence suggests otherwise. However, it's perfectly legitimate to say that humans are presently the pinnacle of one path of evolution, just as sparrows and eucalyptus trees are pinnacles of other paths.
Alan
The Alpha and the Omega
Ben
The A, the C, the G and the T.
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G and T?
I don't mind if I do.
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To help some take out the human factor of "intelligent Design" thinking that there must be a designer present. God or whatever.
Why don't we just change the word to "Intelligent Adaptation" I think more people will be ale to accept that idea.
After all everything adapts to their environment.
"Human mesenchymal stem cells maturing into cartilage"
"mesenchymal stem cells were extracted from the bone marrow of sheep. “These are cells which can differentiate into bone, cartilage, tendons or ligaments", Nick explains.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue18/stemcells.html
In regard to the person who said it is DNA responsible for stem cell intelligence, I actually thought it was my DNA that is responsible for my intelligence too.
So could "INTELLEGENT (design) ADAPTATION" be thought of as the other theory for those who cant get their head around non human/god/machine/whatever intervention [???]
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No. Why make stuff up just so people can swallow it easier?
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Latebind
WHY would this designer not make himself known to us? Can he not see how we fight each other all the time over religous nonsense?
Since we are his creations and he cares about us then why does he not step forward and put the record straight? After all we are his design and he should at least feel some responsibility for the pickle that we are in, he created it!
The designer has made itself very clear to us, we are just part of the one enormous consciousness and we give it many titles god/ID etc take your pick
Scientifically we know that there is an interconnectedness an intertwining of every particle to every other particle in the universe. Taking only the force and action and reaction of gravity, should make this obvious.
We humans seem to think that the universe is unimaginably huge and vast, but that is just our perspective on reality.
To an ID/GOD etc our whole universe might just be an atom in a greater universe
For us to stand up and shout there is no such thing as an ID to me is like chockroaches debating quantum physics
We humans are religious fools not the infinite designer
BenV
My statement
You have also not answered how the universe just popped into existence, apparently without a cause.This makes me wonder if there in an "Uncaused Cause" behind the universe/existence, where the buck must have started and where the buck must stop
[/color]
Your response
Actually, I have answered this question. I've said I don't know. This doesn't leave a gap to be filled with a designer, it's simply something we don't know. I'm confortable with not knowing - I don't have to fill the unknown with postulates of designers.
[/color]
You still bring up the silliness of the flying spaghetti monster and its noodily appendages. it makes no point other than an irrelevant one
When I look out at the unimaginable beauty, wonder and glory of the universe, like some astronauts I am moved to believe there must be a great hand in the formation of all existence
When I see my beautiful little grandaughter dancing and skipping in the sun and look into her eyes that reflect here beautiful soul , then "I KNOW THERE IS AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER"
Evolution simply can not create altruistic love
"There are no atheists in the trenches"
The heavens or creation declares the glory of God
Ben do you really really believe all those who you love are just accidents of slow acts of evolution, do you really believe that they are just bundle's of random elements a bag of watery biological protoplasm???
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You're making the argument from ignorance. "We don't know, therefore goddidit".
Don't be ridiculous. It has been established for quite some time that altruism evolves naturally, and that love is a result of brain biochemistry.
We know how things of beauty have evolved. We know that bodies really are just complex orginised chemistry. If anything, it's even more wondrous that they have evolved undirected, rather than designed. It adds absolutely nothing to say "goddidit".
If you want a scientific answer to your questions, intelligent design creationism will never be it.
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Well I hope the universe is the result of intelligent design because if it is not then what?.
The universe is the result of.
Dumb design?.
Could have done better design?.
If that is the case could us humans ask for a refund for having to live in a less than well designed universe.
And if we use the current popular method of consensus science there is no doubt.The majority of scientists believe in god therefore god exists.
Me being a skeptic and denier though will just have to go on believing there is no such being.
I have no problem believing the universe is the result of some intelligent process because the alternative is the universe just popped into being one sunday afternoon from nothing.
Cheers
justaskin
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Scientific consensus does not work like that. Scientific consensus is reached when the scientific evidence and ideas are strong enough to (tentatively) convince the majority of scientists in that field. Thus, scientific consensus is not just an appeal to authority, it is an appeal to the evidence. Religious ideas have next to zero scientific support, and therefore any scientist who believes them is not doing so on scientific grounds. And all you're left with is an appeal to authority - another logical fallacy.
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Stefan
You're making the argument from ignorance. "We don't know, therefore goddidit".
Don't be ridiculous. It has been established for quite some time that altruism evolves naturally, and that love is a result of brain biochemistry.
Stefan Stefan Stefan it has not been established that altruism is the result of wacky brain chemistry or that hate is also the result for the same reason. Love is not just an image of blood flow seen in an MRI scanner??
I am not making argument from the unsteady platform of ignorance, all I am trying to suggest, is that there is much much better evidence in nature for a designer that there is against the existence of one. If you dislike this approach so much, come on and give me evidence that there is no ID.
I have brought into this thread many facts "suggesting that "there might be" an ID" and all I have received from most of you is irrational outbursts that someone is trying to take away their precious belief in an uncaused universe
Medical science in reality knows very little about how the brains hormones, neuro- transmitters act or react in the brain, they are still trying to fathom out how this unimaginably complex organ really works
Love and hate can be intrinsic or endogenous having nothing to do with neuro- transmitters. "Love causes the love neuron transmitters to flood the brain", not the other way around as you suggest, that it is "neuro- transmitters a out little out of sync that result in feelings of selfless love".
Do you really think your love for your spouse, kids, parents etc are just the result of some chemical effect on your brain, come on your loved ones are real not a delusion or illusion brought on by brain chemicals!!!
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Alan
ID is dismissible purely from basic logic. It is also dismissible because it is absolutely unscientific. You're the one making irrational posts, not me.
Please read in depth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(scientific_views)
I am sorry, but you do not have a rational basis on which to reject this information and replace it with your own notions.
While you're out reading, please learn more about evolution. The fact that you think ID is even worth considering as an explanation means that you do not have a good understanding of the topic.
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Nobody can prove if the universe is a result of intelligent design or not or if there is a designer or not.Until there is it is just speculation one way or the other.
Cheers
justaskin
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AMcD
Do you really think your love for your spouse, kids, parents etc are just the result of some chemical effect on your brain, come on your loved ones are real not a delusion or illusion brought on by brain chemicals!!!
Why not? As systems, we are not likely to be able to 'understand' ourselves fully. There's a simple Venn diagram argument which implies that self-knowledge would have to be unlimited in order to contain all of itself. Our bodies are continually being run by sub-systems of which we're not aware but our consciousness uses an 'arrogance' strategy which makes us think we're in charge. The boss doesn't know who's fixing the central heating - he just organises the finances so someone can be paid to do that sort of thing. The boss feels he's in charge but the C/H man can freeze the boss if he chooses to.
What you are saying is that, because we couldn't understand ourselves fully, someone else must be responsible for constructing us. You are invoking a 'God of the gap' because you feel a need to explain something you can't. This is understandable but doesn't prove anything except that you are using a strategy to deal with a difficult subject.
This God of the gap is not necessary if you can accept the more simple explanation that you don't need to have everything explained.
Anyone who has received medication for emotional illness can tell you that these higher emotions which you assume are proofs of a God, are indistinguishable (so why not the same) as what can be produced chemically. This offends and scares people if they can't just accept it.
And if you insist there must be a God - where did it come from? More Turtles, I'm afraid. If you want to talk Science, then you have to go for the reductionist explanation.
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Stefan
What you are saying is that, because we couldn't understand ourselves fully, someone else must be responsible for constructing us. You are invoking a 'God of the gap' because you feel a need to explain something you can't. This is understandable but doesn't prove anything except that you are using a strategy to deal with a difficult subject.
This God of the gap is not necessary if you can accept the more simple explanation that you don't need to have everything explained
My ID does not need any gap to reveal itself, it is everything it equates to all existence. ID= EXISTENCE. Where have I use the term God? in this thread , god is an entity that requires worship, faith etc and this in nothing like my concept of an intelligent designer.
If I forced to express my take on God then I agree with Einstein , I like the idea of the god of Spinoza the Dutch philosopher
ID is dismissible purely from basic logic. It is also dismissible because it is absolutely unscientific. You're the one making irrational posts, not me
That if from your perspective Stefan not mine and I accept that, but to me my statements are rational but I must agree not always true science But you must acknowledge that many many great scientists have not dismissed the possibility of an ID, and I like to identify myself with them
I am not religious at all , in fact I despise narrow minded silly fundamentalism
Science can take us back to the big bang, it can not tell us what happened, how it happened and who or what made it happen. The big bang itself is absolutely not science but mysticism. Back then events happened that defy the present cosmological laws or constants, and only someone or a something who set these laws in place, could have had the intelligence to monkey with them, as were done in the primordial universe.
Take your body it is just a bunch of elements and chemicals arranged in some lucky way by evolution, and yes I can accept that view pint as truth.
But now we come to the ultimate mystery. If you take the exact state of a persons body, just before death, weight, water, mass, chemical composition etc etc, and then do the exact same just after the death of this person , everything would measure exactly the same. The body pre-death and post-death is exactly the same
Except of something of very very vital importance, this previously "animated entity" is now "inanimate", it is what we call dead. What is no longer there, that thing we call "life"
Life is the gift of the intelligent Designer
I AM LIFE
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I really think this discussion is over. Alan McD would like to believe in an intelligent designer. Others have said that there is no point postulating one.
As to life being the 'gift' of a designer, I disagree. My life was a gift from my parents.
I understand that you do not think of yourself as religious, but this:
Life is the gift of the intelligent Designer
marks you out as being someone who thinks in a religious way. You may not pray or give thanks to your designer, but your designer is a deity.
Based on the evidence, the mind is a result of the physical brain, and life is a result of biological processes. No designer implied by the facts, no designer needed to understand, no designer required to live.
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The body pre-death and post-death is exactly the same
No, there is always a reason a body is dead, and if it's dead it definitely must not be exactly the same as it was when it was alive.
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BenV
Maybe you think this thread is over, but the question relating to this thread will never be over!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html
Although I have already stated I am areligious I think this article on ID (and I am not a Catholic and there is nothing wrong in being one)
The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 9:35PM GMT 11 Feb 2009
Gianfranco Ravasi: Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church Photo: EPA
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin's theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had "never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish" and forms of life had been transformed "slowly over time". Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.
Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a "higher power" must be responsible for the complexities of life.
The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than a scientific or theological issue.
Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.
Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the "time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation" of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth approaches.
Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin's opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".
Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin's legacy.
They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin's theory.
The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his "forgotten" work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.
Alan
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When I look out at the unimaginable beauty, wonder and glory of the universe, like some astronauts I am moved to believe there must be a great hand in the formation of all existence
Yeah so what? How does that make what you are moved to believe true?
Evolution simply can not create altruistic love
As sophiecentaur has already asked, why not?
The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.
But you must acknowledge that many many great scientists have not dismissed the possibility of an ID, and I like to identify myself with them
More arguments from authority? Those aren't going to convince us rational types of anything.
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It is over, Alan, because we are not discussing the original question. There are plenty of other threads to discuss biological evolution in, this is not the place.
BenV
Maybe you think this thread is over, but the question relating to this thread will never be over!
Followed by a story that does not address the question relating to this thread at all...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4588289/The-Vatican-claims-Darwins-theory-of-evolution-is-compatible-with-Christianity.html
Although I have already stated I am areligious I think this article on ID (and I am not a Catholic and there is nothing wrong in being one)
The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should not have been dismissed and claimed it is compatible with the Christian view of Creation.
By Chris Irvine
Last Updated: 9:35PM GMT 11 Feb 2009
Gianfranco Ravasi: Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church Photo: EPA
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said while the Church had been hostile to Darwin's theory in the past, the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
Father Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Santa Croce University in Rome, added that 4th century theologian St Augustine had "never heard the term evolution, but knew that big fish eat smaller fish" and forms of life had been transformed "slowly over time". Aquinas made similar observations in the Middle Ages.
Ahead of a papal-backed conference next month marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Vatican is also set to play down the idea of Intelligent Design, which argues a "higher power" must be responsible for the complexities of life.
The conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University will discuss Intelligent Design to an extent, but only as a "cultural phenomenon" rather than a scientific or theological issue.
Monsignor Ravasi said Darwin's theories had never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, pointing to comments more than 50 years ago, when Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans.
Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the Gregorian University, said the "time has come for a rigorous and objective valuation" of Darwin by the Church as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth approaches.
Professor Leclerc argues that too many of Darwin's opponents, primarily Creationists, mistakenly claim his theories are "totally incompatible with a religious vision of reality".
Earlier this week, prominent scientists and leading religious figures wrote to The Daily Telegraph to call for an end to the fighting over Darwin's legacy.
They argued that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it to attack religion while they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to support Darwin's theory.
The Church of England is seeking to bring Darwin back into the fold with a page on its website paying tribute to his "forgotten" work in his local parish, showing science and religion need not be at odds.
Alan
So this news story has nothing to do with whether or not the universe was designed (the original question and point of this thread), and adds nothing. So catholics can accept evolution - good, so they should. Religion and science are only at odds when someone with a theistic belief insists that their belief is objective fact.
Let me give you an example - in this thread, a person with a theistic belief (that an intelligent designer created the universe and guides evolution) is claiming that belief to be an unargueable fact. Of course, it is not a fact - it is that person's interpretation of what they percieve. Strangely, despite people pointing this out, the person continues to claim that his or her theistic belief must be true, and that everyone else must be wrong.
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So getting back to the original question what do you believe. Is the universe a result of some form of design or are the laws that govern the universe as we observe it just a hotch potch that popped into existence some time in the past.What scientific proof is there one way or another.I am quite prepared to believe there was time before the big bang and before that and before that.I have more trouble believing the universe just popped into existence from nothing sometime in the past and before that nothing.
May I suggest that if we don't want to discuss the religious side of this discussion then just stop replying to anything with religious connotations.
Cheers
justaskin
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It is difficult to imagine the universe popping into existence.
However, if you postulate that a god or "intelligent designer" created the universe, there's 2 things popping to existence, the God, and the universe.
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It is difficult to imagine the universe popping into existence.
Well is that not what the big bang theory postulates.
However, if you postulate that a god or "intelligent designer" created the universe, there's 2 things popping to existence, the God, and the universe.
No only one as presumably the designer already existed.If he popped into existence at the same time as the universe how could he have designed it.
The thing is was this universe designed to have the laws it has or are all universes past present and future bound by the same laws of physics.
Cheers
justaskin
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justaskin
I find you the only really rational person in this thread and the others just stubborn sticking closely to their halowed faith of disbelief. Yes it takes real faith to believe your existence has no lasting meaning and in the end of it all nothing really matters
The others who say they are rational in my opinion are just stubbornly sticking like glue to what they do not want to believe, as of yet they have not come up with even one reason, fact scientific or other why an ID could not have created the universe
Although I admittedly gave reasons why an Intelligent Designere might have created the universe, I know these reasons are circumstantial
Science must meet philosophical or religious questions as they explore deeper and deeper into the strange unknown dimensions of physics and science.
And unlike the great intellects on this thread who just continue to disagree without backing their argument's with positive facts and rebuttals of why it is/was impossible for something infinitely Greater than them to have created a universe suitable to sustain life
To my understanding everything has a reason and if we do not know the reason for it, then we should do our damnedest and go and find it
Alan
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Justaskin - thanks for bringing this back on topic.
Alan - are you ignoring what others post, forgetting them quickly, or just not reading them?
The idea of an ID is just as valid as the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Great Arkleseizure - are you happy to admit that they might exist too? If not, then why are you cherry-picking your explanation? As soon as you acknowledge an intelligent designer, you must also acknowledge all of the other unfalsifiable explanations for the existence of the universe, as they are all of equal validity.
We have tried to point out that postulating a designer merely adds to the problem, and does not solve anything. As I, and others have said, we do not know what caused the universe to come into existence, but adding a designer to that means that we do not know what caused the universe to come insto existance and we do not know what caused the designer to come into existence, and we are forced to ask why it has not gotten involved since and many more questions.
Do you realise the hypocrisy in claiming that others are "just stubbornly sticking like glue to what they do not want to believe". There is no reason for anyone to believe in a creator, yet you stubbornly stick like glue to what you want to believe, and for some reason expect us to do so as well!
Yes it takes real faith to believe your existence has no lasting meaning and in the end of it all nothing really matters
Ah, this old chestnut. The false argument that both sides of this discussion are a form of religion, and so equally valid. Not believing in something for which there is no evidence is not a faith, we simply do not know. As stated above, postulating a designer for the universe merely adds to the things we do not know.
And unlike the great intellects on this thread who just continue to disagree without backing their argument's with positive facts and rebuttals of why it is/was impossible for something infinitely Greater than them to have created a universe suitable to sustain life
We have given you rebuttals, explained things with logic and objectivity, and you seem to have ignored them. In fact, I don't think anyone has said it's impossible - just that as it cannot be proven, has no evidence in it's favour and will add complication to the problem by creating more questions than it answers, it makes no logical sense to postulate it. We may just as well discuss the physical possibility of the matrix, or of us being the imagination of an author.
To my understanding everything has a reason and if we do not know the reason for it, then we should do our damnedest and go and find it
But why should everything have a reason? The sheer fact that you are starting from that viewpoint means that we are limited in what we can understand and comprehend. Far better to open our minds and start out with the assumption that there is no reason, then as we learn a reason may develop.
I agree that we should try to learn whatever we can about our universe, but this is only hampered by assuming unprovable things, and starting off on the wrong foot.
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Can anyone imagine nothing at all existing?
I can't.
If no one was living on earth would it still exist?
Try to think of nothing existing,,,can you?
Quantum science talks of paralell universe. I can imagine that.
From nothing something evolved/ or was created....
it relies on our existing understanding, our set of beliefs.
My belief is that there is something more than creation or evolution.
We just haven't found it yet.
But, I'm sure all this, our wonderful universe just didn't happen for no reason without some sort of intelligent reason that we may never find.
everything that can happen will happen.
"adaptive mutations"nature
How did it get here? That is the biggest question in biology. A group of bacteria called mycoplasmas are, as far as we know, the simplest self-replicating organisms. Yet they are extraordinarily complex. One of them has recently had its entire genome sequenced: four hundred and seventy genes strung out along 580,070 DNA bases. Surely such a structure could not have arisen by the chance coming together of chemicals sloshing through the primordial soup? The astronomer Fred Hoyle has described the likelihood of random forces generating life as equivalent to the chances that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747. The world is just not big enough to evolve life if it relied entirely on chance. Finding plausible conditions that generate the biochemicals necessary for life is hard enough. Stringing those biochemicals together to make life is vastly more difficult. Yet nature seems to have accomplished this feat very early in our planet�s history.
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/Outline.htm
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Intelligent design is a framework of logical thinking based on the observable axiom that can be used to analyze scientific data. This site promotes intelligent design because it is in many ways superior to the theory of evolution.
http://www.theory-of-evolution.net/
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Far better to open our minds and start out with the assumption that there is no reason, then as we learn a reason may develop.
I am all for an open mind and yes if it turns out to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything else then so be it.I close my mind to nothing.Is there a designer yes that is a possibility.Did the universe just pop into existence at the big bang yes, and currently that is the popular theory.Has the universe been here for ever,possibly but it has lost favor of late.Are we just one of many universes,there are scientists that think so.Is all we see just one big hologram,probably not.
I find it strange when I read here and other places of eminent scientists who will not continence the possibility of anything before the big bang.They in effect have a closed mind with regard to that area.
And yes BenV the more questions we ask the more questions there will be.I am sure all the great scientists of our past never said don't ask that question it will only lead to more questions than it answers.
I would be lead to believe that everything has a reason it would seem pointless to have something with no reason for it.Have we ever found anything in science yet that has no reason?.
Cheers
justaskin
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Just a short question.
What would the difference be between an intelligent designer and the Anthropic principle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Cheers
justaskin
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And yes BenV the more questions we ask the more questions there will be.I am sure all the great scientists of our past never said don't ask that question it will only lead to more questions than it answers.
Fair enough - the point I was trying to make is that the idea of an intelligent designer creates entirely untestable questions - it takes the research away from the scientific viewpoint and into the purely philosophical. That's fine if you're looking for a philosophy of the universe, but not if you're looking for scientific ideas.
I would be lead to believe that everything has a reason it would seem pointless to have something with no reason for it.Have we ever found anything in science yet that has no reason?.
Why should anything have a reason behind it? 'Reasons' tend to be things that we put on after the fact. There's no reason why hydrogen atoms combine in a star, or water molecules evaporate and then condense again to fall as rain - there are causes, but no reason. Everything breaks down to chemistry and physics, where there may be causes, but there is no 'reason'.
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BenV
We have given you rebuttals, explained things with logic and objectivity, and you seem to have ignored them. In fact, I don't think anyone has said it's impossible - just that as it cannot be proven, has no evidence in it's favour and will add complication to the problem by creating more questions than it answers, it makes no logical sense to postulate it. We may just as well discuss the physical possibility of the matrix, or of us being the imagination of an author.
I will go back and reread all your posts to see if you have given even one logical reason why the idea of an ID is stupid. Even Einstein did not go this far and admitted there are things about the universe we will never understand
Alan
Ben I have gone back and reread all your posts on this topic, and I am sad to say you have not yet given even one reason to disbelieve in the possibility of an ID
Alan asked you!
"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"
BenV Replied
There is no evidence for one, it raises more questions than it answers, it requires one to make certain illogical assumptions that cannot be proved/disproved. There's three very good reasons for you there.
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one prefectly good reason to disbelieve it.
If the universe was incredibly simple, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
If the universe is incredibly complex, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
I'll be locking this thread soon as it has gone very much off topic, and will soon descend into arguements, as these always do.
This reads like one of Nostradamus prophecies totally ambiguous
In computer jargon we call that a loop error and the only way to resolve it is by rebooting
Why do you continue to say you want to kill this thread??
Ben you keep saying you want to lock this thread while it is still very much alive and generating great interest. I will resist this as I have been a member of this forum as long as you have (and maybe, maybe I just might be as smart as you)
If an alternative mechanism, one that totally excluded any possibility of even considering an intelligent designer, but different to present day science, was proposed and backed up with a great deal of evidence, would you accept it?
Ben of course I would accept that but alas alas alas I am still waiting for you to post even one logical reason why the idea of an Intelligent Designer could not be at least considered
Alan
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BenV
We have given you rebuttals, explained things with logic and objectivity, and you seem to have ignored them. In fact, I don't think anyone has said it's impossible - just that as it cannot be proven, has no evidence in it's favour and will add complication to the problem by creating more questions than it answers, it makes no logical sense to postulate it. We may just as well discuss the physical possibility of the matrix, or of us being the imagination of an author.
I will go back and reread all your posts to see if you have given even one logical reason why the idea of an ID is stupid. Even Einstein did not go this far and admitted there are things about the universe we will never understand
Alan
Ben I have gone back and reread all your posts on this topic, and I am sad to say you have not yet given even one reason to disbelieve in the possibility of an ID
Alan asked you!
"Give me your one perfectly good reason to disbelieve in an ID?"
BenV Replied
There is no evidence for one, it raises more questions than it answers, it requires one to make certain illogical assumptions that cannot be proved/disproved. There's three very good reasons for you there.
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one prefectly good reason to disbelieve it.
If the universe was incredibly simple, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
If the universe is incredibly complex, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
I'll be locking this thread soon as it has gone very much off topic, and will soon descend into arguements, as these always do.
Alan - you may not believe it, but there are several good reasons not to believe in an intelligent designer in that quote above. You're having trouble accepting it because you want to believe in a designer.
What it comes to is you asking me to disprove something disprovable. Obviously, it can't be done - but that doesn't mean one should believe in everything that can't be disproved.
This reads like one of Nostradamus prophecies totally ambiguous
What nonsense - I was pointing out that all you are doing by proposing a creator is adding further unsolvable complications. Nothing ambiguous about it.
Why do you continue to say you want to kill this thread??
Ben you keep saying you want to lock this thread while it is still very much alive and generating great interest.
Alan, seriously, have you read the posts? I have given the reason at least twice in this thread. This is not the place to discuss biological evolution vs design - it's off topic and discussed elsewhere. When this thread looks like that's what it will become, I suggest locking it.
Notice how I haven't locked it? That's because it was pulled back on topic. There's no development though, is there? Some want to believe in a designer so they do, others see no evidence or logical reason to do so, so they do not - there's your error loop.
In computer jargon we call that a loop error and the only way to resolve it is by rebooting
Or locking the pointless discussion?
If an alternative mechanism, one that totally excluded any possibility of even considering an intelligent designer, but different to present day science, was proposed and backed up with a great deal of evidence, would you accept it?
Ben of course I would accept that but alas alas alas I am still waiting for you to post even one logical reason why the idea of an Intelligent Designer could not be at least considered
Alan
Okay, we can consider it, but it must be considered along with equally valid ideas, such as the universe being sneezed out by the great arkleseizure, being a computer simulation, being complete imagination, a dream, a cartoon, fairy magic, black magic, white magic, the power source for a multi-dimensional calculator, the heart of a dragon, a connection of dreams about ghosts, a spillage of higher dimensional tea, the delusion of a penguin...
Do you see how these are all equally as valid as your intelligent designer, once you remove the idea that something has to be provable to be considered?
I will go back and reread all your posts to see if you have given even one logical reason why the idea of an ID is stupid.
Now, looking back through my comments, you won't find anywhere where I said it was stupid.
You found me pointing out that it is illogical, is equally valid as spaghetti monsters and Douglas Adams' science-fiction-comedy, and that it asks more questions than it answers.
Even Einstein did not go this far and admitted there are things about the universe we will never understand
You also seem, yet again, to have ignored what I ave actually written, as I also pointed out that nobody said it's impossible, and I have said that we do not know certain things and may never do so - this puts me in the same camp as Einstein.
I will resist this as I have been a member of this forum as long as you have (and maybe, maybe I just might be as smart as you)
This is totally irrelevant, but I just wanted to point out that you have not been here as long as I have, and I never laid claim to be smarter than anyone.
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The astronomer Fred Hoyle has described the likelihood of random force[s generating life as equivalent to the chances that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747.
This is a straw man argument, a favourite of creationists. And there's also another argument from authority in there, too.
Thing is, that's not how evolution works.
If the parts of the junkyard could reproduce and mutate like actual living things, and the selection pressures gave advantage to something like a 747, then it goes from astronomically unlikely to inevitable.
Another exactly simlar popular straw man argument is this:
"If you took a watch and smashed it to bits with a hammer, then shook it, no matter how much you shake it it's not going to re-assemble itself is it."
If these arguments seem logical to you, then you plain don't understand evolution. Please watch this video: it explains in detail how a broken watch, if it was able to reproduce and mutate, WILL become a functioning watch again given the selection pressures are right.
And Alan, do you even read our posts?
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Alan, please stop using Einstein to support your argument. Not only is it illogical to do so, but Einstein did not actually believe in anything like an Intelligent Designer or deity. He was an atheist in the scientific sense. He simply felt great wonder at the incredible physical nature of our universe, and sometimes described that in pseudo-religious terms. Spinozas's god is actually nothing like a real godlike entity.
Face it. Your entire argument is flawed, based on ignorance and bad logic. Please stop wasting your time and ours unless you can produce a more sophisticated argument.
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There's no reason why hydrogen atoms combine in a star, or water molecules evaporate and then condense again to fall as rain - there are causes, but no reason. Everything breaks down to chemistry and physics, where there may be causes, but there is no 'reason'.
I don't know about hydrogen atoms but as far as water goes I would imagine the reason it does what it does is to get water from were it gathers,oceans,rivers.lakes and the like.to the land were it is used to support life.Are reason and observation not one and the same thing.Is science not mainly based on observation that leads to the question why(reason).
Cheers
justaskin
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Stefan , Stefan Stefan
Face it. Your entire argument is flawed, based on ignorance and bad logic. Please stop wasting your time and ours unless you can produce a more sophisticated argument
.
You continue to think the only good logic is your logic and then tell me what I have already stated in this thread that Einstein was an atheist
Produce dear Stefan just one logical reason from your awesomely logical mind , exactly why there could not be an ID
BenV
It's illogical to postulate an intelligent designer, and this is one prefectly good reason to disbelieve it.
If the universe was incredibly simple, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
If the universe is incredibly complex, it would be made more complex by the idea of a designer.
I'll be locking this thread soon as it has gone very much off topic, and will soon descend into arguements, as these always do.
Alan - you may not believe it, but there are several good reasons not to believe in an intelligent designer in that quote above. You're having trouble accepting it because you want to believe in a designer
And you Ben are also having trouble accepting that there just might be an ID
What I find perplexing about your statements about the universe being made this way or that why if there were an ID is the you a tiny minute entity on a tiny infinitesimal planet, on a small galaxy somewhere in a lonely corner of the univere can have the gumption to state what an entity of infinite intellect and power will do or not do.
If it exists it will do exactly what it wants to do without your or mine or anyones help
Guys when I look at the physics of nature and the universe I see they can be explained by logic, the language of logic mathematics flow through chemistry, astronomy, particle physics and all the other segments of science.
Now a universe sustained by mathematical logic to me, little puny Alan suggests that a great mathematician might be behind all we observe around us and assume is reality
Alan
What is the theory of intelligent design?
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Quotes
Fred Hoyle
(British astrophysicist)
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
George Ellis
(British astrophysicist)
“Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word ‘miraculous’ without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word.”
Paul Davies
(British astrophysicist)
“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe. The impression of design is overwhelming.”
Alan Sandage
(winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy)
“I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.”
John O'Keefe
(NASA astronomer)
“We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures. If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
George Greenstein
(astronomer)
“As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”
Arthur Eddington
(astrophysicist)
“The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.”
Arno Penzias
(Nobel prize in physics)
“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan.”
Roger Penrose
(mathematician and author)
“I would say the universe has a purpose. It’s not there just somehow by chance.”
Tony Rothman
(physicist)
“When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.”
Vera Kistiakowsky
(MIT physicist)
“The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.”
Stephen Hawking
(British astrophysicist)
“What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? …
Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why?”
Alexander Polyakov
(Soviet mathematician)
“We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it.”
Ed Harrison
(cosmologist)
“Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God—the design argument of Paley—updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one. Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.”
Edward Milne
(British cosmologist)
“As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God].”
Barry Parker
(cosmologist)
“Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed.”
Drs. Zehavi, and Dekel
(cosmologists)
“This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with ‘common wisdom’.”
. Schawlow
(Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics)
“It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.”
Henry "Fritz" Schaefer
(computational quantum chemist)
“The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God’s plan.”
Wernher von Braun
(Pioneer rocket engineer)
“I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”
Case against an Intelligent Designer
• It is simply not true that science does not address all Aristotelian causes, whenever design needs to be explained;
• While irreducible complexity is indeed a valid criterion to distinguish between intelligent and non-intelligent design, these are not the only two possibilities, and living organisms are not irreducibly complex (e.g., see Shanks and Joplin 1999);
• The complexity-specification criterion is actually met by natural selection, and cannot therefore provide a way to distinguish intelligent from non-intelligent design;
• If supernatural design exists at all (but where is the evidence or compelling logic?), this is certainly not of the kind that most religionists would likely subscribe to, and it is indistinguishable from the technology of a very advanced civilization.
The Short Answer: Intelligent design is a scientific theory which seeks to determine if some objects in the natural world were designed through recognizing and detecting the types of information known to be produced by the intelligent agents when they act.
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Hey all you friendly folk out there
I will now give just one reasons why there might be no need for an ID
How do we know something is designed? Mt. Rushmore vs the Grand Canyon. A house on the beach vs the shoreline. Do we not contrast it with things that are not man-made? If we say nature itself is designed, then where is the non-designed stuff to compare? If we say nature is not designed locally, on a small scale then why must it be designed on a large scale?
Alan
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You really don't understand what we tell you, and you don't understand the science that you're arguing against. It's like talking to a brick wall.
Those are not just my standards of logic and evidence. They are shared by every scientifically minded person who has the rationality to resist magical-thinking. Research "logical fallacies" and you'll find that you have committed many of them in this thread.
I will repeat:
Put aside your biases and learn more about the science you criticize. When you really understand it, you'll have no need for ID. On the unlikely chance that your views remain unchanged, you'll have to provide much more sophisticated arguments with supporting evidence than you so far have.
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Stefan
And the reverse, to me trying to reason with you is like trying to dialogue with a lamp post [:)]
I gave a logical reason for NOT believing in an ID in my last post did you read that ?
Enlarge the image, it it just a little fun really [;D]
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There's no reason why hydrogen atoms combine in a star, or water molecules evaporate and then condense again to fall as rain - there are causes, but no reason. Everything breaks down to chemistry and physics, where there may be causes, but there is no 'reason'.
I don't know about hydrogen atoms but as far as water goes I would imagine the reason it does what it does is to get water from were it gathers,oceans,rivers.lakes and the like.to the land were it is used to support life.Are reason and observation not one and the same thing.Is science not mainly based on observation that leads to the question why(reason).
Cheers
justaskin
This could just be us nit-picking about language, but I don't think water does anything for a 'reason' as in an ultimate aim. The fact that water does this is good, as it supports life, but that's not why it does it, it's a consequence. There's no reason why some water molecules would become a lake, or a river, they are caused to do it phy physical and chemical causes, and the consequence is the lake.
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And you Ben are also having trouble accepting that there just might be an ID
What I find perplexing about your statements about the universe being made this way or that why if there were an ID is the you a tiny minute entity on a tiny infinitesimal planet, on a small galaxy somewhere in a lonely corner of the univere can have the gumption to state what an entity of infinite intellect and power will do or not do.
If it exists it will do exactly what it wants to do without your or mine or anyones help
Alan, you really need to start reading and understanding out posts - this is not what I said. I can't believe you are forcing me to type this again.
You also seem, yet again, to have ignored what I ave actually written, as I also pointed out that nobody said it's impossible, and I have said that we do not know certain things and may never do so
...
Okay, we can consider it, but it must be considered along with equally valid ideas, such as the universe being sneezed out by the great arkleseizure, being a computer simulation, being complete imagination, a dream, a cartoon, fairy magic, black magic, white magic, the power source for a multi-dimensional calculator, the heart of a dragon, a connection of dreams about ghosts, a spillage of higher dimensional tea, the delusion of a penguin...
Do you see how these are all equally as valid as your intelligent designer, once you remove the idea that something has to be provable to be considered?
So the one being arrogant here is you, to assume that your unprovable designer is somehow more likely than any other unprovable hypothesis.
Guys when I look at the physics of nature and the universe I see they can be explained by logic, the language of logic mathematics flow through chemistry, astronomy, particle physics and all the other segments of science.
Now a universe sustained by mathematical logic to me, little puny Alan suggests that a great mathematician might be behind all we observe around us and assume is reality
Alan
It's not a universe sustained by mathematical logic at all. Maths is a tool for us to use to understand the world, and indeed universe around us. AS such, it's an illogical leap to assume a 'great mathematician' - you may as well assume the matrix, or the energy source for a calculator idea.
What is the theory of intelligent design?
...
The Short Answer: Intelligent design is a scientific theory which seeks to determine if some objects in the natural world were designed through recognizing and detecting the types of information known to be produced by the intelligent agents when they act.
I don't know where you got that from, but intelligent design is NOT a scientific theory - it's an untestable hypothesis based on the poor and unprovable assumption of a deity.
Alan, if you are to accept this, you must accept literally any other explanation about the origins of the universe. The mumblings of a madman and the scribblings of a science-fiction author are as provable as your idea of an intelligent designer. If you abandon this notion and look instead for evidence and logic, the universe is just as beatuiful and amazing as before, only know you have opened your mind to the enormous possibilities that science offers.
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BenV
So the one being arrogant here is you, to assume that your unprovable designer is somehow more likely than any other unprovable hypothesis.
Ben I am not arrogant although it might appear as if I were from black print, in fact if you can tolerate me a little longer you will see in reality I am a friendly old guy. [;D]
Alan, you really need to start reading and understanding out posts - this is not what I said. I can't believe you are forcing me to type this again
.
Believe me I can understand anything you have posted but at my very advanced age I might get a little forgetfull [???]
If I just agreed and submitted to your logic then it would be the time to lock the topic. When we reach consensus then the the tread is truly dead
Alan
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This could just be us nit-picking about language, but I don't think water does anything for a 'reason' as in an ultimate aim. The fact that water does this is good, as it supports life, but that's not why it does it, it's a consequence. There's no reason why some water molecules would become a lake, or a river, they are caused to do it phy physical and chemical causes, and the consequence is the lake.
I guess this then gets back to chicken and egg horse and cart stuff.Which comes first.
If everything has no reason behind it would that not lead to a conclusion that the universe is one big coincidence.Do you believe that things such as gravity or black holes or life are just a coincidence with no reason in mind?.Or do you believe life is a consequence of the universe which is a consequence of the big bang.If so what is the big bang a consequence of.Nothing?.
Cheers
justaskin
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justaskin
I guess this then gets back to chicken and egg horse and cart stuff.Which comes first.
If everything has no reason behind it would that not lead to a conclusion that the universe is one big coincidence.Do you believe that things such as gravity or black holes or life are just a coincidence with no reason in mind?.Or do you believe life is a consequence of the universe which is a consequence of the big bang.If so what is the big bang a consequence of.Nothing?
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Nice Justasking
Here is another case against an ID
A puddle of water awakes and comes to the profound truth that it is no Chance action that has made this hollow in the ground to exist in. Thus an intelligence made the hollow especially for it [::)] [???]
Alan
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That's like saying the sun fuses hydrogen so that life can be warmed and plants can photosynthesize. Or that air exists so that we can breathe it. You're confusing the cart for the horse.
And whatever "caused" the origin of the universe, it does not help to say it was a deity.
Alan, are you then just arguing for the sake of it?
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stefan
Alan, are you then just arguing for the sake of it?
Absolutely not this subject is a huge debate in general society and I feel that when science reaches a blank wall like how did the big bang create our universe against the laws of physics that sustain it , science must be ready to enter the fray and take on others with scientific logic, instead of just stating a personal position.
How did it it expand against the force of an infinite gravity much greater than a black hole.? What colossal force of energy propelled the universe against the unimaginable primordial gravity of the singularity.?
My name sake Alan Guth stated that the universe expanded then stopped for just an infinitesimal moment to allow for the clumpliness and irregularity that resulted in the formation of galaxies stars etc? That is still evident in the CMB of the universe. His theory of expansion
Alan Guth's main beliefs about the universe are that it definitely has a beginning and that it is just one of many universes that came into existence. Inflation never ends, but keeps expanding at an exponential rate, meaning that it doubles in very short increments much less than one second. Universes keep being created all the time as bubbles within the inflation process. The entire cosmos was created by quantum fluctuations from nothingness. While the concept of a universe being created from nothing sounds improbable, it is perfectly consistent with the laws of conservation of energy because its total energy value is zero.
But why did the universe obediently expand stop and then continue to expand?
Why is the universe asymmetrical instead of what it should be just a symmetrical soup of gamma rays?
What was before the big bang? instead of the common scientific answer of nothing
Something must have existed before our universe came into being, because there is only existence and the opposite of existence the absence of everything is an impossibility, so maybe our universe was created out of a previous nothingness, but I must disagree with the great Mr Guth if he was suggesting that "all existence" was created from total abscence of everything back to infinite eternity.
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Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it?
-Douglas Adams
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Madidus_Scientia
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it?
-Douglas Adams
Science tries to explain why the garden appeared beautiful to our human perception, and it is this perception of what is beautiful and what is ugly that helps us survive on planet earth.
Using that statement as logic we should never have asked why the Northan lights are so beautiful.
Using science we now know what they really are, It is due to the suns radiation impacting the earths Magnetic Field. This is also a lucky accident for us or we would have been roasted by all forms of cosmic rays without this blanket of protection
Surely science must investigate the how?, why? where? and what? and demigod forbid, even the whom research all that is not yet proved by empirical scientific method
If one could take a cell phone back to the dark ages , this unfortunate person would have been burned at the stake. Why must we simply dismiss anything not embraced by scientific fact or theories as silly nonsense
Science will always come to a point , were science and philosophy must meet and dialogue in a fiendly manner
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Alan
how did the big bang create our universe against the laws of physics that sustain it
Why should it be a stumbling block that we have not yet found an explanaton for the BB which, necessarily, is not included in our present set of knowledge? Your use of the word "laws" is the ancient one, which is why you can also talk of them "sustaining" the Universe. If, as Scientists believe, the "laws" are not 'god given' then there is no 'going against' them. The situation is just that we haven't, and certainly never will, understood it all.
That doesn't bother me, in particular.
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Well, yes, of course the idea of an intelligent designer is completely self-consistent, an all-powerful being/force with a will of its own could of course do anything at all. Including inventing eg. the menstrual cycle of the human female... so actually not all that intelligent.
Apologies, I shall try not to be flippant.
OK, Alan McD, do you believe that the intelligent designer you propose has any properties other than as a designer? Do you think this thing/being/whatever has views about what his creation ought to be getting up to now it is, apparently, here? How much intelligent design do you think this intelligent designer might have intelligently designed - did it just set the laws of physics and wander off, or plan out carefully how evolution down to humans would map out? Do you think it had any interest at all in human beings (and if so what makes you think that, given that in terms of the lifetime even just of this planet we've been here pretty much for the blink of an eye and are shaping up nicely to wipe ourselves out in not very many hundreds of years)?
If the developement of humans was planned for then presumably the actions of the first humans, causing them to survive and not die out again must presumably have been designed in, so is it conceivable that we now have free will? And if we don't have free will why did the intelligent designer bother to design us?
I'm genuinely interested in your views here, Alan... and anyone else who wants to explain to me what on earth ID is, if it's not merely an attempt to dress up religion in the trappings of science?
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Surely science must investigate the how?, why? where? and what? and demigod forbid, even the whom research all that is not yet proved by empirical scientific method
If one could take a cell phone back to the dark ages, this unfortunate person would have been burned at the stake. Why must we simply dismiss anything not embraced by scientific fact or theories as silly nonsense
I agree, Science should be opened minded , question everything and not rely on theories that can not explain 100%. Even theories that we may think are fact should be thought about and viewed from a different perspective and in doing so we may learn more, come to the different conclusions. Even thoughts that we are unable to test at this present time should not be discarded.
Someone said "Nothing is impossible it only takes longer" remembering that once we all thought the world was flat, now we know better... and in 1995 it was recorded as truth that Mary died a virgin. (don't get me wrong I don't want to get on the religious band wagon) - keep religion out of science. But because a person in authority said that and recorded it as fact it is now believed by hundreds of thousands of people.
All I am saying is if we all go on believing things blindly we will never know the truth. We must question and find the answers to all our thoughts then question them again even when we think we have found the answer.
Our ideas should not be discarded just because we do not have the ability or knowledge to test validity at that time.
Without questions and new ideas nothing would have been discovered.
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But postulating an intelligent designer takes us no nearer the ultimate origin of things because the ID, if, indeed, one was necessary, would have to have been designed in the first place.
ID fans never seem to have an answer to that problem.
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Surely science must investigate the how?, why? where? and what? and demigod forbid, even the whom research all that is not yet proved by empirical scientific method
If one could take a cell phone back to the dark ages, this unfortunate person would have been burned at the stake. Why must we simply dismiss anything not embraced by scientific fact or theories as silly nonsense
I agree, Science should be opened minded , question everything and not rely on theories that can not explain 100% what they intend to. Even theories that we may think are fact should be thought about and viewed from a different perspective and in doing so we may learn more, come to the different conclusions. Even thoughts that we are unable to test at this present time should not be discarded.
Someone said "Nothing is impossible it only takes longer" remembering that once we all thought the world was flat, now we know better... and in 1995 it was recorded as truth that Mary died a virgin. (don't get me wrong I don't want to get on the religious band wagon - keep religion out of science. But because a person in authority said that and recorded it as fact it is believed by hundreds of thousands of people.
All I am saying is if we all go on believing things blindly we will never know the truth. We must question and find the answers to all our thoughts then question them again when we thing we have found the answer.
Our ideas should not be discarded just because we do not have the ability or knowledge to test validity at that time.
Without questions and new ideas nothing would have been discovered.
That's just a motherhood and apple pie argument.
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But postulating an intelligent designer takes us no nearer the ultimate origin of things because the ID, if, indeed, one was necessary, would have to have been designed in the first place.
ID fans never seem to have an answer to that problem.
Is it not possible for something to exist in eternity....?
If our world imploded today or even expolded couldn't the origin of life exist somewhere else....?
Who placed the word "designer" there I thought it was "design" Are you trying to humanise it?
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That's just a motherhood and apple pie argument.
What....?
"Motherhood and apple pie day" is celebrated each January 26 in Virginia and has been since at least 1950, though I'm not sure continuously. It is mostly used ironically to suggest things that no one could be publicly opposed to. Sometimes it was used with God and flag, but less frequently in the recent past.
http://www.usingenglish.com
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echo
I'm not trying to humanise it.
But I can't see how you can be so attached to the word "intelligence" without humanising it yourself. It so strongly implies purpose and design whereas I am saying that you need neither. We simply have a status quo and can propose a fairly logical set of occurrences which got us here. That does not have to infer purpose or design - it does, however, give a hope of extrapolating forward.
If you postulate a DD then, as things could change away from the pattern at any time, we may as well bend over and embrace Kismet as the way forward.
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echo
I'm not trying to humanise it.
But I can't see how you can be so attached to the word "intelligence" without humanising it yourself. It so strongly implies purpose and design whereas I am saying that you need neither. We simply have a status quo and can propose a fairly logical set of occurrences which got us here. That does not have to infer purpose or design - it does, however, give a hope of extrapolating forward.
If you postulate a DD then, as things could change away from the pattern at any time, we may as well bend over and embrace Kismet as the way forward.
purpose and designor fate
Evolution, you mentioned previously, provides the information to the DNA, (the information begins with evolution) but why? How? How does evolution know to give fish feet so they can walk on the earth, how does it know to give giraffes longer necks to reach higher, to make man erect to distinguish him from the chimp, could this be purposeful or fate?
Who / what, designed the complex information to do that? How did evolution come to have it/ How can it distinguish which information to send to the DNA and for what purpose? to pass it on to DNA? Surley there must be some '"intelligent' configuration to the information that evolution sends to that specific DNA which is obviously for a reason. Otherwise evolution could not distinguish, provide the information required to complet the task then everything on earth, universe whatever would all be the same or non existant.
Just the will to survive gives evidence to some type of intelligence.
and can propose a fairly logical set of occurrences
Logical do you need intelligents to be logical? How does this logic come about? if logical there must be a purpose or intention which requires some sort of intelligents. Maybe we have not understood this inteligents yet or found it but it seems logical to me there would need to be some sort of reasoning, intelligents, for this course of action.
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Evolution does not "know" anything. Evolution is not an entity. It is a process. Different organisms merely survive and reproduce more successfully than others in certain environments, so their offspring inherit those traits that were successful. When new variation is introduced by mutation and sexual recombination, those traits also affect the organism's survival & reproduction, and if they have a neutral or positive effect, they are conserved. Changes accumulate progressively over time. It's really not difficult to understand and accept.
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stephan
I have to agree with you and to conclude that people who reject evolution just haven't grasped what is involved. It is a shiboleth amongst ideas. It is so much not part of their conceptual vocabulary that it becomes a 'blank' in the mental process of parsing and deconstructing statements they hear. It's a marmite concept which they reject without tasting.
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Just the will to survive gives evidence to some type of intelligence.
Agreed - you could put it that way. But 'intelligence' is a behaviour pattern - it is a reaction to circumstances. As evolution progressed, this intelligence improved (or became more complex) - just the same as other characteristics.
If you throw two sixes with a die, does that imply that the die, somehow, has intelligence? If a distant solar system ends up with a rocky planet in the Goldilocks region, does that prove the presence of intelligence or intention on the part of the orbiting stuff?
If you call yourself a Scientist, you will, in other circumstances, choose the simpler of two explanations for a phenomenon - assuming they both describe and account for the process. Why, when you come to this topic, do you want to go for the (far) more complicated explanation?
You conveniently ignore all that this 'intelligence' must involve (putting it in the 'there be dragons' bucket) and dismiss the logic which says that things could have occurred by chance. The numbers say that the chance explanation is quite possible - but IDists deny that, of course. How can they kid themselves that they are having a scientific discussion?
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Hey Guys and Lady
The quest of science, in my very limited opinion, is to get as close to a Theory of Everything TEO. Even Stephen Hawking said "Then we will know the mind of god" Don't jump on me for that statement I am well aware that he is an atheist.
Many physicists think we will come up with a TOE. But do we stop there or do we continue to advance towards it scientifically?. If must be to find this "as yet unknown source of everything" the "Uncaused Cause" all existence. Like it or not this something, god/it/he/she/they/what/ID must be out there and I think we humans are smart enough to find it, without descending into an infinity of religious, philosophical arguments.
I restate I am not religious and for anyone to attribute human like qualities to this source, whatever it is, is nonsense
As for me I really do not think our universe is the totality of all existence
Alan
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Alan
Your "something out there" is no less of a God for you than anyone else's God. You still imply that there is a purpose. That implies a consciousness and one can't avoid asking about the origin of that purpose. That doesn't actually get you anywhere beyond what 'Science minus a creator' can take you.
It would, as you say, be foolish to imagine we could ever have all the answers. No Scientist worth his / her salt would claim that. But do we want them?
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If you throw two sixes with a die, does that imply that the die, somehow, has intelligence? If a distant solar system ends up with a rocky planet in the Goldilocks region, does that prove the presence of intelligence or intention on the part of the orbiting stuff?
Are you saying here that Evolution is throwing the die or that Evolution is the die?
If you are saying that Evolution is the die then I agree there is something which causes the action of evolution and it has to be able to differentiate and have some sort of intelligence
If you are saying that the die is Evolution then I may also agree, that it requires intelligence to have intention for the action of random outcome.
Evolution does not "know" anything. Evolution is not an entity. It is a process. Different organisms merely survive and reproduce more successfully than others in certain environments, so their offspring inherit those traits that were successful.
Then maybe the organisms hold the key. If Evolution is only a process to transfer information to DNA for change, we must ask ourselves why that particular change came about and not another.
You still imply that there is a purpose. That implies a consciousness and one can't avoid asking about the origin of that purpose.
When I go to the beach my skin turn brown and it can do that because of how humans have evolved. Most species evolve to survive is that not a good purpose. Are you saying that things evolve but not for any purpose?
Alan
how did the big bang create our universe against the laws of physics that sustain it -----
Why should it be a stumbling block that we have not yet found an explanation for the BB which, necessarily, is not included in our present set of knowledge?
To my understanding everything has a reason and if we do not know the reason for it, then we should do our damnedest and go and find it
Alan
Alan, sophiecentaur, That is what my entire argument is about. We should not blindly accept anything. If 'it is not yet in our present set of knowledge' then conclusions can not be made based without knowledge.
No. Why make stuff up just so people can swallow it easier?
If something can’t be explained using one set of words, maybe it can with another set of words that have the same meaning which can explain it. Anyway who put the word “designer” there?
Does it really need to have a designer?
Maybe the intelligent design itself does not need a ‘designer’ that like the information evolution sends to DNA it is already in existence and like the outcome of evolution there is a reason for the change.
Or should we be asking ourselves ‘Where does the information that evolution sends to the DNA to alter species come from’. Who designed it.[/i ]
If you can feel comfortable thinking it “just exists” then to say that intelligent design requires someone to design it confuses me and maybe the intelligence “just exists” due to the environment, just like the information transmitted to the DNA by evolution just exisits.
There must be some sort of intelligence associated, just look around yourself, see nature.
Everything here on earth co existing. Earth, air, fire, water. It seems very well planned to me.
If it has nothing to do with intelligence then we who can design should be able to, replicate, produce something more wonderful from nothing, from a sneeze. WAIT where did that sneeze come from, what sneezed it?
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rosy
I am genuinely interested in your views here, Alan... and anyone else who wants to explain to me what on earth ID is, if it's not merely an attempt to dress up religion in the trappings of science
The ID to me is simply the cause of existence. Much of what we observe in the universe suggests some sort of reasoning behind it. It is in my opinion the thing behind all reality that has no cause of its own and is the "PRIME MOVER OF EVERYTHING"
If science is truly the best method of unravelling truth, then it must prepare itself to meet any obstacle in its path, including religion and philosophy. Science must go beyond making angry statements about religious dogma etc and counter and refute it with sound logic, the sort of logic that will make religion think more profoundly about their ingrained unprovable ideas, based on nothing more than belief or faith
There is the God of the GAPS that religion refers to when a mystery of the universe is as yet unexplainable by scientific methodology, it is up to science to fill those GAPS and close the argument
Until science can come up with a better who? than religion it will never take its rightful place in society
If there is an ID and IT is hiding from us we must find it by logic and maybe that is the challenge
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I feel that this is a long-overdue response to the creationism proponents in this thread:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi269.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj51%2Fcrys77%2Fpolar-bear-face-palm_thumbnail1.jpg&hash=2ea9a911e9856fac0a622b850da27675)
If you would just discard your preconceptions and actually learn more about the science that you are rejecting, this thread would not exist.
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If one could take a cell phone back to the dark ages , this unfortunate person would have been burned at the stake.
That would depend on Who was the wireless Provider. [:)]
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There must be some sort of intelligence associated, just look around yourself, see nature.
Everything here on earth co existing. Earth, air, fire, water. It seems very well planned to me.
If it has nothing to do with intelligence then we who can design should be able to, replicate, produce something more wonderful from nothing, from a sneeze. WAIT where did that sneeze come from, what sneezed it?
I like your arguement. Particularly so when you apply it to the complexity of formation of protein from amino acids. Scientists have tried even with purpose and intent to replicated the formation of a protein in laboratory conditions better than the organic soup and early earth and they have not be able to form even the most basic protein.
And at what stage did these accidental proteins start to learn from their environment to make decisions on how to improve themselves or protect their organism?
My opinion is that science cannot explain a wink about the formation of living things. Let alone be the judge of who or what made life.
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Hi,
The sudden event of the unimaginably complex and huge molecule code of life we call the DNA molecule, needs an explanation for existence on a planet, much to young to have evolved this out of a random mix of elements into some primordial soup
If we took the Raj Ma haj and got a hypothetical trillion trillion trillion trillion monkeys throwing rocks at random from a great height for a trillion trillion trillion years would they ever create a Raj Mahala? . Of course not, but somehow the unbelievably more complex DNA molecule came into existence just a short while after the creation of our planet
No one would ever dispute that the Raj Mahala is a work of intelligent, so to dispute that the whole universe, our planet came into existence by a process of cosmological evolution , must also be explained, (in my view of course)
There is the augment that given enough time anything that can happen will happen, But has there really been sufficient time for all we see all around us in nature/universe, for all the huge complexity to have evolved without a guiding force behind it all?
Alan
Alan
Alan
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Don't you ever get tired of making such ignorant arguments?
Complex living systems didn't just pop into existence by chance. They arose by simple chemistry and physics. The only people who say that complex things "just happen" are the creationists.
To make a protein, you need a sequence of nucleic acids that encodes a sequence of amino acids. Nucleic acids and amino acids are easily formed under natural conditions, and nucleic acid sequences can also be produced and replicated naturally. They can then behave as catalysts as in the case of RNA, until natural selection produces sequences that can encode proteins. Look up Abiogenesis. In fact, here is a series of videos that explains the process in terms that any IDiot can understand.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0696457CAFD6D7C9
Of course, none of you have taken note of anything we've explained to you, so I doubt you'll start now.
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Alan - once again, I fear you have not been reading or paying attention to the posts, and in particular mine. THIS IS NOT THE THREAD TO DISCUSS BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION VS PERCIEVED DESIGN.
As we've gone off topic once again, and nothing of real value can be added, I'm locking this thread.
Update - Apparently, my locking this thread was "a childish exercise of [my] perceived authority". As I have clearly stated many times earlier in this thread that I intended to lock it if it continued to go off topic, and it once again went off topic, I decided to lock it. Should enough people wish to continue this conversation, I shall unlock the thread. Please contact me through private message shoudl you wish me to do so.