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Intelligent Design: Viable Theory or Religious Rewording?

  • FatHobbit
    jmog wrote: Science has many laws that are facts, the law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc. Evolution is still a theory, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
    jmog wrote: There is a difference between Newton's Law of Gravity and overall gravitational theory. Gravitational theory combines Newton's Law for macrophysics with Einstein's theory of relativity for microscale gravity.
    bigmanbt wrote: Oh an jmog, I get what you are saying, but way to reference it in your first post. You stated gravity is a law, when part of gravity is a law, but the whole piece of gravity is a theory. That's a fact.
    In his first post Jmog was talking about scientific laws, so it makes sense that he was only talking about the law of gravity. He even addressed your point about the theory of gravity in a subsequent post.
  • jmog
    bigmanbt wrote:

    Oh an jmog, I get what you are saying, but way to reference it in your first post. You stated gravity is a law, when part of gravity is a law, but the whole piece of gravity is a theory. That's a fact.
    I said the law of gravity, anyone who knows what they are talking about with respect to gravity knows thats Newton's Law of Gravity, not overal gravitational theory.

    Sorry if I should have spelled it out more.
  • jmog
    FatHobbit wrote:
    In his first post Jmog was talking about scientific laws, so it makes sense that he was only talking about the law of gravity. He even addressed your point about the theory of gravity in a subsequent post.
    Shh, there is no common sense allowed around here, you should know that fathobbit :).
  • bigmanbt
    I will say this though, you do know you're stuff about parts of science jmog, and your explanation of radioactive dating is interesting. I don't however think that discredits the science of it, just that some of the lead found might not be uranium that decayed. It's real tough to explain the existence of dinosaurs and the like if the Earth is only tens of thousands of years old and not the billions we know it as. Radioactive half-lives aren't the only thing that tell us how old the Earh is, though it is a major part.
  • jmog
    bigmanbt wrote: I will say this though, you do know you're stuff about parts of science jmog, and your explanation of radioactive dating is interesting. I don't however think that discredits the science of it, just that some of the lead found might not be uranium that decayed. It's real tough to explain the existence of dinosaurs and the like if the Earth is only tens of thousands of years old and not the billions we know it as. Radioactive half-lives aren't the only thing that tell us how old the Earh is, though it is a major part.
    If some of the lead is not form Uranium, then the age of the rocks becomes 10s or 100s of thousands of years, not millions/billions.

    Its the only way to make the dates that old is to assume 100% of the lead came from uranium.

    Please tell me what else they use to date focks/fossiles that isn't a radioactive half life? Nothing "old" can be dated abolutely without radiometric dating techniques.

    Other techniques like stratigraphy, fluorine analysis, etc are only relative as in "these two fossils we found next to each other were from the same time frame or not".

    You say its hard to explain dinosaurs if the Earth is only 10s of thousands, please fill me in, how would it be hard to explain?

    Lets think this through for a minute.

    What has let us "know" that dinosaurs are millions of years old? You guessed it, radiometric dating. At first it was C14 but when chemists told archeologists the numbers for C14 past 50k years are bogus, they moved onto dating the rocks that the fossils are buried inside of. They do this with techniques like the one I cast some doubt into earlier, uranium-lead.

    You might ask why do they assume that the lead is 100% from Uranium?

    Here's the hypothesis I, along with many others have...

    Well, C14 dating first told them the bones were millions of years old (bogus number) and this "jives" with the theory of evolution in their minds, so the dinosaurs HAVE to be that old. So, when they tried to come up with a way to date the rocks they already had a "number" in their head that they wanted to hit. The only way they could do this was make the assumption that all the lead came from uranium.

    In other words, they used the bogus C14 numbers from the fossils to create an assumption to get the same numbers for the rocks.

    In short, they used the fossils to date the rocks and the rocks to date the fossils based off of assumptions of how old they want it to be. Its called circular reasoning.
  • pmoney25
    I don't mind people who are Atheist, my only issue is how some(not all) Atheist pretty much believe that if you believe in Creation or ID that you are not intelligent, that you are incapable of rational thought and that you are just living your life like a fool.

    From the Atheist/Science point of view, I get why you would have questions. I get why you would want proof. It is not easy to have faith and believe. As I stated, I used to be an Atheist and I struggled with my faith for a long time.

    I do believe in an Old Earth, I do believe in Evolution, I do believe in the Big Bang but I don't see how those absolutely have to contradict the existence of God. I am not talking about Religion and which one is right but just the idea of God creating it all.

    I am not going to go into detail about what happened. But I just came to a point where I refused to believe that life has no purpose and that all of this is just random chance or coincidence.
  • HitsRus
    ^^^I'm the same way nearly exactly. I think a lot of athesists/agnostics have a hard time seperating the existence of a creator and religion. Most of the arguement seems to focus on inconsistencies with a specific religion, and that becomes the reason. It works the other ways to....with specific religions trying to fit 'science' into their views.
  • Paladin
    Excellent point. I believe in an Old Earth, evolution, the Big Bang and respect the discoveries of science that have advanced mankind and his understandings of the world. None of this interferes with the idea of a god. Whether a god still exists or not is another question, but the insanity of religions and their dogmas convinces many that fools are on an errand of brainwashing. The concept of if there is or was a god is blurred by the zealots who promote their religion and the rules & regs imposed on believing in their god .
  • 74Leps
    FatHobbit wrote:
    74Leps wrote:It is said that chimps and humans have 98% the same DNA. That is a VERY misleading statement. Even if it were that much the same, and it isn't if you include insertions and deletions (more like 95%), the differences are still huge. At allegedly 98% the same, there's still 40-60 MILLION differences.
    If 2% = 40-60 MILLION, there must be 2000-3000 million in your selection, so there are 1960-2940 MILLION similarities.
    74Leps wrote:Some more food for thought: humans have 50% the same DNA as bananas. That doesn't make man half banana or evolved from a banana.

    Humans have 96% the same DNA as mice. That doesn't make us mostly mice, does it? NO, It doesn't.
    We're not mostly apes either. We share a common ancestor with apes. And mice. And bananas. I don't understand why some people get hung up on man and apes having a common ancestor. Every living thing has a common ancestor...
    - - -

    EDIT: CORRECTION, EVERYTHING HAS THE SAME DESIGNER, THAT'S WHY THE SIMILARITIES. Makes more sense too.

    Oh, and Darwin believed we descended from apes:

    "Charles Darwin most definitely did state that humans evolved from apes. In chapter six (“On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man”) in his volume, The Descent of Man, Darwin concluded:

    In the class of mammals the steps are not difficult to conceive which led from the ancient Monotremata to the ancient marsupials; and from these to the early progenitors of the placental mammals. We may thus ascend to the Lemuridae; and the interval is not very wide from these to the Simiadae [monkeys and apes]. The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.
    But that is not all that Darwin had to say on this matter. What organism was it from which Darwin said humans had evolved? He continued:

    [A] naturalist would undoubtedly have ranked as an ape or a monkey, an ancient form which possessed many characters common to the Catarhine [Old World] and Platyrhine [New World] monkeyÖ. There can, consequently, hardly be a doubt that man is an off-shoot from the Old World simian stem; and that under a genealogical point of view he must be classified with the Catarhine divisionÖ. We have seen that man appears to have diverged from the Catarhine or Old World division of the Simiadae, after these had diverged from the New World division (p. 521, emp. and bracketed items added)." - From Trueorigin website.


    - - -
    74Leps wrote:Something else to ponder: The DNA claims made about the similarities only involves some proteins in the DNA - ONLY THREE PERCENT OF THE TOTAL DNA! The rest is called 'junk' DNA because, well, because they don't know what it does. They are slowly finding out that the alleged 'junk' DNA does have functions, and this is ruining their fairy tale.
    Part of that is true. We are learning more and more about DNA every day. I'm not sure how that ruins any fairy tale.
    - - -
    THE FAIRY TALE THAT WE EVOLVED UP FROM SLIME TO MAN

    - - -
    74Leps wrote:The mutations cited by evos are horizontal in nature: they might provide a survival benefit, but no increase in order, which Darwinian evolution requires. The survivial benefit from mutations often comes at the cost of LOSING information.
    Often? But not always? :)
    74Leps wrote:For example, a bacterial resistance to antibiotics. It's been shown that the bacteria REMOVES information that the antibiotic used to recognize the bacteria with, so it saw it as an 'enemy' to destroy.
    Link?

    - - -

    HERE'S YOUR LINK and some short excerpts:
    noincreaseininfo


    ONE of the biological concepts that evolutionists try to present as evidence for their theory is the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. Many evolutionist sources mention antibiotic resistance as an example of the development of living things by advantageous mutations. A similar claim is also made for the insects which build immunity to insecticides such as DDT.

    However, evolutionists are mistaken on this subject too.

    Antibiotics are "killer molecules" that are produced by microorganisms to fight other microorganisms. The first antibiotic was penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming realised that mould produced a molecule that killed the Staphylococcus bacterium, and this discovery marked a turning point in the world of medicine. Antibiotics derived from microorganisms were used against bacteria and the results were successful.

    Soon, something new was discovered. Bacteria build immunity to antibiotics over time. The mechanism works like this: A large proportion of the bacteria that are subjected to antibiotics die, but some others, which are not affected by that antibiotic, replicate rapidly and soon make up the whole population. Thus, the entire population becomes immune to antibiotics.

    Evolutionists try to present this as "the evolution of bacteria by adapting to conditions."

    . . .

    The truth, however, is very different from this superficial interpretation. One of the scientists who has done the most detailed research into this subject is the Israeli biophysicist Lee Spetner, who is also known for his book Not by Chance published in 1997. Spetner maintains that the immunity of bacteria comes about by two different mechanisms, but neither of them constitutes evidence for the theory of evolution. These two mechanisms are:

    1) The transfer of resistance genes already extant in bacteria.

    2) The building of resistance as a result of losing genetic data because of mutation.

    Professor Spetner explains the first mechanism in an article published in 2001:

    Some microorganisms are endowed with genes that grant resistance to these antibiotics. This resistance can take the form of degrading the antibiotic molecule or of ejecting it from the cell... [T]he organisms having these genes can transfer them to other bacteria making them resistant as well. Although the resistance mechanisms are specific to a particular antibiotic, most pathogenic bacteria have... succeeded in accumulating several sets of genes granting them resistance to a variety of antibiotics.

    Spetner then goes on to say that this is not "evidence for evolution":

    The acquisition of antibiotic resistance in this manner... is not the kind that can serve as a prototype for the mutations needed to account for Evolution… The genetic changes that could illustrate the theory must not only add information to the bacterium's genome, they must add new information to the biocosm. The horizontal transfer of genes only spreads around genes that are already in some species. 70

    So, we cannot talk of any evolution here, because no new genetic information is produced: genetic information that already exists is simply transferred between bacteria.

    The second type of immunity, which comes about as a result of mutation, is not an example of evolution either. Spetner writes: . . .
    - - -

    HERE'S ANOTHER LINK, from a site that operates to counter the claims made by talkorigins, on the subject:

    bacterialresistance

    THERE'S ALSO A NICE DEBATE between representatives of Talkorigins and Trueorigins on evolution/creation - the results were supposed to later be posted at Talkorigins as they were going to be at Trueorigins. Talkorigins never posted the results because THEY LOST THE DEBATE.

    evolutionfail

    - - -
    74Leps wrote:Want a healthy dog? Get a mutt. They have more genetic information than any purebred. When animals are bred for particular traits, they REMOVE information to get the desired result.

    The corn we eat and enjoy today has been bred for particular traits. To make it that way, information was REMOVED.

    Are you seeing a pattern yet?
    Animals and Corn that are bred for selective traits have less variance in their DNA. (They don't have less DNA or information. They just don't have the DNA combination that did not meet the standard that the breeder was looking for.) Is that the pattern you're looking for? When is anything bred for selective traits in nature? I'm not sure how that even applies.

    - - -

    YOU'RE JOKING, RIGHT? There is no increase in information. Darwinian evolution requires an increase in info, there is none.

    74Leps wrote:But if you want to believe otherwise, fine. But ugly facts are against you. And evolution is more religious than ID or Creationism,
    Evolution is more religious than creationism? So does that mean that you aren't very religious?
    - - -
    I'M NOT VERY religious at all. Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship.

    - - -
    74Leps wrote:So then, can anyone give me a single example of a mutation that brought about an increase in genetic complexity, not just a selection from a subset of what was already present? "New" information brought from outside a system into the system to make it more complex? (More qualitatively sophisticated)

    NO, you can't, because there aren't any.
    Any mutation will bring about an increase in genetic complexity. Most are not beneficial. Sickle cell is a mutation that increases genetic complexity.
    - - -
    SICKLE CELL anemia is no increase in genetic complexity

    From Trueorigins article:
    Second, while certain pre-existing mutations may confer to bacteria antibiotic resistance, such mutations also may decrease the organism’s viability in other ways. For example, “the surviving strains are usually less virulent, and have a reduced metabolism and so grow more slowly. This is hardly a recommendation for ‘improving the species by competition’ (i.e., survival of the fittest)” [Bowden, 1991, p. 56, parenthetical item in orig.]. Just because a mutation provides an organism with a certain trait does not mean necessarily that the organism as a whole has been helped. For example, people afflicted with the mutant gene for sickle-cell anemia are “carriers” of the disease, but do not die from it. Such people are inexplicably resistant to malaria, which at first would seem to be an excellent example of a good mutation. However, that is not the entire story. While it is true that these people are resistant to malaria, it also is true that they are not as healthy, do not possess the stamina, and do not live as long as their unafflicted counterparts. Bacteria may be resistant to a certain antibiotic, but that resistance comes at a price (e.g., reduced metabolism, slower growth, etc.). From an evolutionary point of view, in the grand scheme of things this is harmful, not beneficial.
  • wizecracker
    where did the ingredients for a primordial soup which created life come from? what set everything in motion?
  • 74Leps
    If you can read this, I can prove God exists. So says Perry Marshall.

    http://www.evolution2100.com/

    Check out the above website, sign up for free. Perry Marshall is well versed in information theory. He believes information itself proves God. Want to debate with him? He's game, try him.
  • O-Trap
    74leps, that guy is nothing new, and quite honestly, he's nothing compared to Moreland, Plantiga, or Craig.
  • BCSbunk
    jmog wrote:
    HitsRus wrote: I.D. cannot be proven scientifically except thru intellectual intuitivty. It's proper place is in a religion or philosophy class. Science class should be confined to scientific study of facts and theories.
    I agree with this, but the same statement can be said about the beginning of life in the theory of evolution.
    So you are a biologist? Just because someone is a scientist does not make them well versed in all the sciences. I have a friend who is a geologist and knows little about biology it is not his expertise.

    The theory of evolution is fact it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis which is a completely seperate theory is still very much in the beginnings and is not established as fact.

    TO THE OP.

    It is religious rewording. ID is much closer to Abiogenesis which to my knowledge abiogenesis theories are not taught in HS.

    Evolution is the theory of how living things change which they do and it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis or biopoesis has not been witnessed or documented. Though they have now created RNA in the lab and creating life will not be that far away IMO.

    I would even go so far as to say that abiogenesis is still in the hypothesis stage, but I could be wrong.
  • BCSbunk
    74Leps wrote: If you can read this, I can prove God exists. So says Perry Marshall.

    http://www.evolution2100.com/

    Check out the above website, sign up for free. Perry Marshall is well versed in information theory. He believes information itself proves God. Want to debate with him? He's game, try him.
    That guy debated on IIDB which is now FRDB and was throughly debunked. Information technology is not biology.
  • jmog
    BCSbunk wrote:

    So you are a biologist? Just because someone is a scientist does not make them well versed in all the sciences. I have a friend who is a geologist and knows little about biology it is not his expertise.

    The theory of evolution is fact it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis which is a completely seperate theory is still very much in the beginnings and is not established as fact.

    TO THE OP.

    It is religious rewording. ID is much closer to Abiogenesis which to my knowledge abiogenesis theories are not taught in HS.

    Evolution is the theory of how living things change which they do and it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis or biopoesis has not been witnessed or documented. Though they have now created RNA in the lab and creating life will not be that far away IMO.

    I would even go so far as to say that abiogenesis is still in the hypothesis stage, but I could be wrong.
    Depends on what you are calling evolution.

    Species adapting through mutations to their surroundings, you are right, it has been "observed".

    Species changing to another species, has not been observed, period...anyone who says it has is either ignorant of the facts or is lying through their teeth.

    There is a huge difference.
  • bigmanbt
    ^Solely because it takes hundreds of thousands of years, and we just haven't been studying it that long (200 years or so). You are right it hasn't been observed, but it's really a semantics game you are playing, knowing fully well why it hasn't been observed.
  • ManO'War
    I'm glad to know all those hack scientists that I've been reading and listening to for years have nothing on Jmog.

    I bet the Science Channel would love to give him his own show so that he can debunk all this crazy talk about the earth being 4 billion years old.
  • BCSbunk
    jmog wrote:
    BCSbunk wrote:

    So you are a biologist? Just because someone is a scientist does not make them well versed in all the sciences. I have a friend who is a geologist and knows little about biology it is not his expertise.

    The theory of evolution is fact it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis which is a completely seperate theory is still very much in the beginnings and is not established as fact.

    TO THE OP.

    It is religious rewording. ID is much closer to Abiogenesis which to my knowledge abiogenesis theories are not taught in HS.

    Evolution is the theory of how living things change which they do and it has been witnessed and documented. Abiogenesis or biopoesis has not been witnessed or documented. Though they have now created RNA in the lab and creating life will not be that far away IMO.

    I would even go so far as to say that abiogenesis is still in the hypothesis stage, but I could be wrong.
    Depends on what you are calling evolution.

    Species adapting through mutations to their surroundings, you are right, it has been "observed".

    Species changing to another species, has not been observed, period...anyone who says it has is either ignorant of the facts or is lying through their teeth.

    There is a huge difference.
    There is no difference that is a creationist strawman of evolution.

    Evolution is defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.

    Period end of story. It has been documented and recorded PERIOD. It is fact.

    Creationist have created a strawman of what evolution is.

    We have already seen species change we have witnessed it. We have witnessed bacteria species change.

    Now before you go on a strawman rant of lions do not become polar bears that is NOT what evolution states is just a ridiculous strawman.

    There are many species of cat (Felus) and there are many species of bacteria. Bacteria has been witnessed to evolve into different species.

    In Biology species is a taxonomic group whose members can interbreed.

    So please spare the strawman arguments about evolution it is fact.

    We have witnessed species change it is documented. In fact we have witnessed many species change.

    Creationists are barking up the wrong tree. Like I stated they should be arguing creation vs Abiogenesis and not evolution.
  • ManO'War
    I found this interesting.

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
  • pmoney25
    What I think some of you are doing by presenting your arguments are discrediting Religion, not discrediting the possible existence of God.
  • CenterBHSFan
    Paladin wrote: Excellent point. I believe in an Old Earth, evolution, the Big Bang and respect the discoveries of science that have advanced mankind and his understandings of the world. None of this interferes with the idea of a god. Whether a god still exists or not is another question, but the insanity of religions and their dogmas convinces many that fools are on an errand of brainwashing. The concept of if there is or was a god is blurred by the zealots who promote their religion and the rules & regs imposed on believing in their god .
    Yeah, I tend to think that there are zealots on both sides of the fence regarding this issue.

    This thread makes it glaringly obvious.
  • HitsRus
    ^^^^Amen.(pun intended)
  • bigmanbt
    The so-called athiest "zealots" you are referring to are different, because we aren't trying to force anything upon anyone. We just don't want an unproven, scientific theory imposed on anyone, like teaching intelligent design would do.

    As far as when it comes to religion, I don't really care whether you believe or not, and don't really care to bring it up. But when people try and tell me how I am wrong or living wrong because I don't believe in God, don't expect me to take it.
  • Cleveland Buck
    bigmanbt wrote: The so-called athiest "zealots" you are referring to are different, because we aren't trying to force anything upon anyone. We just don't want an unproven, scientific theory imposed on anyone, like teaching intelligent design would do.
    What? What is the Big Bang Theory? Proven fact?
  • ptown_trojans_1
    Cleveland Buck wrote:
    bigmanbt wrote: The so-called athiest "zealots" you are referring to are different, because we aren't trying to force anything upon anyone. We just don't want an unproven, scientific theory imposed on anyone, like teaching intelligent design would do.
    What? What is the Big Bang Theory? Proven fact?
    No, but it has way more evidence, years of scientific exploration and theories to support it than intelligent design.
    Just sit in on your basic Astronomy courses in undergrad.