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View Full Version : Intelligent Design: A Counter Arguement to Evolution


onasis
2004-03-09, 03:46
Note to Mod: This deals with both science and theology, I put this topic in this forum because I thought it best fit here. Please move it if you think it should be in Mad Scientists or somewhere else.

Recently, a professor at a local university came to my school to speak on his counter theory against evolution. It was called the "Intelligent Design". Right away, it can be said that this theory was obviously religiously backed in some way or form.

The professor talked about Darwin's "Black Box" and how muliple systems would have to arise almost simultaneously for them to work--attributed to some intelligent design. He used the analogy of a mouse trap to illustrate his point(can be seen here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html). The entire lecture he used inanimate objects as his testaments against evolution and discussed how and why they emerged.

He didn't really believe that things happened

over periods of millions of years and the basics of natural selection. He claimed not to be theist but from what he said it could clearly be seen that his theory was merely another form of creationism.

Like most evolution skeptics, his main arguement stemmed from how(?) things evoloved and changed. How did the first single cell organisms become self aware? How did they learn to eat food? etc...He never had real scientific base for his findings, just diagrams of a bacteria's flaggelum and why he believed that that type of "motorized" tail could not have been evoloved and how and why the eyes devleoped their ways of seeing distances and such.

The theory just pointed towards God as an answer, it lacked real scientific knowledge and work. It fails to recognize the antropolgical data that has been found all across the world pointing towards evolution.

The CRSC Webpage(where the theory of Intelligent Design is found) (http://crsc.org/)

Here is the so called "evidence" for Intelligent Design

quote:During recent decades, evidence from many scientific disciplines has suggested the bankruptcy of strictly materialistic thinking in science and the need for new explanations and perspectives. Consider:

In cosmology, evidence suggests the universe--including all matter, space, time, and energy--came suddenly into existence a finite time ago, contradicting the earlier picture of an eternal and self-existing material cosmos.

In physics, evidence has shown that the universe is "finely-tuned" for the existence of life, suggesting the work, as Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle puts it, "of a superintellect."

In biology, the presence of complex and functionally integrated machines has cast doubt on Darwinian mechanisms of self-assembly, and has sparked new interest in the design hypothesis

...



Taken from "Evidence for Design" from the CRSC page (http://crsc.org/TopQuestions/evidenceForDesign.html)

I believe that this is just another creationist theory that points out some holes in evolution. It doesn't have scientific backing and merges with religion to form its theory. I don't believe that this is legitimate from either the theological or the scientific perspective.

edit 1: added some extra

edit 2: spelled Argument wrong...

[This message has been edited by onasis (edited 03-09-2004).]

[This message has been edited by onasis (edited 03-09-2004).]

SurahAhriman
2004-03-09, 03:53
Our universe is fine tuned for life because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to discuss it. Or we'd be suited for the enviroment of some other universe.

SurahAhriman
2004-03-09, 03:59
Also, it's kind of cute how they try to claim they aren't creationists. Occams razor kind of nulls the pre-emptive assumption of "intelligent design". Their entire defense was "We're just not going to talk about the bible. It's what we're really after, trying t prove there is a God, but we realized that Genesis is bullshit, so we're going with Plan B". Their "evidence" essentially constitutes anything that we don't know how it evolved into being, or can't explain. Key word missing there? Yet.

NewDude
2004-03-09, 04:35
quote:Originally posted by SurahAhriman:

Our universe is fine tuned for life because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to discuss it. Or we'd be suited for the enviroment of some other universe.

^^ I concur.

SEN D-F
2004-03-09, 04:50
quote:Originally posted by SurahAhriman:

Our universe is fine tuned for life because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to discuss it. Or we'd be suited for the enviroment of some other universe.

Exaclty. I think of this when people bring up life on other planets and say 'a species couldn't survive on [whatever plant] or [wherever in the universe] because conditions aren't suited for life'. I can't strip down naked and go live at the bottom of the artic ocean, but a fish can. Had we never known what a fish was, or that anything could survive in extremely cold water we'd look at the ocean and say 'nothing could live there, no species can exist in water because its not suited for life!' Species evolve around their eviroment, yet creationists tend to see it as the other way 'round.

I doubt our universe was created to suit us, or any other species on earth. Rather the species that exist have evolved to live in their enviroment. Its easy to say 'look at life and everything on earth, what are the chances that all these thigns just happened to perfectly suit the enviroment' if you ignore logic. Logically anything that didn't suit the enviroment wouldn't be here. It'd be like throwing a polar bear into the desert, or putting a snake in the south pole. If soemthing isn't suited for a certain enviroment its gonna die, so we're never gonna see it.

Its always seemed nonsensical to me.

ilbastardoh
2004-03-09, 18:19
Well scientifically speaking, one needs a special element in order to be an organic creature, and that is carbon. If the right kinds of carbon are not available in...let's say a planet, then life can't exist in that planet.

SurahAhriman
2004-03-09, 19:50
quote:Originally posted by ilbastardoh:

Well scientifically speaking, one needs a special element in order to be an organic creature, and that is carbon. If the right kinds of carbon are not available in...let's say a planet, then life can't exist in that planet.

DO you know why carbon is the building block of life? Do you realize that silicon could also be used? Or is quarks had different properites, then the entire periodic table would be completely different.

ashesofzen
2004-03-09, 20:40
well spoken, there, SurahAhriman; you beat me to it.