Jim And Penny Caldwell's Archaeological Findings:

[Joshpantera]

Hey BC!

 

Interesting stuff for sure. The last video from Stryper on the multiverse was very insightful and laid out the general trend of modern cosmological speculation about what came before the big bang, and how the answer is a very natural one any which way we turn. For instance, the colliding branes sparking off the big bang. That's cosmos to cosmos energy interaction which would then set in motion the cooling of material and the evolution that has followed. But the other way, the black hole to white hole way is yet another natural explanation for how pre-existing material could have funneled through from a parallel universe giving rise to the cooling material that was able to eventually evolve into the planets and life.

 

If there was life and natural urges or tendencies towards the ability for life in that parallel universe, then wouldn't that account for why we might find such tendencies towards life and intelligence duplicated here? We'd loose track when trying to pin this natural tendency down to any fixed beginning because it would have come from yet another parallel universe beyond that one, and beyond, and beyond and beyond with no beginning in sight. So the potential for the existence of life would seem to run parallel to the beginningless existence of a vast cosmos of parallel universes and energy transforming from some form to another endlessly, always, forever and ever.

 

So what's the God of all of this limitless expanse of never ending space / cosmos if not the very 'existence' of the limitless cosmos itself?

 

What's omnipresent throughout the whole aside from the cosmos itself - the very fabric and structure of the cosmos which is everywhere present evenly throughout?

 

It's like Ravenstar was getting at earlier, this all tends to point in pantheistic directions when trying to consider something like God against the sheer vastness of an eternal cosmos without fixed beginning or end. God as All, not God as some tribal deity living on one particular holy mountain and an argument about it's physical location or God off in one particular area called heaven distinct and separate from here and now. The religious implications of contemplating an eternal cosmos can run wild and tend to break free of traditional monotheistic thinking. 

 

But as far as your questions about internal mechanisms in bacteria is concerned, did you get all the way through the ID trial video on post #111?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8hTZ5AYzs8o

 

They showed how another bacteria (plague related) evolved and it pretty much laid waste to the main ID argument (starting around 1:07:00 of the long video). Behe was pretty much blown out of the water for quote mining out of context and basically misrepresenting science. The problem is that they're going for too religious of an angle with ID. The evidence doesn't actually allow for it. The simplest explanations tend to come back as natural based ones, such as with the question of what came before the big bang in the most recent multiverse video. There's no reason to assume super naturalism for the birth of the universe or the existence of the flagellum motor in bacteria.

 

If you didn't see that part of the ID trial in Colorado then it might be good to go back and check out the outcome when mainstream scientists were faced with the design of the flagellum motor. There's natural explanations for it all. But should that really take away from anything? What's wrong with nature and natural explanations? Nature is amazing in and of itself free and clear of taking supernatural mythological imagery, literally. I'm so content with this life and the experience of consciousness as possibly the only one whether or not there's anything beyond it. There may be a great beyond of some type. But then again there may not be. I've found a lot of peace of mind in fully embracing both possibilities and not fearing either... 

[Ravenstar]

Not to overload you BlackCat, but I was watching this and thought of you

[BlackCat]

Josh- I'll watch the trial video over the weekend, and let you know what I made of it.  Thank you for posting it. 

 

Ravenstar- that video you've linked to is very good, and sums up where I am at the moment.  I watched it  the other week as part of that series of videos.   Just watched it again. 

[ExCBooster]

I just thought I'd chime in to mention that the NOVA "Intelligent Design on Trial" is one of the best made that explains the whole thing very well. I love Biology! There's a few things that come to mind, when I end up arguing against the ID folks.

 

One, the truly mind-blowing scale of time and space we're dealing with isn't easily grasped, and the sheer amount of time involved when it comes to evolution's history from self-replicating molecules to us is a real key in understanding evolution. (9 min)

And, somewhat more relevant, (just under 2 min) Earth life

. The question, in my mind, regarding abiogenesis (the rise of life from sterile chemical seas), isn't that literal oceans of chemicals over a BILLION years managed to produce the odd amino acid, or even complex molecule, that then proceeded to be acted on by natural selection, leading to evolution over time and more complex creatures, but rather that it's considered impossible that it would. For things that self-replicate, all it takes is one, with no competition, and you'll have an ocean full of 'em in a comparative flash. It's all about scale.

 

Irreducible complexity just doesn't hold up, either. The example from the video that comes to mind is the aforementioned mousetrap. A mousetrap with a broken spring isn't a good mousetrap, but it IS a good tie clip. "Broken" versions of more complex organs (or organelles) show up all the time. A flagship example is the eye (which used to be the pet example of the ID folks, before they latched onto bacterial flagella - my guess is they got shot down one too many times with eyes, and moved to something more obscure. The video features a bacteria guy, explaining flagella. Guest starring Yersinia pestis whoo hoo! So, I'll talk about eyes, since you're seeing the video.) Our eyes seem to be one of these mousetraps. Complex, and they work well for us. (Not as well as they might, though, 'cause the blood supply for the retina lies on top of it, making your vision less acute than it would be if the blood vessels had just been routed behind. D'oh! Not to mention the blind spots where the optic nerve meets the retina. If our eyes were "designed", I don't think it was a very good job of it.) If the broken mousetrap worked, we should be able to find creatures that have gotten through evolution with broken mousetraps. However, a little investigation reveals that there are actually plenty of creatures with broken mousetraps, representing lots of intermediate grades of eye. The most popular "eye", the eyespot - a simple light-sensitive spot (a Euglena can tell if it's light or dark, but can't "see" images) is a very broken mousetrap, by comparison, but it does well enough for loads of creatures.  Scallops, with lots of light-detecting simple eyes (a patch of light-sensitive cells, but curled into a cup) can detect light, dark, and motion,

. Then there's the nautilus, which adds a flap with a keyhole slit over the cup, like a crude pinhole camera. A nautilus can see images, but they're not very clear. Just add a lens, and you're at the full-mousetrap complexity of the human eye. We have good daylight colour vision for a mammal. Note all the qualifiers. A cat has a reflective coating behind the retina, that allows it another chance to catch light coming in, so it can see in the dark far better than you or me. (That's why their

- you're seeing the reflection of light off the back of their eyes.) Birds, especially birds of prey, are famous for the sharpness of their vision. Most birds see in four colors, while we only have three. Also some evidence that some birds can even detect the polarization of light. Whoa.

 

Just two of my many, many issues with it, I don't want to bore you with my science fangirl blathering, this is already long enough, and, like I said, that NOVA special really does a great job of talking about the real issues involved here, and explaining things really clearly. Especially when it comes to what science is, what it isn't, and issues of academic integrity.

 

P.S. I think I mentioned on another post, the jellybean game as a good, intuitive way to try out natural selection on your own. You need: a jumbo bag of jellybeans, some bowls, a cloth or towel that matches the colour of some of the jellybeans, and a timer or watch with seconds. Pour out some jellybeans in a bowl, so you can see what the general jellybean population looks like. They come in a variety of colors, and tastes (random, like mutations). Keep the sample aside. Pour out some more beans on the cloth, and you have eight seconds to pick up as many as you can, one at a time. You eat what you "caught." Then, put the jellybeans left behind on the cloth into another bowl. Has the population changed? Prediction: gross tasting beans, or ones that blend in to the background will evade your jellybean predator. If those beans escape to breed, passing on their winning genes to their bean babies, your population (initially determined by random mutation) will change over time (evolution), not because of any conscious attempt to breed jellybeans, but because the tasty or easy to catch ones got eaten, and didn't live to breed (natural selection). Lifeforms that breed and mutate fast can evolve so fast that our technology can't keep up (antibiotic resistant bacteria), for just one fast-paced example. With enough pressure, and a fast-breeding community, it can happen before our eyes.

 

You're obviously very smart, Black Cat: intelligence isn't what you know, it's the openness ask questions.

[BlackCat]

Hi ExCBooster- thanks for 'chiming in'. It's most appreciated. I'll address your comments in red, as I go along, so that I don't forget what I want to say.

I just thought I'd chime in to mention that the NOVA "Intelligent Design on Trial" is one of the best made that explains the whole thing very well.
I've just spent the last two hours watching it, and it was very interesting and enlightening. Now I know why there is this distaste and resistance of intelligent design- but I am hoping that intelligent design as a plausible proposal can be separated from the Movement or body of what appears to be mainly religiously motavated people. And by 'intelligent design' I don't mean abandoning evolutionary theory. More of that in a separate post, as I want to discuss the IC part in the video. I don't believe the Dover trial did it justice and that Ken Miller and others have missed the point that Behe was making......

I love Biology! There's a few things that come to mind, when I end up arguing against the ID folks.

One, the truly mind-blowing scale of time and space we're dealing with isn't easily grasped, and the sheer amount of time involved when it comes to evolution's history from self-replicating molecules to us is a real key in understanding evolution. (9 min)

And, somewhat more relevant, (just under 2 min) Earth life

. The question, in my mind, regarding abiogenesis (the rise of life from sterile chemical seas), isn't that literal oceans of chemicals over a BILLION years managed to produce the odd amino acid, or even complex molecule, that then proceeded to be acted on by natural selection, leading to evolution over time and more complex creatures, but rather that it's considered impossible that it would. For things that self-replicate, all it takes is one, with no competition, and you'll have an ocean full of 'em in a comparative flash. It's all about scale. From what I have learned via science, I accept that it was possible for life to arise from the 'sterile chemical seas'. My problem is with that first self replicating organism. There's a big leap between an amino acid or lots of amino acids independantly forming in the primordial soup and a single cell that is packed with thousands of molecular machines that all need machines to build them, and that seems to need a blueprint that has to be in existence BEFORE this first cell, in order to produce the cell at all.

Irreducible complexity just doesn't hold up, either. The example from the video that comes to mind is the aforementioned mousetrap. A mousetrap with a broken spring isn't a good mousetrap, but it IS a good tie clip. I want to go into this in my next post, which is my feedback to the Nova video that Josh posted. I believe Miller is not addressing IC. Behe doesn't say that 'parts' of a system have no use in other systems but if you remove one of the parts of the flagellar motor, you won't have a functioning motor. Miller does not propose a MOTOR that can function with missing parts. Like his tie clip made out of part of a mouse trap. He won't catch mice with his tie clip. He seems to be missing the point- or maybe I am.??? "Broken" versions of more complex organs (or organelles) show up all the time. A flagship example is the eye (which used to be the pet example of the ID folks, before they latched onto bacterial flagella - my guess is they got shot down one too many times with eyes, and moved to something more obscure. The video features a bacteria guy, explaining flagella. Guest starring Yersinia pestis whoo hoo! So, I'll talk about eyes, since you're seeing the video.) Our eyes seem to be one of these mousetraps. Complex, and they work well for us. (Not as well as they might, though, 'cause the blood supply for the retina lies on top of it, making your vision less acute than it would be if the blood vessels had just been routed behind. D'oh! Not to mention the blind spots where the optic nerve meets the retina. If our eyes were "designed", I don't think it was a very good job of it.) If the broken mousetrap worked, we should be able to find creatures that have gotten through evolution with broken mousetraps. However, a little investigation reveals that there are actually plenty of creatures with broken mousetraps, representing lots of intermediate grades of eye. The most popular "eye", the eyespot - a simple light-sensitive spot (a Euglena can tell if it's light or dark, but can't "see" images) is a very broken mousetrap, by comparison, but it does well enough for loads of creatures. Scallops, with lots of light-detecting simple eyes (a patch of light-sensitive cells, but curled into a cup) can detect light, dark, and motion,

. Then there's the nautilus, which adds a flap with a keyhole slit over the cup, like a crude pinhole camera. A nautilus can see images, but they're not very clear. Just add a lens, and you're at the full-mousetrap complexity of the human eye. We have good daylight colour vision for a mammal. Note all the qualifiers. A cat has a reflective coating behind the retina, that allows it another chance to catch light coming in, so it can see in the dark far better than you or me. (That's why their

- you're seeing the reflection of light off the back of their eyes.) Birds, especially birds of prey, are famous for the sharpness of their vision. Most birds see in four colors, while we only have three. Also some evidence that some birds can even detect the polarization of light. Whoa. I wouldn't call these different eye types 'broken'. Eye types are dependant on the brain of the organism. For evolution to 'just add a lens', as you mention above, is not just a case of some mucus (produced by the cells - n.b molecular machines needed to form the mucus??) forming into a lens, as was suggested in a video I watched recently:

I emailed an 'eye expert' called Curt Deckert, who has various web sites, and asked him how feasible it was for some mucus to form a lens and he replied:

''There is no significant probability that the eye evolved because of the construction and design of multiple cell types.
In my website I deal with 9 eye design themes—it would be almost impossible to go from one design theme to another.
They require different sizes, sensors, control and tracking functions, light sensitivities and wavelengths, image processing, cells, software, brains, intelligence, etc.
The cell DNA determines the growth configuration--- which is optimized and does not change or evolve very much.
Mucus (even if it contains living cells) will not evolve into proper eye cells without outside design and processes to change cells and their configuration---NOT EVOLUTION!
The eye lens is extremely complex in its construction and function to give high resolution images.
Each eye sensor is also complex in that they have to interface with an intelligent brain which is also extremely complex with embedded software.

There are many intelligent design articles about eyes that should be helpful.
Here are a few:
http://creation.com/did-eyes-evolve-by-darwinian-mechanisms

http://creation.com/is-our-inverted-retina-really-bad-design

http://www.opticsinfobase.org/josaa/abstract.cfm?uri=josaa-25-1-250

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/retina171.htm

http://www.reasons.org/articles/your-45-000-eyes



Curt Deckert, CMC, PhD
curt@cdeckert.com
www.blog.cdeckert.com
www.cdeckert.com
www.deckert.net
www.eyedesignbook.com
Just two of my many, many issues with it, I don't want to bore you with my science fangirl blathering, this is already long enough, and, like I said, that NOVA special really does a great job of talking about the real issues involved here, and explaining things really clearly. Especially when it comes to what science is, what it isn't, and issues of academic integrity. It is a good film and shows that religious intolerance and fundamentalism has unfortunately hi-jacked the honest enquiry that IS based on scientific principles. I watched a Myers video, where he was talking about a computer programmer, who is trained to read and develop computer code, and this computer expert, likened the information in dna, or how dna works, to the computer languages he worked with and developed. This investigation into inferred design in biological systems, is what I mean by ID and hence I believe it can be contained within a scientific framework e.g reverse engineering. I've mentioned before, that IC will surely be proved or disproved in the not too distant future, as scientist learn more and more how molecules are formed and work.

P.S. I think I mentioned on another post, the jellybean game as a good, intuitive way to try out natural selection on your own. You need: a jumbo bag of jellybeans, some bowls, a cloth or towel that matches the colour of some of the jellybeans, and a timer or watch with seconds. Pour out some jellybeans in a bowl, so you can see what the general jellybean population looks like. They come in a variety of colors, and tastes (random, like mutations). Keep the sample aside. Pour out some more beans on the cloth, and you have eight seconds to pick up as many as you can, one at a time. You eat what you "caught." Then, put the jellybeans left behind on the cloth into another bowl. Has the population changed? Prediction: gross tasting beans, or ones that blend in to the background will evade your jellybean predator. If those beans escape to breed, passing on their winning genes to their bean babies, your population (initially determined by random mutation) will change over time (evolution), not because of any conscious attempt to breed jellybeans, but because the tasty or easy to catch ones got eaten, and didn't live to breed (natural selection). Lifeforms that breed and mutate fast can evolve so fast that our technology can't keep up (antibiotic resistant bacteria), for just one fast-paced example. With enough pressure, and a fast-breeding community, it can happen before our eyes. That sounds fun. I love jelly beans. I don't doubt that natural selection is working. The question for me, is where did the multi-part intelligent systems come from that natural selection works on?

You're obviously very smart, Black Cat: intelligence isn't what you know, it's the openness ask questions.
My comments may well demonstrate how ignorant I am of these matters.

[Thought2Much]

BlackCat, while Deckert seems to have "real" qualifications and is not obviously basing his thinking on Biblical Christianity (as opposed to someone like Kent Hovind), he still runs into some significant problems with his thinking. By attributing things like the structure of the eye to an intelligent designer, this immediately raises the following questions:

1. Who or what designed the eye and other "impossible" structures?
2. When did they/it start doing this? Surely many primates in our evolutionary past had very similar eyes to our own. This means that it wasn't our eyes that were designed, but our progenitors'. How far back can you trace the evolution of the human eye? At what point do we decide, "Oh, here is where it must have been 'designed.'" Did this designer start all evolution on Earth? If so, has it been actively guiding all evolution here, or just doing random "software updates" to the DNA of the biological entities here? Is it still here, intelligently designing things? Which leads us to the last question, which is
3. Why? Why is someone or something "designing" us, but doing it rather poorly? Why is this designer smart enough to be able to design such intricate, amazing biological structures, but ham fisted enough to design them with so many flaws? And finally, what is the point of doing all of this designing? What is the ultimate end?

Finally, by attributing "impossible" structures to an intelligent designer, even if that designer is not seen as a deity or an object of worship, the intelligent designer proponents are doing exactly what the creationists do, which is say, "I don't know the answer to this question, therefore it must be God an intelligent designer!" It's not science, unless we actually are able to show some manifestation or evidence of the designer in question. It's essentially an intellectual punt that doesn't answer any scientific questions.

[BlackCat]

BlackCat, while Deckert seems to have "real" qualifications and is not obviously basing his thinking on Biblical Christianity (as opposed to someone like Kent Hovind), he still runs into some significant problems with his thinking. By attributing things like the structure of the eye to an intelligent designer, this immediately raises the following questions:

1. Who or what designed the eye and other "impossible" structures?
2. When did they/it start doing this? Surely many primates in our evolutionary past had very similar eyes to our own. This means that it wasn't our eyes that were designed, but our progenitors'. How far back can you trace the evolution of the human eye? At what point do we decide, "Oh, here is where it must have been 'designed.'" Did this designer start all evolution on Earth? If so, has it been actively guiding all evolution here, or just doing random "software updates" to the DNA of the biological entities here? Is it still here, intelligently designing things? Which leads us to the last question, which is
3. Why? Why is someone or something "designing" us, but doing it rather poorly? Why is this designer smart enough to be able to design such intricate, amazing biological structures, but ham fisted enough to design them with so many flaws? And finally, what is the point of doing all of this designing? What is the ultimate end?

Finally, by attributing "impossible" structures to an intelligent designer, even if that designer is not seen as a deity or an object of worship, the intelligent designer proponents are doing exactly what the creationists do, which is say, "I don't know the answer to this question, therefore it must be God an intelligent designer!" It's not science, unless we actually are able to show some manifestation or evidence of the designer in question. It's essentially an intellectual punt that doesn't answer any scientific questions.

 

Thought2Much -  the ramifications for proposing design in biological systems (as per the questions you list), are unavoidable but at this stage I'm hoping to put them to one side whilst I try to determine if these molecular machines have been designed and are irreducibly complex.  I believe scientific fields like molecualr biology and possibly fields like design technology and information technology will inadvertently prove or disprove ID.  They are very good questions that I wonder about all the time whilst ever looking to science to see what they discover about these molecular machines and how they came to be in existence.  I see no reason why we can't keep to the science and leave any religious motivations or prejudices to one side.  This didn't happen with the folk in Dover and many other ID adherents and hence ID is now seen as unscientific, but I believe it can be a legitimate part of the scientific enquiries regardless of what uncomfortable questions it may raise.     

 

I checked out one of Curt Deckert's web sites on eyes, and there's a heck of a lot of technical stuff on there for anyone who can understand these things.  http://www.eyedesignbook.com/ch1/eyech1-a.html#c-1

 

It''s way over my head.....

[Thought2Much]

"Intelligent design" was specifically developed by religious people to replace the terms "God," "creator," and "creation" in creationist literature in order to circumvent teaching religion in public science classes. The phrase was first published in Of Pandas and People, which was at least partially what the Dover trial was about. There is no separating religion from the origins of intelligent design. The very origin of the phrase and the "discipline" were religious people and their unscrupulous motivations to teach creationism in schools. These motivations cannot be left to one side. They are an inextricable part of the movement.

[Joshpantera]

I think you may have misunderstood the questions BC. They are not uncomfortable for science if that's the way you took them, rather they are extremely uncomfortable for those making the positive assertion for ID. 

 

 

1) Who or what designed the eye and other "impossible" structures?

 

 

What options do we have?

 

*A supernatural being acting as a designing mind (mythology).

 

*An advanced alien being or race using their mind or minds to seed living planets (von Daniken theories).

 

*A natural process by which the universe can move towards developing ways to see, know, and experience itself where ever conditions will allow for it (science, Sagan type reasoning). 

 

 

2) When did they/it start doing this? Surely many primates in our evolutionary past had very similar eyes to our own. This means that it wasn't our eyes that were designed, but our progenitors'. How far back can you trace the evolution of the human eye? At what point do we decide, "Oh, here is where it must have been 'designed.'" Did this designer start all evolution on Earth? If so, has it been actively guiding all evolution here, or just doing random "software updates" to the DNA of the biological entities here? Is it still here, intelligently designing things?

 

 

This is a very good question. And if a designer is required to explain existence, then who designed the designer(s)? If we say nothing designed the designer, then we've just admitted that something can exist without having been designed by something else and the argument tends to fold. This is a big problem in terms of taking either the supernatural or alien seeding options seriously. 

 

 

Why? Why is someone or something "designing" us, but doing it rather poorly? Why is this designer smart enough to be able to design such intricate, amazing biological structures, but ham fisted enough to design them with so many flaws? And finally, what is the point of doing all of this designing? What is the ultimate end?

 

 

The supernatural omniscient / all knowing option takes a major hit through this line of inquiry. If we're talking about science, real science, then we obviously can't grasp for the apologetic straw of blaming the fall of man and Satan for evidence of poor design. That's already been well established in this discussion by BAA and problems with the fall of man theology. For an apologist the point of all this designing would be simply for a supernatural God to create humans in order to praise and serve the supernatural God. Yeah, it's a very evident 'ego' driven theology based on the minds of men grasping at the mystery of existence and trying to personify it as a thinking being like us with emotions similar to our own like jealousy, rage, love, compassion, etc. It's most evidently the minds of men suggesting the murder and raping of whole villages and taking virgin girls as sex slaves or whatever, not an all-knowing and everywhere present God inspiring scripture, obviously. 

 

But to turn aside from this mythological and religious material as you request, where do we find ourselves when confronted with these very important questions to consider? 

 

Do we not find ourselves right back to natural explanations again? 

[BlackCat]

Josh, I'm glad you recommended the Nova film.  It is now clear why ID is despised and regarded as unscientific. 

 

I'd like to discuss the section of the film that you mention, at about 1.06 where Mike Behe claims that the flagellar motor is irreducibly complex, and the type III SS is presented as a possible pre-cursor.  It must surely be conceded that the flagellar motor as it is now, is indeed irreducibly complex.  If you take away any of the parts it will not function as a motor.  If you take away the parts that leave the type III SS as shown in the nova film, yes, you have a working machine, but you still don't seem to a crude motor, or am I missing something here?  Maybe what is more telling is what Scott Minnich discusses in the short film I linked to on page 5 comment # 93.  Please watch from 1.00 to about 5.30 where the type III is discussed.   The co-option theory suggests that parts can be borrowed from other systems and yet, most of the parts that make up the motor, are not found in other systems.  Then there's the problems of the order of assembly and the machines that are needed to assemble our parts.  I'm waiting for BAA to come back to me with his thoughts on this. 

 

Then we have Ken Miller's tie clip.  Let's put the tie clip to one side and ask Ken if the remaining parts will catch mice?  No, they won't.  The mouse trap is irreducibly complex.  Behe never says that parts can't have uses.  He asserts that the whole system will not function (as intended) if you remove any of the parts.  This is demonstrated with a very crude simple example of the mouse trap and is the case if you remove any of the parts of the flagellar motor.  You won't have a functioning motor.   I don't believe that IC was refuted at the Dover trial. 

 

Thought2Much- not every one who sees design in biological systems is relgiously motivated, as you seem to think everyone who supports ID, is.  I really can see why ID has got a bad name.  Is it possible there were questioning people who 'saw' what looked like design, way before the term ID was coined , and who were not religious or had any agendas?  Are you saying that only someone who is religiously motivated or biased, would think they see design? I will continue to use the term intelligent design, even though it may conjur up those sad, narrow minded, bigoted people who supported it in Dover.  You seem to be closing your mind to the legitimate enquiry: 'has this molecular machine been designed, given it has all the hallmarks of design?' because you suppose that such a question is asked only by young earth creationists or such like.    

[Akheia]

ID got its bad name because it is utterly and exclusively the idea of religious extremists. It's funny you keep calling it ID, when the evidence in Dover shows that creationists only started using that term to flout laws preventing the teaching of creationism. I will be calling it creationism because that is what it is.

 

Creationism does not have any standing in the real world of science, and would have faded long ago as a clear-cut bit of nutbar fundie posturing without a concerted marketing push to get it into schools and make "evolutionism" into a denial of Christianity. ID makes no predictions, cannot be tested, and doesn't follow a single precept of actual science. Don't get distracted by the idea of being on the "next level" of some mystic truth. ID is just a scam, just relabeled creationism, just creationism repackaged to sell to schools and to an increasingly science-illiterate gullible public. If you think you're an atheist who embraces ID, try attending one of their meetings--you'll find out pretty damn quick how religious the movement really is! They're oh so coy about who this "designer" is, but at a meeting you'll find out immediately who they think it is.

 

The flagellum thing was very ably debunked--embarrassingly so actually--in the Dover trial. I'm surprised you claim it wasn't. I was cringing on behalf of the creationists, I remember! It was a humiliating smackdown. Before its parts came together, the motor's precursor parts had other evolutionary purposes, and got re-purposed into a motor later. Creationism's fallacy is in assuming that a flagellum is just like a tie-clip. As the Nova special pointed out, if you take the tie clip apart, you can use its parts in a myriad of other ways if you use a little imagination. We can explain its evolution without any use of design at all. But Behe and his cronies use it, as well as the blood-clotting-cascade, as "proof" of their ideas even though it and the other couple "proofs" they parade around so proudly have been debunked in dozens if not almost a hundred scientific journals, textbooks, and peer-reviewed studies, and just trust that people who buy into creationism will just glaze over and go into "duh" mode when they talk about it. Thankfully, the Dover judge did not! (Besides, comparing a bacteria to a tie-clip is so stupid it defies all logical belief: we know tie clips were designed because we've all seen tie clips, we can see the manufacturer mark on it, and we know they can't reproduce or evolve. But bad analogies are what fundies do, isn't it?)

 

Let's not get into the fact that if you buy into creationism, you're really just buying into an equation with even more variables than would normally exist. If there's a creator, who is he? Where is he? Why do we see absolutely, positively no evidence of him? Where's he from? What created *him*? You're just moving the questions back a level, and not answering anything. Also, there's the worrying fact that we have never, ever, ever, ever encountered evidence of clear-cut design in the cosmos. Every single thing we see can be explained with just natural processes. While we don't understand every single thing in the universe, I'm comfortable--as are modern scientists--that we'll never find a situation wherein we'll just shrug and go "oh well, god did it."

 

Nobody thought evolution was designed--except for fundies anyway--in the world of science, and weirdly nobody still does--except for fundies. Again, no way to test it, no way to predict anything based upon it, so it isn't even a hypothesis. It's a wild guess made by people who are largely completely uneducated in biology. It's certainly not a theory, which can be tested and which does make predictions. So my question would be: why would a non-Christian even bother with it? It's either superfluous or it's flat-out wrong. Why are you still so attached to it?

[Thought2Much]

Thought2Much- not every one who sees design in biological systems is relgiously motivated, as you seem to think everyone who supports ID, is.  I really can see why ID has got a bad name.  Is it possible there were questioning people who 'saw' what looked like design, way before the term ID was coined , and who were not religious or had any agendas?  Are you saying that only someone who is religiously motivated or biased, would think they see design? I will continue to use the term intelligent design, even though it may conjur up those sad, narrow minded, bigoted people who supported it in Dover.  You seem to be closing your mind to the legitimate enquiry: 'has this molecular machine been designed, given it has all the hallmarks of design?' because you suppose that such a question is asked only by young earth creationists or such like.    

 

The phrase "intelligent design" was invented by creationists for creationists. As such, it is a loaded and hopelessly useless phrase to use to try to convince anyone of anything. If you continue to use that term to describe the concepts you are advocating, then you will be misunderstood by others who know the origins of the phrase.

 

As Akheia has pointed out, there are virtually no proponents of ID or IC that aren't motivated by religious bias. IC was first proposed by a creationist. ID was invented by The Discovery Institute. If I hear the phrase "intelligent design" or the phrase "irreducible complexity" and can't separate those phrases from creationists, it is because these ideas originated with, and are advocated by, creationists.

[BlackCat]

I think you may have misunderstood the questions BC. They are not uncomfortable for science if that's the way you took them, rather they are extremely uncomfortable for those making the positive assertion for ID. 

 

 

1) Who or what designed the eye and other "impossible" structures?

 

 

What options do we have?

 

*A supernatural being acting as a designing mind (mythology).

 

*An advanced alien being or race using their mind or minds to seed living planets (von Daniken theories).

 

*A natural process by which the universe can move towards developing ways to see, know, and experience itself where ever conditions will allow for it (science, Sagan type reasoning). 

 

 

>

2) When did they/it start doing this? Surely many primates in our evolutionary past had very similar eyes to our own. This means that it wasn't our eyes that were designed, but our progenitors'. How far back can you trace the evolution of the human eye? At what point do we decide, "Oh, here is where it must have been 'designed.'" Did this designer start all evolution on Earth? If so, has it been actively guiding all evolution here, or just doing random "software updates" to the DNA of the biological entities here? Is it still here, intelligently designing things?

 

 

This is a very good question. And if a designer is required to explain existence, then who designed the designer(s)? If we say nothing designed the designer, then we've just admitted that something can exist without having been designed by something else and the argument tends to fold. This is a big problem in terms of taking either the supernatural or alien seeding options seriously. 

 

 

Why? Why is someone or something "designing" us, but doing it rather poorly? Why is this designer smart enough to be able to design such intricate, amazing biological structures, but ham fisted enough to design them with so many flaws? And finally, what is the point of doing all of this designing? What is the ultimate end?

 

 

The supernatural omniscient / all knowing option takes a major hit through this line of inquiry. If we're talking about science, real science, then we obviously can't grasp for the apologetic straw of blaming the fall of man and Satan for evidence of poor design. That's already been well established in this discussion by BAA and problems with the fall of man theology. For an apologist the point of all this designing would be simply for a supernatural God to create humans in order to praise and serve the supernatural God. Yeah, it's a very evident 'ego' driven theology based on the minds of men grasping at the mystery of existence and trying to personify it as a thinking being like us with emotions similar to our own like jealousy, rage, love, compassion, etc. It's most evidently the minds of men suggesting the murder and raping of whole villages and taking virgin girls as sex slaves or whatever, not an all-knowing and everywhere present God inspiring scripture, obviously. 

 

But to turn aside from this mythological and religious material as you request, where do we find ourselves when confronted with these very important questions to consider? 

 

Do we not find ourselves right back to natural explanations again? 

 

I haven't a hope of getting to grips with those questions.  I would want to steer towards natural explanations for why we see design in these molecular machines.  So I would consider Gods like the bible God impossible and not the Force behind this apparent design in nature.  Whatever designed these machines must surely be part of the matter and energy that comprises our reality.  Evolution via natural selection is propsed as the designer, but I'm wondering if there is some other element or mechanism or force that is running through all matter and energy.   

 

The bottom line is, I am doubting that evolution via natural selection (and that missing abio genesis factor) is capable of producing the biological complexity we are discovering in science.  The synchronicity, calibration, and various levels of interdependant machines in one system, seems to defy a gradual development of such a system.  Science will figure all this out one day soon I hope and maybe the designer will turn out to be everything in existence, and nothing more and we'll finally know how Everything 'did it'.      

 

Check out this film.  It was shown on the BBC last year.  It's mind blowing.  This is why I see design:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFrKN7hJm64

 

Can you really blame me for seeing design? 

[Thought2Much]

I take back what I said about Curt Deckert. In an effort to give him the benefit of the doubt, I said that it seemed like he wasn't approaching IC or ID from a religious perspective. Yet, on his web site, he has posted as an appendix to his eye design book an article written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

Even more damning is this statement from a speech that he gave, which is also posted on his web site:

 

This web site contains many links to helpful information about eye design, optics design, eye care, and intelligent design. It makes a case for a master eye designer who is our Creator God. Here one can enjoy almost 200 pictures and diagrams of many types of eyes. Besides containing many helpful illustrations, it asks many questions to challenge readers. It can be used to help people realize that we have a Creative God who is the Ultimate Intelligent Designer.

 

The bold portions were formatted that way on Deckert's site.

 

Deckert is a creationist under a different name, pure and simple.

[BlackCat]

I am a former theist. The religious motivations of those who support ID, or rather how ID has been developed as a 'theory' does not cause me to dismiss or reject ID as a plausible theory or line of enquiry at the least.   

[Thought2Much]

I am a former theist. The religious motivations of those who support ID, or rather how ID has been developed as a 'theory' does not cause me to dismiss or reject ID as a plausible theory or line of enquiry at the least.   

 

Perhaps it is a valid line of inquiry. However, none of intelligent design's current proponents are actually doing anything resembling science in the field of intelligent design, and I have yet to find a proponent of intelligent design who isn't also a dedicated Christian of some sort. None of the current proponents of ID will accept an answer to the question of whether there is an "intelligent designer" with anything other than "The God of the Christian Bible." Anything they find that they think furthers this answer will be shouted from the rooftops, while any other answer (such as we're all part of a computer simulation, or aliens have been controlling earth's evolution) will be ignored.

 

I challenge you to do the following:

1. Find one intelligent design proponent that is not also a professing Christian or closely affiliated with creationist think tanks like The Discovery Institute, and
2. Has published scientific papers about intelligent design in peer-reviewed science journals, such as Nature, Science, etc.

I emphasized the "about intelligent design" part under #2 because some scientists who are proponents of intelligent design have published papers in peer-reviewed journals, but those papers have not been about intelligent design.

 

I would add that "poking holes in an existing theory and claiming that this invalidates all of evolution and must therefore be due to an intelligent designer then publishing this information on the internet" does not count as either science or publishing in a peer-reviewed journal.

[Thought2Much]

Oh, and bonus points if you can find this, in addition to #1 and #2:

 

3. Has a PhD in the discipline related to the paper about intelligent design that is being published in a peer-reviewed journal. For example, someone with a PhD in microbiology writing an article that appears in Nature about intelligent design as it regards microbiology.

 

See, most intelligent design proponents do not have PhDs in the fields they are addressing, and they may not even hold a Masters in these fields. If they do have PhDs, it's usually in engineering, or divinity, or psychology, or something not related to biology. The fact that virtually no one actually involved in the relevant fields is pursuing this line of thought should be a big red warning flag.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I've been checking into this thread off and on and have already learned a lot from having read just parts of it.  Thanks, everyone!

 

Black Cat, I may be getting you wrong, but the Irreducible Complexity argument as it's usually framed, and as people you've quoted  seem to frame it, appears to involve faulty reasoning.  It goes something like this, no?

 

Without a fully functioning physical system (let say, the eye), the organism would be unlikely to survive.

Without all its parts, the system cannot function.

If the system lacked a part, therefore, the organism would be unlikely to survive.

If all the organisms in a species lacked that part, the species would be unlikely to survive (or, could not survive).

But the species is alive.

Therefore the system must have always had all the parts.

But the TOE presumes that there was an earlier stage in the species' history when its system lacked a part.

But that assumption is false, by what has been proved above.

Therefore the TOE is false.

 

I could do a better job of standardizing the argument, but I hope this is close enough.

 

This argument seems to imagine earlier stages of a species' development, according to the TOE, as defective.  E.g. it imagines that the TOE posits a stage in the human evolutionary past when the eye lacked some part that it now has, and thus, could not have functioned as an eye.

 

But the notion of defect only has meaning by comparison to a standard.  A human eye that lacks a part is a defective human eye.  An australopithecus eye that lacked a part that a homo sapiens eye has is not a defective eye;  it's a different eye from a modern eye.

 

It's a straw man fallacy for IC proponents to speak as though "evolutionists'" assumptions require them to admit an evolutionary precursor of homo sapiens that had defective eyes.  Proponents of the TOE don't analyze species of the evolutionary past as defective versions of modern species.  Analysis of evolutionary change doesn't proceed by mental subtraction of qualities from the qualities possessed by modern species.  Rather, past species (and I remember that a species is a construct;  only the living individual creature is a substantial entity) were complete organisms in their time.  Myriad past species had forms of eyes that worked for them.  Those eyes, or light-sensing organs, were not defective.  They may have been different, but they were complete eyes for the needs of those organisms.  Early humanoids walking around with defective eyes are not entailed by the TOE.  Early humanoids walking around with eyes that worked for them, which may have differed in some ways from the eyes of modern humans, are entailed by the TOE. 

 

I may be wrong about whether you hold this view of IC, but if you do, it seems off to me. 

 

The observation that traits appear suddenly in the fossil record is another issue and not what I'm talking about above.

 

OK, Cheers,

 

F

[bornagainathiest]

Hello BC!

 

First off, I've got some tech problems with my computer, so I'm writing this at an internet cafe.  That 6-minute vid will have to wait because this machine isn't configured to accept the playing of vids.  Sorry 'bout that!

 

But I'd like to raise the subject of... objectivity ...if I may. 

Yesterday you replied to Josh, finishing with the words, "Can you really blame me for seeing design?"

I do not take issue with your right and freedom to do so.  Of course not.  You are a free agent and perfectly able to make your own choices.  It's not for me or anyone else to say that you SHOULD NOT see design, if you want to.  But there's a caveat to that statement.  I'll frame it in the form of a question.

 

Is your freely-confessed desire to see design affecting your objectivity in this matter?

 

Before I go any further, please let me present these worked examples of professional scientific objectivity being  influenced by the desire to see a much-wanted outcome.  (As you might expect from me, these are astronomical examples. )  The first one is negative and the second, a positive, where objectivity won out over personal desire.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell

 

Lowell's obsession with Mars began with a mistake and then snowballed from there, eventually consuming his life.  The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli wrote in 1877 that he could see 'canali' on the surface of Mars.  This word was mistranslated from Italian into Engliish to mean canals.  But Schiaparelli had observed channels (which are natural features), not canals (which are artificially-constructed waterways).  Canal = channels, not canals.  However, the damage was done and thereafter Lowell made it his life's work to discover more about this evidence of design on the red planet.

 

To that end Lowell used his personal fortune to build an observatory and telescope on a mountain in Arizona.  For fifteen years he studied Mars and drew many intricate maps of the canals he thought he saw there.  (BC, if you perform a Google Image search for 'Martian Canals' the bulk of the images will be Lowell's drawings. They certainly don't look natural, do they?  Therefore, if they don't look natural, they must be designed, musn't they?  After all, that's the logic operating here, isn't it?  If it looks designed, it must be designed, right?) 

 

There can be no doubt that Lowell was a skilled and dedicated observer, but his results could not be duplicated by professional astronomers with equal or better telescopes.  Worse, Lowell also claimed to see similar evidence of design on the surface of Venus, a planet swathed in an unbroken sea of featureless cloud.  These two issues should have alerted him to the fact that his objectivity was being compromised by his personal desire to see the outcome he wanted.  But they didn't and he went to his grave, firmly (but mistakenly) believing that he saw clear evidence of design on Mars.

 

We now know that there are no canals on Mars, but using his logic (if-it-looks-designed-it-must-be-designed ) Lowell's conclusions were right. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lyne

 

This example doesn't feature anything to do with design, BC. 

 

However, I cite it as an excellent example of professional objectivity at work in the life of a fine scientist.  There can be no doubt that Lyne would have gained kudos and acclaim for discovering a pulsar planet, but his personal integrity won out and he admitted to making an error.  The reaction of his peers is noteworthy too.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

BC, first and foremost, any scientist worth their salt should place objectivity above any personal desires or wishes they might have.  Failure to do so immediately compromises the value of their work and any conclusions they draw from their work.  Such a measure doesn't necessarily apply to you and I.  We have the right and the freedom to conclude whatever we want about anything.  We aren't bound by the professional obligations of being scientists. 

 

But surely there's a signal lesson to be found when we compare Lowell with Lyne?  A lesson that we would do well to heed and to apply to ourselves?  Wouldn't you agree?  That outward appearance, no matter how appealing, is no true guide to the truth itself.  That appearance of design is not proof of design, no matter how much we want it to be.  It is simply the appearance of design.  Proof of design isn't made by appearance. 

 

If appearance of design were also it's proof, then Lowell was right and these are also proofs of ID, because they appear to be designed?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene

Naturally-occuring molecules or PROOF of ID?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

A natural form of carbon of PROOF of ID?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvox

A naturally-evolved alga or PROOF of ID?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatom

A naturally-evolved alga or PROOF of ID?

 

I mean no offense here, but I do feel that your objectivity is being compromised by what you want to be true. I also feel it's my duty to alert you to this, BC.

 

In all good faith and sincerity,

 

BAA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ravenstar]

I've been thinking about this... and this is not 'supported' by citations or anything - just by what I know about evolution.

 

Early on there were myriad bizarre forms of life. The very first animals showed a remarkable diversity of function and 'design' (different solutions to say, mobility and such) Most died out and did not pass on these other evolutionary solutions...(they were the 'failures' of evolution - they never passed the beta testing stage) most life today comes from a very small sample of these different things - which is why most modern lifeforms are essentially similar. (ie: spines, four limbs and such)

 

I was always confused by the eye argument... it is obvious that the evolution of the eye happened over time as well as evolving in complexity from light sensitive cells in simpler forms. 3.5 billion years is a whole lot of time for this to evolve. Some snakes have heat sensors.. thermal imaging, bees can see ultraviolet wavelengths and some flowers have evolved along with them and have ultraviolet markers to attract the specific species that pollinates them. Cats have eyes that can see in very low light (they are mostly nocturnal animals) and are much more sensitive to movement than ours though not good color vision, Bats don't have great eyesight but have awesome sonar, as do dolphins who have little visibility in their environment... Birds of prey have eyes that put ours to shame, animals that have gone back into caves have lost their eyes, or have evidence of that being in process.. vestigial eyes. Sense organs of all types are obviously selected for in nature - even plants have light sensitivity or photosythesis would never have taken off. This is all supported in the fossil record. Now... if we found a fossil that was out of sequence.. ie: a pre-cambrian fossil with the complicated eye structure of a modern animal then ID may have a leg to stand on. I don't know of any.

 

This is how I understand the process... a simple organism has some sort of sensor, (like clams that respond to the gravitational pull of the moon, say) this gives it an edge over it's competitors.. it reproduces and passes this on to it's offspring. Natural selection, environmental pressure and mutation rates changes this particular sensor to work a little better - become slightly more sensitive... and this process goes on over millennia and thousands or millions of generations. What doesn't work well is weeded out by this process as well. It's actually a process of trial and error... and competition. Those that adapt well and are more suited to their environment survive to reproduce... those that don't die out. Over time things become more complicated... more adapted to the competition and environmental pressures.

 

Humans are very recent life forms.. VERY. Homo Sapiens are what... at the very most 300,000 years old? Maybe we could push that back a little - but not much. Yet our closest relatives have most of the complexity we do. The chimp eye is pretty much on par with ours.. as is the case with most primates. The complexity of modern animals has been there for a long time... the only difference between us and them is our mental capacity (which may end up being our undoing, is it an evolutionary plus? I think the jury is still out on that one - I think we are still in beta testing), upright mobility and very fine motor control in our hands. Other than that we suck... we are extremely fragile beings. Our senses are dull compared to most animals, our speed is laughable, our ability to defend ourselves as individuals is ridiculous, we don't handle environmental exposure well... however, we DO have a very complicated social structure and psychology - we are problem solvers. But even then... we see primitive roots of those in our relatives, it isn't unique.

 

I'd wonder about this process except for one thing... that something like 95% - 99% of all life forms that have lived on the earth have died out. That kind of precludes any sort of 'mind' behind this process... or the designer is an idiot. It's not a very good success rate. BUT it's the success rate that would be expected (even predicted by evolutionary theory) by a fairly random process that works within natural bio-chemical processes.

 

Just some thoughts I have on this...

[bornagainathiest]

BC,

 

I've just watched that vid and checked out the BBC website about that program.  I can now see what's happening.  You are misunderstanding something. This should help explain.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

From the BBC website about Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell.

(The emboldening is mine, for emphasis.)

 

“There is a battle playing out inside your body right now. It started billions of years ago and it is still being fought in every one of us every minute of every day. It is the story of a viral infection - the battle for the cell.

This film reveals the exquisite machinery of the human cell system from within the inner world of the cell itself - from the frenetic membrane surface that acts as a security system for everything passing in and out of the cell, the dynamic highways that transport cargo across the cell and the remarkable turbines that power the whole cellular world to the amazing nucleus housing DNA and the construction of thousands of different proteins all with unique tasks. The virus intends to commandeer this system to one selfish end: to make more viruses. And they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

Exploring the very latest ideas about the evolution of life on earth and the bio-chemical processes at the heart of every one of us, and revealing a world smaller than it is possible to comprehend, in a story large enough to fill the biggest imaginations. With contributions from Professor Bonnie L Bassler of Princeton University, Dr Nick Lane and Professor Steve Jones of University College London and Cambridge University's Susanna Bidgood.”

 

The words in red are METAPHORS, used to describe things for our understanding.

 

 

In the 6 minute video, the following words were used to describe the inner workings of the cell.

Machine = four times.  Instructions = four times.  Battery = twice.  Plan = twice.  Turbine,  Power-Station,  Instruction  Manual,  Factories,  Shredders,  Building Blocks and Re-Cycling, all once each.

 

Do you see what's happening here?

 

The BBC are using words like machine, turbine, instruction and plan to describe things inside a cell, but their reason for doing so isn't because these things are machines or turbines or batteries.  No!  Not at all!

 

They're simply using words like 'machine' and 'turbine' because we're familiar with these things in our technological 21st century world. Because we can relate to these concepts more easily than if the narrator had talked in terms of mitosis, meosis and telomeres.  That's all.

 

In Astronomy, scientist's talk about the cores of stars as the 'factories' where certain chemical elements are produced by thermonuclear fusion.  Does this mean that astronomers think that there are actual production-lines inside a star?  That the element-producing processes are proceeding according to some kind of 'plan'?  No! Not at all!

 

The use of words like 'factories' and 'machines' are metaphors for what's going on inside stars or cells. 

You're making a cardinal error if you believe that the scientists think there are machines of any kind at work anywhere in nature.

BC, you're taking these metaphorical descriptions far too literally.

 

Please contact the BBC and ask them how they meant these words to be taken.  Literally or metaphorically?

 

I'm sure they'll be happy to help.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[Joshpantera]

I think you may have misunderstood the questions BC. They are not uncomfortable for science if that's the way you took them, rather they are extremely uncomfortable for those making the positive assertion for ID.

1) Who or what designed the eye and other "impossible" structures?

What options do we have?

*A supernatural being acting as a designing mind (mythology).

*An advanced alien being or race using their mind or minds to seed living planets (von Daniken theories).

*A natural process by which the universe can move towards developing ways to see, know, and experience itself where ever conditions will allow for it (science, Sagan type reasoning).

;
2) When did they/it start doing this? Surely many primates in our evolutionary past had very similar eyes to our own. This means that it wasn't our eyes that were designed, but our progenitors'. How far back can you trace the evolution of the human eye? At what point do we decide, "Oh, here is where it must have been 'designed.'" Did this designer start all evolution on Earth? If so, has it been actively guiding all evolution here, or just doing random "software updates" to the DNA of the biological entities here? Is it still here, intelligently designing things?

This is a very good question. And if a designer is required to explain existence, then who designed the designer(s)? If we say nothing designed the designer, then we've just admitted that something can exist without having been designed by something else and the argument tends to fold. This is a big problem in terms of taking either the supernatural or alien seeding options seriously.

>Why? Why is someone or something "designing" us, but doing it rather poorly? Why is this designer smart enough to be able to design such intricate, amazing biological structures, but ham fisted enough to design them with so many flaws? And finally, what is the point of doing all of this designing? What is the ultimate end?

The supernatural omniscient / all knowing option takes a major hit through this line of inquiry. If we're talking about science, real science, then we obviously can't grasp for the apologetic straw of blaming the fall of man and Satan for evidence of poor design. That's already been well established in this discussion by BAA and problems with the fall of man theology. For an apologist the point of all this designing would be simply for a supernatural God to create humans in order to praise and serve the supernatural God. Yeah, it's a very evident 'ego' driven theology based on the minds of men grasping at the mystery of existence and trying to personify it as a thinking being like us with emotions similar to our own like jealousy, rage, love, compassion, etc. It's most evidently the minds of men suggesting the murder and raping of whole villages and taking virgin girls as sex slaves or whatever, not an all-knowing and everywhere present God inspiring scripture, obviously.

But to turn aside from this mythological and religious material as you request, where do we find ourselves when confronted with these very important questions to consider?

Do we not find ourselves right back to natural explanations again?

I haven't a hope of getting to grips with those questions. I would want to steer towards natural explanations for why we see design in these molecular machines. So I would consider Gods like the bible God impossible and not the Force behind this apparent design in nature. Whatever designed these machines must surely be part of the matter and energy that comprises our reality. Evolution via natural selection is propsed as the designer, but I'm wondering if there is some other element or mechanism or force that is running through all matter and energy.

The bottom line is, I am doubting that evolution via natural selection (and that missing abio genesis factor) is capable of producing the biological complexity we are discovering in science. The synchronicity, calibration, and various levels of interdependant machines in one system, seems to defy a gradual development of such a system. Science will figure all this out one day soon I hope and maybe the designer will turn out to be everything in existence, and nothing more and we'll finally know how Everything 'did it'.

Check out this film. It was shown on the BBC last year. It's mind blowing. This is why I see design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFrKN7hJm64

Can you really blame me for seeing design?

I enjoyed the video. I think we all pretty much agree how absolutely amazing the inner workings of the body can be. So if Father YHWH is out, then we have only Mother nature to consider as the designer or potential mind behind it all. I'm not opposed to investigating nature for evidence of mind or consciousness qualities. But what we're looking at in this respect is not the same as what ID proponents are looking at. They are largely linking the designer to a supernatural deity beyond nature, not linking it to nature itself as a potential form of primary consciousness flowing through all things with self designing abilities.

So there's clearly at least two ways of approaching design in nature and the ID label is addressed to supernaturalism whereas you and I seem to be exploring something else altogether, something that probably requires a different name altogether because ID is a misleading label for what we're trying to consider at this point in time.

We might call this line of consideration "Natural Intention" (NI).

The creationists wouldn't want to align themselves with NI, though. Which is a good thing if you ask me. It rejects supernatural assertions and 'God of the gaps' type of approaches. You've denounced supernaturalism above so I assume that you are of the naturalist camp.

The bigger question is whether IC has any merrit for a naturalist with a leaning towards something like NI. The very assertion of IC seems to suggest a special creation of the flagellum motor, which is a supernaturalist belief taken right out of Genesis 1 which we've both agreed repeatedly is not historically or scientifically accurate. Did God speak "let there be..." and then the flagellum motor magically appeared already created and fully functional? If that's just as silly as it sounds, then what value is IC for a naturalist anyways?

The thing is that you could be right about an intention behind the existence of all of these internal mechanisms without having to align with supernatural, special creation, ID and IC proponents. It could be that engery and consciousness turn out to be two aspects of the very same thing, as Joseph Campbell opined. In that case consciousness in lesser or greater forms would run throughout the whole of existence - where there is engery there would be consciousness in that respect. Is there energy in Bacteria, cells, eyes, etc.?

Deeper yet, IC could be just as wrong and ill-founded as the biological scientists say it is. And yet there could still be intention in nature working through the process of natural selection in order to arrive at seeing, knowing, and experiencing creatures like ourselves capable of complex social evolution. We are the eye's and ears of a living planet. We're like the brain cells of the planet from another angle. Nature has pushed steadily in this direction to the point where some see it as an inevitable outcome, a key feature of universal evolution that we're only just beginning to understand.

I don't even know what exactly a proposition like NI would entail, but I'm sure if some one sat down and put their mind to it they could come up with something much better than ID which boxes out radical fundies and even casual liberal monotheistic creator God assertions and aligns much better with accepted science to the point where it could be entirely permissible in the class rooms. But the religious advocates would rail against something like this to no end. They'd probably want to keep it out of the classrooms even more so than regular evolution because it would greatly undermine their agenda for deity personification and special creation assertions.

[Ravenstar]

^^^ I like that Josh... a lot. Thanks

 

good stuff

[BlackCat]

Brilliant replies guys.     I will address each one, as time allows. 

[BlackCat]

 

I am a former theist. The religious motivations of those who support ID, or rather how ID has been developed as a 'theory' does not cause me to dismiss or reject ID as a plausible theory or line of enquiry at the least.   

 

Perhaps it is a valid line of inquiry. However, none of intelligent design's current proponents are actually doing anything resembling science in the field of intelligent design, and I have yet to find a proponent of intelligent design who isn't also a dedicated Christian of some sort. None of the current proponents of ID will accept an answer to the question of whether there is an "intelligent designer" with anything other than "The God of the Christian Bible." Anything they find that they think furthers this answer will be shouted from the rooftops, while any other answer (such as we're all part of a computer simulation, or aliens have been controlling earth's evolution) will be ignored.

 

I challenge you to do the following:

1. Find one intelligent design proponent that is not also a professing Christian or closely affiliated with creationist think tanks like The Discovery Institute, and
2. Has published scientific papers about intelligent design in peer-reviewed science journals, such as Nature, Science, etc.

I emphasized the "about intelligent design" part under #2 because some scientists who are proponents of intelligent design have published papers in peer-reviewed journals, but those papers have not been about intelligent design.

 

I would add that "poking holes in an existing theory and claiming that this invalidates all of evolution and must therefore be due to an intelligent designer then publishing this information on the internet" does not count as either science or publishing in a peer-reviewed journal.

 

I'll see what I can find. 

 

To be going on with, this article may contain some points of interest:  Seven Nobel Laureates in Science who either supported intelligent design or attacked Darwinian evolution.

 

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/seven-nobel-laureates-in-science-who-either-supported-intelligent-design-or-attacked-darwinian-evolution/

 

The first one is very interesting: Dr Brian Josephson who seems to be an atheist, and the sixth one Wolfgang Pauli who seems to be an atheist or certainly not a theist.    

 

Your challenge will no doubt take some time to work through.  I'll let you know as soon as I have any answers.