"Intelligent" Design

[LucidDreamer]

inspired by this thread, "intelligent design", so most of you don't believe in creation? what do you think about the ancient sumerian civilization? the first ever human civilization on earth which appeared virtually overnight. Cities and temples...their knowledge of the solar system,mathematics,astrology, etc... how could the sumerians possibly build a highly advanced culture literally overnight? it's even considered advanced in OUR time according to some scholars. According to the ancient tablets, they owe their civilization to the "gods" sent from heaven.. they even have a list of their "gods" dating back to 400,000 years.. does this make any sense?? heck, after knowing this, i'm beginning to think that there are in fact extraterrestrial activity here on earth long ago and maybe helped shape the human intelligence.

http://www.usfca.edu/westciv/Mesochro.html

I wouldn't call thousands of years overnight.

[swansont]

http://www.usfca.edu/westciv/Mesochro.html

I wouldn't call thousands of years overnight.

 

"Overnight" Much the same way the first couple of "days" of Genesis are sometimes interpreted to mean "billions/million/thousands of years" or whatever is needed. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Mokele]

That's what "Overnight" means? Damn, so that's why I still haven't gotten my Fed-Ex packages....

[Phi for All]

what do you think about the ancient sumerian civilization? the first ever human civilization on earth which appeared virtually overnight. Cities and temples...their knowledge of the solar system,mathematics,astrology, etc... how could the sumerians possibly build a highly advanced culture literally overnight? it's even considered advanced in OUR time according to some scholars. According to the ancient tablets, they owe their civilization to the "gods" sent from heaven..

Firsts you said "virtually overnight", then you change it to "literally overnight". Immense difference. Considering the length of time early mankind spent as wandering hunter/gatherer units, I'll bet the rise of the Sumerian culture seemed pretty quick to those who bothered to write about it at the time.

That's what "Overnight" means? Damn' date=' so that's why I still haven't gotten my Fed-Ex packages....[/quote']Ooooh, see how being a Mod makes you funnier?

[JC1]

That's what i've learned from my art history class. Well, at least i know it has a flaw. Thanks.

 

Anyway, back to the fossil records topic, i ran across this source, the author claims:

 

“Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.”

 

Feduccia, A.; in: V. Morell, Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms, Science 259(5096):764–65, 5 February 1993

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4254news3-24-2000.asp

[Mokele]

Yes, yes it is a basal bird. Not a "perching bird" in the modern sense, but a primitive bird (and still a transition).

 

Or did you know of any birds with teeth flying around today? Or long, bony tails? Or separate fingers?

 

Yes, it's not *precisely* in the middle, but that doesn't make it any less transitional.

 

But, let's humor you. Ok, one down, over 500 transitional vertebrate fossils to go. Then you can try to debunk the *thousands* of invertebrate transitional fossils.

 

Seriously, go look at the fossil record of bivalve molluscs in detail. Every objection you have about transitional fossils being rare will vanish. They're uncommon in vertebrates because vertebrates are a) a tiny fraction of living things b)fossilize poorly compared to hard-shelled organisms and c) rarely live in environments conductive to fossilization. Arthropods and Molluscs are the exact opposite in all these traits, and have a *vast* fossil record, with more transitions than you can count.

 

Mokele

[JC1]

Yes' date=' yes it is a basal bird. Not a "perching bird" in the modern sense, but a primitive bird (and still a transition).

 

Or did you know of any birds with teeth flying around today? Or long, bony tails? Or separate fingers?

 

Yes, it's not *precisely* in the middle, but that doesn't make it any less transitional.

 

But, let's humor you. Ok, one down, over 500 transitional vertebrate fossils to go. Then you can try to debunk the *thousands* of invertebrate transitional fossils.

 

Seriously, go look at the fossil record of bivalve molluscs in detail. Every objection you have about transitional fossils being rare will vanish. They're uncommon in vertebrates because vertebrates are a) a tiny fraction of living things b)fossilize poorly compared to hard-shelled organisms and c) rarely live in environments conductive to fossilization. Arthropods and Molluscs are the exact opposite in all these traits, and have a *vast* fossil record, with more transitions than you can count.

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

I can see there are overwhelming evidences. However, if we think in dept, all these physical evidences in this world logically points towards God (ID)...i mean the physical gives proof of the spiritual. Don't you think so?

[Mokele]

However, if we think in dept, all these physical evidences in this world logically points towards God (ID)...i mean the physical gives proof of the spiritual. Don't you think so?

 

The physical evidence points to evolution. However, there is absolutely no reason one could not say that God is controlling evolution from behind the scenes, working within the laws of the universe and biology to guide things with a subtle nudge here and there. You don't need to erase the laws of nature to see God; in fact, many people claim that the way a simple process like evolution can produce such a myriad of forms is a face of God in itself.

 

Personally, I don't see anything as 'proof' of the spiritual, but one can easily see God in nature, including in evolution, if one is so inclined.

 

Mokele

[gib65]

how could the sumerians possibly build a highly advanced culture literally overnight?

 

OK, so I'm picturing this. On the evening before Sumeria was erected, there was simply a gathering of tribes. In one of these tribes, someone came up to the group and said:

 

"You know, guys, I've got an idea. Now, it may sound a little crazy, and I don't know if it will work, but hear me out..."

 

and he begins his rant of building an entire civilization with all the common faculties of science, politics, arts, entertainment, etc. Finally, he concludes:

 

"Now I know it sounds like hard work, but if we put enough effort into it, and we start ASAP, I figure we could be finished by, oh, tomorrow morning sometime."

[buzsaw]

You don't need to erase the laws of nature to see God;Mokele

 

The concept of eternal God, "the same yesterday, today and forever," as the Bible puts it is incompatible with the BB beginning of the universe. His eternal throne and heavenly abode could not exist before the alleged BB. He'd have no abode of existence, nothing around him and nothing to do before the BB. This is the problem Hugh Ross, Christian BB creationist, has never answered, so far as I am aware.

[swansont]

Interesting comments and links found on Red State Rabble blog. Lots of good stuff there.

 

Like the Sept 21 entry:

 

Cowbirds, Parasitism, and Intelligent Design

Red State Rabble reader Neil M. was eating lunch at his desk, reading Scientific American, and thinking about the many spurious arguments for intelligent design coming out of Seattle's Discovery Institute when it suddenly occurred to him that -- huge though their brains may be -- the boys at Discovery could not possibly have come up with any of their many arguments for intelligent design in the absence actual science.

 

Behe, Dembski, and others talk about irreducible complexity, their favorite examples are the many proteins in the blood that are involved in clotting. They talk, also, about the structure of the eye, and bacterial flagella. They talk, and they talk, and they...

 

But, Neil asks, how would anyone know anything about the structure of the eye, or proteins in the blood, or even what a protein is, for that matter, without science?

 

Infallible though it may be, you can’t look any of these things up in the Bible.

 

This is an excellent point that set RSR to thinking:

 

Perhaps we should begin to think of intelligent design not as a theory, or an intuition, or even a glimmer in Behe's eye, but rather as a form of intellectual parasitism -- a half-baked concept become cowbird that propagates by laying its eggs in the nests of other birds leaving its young to be raised by the unfortunate hosts.

 

In the same way the cowbird slips into the nests of others to lay her eggs, dissolute intelligent design "theorists" want to drop their ill-formed idea off in science classrooms with a note pinned to its jacket -- "please take care of little so and so."

 

The intelligent design dilettante -- like the cowbird -- refuses to do the hard work of field or laboratory research to feed and clothe their gawky child. They refuse to nurture the little monster they've so crudely stitched together in that Frankensteinian laboratory in Seattle.

 

I'm told that robins push cowbird eggs out of their nests...

 

posted by Pat Hayes

[Phi for All]

The intelligent design dilettante -- like the cowbird -- refuses to do the hard work of field or laboratory research to feed and clothe their gawky child. They refuse to nurture the little monster they've so crudely stitched together in that Frankensteinian laboratory in Seattle.

So ID is like intellectual welfare for the religious right?

[JC1]

I've been bringing up several spiritual proofs that point toward Creator.

 

Here another one regarding free will, a gift we possess given from Creator.

 

Thinking back to the prehistoric age, there is not one single proof that our genes were inherited from the common ancestors. Person in the field of anthropology can validate this. There are only evidences that these species existed. It takes “faith” in the theory of human evolution to come to the acceptance that apelike beings were our ancestors. As I noted, animals do not act on free will, but on necessity to thrive. What separate us and animal is not merely the more complex brain system of us.

 

I believe we have the power to control the fate of other animals, I mean at a species level not on an individual animal basis. For example, lions don’t kill more water buffalos than they need to fill their stomachs or kill other animals that don’t threaten their territory. Humans have the ability to domesticate species, and even create new ones. Humans have the ability to make a whole species extinct or sustain them through breeding programs. In other words, humans have the power not only to survive, create, and destroy at a species level, they have the power to act out of the bounds of necessity . . .thus Free will.

 

 

Now onward with evolution, evolution is the directed change in the frequencies of alleles in a population. These allelic frequencies are chosen through environmental pressures over a long period of time. The alleles chosen are the ones that help the population to survive. Natural selection kills off animals that have alleles disadvantageous to their species. As for us, we are with a great many of alleles circulating in our gene pools that are detrimental against our species. I can in faith reason that evolution was carried out on humans so that they can develop a higher thinking to maintain their survival against such diseased alleles, HOWEVER (the most important point I’m making) it goes beyond reasoning and scientific theories that humans have this thing called 'free will'. Why, because the direction of evolution is always towards advancement of the species. There is no such thing as anti-evolution. Natural selection chooses alleles that are beneficial to survival. Free-will is the one thing that somehow came about that does not automatically benefit the species, but is actually a stipulation that is disadvantageous for the species. Think about the more intangible aspects innate in all creatures, love, nurture, survival instinct etc. If there were no such things as free-will, the will of every creature would be to do everything that helps it to survive. But free-will options something else, the option of doing anything and everything, whether it’s survival, suicide, genocide, stagnation, etc. Free-will steers the direction of the whole species of humans, or humans at an individual level to whatever direction they want. Nature’s process of natural selection has no ability to advance the thinking of a creature to create free-will because it only directs towards advancements. Evolution is one way. 'Free-will is anyway'.

 

My personal belief. . .

To stay fitting with biology, I believe in this thing called 'supernatural selection' where a Creator designed humans with the ability to have 'free will'. The world contains animals and environments for that human species to live in. That world is ruled by natural processes like natural selection, but humans are created separately to accommodate that thing called 'Free will'. There is no natural selection for humans but there is 'Supernatural selection'. In evolution everything advances to a higher being. Why does it stop at the human level? I don’t think it does. There is a thing called the 'after life' where the supernatural selections are made according to the choices that identify a person. 'Free-will is a gift from our Designer' while animals without free will wouldn't even know good vs evil. For this matter, science only leads me to a dead end while the Bible gives me principles that makes sense to me, and satisfies all my inquisitions.

[swansont]

I've been bringing up several spiritual proofs that point toward Creator.

 

Here another one regarding free will' date=' a gift we possess given from Creator.

 

Thinking back to the prehistoric age, there is not one single proof that our genes were inherited from the common ancestors. Person in the field of anthropology can validate this. There are only evidences that these species existed. It takes “faith” in the theory of human evolution to come to the acceptance that apelike beings were our ancestors. As I noted, animals do not act on free will, but on necessity to thrive. What separate us and animal is not merely the more complex brain system of us.

 

I believe we have the power to control the fate of other animals, I mean at a species level not on an individual animal basis. For example, lions don’t kill more water buffalos than they need to fill their stomachs or kill other animals that don’t threaten their territory. Humans have the ability to domesticate species, and even create new ones. Humans have the ability to make a whole species extinct or sustain them through breeding programs. In other words, humans have the power not only to survive, create, and destroy at a species level, they have the power to act out of the bounds of necessity . . .thus Free will.

 

 

Now onward with evolution, evolution is the directed change in the frequencies of alleles in a population. These allelic frequencies are chosen through environmental pressures over a long period of time. The alleles chosen are the ones that help the population to survive. Natural selection kills off animals that have alleles disadvantageous to their species. As for us, we are with a great many of alleles circulating in our gene pools that are detrimental against our species. I can in faith reason that evolution was carried out on humans so that they can develop a higher thinking to maintain their survival against such diseased alleles, HOWEVER (the most important point I’m making) it goes beyond reasoning and scientific theories that humans have this thing called 'free will'. Why, because the direction of evolution is always towards advancement of the species. There is no such thing as anti-evolution. Natural selection chooses alleles that are beneficial to survival. Free-will is the one thing that somehow came about that does not automatically benefit the species, but is actually a stipulation that is disadvantageous for the species. Think about the more intangible aspects innate in all creatures, love, nurture, survival instinct etc. If there were no such things as free-will, the will of every creature would be to do everything that helps it to survive. But free-will options something else, the option of doing anything and everything, whether it’s survival, suicide, genocide, stagnation, etc. Free-will steers the direction of the whole species of humans, or humans at an individual level to whatever direction they want. Nature’s process of natural selection has no ability to advance the thinking of a creature to create free-will because it only directs towards advancements. Evolution is one way. 'Free-will is anyway'.

[/quote']

 

<sigh> You need to stop pretending you know much about evolution.

 

Evolution is not directed change and does not always result in a "direction of evolution is always towards advancement of the species" for the simple reason that selection pressures change over time (e.g. climate changes, changes in what predators are around)

 

If you can't see how intelligence (aka free will) doesn't provide a survival benefit, then I think you're just not trying very hard. The ability to use and fashion tools, including fire? Cooperative hunting?

 

 

 

My personal belief. . .

To stay fitting with biology' date=' I believe in this thing called 'supernatural selection' where a Creator designed humans with the ability to have 'free will'. The world contains animals and environments for that human species to live in. That world is ruled by natural processes like natural selection, but humans are created separately to accommodate that thing called 'Free will'. There is no natural selection for humans but there is 'Supernatural selection'. In evolution everything advances to a higher being. Why does it stop at the human level? I don’t think it does. There is a thing called the 'after life' where the supernatural selections are made according to the choices that identify a person. 'Free-will is a gift from our Designer' while animals without free will wouldn't even know good vs evil. For this matter, science only leads me to a dead end while the Bible gives me principles that makes sense to me, and satisfies all my inquisitions.[/quote']

 

Since science makes no pretense about not addressing the supernatural, it's a good thing you recognize that following science down that path leads to a dead end. Your belief of the afterlife has to be a matter of spirituality.

[arkain101]

As I noted, animals do not act on free will, but on necessity to thrive. What separate us and animal is not merely the more complex brain system of us.

 

I believe we have the power to control the fate of other animals, I mean at a species level not on an individual animal basis. For example, lions don’t kill more water buffalos than they need to fill their stomachs or kill other animals that don’t threaten their territory. Humans have the ability to domesticate species, and even create new ones. Humans have the ability to make a whole species extinct or sustain them through breeding programs. In other words, humans have the power not only to survive, create, and destroy at a species level, they have the power to act out of the bounds of necessity . . .thus Free will.

 

I dissagree. We have free will yes, as do some animals. A dog for example, Can choose to jump around and play or lay down and pout, go get a stick to play fetch or hump your leg cause it loves you so much. Animals do function on a much more programmed action but They dont unite in groups and socialize like humans do.

 

If you were sent out into the wild bush of north west british columbia. Would you still have your so called free will? When you are starving to death you too have things that kick in to help you survive, you too will act on the necessity to thrive. You could not extinct a species. But because human civilization is basically a herd, or tribe on a gigantic scale we have the monopoly of the food chain.

 

There is studies of people that have been raised in a neglected enviroment. Their brains actually if left alone untill the age of 10 or so will be physically different. They will be unable to perform grammer tasks, conjoin sentences. They are much like animals.

Here is the very interesting part. They do not think in their minds with words because that part of the brain does not exist. So they mearly function on noises that represent feelings and emotions. If they are angry they do not think with word to express themselves (can you fathom that?).. they feel the anger and expell it through body language.. Do you see what I am saying.. Without the teachings of socialization we are at a gigantic loss to who we are and our survival. It is because of the fact we pass on our natural survival skills to our young that we end up where we are. Just like animals do to their young. Only animals do not function with a grammer type of mind. It is almost impossible to imagine because we are programmed to think with words and communicate with words. BUt we still have emotions and feelings that control us to an extent. We are limited to our will. If you have a broken leg, can you still run a marathon with your free will?

 

I beleive in creationism but I have no explanation of it.

 

The bible was written by history of word of mouth passing of history and stories. Do you not realize that even today a story can not remain the same when passed between people through the use of words. It will change. The bible is to me a ancient writing of the symoblism and thoughts of what really happened. They couldnt even tell you what the sun or moon was but you will trust them on the creation of the world?

 

If gods curse is ignorance, than we should really look around. Why do people all around the world clamin to have seen ufo's and aliens.. Do we really just sign these people off as crazy? or just plain stupid? There is miles of information of alternative information to our existance out there. (alternative to the mainstream science in schools which follows the program of who? who tells us what to put into the school systems.... yes.. and alternative to the teachings throughout history of god and creationism)

 

If you were able to go back in time and maybe fly with a hang glider, and share some interesting knowledge, I can almost assure you in my mind they would think you were some kind of god.

[JHAQ]

i am aware that they are not the same thing. i was not speaking of evolution.

 

anyways, i'm curious, what do you all find wrong with the theory of intelligent design? what kind of scientific facts disprove it? (specifically facts that just DISPROVE it. i don't want an essay on why evolution is true. what kind of evidence do you have that SPECIFICALLY disproves the idea of a creator?)

 

How do you prove a negative ?

[iNow]

Why did you just bump a three year old thread?

 

 

Also, to answer your question, the same way you prove a positive.

 

 

Assertion: The earth is not flat.

Proof: Earth is spherical.

 

 

Finally, Intelligent Design has been proven false. Hence, it is discarded into the waste pile with all of the other stupid ideas.

[JohnB]

And this years "Lazarus Award" goes to.........