Evolution VS Intelligent Design

[CarolAlynn]

My general idea is simple! Is it not possible that Intelligent design, that is the creation of life by intelligent means ( I have no idea what it is or could be, the possibilities are endless and mind boggling ) could incorporate evolutionary process. In other words life was created and meant to evolve and form on its own.

 

While i already understand that intelligent design theory has not been able to produce lab results, I also know that mathematics is a very real thing, and Intelligent Design theory definitly has the mathmatical evidence.

 

I also know that Evolution leaves behind some very real evidence, and i believe it happens every day.

 

Science today has become somewhat clouded, When people present theories, the think for some reason that it must mean the previous explanation was wrong. Science needs to follow the evidence and be open minded to wherever that evidence may take them. To see the whole picture we need to include every bit of evidence we know of.

 

On the topic of Evolution, I do not know if man came from apes or not, it seems likely but the fact is that the australopithecines have never been proven to be any more than ape. We have never found evidence of that ancestor the theory proposes we had. Also there has been much evidence that humans have appeared on the earth much earlier than previous expected.

 

Im not saying i understand the answers to all these thoughts, but i do know that often when evidence comes up that threatens a popular theory, people will go to great lengths to discredit it.

The only thoughts Darwin ever gave on intelligent design theory (or what it was called in his day) He saw no evidence of intelligent design, yet he did not rule it out. He also commented that if there was evidence of intelligent design his theory of life coming from one simple organism would break down.

 

Darwin was a true scientist, he looked at evidence and followed it, and as a scientist always does he also speculated things. We shouldnt take darwins entire writings as the bible of life, we should look at his evidence critically, and over time and keep what remains applicable.

 

By the way, i just wanted to let every one know that i dont really see myself as part of any organized religion that i have ever heard of. I know that many people see those who believe in Design theory as agenda pushing christians, but the majority of them arent. That doesnt mean of course that the Agenda pushing Christians in the U.S political realm arent loving the theory and how they can use it!

[PhDP]

Hello CarolAlynn,

 

While i already understand that intelligent design theory has not been able to produce lab results, I also know that mathematics is a very real thing, and Intelligent Design theory definitly has the mathmatical evidence.

 

I'm trained both in mathematics and in biology, if you have any mathematical evidence against evolution, I'd like to see it. The thing is; evolution is based on theoretical population genetics (the work of Wright, Fisher, Haldane, and more recently; Ohta, Lande, Kimura, Gillespie, ...), so if ID had the mathematical evidences, it would be a real problem for evolutionists like me.

 

On the topic of Evolution, I do not know if man came from apes or not, it seems likely but the fact is that the australopithecines have never been proven to be any more than ape. We have never found evidence of that ancestor the theory proposes we had. Also there has been much evidence that humans have appeared on the earth much earlier than previous expected.

 

I could give provide you strong evidences based on genetics and mathematics. And in fact, humans have appeared on earth much later than previously thought (about ~5 m.y.a.). But if you're really interested, you should read a general book about this, not science popularization, not a book trying to sell you evolution or ID, a normal textbook used at the college/university level, and I'm sure many people here (me included) would love to answer your questions.

 

However, you have to understand that evolution is more than just "random mutations + selection", it's a complex process. If you really want to understand it, you'll need to do a little reading.

 

We shouldnt take darwins entire writings as the bible of life, we should look at his evidence critically, and over time and keep what remains applicable.

 

That's a problem with IDists (those who follow ID), they call us "Darwinists". I'm an evolutionary scientist, yet I don't consider myself a "Darwinist", in fact I think his contribution was not that great (compared to Fisher, Wright, ...).

 

I have no problem with the notion that god (or something else) created the universe so evolution would be possible, I don't believe it, but it's not impossible. However, ID contradicts the theory of evolution.

[Reaper]

The problem is that ID is not science. It makes no testable predictions and can be construed so that it can't be falsified. I suggest you read this thread over here, which addresses the topic: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28993

 

 

Otherwise, can you show us any this so-called "mathematics" that you claim to be part of ID?

Edited June 9, 2008 by Reaper

[doG]

You're comparing apples with oranges. Evolution is NOT about the origin of life like theories about Intelligent Design or creation are. It is certainly possible that designed or created life could evolve but that provides zero support for ID or creation as an origin of life. If you're chasing support for ID or creation you need to look elsewhere, evolution is not it.

[john5746]

My general idea is simple! Is it not possible that Intelligent design, that is the creation of life by intelligent means ( I have no idea what it is or could be, the possibilities are endless and mind boggling ) could incorporate evolutionary process. In other words life was created and meant to evolve and form on its own.

 

I am not a scientist, but this is not ID as I understand it. ID says that some mechanisms within living organisms could not have evolved, they had to be designed. Your suggesting ID as an idea for the beginning of life, which evolutionary theory does not attempt to explain. So, earth could have been "seeded" by some aliens and then evolution brought all the diversity we have on earth currently. No one can say for sure that something like this did not happen, but if we find it possible for life to begin without a designer, then we have a workable explanation with everything in place. If we think it was designed, then we still need to determine the methods used, possible tools and information about the designer would also be helpful.

 

 

On the topic of Evolution, I do not know if man came from apes or not, it seems likely but the fact is that the australopithecines have never been proven to be any more than ape. We have never found evidence of that ancestor the theory proposes we had. Also there has been much evidence that humans have appeared on the earth much earlier than previous expected.

 

If you take the stance that we are nothing more than a smart ape, what do you expect our ancestors to be?

 

 

Darwin was a true scientist, he looked at evidence and followed it, and as a scientist always does he also speculated things. We shouldnt take darwins entire writings as the bible of life, we should look at his evidence critically, and over time and keep what remains applicable.

 

I think evolutionists have done that. Those that reject evolution have gone nowhere.

[D H]

I am not a scientist, but this is not ID as I understand it. ID says that some mechanisms within living organisms could not have evolved, they had to be designed.

Some variants of ID do not completely reject evolution; the designer simply guided evolution. Other (most) variants of ID do completely reject evolution. There are as many variants of ID as there are variants of wacko theology. This makes ID as a concept rather hard to refute because there is no single concept of what ID is.

[thedarkshade]

Any truly rational scientist, whose conclusions are derived from the critical analysis of evidence but also based on logic, would far more agree with evolution as a method through which all the diversity of life that we have today came in. To tell you the truth I find ID quite a silly story and it's a fact that this 'theory' (because it's not a theory at all) doesn't have any (not even a single) evidence. All they have is books and stories about a supernatural being who seems to have mastered all the branches of science and whose will has made possible all today's diversity. I tell you that is crap! All IDists are always trying to stick behind something real complex and then declare that this is the proof since science cannot completely explain it. Of course that will last until they get knocked down again, like they always do. They're always looking for gaps of science. A thing that needs to be understood is that science doesn't completely explain anything! No matter how advanced the explanation and the understanding is there still is a dose of uncertainty. Science never proclaims that it knows everything or anything in the complete way! But on the other side IDists do have a complete knowledge about everything. They say it's designed, created to be that way, and that's it!

Well I say that anyone smart enough can tell the difference between the two!

 

ID is just the wonderful place for people whose naivety is way too large to grasp the truths of science!

[foodchain]

Having studied evolution for forever I can say I don’t know even close to everything about it that is in a book somewhere even, its rather detail heavy, not in terms of issues like natural selection or mutation but proof of such actually in life or biodiversity. Having said this I don’t really think I could honestly say from what I know that evolution was guided by anything else then the natural world and its phenomena, such as light from the sun, or the existence of oceans, or troops of monkeys meeting up.

[CDarwin]

On the topic of Evolution, I do not know if man came from apes or not, it seems likely but the fact is that the australopithecines have never been proven to be any more than ape. We have never found evidence of that ancestor the theory proposes we had. Also there has been much evidence that humans have appeared on the earth much earlier than previous expected.

 

In the sense that humans have never been proven any more than apes, yes. But Australopithecus was obviously bipedal, as can be told from the shape of its pelvis, the angle at which its femur meets its tibia, the position of its spinal attachment, and most beautifully actual footprints found in association with Australopithecus fossils.

 

Pelvis and knee comparisons; A. afarensis footprints:

 

 

Sorry there aren't any of A. africanus in there, but it seems not to get as much coverage on Google images.

 

The teeth of Australopithecus are also significantly different from those of a modern ape's. You can tell them apart on that basis alone.

Edited June 9, 2008 by CDarwin

[CarolAlynn]

Im already aware of the science of evolution and how it works, I have taken a number of classes and done some independent study on the subject. I just didnt put the information in my thread because i assumed those who were interested wouldT already know what evolution and what the real intelligent design theory was about.

You misinterpreted my idea, i never said that mathematical evidence disproved evolution, i simply immplied that because of the amount of information in DNA, and the fact that scientist are constantly discovering new things about the cell, like iriducable complexity,it points towards a bigger answer than just simply evolution. The cell is full of machines that work as one as can not fuction without everything, that means that evolution could not work on it unless it was already there to begin with!

Intelligent design is only a young theory, and as we all remember everyone in the science world scoffed at Darwin as well. We DONT know all the answers and i was simply trying to immply that many scientists today think they do and therefore any more evidence is irrelivant.

 

Intelligent design doesnt contradict the theory of evolution. Darwin himself was never sure about how that one simple organism came to form, and the fact taht the DNA that makes up all life is so complex, with some much information that has to be precise leads me to believe that it was not a coincidence that life began on earth!

 

I know that "lucy" was bipedal but that does not prove that she was part of the hominin family, for all we know humans and all our ancestors could have evolved from a very different life form. There are similarities in "Lucy" and humans but no link that makes her any more than an ape that walked up right. Humans have something that apes just dont have and that is self awareness and the ability to create information. Information is the recognizable trait of intelligence and isnt the amount of information in DNA mind boggling. It is an amount of information we as humans have not matched

[Phi for All]

the fact that scientist are constantly discovering new things about the cell, like iriducable complexity,it points towards a bigger answer than just simply evolution.

This is more tripe from IDists. No true scientist believes in irreducible complexity. Just because something is fabulously well-suited to enhance the survival capabilities of a species, it doesn't mean it has to have an intelligent designer. It just means it's a fabulous mechanism.

 

IDists love to talk about the "design" of the eye, only so they can say a design has to have a designer. It doesn't logically follow at all.

[CarolAlynn]

The teeth of the Australopithecus may be readically different from that of the other apes, the teeth of neanderthals were quite different from modern humans, that doesnt mean that they had left the hominid family all together

 

the eye can evolve independently so many different times in so many different ways it is mind boggling as to why. I believe it is because the eye is so useful, but your right it does not mean it has a designer.

How do you use evolution to explain the many consistancies in the universe?

 

You all think im naive and a christian who is grasping for straws, all i wanted to point out was that anything is a possibility, and evolution does not explain why life could emerge on earth just how.

 

ps like i said im not any religion. Im just an open minded person searching for the truth

[iNow]

ps like i said im not any religion. Im just an open minded person searching for the truth

Scientists are also very open minded, especially when followng the scientific method. To the root of the issue, they've discared ID... not because they are close minded, but because it's wrong and offers absolutely nothing to our understanding, nor any testable predictions.

 

 

I'll now offer my favorite cartoon on this issue:

 

[Phi for All]

the eye can evolve independently so many different times in so many different ways it is mind boggling as to why. I believe it is because the eye is so useful, but your right it does not mean it has a designer.

The eye is useful, definitely. Eyelids are useful too, in keeping the eye clean of debris, especially if you exist on land. But for many aquatic species, eyelids are unnecessary because they already possess a long enough tongue to clean them. It's not so mind-boggling to understand why evolution would choose not to give some lizards eyelids. It wasn't necessary.

 

How do you use evolution to explain the many consistancies in the universe?

Some patterns are just physically better, like triangular construction for strength, the Golden Mean for efficiency and many others.

 

You all think im naive and a christian who is grasping for straws, all i wanted to point out was that anything is a possibility, and evolution does not explain why life could emerge on earth just how.

Science isn't interested in "why". That's for metaphysics, religion and philosophy. We *need* science to be objective and free from what we want to believe.

 

I think we also need metaphysics, religion and philosophy to ask "why". But we need to keep science separate so it's effective.

 

ps like i said im not any religion. Im just an open minded person searching for the truth

Being open-minded sometimes means you're led by the heart. Being skeptical means you want answers that follow some kind of logical path to make sure you're not just hearing what you want to hear.

[D H]

How do you use evolution to explain the many consistancies in the universe?

Evolution does not "explain the many consistancies in the universe" (whatever that means). It explains one thing: The variety of life on one particular planet in the universe. Evolution does not explain the origin of stars, or the formation of planets, or even explain how life began.

[Phi for All]

Evolution does not "explain the many consistancies in the universe" (whatever that means). It explains one thing: The variety of life on one particular planet in the universe. Evolution does not explain the origin of stars, or the formation of planets, or even explain how life began.

Good catch. I was answering what I thought CarolAlynn meant, rather than what she actually said. Sloppy on my part, to be sure.

[pioneer]

I essentially agree with evolution, although I often argue to the contrary. The problem I have had is understanding some anomalies that suggest there is more order to the direction of evolution. Maybe I am missing something. For example, the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. If we add it up, for about a billion years these bacteria had no resistance to these drugs. In a relatively short time, they were able to evolve what couldn't be done for a billion years. This suggests several things.

 

1) The bacteria evolution was induced by the environment. They never had to evolve this ability to resist, until we created this environment. At least in this one example, a change in the environment speeded up evolution and cause specific things to occur that didn't occur randomly in a billion years.

 

2)The more constant and persistent the change in the environment the faster will be the evolution. This why they tell people to ease up on the antibiotics. If we trick the bacteria into thinking the environment is not permanent, they do not change as quickly.

 

What this suggest is, if the environment is stable, such as within stable ecosystems, evolution is slower and is more dependent on chance, such as a billion years to not be able to develop antibiotic resistance. If we change the environment, evolution speeds up in the direction of the environment. The higher the environmental potential, the faster the evolution. We are proving this theory, in real time, as we speak.

 

3) If this environmental potential can alter the genetics faster than just a billions years of random, somehow it appears the environmental potential is able to conduct to the DNA to get directed changes. What didn't change without a push changed with a push.

 

Relative to the bacteria, some of antibiotics do not exist naturally. There is no natural basis for a past connection to the DNA. If this was a natural compound maybe somewhere in memory there is a gene that could explain the quicker turn around. In a short period of time the genetics changed to accommodate artificial compounds.

 

One way explain why evolution may have missed this is due to the nature of collecting samples. The most likely samples to find, are from those things that had the most units at one time. This would be stable populations where the environmental changes is not drastic. Drastic changes in environment, according to the theory would cause rapid genetic change. But this is not stable, at first, but rather is heading toward a new stable state. There may not be many of these rapid change transitions animals. They will be the holes in the data. It is not until selective advantage, working the stable environment, that will will get more units.

 

With the bacteria, it is not until the population really starts to built until we realize the resistance. By then the prototypes that made it all possible may no longer provide us fossil evidence.

[CharonY]

If we add it up, for about a billion years these bacteria had no resistance to these drugs.

 

That is pretty much wrong. Many had resistances to natural occuring ABs.

You have to understand that often only minute mutations (sometimes as less as a single nucleotide exchange) to confer the resistance. In other words, all kind of potentially resistant strains pop up all the time. However, this mutations often do not occur in significant numbers to be noticeable, unless you change the selective pressure so that those carrying the mutation get a selective advantage over the others. In other words, once you pour ABs over them, those with those mutations suddenly pop up. Otherwise they remain numerically insignificant. The only matter of induced evolution, if you want to call it, is the so-called error-prone repair system, which increases mutation rate.

The rest of the argument is thus pretty much based on wrong assumptions.

[CarolAlynn]

Ok i will no longer call my idea part of Intelligent design theory then since the name carries so much controversy. My questions are mainly about DNA and how specificically coded it is, How is DNA the process of evolution?

 

I know evolution answers a lot of questions and is a very real process, it happens every day, but i am trying to point out that there could be other explanations as to the development of life on earth.

[ecoli]

Ok i will no longer call my idea part of Intelligent design theory then since the name carries so much controversy. My questions are mainly about DNA and how specificically coded it is, How is DNA the process of evolution?

well, since DNA encodes information, mutations in that information can result in a phenotypic change, which can potentially alter the fitness of an individual (for better or worse).

 

I know evolution answers a lot of questions and is a very real process, it happens every day, but i am trying to point out that there could be other explanations as to the development of life on earth.

This is essentially a strawman argument. Evolution doesn't predict how life developed on earth, just in how populations and species evolve. Abiogenesis theory is interested in how life originates and develops.

 

Right now, there are no good alternatives to evolutionary theory, that have been successfully proven. Missing evidence makes it difficult to predict how different species have evolved, but the fact that they evolved somehow in accordance with evolutionary theory is not in question.

 

Abiogenesis, however, is a controversial field, which seems to have some guess work invovled.

 

However, neither of these two theories relies on any form of intelligent design in order to understand them. Nor would any [real] scientist to to incorporate it.

[Phi for All]

Ok i will no longer call my idea part of Intelligent design theory then since the name carries so much controversy.

Sorry we jumped on the ID thing so hard but everyone here has heard science put down by IDers and creationists, usually with incorrect information and deliberate falsehoods.

 

I know evolution answers a lot of questions and is a very real process, it happens every day, but i am trying to point out that there could be other explanations as to the development of life on earth.

Evolution isn't about how life developed. It's about the change in allele frequency in a population over time. Abiogenesis attempts to explain the origins of life on earth. Two separate theories that are often confused by ID proponents and creationists (not that you're either).

[D H]

I essentially agree with evolution, although I often argue to the contrary. The problem I have had is understanding some anomalies that suggest there is more order to the direction of evolution. Maybe I am missing something. For example, the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics.

 

What anomalies? The development of drug resistance is anything but an anomaly. It is fully explained by modern evolution theory. Some bacteria prey on multicellular organisms (e.g., us). Multicellular organisms have been evolving techniques to combat those little predators from the get-go, and bacteria have been evolving to overcome these techniques. Multicellular organisms have an advantage here because of sex. Bacteria have an advantage here because they live a very short time and because their genetics is a bit sloppy.

 

What you are missing is that evolution is not random. Just because random mutations provide the means by which things evolve does not mean evolution is random. Successful mutations provide some competitive advantage in terms of survival, and that is determined by the local environment. Evolution is directed by local opportunity. It is not a global optimizer (i.e., there is no end goal for evolution). Our eyes are not globally optimized, for example. The receptors would function much better if the light didn't have to pass through the retina to hit the receptors.

[CDarwin]

Intelligent design is only a young theory, and as we all remember everyone in the science world scoffed at Darwin as well. We DONT know all the answers and i was simply trying to immply that many scientists today think they do and therefore any more evidence is irrelivant.

 

Exactly. ID is the young 'theory,' so the onus is on it to show that it can make real, testable predictions with greater explanatory power than evolutionary theory. Thus far, it has not. Instead, IDists spend millions and millions a year on court battles to get their ideas inserted into text books and whine on documentaries about academic persecution. Darwin never did that. He worked, he experimented, and he convinced his peers of the quality of his ideas. That's how science is done. Through work, not PR.

 

I know that "lucy" was bipedal but that does not prove that she was part of the hominin family, for all we know humans and all our ancestors could have evolved from a very different life form. There are similarities in "Lucy" and humans but no link that makes her any more than an ape that walked up right. Humans have something that apes just dont have and that is self awareness and the ability to create information. Information is the recognizable trait of intelligence and isnt the amount of information in DNA mind boggling. It is an amount of information we as humans have not matched.

 

For bipedality to have evolved more than once among a group of primates that can already be linked together by dental characteristics would be highly unlikely. Australopithecus was almost certainly either a direct or collateral human ancestor.

 

If you want Lucy to sing an opera, well then no luck there, as I'm sure you know. You're setting the goal posts impossibly. Obviously the first humans weren't fully modern in their mental abilities; then there wouldn't have been such a thing as human evolution, now would there? What we do have is a marvellous record of primates stretching back into the early Pliocene that paint a very clear picture of an emerging family of bipedal, increasingly intelligent apes. And what do you know, around 100,000 years ago those apes start looking exactly like us. If that's not enough evidence of human evolution for you, then you're just determined not to believe in it.

 

The teeth of the Australopithecus may be readically different from that of the other apes, the teeth of neanderthals were quite different from modern humans, that doesnt mean that they had left the hominid family all together

 

Neanderthal's teeth weren't that different from modern human dentition. Just a bit tougher, and it has been proposed that even that all boiled down the different use patterns during development. Neanderthals used their teeth as vices to hold things more.

[doG]

Ok i will no longer call my idea part of Intelligent design theory then since the name carries so much controversy. My questions are mainly about DNA and how specificically coded it is, How is DNA the process of evolution?

 

I know evolution answers a lot of questions and is a very real process, it happens every day, but i am trying to point out that there could be other explanations as to the development of life on earth.

 

Keep in mind as well that no one claims that evolution holds all of the answers. We are looking for the answers. Many questions like yours of DNA have only one answer right now, we don't know.

[CarolAlynn]

Exactly that is my point we dont know, which means we should not rule out any possiblity unless conclusive evidence can disprove it.