Evolution versus Intelligent Design

Dude! Must be some good ****, pass that bong over my way!

 

Martian;

there have been some pretty heated but also some very good discussions about evolution vs. Creationism / Intelligent Design on this forum. There were a couple about a month ago that you should be able to easily find.

This one was pretty good.

http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?threadid=93222

 

Actually, when I developed that theory (not quantum theory, the theory of how we have both predestination and free will), I had been completely sober (no drugs, no alcohol, no nothing) for over 4 years.

 

I must have missed some reference.

 

I believe in Chaos Theory. My life embraces Chaos. Chaos rox.

 

...to give doctors a free boat payment...

 

Pretty much. ID states that a creator exists, and you cannot prove or disprove its existence, therefore it is an unscientific theory.

 

I don't believe in nuthin', but there's lots of pretty things to look at out there.

 

So when someone says "My soul is on fire" that means they need an appendectimy?

 

No it means that the sky is burning.

 

That usually means they've recently had some bad chili.

An appendectimy is a needed when selling your soul to Satan. There is some sort of capital gains exemption involved too but I'm not too sure.

 

If our actions lead to the eventual consequence of heaven and hell, then won't our soul end up at several points?

 

No. Any afterlife consequences (karmic debt) that need to be repaid will be based on the decisions we made while in this life.

 

And if you have an appendectimy your soul will end up in a bio-waste bucket.

 

Interesting take.

So you're not an organ donor?

 

Who would you donate it to and who would want it?

 

Intelligent Design is a theory of origins many scientists are proposing to deal with the complexity of earth and life including recent DNA science that refutes classical evolution.

Christians also are using it to give the Bible creation story scientific validation.

However it presents problems to scientists because by theory there was a intelligent designer and that is where it gets sticky as far as scientific evidence. Who is the designer?

1. An alien- any being from unknown parts of the universe
2. Aliens- groups of same
3. God of the Bible
4. god or other gods from religions
5. other- unknown god or designer


There may be other options for instance unknown realities as introduced in the Matrix movies.


Let's vote- assuming ID, vote for the origin:

Is it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

 

I was going to avoid this thread since it has been talked 50,00 times before, but I feel obliged to chime in again.

ID is NOT a theory. ID is not falsifiable. That is, it does not provide any criterion under which we can say "ID is false." Every other scientific theory is falsifiable. It's the fundamental requirement of the scientific method.

An ID argument based on complexity only makes it worse, loosely summarized as follows:

Fact 1. The universe is extremely intricate and complicated

Fact 2. We design things such as automobiles or aircraft that are intricate and complicated.

Conclusions:

Conclusion 1: Everything that is intricate and complicated must have a designer.

Conclusion 2: Conclusion 1 indicates that the universe requires a designer.

Conclusion 3: God is that designer.

(Western) Conclusion 4: This designer is the God as described in the Holy Bible.

The real failure of the argument is in Conclusion 1. It amounts to saying "I have absolutely no idea why the universe is complicated, therefore God did it." Those who study physics and science are particularly aware that there exist many simple systems that result in extremely complicated behavior.

They are using it to masquerade religious creationism into a science class.

Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution by natural selection is a theory, supported by cell biology, DNA analysis, geology, and probably all other hard science. It also makes localised predictions on the variation of alleles within a genome, as well as the traits of offspring generations of species (ones within a lab environment at any rate).

Intelligent design produces no models, makes no predictions, and explains no currently understood phenomena. It is neither theory, nor fact.

I.e., that there is none.

A harder question for ID theorists is this one: What created the creator? If one postulates that the universe requires a creator, why does the creator not?

 

Good points. How could people even mention ID as a science with a straight face? You can believe it because of your faith, but to say that it should be taught as a science subject in high school is laughable.