Order does not always lead to disorder. As a general rule, on the scale of the universe, it does, but it's similar to our "intelligence" example above - not everything has to move in tandem to create a generalized effect.

The easy answer is that the Earth is not a closed system and the Second Law only applies to closed systems.

The slightly more complex answer is that there is no such thing as "complexity" in evolution. We are no more ordered than a chimpanzee, a bacterium, a fish, a whale, a horse, a hippo. We're just different. People see evolution as a giant ladder where we're on top. It's not. Certain things may be older than us, but that doesn't mean they're more complex at all. We are not "evolved" from chimpanzees, there is no linear progression - rather, we have a common ancestor.

Ok; that's reasonable. My point, though is: Are there any problems, at all, with evolution? If not, then we have a perfect theory, given the information we have. If so, then we have an imperfect theory that can be improved. I don't think ID is that improvement, because I think God would create a universe that wouldn't need his intervention to function. Do you agree?

And don't get me wrong. I still think that deriving something scientific from the Bible, a book with great stories (New Testament) and not so great ones (Old Testament) written to explain things science of the time couldn't, and of course enforce law and order in a time where law enforcement as such didn't exist, is demented. That doesn't mean that the creation of the universe at a starting point, couldn't have been an intelligent act as such. Of course it could still be the last fortress of human need to explain the unexplainable; to suggest intelligence where there is none, the last refuge so to say of inferring meaning and instilling a sense of importance in creation so as to not seam benign when looking at that marvelous thing of a universe with strings, supernovae, black holes and other tears in the space-time fabric. I can understand that there is a need in humanity to look for a godly being that must have planned out all those intricacies. Just look at all those constants that govern our universe. If just one digit would be different the universe wouldn't exist. So someone must have meddled with those "dials" till he got it right, right? But that is philosophy. And that will conclude my contribution to that subject.

Oh I agree with that completely. Evolution has never been a completely 100% sure thing. Sure, Darwin started it all, but you'd be amazed at how many things he'd end up being wrong about!

The problem I have is that ID proponents attempt to latch onto that as some sort of attempt at discrediting the whole thing. Science works by constantly revising the theory as new evidence is uncovered, so it's never going to be perfect. We have to remember that there are a lot of theories out there.

We see gravity happening every day..modern quantum theory. Both of those theories are irreconcilable. There's no way to make them work together nicely without a lot of really strange stuff. But we see a lot of things that are predicted by those models. We observe new particles all the time that fit into those cracks - why do you think they're making the LHC? So science is really vulnerable to this kind of attack. It's just not a valid one.

So, in summary, you are 100% correct. Some parts of evolutionary theory predict things we haven't seen yet or don't explain things we've found fully. But that's far from saying that ID is an adequate replacement, which you recognize. If ID proponents can produce real evidence that gives another account of why all these coincidences have happened, predictions have come true, and researchers have seen these things in actions on animals with smaller gestational times, they are welcome to bring them to the table. Until then, I don't think attempting to discredit the entire basis of modern biology is worthwhile.

I come from a predominantly Christian family, yet we are unanimous in saying that intelligent design is most definitely not science. I am curious why people think evolution is not proven - their is more evidence for it than almost any other theory in existence. Intelligent design is a reactionary idea coming from the camp that believes that science and religion cannot live side by side. I cannot disagree with this more. There is no scientific evidence for intelligent design, therefore by scientific method it has to be considered 'an unproven theory'. I would encourage people to look at this article from the New Scientist (warning people in advance that the writers of this article are 'evolutionists', in that they are members of the scientific community who agree with me that intelligent design is scientific rubbish, but are less diplomatic than me):

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misconceptions.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=top1_pic

My overall opinion is that this debate has nothing to do with science, but with religion. I'm sorry but in a scientific sense saying evolution is wrong is on a par with the supposedly faked moon landings. Almost every single 'proof' that the they were faked has been irrefutably discredited yet still a significant proportion of the population believe that they were faked.

Leaving this aside, what I said about religion versus science is all to do with how strong people's faith is in the word of the Bible. Some people take the Bible at face value, some take it more metaphorically. Hence the former might favour intelligent design while the second might favour evolution. I'm not a theologian so I will not press this further, but I am not a 'fundamentalist' Christian. I don't take the Bible at face value and see no contradiction between it and scientific belief. However I do believe in God. It would be arrogant of me and of anyone to say I am right because I know I am right. But that is my point of view.

re: science

There are three main streams of interpretation of the Bible... the Arminianists, the Calvinists and the Universalists.

The Arminianists believe in a god that leaves us up to our own devices and will punish/reward us based on our own choices... Human history can support that that is not a good idea.

The Calvinists believe in a god that pre-destines us to either hell, or heaven... so pretty much you don't have much control in this one. God has decided your eternal destiny, a long time ago... you either burn, or you wander around between streams and trees, pretty much doing nothing for the rest of eternity.

The Universalists believe in a god that has a purpose for *everything* as it is now, the pain, the suffering and *everything* else that happens in the universe... but also the power and the intention to set it right when the plan is complete. Not only that, but no one will be left out, no matter what you believe...

Read the Bible as a Arminianist or a Calvinist and you fight with contradiction after contradiction. But if you don't, the local church might just not accept you, since you don't have enough "faith"...

Read the Bible as a Universalist, and all of a sudden things start making logical sense.

So... where do you think the idea of a death-god came from? Is it the God of the Bible or the god of the church?

Not to make two posts... Onto evolution. I don't really have time to debate this (running a business takes time ), but this is something that I've been studying for a while, so I'm just leaving you with some thoughts... Pull them apart and enjoy it if you need to :

1) Is something that happened in the past provable? Were there any witnesses? Yes, we see adaptation and natural-selection today. It would be stupid to try and put an argument to that. BUT, adaptation and natural-selection does not equal dolphin-to-bird evolution. Why? Evolution is assumed because it seems like a possibility: natural-selection and adaptation are facts which can seem to hint at it. We however, do not witness inter-species evolution today...reindeer look similar to cats in some respects, yet they don't mate - and even if they do, they are not genetically compatible. It is also reasonable to accept that they are similar because they have been design according to a similar "blue-print." In order for it to be proven, someone has to sit and watch it for millions of years - and take some notes.

So, is evolution *really* science like many badly want to make others believe, or is it a theory of origins - just like intelligent design?

2) Can information be information without intelligence ordering it? Data becomes information when it becomes some sort of interpretted message... Not only does it need intelligence to order it, it needs intelligence to define the parameters of interpreting it and intelligence to actually interpret it. And I'm not talking necessarily God here... I'm talking about about a basic if-then statement on your computer, for instance, and the processing that is involved.

DNA can mutate and cause changes, this is true... but looking at the diversity of all the species on the planet, including the plants and animals, mathematically is it reasonable to accept that all of these mutations actually added NEW, intelligent, ordered information to the DNA strands? All of them? Has it been proven?

Let's say a fish grows legs and lungs, and walks out of the water... Why would that happen in the first place? If it does, where does the information come from that specified that legs are better for operating on the land than fins? How long did it take these fish to get their legs working properly, so they can start finding food and not let this possibly benficial mutation die out? How did they know which food to find? How many of these fish got out of the water at the same time to make sure that this mutation actually survived? The odds are just not in favour of that.

3) If everything did happen through natural processes, where did nature come from? Where did the singularity for the Big Bang come from? Why do we have a definition for "nothing" in the first place? Maybe everything isn't as it seems.

4) A last thought: All experiments that have tried to create life from molecules by emulating the natural processes required, have failed... however a few were fairly promising. Scientists have been looking to do this for a long time... if they do, this might just kick Intelligent Design out of the picture completely. There's a slight flaw in that argument however... all of these experiments were set up by intelligent people, and the parameters manipulated - intelligently. Just a thought.

Sorry about the long post, but to be honest, I've got a very big interest in this... I'm obviously on the side of Christian Universalism and Intelligent Design, but I don't want to convince anybody... I just like people to think about and decide their own truth. Use it, or lose it - I believe in the end, everything is going to work out fine anyway.

Also, this will be my last post... sorry if some of these have been mentioned earlier, but time is a bit short and this has taken a bit too much already The ID vs Evolution argument will go on and on and on... None of us can go back and prove it. However both leave some questions to be answered... My personal belief is that evolution's list is growing day-by-day. At the end of the day, there is no proof yet... and there are some things you have to take on faith - faith in Evolution or faith in Intelligent Design.

Later
-Jus

I am no biologist, but I have conducted scientific studies and have some idea how the scientific dialog works. And to distrust ID, that is entirely enough. None of the ID arguments I ever heard of utilizes higher biology or chemistry or physics (I have studied physics, so I do know why the creationist "increasing entropy" argument is wrong). But please, give me an example of ID utilizing the "incredible complexity of cellular biochemistry". I only know them to argue "this is too complicated to have evolved without a guiding mind" which only utilizes the ignorance of people of processes which can produce complex results (see Langtons Ant for an easy example, or fractal structures).


What? This is simply not true. There is no discussion between experts on a "very scientific level" about ID. Pretty much no scientist researching in that direction acknowledges ID as a scientific as worthy of scientific debate (except those few who have it on their personal agenda of course). Suggesting otherwise is a common tactic of creation/ID advocates, but show me one serious scientific paper analyzing the merits of ID.


I am not aware of early priests particularly pushing human knowledge forward. True, in many societies knowledge was mostly a privilege of the religious elite. But the earliest attempts to understand the world itself that I am aware of, come more from healers/physicians, geographers or philosophers.


No, but it isn't scientific. We neither know of any "intelligent agents" that could have pushed evolution along, nor do we need them to explain it, because the process of natural selection works perfectly fine for it.
Most importantly though, assuming the existence of some guiding intelligence doesn't offer any increase of knowledge. In fact it does the opposite and takes the whole field of evolutionary biology (if not all of nature) away from the inquiring minds of mankind. It means that we cannot understand anything because it is all regulated by some strange intelligence that is - naturally - unpredictable. It would be the death of science!


That may very well be. Both have a mechanism that creates (more or less random) new stuff, and one that selects this new stuff according to how useful it is. In the case of natural evolution these mechanisms can be explained with alterations of the genome and the "contest for reproduction". In the case of human design the human mind takes these roles. But it isn't necessary for the process itself.


As you said yourself these topics are to complex to be entirely discussed in school, which is why we cannot simply feed our students everything and let them sort out the good stuff themselves. But of course we have to teach them how we see the world!
As said before, you can teach ID in school, if you consider it worth the effort. But nut under the false pretension that it was science.

EDIT: Sorry for the long post. But arguing against ID is both so agitating and fun

No intelligent design doesn't belong in the school system to be taught as equal to evolution since ID is just a rename of CREATION. ID was also put on trail versus Evolution in Texas quite a few years back and ID lost.

But even thou i don't believe in any main stream religion (I got my own person beliefs) creation isn't all that false. Let me explain.

The only obstacles that make creation break apart and make Evolution stronger is on miner aspect of the religious content and more importantly the interpretation of it.

Such as:
The Earth was created in 7 days. With science we all know that is wrong since we know it toke millions of years. But int he bible it is mention hat to god 1000 years is the same as 1 day. Which would be that to god time is irrelevant and that he probably would be a bad time keeper anyways. Also consider that GOD "an obbnicient(sp) all knowing being" is trying to tell a human how he created the world. Now Take into consideration that this human didn't know shit about history and such. Your 8 year old is probably smarter then him. If god were to use what we today called scientific terms this dude wouldn't understand shit. Not to mention that god had to talk int he dudes language so he could understand him. Which is an old language that isn't as developed as ours and there fore cannot be as precises.

They are many many other points like that that make creation as it is told a lie in how it occurred but not a lie in concept since if you take those Godly interpretations then creation will start resembling evolution.

As for me my view on this ID thing is that did not decide of who man would look. How the world would be sculpted. He simply wrote the rules book. And i am not talking about the 10 commandments and shit here. I am talking about E=MC^2, h_20 (2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom makes water) Those rules which we discover everyday as we evolve what we call science. I believe that anyone studying science is studying the work of god and trying to understand what he thinks.

I'll leave it at that.

Carbon016:

I'm going to respond to your post in reverse order, because what I feel like saying makes more sense that way. Bear with me in that a. I need to be somewhere in twenty minutes, so this may not be the most cogent post ever, and b. I'm not a scientist, so I may not be entirely straight on my facts. And c., too, that since I'm working on a philosophy paper at the moment there's a lot of jargon of that type scattered throughout.



But there is a ladder somewhere, isn't there? I don't wish to disparage the single-celled creatures from whence we may have come, but it seems to me that by the classical evolution theory the ancestor that I share with everything else, if we follow the chain far enough, does not have the same level of complexity that I do. I, for instance, contain mechanisms for differentiating between types of tissues, and this hypothetical very first ancestor, by dint of not having tissues in the human biological sense, does not.

I don't feel that this is a very compelling example, but do you see where my point of contention is? In either case, I'll move on to the second part of my post and the first of yours.



I may have mentioned this before, but I'm not certain that I did. The standard Earth-as-an-open-system model involves solar and/or cosmic radiation as an effectively infinite energy source, correct? The effectively infinite bit is indisputable, I will grant that.

I'm not sure if thermodynamics supports me here, but: it seems to me that an input of energy into a system decreases entropy just in case the energy is applied in a form with a low entropic state. The example I may have used before is that of my laundry pile. If we take me, a washing machine, and a dryer as one single entity (weird, innit?), I will end up applying energy in the form of moving the pile to the laundry room, adding water and applying some kind of force, and heating the pile to dry it. This is not random energy--this is an ordered application of energy that requires a much higher decrease in entropy somewhere else. My clothing ends up clean, dry, and mostly unwrinkled (which is an accomplishment, when the dryers have settings for 'soak' and 'ignite').

Solar radiation is not ordered energy by its nature--it's just there. My sensational and overdone example is that if I were to hit my laundry pile with a firehose and then light the pile on fire (or just set the dryers for ignite), I have applied the same kinds of energy to it, except in a fashion which certainly does not produce a reduction in entropy. It seems to me, I suppose goes my point, that an application of energy that is not lower in entropy than the system it is applied to (we'll say) does not produce a reduction of entropy.

This example doesn't entirely satisfy me either, but it's a start, and I have a fencing practice to get to. I look forward to your reply.

@Carbon016

Great posts. I congratulate your stomach to argue with the believers. I never have the stamina to not got angry about them.



Dolphin to bird? Really? You're sure about the order?



The theory of evolution (ToE) is science. And it has nothing to do with origins. ToE says nothing about the origin of life. -> Your point is invalid.



Yes, that one has been proven. No, I won't dig up the papers for you, because you're simply ignorant about modern science. (Especially modern biology.)

Take a look at this site here before you bring up old refuted arguments.

Your just parroting Dembski's refuted specified complexity "theory", which is garbage. Yes, even as a mathematical model it's garbage.

Your points are CI101, CI102, CI113 and CI141 from the above website. (And nearly every other mistake creationists make [ID is a subset of creationism.].)



Oh please, that's so easy to refute, it's not even fun.

Your arguments are CC200, especially CC211 and CC212 from the above mentioned site.



This has nothing to do with ToE. Big Bang is cosmology ie. physics. Or are you arguing now about physics? Good luck with that.



Semantics Schmemantics. You don't really wanna argue with human language against science? Hey, look, we have the word "spaghetti". Why do we have that word in the first place? May, it may be because the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists!

Arguments like that are just absurd.



Again, the ToE has nothing to do with the origin of life. The ToE explains how the different species arose, but it doesn't explain how life began in the first place. (Like the theory of gravitation doesn't explain the beginning of our universe.) So your point is moot anyway.

How do you want to argue against the ToE, if you don't even know it?



Sorry, but you don't have a big interest in this. If you would really have a honest interest in it, you would inform yourself better. Your arguments mostly boil down to arguments from incredulity. If you can't explain something, it must mean it can't happen.

Sorry, science (and reality) doesn't work that way. Your philosophical relativism may be fun as a private philosophy, but it just doesn't work together with reality, I'm afraid. There is nothing like "everybody's own truth". There is just reality.



No. No. No.

You don't need faith for the ToE. The ToE (and all other scientific theories) are grounded in what we call reality. There are based an mountains of evidence, on logic and facts.

You just can't stop believe in gravity, for example, and then jump out of a building expecting not the get hurt. You don't need to believe in gravity for it to exist, because it works whether you believe in it or not. That's why gravity is real.

And the same goes for the ToE. You don't need to believe in it. It works whether you believe in it or not. You don't need faith to do science. In the end, science destroys faith and leaves only reality. That's the true power of science, and that's the reason why we can argue over the internet with computers.

And that's why all those discussions about ID are moot anyway. ID won't survive. Not because of political, cultural or even scientific oppression. But simply, because ID is wrong. You can't align ID with reality and, since reality always wins in the end, ID will lose.

You may teach ID in your schools in the USA and destroy your scientific lead in the world at the same time. Face it, teaching ID means teaching ignorance. And since to most modern biology the ToE is fundamental, you'll make modern biological research impossible.

So, I (and every other informed spectator and scientist) don't worry about the future of the ToE. It will change (dare I say, evolve? ) and become better as it did since Darwin, driven by the scientific method and facts. Yes, maybe some people will chose ID and it may even become more widespread in certain parts of the world. This will hurt primary the children who'll learn nonsense and thus have it harder in the real world to cope (and will be unable to do modern biology as long as they don't learn the ToE). It may hurt science temporary in certain parts of the world.

But in the end, it doesn't make any difference. The ToE will remain. And no amounts of lay discussions will make any difference. (Even if only ID would be taught in schools in the USA forever, it would only mean the downfall of the US educational system and the US biology research. It wouldn't mean any difference to the rest of the world. [Though a lot of researchers would move to other places of the world, to do science.])

So yeah, arguing against ID is a fun pastime, not much more to me. Since I'm not an American, I can't care much when you destroy your own future by teaching garbage in schools. Your loss (and probably our gain in the end ).

Fossils? Or simply look into Darwins "The Evolutions of Species".



Wrong. Of course it may take millions of years for something like a cat. But, for example, Influenza evolves every year so you need a vaccination every year. And even man himself created a lot new species of bacteria and viruses by simples gen manipulating. Another "Inteligence" would need to to the same. But there is no evidence that this ever happened.



Our cells can use any our DNA and thus the "information". You dont even need to call it information since that wont stop our cells from working.



I am studdying mathematics and i dont know what it has to do with this.
Also you should learn a bit more about genetic biology before saying something like that. There a millions of genes in our own genom that are not even used. Would you call that intelligent? They are only a left overs from the species we evolved from.




Trail and error i would guess. There was plenty of time. Almost 4 billion years.



Are we still talking about the theory of evolution? Sorry but there is only so much a theory from a human can do. Maybe you should ask some physicans instead.



All humans are flawed. So what?



You dont see the proofs because you are alreading disbeliveing in it. Humans can make up their minds quite good.
Also if we are still talking about wether ID was scientific, this just shows how much ID depends on faith. But evolution does not. It may not give all answers you are seeking for. But it was never intended to do so.

There is no such thing as a distinct 'species' - or a lot of scientists would have a lot easier time naming things! The change from a bird to a dolphin (other way around) is not of some large-scale "species change" (whatever that means), but a bunch of gradual changes. And it's not really a change from a bird to a dolphin either, rather the bird branched off an ancestor, and the ancestor kept moving along and after a bunch of crazy branches the dolphin branched off a few million years later.



That's a remarkably human-centric way of thinking about it, and a faulty one at that. If we use your definition, there is no such thing as a non-informative signal: ALL data can be interpreted in some way or another. The point the guy above me made is great: if we define information as DNA, how do we account for how much crap's just sitting around doing nothing?



It's not new information. It's largely existing information. Sure, you have viruses and such introducing new material (look at all our junk DNA), but many closer-related animals have a similar chromosome count.



Over a few million years, fish with mutations, say, making them grow stubby legs end up not getting eaten by sea-borne predators. In fact, at this point in history there was little but plants and bacteria inhabiting land masses, so evolution favoring a more amphibian lifestyle would be even more rapid.



There's no need for extra information. The fish in the water get gobbled up at a faster rate than the ones partially on land. The ones partially on land breed, and poof you get more partially-on-land fish.



Probably a few million years. Remember, it only takes a small sample of those fish to pass the relevant genes on - and your population is going to be absolutely enormous. Look at the rate of birth defects in 50 years, for example, of the world. Now multiply that by 500,000 or more. You're going to see a lot of weird stuff pop up - most of it not useful, but the ones that are will end up surviving.



See above. You have to understand: millions of years is a really, really long time. You are an insignificant speck compared to how long life has been evolving on this planet. The fact that a moth can develop a widespread trait in less than fifty years is an example of how quickly selection and change can affect a population.



Outside the scope of this discussion.



I see where you're coming from, but again we don't have the luxury of time to work with. I don't think it matters what happens on the scientific front: ID is all well and laughed at there, the real battle is in public opinion.

Now Leger's post:



The problem is in definition of complexity. A E. Coli bacterium has a flagellum with a motor system on the molecular scale rivaling anything invented by Ford, powered by a proton pump similar to the ones we're now developing for hydrogen fuel cells. Photosynthesis is an amazingly "complex" system, something we can't hope to mimic, and a recent study on the flight of birds shows that they may use quantum effects to guide their navigation! I see what you are trying to assert though - it's easy to think a bacterium or a amoeba or even a larger organism like a rat is less complex than us. However, it's just not the case by any definition of the word.

As for the entropy deal, it's best to let it go as the 2nd law really wasn't meant to go there in the first place. It's like economics - we can assume a perfect system, but in reality those ideal systems are few and far between. No system, other than the universe itself, is a closed system. The Second Law is useful for some applications, because some things tend to follow it, but there's really no way to say one way or the other here. Your example was well thought out, but it's fundamentally a confusion of "disorder" with "entropy", two terms that can occasionally be interchangeable but certainly not here. I admit, that's mostly my fault, I didn't clear it up beforehand: it's more a question of how energy is wasted, or how energy diffuses into a system.

You also have to consider that energy can't be classified as ordered or non-ordered - it's just energy. If we arbitrarily assign it properties like that, we're anthropomorphizing it, and we're falling for the same silly human-oriented trap we defined earlier. Clever example though

I would first just like to point out that as an agnostic, i believe that there are many reasons why humanity cannot be sure of its so called scientific facts.

Without bringing in the warping influence of human perspective and condition into explaining how we might not even be able to percieve reality, but rather a simulation of humana ssembled symbols and fallible logic, i will continue.

I dont have time for a long, well thought out post now but there is a point that through my browse nobody has picked up on.

The modern theory of evolution, is indeed supported by a multitude of evidence. However, all evidence, apart from the fossil record only demonstrates what is known as 'micro' evolution, adaption within a species to its current environment.

Having studied biology extensively in college (Pertaining to the the genetic structing - mitosis and meosis, and mutations), it seems unlikely that macro changes can be explained by these processes - even with extended time, most mutations are written out of the system by the very thing supposedly supporting evolution - natural selection. A new limb would not suddenly grow on an organism and allow it to magically fly - any mutations in the natural world are infact negative to the creature (almost all mutations). Therefore, it also seems unlikely that any significant changes to a species could occur even in a exceedingly long time frame.

There is no evidence of macroevolution since mankind has been in existence. Without definite proof of it taking place, evolution can never be proved to be the 100% cause of all lifeforms seen today.

Small changes allowing receptors in a bacterial cell to change stopping its enzymes from being inhibited is far from growing a new, completely functioning set of organs allowing an animal to fly.

Also, it is often that DNA evidence is used to link us and other animals as having a common ancestry. Its hardly suprising when scientists find that we have DNA in common with animals and pants - afterall, we all share the same base pairs of amino acids that make it up. Does this mean that we have a common ancestery, or simply that we are made of the same material? We have DNA in common with plants. Are they our common ancestors?

Also, intelligent design has little to do with creationism. There are many branches of intelligent design computers, including the famed 'matrix' arguement. Which i may add, is also supporting by notable physicists and mathmaticians as being as likely scenario. Probability science gone mad?

The above example shows how an evolutionist thinker cannot use probability to prove the validity of his theory, and same with creationists.

My own stance on evolution is that i do, personally, believe it is a possible solution, but one must keep a open mind and review the subject for yourself.

I think science would need to examine other possible ways of inheritance than the simple random mutation until it happens arguement, as it hardly holds water when examined in depth (To support MACRO evolution. The current theories allow for the explanation of variation within organisms of a similar specie.)

*Slightly offtopic*
If anybody could help me out in the modding section with the wormholes, it would be appreciated. Its becoming 'really' annoying.


WWW Link

Yeah, you can't also prove gravity 100%, or did you let fall everything all the time?

No, I don't think so.

We don't "prove" things in science. We only hypothesize, then experiment and finally theorize.

No proving in there.



Ok, you have failed biology now.

This website.

Read: CB901, CB902 and CB904.



No, what is not surprising is not that we have the same amino acids. (Though that wouldn't be necessary either.)

What is interesting is that we have the same gen sequences! The same followings of base pairs. Which means we have the same proteins as very distant organisms. Sequences thousands of base pairs are the same between your DNA and the DNA of a horse. Now how probably is that?

Your mitochondria is almost the same as the mitochondria in fish.



Horse manure.

No self respectable mathematician or physicists takes the "Matrix" scenario as real. It's a nice though experiment, nothing more. If you disagree, some sources would be nice.

Even the famed "Boltzmann's Brain" isn't seen as real, but only as a thought experiment.

And no, intelligent design comes out of creationism, has creationist support and has the same goal as creationism. Sneaking god in science, where he doesn't belong.



You know, science did that, found all other hypothesis lacking and discarded them.



Will take a look.

In a word, no. Let me start by saying that I was studying theology when I became an atheist, before that point I was a believer, BIG TIME. As in the earth is 6,000 years old and all that rot. Intelligent design IS an attempt to get God into the class room. There is virtually NO scientific evidence to support ANY of the ideas (I refuse to say theory, because theories have been established over MANY tests). In fact, if you add up all the begats in the early part of Genesis and then add on the time since then, you end up WAAAAAAY over 6,000 years. If we are going to be literal, let's be consistent.

In fact, study of what is referred to as "young earth" PHILOSOPHY is one of the things that started me on the path to atheism. The more I studied it, the more I realized how much of an agenda there was within the philosophy and the church. What really blows me away is that the creationists speak of the agenda from the scientists to "kill God." The scientists don't care, it has to do with reporting what they have observed, and that's it. The agenda totally lies within the creationists. Period. They are the only ones that have something to gain from the teaching.

Christians, you do understand that there are scholars within Hinduism and Raelism that love intelligent design, because it fits their ideas of reality as much as yours, and you all think they are deluded fools hanging on to paganism and mythology, or for you really hardcore out there, tricked by DEMON'S!

actually you do prove or rather disprove. Since proving would indeed mean to try everything, you rather search for hints to disprove a certain assumption. Let me just say. Water flows upstream. Instead of showing you every river that flows upstream, you would just have to point me to one that flows downstream. Therefore disproving my theory.

There is no such thing as "macro-evolution" and "micro-evolution". There is only evolution.

One thing I've noticed on this thread is the common creationist/IDist tactic in which they try to poke some holes in evolution and get a big debate going where people pile on to tell them why they are wrong. Then they just have to sit back and say, "look at all the controversy; there is no way evolution is accepted as true." Throughout the whole process they never provide any positive evidence for their own idea.

My point is that negative evidence for evolution (should such a thing exist) would never positive evidence for creationism/ID. Negative evidence for one thing is never positive evidence for some other thing, ever, in any circumstance. It is always possible that there is some third option out there, which neither side has considered, and that thing is the truth.

So I'd like to ask the ID proponents to please provide some positive evidence for ID, not negative evidence for evolution.

All evidence on that site that is directed towards macroevolution as an arguement also do not hold water. All the observed changes were within a species. Snakes adapting to watery conditions, single celled organisms becoming more adaptive. Microevolution.

There is no evidence for a new creature changing into a new specie. It is simply a war of words and categorisation that evolutionists use to brush away the fact that small changes CANNOT make large changes if they are not allowed to continue with the so called 'law of natural selection', and have cumulative effect. Human logic tells you that no organism can spontaneously develop organs allowing it to breathe air from a design specific to a aquatic environment. Any interim 'landfish' would surely drown
as its new 'lungs' are unfit to extract oxygen from the water where it is born, or at least absorb less oxygen from an aquatic environment to make it vunerable to predation.

Without observed changes (drastic changes, not interspecial changes) on a large scale level evolution can not be 'proved'

If, using the arguement of probability, the chances we could have similar gen sequences but completely different ancestors could almost be a certainty, especially given if the universe has had infinite attempts to create such scenarios via sequences of collapse and expansion.

The fact that my mitochondria is indeed similar to that of a fish is irrelevant. All organisms need mitochrondria for respirative process. Just because they are similarities between things does not mean they necessarily come from the same source. Thats like someone examining two cars made by different manuafacturers, which are slightly different, and concluding they come from the same source. While this may seem like an anllay retentive arguement, i must point out flaws commonly held as firm believe.

However, why are we even arguing about evolution? It is impossible to argue that intelligent design is wrong. There is no way to prove that systems have been created by a higher order or been manipulated by outside forces, if the evolutionary system is indeed sound. However, there is no evidence to disprove it. A theory is valid, scientifically and as a thought experiment, until it is disproved.

Science has not investigated all the alternatives, because as soon as a theory is accepted less research goes into alternatives, such as the idiotic global warming theory, which completely disregards milankovitch cycles. Science may not even know of all the alternatives. Is it not possibly that atoms could arrange themselves via quantum phenomenacompletely randomly, resulting in a completey improbably new set of genes in no way related to the organisms previous genetic code? While arguements like this sound insane, it is not beyond the realms of possibility

If probability science and quantum physics is to be believed, the probability of crazy things above mentioned are quite high.

Also, many respected people have taken the matrix idea seriously.

WWW Link

From Edge.



Please Enjoy.

Also, thank you for helping so far in my wormhole thread.

In order for evolution to NOT be true, you must have a population that does not undergo evolution.

The population must NOT:
-Have crossing over during meiosis
-Have genetic mutations (no mismatches, frameshifts, etc)
-Have genetic variance
-Have random mating
-Have environmental pressures

There exists no such population in the entire world. Therefore, evolution must occur. Seriously, if anyone understands the mechanics of evolution then they must know this to be true...you WILL have evolution if you have ANY of these above things.

Deathbane,

Your post is full of logical fallacies. You say that you cannot conceive of a way for new forms to arise or for small changes to compound over time into large changes. This is simply an argument from personal incredulity. Just because you can't think of a way for these things to happen doesn't mean that someone else hasn't.

Secondly, the Matrix idea. Just because some respected person believes this doesn't somehow make it true. This is the appeal to authority logical fallacy. What makes things true is evidence. There is evidence for evolution. You may dismiss it because you don't understand it, but that doesn't disqualify it as evidence.

Great, great posts guys. I wish I had the time to deconstruct them and continue argueing.

Just dropped in to say that this is an arguement about whether ID should be taught in schools. It is not an arguement about if religion is right or wrong, neither is it an arguement about the influence religion has on modern society. So please keep down the personal attacks, and also don't make pointless posts that make no contribution to the subject. Also please don't pay attention to posts that contribute nothing, it was quite annoying to read a winding arguement about whether or not Americans were stupid or what not.

I don't think intelligent design should be taught in the schools. However, darwinist evolutionary theories should be taught as theories, not facts, holes in the theory should be pointed out, and it should not be taught as proof that there is no creator. When you start teaching it as proof of a Godless universe, you are teaching a religious viewpoint, and supposedly that is not allowed in public schools.