How have anti-evolution tactics evolved over time? They’ve gotten sneakier.

[Coloradomtnman]

While your "It could have been done by magic!" theory technically is information, it's also really freakin' stupid information.

But that's not my theory or the information in question. Irreducible complexity is very much a legitimate paradox and if you don't believe it, read Darwin's Origin of the Species.

Irreducible complexity is a "god of the gaps" argument: it says: we don't understand yet how this particular feature came about therefore: God did it.

In cases such as the bacteria flagellum, Dr. Behe's famous example of irreducible complexity, we see similar protein structures on different bacteria but with different purposes. For example, with the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, the protein structure that makes up the flagellum is missing some of the parts but acts as a secretory appendage.

With the blood clot cascade, another Behe example of irreducible complexity, in whales and dolphins we observe a reduced complexity and yet clotting still happens.

Just because something "seems" irreducibly complex or designed does not necessarily negate 150 years of evolutionary science. Evolutionary theories have been challenged more vigorously than any other and yet are still the current predominant scientific paradigm.

If Intelligent Design proponents want to be taken seriously by the science community, they need to produce research, conduct experiments which demonstrate the predictions of ID, and publish these findings in peer-reviewed papers. Then, instead of having to go around or avoid the scientific community by using politics to get ID taught in schools, it will simply be the predominant theory taught in schools.

I'm trying to explain to boss how every animal that needs parents to survive must have evolved from a previous species that didn't.

If evolution isn't right then God put two adult humans on earth ready to mate and who instinctively knew how to survive.

If not, were the first humans babies?

I think Boss understands the basic premise of evolution and of science.

I hate to say it Sealy, but I think that although I disagree with it he makes a better argument for his position than you do for yours - and I probably agree with yours.

 

[Boss]

Scientists did not want to accept that the universe had a beginning because THAT implies a creation. They wanted to cling to the opinion that the universe had always existed. They called it the "Steady State" model and they held on to this well into the 20th century until the background radiation we discovered pretty much concluded there was a Big Bang event.

I want to go back to this and emphasis something before it's just shrugged off as usual... IF we were on a message board in 1901... I would be here posting that we should teach school children about the theory that our universe began in a giant explosion and you would be here calling me ridiculous because my theory hadn't been peer-reviewed and published. You would mock my idea and joking call it "the big bang theory" as you and your scientific buddies chortled and dismissed me as a kook. This would have gone on for years... much longer than Dr. Behe's Irreducible Complexity argument.

We would be inundated with thread after thread and page after page of arguments and rejections over this theory and how it did not conform to anything science thought it knew at the time. You would rhetorically ask me... what was here BEFORE this Big Bang? And of course, I wouldn't be able to tell you and you'd think that must mean that I am off my rocker to think such a thing. For months... years... we would go at it back and forth... you condemning my view and me insisting there was some validity to the argument.

So while you sit here and categorically dismiss ID theory, keep that in mind. Science is constantly discovering things that change the way we understand our universe.

I can't speculate as to how I would react to the Big Bang Theory 100 years ago, you may be right because I am automatically skeptical of everything. At the same time, I do not immediately discount new ideas.

Intelligent Design does not, for me, stand on its own merits. Like I wrote earlier: it has no explanatory power, it makes no predictions, and it can not be falsified.

Irreducible complexity is only an apparent property, and not necessarily a fact. Not yet, anyway. The fallacy of irreducible complexity is that it is a "god of the gaps" argument and that does not lend itself to it's credence.

Furthermore, ID proponents do not produce any research and, I must disagree with you here, were ID proponents to actually do any of the work required by science and there was validity to ID, their papers would be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Such work would be groundbreaking and no scientific journal would refuse to publish it out of fear of controversy - the controversy would sell!

Intelligent Design intrinsically can not be scientific because who ever the intellgent designer is can not be tested in a lab, observed under a microscope or through a telescope, and inference is not enough on its own to fully elevate an hypothesis to a theory.

There are other problems I have with ID that aren't just its scientific merits. That its proponents attempt to circumvent the scientific process, that its proponents in ID textbooks simply replaced the word "creation" with" intelligent design" makes ID nothing more than creationism masquerading in scientific language, and that in order for ID to be a science would require a broadening of the definition of science in such a way that astrology would fit the new definition.

I agree with you that ID could be true, but it isn't science.

And were Darwin alive today, he would find the theories of evolution so advanced as to be almost unrecognizable. Darwinian evolution has evolved into modern evolutionary theories.

Look... When you get into some variations of ID theory (there are some), I have a problem with some of it as well. But we can all have problems with theories of all kinds... Theories are never supposed to be considered facts of life that can never be questioned. I've never seen an "ID textbook" but if one exists, I would be opposed to having that taught in schools. I did not say that I want our schools to plaster students with YEC viewpoints. I just want students to be given ALL the information. If that is nothing more than simply saying "here is something that some people believe..." and leaving it at that. It doesn't have to be expounded upon but neither does evolution or many other theories... we're just teaching the basics. Whether or not you AGREE with the theory, it's still a theory. Now you will say it's NOT a theory because it doesn't do this or that, but a lot of theories are that way. Not every theory has unquestionable explanatory power, makes predictions or can be falsified. Numerous theories have competing theories which are just as valid.

I wouldn't be opposed to high school biology students being taught about irreducible complexity from the standpoint of comparison between Darwin's view and Behe's view.... I think that would be an interesting way to approach the topic. Here's what Darwin said in Origin of the Species and here's what Behe or Denton said in their books... both are different views on the same topic.

What we are seeing is reminiscent of the same secular stubbornness encountered over the Big Bang theory. For years, the secular scientists mocked the Big Bang as ridiculous nonsense because they didn't want to accept that the universe had a point of origin. That meant a creation event. That contradicted their secular view. Indoctrinating or proselytizing shouldn't ever be what our education is about.

 

[DGS49]

Science students should be taught that while Evolution seems to explain "everything," there remain anomalies that appear to be inconsistent with our current understanding.

This is universal practice in real science. As dozens of atomic theories were proposed over the past hundred years, the real scientists who proposed them took great pains to lay out the anomalies that th s in theory could not explain.

This is why it is so bothersome when non - scientists go around claiming that Evolution is a "fact." It is not a fact because it can never be demonstrated, only observed.

Same with Global Warming. Just a theory; it explains some things, but can't explain others. We are already long past the time when the early alarmists predicted we would be seeing the end of arctic ice cover. Ain't happening.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Science classes do teach the variations in evolution re the fossil record, as well as the facts and limits on other science as well.

Religion has absolutely no place in a science class. Teach it in your church all you want which is already happening. If your religion doesn't stand up when people come of age, look at the evidence, and then make up their own mind religion is a fools paradise, live with it.

ID and the rest of this 'well we have to teach blah blah next to evolution because well, no one knows for sure'.

Go to 'Liberty U' or The Creation 'Museum' for that nonsense. Or teach it in your home, or shout it on the corner, or downtown, or start a thousand websites.

Stop trying to make this ridiculous argument that someone's religion belongs alongside science. It doesn't.

 

[Boss]

Stop trying to make this ridiculous argument that someone's religion belongs alongside science. It doesn't.

What's funny, IsaacNewton, is the real Isaac Newton would laugh his ass off at you. I hate to tell you this but people's religion is along side them no matter what they do. If they are teaching or learning science, if they are passing or voting against legislation... their religious beliefs are right there with them and there's not a whole lot you're going to ever do about that.

Teaching about the theory of Intelligent Design or irreducible complexity, is not teaching a religion. It can be taught without any deference to religion. In fact, myself and many others who would favor teaching ID would insist that it be that way. I don't want any religious view being taught but that also includes YOUR religious view that God doesn't exist. No one ever agreed to elevate your religion above all others.

Regardless of whether you believe ID is religious bunk, it's still a legitimate theory and will remain one until you can refute it. We cannot simply teach things we like and dismiss things that make us uncomfortable. Can you imagine what sort of fucked up world that would produce? And, since Evolution theory regards the evolution of existing life and ID theory deals with the origin of life, it is completely possible for both theories to be valid. One doesn't negate the other, they are not competing theories. In fact, they don't even deal with the same thing. They are both associated with "irreducible complexity" which is a phrase first found in Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

 

[rightwinger]

Evolution is a FACT
God is a Theory

 

[chikenwing]

Homo sapiens, residing on an infinitesimal speck among a vast infinity of stars have taken it upon themselves to not only interpret Creation to be of their own likeness but they have taken it to such a level as to contort it into religion. Religion being the human-contrived interpretation of the unknown.

I am one to ascribe to what is known- mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, geometry, algebra, calculus, polynomials, differential equations, functional equations.

As a substitute teacher, I was once confronted by a fourth grader who insisted that the earth was a mere 6,000 years old.

I simply didn't go there.

Do the math. Religion is illusion. Quantitative analysis is reality.

Please do the math,what are the statistical probabilities that,life managed to form,that same life managed to keep itself alive,then after that found a way to reproduce,before it died as all life here does at some point.

 

[Boss]

Evolution is a FACT
God is a Theory

If this is what we are now teaching kids in government funded schools it's a really good argument for ending government funded schools.

 

[Boss]

Please do the math,what are the statistical probabilities that,life managed to form,that same life managed to keep itself alive,then after that found a way to reproduce,before it died as all life here does at some point.

Goes WAY beyond that. First you need to explain how we became a water world, and it needs to be an explanation which also explains why only our planet has water. They used to say.. well, meteorites brought the water here over millions of years. (This was based on a meteorite they found which contained a salt crystal with a tiny droplet of water inside.) However, they've dated Earth to 4.2 billion years old and recently discovered the oldest Earth rock, which is 4 billion years old. Problem is, studying it's composition we discovered it was created under water. So the young earth at 200 million years was already covered in water.

That's a lot of meteorites in a short period of time, relatively speaking. And why didn't Mars or the Moon, or any other planets receive this life-giving gift of abundant water? Ahh... well the reason there is, the Earth has a molten iron-nickel core which enables an atmosphere... this also requires explanation. It seems our planet, at some point after material coalesced due to gravity, was essentially "cooked" at a very high temperature, which caused the heavier elements (iron and nickel) to sink and lighter elements of the mantle and crust to rise. But again, how did our planet get "cooked" but not the moon or other planets?

Speaking of the moon, it has to be up there pulling on the ocean tides or our oceans become stagnant pools which no life could survive in. When some larger body careened into our planet to form the moon, it also caused a unique wobbling rotation of our planet which gives us seasons and ocean convection as well as climate. Again, seasons are vital to almost all life. As you can see, there are LOTS of mathematical improbabilities that have happened in our journey before we ever get to a point where life can even exist. We haven't even touched origin yet.

Speculations abound over how the very first living organism came to be. Regardless of the theory, we have never been able to produce a living organism of any kind from inorganic material. We have the most sophisticated labs with all the latest nuclear technology and despite our best efforts, we cannot make this happen. Yet... somehow it happened by random chance. (supposedly) and everything evolved from there (supposedly).

Every form of living organism contains a DNA molecule which depends on 27 or so amino acids and 40-90 enzymes and proteins created by those amino acids. The chance of any one amino acid or enzyme being randomly created from a mutation is 10^180 ...that's greater than the amount of all atoms in the universe. Yet, in order to account for all the interdependent and symbiotic relationships found in life, this had to happen millions and millions of times and it had to happen very rapidly because, well, symbiotic means what it implies.

 

[rightwinger]

Evolution is a FACT
God is a Theory

If this is what we are now teaching kids in government funded schools it's a really good argument for ending government funded schools.

You are welcome to teach any scientific facts supporting the existence of God...I will teach scientific facts supporting evolution including biological, fossil, geological and DNA evidence

 

[Boss]

Evolution is a FACT
God is a Theory

If this is what we are now teaching kids in government funded schools it's a really good argument for ending government funded schools.

You are welcome to teach any scientific facts supporting the existence of God...I will teach scientific facts supporting evolution including biological, fossil, geological and DNA evidence

No, I am not welcome to teach any scientific facts supporting the existence of God because you won't allow that. DNA is actually a scientific fact that supports God. Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself.

 

[rightwinger]

Evolution is a FACT
God is a Theory

If this is what we are now teaching kids in government funded schools it's a really good argument for ending government funded schools.

You are welcome to teach any scientific facts supporting the existence of God...I will teach scientific facts supporting evolution including biological, fossil, geological and DNA evidence

No, I am not welcome to teach any scientific facts supporting the existence of God because you won't allow that. DNA is actually a scientific fact that supports God. Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself.

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

 

[IsaacNewton]

Stop trying to make this ridiculous argument that someone's religion belongs alongside science. It doesn't.

What's funny, IsaacNewton, is the real Isaac Newton would laugh his ass off at you. I hate to tell you this but people's religion is along side them no matter what they do. If they are teaching or learning science, if they are passing or voting against legislation... their religious beliefs are right there with them and there's not a whole lot you're going to ever do about that.

Teaching about the theory of Intelligent Design or irreducible complexity, is not teaching a religion. It can be taught without any deference to religion. In fact, myself and many others who would favor teaching ID would insist that it be that way. I don't want any religious view being taught but that also includes YOUR religious view that God doesn't exist. No one ever agreed to elevate your religion above all others.

Regardless of whether you believe ID is religious bunk, it's still a legitimate theory and will remain one until you can refute it. We cannot simply teach things we like and dismiss things that make us uncomfortable. Can you imagine what sort of fucked up world that would produce? And, since Evolution theory regards the evolution of existing life and ID theory deals with the origin of life, it is completely possible for both theories to be valid. One doesn't negate the other, they are not competing theories. In fact, they don't even deal with the same thing. They are both associated with "irreducible complexity" which is a phrase first found in Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

Isaac Newton is laughing in your face, along with Einstein, Galileo, and Copernicus.

Teach your religious fantasy in your home or your church. Just like every other religion. There are 300,000 churches in the US, I think there are plenty of venues to get your flying grandpa theories out there. Knock yourself out.

And you don't get to label everyone else as believing in a 'religion' like you do. Your religion is not based on fact or evidence, it is based on feelings and unsubstantiated beliefs. Science relies on evidence.

You read a few articles and like to portray yourself as 'educated' on a few subjects but you aren't. You just use things to try to fit your religious beliefs into rational evidence based science.

This is a new convention for the religious minded kristian in the US. It is a phoney attempt to try to put 'belief' on the same level as 'evidence'. Do whatever mental gymnastics your mind feels compelled to do to try to make yourself feel better about believing in fairies.

They are still fairies.


'intelligent design' is neither. It is farce dreamed up by the current crop of bible thumpers to try to give their beliefs gravitas in academia and the public. But it is farce, it is not 'legitimate'.

 

[Boss]

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

God doesn't have to be made because God is not physical.

 

[Boss]

Stop trying to make this ridiculous argument that someone's religion belongs alongside science. It doesn't.

What's funny, IsaacNewton, is the real Isaac Newton would laugh his ass off at you. I hate to tell you this but people's religion is along side them no matter what they do. If they are teaching or learning science, if they are passing or voting against legislation... their religious beliefs are right there with them and there's not a whole lot you're going to ever do about that.

Teaching about the theory of Intelligent Design or irreducible complexity, is not teaching a religion. It can be taught without any deference to religion. In fact, myself and many others who would favor teaching ID would insist that it be that way. I don't want any religious view being taught but that also includes YOUR religious view that God doesn't exist. No one ever agreed to elevate your religion above all others.

Regardless of whether you believe ID is religious bunk, it's still a legitimate theory and will remain one until you can refute it. We cannot simply teach things we like and dismiss things that make us uncomfortable. Can you imagine what sort of fucked up world that would produce? And, since Evolution theory regards the evolution of existing life and ID theory deals with the origin of life, it is completely possible for both theories to be valid. One doesn't negate the other, they are not competing theories. In fact, they don't even deal with the same thing. They are both associated with "irreducible complexity" which is a phrase first found in Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

Isaac Newton is laughing in your face, along with Einstein, Galileo, and Copernicus.

Teach your religious fantasy in your home or your church. Just like every other religion. There are 300,000 churches in the US, I think there are plenty of venues to get your flying grandpa theories out there. Knock yourself out.

And you don't get to label everyone else as believing in a 'religion' like you do. Your religion is not based on fact or evidence, it is based on feelings and unsubstantiated beliefs. Science relies on evidence.

You read a few articles and like to portray yourself as 'educated' on a few subjects but you aren't. You just use things to try to fit your religious beliefs into rational evidence based science.

This is a new convention for the religious minded kristian in the US. It is a phoney attempt to try to put 'belief' on the same level as 'evidence'. Do whatever mental gymnastics your mind feels compelled to do to try to make yourself feel better about believing in fairies.

They are still fairies.


'intelligent design' is neither. It is farce dreamed up by the current crop of bible thumpers to try to give their beliefs gravitas in academia and the public. But it is farce, it is not 'legitimate'.

Well... Unlike Newton, I do not have a religion. I also didn't attend a religious college like Newton or devote much study to biblical chronology and alchemy. But... Similar to Newton, I believe in what he defined as a "mercurial spirit coursing through our universe" and I don't believe in the Holy Trinity.

Your post is full of seething hate and venom. Anyone with a rational mind can objectively see this in the choice of words and phrases you use. This is a hallmark of people devoid of spiritual connection and faith. When your morals are no longer grounded in something greater than self, you devolve into a lesser animal. You have fallen from your higher state. Ultimately, you become more and more demonic. Less and less caring for humanity. It's a gradual change and you don't notice it yourself but others do, as I have pointed it out here.

 

[rightwinger]

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

God doesn't have to be made because God is not physical.

Do you have scientific evidence to support your theory?

How does something not physical create something physical? What is your hypothesis?

 

[Boss]

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

God doesn't have to be made because God is not physical.

Do you have scientific evidence to support your theory?

How does something not physical create something physical? What is your hypothesis?

Simple.. it's the only rational and logical explanation. Physical nature exists. It either always existed which means it defies it's own laws of thermodynamics and entropy... OR it began existing at some point, presumably at the creation of the physical universe. It can't create itself because it doesn't exist. So logic dictates something outside of physical nature created physical nature. We can vaguely define that as Spiritual Nature.

 

[rightwinger]

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

God doesn't have to be made because God is not physical.

Do you have scientific evidence to support your theory?

How does something not physical create something physical? What is your hypothesis?

Simple.. it's the only rational and logical explanation. Physical nature exists. It either always existed which means it defies it's own laws of thermodynamics and entropy... OR it began existing at some point, presumably at the creation of the physical universe. It can't create itself because it doesn't exist. So logic dictates something outside of physical nature created physical nature. We can vaguely define that as Spiritual Nature.

What type of logic would assume a non physical entity can create something out of nothing? Sounds more like magic than logic

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Please do the math,what are the statistical probabilities that,life managed to form,that same life managed to keep itself alive,then after that found a way to reproduce,before it died as all life here does at some point.

Goes WAY beyond that. First you need to explain how we became a water world, and it needs to be an explanation which also explains why only our planet has water. They used to say.. well, meteorites brought the water here over millions of years. (This was based on a meteorite they found which contained a salt crystal with a tiny droplet of water inside.) However, they've dated Earth to 4.2 billion years old and recently discovered the oldest Earth rock, which is 4 billion years old. Problem is, studying it's composition we discovered it was created under water. So the young earth at 200 million years was already covered in water.

That's a lot of meteorites in a short period of time, relatively speaking. And why didn't Mars or the Moon, or any other planets receive this life-giving gift of abundant water? Ahh... well the reason there is, the Earth has a molten iron-nickel core which enables an atmosphere... this also requires explanation. It seems our planet, at some point after material coalesced due to gravity, was essentially "cooked" at a very high temperature, which caused the heavier elements (iron and nickel) to sink and lighter elements of the mantle and crust to rise. But again, how did our planet get "cooked" but not the moon or other planets?

Speaking of the moon, it has to be up there pulling on the ocean tides or our oceans become stagnant pools which no life could survive in. When some larger body careened into our planet to form the moon, it also caused a unique wobbling rotation of our planet which gives us seasons and ocean convection as well as climate. Again, seasons are vital to almost all life. As you can see, there are LOTS of mathematical improbabilities that have happened in our journey before we ever get to a point where life can even exist. We haven't even touched origin yet.

Speculations abound over how the very first living organism came to be. Regardless of the theory, we have never been able to produce a living organism of any kind from inorganic material. We have the most sophisticated labs with all the latest nuclear technology and despite our best efforts, we cannot make this happen. Yet... somehow it happened by random chance. (supposedly) and everything evolved from there (supposedly).

Every form of living organism contains a DNA molecule which depends on 27 or so amino acids and 40-90 enzymes and proteins created by those amino acids. The chance of any one amino acid or enzyme being randomly created from a mutation is 10^180 ...that's greater than the amount of all atoms in the universe. Yet, in order to account for all the interdependent and symbiotic relationships found in life, this had to happen millions and millions of times and it had to happen very rapidly because, well, symbiotic means what it implies.

Actually comets are hypothesized, not meteorites.

During the early formation of the planet is is thought to have been constantly hit with meteorites and comets (raising its temperature). 200 million years is a long time. The current explanation for the core is that while Earth (and all of the other planets) formed it was extremely hot and as it cooled the nickel and iron elements would have attracted eachother due to magnetism and gravity thereby forming the planet's core. The core being those heavier elements gives the planet more mass enabling it to retain an atmosphere but not because it's molten but spinning: that gives the planet an electro-magnetosphere which protects it (and all life on it) from cosmic and solar radiation.

There is substantial evidence that Mars did have water and still does in the form of ice. The moon doesn't have an atmosphere and therefore wouldn't have retained any water.

The tides and seasons are necessary for life as we know it. Perhaps not necessary for all possible forms of life.

That we don't know how life formed does not necessarily mean God did it: god of the gaps argument and argument from ignorance fallacy.

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. Around each of those stars there may be planetary systems of one or more planets. That one of those planets out of all possible worlds has the right conditions for life to arise should be of no surprise.

 

[Boss]

Logic also supports God because the physical cannot create itself

Who made God?
Where is your scientific fact for that?

God doesn't have to be made because God is not physical.

Do you have scientific evidence to support your theory?

How does something not physical create something physical? What is your hypothesis?

Simple.. it's the only rational and logical explanation. Physical nature exists. It either always existed which means it defies it's own laws of thermodynamics and entropy... OR it began existing at some point, presumably at the creation of the physical universe. It can't create itself because it doesn't exist. So logic dictates something outside of physical nature created physical nature. We can vaguely define that as Spiritual Nature.

What type of logic would assume a non physical entity can create something out of nothing? Sounds more like magic than logic

Lots of things sound like magic... quantum entanglement, for example.