New breakthrough in science hints at Intelligent Design

[MAbtc]

Without reading it, are they still pushing the young earth creationist stuff?

[pedrog]

Without reading it, are they still pushing the young earth creationist stuff?

Some people are: http://creationmuseum.org/ 

[RodeoX]

Without reading it, are they still pushing the young earth creationist stuff?

Some people are: http://creationmuseum.org/ 

OMG, the creation museum is the funniest ever. A friend of mine went and loved it. He especially liked the diorama showing how cavemen used harnessed dinosaurs to pull giant plows. You know, back in the dinosaur times 5000 years ago. 

[Spendulus]

....Unlike evolution, which has seen no contrary findings in over 150 years of research.

Huh?

There are a group of hypotheses and concepts related to evolution, which have seen ongoing and continual revisions.  The nature of a 'revision' is of course to invalid previous beliefs.  Let's not oversimplify any of this.  And note it is continuing, and there are many areas of genetics that are the subjects of controversy.

[RodeoX]

....Unlike evolution, which has seen no contrary findings in over 150 years of research.

Huh?

There are a group of hypotheses and concepts related to evolution, which have seen ongoing and continual revisions.  The nature of a 'revision' is of course to invalid previous beliefs.  Let's not oversimplify any of this.  And note it is continuing, and there are many areas of genetics that are the subjects of controversy.

I suppose revisions and tweaks to the theory are ongoing. But the idea that new species arise from older species through an evolutionary process has never been contraindicated. The revisions are in support of the theory. Darwin knew nothing of DNA, yet it's discovery helps to explain the chemical mechanisms by which evolution happens. So again, there has never been a finding that contradicts evolution. And there have been thousands of experiments confirming the process of evolution. It is the basis for all modern biology and is used daily in fields like medicine.   
I'm an evolutionary biologist, this is something I'm up on. If you are aware of a finding contradicting evolution, please publish, you will likely get the Nobel prize for it.

[pedrog]

Without reading it, are they still pushing the young earth creationist stuff?

Some people are: http://creationmuseum.org/  

OMG, the creation museum is the funniest ever. A friend of mine went and loved it. He especially liked the diorama showing how cavemen used harnessed dinosaurs to pull giant plows. You know, back in the dinosaur times 5000 years ago.  

Haha, those guys took The Flintstones way too serious...

....Unlike evolution, which has seen no contrary findings in over 150 years of research.

Huh?

There are a group of hypotheses and concepts related to evolution, which have seen ongoing and continual revisions.  The nature of a 'revision' is of course to invalid previous beliefs.  Let's not oversimplify any of this.  And note it is continuing, and there are many areas of genetics that are the subjects of controversy.

I suppose revisions and tweaks to the theory are ongoing. But the idea that new species arise from older species through an evolutionary process has never been contraindicated. The revisions are in support of the theory. Darwin knew nothing of DNA, yet it's discovery helps to explain the chemical mechanisms by which evolution happens. So again, there has never been a finding that contradicts evolution. And there have been thousands of experiments confirming the process of evolution. It is the basis for all modern biology and is used daily in fields like medicine.  
I'm an evolutionary biologist, this is something I'm up on. If you are aware of a finding contradicting evolution, please publish, you will likely get the Nobel prize for it.

That's the geniality of Darwin, it's almost unbelievable how he could formulate such theory without the modern tools.

And we're still waiting for the Intelligent Design peoples to discover a 200 million years old rabbit fossil.

[Spendulus]

....Unlike evolution, which has seen no contrary findings in over 150 years of research.

Huh?

There are a group of hypotheses and concepts related to evolution, which have seen ongoing and continual revisions.  The nature of a 'revision' is of course to invalid previous beliefs.  Let's not oversimplify any of this.  And note it is continuing, and there are many areas of genetics that are the subjects of controversy.

I suppose revisions and tweaks to the theory are ongoing. But the idea that new species arise from older species through an evolutionary process has never been contraindicated. ....If you are aware of a finding contradicting evolution, please publish, you will likely get the Nobel prize for it.

For the sake of argument, I will take an oppositional view.

There certainly is proof of Intelligent Design which contradicts the theory of all species having been derived from other species through the process of evolution as you have purported.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-05-21-genome21_ST_N.htm

****PWN****

[RodeoX]

For the sake of argument, I will take an oppositional view.

There certainly is proof of Intelligent Design which contradicts the theory of all species having been derived from other species through the process of evolution as you have purported.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-05-21-genome21_ST_N.htm

****PWN****

lol, well there was certainly some intelligent designing going on there. But let's think about what the really did. No one has ever created life from scratch. In this example a bacteria was modified to accept a "man-made" DNA sequence. This was made possible because we know what DNA is and how it functions in evolution. Indeed this experiment is another confirmation of evolution.
In the future perhaps there will be a truly synthetic life form. If that happens then intelligent design will be a real thing, but it wont change our history of having evolved. To a biologist, all living things are the same living thing.  I don't know why, but a DNA molecule started replicating in the past. It is still doing it and has branched into many species. Plants, animals, fungi, all are the same and one can even swap DNA between them. We are going to see some crazy things soon.

[kokjo]

That's not so simple.

that depends on which side your on...

[Spendulus]

For the sake of argument, I will take an oppositional view.

There certainly is proof of Intelligent Design which contradicts the theory of all species having been derived from other species through the process of evolution as you have purported.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-05-21-genome21_ST_N.htm

****PWN****

lol, well there was certainly some intelligent designing going on there. But let's think about what the really did. No one has ever created life from scratch. In this example a bacteria was modified to accept a "man-made" DNA sequence. This was made possible because we know what DNA is and how it functions in evolution. Indeed this experiment is another confirmation of evolution.
In the future perhaps there will be a truly synthetic life form. If that happens then intelligent design will be a real thing, but it wont change our history of having evolved. To a biologist, all living things are the same living thing.  I don't know why, but a DNA molecule started replicating in the past. It is still doing it and has branched into many species. Plants, animals, fungi, all are the same and one can even swap DNA between them. We are going to see some crazy things soon.

Look, I already knew how you were going to respond.  In so doing you admit that I have refuted your prior argument.  That was easy because it was "classical Darwinism".  Then you proceed to admit the future holds "crazy things".  So we are in agreement.

However, you can't duck and dodge the matter, even though you've tried.  Neither is it proper to 'shift the goalposts' regarding the assertions of the religous ID crowd in order to substantiate the scientific approach and accomplishments.



Look, the problem is not in a scientific approach to Intelligent Design - it's with a religious approach.  We have had and will have Intelligent Design, period. We've had a little of it and we're going to have boatloads of it.

When I say this, it means I don't need to refute your other statements, because we agree on the fundamentals.  Let me know if you think that sums it up nicely.

[Fuserleer]

So if there is no consciousness or intelligence in the universe anywhere, circles don't exist?  or the properties of them are different?

That's very similar to the "if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"   Circles exist regardless of our intelligence or if there is an observer, its just a label and description that we have given them to quantify them to some degree.

The proof of a circle still exists regardless, thus, no intelligence was needed to design it.

If you draw a perfect circle, then measure its diameter, measure its circumference, divide circumference by diameter, you get PI, always. 

There's no intelligent design there, it just IS, it's fact, it's math, a circle is defined as an 2d object where the diameter is the same measured from any edge to another passing through the center, no intelligence, no magic, just math.

Just as 1+1 = 2, no intelligence, it just is.

If these facts are true, and there are other facts that ring true regardless of circumstance, then you have solid building blocks for a complex system without design.

Whoa, slow down people!

We take "1+1=2" for granted, but it's easy to forget the learning process that every child (or civilisation) goes through, that they start off in a world without numbers. It takes intelligence to imagine that there exists a "1" of something, and if that 1 exists "again", we can create the idea of "2" to represent "1 and 1", and so on. If nature somehow worked differently, presumably the maths deduced from it would also be different.

So when you say "it just is" you skip the point that "1+1=2" is true because we made it that way.

To me it seems that what we normally think of as maths, is deduced from whatever nature provides us with. Things are divisible? OK, so we have numbers. Things can be arranged in space? OK, so we have dimensions. Trouble is, that would make maths a subset of nature, and therefore it cannot fully describe everything about its superset.

Hence the whole god / intelligent design / whatever she-bang. It could be said that our "inner being" that witnesses 1000s of different smells and sensations that simply can't be explained in terms of "microscopic Lego particles configured into Von Neumann machines", is the living embodiment of mathematical axioms: the things that are set to 'true' but can't be proven.

[pedrog]

So if there is no consciousness or intelligence in the universe anywhere, circles don't exist?  or the properties of them are different?

That's very similar to the "if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"   Circles exist regardless of our intelligence or if there is an observer, its just a label and description that we have given them to quantify them to some degree.

The proof of a circle still exists regardless, thus, no intelligence was needed to design it.

If you draw a perfect circle, then measure its diameter, measure its circumference, divide circumference by diameter, you get PI, always. 

There's no intelligent design there, it just IS, it's fact, it's math, a circle is defined as an 2d object where the diameter is the same measured from any edge to another passing through the center, no intelligence, no magic, just math.

Just as 1+1 = 2, no intelligence, it just is.

If these facts are true, and there are other facts that ring true regardless of circumstance, then you have solid building blocks for a complex system without design.

Whoa, slow down people!

We take "1+1=2" for granted, but it's easy to forget the learning process that every child (or civilisation) goes through, that they start off in a world without numbers. It takes intelligence to imagine that there exists a "1" of something, and if that 1 exists "again", we can create the idea of "2" to represent "1 and 1", and so on. If nature somehow worked differently, presumably the maths deduced from it would also be different.

So when you say "it just is" you skip the point that "1+1=2" is true because we made it that way.

To me it seems that what we normally think of as maths, is deduced from whatever nature provides us with. Things are divisible? OK, so we have numbers. Things can be arranged in space? OK, so we have dimensions. Trouble is, that would make maths a subset of nature, and therefore it cannot fully describe everything about its superset.

Hence the whole god / intelligent design / whatever she-bang. It could be said that our "inner being" that witnesses 1000s of different smells and sensations that simply can't be explained in terms of "microscopic Lego particles configured into Von Neumann machines", is the living embodiment of mathematical axioms: the things that are set to 'true' but can't be proven.

Yap, that falls into solipsism, and that is the only thing I reject on faith.

[Spendulus]

....

Yap, that falls into solipsism, and that is the only thing I reject on faith.

Reminds me of the joke about the hydrogen atom that went to his neighboring hydrogen atom and with a very worried, look, said:

"Have you seen my electron?  I've lost it.  I can't find it anywhere in the clouds of uncertainty!"

The neighbor said "You certain about that?"

The H replied "I'm positive..."

But for someone to assert that this does not exist unless we exist and conceive of it, is ridiculous....although it is an ancient philosophical construct, rediscovered...

[Argwai96]

so, are you telling me the creationists were right?

[asdf]

Why is it assumed that the universe was created at all? "It's here, therefore someone created it!". Well, why?

Causality is only meaningful within the universe.

[kokjo]

Causality is only meaningful within the universe.

Causality is not even meaningful within the universe.

[Spendulus]

Causality is only meaningful within the universe.

This is the correct answer although IIRC it is a fairly recent discovery.  I first heard in in a discussion by Stephen Hawking.

Similarly regarding infinite distance:  No, the universe curves in on itself and is finite.  Distance has no meaning "outside the Universe".

And time is finiite.  So what was there before the last "big bang?"

Undefined.

Although in now thinking about it I can't see why one couldn't develop mathematics to discuss things prior to our outside the Universe, somewhat similar to imaginary numbers.

[Ekaros]

Causality is only meaningful within the universe.

This is the correct answer although IIRC it is a fairly recent discovery.  I first heard in in a discussion by Stephen Hawking.

Similarly regarding infinite distance:  No, the universe curves in on itself and is finite.  Distance has no meaning "outside the Universe".

And time is finiite.  So what was there before the last "big bang?"

Undefined.

Although in now thinking about it I can't see why one couldn't develop mathematics to discuss things prior to our outside the Universe, somewhat similar to imaginary numbers.

We could also ask things like what is negatively sized object?

Probably could do some math, but there little point if it's completely unobservable.

[RodeoX]

For the sake of argument, I will take an oppositional view.

There certainly is proof of Intelligent Design which contradicts the theory of all species having been derived from other species through the process of evolution as you have purported.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-05-21-genome21_ST_N.htm

****PWN****

lol, well there was certainly some intelligent designing going on there. But let's think about what the really did. No one has ever created life from scratch. In this example a bacteria was modified to accept a "man-made" DNA sequence. This was made possible because we know what DNA is and how it functions in evolution. Indeed this experiment is another confirmation of evolution.
In the future perhaps there will be a truly synthetic life form. If that happens then intelligent design will be a real thing, but it wont change our history of having evolved. To a biologist, all living things are the same living thing.  I don't know why, but a DNA molecule started replicating in the past. It is still doing it and has branched into many species. Plants, animals, fungi, all are the same and one can even swap DNA between them. We are going to see some crazy things soon.

Look, I already knew how you were going to respond.  In so doing you admit that I have refuted your prior argument.  That was easy because it was "classical Darwinism".  Then you proceed to admit the future holds "crazy things".  So we are in agreement.

However, you can't duck and dodge the matter, even though you've tried.  Neither is it proper to 'shift the goalposts' regarding the assertions of the religous ID crowd in order to substantiate the scientific approach and accomplishments.



Look, the problem is not in a scientific approach to Intelligent Design - it's with a religious approach.  We have had and will have Intelligent Design, period. We've had a little of it and we're going to have boatloads of it.

When I say this, it means I don't need to refute your other statements, because we agree on the fundamentals.  Let me know if you think that sums it up nicely.

I'm not sure I totally understand. You are drawing a distinction between those who are interested in ID for religious vs. scientific reasons? Because science is open to any question. "Could all this be created by an intelligence?" is a fair question, but I am not aware of any result indicating it.  And I am not disputing that genetic engineering is a kind of "intelligent designing" in nature. Now that evolution it is understood at a chemical level it can be tinkered with. That is all based on Darwin's work. The main thing that has changed since his original theory is that more mechanisms for evolution have been found. Darwin noticed "natural selection". Which is still recognized as the primary driver in nature. Does all that mean we agree?

[Spendulus]

For the sake of argument, I will take an oppositional view.

There certainly is proof of Intelligent Design which contradicts the theory of all species having been derived from other species through the process of evolution as you have purported.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-05-21-genome21_ST_N.htm

****PWN****

lol, well there was certainly some intelligent designing going on there. But let's think about what the really did. No one has ever created life from scratch. In this example a bacteria was modified to accept a "man-made" DNA sequence. This was made possible because we know what DNA is and how it functions in evolution. Indeed this experiment is another confirmation of evolution.
In the future perhaps there will be a truly synthetic life form. If that happens then intelligent design will be a real thing, but it wont change our history of having evolved. To a biologist, all living things are the same living thing.  I don't know why, but a DNA molecule started replicating in the past. It is still doing it and has branched into many species. Plants, animals, fungi, all are the same and one can even swap DNA between them. We are going to see some crazy things soon.

Look, I already knew how you were going to respond.  In so doing you admit that I have refuted your prior argument.  That was easy because it was "classical Darwinism".  Then you proceed to admit the future holds "crazy things".  So we are in agreement.

However, you can't duck and dodge the matter, even though you've tried.  Neither is it proper to 'shift the goalposts' regarding the assertions of the religous ID crowd in order to substantiate the scientific approach and accomplishments.



Look, the problem is not in a scientific approach to Intelligent Design - it's with a religious approach.  We have had and will have Intelligent Design, period. We've had a little of it and we're going to have boatloads of it.

When I say this, it means I don't need to refute your other statements, because we agree on the fundamentals.  Let me know if you think that sums it up nicely.

I'm not sure I totally understand. You are drawing a distinction between those who are interested in ID for religious vs. scientific reasons? Because science is open to any question. "Could all this be created by an intelligence?" is a fair question, but I am not aware of any result indicating it.  And I am not disputing that genetic engineering is a kind of "intelligent designing" in nature. Now that evolution it is understood at a chemical level it can be tinkered with. That is all based on Darwin's work. The main thing that has changed since his original theory is that more mechanisms for evolution have been found. Darwin noticed "natural selection". Which is still recognized as the primary driver in nature. Does all that mean we agree?

Maybe.  We might assert that scientists see ID as the future, where fundamentalists see it as the past.  Further, that fundamentals see ID as the work in the past of a supreme being, and refuse to consider other sources of intelligence which may exist in the universe as causative. 

Therefore, the argument of a religious fundamentalist on ID is flawed in the premises (God is the only cause of ID) and in the method (ID is shown to exist) and then the conclusion (God exists).

But this is NOT an argument against ID, only against it's abuse.

(ROFL here....)