The design inference

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Originally posted by Joe Meert:
I will say this, the ID folk have convinced a Moonie and an atheist to join their ranks so they can claim that the whole thing is unrelated to religion. Look deeper and you'll see these guys are being used like stage help in revival tent.

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Are you even serious here? Come on man, you HAVE to realize this statement is AT LEAST as ludicrous as a creationist claiming the "grand evolutionist conspiracy" thing that you are fond of laughing at.By the way, I don't see why exactly this topic has turned into a free-for-all bashing of John Paul. This kind of behavior is patently childish. Also, just because John Paul does not follow a naturalistic view as you may, does not make him ignorant or stupid.

"1)Only if you assume that on another planet the natural laws we observe in the rest of the universe are completely meaningless..."No, it assumes that there are natural laws that we don't know yet."2)And given that Intelligentdesigner is semanticaly equal to God that leaves us with Goddidit....."I'm obviously not going to convince you on this matter, so I have a different question. So what? What if God DID do it?"3)a)So if its a scientific theory rather than a religious belief in a lab coat why has the dear Dr not published his work in any form other than a popular press book? Its been 6 years, if he hasn`t published yet the chances are that he has nothing that validates his claims..."I believe he attempted to publish in a scientific journal. He is also involved in books other than Darwin's Black Box."With no proof it is a belief, and by dragging in an intelligent designing entity, for which there is no evidence for the existence of, it becomes a religious belief..."Really? So, you're saying that belief in a theory that has no supporting evidence makes it a "religous" theory? Actually, IDers do claim to have evidence, and that is the apparent design of living things in nature. It's rather unfortunate that detecting design generally tends to imply a designer, making ID "religous" in your view."c)Athiests driven by religious conviction????? Que?????"Yes, the religion of humanism.

"2)Good for him all you`ve got to do is empiricaly proove that he did and you will be on the short list for the next Nobel prize.....Can you?"Are you serious? You want "empirical proof"? First of all, it's impossible to prove something, and second of all, no matter what the evidence was, there would still be a large majority of people who don't believe in God."3)And it was rejected then? What does that tell you about the validity of his theory? Oh I forgot its Global Evilutionist Conspiracy (TM) at work again......"It's not a conspiracy. It's human bias in action. Every time someone accuses an evolutionist of bias it becomes the "Global Evilutionist Conspiracy". There is no such conspiracy, it is just that every human is biased."4)No I`m saying that if you drag in a supernatural IDer (or have we agreed to call him God yet) that there is no evidence for the existence of it becomes a religious belief...."There is evidence for Design, it's too bad that you don't see it."As mentioned already NS can act on random components and result in an apparently designed system...."As mentioned already, "natural selection" can do anything you want it to do. Thus, it is impossible to falsify your "nature can do anything" way of thinking. However, I tend to think that irreducibly complex structures point to a Designer.

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
Look, JP seriously wanted me to believe that Noah and his family fed pelleted and compressed food to the herbivores on the Ark. What am I supposed to think about a person who is willing to swallow whole the notion that this kind of thing would even be available in Noah's time, and who resorts to calling me a liar when he can't answer the questions I pose about the details of his scenario?

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Seriously, what kind of opinion of his intelligence am I supposed to hold?

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It does not matter what JP has said previously (especially in another thread), because that still leaves no reason for ad hominem attacks.

"A theory with no supporting evidence may not be religious, but it certainly isn't scientific."Whoops, I guess evolution is not scientific! Like I said, it is your opinion that there is no evidence for a Designer."As for the "apparent design" in nature, it seems to me that that's a matter of interpretation."I agree. What makes your interpretation better?"Also, natural selection has been shown to create the appearance of design (e.g. antibiotic resistance in bacteria)."I never really thougth of antibiotic resistance as a design feature. However, natural selection can apparently do anything it wants. Thus, it is impossible to falsify a naturalistic way of thinking. I look at design in nature and say "Design!" You look at design in nature and say "Blind mechanistic processes!""And what divine being does "the religion of humanism" worship?"Richard Dawkins.

"1)No answer yet..."Sorry I didn't answer you here, but I didn't really think this discussion was going anywhere. It's not all that relevant anyway."2)No I don`t want empirical proof I want some sort of material evidence of Gods exsistence before throwing the current paradigm out of the window..."Ok, fine. The cause and effect principle. The universe exists and had a beginning, thus it had a cause. The cause must of been something outside the boundaries of time, otherwise it would have had to have a cause. Thus, it is extremely likely that the creator of this universe is an omnipotent being.I look forward to your discussion of quantam vacuum fluctuations."3)Do you understand how peer review works CS? Heres an overview a scientist writes a paper, he sends it to the editors of a journal he would like it to appear in, the editors have the paper reviewed by experts in the relevant field (his peers, hence peer review) who look for any glaring errors in methodology etc, if they find no such errors the paper is published REGARDLESS of their personnal opinions as to its veracity..."I'm glad to know that "experts in the relevant fields" are not biased.If you would like to see the original correspondence, here it is. http://trueorigin.org/behe07.asp"4)Too bad you can`t show me any...."Even Dawkins admits that there is design in nature. It's unfortunate that he would rather attribute the obvious design in nature to blind naturalistic processes. Maybe you should take Dawkin's word for it that there are design features in nature."Nature can`t do anything thats why pigs don`t fly...."If pigs could fly evolutionists would surely have a just-so story prepared to "explain" it."Natural selection is a method of selecting the fittest strains for a given environment, it cannot do everything because it doesn`t generate diversity it instead reduces it by throwing out that which does not work as well as the others...."I know."Random mutation generates diversity, but there are limits on what it can produce, hence nature cannot do anything..."What type of "limits" are there? Obviously wings, lungs, hearts, and brains do not violate these supposed "limits". No matter what existed in nature now, it could be attributed to mutations. Obviously the human brain with 120 trillion connections didn't stop it...."Nice demolition of a strawman by the way I`ll keep you in mind if I ever need anyone to get rid of scarecrows for me....."When I said that natural selection could do anything, I was also considering random mutations. Sorry that I didn't word it better."IC structures can evolve (Muller, 1939) so how is there existence evidence for design?"What can't evolve? Obviously the human brain was no problem. Hearts, wings, lungs, bacterial flagellum, seems to me that evolution is one bad mother! Just because something "can" happen does not mean it did happen or was likely. Unfortunately, your buddy Muller didn't work out the evolution of bacterial flagellum. He didn't prove that IC structures mentioned by Behe could evolve. Waving the magic wand of mutations and natural selection and adding millions of years doesn't solve anything.5)No answer yet...Sorry, I didn't think the discussion was very relevant.

"That aside, Behe's work is taking his perceived gaps in the evolutionary theory (which may or may not be real), and inserting God. This falls outside of the realm of science, and thus outside of the realm of scientific journals."Ok, but therefore you admit that the reason that the paper was not published was based on philosophical implications (whether or not such are valid).This is the point I am trying to convey to Joz. Rejection of Behe's work does not have much to do with whether or not he is right (that God is responsible for life), but has more to do with philosophical considerations.

1) I retract the claim then."2)Why bother we have been over QVF several times on these boards, fact is that even in spacetime of zero curvature material spontaneously appears WITH NO CAUSE rather makes the whole cause and effect argument invalid...."Well, I can't really get into deep discussion here due to ignorance, but I have to ask one thing. If material "spontaneously appears", then why haven't we gotten rid of the first law of thermodynamics?"3)I`d like to point out that that wasn`t a paper that he submited but a "heres what I think" essay, they are scientific journals CS they want science not philosophy, god of gaps etc...."I'd like to point out that his first submition was about the fact that gene duplication was an inadequate mechanism for the blood clotting cascade. The second submition was an attempted reply to critics. I would only think it fair that a scientist has a chance to defend his theory after it being attacked repeatedly. I am obviously not as knowleadgable in the way of fairness as are evolutionary scientists, I suppose.I thougth you might find this tidbit interesting:"On the one hand I am painfully aware of the close-mindedness of the scientific community to non-orthodoxy, and I think it is counterproductive."I'm going to go ahead and take his word for it."If as he claims in his book his work is on par with Newton et al"I challenge you to document the page in the book in which Behe suggests this in any way, otherwise retract it as an irrational and false claim."he should publish something in a technical journal, its been 6 years and he hasn`t go figure...."He's tried at least twice and was dismissed irrationally twice, go figure."4)I don`t dispute that natural systems have the appearance of design the point is that it is not INTELLIGENT design...."I don't dispute that natural systems have the appearance of design, the point is that it is not NATURAL design."In the stonehenge and ID thread I asked JP for a method of determining between ID and the appearance of design from natural laws acting on a natural potential, I am still waiting, how about you try to answer the question..."So everything has evolved until proven otherwise?"No Muller pointed out that IC structures evolve. You know, the old A does a job, A and B do it better, A mutates to A`, A` and B do a yet better job but A` needs B to work, B mutates to B` which needs A` to function, A` and B` do a fantastic job and also form an IC system.... argument..."Yes I know the "old" alphabet soup argument. Muller didn't point out that IC structures evolve, at the most he pointed out that it could happen. Thus, reasonable processes should be easy to find, especially with all of the imagination of the evolutionary scientists."Behe just says it appears to be IC, ergo design...."Seems more reasonable to me."5)It is relevant CS you stated that humanism was a religion without mentioning which branch of humanism...."Fine, I meant atheistic humanism.And I'll also admit that it's not really a religion.P.S. I'm still waiting for your "limits" of mutational change.