Supernatural information supplier

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If you look at ALL living things, they are really poorly built. Not just man, all living things.

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I dunno, Jar.Sharks are pretty well designed.

Sho nuff

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Symphonies, art, relationships, this website, the ability to reason (though admittedly flawed at times), and love lead me to believe mankind is special.

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I agree that homo sapiens is an amazing species because we are so good at adapting our environments to suit ourselves as well as being good at making tools to allow us to survive in many different environments. This has made us quite dominant and quite destructive to the Earth and other species.We also have self-consciousness, which only a few other species have.However, all species are special for various reasons. We can't fly like birds, hold our breath for long periosd under water like whales, run very fast like cheetahs, etc.They are special, just for different reasons.

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God's purpose for animals is limited. As you can see, he made what he cares about most, to be able to survive the easiest.

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Bacteria?Maybe beetles?

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People just aren't stupid enough to think that there is no God,

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Well, when the insults start coming out, you know mike has no response.

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and that humans have all the answers through accumulative knowledge,

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Why are you repeating this, mike, after I have repeatedly shot you down?Who is claiming to "have all the answers":1) The religious person who says "I know how God did everything in nature--see, it says so in this book, and the parts I don't agree with in this book I will reinterpret to my liking", or2) The scientist who says "There is a lot we don't know, and may never know about nature, like how life first started, so we can't really say."Which person is claiming to know it all, mike?

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas Jefferson

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that surely to dismiss everything as answered by science completely - is arrogant aswell.

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Again...Which is the arrogant one?:1) The religious person who says, each and every time they are confronted with some phenomena that we do not understand, and even some that we do understand, "God did that. See, it says so right here in this book, and I feel it to be so, as well. No evidence will ever convince me otherwise. My belief is set in stone, unchanging, forever.", or2) The science-minded person who says, when confronted with some phenomena we do not understand, "Gee, that's a puzzle. I have no idea how that works. Let's study it and try to figure it out, but if we cannot manage to do that, then I guess we won't know the answers to everything."Which person is arrogant, mike?

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only I've never heard you defend God at all.

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Why do you think god needs defending?

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Function would be adding a body part or some structure that enhances the creature at some level. Sorry I haven't been around long enough to have seen any of these examples.

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Function can also be taking away some body part or structure that makes the species more reproductively successful.Horses, for example, lost multiple toes in favor of one big one because it was more efficient on the plains they moved to compared to the forest they used to live in.There are still vestigial tarsal bones that articulate with the knee joint but just taper away to nothing.

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It is a tuff question, and one I struggle with (why are there scorpions and fire ants); also, and this is another tuff one, if we are right, then malaria, tapeworms and birth defects may be the least of our worries. But to say that these things are evidence that there is no creator

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Hold on, that's not the point.The point is that you and mike and others claim that every single thing in the universe was created, AND that this creator is a loving, benevolent god.Sure, there might be a Creator Of Everything, but he sure ain't loving and he sure ain't benevolent.He sure seems to be random and indifferent.

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is to ignore all of the beauty and order we find, which if this were a universe born out of chaos, should not be present.

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It most certainly does not mean we have to ignore beauty and order.Why do you think it does?Why also do you think that beauty and order would no be present if our universe was born out of chaos?Also, why do you think our universe was born out of chaos?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 12-27-2004 07:31 AM

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas Jefferson

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Why then are Dawkins, Gould, Kauffman and Prigogine, Eigen, and Francis Crick not convinced that mutation and natural selection are sufficent to produce the full diversity of living forms?

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Prigogine was a Physicist, not an Evolutionary Biologist.Eigen was a Chemist, not an Evolutionary Biologist.Kauffman is a Biologist, but looking briefly through his publication list there seems to be nothing to suggest that he advocates supernatural causes for the diversity of life on Earth.Crick is a Biochemist, is constantly misquoted by Creationists. He is an ardent Naturalist and fully supports evolution. HE muses about panspermia being the origin of life on Earth, but never advocates any supernatural agnecy.Dawkins? Are you seriously suggesting that DAWKINS thinks that the supernatural is responsible for anything?Gould is an Evolutionary Biologist who fully accepts that mutation and natural selection are responsible for the diversity of life on Earth. He suggests that the PACE of this process is not always gradual. He is misquoted VERY frequently by Creationists.Now, I have a suggestion for you.I suggest you stop going to Creationist websites to find these feeble dihonest misquotes to argue with, since they will always make you look as dishonest and feeble as the people constructing the websites.I also suggest that if you want to know what Gould, Dawkins, or any other Evolutionary Scientist thinks about Evolution, you might want to read a book or a paper written by them instead of a misleading quote taken out of context and found on a religiously biased propaganda website.

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Then why the scurry amongst some scientists to come up with a mechanism beyond mutation and natural selection that explains biodiversity?

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What are you talking about?What other mechanism have scientists suggested?

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I could easliy see an object or system that has evolved testing positive for design. This could just simply mean the object or system evolved under the direction of a designer or the initial object or system was the direct product of a designer who incorporated the evolutionary process into it. But it does seem that evolutionary theory has come up against some walls that ID could help to penetrate; the origins questions, the mechanism driving evolution beyond random mutation and natural selection that Gould and others are looking for.

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How do we tell the difference between an Intelligently Designed system and a natural one that we1) do not currently understand but may in the future, and2) do not have the intelligence or resources to ever understand?

I also have a neutral mutation.I have a mutation that caused my lower wisdom teeth to never form.Since wisdom teeth don't appear until the late teens/early twenties, if I had been having children since I reached reproductive maturity at age 13, any problems with my teeth would have been irrelevant as I would have already borne my offspring and passed on my genes long before they emerged.

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Yes, I think you have a point. But the difference comes in when you have a Chinese farmer running around claiming to have the fossil remains of some missing link and the press taking the claim at face value and putting stories out that are premature at best.

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Couldn't agree more.

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For scientists, at least there is the check and balance system of prestige, recognition, tenure, etc,

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Actually, a scientist who would propagate unverified information like that would be putting his or her entire career in serious jeopardy. Forget about "prestige, recognition, or tenure", he or she would be in real danger of becoming unhirable at any respected research university.

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(even though I think it is heavily weighted in favor of Darwinists,

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I assume you mean The Common Synthesis?Anyway, what other scientific theory of biodiversity is there that has also survived repeated tests?Lamarkism is scientific but has been shown to be wrong through testing.I don't know of any other.

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but then that would tend to keep scientists who have some prestige or reputation to protect from making any claims in the ID camp, thus making it harder to explain the proliferation of such writings).

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Evidence, dshortt.Science proceeds from the evidence.Claims need to be supported by evidence.If scientists had evidence, they would publish it in professional peer-reviewed journals.If the evidence existed, there would be no choice but for scientists to accept it.Science proceeds from the evidence.Claims need to be supported by evidence that anyone, performing the same experiment, can replicate.Where is the evidence?

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However, if I can remember (I can't) - then I was arguing that to say the natural causes have no God behind them would be arrogant/dismissive. I know what you're thinking Ellie, "Occams razor" right?

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Sure.I could then ask you, if you believe God is behind all natural causes, then which God is it? There are hundreds of thousands of gods conceived by humans, probably more.Maybe there is a separate god responsible for each and every one of the tiniest particles of matter?Also, if there is no discernable difference between natural causes and God-caused, then why invoke God at all?