Evidence for Intelligent Design-is there any?

The first known multi-cellular organisms appear 1.2 billion years ago, and as Gluadys has pointed out, the unicellular life didn't remain unchanged. You seem to be trying to suggest that mutation and natural selection could not produce the variety seen in the Cambrian over 70 million generations. It certainly could. It's important to remember that generations are far more important than years so far as mutation and selection are concerned.Here, not only do you fail to offer positive evidence for intelligent design, but you're not even offering evidence against evolutionary theory.Why not try the mammalian blood-clotting system? as evidence for design.

G'day Lucy,Have you never heard of Lamarck?

Here's your problem, Beretta. Because you have no direct positive evidence for I.D., you try and present indirect evidence. In order to do this, you have to show that the life forms we observe, natural phenomena, cannot be produced by nature. That doesn't mean just showing that they cannot be produced by the mechanisms of the theory of evolution, it means all possible natural mechanisms.That is a seemingly impossible task.If there's any validity in a hypothesis, it develops into a theory by means of positive evidence, not by disproving all other possibilities. You often put forward this philosophy argument, as if looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena requires a grand philosophy, when it doesn't. Your implications are that non-natural explanations should in some way be given equal consideration.Sane people will look for natural, material explanations when faced with a mystery, like "why did my car break down". Only delusional madmen would give "the gremlins might be responsible" equal consideration. There are no non-natural explanations for anything that are backed by evidence, and there's no evidence for the existence of the "non-natural".However, if you want to start to build up evidence for I.D., demonstrating the existence of the non-natural or supernatural might be a good starting point.I can picture you in a "laboratory" a bit like those of the old alchemists, with a stuffed crocodile hanging to the ceiling, and essential equipment like crystal balls and Ouija boards. Being in Africa, you could consult your local witch-doctor. Get some positive results for the existence of the supernatural, then you're starting down the right road to presenting a case for the equal status of I.D. with evolutionary theory.Until then, the natural world is known to exist, so the best natural explanation for the origin of species is by far the best explanation, no philosophy required.

So far you're 57 posts into the thread and you haven't even presented any positive evidence for I.D. It's hardly any wonder that thinking people aren't convinced.Genetic change is occuring all the time, so why don't we have any photographs or film of the designers in action?

You might have a point. I wonder what some of our experts on Xian theology would think about that. Actually, I think this is part of the reason that some theologians object to I.D.Still, it's not the reason that we're not getting any positive evidence here. That's just because there isn't any. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for direct evidence of the designers, because they are the mechanism of I.D. The equivalents for evolutionary theory are mutation, selection and drift, all of which can be demonstrated to exist. When you think of the shrill demands for evidence aimed at realists, it's clear that we should be making equal demands of the superstitious faction.

God Verdomme, keep away from those Coffee Shops.

Life copies itself without intelligence every day. Considering the thread title, do you know the difference between "evidence" and "assertions"?When you've sorted that out, you could consider the point that "intelligent designing engineers" are far more complex things than proteins, so that if they are a prerequisite for the formation of proteins, there would be no intelligent designers and no proteins. Therefore, they cannot be an essential requirement for protein formation on that basis alone. Natural selection doesn't shuffle randomly. There is an automatic bias towards what functions, and then towards improvements in function. All the machines that we know of are naturally occurring, including those which have naturally produced intelligent designers, and are designed by natural brains. We can witness nature changing "instructions" through mutations, with no intelligent designer involved. The ability to change instructions means the ability to make new "machines".You've made some assertions, but presented no evidence for I.D.{You can use the peek button at the bottom and the dBCodes help to the left of the reply form to see how quote boxes and other useful things work. Welcome to EvC.}

You're assuming an intelligence behind the "code" without presenting evidence for it. DNA has no brain, and it modifies itself randomly.Your own genome is unique, and the mutation and recombination processes that produces it can be observed to take place without any intelligent engineers being involved.There is no evidence that complex chemical processes in nature require intelligent designers.If intelligent designers like ourselves cannot exist without requiring intelligent designers, then they cannot exist. I repeat that intelligent design cannot be a prerequisite for the existence of intelligence or complexity. Work it out.The quote boxes are a very useful feature of this website.

I didn't know that computers self-replicated, and that they could do so with modifications. Mine hasn't done it yet. No-one commanded your unique genome. And natural organs, our brains, are capable of logic. Nothing that we know of is non-natural.You still don't seem to understand the point I've made to you above. There is no point in claiming that something that appears complex to you, like DNA, requires intelligent engineers. The engineers themselves would be more complicated than their creation, so by your argument, would also require engineers, and we end up with an infinite regression of ever more complex engineers.This point illustrates that complexity and intelligence (and logic and DNA) must be able to exist without being intelligently designed.Asserting that certain things require intelligent design without explaining why is not presenting evidence for design, the requirement of this thread.

Natural "software/hardware", actually. Nature can produce chemical arrangements that will "code" for specific results in the right environment. The chemical make up of a particular fluid determines the type of crystals formed in crystallization, for example.You seem to be claiming that intelligent engineering is a prerequisite for complex chemical processes in nature without presenting evidence for this. It's no use comparing the chemical "codes" in nature to our own codes. Without a natural code to produce us, we could not be designers of codes, so our codes are indirect products of DNA. You're putting the chicken before the egg!No matter how complex the DNA that produces intelligent engineers like ourselves is, we are more complex. Claiming, as you did above, that proteins require an intelligent engineer because of their complex nature means that the engineers would be too complex to exist without having a designer themselves. This applies whether the designer has left the building or not. At some point, intelligent complexity must be able to exist without requiring intelligent engineers.I'm not proving here that there cannot be or has not been intelligent design in this universe, merely that your claims do not work as evidence for it.Are you proposing an intelligent engineer who is simpler than the simplest of proteins?

Here, your parenthesis defines intelligence as non-natural when our brains are made of natural matter. Your first evidence-less assumption is that we, and therefore our codes are non-natural.If you're using the word "natural" in the sense of "natural" as opposed to man made, then you're wrong as well if we accept your definition of DNA as software, because we didn't produce DNA.If you meant to say that no-one has shown that "software" of any kind can be produced by unintelligent processes (leaving out the word natural), then who designed your personal unique "software"; your unique genome? And hasn't it occurred to you that no-one has shown that intelligence can exist without "software"? We have no evidence for any intelligent creatures that do not have DNA at their base.Look at your own wiki extract, think of the observations we have made at this point in time, and you see that it looks like "software" first, then intelligence.Then think of the point I keep repeating to you. Intelligence is a highly complex phenomenon. You cannot logically use the argument that intelligence is a prerequisite for complexity because, by your own argument, intelligence could not exist. I certainly don't underestimate it! I also don't find complexity surprising in a complex universe made of complex atoms that can combine to increase complexity. When you can observe that 3 atoms of 2 different elements can combine to make a molecule of water, and that those molecules can combine to form a drop of water with characteristics like surface tension, and then that that drop of water can arrange itself into a snowflake, you realise that nature can increase complexity easily, and does so frequently.Your "complexity" arguments seem to rely on a strange view that you are in a simple universe, so that when you observe complexity, you claim, without evidence, that it requires external intelligent interference. Next time you see something complex, consider the obvious; that it's evidence of a complex universe. If you understood the arguments that I'm making to you, you would know that there's no dogmatic belief system involved. I'm pointing out that the complex phenomenon of intelligence must be able to exist without requiring intelligent engineers. That means that creator Gods can exist without requiring engineers, and that intelligence and other complex phenomena could be produced in this universe without engineers.It is your argument that intelligence (a complex phenomenon) is a prerequisite for the existence of complex phenomena which is nonsensical because of its obvious inbuilt contradiction. Surely you understand this.

Please, Tony, look up the words "evidence" and "assertion" and study them carefully. The rest is answered in my last post, and you could also read Percy's post carefully, and look up "analogy" as well.

The post you're replying to is just someone questioning the phrasing of someone else's post. It is not by an IDer.

Ah! Now that guy is definitely an "IDer", and one who needs to learn the difference between assertions and evidence. You're welcome, and welcome to EvC.