Can Natural Selection Produce Intelligent Design?

Please help me understand this. If I correctly understand classical evolution theory, it asserts that all living organisms descended from a single parent through a process of mutation and natural selection. Not being a scientist, I’m probably not using all the right terminology here but hopefully you'll get the gist. The Homo sapien (Hs) is therefore a product of this process. However Hs seems to be all about intelligent design. He is endowed with an amazingly creative imagination. (And what is imagination?) What he sees in his mind he creates, such as this computer I’m using now and the discussion I’m initiating now. He has totally transformed the environment in which he lives including tinkering with the biology of other living organisms and adding new elements to the periodic table. And of course we could go on and on describing all the other expressions of design that come from Hs in the arts, sciences, language, culture, etc.But many of us would argue that this very sophisticated intelligent designer, unique on earth’s landscape, has been produced by the evolutionary process that Darwin describes. Can we make sense of this? Can such a super creation as Hs — an intelligent designer - be the product of mutation and natural selection where there is no intelligent design input? Behe talks about irreducible complexity. Hs seems to be an example of ordered, creative complexity taken to the nth degree. I’ll welcome comments on this observation.

OK, so it looks like we agree that intelligent design exists as expressed by our super hero Homo sapien. However, I can’t make the leap of faith (and it is faith — faith in an idea) that assumes that Hs’s capacity for creative imagination is the product of a biological process. In fact (hold your hat) we might want to consider the possibility that this unique capacity has a separate genesis. Here’s why:
Creative design as expressed by Hs has its own unique evolutionary history. It is a very recent history that began after he developed biologically as we know him today. It probably started with the creation of society, then language, then tools & weapons, on to agriculture, the wheel, etc., etc.
Hs is a creator, meaning that he makes things out of nothing. The process starts with an idea (out of nothing) and is translated into a sonnet by Shakespeare or a bicycle. As I understand natural selection, it doesn’t make something out of nothing.
Hs makes choices. This morning I can put on a blue shirt or a red shirt, or no shirt at all. It’s a matter of how I feel, today’s weather forecast, or my sense of style. Natural selection doesn’t make arbitrary choices.So where did this intelligent design phenomenon, as expressed by Hs, come from? That’s for another discussion topic, but because we don’t have a scientific explanation at this time for a separate genesis for intelligent design should not be reason to dismiss the possibility. And are the sciences the only place to be looking for an explanation?.....Lance

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It's your position which is faith-based, not ours. Furthermore you betray an ignorance of the creative process.

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This is a very interesting statment. Who is "ours?" Does some group own this discussion forum, or does some set of ideas own this discussion board and questioning the ideas is not allowed?
Regarding faith, we all step out on faith daily. Faith is hope in an outcome based on incomplete evidence. I put faith in the man or woman I vote for, in the car I buy, and in my choice for a spouse. Sometimes were disappointed and sometimes we're not.
And ignorance? If you mean I don't have complete knowledge of the creative process I plead ignorance. But who does have all the knowledge? Who can say what's behind the Big Bang? Who has seen non-living matter give birth to a living organism that reproduces itself?

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Nobody makes things out of nothing. Shakespeare wrote his sonnets, drawing on a hundred years of Italian sonnet poetry. He wrote his plays drawing on centuries of pre-existing drama. In some cases he outright plagarized popular comedies and gave them his own slight twist.

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Regarding sonnets, somebody created that first 14 line verse in iambic pentameter for the first time and each one written is a new creation.

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I don't see what that has to do with anything. Why do all products of natural selection and random mutation have to share every character of those two processes? Are you suggesting that your choices and ideas must have an origin seperate from your brain? That they come from outside you, somewhere?

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What I'm saying here is that Homo sapien, as an intelligent designer, operates from free will. His choices are self-directed by whim or by reason, yet if he is he product of natural selection where there is no free will, he seems to have broken away from the process. This is what makes him an intelligent designer.

Well I guess I'll have to put the Bowerbird along side Hs as an intelligent designer ;-) Obviously, we see elements of intelligence in many critters, but I have to maintain that man's demonstration of creative imagination, independent choice, will power, and artistic expression sets him uniquely apart. And it's interesting that these characteristics are not equally shared. Every Bowerbird makes a nest, but not every man has the ability or inclination (choice) to design and build a house. The expression of design is highly variable.

Hi Guys. Please excuse my intrusion into a topic about which you are obviously very passionate - logic, circuits, etc. But is this thread on man as an intelligent designer the right one for your discussion?
....OP

Concede? Never ;-) Most evolutionists assume, as seen on this discussion topic, that the human capacity for free will, choice, creative expression, etc. is an outcome of the natural selection process. There is simply no other option. It’s linear thinking. Being a contrarian, I start with the end product — humans — and look backwards and say that the evolutionary process can’t possibly explain the creative nature of man, the intelligent designer. Yes, ants herd their aphids and some birds build interesting nests. However these examples are by and large survival actions. That’s what natural selection is all about — survival of the species. You make the wrong choices and you die. You make the right choices and you survive. Humans, on the other hand, take a million creative actions that don’t depend on survival. The actions are a result of need, inspiration (Where does that come from?), selfishness, altruism, love, hate, etc. My ability to go against the grain on this discussion forum is an expression of creative free will. No other living organism in the evolutionary chain expresses itself like man as an intelligent designer. No one’s mind is going to be changed in this discussion, but that’s OK.

It would be exciting to see unique human capabilities come out of artificial life/intelligence. But you are right that this wouldn't do it for me simply because they would obviously be the product of an intelligent designer, i.e. man. What I want to see is how the unique human capacities that make *us* designers can be produced by "natural" selection. Because there is such a quantum leap from the intelligence of lower animals to the amazing capacity of humans, we need compelling evidence of how the transition occured. I haven't seen that evidence yet.

Good effort Brad, and keep working on commonly understood language. That's what works in this discussion. Parasomnium gives good counsel and expresses our common interest in knowing what you have to say to us. I like your respect for everyone's ideas and the right to express them. Some of our posters don't understand that.

Thor, I like your comments - what you have to say and the spirit in which it is said. We're not of one mind on the matter yet, but you have prompted me to do a little more research on our friend Homo sapien (Hs). The latest evidence indicates that Hs has been around for about 300,000, but H sapien sapien (Hss), modern man, otherwise known as "thinking man," has been around for only about 100,000 years. This is the intelligent designer we have discussing who exploded upon the scene changing the face of the planet. If we assume that the first life appeared on earth about 3.7 billion years ago and equate that to one year, Hss has been around for the last 14 minutes. During that time all other Hs types (notably Neanderthal man) disappeared, possibly with the help of Hss. Hss migrated to all habitable parts of the earth through his ability to adapt and learn. It was only about 11,000 years ago (less than 2 minutes on our one-year scale) that he started looking like an intelligent designer, moving beyond the survival mode of hunter/gatherer to domesticating animals, agriculture and working metals. And as we would expect of an intelligent designer, he has now traveled to the Moon, cloned plants and animals, produced great works or art, etc., etc. Can we agree that Hss is no ordinary product of natural selection?