Defence of Intelligent Design

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but the arch was designed and the scaffold built by the creator, not by a random unguided and creator-less process as stated by ToE.

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This is a bit disingenuous on your part. Obviously the arch was an analogy and the ToE refers to organisms, not architecture.An evolutionist can easily turn your own argument around on you and mention that no nonmaterial (ie supernatural) designers ever built an arch, or point out that no one has ever once seen a biological entity being built.Crash's analogy was appropriate and you simply have to think of it in biological terms. A structure, or more likely multiple organic structures, can gradually become more complex, creating mixed/overlapping functions. Not irreducibly complex, but with complex sets of chemical/physical relationships.At some point it may be possible that a mutation occurs where one of the original stuctures is no longer produced, yet it's absence is not a detriment. The function continues because it has become separate from the original structure which was necessary to produce it in the first place.To a scientist looking at the new creature (or more appropriately its descendents) there would be no hint of that now missing original structure. Instead all the scientist can see is the complex arrangement with no inherent explanation of how it was built. This is an irreducibly complex entity.ID theorists cannot, and some even mention this, claim that irreducibly complex entities could NEVER have been formed through such bridging or scaffolding scenarios. In fact there is no question that that kind of thing does occur in nature (there are examples given around this site).You need to understand this as it points to one of the weaknesses of ID.ID theorists are saying "here is an IC system, and there are no credible examples of bridging/scaffolding scenarios and so it needs to be thought of as ID... that is until evos can come up with the ACTUAL scaffolding scenario, and PROVE that was the SPECIFIC scenario for that particular entity."They know that this is a near impossible task, given that there could be several plausible scenarios and unless we get direct access to a living precursor we would never know which might be the case. Thus they have set the bar illogically high.And in a sense, hypocritically high. Evos are not allowed to ask an ID theorist what particular mechanism was used to do the designing, nor implementing the design in organic material. That is not essential, is the response as long as we know it could have been designed.Well the same goes for IC biosystems. We know that scaffolding can occur, and we have examples. So there is no reason to suspect that a newly discovered IC system did not come from some scaffolded biological evolution. What particular one? Who knows? Though may be important to narrow down the range of options.I created a thread to discuss actual criteria for detecting ID in organic systems. To my mind if IC is going to be used it would have to be combined with some sort of real knowledge of exact precursor, or definite timeline (which might show it is impossible for it to have developed in the length alloted).The closest ID comes to the above is arguments about the formation of the eye, but these have become so problematic for ID, that it is not a real criticism of evo at all... much less an establishment of an ID model.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

By the way I hope you noted that both Whatever and Warren, have been unmasked as not true ID theorists. While Warren retains some shred of dignity, Whatever was just BSing everyone.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Holmes, Its quite simple actually, toe is a theory and Intelligent Design is a fact, all creatures show evidence of design, etc...P.S. Nothing wrong with teaching the children the truth instead of a myth that life is capable of explaining the different kinds of creatures, so your mission, is to prove macro-evolution, supports darwins origin of the species, in the natural, different kinds of creatures(macro-evolution), not different species(micro-evolution)Intelligent Design is a fact, Evolution implies that the different kinds of creatures came through micro-evolution, when micro-evolution only shows how the different species micro-evolved from the different kinds(even creationists believe the different species micro-evolve from the kinds), noticed you never addressed the different chromosome bundles different kinds of creatures have, and how this is a problem any way you look at, for evolution to be a viable theory, etc...

If you admit that micro-evolution exists, then consider this. Supposing a wee fly undergoes an event of micro-evolution, then a couple of generations later one of his offspring goes through another micro-evolution event. Continue this for thousands of generations and consider how many individual micro-evolution events have occurred. May they not all add up to what you consider macro-evolution? Nobody has ever seen it, not because it doesn't happen, but because it takes so long for it to happen that no-one who was around to see the original will be around to see the progress. Is this so difficult to grasp?Consider this. Syphilis, when it was first introduced to Europe caused a very severe illness which was usually fatal within 10 days. Now, the bug causing it can't live outside the human body so when the host died, it died too. Since the people who caught it were so ill and died so rapidly they didn't get a chance to pass it on. So without changes to the bug, syphilis would have died out in Europe. That didn't happen because those strains of the bug which were slightly different ie less able to cause the disease, had more chance of being passed on because their host wasn't feeling as bad and was more likely to take part in rumpy-pumpy. Continue that for a few hundred years and we now have syphilis which bears no resemblance to the original disease. Now the infected person gets a painless sore at the place of infection which heals. Then a while later they get some ulcers on mucous membranes which heal. For some that's it, for others they develop general paralysis of the insane and gummata in various organs, aneurisms in the aorta etc and they eventually pop their clogs maybe thirty years after the initial infection.If you compare the two lots of symptoms side by side and don't take into account the time involved, you'd be hardpressed to see that they were caused by the same organism or that they were the same disease. We know that they were because the changes were GRADUAL. Mark that word GRADUAL!!! Each change increased the life expectancy of the individual a tiny bit and decreased the severity of the symptoms. Does this help? Probably not, methinks. Ho hum!!

Seriously, dude, if you ever want to get yourself out of the hole that you're already in, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Intelligent Design is NOT -- repeat NOT -- a fact for the simple reason that no design has ever been demonstrated. Sure, IDers are quite wont to CLAIM that such-and-such is design, but calling a dog a duck will never make the dog quack.The reason ID is not a fact is that you cannot show that any organism's physical characteristics correspond to any design because you do not have access to the original design. We know that cars and buildings are designed because we do the designing, and we have the plans, and we know the methods.... NONE of these are features of ID with respect to biological organisms. Evolution happens. That is a fact as much as it's a fact that walking happens. If you don't think that many many "micro" evolutionary changes can add up to a "macro" evolutionary change, then please describe for us the barrier that you think exists which prevents this and how we might test for the existence of that barrier.You seem to think that there is a real difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution, but there isn't. "Macro" evolution is simply many many "micro" evolutionary changes all taken together. If I ran a marathon, the "macro" runing I accomplished was over 26 miles, but I got there through many many "micro" steps. Your position is that even though humans can walk and run uninhibited ("micro" running), nobody ever completes marathons ("macro" running). What would prevent it? Define "kind" in a way that we might test the features of a given organism and appropriately categorize it in it's "kind." How is this a problem, according to you?

Hi, Whatever! I've been reading your posts for a while now and know that you're largely unaffected by facts, even seemingly don't know what a fact is, so I can only assume that you make this statement in total ignorance of the fact that Darwin conceived the theory of evolution at least 50 years before the science of genetics was even born, and at least a hundred years before we discovered that heredity was locked within the DNA molecules of chromosomes.In other words, the evidence for evolution was discovered long before the mechanisms behind it. Still, your question is an excellent one. You're challenging the evolutionary assumption that many small microevolutionary steps eventually result in macroevolution by noting that it isn't just the DNA sequences that differ between species, but very frequently and substantially also the chromosomes in both number and nature.The entire assumption of evolution is gradual change. The common Creationist bonehead criticism that a fish with fins doesn't suddenly give birth to a fish with legs is always met with the explanation that the change was very gradual, that it took thousands of generations for fins to gradually evolve into limbs. But if this gradualism is to also be applied to the genetic foundation of organisms, then how does a chromosome appear gradually? How does it disappear gradually?Anyone with answers?--Percy

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Its quite simple actually, toe is a theory and Intelligent Design is a fact, all creatures show evidence of design, etc...

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Do I need to repost your own admissions you have no idea what you are talking about? So why are you still spouting statements about facts?

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Nothing wrong with teaching the children the truth instead of a myth that life is capable of explaining the different kinds of creatures

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Other than ignoring my requests you have done nothing to explain how creationism (which is what you are using and NOT ID) is anything better than a myth about the far past. It certainly is unable to handle the ongoing processes we witness.

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noticed you never addressed the different chromosome bundles different kinds of creatures have

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Uhhhhhhh, yeah. Notice you never addressed anything I have ever said? I see percy has asked about that as a specific topic. Maybe it ought to be opened as a separate thread.I'd be interested in exploring it, but will not allow it to be a dodge from all the points I have brought up and you cannot answer. And frankly, if you refuse to understand or accept simple issues in genetic mechanisms as we view them operating today, what is the point of addressing more complex issues involving the past?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, but intelligence isn't magic. Intelligence can't cause anything to happen that isn't already possible by natural means.

Trixie
Very Interesting, but the only thing you neglected was that both examples remained with in the same species, the fly while different it still was a fly, not a bird or even a wasp but a fly and the syphilis still an illness not another organism.BRAN

I know you'd prefer not to give whatever an out to be able to dodge yet more questions...but the chromosome question has been a thread since this was started by Rei back in December.

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Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

Nature was capable, yes but only if it was instructed by something/ someone, in other word it had the puzzle pieces but it just needed the creator to place the pieces correctly together. pieces + creator = lifeBRAN

Whatever, Bwahahahaha!!!!!!ID is NOT a FACT, it isn't even a viable scientific theory. It isn't testable, nor falsifiable etc... What a clown.But since you're still posting , I would very, very much like a point by point explanation of issues 1-7, here. Please understand I expect your explanations to be consistent with all your other explanations, which thus far has been severely lacking.Mark

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"Physical Reality of Matchette’s EVOLUTIONARY zero-atom-unit in a transcendental c/e illusion" - Brad McFall

Nature's systems are self-assembing. They need no "puzzler" to put them together.When was the last time you observed any intelligent design resulting in something as complex as life? Only natural selection + random mutation has the creative potential to create life.

Whatever,Since your first post in December, you have made 219 posts to 15 separate threads. Of these 15 threads, one is closed. Of the 14 left open, you have replies being waited upon in 10 of them.Please reply to direct questions, even if it is only to say "I don't know". Please be ready to defend your answers, even your "I don't knows", if they contradict other answers you have given.

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AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

So, you'd accept evidence of change at levels higher than species as evidence of macro-evolution?

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Coloniality in Chlorella vulgaris Boraas (1983) reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella.

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Anyway, what does it matter? Taxa higher than species are essentially arbitrary, anyway. And we can show you ample evidence of new species. There's no such thing as "kinds", if you were going to trot out that old horse. That's just biological Platonism at it's worst.