[_ Old Earth _] Flaws in ID

[reznwerks]

"The intelligent design theory is based on the assumption that natural selection requires that living things came into existence by mere chance alone. There is absolutely no scientific basis for this belief. "

"ID supporters use the analogy of a mousetrap: take away any part and it ceases to function. It ceases to function as a mousetrap, but that doesn't mean that it has no function at all. Remove the latching wire, and it can still function as a memo holder or a tie clip. In the case of birds, fossil evidence indicates that a reptile mutation produced pinnate scales. Through a process of natural selection, the scales became feathers. After feathers evolved, front legs evolved to wing structures. Further down the line, natural selection favored birds with hollow bones. There is no basis for the ID "irreducible complexity" theory that they all would have had to evolve simultaneously. "

http://www.fsteiger.com/intelligent-design-flaws.html

 

[unred typo]

Reznwerks wrote:

"ID supporters use the analogy of a mousetrap: take away any part and it ceases to function. It ceases to function as a mousetrap, but that doesn't mean that it has no function at all. Remove the latching wire, and it can still function as a memo holder or a tie clip. In the case of birds, fossil evidence indicates that a reptile mutation produced pinnate scales. Through a process of natural selection, the scales became feathers. After feathers evolved, front legs evolved to wing structures. Further down the line, natural selection favored birds with hollow bones. There is no basis for the ID "irreducible complexity" theory that they all would have had to evolve simultaneously. "

Uh huh. Now I've seen the light. I get it. One lizard was hatched with this zit. It multiplied and eventually became a bump with a feather…uh… several feathers coming out of it…uh…back up…it became a rash of bumps and this bumpy lizard was sexier than smooth lizards, so more lizards developed bumps. It was all the rage back then. While the smooth lizards were still trying to figure out how to make a bump, the bumpy lizards were eager to go on to longer and longer bumps, with lateral extensions that could stick together and change colors, except on the legs where they remained more in lizardness. One day, a million years later, they realized that the skin on the feet had to go and bonier legs were the bomb. One lizard’s nose got harder and harder, we forget why. But it was cuter than the old lizard snout so some of the smarter lizards mated with this beak nosed lizard, who wisely passed on this new trait to it’s offspring. Luckily, the new longer bumps were good for flapping and after a few thousand years, they actually had lift off. Now the lizards are so specialized, we don’t know whether they are lizards or something else. Now, the same goes for cats and dogs and rabbits and monkeys and giraffes and elephants and horses and cows and mules and capybara and pigs and goats and rhinoceroses and hyenas and tigers and leopards and mice and moles and snakes and frogs and fish and dolphins and octopuses and pelicans and mink and squirrels and seals and walruses and flamingoes and gorillas and okapis and emus and kangaroos and snails and slugs and turtles and hippos and sharks and whales and shrimp and sea horses and donkeys and star fish and… is that all? Well, whatever. You know if you have millions of years to kill, you can eventually come up with all kinds of innovations. They’re like peanuts, one just leads to another and another and pretty soon your bump is a feather or a strand of hair or a scale or an extra eyeball or whatever you happen to need. So if you should give birth to a child with a feather growing out of his nose, don’t pluck it. He may just be the first flying human. :angel: :roll:

 

[reznwerks]

someday

Reznwerks wrote:

"ID supporters use the analogy of a mousetrap: take away any part and it ceases to function. It ceases to function as a mousetrap, but that doesn't mean that it has no function at all. Remove the latching wire, and it can still function as a memo holder or a tie clip. In the case of birds, fossil evidence indicates that a reptile mutation produced pinnate scales. Through a process of natural selection, the scales became feathers. After feathers evolved, front legs evolved to wing structures. Further down the line, natural selection favored birds with hollow bones. There is no basis for the ID "irreducible complexity" theory that they all would have had to evolve simultaneously. "

Uh huh. Now I've seen the light. I get it. One lizard was hatched with this zit. It multiplied and eventually became a bump with a feather…uh… several feathers coming out of it…uh…quote]
Maybe if you read it a few more times you will understand it. Don' t give up though. When you understand it you can teach the others. After a couple of weeks this whole ID thing will be history. LOL

 

[unred typo]

Reznwerks wrote:

Maybe if you read it a few more times you will understand it. Don' t give up though. When you understand it you can teach the others. After a couple of weeks this whole ID thing will be history. LOL

Since you are unable or unwilling to add your infinite wisdom to the article, I’ll try to fill in for you. This is from your site, in case you didn’t read it:
Evolution is based on two concepts: (1) Present life forms are descended from primitive ancestors, and (2) the process was guided by natural selection. In order to lend any credence to their theory of intelligent design, its supporters must establish that natural selection rules out any possibility of a designer. They have not done this.
IOW, evolution is not an atheistic concept in and of itself. A designer can be, as I believe, the reason things change and evolve to survive in their changing environment. The anti-religious part is the millions of years needed to accomplish this by random…oh, I see we have evolved that concept to say “natural†selection. We don’t believe in random chance anymore, Rez? I guess the odds were against it.

When you figure out that there is an incredible, indescribably intelligent designer involved and he doesn’t even need millions of years to change wigglers into flying creatures, maybe we can agree. Of course we want more than the usual cut and paste evidence to believe the more fantastic claims of evolution like lizard bumps turning into feathers or hair follicles. Fantastic claims require fantastic evidence, you know. If it took millions of years, we need some intermediate phases to examine. You must have at least one living lizardy creature with half bump/ half feather lumps, don’t you? Or half bump/ half hair lumps? If it happened, and it only took a few days, weeks or years though, we wouldn’t expect to see much of that. We would expect that a designer was initiating the process or built it into the genetic code and some environmental change triggered it.

 

[reznwerks]

huh

Reznwerks wrote:

Maybe if you read it a few more times you will understand it. Don' t give up though. When you understand it you can teach the others. After a couple of weeks this whole ID thing will be history. LOL

Since you are unable or unwilling to add your infinite wisdom to the article, I’ll try to fill in for you. This is from your site, in case you didn’t read it:
Evolution is based on two concepts: (1) Present life forms are descended from primitive ancestors, and (2) the process was guided by natural selection. In order to lend any credence to their theory of intelligent design, its supporters must establish that natural selection rules out any possibility of a designer. They have not done this.
Well only in your world does the logic follow that if you can't prove something does not exist then it must. LOL This is the classic case of proving a negative and know the outcome. You have made claim of a God then you need to show the evidence that one exists.



IOW, evolution is not an atheistic concept in and of itself. A designer can be, as I believe, the reason things change and evolve to survive in their changing environment.
You can believe whatever you want. That is a theory. Now use the scientific method and prove it. So far you can't do it and until you do no God exists.

The anti-religious part is the millions of years needed to accomplish this by random…oh, I see we have evolved that concept to say “natural†selection. We don’t believe in random chance anymore, Rez? I guess the odds were against it.
We know what is and we know based on the evidence that evolution occurs and is occurring and only those who are afraid of the evidence continue to deny it.

When you figure out that there is an incredible, indescribably intelligent designer involved and he doesn’t even need millions of years to change wigglers into flying creatures, maybe we can agree.
There is no evidence for it and ALL the evidence says it never happened as you say. Believing because its possible is one thing believing because it's not is quite another.

Of course we want more than the usual cut and paste evidence to believe the more fantastic claims of evolution like lizard bumps turning into feathers or hair follicles. Fantastic claims require fantastic evidence, you know. If it took millions of years, we need some intermediate phases to examine. You must have at least one living lizardy creature with half bump/ half feather lumps, don’t you?
Apparantly the thousands of scientists engaged in the study of evolution have already heard your arguements and have no problem answering it or that have concluded it's not a problem. You have to realize just how small your group really is when the whole world accepts the process and probably 90%of Christians accept evolution. Being considered a fringe group can't be all that comforting. Perhaps you should join forces with another fringe group that believe the world is still flat and another one that believes we never landed on the moon.
Or half bump/ half hair lumps? If it happened, and it only took a few days, weeks or years though, we wouldn’t expect to see much of that. We would expect that a designer was initiating the process or built it into the genetic code and some environmental change triggered it.
When you get your paper published in some recognized science publication let us know. Your questions and objections have already been heard a thousand times and have been satisfactorily been laid to rest. You are not on to something that scientists have not heard before and as I said if something is not understood or questions not as yet answered that is what it means. That is not evidence of God or the supernatural.

 

[Barbarian]

Uh huh. Now I've seen the light. I get it. One lizard was hatched with this zit.

Nope. Lizards don't have the right kind of scales. Scutes are the reptile equivalent of feathers. Scutes are found only on crocodilians, birds, and other dinosaurs.

Even today, one can knock out a single gene, and scutes will form into crude feathers.

http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/scutes.htm

Since it's known that many dinosaurs had feathers, it's even possible that scutes evolved from feathers which existed prior to scutes. The site above discusses that possibility. Note also that some other forms of scales have a lesser potential to form feathers.

 

[heel31ok]

I am not a real fan of ID anyways. It tries to appease both sides of an argument and becomes nothing but a lukewarm attempt at unity with all sides. i believe God created the heavens and the earth and anyone who tries to introduce ID to make it more acceptable than using God the creator,is denying Him and watering down a fundamental doctrine and truth of God.

 

[reznwerks]

god

. i believe God created the heavens and the earth... .

Whos' God and where is the evidence?You can believe it but thats not evidence.

 

[NOTW]

Re: god

. i believe God created the heavens and the earth... .

Whos' God and where is the evidence?You can believe it but thats not evidence.

The evidence is seen by all and all are without ecxuse as it is not only seen, but written on the hearts and minds of every living soul. Only some are blind to it because satan has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.

As for ID........


The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection -- how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.

ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion.

Positive evidence of design in living systems consists of the semantic, meaningful or functional nature of biological information, the lack of any known law that can explain the sequence of symbols that carry the "messages," and statistical and experimental evidence that tends to rule out chance as a plausible explanation. Other evidence challenges the adequacy of natural or material causes to explain both the origin and diversity of life.


Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins which currently drive science education and research

 

[NOTW]

Re: god

. i believe God created the heavens and the earth... .

Whos' God and where is the evidence?You can believe it but thats not evidence.

The Bible does not support the idea of “blind faith,†or faith as a “leap into the dark.†Biblical faith is a faith that sees what those who have no faith fail to see; it is a leap into the light, not into the dark. For Christians, God is not a theoretical abstraction, but Someone who loves us and who has made Himself known to us.

Thus, the bottom line is that we know God exists because He has revealed Himself to us. He has done this in many ways  through creation, through our moral consciousness, through miraculous experiences, and in many other ways. Philosophers have designed arguments that spell out the logic of these testimonies to God’s existence, but these arguments simply formalize what should be intuitively obvious to anyone who looks around and within themselves.

In short, there are many arguments for the existence of God, most of them valid and quite powerful. However, although these many arguments for the existence of God are substantial, because we are sinners and cut off from immediate communion with God we need something more than good arguments. What we need is for God to reveal Himself to the world. This is exactly what He has done. First through prophets in the Bible, and then fully and concretely in Jesus Christ, God has spoken to the world, told us about Himself, shown us what He is like, and called us to be reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, giving proof to the world by raising Jesus from the dead and through Him fulfilling numerous Old Testament prophecies. And that is how we know that God exists.

You want more evidence? Accept Christ and you'll get alot of it. It will change your life!

Peace,
NOTW............

 

[Quath]

Re: god

You want more evidence? Accept Christ and you'll get alot of it. It will change your life!

I use to believe in Jesus, but when I questioned in my prayers, I got no response. God did not reveal Himself and I stopped believing in Him as I stopped believing in Santa Claus.

If you want to believe in a god, you will find evidence everywhere you look because that is your bias. Muslism see Allah. Pagans may see Zeus. New Agers see the power of crystals. Some people see aliens. But scientifically, you have to remove bias and see evidence as objectively as possible.

When I did this, I could not find God. There is nothing in the universe that requires for an intelligent, all powerful being to explain.

Quath

 

[NOTW]

Reasons prayer will go unanwsered.......

In response to your thread titled "Are you afraid of going to hell?" in the faq forum!




1. Lack of Fellowship with God and His word


John 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.â€Â


Unanswered prayers are sometimes a result of absence from fellowship with the Lord and His Word. Jesus promised that if we would remain in His fellowship, and allow His Word to remain in us, this would produce results in prayer.


2. Not seeking to Please the Lord


1 John 3:22 “And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.â€Â


Answers to prayer come when we seek to keep His commandments and please the Lord with our life. This is not to suggest that we “earn†answered prayers, any more than we can earn salvation which comes only by faith (Eph. 2:8-9). He answers our prayers from his “grace†and “mercy†(Heb. 4:16), not merely from our good deeds. However, keeping His commandments and pleasing the Lord is a product of our obedience to His word, which is faith in action (James 2:20). What are His commandments? He commanded that we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourself (Mark 12:30-31). Further, Jesus said we are to love our brethren as He has loved us. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you†(John 15:12). Lack of love, bitterness, unforgiveness is the root of many unanswered prayers, since faith works by love (Gal 5:6).


3. Unconfessed Sin in One’s Life


1 Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.â€Â


There is no doubt that sin will disrupt the flow of God’s blessings and answers to prayer. The psalmist, David wrote, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear†(Psa. 66:1.


4. Improper Motives


James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.â€Â


Our motives in our prayer requests are of concern to the Lord. He wishes to help us in our time of need, but is not obligated to answer prayers which will merely feed our carnal, worldly appetites and (lustful) pleasures. Our motives and desires can be corrected by humbling ourselves, and drawing near to God (James 4:8-10).


5. Not asking in God’s will


1 John 5:14-15 “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.â€Â


6. Don’t know how to pray


Luke 11:1 "...Lord, teach us to pray...â€Â


Some lack effectiveness in prayer simply because they don’t know what the scriptures teach about prayer. Jesus gave His disciples an outline for prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Other passages teach that prayer is primarily to be a private, intimate time with the Lord (Matt. 6:6), to be intermingled with praise and thanksgiving (Acts 16:25, Phil. 4:6). Times of fasting with prayer are beneficial to strengthen our faith and power in prayer (Acts 14:23, 1 Cor. 7:5). Jesus often went to secluded places to spend prolonged periods in prayer (Luke 6:12, Matt. 4:2).


7. Lack of Faith


Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.â€Â


We cannot please God without faith. Prayer is not merely “begging†from God. It is “believing†God and His Word! Faith will come forth and grow as we devote our attention to the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Our faith can also be “built up,†by praying in the Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20).


8. Misunderstanding of Faith


Mark 11:24 “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.†Many do not understand that faith is believing in the reality of things, even though we cannot see them (Heb. 11:1). Jesus said that “when†you pray, you must believe that you “receive†your answer at that moment. The word, “receive†comes from the Greek word, LAMBANO, which means “to receive now†(present tense). He then says we will “have†them. "Have" comes from, ESOMAI, which means “to possess later†(future tense).
So, when we pray we must believe in the finished results of our prayer, and we will eventually experience the tangible results sometime later.


9. Wavering faith


James 1:6-7 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;â€Â



10. Failure to apply spiritual Authority


Mark 11:23 “For assuredly, I y to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.â€Â


11. Lack of Perseverance


Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.â€Â

 

[Quath]

It was simple for me. I wanted to know that God was real because I didn't want to worship a figment of my imagination.

I was taught that God loved me and cared for me. So if I face an eternity in hell because I can not find belief, then I figured a loving and caring God would reveal Himself to me so I could believe and avoid hell.

But that didn't happen. So I had to conclude one of the following:
1. There was no hell. If so, then the Bible is false.
2. God doesn't care. Then Christianity has been a lie from what I learned.
3. God couldn't show Himself. Then He must be powerless and not what Christianity teaches.
4. There is no God.

So I accepted that I no longer believed. I figured that if I went to hell because I could not find belief, then God was too evil to worship anyway.

Quath