Intelligent Design vs JPL (NASA) court case

[youngterrier]

There have been more peer reviewed papers criticizing ID than there are those who were actually published. If I'm not mistaken, there have been 11 total, 8 criticizing and 3 supporting.

There have been 50 peer reviewed papers supporting ID.

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You quoted the Discovery Institute, and your argument is thus invalid because it is a propaganda maching you need to watch the videos discrediting that organization that I have posted.

IDers established their own journals to post them in, and it talks about it in here:
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1 ... 0pages.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, 50 papers only? There are literally 10s of thousands of peer reviewed papers for evolution. 50 is nothing.

[youngterrier]

In 2004, a weeks worth of evolutionary biology peer reviewed surpassed the entire history of ID peer review

considering there was about 17 in 2004, according to this, that's pretty sad, just read the link. ID really hasn't been "reviewed" per se

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your argument is invalid.

[biobengal]

There have been 50 peer reviewed papers supporting ID.

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You quoted the Discovery Institute, and your argument is thus invalid because it is a propaganda maching you need to watch the videos discrediting that organization that I have posted.

IDers established their own journals to post them in, and it talks about it in here:
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1 ... 0pages.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, 50 papers only? There are literally 10s of thousands of peer reviewed papers for evolution. 50 is nothing.

Okay, clearly we're done. ID can never be brought up again in "intelligent conversation.

Apparently, the bulldog was actually a terrier.

[JohnStOnge]

I've seen that line of argument before. And my response is: Let's see YOU do it. Let's see mankind's most brilliant scientists do it.

Let's see you build a population of biological machines that is self-sustaining, can fuel itself with materials in the environment around it and replicate itself, and can do what Homo sapiens can do.

Good luck. You'll need it.

That is a terrible argument. It's a God of the Gaps argument. Just because we can't *right now* does not mean that it is impossible. An all-powerful God most certainly could. The theory of evolution does not disprove the existence of a God, but I believe every advance in science can disprove this terrible notion of "intelligent design" that says the world was created for us, and that we are perfect biologically, blah blah blah. Every creature is the result of trial and error on the evolutionary scale. Some body parts are not necessary and in fact can be more detrimental than beneficial (if useful at all) to the body.

for instance the appendix, the spleen, gall bladder, etc are not necessary for survival but can kill you in different circumstances.

To answer your question, I would design the human body without at least an appendix. If I was going to evolve a species over billions of years and then reveal myself to them and basically say that everything revolves around them, I'd make sure I did so when such organs had been discarded via evolution.

If the universe, or the human body was indeed created by a designer, I believe an indictment is in order.

It's not a terrible argument at all. People talk about how flawed the design is but they are not capable now of doing it themselves. It is beyond our capacity. If I had to bet I'd bet it will always be beyond our capacity. But I'd never be able to collect because I'd have to be around until the extinction of our species to confirm it.

As far as gall bladders, spleens, etc., go: Has an experiment ever been done where those three things are removed from a treatment group at birth to see what happens? Somehow I doubt it.

But back to the point. Right now we cannot generate even a rudimentary form of life. It is the height of arrogance to proclaim that we know that the "design" of an organism as complex as a human being...or an Paramecium for that matter...is flawed. Either one is WAY beyond what we are capable of doing ourselves. That arrogance extends to thinking that because we don't see a purpose for an appendix necessarily means there is no purpose.

[Vidav]

That is a terrible argument. It's a God of the Gaps argument. Just because we can't *right now* does not mean that it is impossible. An all-powerful God most certainly could. The theory of evolution does not disprove the existence of a God, but I believe every advance in science can disprove this terrible notion of "intelligent design" that says the world was created for us, and that we are perfect biologically, blah blah blah. Every creature is the result of trial and error on the evolutionary scale. Some body parts are not necessary and in fact can be more detrimental than beneficial (if useful at all) to the body.

for instance the appendix, the spleen, gall bladder, etc are not necessary for survival but can kill you in different circumstances.

To answer your question, I would design the human body without at least an appendix. If I was going to evolve a species over billions of years and then reveal myself to them and basically say that everything revolves around them, I'd make sure I did so when such organs had been discarded via evolution.

If the universe, or the human body was indeed created by a designer, I believe an indictment is in order.

It's not a terrible argument at all. People talk about how flawed the design is but they are not capable now of doing it themselves. It is beyond our capacity. If I had to bet I'd bet it will always be beyond our capacity. But I'd never be able to collect because I'd have to be around until the extinction of our species to confirm it.

As far as gall bladders, spleens, etc., go: Has an experiment ever been done where those three things are removed from a treatment group at birth to see what happens? Somehow I doubt it.

But back to the point. Right now we cannot generate even a rudimentary form of life. It is the height of arrogance to proclaim that we know that the "design" of an organism as complex as a human being...or an Paramecium for that matter...is flawed. Either one is WAY beyond what we are capable of doing ourselves. That arrogance extends to thinking that because we don't see a purpose for an appendix necessarily means there is no purpose.

[SeattleGriz]

There have been 50 peer reviewed papers supporting ID.

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You quoted the Discovery Institute, and your argument is thus invalid because it is a propaganda maching you need to watch the videos discrediting that organization that I have posted.

IDers established their own journals to post them in, and it talks about it in here:
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1 ... 0pages.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, 50 papers only? There are literally 10s of thousands of peer reviewed papers for evolution. 50 is nothing.

Hadn't gotten a chance to watch the videos yet. Been dealing with a nasty ear infection and spending most of my time home with the sweats and sleeping.

In regards to the limited quantity of peer reviewed papers, the talkorigins link only included those up to 2005. That is important in the fact that I see ID is getting publication in mathematics and information systems journals. If receiving peer review in journals that are not ID related takes new science, it will be in those fields showing the mathematical improbabilities and complexities.

To add to the limited amount of ID papers, are you familiar with how Applied Mathematics Letters accepted, posted on their site and then retracted a paper just before publication due to an upset blogger? In addition, he was not allowed to rebut the retraction, but was still criticized by those that didn't like his ID stance, even though he made no mention of supernatural powers in his paper. The ID movement is a tough sell and circling the wagons by all outside certainly won't increase the amount of peer reviewed papers.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/s ... ode=416514" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The apology, which has been posted on the journal's website, confirms that Professor Rodin withdrew the article without consulting Professor Sewell after concluding that its content was "more philosophical than mathematical". The journal and Professor Rodin "provide their sincere and heartfelt apologies to Dr Sewell for any inconvenience or embarrassment", it says.

Although the journal will not publish the article, Professor Sewell told THE that the primary objective of his action had been for the journal to make clear that its withdrawal had not been due to any errors found by the reviewers.

"Anyone who reads Elsevier's guidelines on withdrawals would naturally assume either that it contained serious errors or that I had committed a crime, neither of which was ever alleged," he said.

He said he knew that one of the paper's two reviewers had warned that it was too controversial for a journal such as Applied Mathematics Letters, and the paper's abstract had also given "a very clear idea" what it contained.

He said potential controversy was "a perfectly valid reason for rejecting (the paper) but not for withdrawing after acceptance".

He also insisted that while his paper was "friendly" to intelligent design, it did not explicitly advocate it, and contained "absolutely no appeal to the supernatural".

[SeattleGriz]

You quoted the Discovery Institute, and your argument is thus invalid because it is a propaganda maching you need to watch the videos discrediting that organization that I have posted.

IDers established their own journals to post them in, and it talks about it in here:
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1 ... 0pages.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, 50 papers only? There are literally 10s of thousands of peer reviewed papers for evolution. 50 is nothing.

Okay, clearly we're done. ID can never be brought up again in "intelligent conversation.

Apparently, the bulldog was actually a terrier.

Join on in Bio! I have always asked others to join in (especially if you are science inclined), for I find I read one point of view, then the rebuttal and am left wondering who was actually correct. That is why I need more science guys who can help verify or refute. Plus, we need more posters than YT and myself if this thread is to live until the judge releases his decision on the case!

If you are unfamiliar with ID, some state it is the new creationism, which I can agree with, but if so, it would be with the understanding that without some scientific proof, it can't stand against evolution.

ID believes that Darwinian Evolution, being comprised of only random mutation and natural selection does not have enough power behind the two processes to have taken us from single celled organisms to the vast diversity we have today.

The intelligent force can be what you want, although in my case, it is God.

[SeattleGriz]

How is it that bacteria that have been isolated for millions of years, have resistance to the antibiotics of today? It was supposed to be due only to the natural selection pressures weeding out those that don't randomly mutate a change that defeats an antibiotic. Hmmm. I commented on this exact scenario when asked if resistance was evolution.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... h-science/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Deep in the bowels of a pristine New Mexico cave, microbiologists have discovered nearly a hundred types of bacteria that can fight off modern antibiotic drugs.

The bacteria coat the walls of the Lechuguilla cave system on rock faces some 1,600 feet (487 meters) below Earth's surface. Until recently, the microscopic life-forms had encountered neither humans nor modern antibiotics.

That's because a thick dome of rock isolated the cave between four and seven million years ago. Any water that trickles through takes roughly ten thousand years to reach the cave's depths—which means the subterranean life has existed entirely in the absence of modern medicine

"Clinical microbiologists have been perplexed for the longest time. When you bring a new antibiotic into the hospital, resistance inevitably appears shortly thereafter, within months to years," said study leader Gerry Wright, a chemical biologist at McMaster University in Ontario.

"It's still a big question: Where is this coming from?" Wright said. "Almost no one thought to look at other bacteria, the ones that don't necessarily cause disease."

Superbugs almost always appear in hospitals and on animal farms, where antibiotic use is prevalent. In these environments, intense evolutionary pressure pushes microbes to quickly develop resistance to multiple drugs.

But how this happens is a frustrating problem, Wright said, considering that studies suggest the preponderance of antibiotic-fighting genes should have taken thousands or millions of years to emerge.

The answer may lie in the fact that bacteria regularly exchange, receive, or steal genes from other bacteria in their environments. Many microbiologists therefore suspect that nonpathogenic bacteria are acting as a vast pool of ancient resistance genes waiting to be transferred to pathogenic bacteria

*The caveat to my genius.

Until researchers can further probe the new microbe strains' genetics—and find any natural antibiotics lingering in the cave—the work should put clinicians on alert, study leader Wright said.

[Skjellyfetti]

ID believes that Darwinian Evolution comprised of only random mutation and natural selection does not have enough power behind the to processes to have taken us from single celled organisms to the vast diversity we have today, therefore there has to be an intelligent force to assist.

And why (scientifically) do they believe that? Keep in mind that there has been life on earth for about 3 billion years.

therefore there has to be an intelligent force to assist.

And why make that logical leap?

[SeattleGriz]

ID believes that Darwinian Evolution comprised of only random mutation and natural selection does not have enough power behind the to processes to have taken us from single celled organisms to the vast diversity we have today, therefore there has to be an intelligent force to assist.

And why (scientifically) do they believe that? Keep in mind that there has been life on earth for about 3 billion years.

therefore there has to be an intelligent force to assist.

And why make that logical leap?

The easiest and most scientific way would be mathematical models showing there simply isn't enough time, even with 3 billion years, for our evolution to have generated all the diversity and complexity for all that is on Earth.

If Darwinian evolution doesn't have the power to create everything by random luck, what is left? The ID group believes it is an intelligent force.

By the way, ID'ers are not opposed to evolution, just that it is responsible for everything with only mutation and natural selection to power the theory.

Irreducible complexity is another factor. This states that a complex system like a bacterial flagellum cannot function without any one part. It takes all 40 parts. Evolutionists say they have debunked it, but all they have done is show that the proteins to make the flagellum can be used in other places, but not all 40 in one place. Once again, the odds of the proteins coming together gradually to form a flagellum is like winning the lottery. In Ken Miller's (evolutionist) presentation on how it was debunked, he states natural selection is blind. So if it is blind, you are telling me 40 parts just randomly came together to form a completely different complex. He doesn't bother to address that fact.

In all fairness, it is a God of the gaps argument, meaning that if it can't be explained, then God had to do it. ID is also looking at certain complexes and saying, "if it looks like it had a creator, then it probably does". Unprovable, but at least trying to use some sense.

Evolutionists are always proposing ideas that cannot be proven or disproven all the time and justify it with their own evolution of the gaps argument. We can't explain it, but if given enough time, evolution will figure out a way! But when ID does it, it is bad evil science and is unworthy of debate. Many in the evolution field have circled the wagons and will not seriously discuss ID/ or the limits of their own theory.

[JohnStOnge]

Just thought I'd drop by and link this:

ww.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-the-function-of-t

A quote:

For years, the appendix was credited with very little physiological function. We now know, however, that the appendix serves an important role in the fetus and in young adults. Endocrine cells appear in the appendix of the human fetus at around the 11th week of development. These endocrine cells of the fetal appendix have been shown to produce various biogenic amines and peptide hormones, compounds that assist with various biological control (homeostatic) mechanisms. There had been little prior evidence of this or any other role of the appendix in animal research, because the appendix does not exist in domestic mammals.

Among adult humans, the appendix is now thought to be involved primarily in immune functions. Lymphoid tissue begins to accumulate in the appendix shortly after birth and reaches a peak between the second and third decades of life, decreasing rapidly thereafter and practically disappearing after the age of 60. During the early years of development, however, the appendix has been shown to function as a lymphoid organ, assisting with the maturation of B lymphocytes (one variety of white blood cell) and in the production of the class of antibodies known as immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies. Researchers have also shown that the appendix is involved in the production of molecules that help to direct the movement of lymphocytes to various other locations in the body.

In this context, the function of the appendix appears to be to expose white blood cells to the wide variety of antigens, or foreign substances, present in the gastrointestinal tract. Thus, the appendix probably helps to suppress potentially destructive humoral (blood- and lymph-borne) antibody responses while promoting local immunity.

I must admit that I did not know that such functions of the appendix had been identified. That's why I named the appendix in my response about it being arrogant to think that something doesn't have a purpose just because we have not identified it. I did not mention the spleen and gall bladder because I already knew those organs have useful functions within the human body.

[SeattleGriz]

Bravo! This guy gets it! Instead of Evolutionists hiding behind the fact they don't have all the answers, come on out, debate and show your stuff.

Shapiro is an Evolutionist and is to be respected for his honesty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-s ... 25133.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What Is the Best Way to Deal With Supernaturalists in Science and Evolution?

What is the best way to deal with such intrusions into science education?

The conventional approach has been to circle the wagons around mid-19th and mid-20th century ideas (Darwinism and neo-Darwinism). This approach has not been successful. One reason Darwinism has failed to convince skeptics may be that it ignores over 60 years of molecular science.

Thirty years ago, I was at a conference in Cambridge, England, to celebrate the centennial of Darwin's death. There, Richard Dawkins began his lecture by saying, "I will not only explain that Darwin had the right answer, but I will show that he had the only possible right answer."
Hearing this (and knowing that alternative explanations inevitably arise in science), I said to myself that the Creationists have a point. They are dealing with a form of religious belief on the "evolution" side. Dawkins' transformation into an aggressive proselytizer for his undoubting and absolutist version of atheism confirms this conclusion.

One of the Creationists' main tools is the argument that evolutionists are simply militant atheists in drag, who care more about dissing religion than about understanding evolution. Dawkins' ill-considered crusade just bolsters their position.

Rather than accept that evolution science is always a tentative work in progress, conventional evolutionists make absolutist statements like "all the facts are on my side." Making obviously inflated and unrealistic assertions is hardly likely to convince anyone who has serious questions.

What is the alternative?

Let me suggest that we can take a more modern, more realistic and more truly scientific approach. It contains the following elements.