Talk:Intelligent design controversy

"In fact, evolutionists have no answer to ID's arguments and therefore refuse to deal forthrightly with it's proponents."

ID eventually comes down to a godlike figure, which is supernatural, science deals with natural phenomena, and thus ID is not science. Science has no arguements to "A creator designed us." because it is impossible to refute. No matter what evidence there is for evolution, "A creator designed us" can still be said. There is no way to disprove it, it relies on the supernatural.

As for dealing with it's proponents, the major push of intelligent design seems to rest far more on trying to find fault with evolution, as opposed to offering good decent evidence (such a signature saying "Made in heaven" "Intelligence Inside" etc etc). Now I'm not complaining about this. Irreducible complexity on the molecular levels is a superb attack on evolution, and absolutely scientific in it's approach. But don't mistake a good attack on evolution, with any sort of positive evidence for any other approach. Pushing scientists to think up feasible routes for these moleculer devices to evolve is excellent work. You cannot expect them to come up with answers instantly, but after time to think, consider and examine, these problems reach plausible solutions.

If you are talking about a general refusal to debate intelligent designists, it's not suprising, an ID proponent can throw a large number of molecular devices at a single scientist who is perhaps an expert in one of these areas, and even then would require a period of time, and access to materials to work out an acceptable path. So in the debate it appears that the scientist is lost for words, where in fact he just can't give you the answer like that. It's like me asking the non-savants of you out there whats the square root of 3042894.124 and expecting an answer immediately whilst you aren't allowed access to a calculating device.

Now I'm not going to bother editing the page, since I know it would merely be reverted, but i felt the need to point out the necessary Raggs 10:59, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

ID opponents generally pretend that they "don't get the point", but this is simply because to address what ID is saying would be the first of a series of lost battles which would end in their utter defeat. The comment above exemplifies this trend.

ID does not point to any godlike figure but makes the point that natural causes alone cannot account for the design of complex organisms, whether organs or cells. Materialism has no argument to account for the appearance of design for anything for complicated than salt crystals or snowflakes. "It evolved that way, and designs that can't compete are weeded out."

Materialists dismiss the appearance of design because their philosophical assumptions preclude any alternative. To distract attention from the weakness of basis of their atheism, they pretend that ID's anti-evolutionary critique is a front for Creationism. My advice to them is the same as what Raggs wrote above: "But don't mistake a good attack on evolution, with any sort of positive evidence for any other approach." ID is not an argument for creation; rather it is an argument against evolution.

It is because atheists and materialists don't want their arguments to be examined that they imprison, expel or fire anyone who dares challenge them. In the marketplace of ideas, their product would not sell, so they insist on having a monopoly.

Evolution cannot account for molecular devices. The rules of the "game" state that if you can't show how gradual changes could accumulate, then your theory doesn't hold water. It is the irreducible complexity of the eye and the flagellum, among many other examples, which show that natural forces alone are insufficient to account for the design of complex organs and cells.

By the way, a square root can be calculated without a machine, using procedures known to mathematicians centuries before the invention of electronic calculators. So "can't explain it" really does mean "the theory simply is no good"; see theory and fact. --Ed Poor ^Talk 11:15, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

"ID eventually comes down to a godlike figure, which is supernatural, science deals with natural phenomena, and thus ID is not science": This is wrong in two respects. First, although you are correct that ID eventually comes down to a god figure, other immediate (hypothetical) possibilities include aliens. They are not supernatural, so ID is within the realm of science.

Second, science only dealing with the natural does not preclude it from inferring a designer. Archaeologists find stone artifacts which they can determine are stone tools, fashioned by an intelligent being, and do not have to identify or study that being in order to come to that conclusion. Concluding that life had an intelligent designer is exactly the same thing in principle, and that designer possibly or probably being God does not prevent science from reaching that conclusion. However, that designer probably being God is a strong motive for misotheists to reject Intelligent Design—for religious reasons!

Philip J. Rayment 11:22, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

It is because atheists and materialists don't want their arguments to be examined that they imprison, expel or fire anyone who dares challenge them. Buwha? Who's gone to JAIL for blaspheming against the Gospel of Darwin?! Most of the time, us materialists prefer to just point and laugh. I do hope you're not talking about Kent Hovind (who went to prison for tax fraud), or Al York (who stabbed a man to death....for arguing with him about evolution).

Intelligent Design is NOT a "scientific theory". It makes no useful predictions, proposes no experiments. It only exists as a rather transparent attempt to get Creationism back into schools, where they think it belongs. And the courts have decided it fails at that, too.

And just so you know, those pesky Evilutionists have already done the flagellum.

AND the eye. --Gulik5 11:52, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

I can't at the moment think of anyone going to jail, but otherwise see Suppression of alternatives to evolution. Your claim about predictions and experiments is disputed, not self-evident truth, and your claim about the reason for its existence is rhetoric. The Talk.Origins explanations of the flagellum and the eye are just-so stories, not scientific descriptions. Philip J. Rayment 12:02, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

Gulik, are you trying to change the subject? ID says that evolution can't explain design, and you veer off into a quibble about whether my generalization about atheists and materialists applies to all cases of dispute about ID. That is specious reasoning, and it has no place on an article discussion page. Save it for the our Debate Topics, if you plan to stay around.

More to the point, you may already be aware of American scholars who have been fired from their jobs for - as you put it - "blaspheming against the Gospel of Darwin". Perhaps I should assign you to google this up and add it to Expelled.

Is the standard for a scientific theory that it must make predictions? Then how about plate tectonics? What predictions does it make? More to the point, name 3 predictions that the theory of evolution makes. Then explain what tests were conducted to see if those predictions came true.

If you are well verse in these matters, you may want to collaborate with me on such articles as Philosophy of science and Scientific method. Or at least Falsifiability. For example, name a kind of experiment or observation or discovery that could possibly "falsify" evolution. If you can't - indeed, if no one can - than we'd have to classify evolution as pseudoscience. --Ed Poor ^Talk 12:10, 8 April 2008 (EDT)