Intelligent Design

[sava 0]

I was wondering what people thoughts on intelligent design are?

 

There's a 'prestigious' school over here who has recently said that they will be starting to taech it in their science classes.

[montoya 0]

I see it as basically trying to explain what randomness is and isn't.

 

I think Dembski's essential argument is that the diversity of life is statistically unlikely to have been produced by natural selection. dunno how this idea can be proved or disproved though.

 

ultimately, I like to stick to the empirical stuff.

[Ocean11 0]

That school won't be prestigious much longer. And their science classes won't be science classes anymore either.

 

(I also wonder if ID as a movement will survive the meltdown of neoconservatism in the US. I hope it will carry away a lot of other dross along with it.)

[misorano 1]

I'm pretty sure that the sheer dickheadedness of my ancestors made me the dickhead I am today.

 

Don't know much about ID (had to google it in fact), but at a quick glance it looks like a side step from religous types to explain away all inconsistencies in their doctrine.

[fb_steve 0]

I don't agree with ID, but i watched a doco supporting it last night and some of their arguments are facinating, specifically the 'tails' of bacterical cells which are in essence like drive shafts/engines, and irreducable in components meaning they could not have derived from evolution.

 

That seemed a fair argument to me, but that got me thinking, with trillions upon trillions of bacteria in the world, could these instances of development be from sheer randomness, instead of evolution. Maybe one day a bacteria had the right parts in the right places and thus developed. That goes for any other irreducable biological creation. So i agree with montoya, its trying to explain randomness.

 

The worrying thing is its parallels with creationism, no offence to those who support this idea, but its scientifically backwards.

[Ocean11 0]

It is creationism. There's no difference.

 

In that 'tails' example, they just pick up any odd thing that they believe most people wouldn't know about and make a claim that a scientist could refute, if given the chance.

[number9 0]

I reckon ID believers aren't usually the types to live outside their comfort zone, hence no big debate here

[sava 0]

fb: with evolution, all that is 'required' is that the change be an improvement. So the 'engine' may have started out as something else.

[miteyak 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by fb_steve:
but that got me thinking, with trillions upon trillions of bacteria in the world, could these instances of development be from sheer randomness, instead of evolution.

fb_steve... in evolution, the changes are random, it's what follows, natural selection, that is not.

If a random change places an organism at a disadvantage, the changed organism will die out. If a random change places an organism at an advantage, the changed organism will flourish, competing with and replacing similar but inferior organisms.

Take ol' Kevin in Water World... living on the water contributed not one bit to his freak of nature gills, they were a sheer random event. Because they allow him to be fitter and stronger, however, him and his gilled offspring will slowly come to dominate and replace the n on-gilled humans (natural selection).

Over simplified, and, I believe, recent events have suggested that the process may be slightly less than completely random, but that's the jist of it...

ID - anytthing that teaches the possibility of extra-terrestrials, and that we were placed here by Martians has got to be fun for the kids, right?

[snobee 0]

I'm always amazed at the volumes of verbiage espoused by the ID/creationist proponents,

but equally amazed at their lack of reasoning when simply asked,

"Well then who created the Creator?"

 

[fb_steve 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by sava:
fb: with evolution, all that is 'required' is that the change be an improvement. So the 'engine' may have started out as something else.

yep i agree with that, what the documentary i was watching stated ( i don't necessarily agree) is that there are some devices in life (such as the bacterial tail) which cannot be reduced by any part, as doing this would make them redundant and functionless (hence would discontiune throughout evolution).

the example they used was a mousetrap,
you cannot take a part out of a mousetrap becuase if you did it would become functionless, it is 'irreducable', they argue that this defies evolution because devices could not slowly evolve dozens of parts to gain function whilst having no function what so ever before the last part was in place. if that makes sense

i think ID is total crap though, and that this is just their interpretation of randomness and the unexplained

[enderzero 0]

I am not aware of what kind of science the spinsters injected into Creationism to transform it into Intelligent Design (because I really don't care too much). But if it is a viable "theory," then I think it is fair to at least talk about it - aka debate.

 

Noah Feldman wrote a great article in the NYT titled A Chruch State Solution (sorry this is a pay article - but crafty netizens may find certain ways around that) a few months back. I believe this has been expanded into his book Divided By God .

 

Yes, Feldman's stuff is US specific, but the basic principle applies to any secular state. That principle is that by forcing secularism on people, we are actually doing more to harm our right to freedom of religion. It should be okay to discuss and celebrate all religions in public institutions, as long as government does not sponsor a particular religion. Actually, he puts it a lot better than I do and I may be losing some of his point here. But it is an interesting read for those interested.

 

(heavy topics round the off-topic forum )

[sava 0]

fb: A mousetrap isn't necessarily useless...

 

 

part of it could be a paper weight (dodgy reason)

part of it could be a nut cracker...

 

enderzero: the thing is, it's not really a valid theory...

[Ocean11 0]

Whenever unreligious people object to public money being spent on anything that involves an element of religion, whether it be prayer, invocation of gods, visits to religious sites, or religious dogma masquerading as science, they are not forcing secularism on people. In objecting to any of the above actions (using public money), they in no way infringe the freedom of anyone to practice their religion. Religious people really on secularism when it suits them - they want scientific healing and not religious healing when they visit the hospital.

 

Because there are so many religions, allowing them to be celebrated in public institutions (not something that is in any way necessary to the functioning of the public institutions) will simply lead to battles over which religion should be given priority. Therefore, it's best to agree to let religion be celebrated in private without hindrances beyond common law.

 

So pace, Feldman. Divided by God is fine with me.