I am just curious as to what thinkatheist has to offer on the possibilities of intelligent design vs abiogenesis.
Remember that ID is NOT religion and doesn't even imply the existence of a deity. It is simply the idea that even the most basic theoretical form of sustained life is so complex, it couldn't possibly have started by itself without any intelligent intervention.
Thank you for your replies :)
It's turtles all the way down, Jerry.
Are there elephants between them? What's the name of the fifth elephant?
Some have posited our future selves designed us and we are an advanced version of the Wii. The "Creator" doesn't have to be a god, although many wish it were so.
ID is religion, not sure how you can spin it any other way. Intelligent intervention on a cosmic scale? Sounds like a deity to me. But besides that, there isn't any evidence aside from human hopes and desires to support such a claim. So no I don't buy it.
Well, ID isn't Christianity or Islam or any other established religion. If that's your core point, I'll agree. ID isn't science either. Science seeks natural explanations. Scientists take on problems in given areas and work them based on the natural evidence until they find an answer. ID comes along, tailors a response to multiple problems and pre-supposes evidence that doesn't exist. I see the claims as nothing more than throwing up your hands and saying my brain is full.
On the premise of ID as a whole, I would ask what designer would shape a world predicated on evolution as the mindless driver. 99% of the species have failed to this point. You could say that we are successful, so far, but in that thought, you discount the pain of countless creatures getting here. Why design a universe that hurdles rocks at us that will kill us? These are simply philosophical points and maybe not to the core of what you are asking.
IDer's either put forth a diest approach of a watchmaker God that is not involved, or it's a God making tweaks. If it's the watchmaker, then it's Deism. Throughout history the Deist God has shrunk because it's nothing more than the God of the Gaps. Consistently we've pushed back where this God has acted so in terms of science, he's consistently been shown to not exist where people have hypothesized he would be. As a science, a hypothesis that has failed time and again in it's claims is abandoned until new evidence can be brought forth. If it's a god making tweaks, then the proponents need to point to those tweaks so that we can study their evidence. Until that happens, we have nothing to work with, to test, so it's not even a hypothesis.
A simple idea from educated people is not a hypothesis. A hypothesis explains a phenomenon due to observations. I haven't seen this list of observations that are phenomenal that require explanation. ID is only an idea being publicly batted around and all of it's proponents (that I know of) have a desire to establish that a deity exists for personal reasons, and not because the evidence of a deity exists. Think of the as scientific defense attorney's for god. Their case only attacks the prosecution which enters in the Smithsonian as it's evidence.
ID is religion, and saying it isn't doesn't change that fact. You insist it doesn't include a deity, but what is this intelligent designer supposed to be if not a deity? It is simply the idea that the origins of life and evolution are so complex, it can't possibly be understood by someone who slept through science class.
Here is a slightly more direct line of though using your analogy. If you were to take 6 marbles and toss them in to a room and let nature take its course, the marbles will come to rest as they lose their kinetic energy and settle in to their steady state. If you do this repeatedly over and over and over through about 2 billion years, you will from time-to-time develop all sorts of cool configurations on the floor; eg perfect circles, straight lines, hexagons, etc. All of nature functions in a state where it tries to achieve the most energy effiecency. Atoms combine it to molecules because it is the most energy efficient state for them to be in. Lighter compounds combine to make heavier compounds because it allows them to form more and more stable structures and to share electrons. Some of them form amino acids as a natural process. Some of these amino acids, like your marbles, spend 100s 1000s or even millions of years bouncing in to each other, trying to find that perfect "fit" that will be the most mutally beneficial for energy conservation. Some of these configurations are larger amino acids, some of them are chains, some of them are proteins. This process continues in the very very small incrimented steps you learned in high school biology, (i hope). As different configurations of proteins continued to combine, some of them found that they were naturally suited for environmental adaptation. The largest majority of the possible combinations just didn't join well, weren't suited for the environment, or, for a myrid of other reasons, just didnt make it. But a miniscule few over an amazingly long period of time managed to take hold.
excellent response. Nature likes to balance low odds with extremely large numbers.
Would you expect to impregnate your wife with a single sperm? No, that's why you deposit about a million at a time.
You are right, it's a silly example. I see what you think you mean, but it's still not very good.
Say you walk onto a primeval planet with oceans of various minerals, each with their own peculiar molecular structure. There are volcanic vents, lightning strikes, meteor strikes, energy of all kinds constantly pumped into this soup. Some of these minerals form up under these conditions to make amino acids. This has been reproduced in labs decades ago. Some of the amino acids begin to form chains, which is what amino acids do.
For millions of years, that's as far as it goes, until one of the chains develops that has the ability to make copies of itself out of all the loose bits floating around it. Is that so mysterious?
Do you conclude that someone intentionally arranged these molecules in this particular configuration? [edited by moderator. -Nelson]
somebody had to lay the flooring.