summer, still waiting to hear what your degree is in. as for the rest, it was mostly nonsense. i am no fool. i can arrive at a conclusion that something is designed based upon the evidence. you may arrive at a different conclusion and i don't fault you for that, but when i see the complexity of a cell far surpasses the fastest computers today, i am in very reasonable territory when i "choose" to believe (or come to believe?) that the cell was designed. you may choose to believe it all came about as a result of an accident, but my life has shown me that accidents aren't very fruitful and don't produce things as complicated as the cell. now, i have also said that evolution very well may be the path that the designer chose to utilize. if that's all you are suggesting then we have even more common ground than i have imagined. at this point, i am not impressed by evolution unless someone is arguing that it was frontloaded into our universe at its inception.
hmm creed. you are making a fairly compelling point. i have not considered some of the things you are saying. at the same time, you argument breaks down in any real world scenarios i can come up with. back to forensics....what we find here is that intelligent agency is recognized as the most likely scenario when all scenarios are considered. one could always find some sort of possible scenario to explain every murder, but oftentimes we use intelligence and occam's razor to rule those out and determine who the killer is. i think ID is attempting to do the same thing. once again, it is very early and only time will tell whether or not they succeed.
Ok we all know that Noah did not live to be 1000 years old and that two pairs did not enter an arch. And that adam and eve did not happen and could not have reasonably happened. So where does that leave us. If we came from evelution, well then this whole life means **** I guess and what we do means nothing. Its hard to think about. That with all our intellegence we have just evolved and there is no more to us. I really don't know??
Hook You really dont' believe that you and all you know means nothing, do you? Whether there is a heaven or not means little to billions here on earth, and the meaning they derive from life. To suggest that such belief is logically needed for human meaning is to go against reallity. However popular, such belief is not a necessity of life. Is right handedness? Norms are not requirements.
How do you know to what age Noah lived? How do you know the animals did not go into an ark in pairs? How do you know Adam and Eve did not exist? We have no historical evidence or scientific evidence that these things never happened, and we never will. Science does not allow us to make assertions where there are no observations. We can observe in the present and make/test predictions later. We can also learn something about the past by observing things left behind from the past, but there are definite limitations.
summer, we are still waiting for you to tell us about your degree. you have been asked MORE than you asked me for evidence for ID. why won't you answer? do you not have a college degree? fine by me.....some of the wisest people i know don't have college degrees. but it would still be interesting considering some of the things you say. do you have a degree summer? mia,....good stuff, i will try to respond fully later, but suffice it to say that i don't agree with your 4 points. or, i agree with huge caveats. so i would say that the argument you presented is skewed towards a certain conclusion, but not towards reality as i understand it (granted i could be wrong!).
Summer79, there is historical evidence that Genesis was not written by a drunk priest. Jewish tradition states that it was Moses. Jesus Himself proclaims that Moses wrote the law and he specifically mentions Noah and the flood as historical events. Jesus is God and eternal so He must know because He observed it at the very least.
Mop, the 4 points are not in question, they are accepted and verifiable... as are many many of other less generalized observations taken from gene mapping, the fossil record and other disciplines. You can dispute the simplicity of the two conclusions and the connections they make, but not the 4 points themselves. They are fact not theory. In any event, my only point is that if the differentiator is Occam, then the conclusion which requires unobservable interference can never be accepted.
mia, the issue is that the tradition did not come from nowhere. You may disbelieve the tradition but it is evidence whether you accept it or not. At least it was passed down from at least historically close to the source. More so than Summer's "DP" theory anyway. Again you may not agree that Jesus is God and eternal, that is not the point. My claim is internally consistent logic. I believe there is plausible evidence that shows Jesus to be both God and eternal. Therefore logically He was involved and present during the creation and writing of Genesis. When He was on earth which is recorded by first hand eye witnesses He ascribed Genesis to Moses and described the flood as an historical event. Everything is logical. Can I prove what I am writing scientifically? No, I am not referring to science at all anyway. I can show you the historical written evidence though. Not all knowledge is based on scientific inquiry. Some of man's knowledge is based on eyewitness accounts. That is what I am relying on here. I also don't agree with your "fact" 1) based on contradictory scientific evidence. "Fact" 2) I kind of agree with but not your characterization. We don't agree because our basic assumptions about the world are different, not because I reject science or you accept it. I use science everyday in my job: experimenting, testing, observing. Me being a science-hating Christian is not the issue even though that is how most of you characterize the disagreement.
Monahorns, I think what you are labeling "evidence" I would label as "belief". An argument can not logically be the proof of itself, which is the argument you made several times in that post as well as your most recent one. I'm not saying your beliefs are false, I'm saying your language is wrong. I'm pretty sure that mop will back me up on this one. As to the last paragraph, I'm not sure what you are referring to specifically when you reference "fact 1" and "fact 2". I presume you are challenging that (1) that on the whole modern species are recent [evidenced in the geologic record], and (2) that ancient species are extinct [also the geologic record]. If you don't believe this, then you reject science, I simply can't put it more simply. The evidence (I use "evidence" in the traditional sense) could not be any more consistent on either point.
No I mean evidence. You can believe the evidence or you can disbelieve the evidence. The existence of written first hand accounts of Jesus is evidence of his existence and divine character. You can believe it or not. The fact that people believed that Moses is responsible is also evidence. They may have incorrectly believed it, but it points out that there is evidence of this being the case. I am not saying we have Moses writing on a stone tablet or anything, but those traditions did not arise from nothing. If Moses did not have anything to do with the creation of Genesis, there would be no reason to ascribe it to Him. I am not an expert on it but I have read about both internal and external evidence for Genesis' authorship and its accounts. And no I don't reject science whatever it is you may believe. Like I said, I use science in my job. If I didn', I wouldn't not be able to keep my job. I accept that there are fossils in many geological strata. I do agree that there are fossils of animals that we don't see on the earth today. That is observed. I do reject the popular scientific paradigm which is used to interpret those observations.
That is a fair point. It IS evidence... but what it is evidence of needs to be precisely stated. That Jewish tradition credits Moses with the authorship of the Pentateuch IS evidence that people have believed that Moses authored the Pentateuch for a very long time, but NOT evidence that he did in fact author it. Which is to say it is proof of one fact, but you are inferring the other. It is not unreasonable, but it is disingenuous to offer Jewish tradition as proof of the fact of Moses' authorship. Monahorns, are you a young earth creationist?
Mop I have a degree from UT in Economics. (edited to protect mop's mom's virtue) though her eye rolling at his "scientific" arguments I am sure will continue for years. Still give me a scrap of evidence "thinker" or simply admit you got your *** handed to you multiple times in this thread.
summer, i appreciate it! you finally answered a simple question. some excellent points were made contrary to my position......as far as i can tell, none of them were for you. have i really asked how old you are? i don't remember doing that, but i am quite absent-minded so i suppose i could have. i am 36, so you would need to be around 66 to be able to have disrespected my mother in the way you suggested. at any rate, i am not terribly concerned about that having happened or about how old you were. if i was interested at one point....the interest has passed. i still see ID as a legitimate scientific enterprise, but i still say that it is in its infancy and has much work to do in order to be taught in schools.
Nope Mop, I apologize I figured you were in your mid to late 20's for a variety of reasons. And yes, you have been unable to provide a single datapoint to support ID as scientific at all. Apparently "thinker" now means "The ability to muse." As I said at the very beginning of this time waster, the problem is that supporters of ID simply do nut understand science, becuase if they did they could immediately admit that their support of a non-scientific theory is relisiously based rather than sceintifically based. And after 160+ posts here this assertion has been affirmed and reaffirmed on this thread by you.
IDers do understand science they just don't agree with an evolutionist's conclusions. There is a big difference. I understand evolution. Not as well as people who study it as their job. But I understand it. I don't think understanding more detail about evolution will get me to believe it. Evolutionists overreach with their conclusions and the imporrtance that they put in the theory. It is very obvious to me. Maybe if they understood that better they would not put so much faith in it. Oh well. mia, I am open to the evidence, scientific and Biblical. At this point I do favor a younger earth age with a God who creates by speaking. I am willing to listen to different scientific conclusions and Biblical interpretations, but it's not like I haven't already spent examining things and even challenging myself and my own assumptions.
Monahorns, I believe summer's statement doesn't mean that if IDers understood science they'd support evolution as much as he means if they understood science, they'd realize that ISN'T what ID is. Apparently some IDers aren't even challenging evolution anymore so much as natural selection being its mechanism. That's new information to me, and I'm still trying to figure out how to process it. Monahorns, the thing I frequently find about people who approach science in general and evolution in specific with skepticism drawn from their religious beliefs, is they interpret science's defense of the theory the way that a religious person defends their particular doctrine. The thing that these people are missing is the fact that it wouldn't be a problem for anyone in science if evolution turned out to be wrong. They are not defending it out of faith in the theory, but rather because of overwhelming amount of supporting observation. If evolution was disproven, science (and scientists) would be overjoyed because it means that there is something new to consider. This is something that mop clearly doesn't get about scientists is the overwhelming desire to observe something new. As to your belief in a young earth, I am more than happy to leave you to it. I have no interest in questioning, belittling or trying to "educate" you. I respect your interpretation of the data, but we are just too far apart to make that discussion appealing. The reason why I asked, was so we could save each other a good deal of time.
What is science then? Is it only science if it agrees with evolutionary theory? I guess that is where I have a hard time understanding things. It seems to me that anything that would challenge evolution is cast out immediately and the people brow beat to a certain degree. Our view of scientists is much different as well. Because I observe in the current day scientists clinging to evolutionary theory fiercely. Not waiting with open arms to receive challenges to current paradigm joyfully as you describe. Who is demonstrating the attitude that you describe? The only ones I see are those offering alternate ideas, like ID whether or not you call it science, and they suffer for it. That's what I observe anyway.
Monahorns, as I said before the rejection of ID has nothing to do with the defense of evolution. The fact that IDers are now trying to work evolution into their "theory" should be a sign of that. ID doesn't bear scrutiny for all of the reasons which have been said repeatedly over the course of this thread. It is not falsifiable, it makes no predictions for observation, it assumes a conclusion BEFORE observation and it has no mechanism for experimentation. It isn't a science so much as a declaration. The reason why the defenses made on behalf of evolution are not out of line with the scientist's desire for paradigm shift is because they don't want change for change's sake. Change must come from something resembling science, it isn't that any old argument will do. That isn't what science is. The reason why there aren't many alternatives to evolution is because of the tremendous amount of observation which has been collected which supports it. A new theory is going to have to explain all of that data AND give a more plausible reason for it. That is a very tall order. Not to mention the fact that good science doesn't start with the goal of debunking established theory, but rather to refine existing observations or make new ones. The results of the observations are what defines the conclusion, not the preferences of the collector. To this point there has been very little data collected which isn't compatible with evolution.
Hornbud, I don't agree. ID is a theory just as evolution that is trying to seek an explanation for all the evidence we have. The observations which you cite for evolution are also the observations used for ID. The difference is the interpretation as presented by the different theories. Same data, different conclusions. They think ID better explains the data. You think evolution does. To be honest, no one has ever observed and verified through successive generations the change of lizard to a bird for example. To do this there would have to be generations of scientists making observations of each generation of animal detailing the genetic and morphological changes as they happen until viola, a bird. What we have are present day natural processes, fossils, and lots of extrapolations that result in the belief that all life has descended from one common ancestor. Some of that is science and some isn't.
