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Paul98 wrote:

I am surprised that there arn't more people trying to defend ID. It's no fun when there isn't any one else out there.

Why would there be? It's a looney belief, when taken as they want you to take it.

resedit wrote:

mo' ron wrote:

Paul98 wrote:

I am surprised that there arn't more people trying to defend ID. It's no fun when there isn't any one else out there.

Why would there be? It's a looney belief, when taken as they want you to take it.

That's exactly what I'm talking about.
No one here wants to seriously discuss it, they want to ridicule it.
That's quite possibly why there isn't more ID perspective here.

I've been very open to what you have to say.

In fact, I even learned something... information theory, as it was meant to be applied, is useful for what I am studying now in one of my classes.

resedit wrote:

Hank Rearded is an exception, his intent was not to ridicule

Thanks.  And add jerwin to that list of exceptions as well.

If ID is full of great big holes, then is there harm in showing the alternate interpretation of the facts to the students?

Keep in mind that German fraudster Haeckle with his fraudulent plates that were rejected by peer review within a few years of his publication - in the 19th century - yet taught widely in textbooks in the 1950's and still in some in the 1980's. It took ID to get that deception out of textbooks that had no place being there.

Perhaps ID would be cleaned if taught side by side with evolution, and perhaps evolution would continue to be cleaned up by being taught side by side with ID.

Someone in this thread pointed to archaeopteryx as an intermediate species - why? because it was taught to him in a textbook, as many textbooks still do, yet it is NOT an intermediate species, it was a bird - a perching bird - and even evolutionists acknowledge that.

Teaching who the ID is - that shouldn't be done.
Teaching that ID is correct - that shouldn't be done either.
But if students are exposed to both, they can see the merits and flaws of both - and perhaps it would encourage textbook publishers to quit hiring authors who write stuff (on both sides) that just isn't true. How is that a bad thing?

resedit wrote:

Teaching who the ID is - that shouldn't be done.
Teaching that ID is correct - that shouldn't be done either.
But if students are exposed to both, they can see the merits and flaws of both - and perhaps it would encourage textbook publishers to quit hiring authors who write stuff (on both sides) that just isn't true. How is that a bad thing?

ID doesn't have a proposed model about how things came to be, or at least you haven't talked about one in this thread.

I have yet to see what exactly anyone would "teach" regarding ID. The only thing i've heard are some schools putting stickers about evolution being just a theory in the text books (stickers that were later removed). Other than that, what do IDists have to teach?

- ID doesn't account for the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, evolution does
- ID doesn't account for fossils of dinos and other extinct creatures, evolution does
- ID doesn't account for the flaws in biological systems, evolution does

I seriously would like to know what specific topics they could teach about regarding ID.

- ID doesn't account for the flaws in biological systems, evolution does

Sure it does - degredation of information as momma bear and poppa bear make baby bear.

Degradation from what? A more perfect form of bear, cast unceremoniously out of the garden to face the thermal noise of hell?

resedit wrote:

mo' ron wrote:

ID doesn't have a proposed model about how things came to be, or at least you haven't talked about one in this thread.

Sure it does - things came about by intelligent design.

That is not a theory. That is a conjecture. You cannot make an argument by just saying something happened. You have to say how it happened. Otherwise it cannot be compared in any way to science.

I have yet to see what exactly anyone would "teach" regarding ID. The only thing i've heard are some schools putting stickers about evolution being just a theory in the text books (stickers that were later removed). Other than that, what do IDists have to teach?

A different interpretation to the same data that evolutionists collect.

If by different intereptation, you mean not looking at it at all? I see no way how ID accounts for a majority of the data present in evolutionary theory, without making outlandish arguments, that discredit hundreds of accepted scientific theories. I see ID as more as a war on science than anything else.

- ID doesn't account for the overwhelming evidence that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, evolution does

Young earth isn't required for ID, but the evidence for the earth being "old" is based upon assumptions that would not hold true if there was a catastrophic worldwide flood, which just about every single culture on this planet has in their tradition and history - I don't know of one that doesn't.

And many cultures have ridiculous models for the world and universe. Anthropological evidence, again, is not backing up anything scientific. Back in the ancient days, any large flood could be misconstrued as the largest flood ever.

What are these "assumptions" that wouldn't hold true if there was a global flood? Is it our use of radioisotope dating? Is it the fact that geologists say that water does not cut through rock in a short time? I have not seen any *good* evidence discounting those, and other geological "assumptions".

For example, they say ice layers can be counted by dust layers - which assumes that one layer of dust is laid per year (or season, I forget which) - but after a catasprophe like a flood, there would be many layers of dust layed down very often for a long time.

And yet it seems to work with other evidence. It seems as though you are the one who are assuming.

- ID doesn't account for fossils of dinos and other extinct creatures, evolution does

Sure it does - the majority of fossils are the result of a global worldwide flood.

And that is why fossils are found in completely different strata, date back to eons before this "flood", and many are water creatures, found on dry land (the top of everest!).

- ID doesn't account for the flaws in biological systems, evolution does

Sure it does - degredation of information as momma bear and poppa bear make baby bear.

So why did god give us the coccyx? Or give us two of some organs that are more important to have redunant in early life, but organs that degrade later in life are not? Wouldn't we be better off with two hearts? or two livers?

I seriously would like to know what specific topics they could teach about regarding ID.

There are plenty of books on it already.
They are written by people with fancy letters behind their names, too - awarded from good universities.

Many of these phds I've seen writing on ID and YEC, are people with phds in unrelated fields. A phd in mechainical engineering does not make one an expert on geology, biology or science for that matter.

Not to steer this thread into an ultimately unproductive discussion of social darwinism, but the order that results from evolutionary processes is similar, in some ways to an unregulated stock market. The near random interactions of traders, on the whole, reflects economic reality, even if certain portions of it cause localized economic havoc. Similarly, there's a lot of death and destruction in evolution, (which is an excellent reason not to draw moral lessons from it.)

resedit wrote:

German fraudster Haeckle

Nope:
http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law … mbryos.htm

Brief quote from summary of article:

1) Wilhelm His is not necessarily a reliable source of information regarding the scientific status of Haeckel's work.  He and Haeckel were openly hostile to each other his opinion could hardly be considered unbiased.  And some have questioned the accuracy of His's drawings as well.

    2) There is no historical documentation for Haeckel having ever been tried much less convicted of fraud.  This story appears to be a myth.

    3) While it is technically correct that humans and other terrestrial vertebrates do not posses "gills" as embryos, they do posses structures that appear to be homologous in great detail to the structures of fish embryos that develop into gills. The recognition of this fact is not dependant on the acceptance of evolution. However the retention of these gill-like structures in the embryological development of terrestrial vertebrates is best explained by descent with modification from a fish-like ancestor.

    4) The evidence from embryology (such as the existence of pharyngeal pouches) is not in any way dependant on Ernst Haeckel or his drawings, fraudulent or not.  Or as Michael Richardson put it:

On a fundamental level, Haeckel was correct: All vertebrates develop a similar body plan (consisting of notochord, body segments, pharyngeal pouches, and so forth).  This shared developmental program reflects shared evolutionary history... Haeckel's inaccuracies damage his credibility, but they do not invalidate the mass of published evidence for Darwinian evolution. (Richardson et al. 1998, p. 983-984)

resedit wrote:

mo' ron wrote:

resedit wrote:

Teaching who the ID is - that shouldn't be done.
Teaching that ID is correct - that shouldn't be done either.
But if students are exposed to both, they can see the merits and flaws of both - and perhaps it would encourage textbook publishers to quit hiring authors who write stuff (on both sides) that just isn't true. How is that a bad thing?

ID doesn't have a proposed model about how things came to be, or at least you haven't talked about one in this thread.

Sure it does - things came about by intelligent design.

But what was the actual mechanism God used to create the earth and all the life therein? How did He do it?

ShnickyShnack wrote:

But what was the actual mechanism God used to create the earth and all the life therein? How did He do it?

Perhaps He came up with an elegant, beautiful, complex yet understandable solution...evolution by natural selection and by other means?

And, perhaps He was looking forward to our rational minds that could deduce this mechanism and use it for our own good (domestication of animals/plants with useful traits, development of non-intuitive but highly-useful computer programs, chemicals, and equipment, etc.)?

And, perhaps He was looking forward to the day when, rising out of ignorance, we began to understand the amazing process that He created and currently sustains, so that we could be in even more awe of Him?

Dunno, I can't prove it.  But, as a Christian and a biologist, that line of reasoning enriches my own spiritual life and makes an autumn afternoon's walk in the woods into a profoundly worshipful experience.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

For example, as I understand it, the human race was wiped out except for those who survived aboard Noah's Ark. How many people were aboard, and who were they? Were they related? Were they enough to form a viable gene pool?

Eight people, total.  Noah and his wife and their three sons and wives.

Molecular genetic clocks (mitochondrial DNA for females and Y-chromosome DNA for males) do show population bottlenecks at certain points, but none that are only a few thousand years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve  (150,000 y.a.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosome_Adam (59,000 y.a.)

But, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/999030.stm

In any event, those amounts of time do allow for human diversity that we see today.  Perhaps even a shorter amount of time would allow that, but there is no evidence anywhere for such an event within the past 6000 years or so.

Of course, the reply to this by ID and YEC types is to say that God ensured that the genes of the 8 inhabitants of the Ark were sufficiently diverse to allow for what we see today.

Note, too, that bizarre interpretations of the Noah story have lead to some mighty racist thinking in the not-so-recent past.  The wacked-out idea, corresponding with the idea that the three sons of Noah produced the "races" that we see today, goes something like this:

Shem - father of the "Shemites" (Semites)
Ham - father of the dark skinned races
Japheth - father of the fair skinned races

Ham saw his father, Noah, drunk and naked and did not do anything about it.  He told his brothers who, respectfully, covered their father's shame.  Upon awakening and hearing what his sons had done, Noah cursed Ham.  Thus Shemites and Japhites have permission, and in fact, a mandate to lord it over Hamites.

Truly bizarre, but there you go.

That would have been when the Atlantean Yeti met Homo Erectus.