Why I do not accept evolution part one

[Speedwell]

Like I told Pita that exact same evidence equally supports intelligent design.

Because Intelligent Design is an unfalsifiable proposition. Any evidence is consistent with it. but it is not a scientific alternative to evolution.

 

[pitabread]

And that very same evidence equally points to intelligent design as well my friend.

No, it really doesn't. ID proponents haven't even figured out how to detect design, much less form any sort of cohesive ID model for species.

Without identifying a mechanism of ID (something ID proponents have never done), I don't think they'll even be able to do the above.

 

[Speedwell]

The implications of intelligent agency in physics and biology are extremely daunting to someone who wrote it off as 'theological error' for so long- not something I was rushing to embrace at all

Why should it be daunting? Maybe to an atheist, I suppose, but I fully embrace the idea of a creator God--and I think ID is a crock. Why do you suppose it is that the Roman Catholics and other Traditional Christian bodies have rejected ID, regardless of their stance on the theory of evolution?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The majority of papers I've seen rather suggest that the Cambrian explosion was just one of a number of rapid diversification and radiation periods around that time - and provide evolutionary explanations in terms of the phenotypic developments and the environmental circumstances - check out Google Scholar for lots of interesting material.

That's true, it was certainly not the only 'explosion' of new biological forms- and this pattern has become ever more crystalized as the fossil record is filled in

generally new forms appear fairly abruptly in the record, remain in virtual stasis, sometimes for 100s of millions of years, and then either disappear or are still here. It is very difficult to find good evidence for incremental improvement, which is problematic for Darwinian mechanisms

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

And that very same evidence equally points to intelligent design as well my friend.

Not really; you can claim intelligent design for any evidence at all, but it gives you no way to test it, e.g. to predict what you should expect to see if it was the case.

OTOH the ToE, based on a very limited subset of the data we now have, has made fruitful predictions for how the world should look that have been borne out in fields that didn't even exist when it was first formulated. We now know the mechanism by which it works, and have a some understanding of how it plays out in practice. There's no comparison.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Why should it be daunting? Maybe to an atheist, I suppose, but I fully embrace the idea of a creator God--and I think ID is a crock. Why do you suppose it is that the Roman Catholics and other Traditional Christian bodies have rejected ID, regardless of their stance on the theory of evolution?

Why did the Catholic church reject heliocentrism? Any institutionalized consensus is prone to peer pressure review & the vagaries of academic fashion

 

[Job 33:6]

That's true, it was certainly not the only 'explosion' of new biological forms- and this pattern has become ever more crystalized as the fossil record is filled in

generally new forms appear fairly abruptly in the record, remain in virtual stasis, sometimes for 100s of millions of years, and then either disappear or are still here. It is very difficult to find good evidence for incremental improvement, which is problematic for Darwinian mechanisms

I guess you must have my responses on "ignore".

But I have another response for this too.

 

[Speedwell]

Why did the Catholic church reject heliocentrism? Any institutionalized consensus is prone to peer pressure review & the vagaries of academic fashion

Peer pressure from whom? Theologians who solved the problem of divine agency and natural causes centuries since? Since Aristotle, really. Christianity doesn't need ID and most Christians don't want it. Go ahead and demonstrate it if you can, but so far we have heard nothing from you about ID itself, only incredulity about the efficacy of evolution as a natural phenomenon.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Like I told Pita that exact same evidence equally supports intelligent design.

Repeating it doesn't make it so.

 

[Job 33:6]

I guess you must have my responses on "ignore".

But I have another response for this too.

@Guy Threepwood

We actually have many transitional sequences that suggest continuous change over time.

 

[Job 33:6]

Everything is covered in transitional fossils from fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles and birds, and reptiles the mammals. And more.

 

[Ophiolite]

It is very difficult to find good evidence for incremental improvement

It is telling that you think evolution is equivalent to improvement!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... generally new forms appear fairly abruptly in the record, remain in virtual stasis, sometimes for 100s of millions of years, and then either disappear or are still here. It is very difficult to find good evidence for incremental improvement, which is problematic for Darwinian mechanisms

Not really. What you describe is punctuated equilibrium, but that simply means that significant changes occur over relatively short timescales (typically in response to environmental or ecosystem changes). That doesn't mean the changes aren't incremental - where a detailed fossil record is available these incremental changes can be seen, but since the relevant periods are relatively short, the fossil record around these periods is likely to be correspondingly sparse. OTOH incremental changes can more easily be seen in the fossil record over longer timescales.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It is telling that you think evolution is equivalent to improvement!

Perhaps the designer is getting better with practice

 

[Job 33:6]

Is it me, or did this guy just finish reading a william debski book and now thinks he knows the science?

Laughs uncontrollably*

If only these figures actually talked about the science, rather than giving half the picture, quote mining and leaving out the fine print.

 

[pitabread]

but so far we have heard nothing from you about ID itself

Given his talking points all seem to be coming from Meyer, and Meyer doesn't spend much time talking about ID either, I don't think we'll hear anything in that regard.

 

[Job 33:6]

Given his talking points all seem to be coming from Meyer, and Meyer doesn't spend much time talking about ID either, I don't think we'll hear anything in that regard.

Wasn't it meyer who left the ID movement?

 

[BNR32FAN]

No, it really doesn't. ID proponents haven't even figured out how to detect design, much less form any sort of cohesive ID model for species.

Without identifying a mechanism of ID (something ID proponents have never done), I don't think they'll even be able to do the above.

Lol that’s funny, so what your saying is intelligent design advocates haven’t figured out how to spot intelligent design despite their obvious observations of intelligent design? I’m trying to understand how that works.

 

[Job 33:6]

@Guy Threepwood

I'm willing to bet that you can't even say when the Cambrian explosion occurred. 500-505 Mya, 505-510mya? 510-515? 515-520? 520-525? 525-530? 530-535? 535-540? Etc.

When exactly do you think the Cambrian explosion occurred and why?

Or, are you accepting of the fact that it actually spans dozens of millions of years and is therefore not an issue for the theory of evolution?

 

[pitabread]

Lol that’s funny, so what your saying is intelligent design advocates haven’t figured out how to spot intelligent design despite their obvious observations of intelligent design? I’m trying to understand how that works.

They really haven't. I followed the ID movement for a couple decades now and have read all the main literature from its primary proponents.

There have only been a couple real attempts to come up with a way of detecting biological design (Behe's irreducible complexity, Dembski's complex specified information, and the like). However, those methods have not been borne out as verifiable approaches for detecting design.

And it's not like there isn't a real application for that. In the world of GM organisms (especially agriculture) there is arguably a real need for that. Yet, GM detection methods all rely on knowledge of the originating sequences as opposed to blindly detecting design without that knowledge.

Ask yourself, if ID proponents really could detect biological design, why can't they use such approaches in examples where we know biological design exists (GM organisms)?