gluadys said:
The basic problem with the analogy to human-designed things is that it shows clearly that living organisms have not been designed along the same principles. Living organisms clearly follow a principle of inheritance. Intelligently designed things do not.
This is simultaneously untrue and irrelevant. It is irrelevant because I simply sought to demonstrate why it seems completely reasonable to the young earth creationist to believe that God designed the world showing unity on the fundamental level, and diversity on the higher levels.
It is untrue because we see plenty of things intelligently designed by humans that show a principle of inheritence. Stories for example start off simple, ideas are stolen, and the stories deepened and widened. Music is the same, starting from a simple sound being heard, and then built upon. Designs in buildings also - since the original architecture of humans was presumably simple shelters, all the way to the modern designs. Again, these all inherited intelligently designed aspects from predecessors.
Then there is also the honest possibility that in the future humans will design things that will mimick natures inheritence even greater - AI that can combine with other AI to produce offspring that are both similar and different to the AI it spawned from. Robots that are capable of recreating in kind, with variability. These are all things not beyond the scope of human ability.
One way to test this out is to try and develop a phylogeny for designed items that results in a single nested hierarchy for all similar objects (such as cars).
A sequence of evolved building designs over the history of humans would be sufficient, if I understand your challenge correctly.
It can't be done. Because intelligent design (at least human intelligent design) does not restrict any model of car to the design of its immediate predecessor in the company's repertoire of cars, but allows for borrowings from competitors, from other model lines, from archived models, and of course new innovations, which are soon borrowed themselves for other model lines and by other companies.
This is not a flaw in the analogy. It is simply a tangential way in which the analogy is not perfect. This criticism does nothing to damage my original point.
Besides, parents do not have the same genetic sets (different car manufacturers), so a child born from them (a new car) borrows elements from both (stealing ideas from competitors). But I don't want to quibble on things like this, because it seems an irrelevant tangent to the original point.
Natural selection on the other hand can only work with the cards provided by material directly inherited from the immediate ancestor + a few innovations introduced by mutation. It cannot borrow ideas from other model lines in the same family, and certainly not from outside the company.
Again, a cavil.
So with evolution one necessarily gets a nested hierarchy of kinds within kinds. With intelligent design we should not expect the occurrence of a nested hierarchy, but a different pattern altogether as the designer mixes elements of different kinds to produce innovations in a new kind (as well as totally new ideas of course.)
This is a flawed proposition: perhaps that conclusion is reasonable if the designer is itself imperfect (eg, humans). However, with a perfect Designer (God), He is the sole originator of all ideas and innovations. Everything with Him is new. If God saw fit to design a single foundation for life, but a diversity of applications of that single foundation, then it is His prerogative. It is conceivable, and highly likely, that God is perfect enough to design a foundation for life that is sufficient for all the diversity He pleases. So, I don't see why you think my contention is incorrect. My point is simple: common characteristics on the foundational level is NOT proof of common descent. It is just as sufficiently explained by a common designer. This means that you must find a new, separate argument to justify common ancestry, because this point is insufficient.
What you raise seem to be irrelevant points. It feels like you are picking at any random point where the analogy does not fit. In my experience the Darwinist seems unwilling to concede even a single point to a Creationist, lest that give a foothold to greater things.
How about examining these?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/com...ndamental_unity
Especially as the author has included ways to falsify each piece of evidence?
There is a lengthy response, though not up to date (since Theobald modified the original document, making it hard to maintain a response) here:
http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp
I will raise some points as time permits:
Theobald said:
Based solely on the theory of common descent and the genetics of known organisms, we strongly predict that we will never find any modern species from known phyla on this Earth with a foreign, non-nucleic acid genetic material. We also make the strong prediction that all newly discovered species that belong to the known phyla will use the "standard genetic code" or a close derivative thereof.
Some prediction. What exactly is it predicting? This sounds precisely like something that a young earth creationist would also predict with their model. It says nothing. Perhaps Mr. Theobald forgets that the Creationist teaches "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time", and that all horses, though different, share a common ancestor, and that within this framework his prediction also can be applied to our model. Again, common designer also can explain or permit such a situation. It is true that this is a more dangerous prediction for Darwinists than it is for Creationists, but discovering otherwise would not falsify Darwinism. It would simply rewrite the current theory on it.
It is again irrelevant though. The question is one of a difference between common designer or common ancestry. Both of these models share the prediction above. And, as I said, making the discovery he points out would not falsify common ancestry.
Tell me, if the discovery above were made, would you discard Darwinism? Or would you say that "we know too much already that demonstrates that all living things share a common ancestor...this is just an anomoly that requires more understanding and explanation within the Darwinist framework." One other things bears pointing out - not all science requires falsifiablity. Falsifiability is a useful requirement for science, but not necessary (which is why I said it is preferable above, but not something I required). What is needed is the ability to test and repeat the test. One can test that all living things today will continue to propogate in a certain manner (as described in the prediction above). One cannot test that this has been going in the reverse until all things find themselves sharing an ancestor.
Edit: As you can imagine, I don't have the time or motivation to go through the greater proportion of Theobald's writeup, so if you'd care to quote the portions you think are particularly telling, that would make the discussion easier for us both.