Basic Differences in Evolution and Intelligent Design

[Quath]

I was thinking about what should be different between these two theories.  Evolution is a Monte Carlo approach to selecting the best sets of genes in a competitive environment.  Intelligent Design is focused on building the best and probably the most efficient environment, species, and individuals for a world.  So when I look at it this way, I see a few problems that evolution seems to explain that Intelligent Design does not.

The first is Suddent Infant Death Syndrone (SIDS).  Why would someone design this process in?  It seems if there is Intelligent Design, it is designed towards suffering.  Evolution allows for this because only enough offspring have to live to pass on the genes.

The next is cancer.  We know there are genes that make a person more resistant to cancer.  Intelligent Design should have these genes within everyone.  Evolution would not be too concerned with cancer since our lifespans use to be around 35 years max which is before the time that cancer acts.

The last one is sickle cell anemia.  In Africa, this gene is very common.  If a person has one gene for sickle cell anemia and one regular gene, they have great resistance to malaria.  If you have 2 genes, you get the sickle cell disease.  If you have no genes, you get malaria and usually die.  So this makes great sense from evolution.  It makes no sense from Intelligent Design since malaria did not need to be invented.  And if it had to be invented, why only make half the population resistant and the other half most likely to die?  This just reeks of bad design.

Scott (Quath)

 

[PhantomLlama]

Apparently our eyes are wired the wrong way round as well. The optic nerves pass through the retina at the blind spot and loop back down to the retina cells, as opposed to just connecting to the back of the eye. This is just very bad design, but could have come about through evolution depending on what the eye evolved from.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 10:38 AM Quath said this in Post #1

I was thinking about what should be different between these two theories.  Evolution is a Monte Carlo approach to selecting the best sets of genes in a competitive environment.  Intelligent Design is focused on building the best and probably the most efficient environment, species, and individuals for a world. 

Evolution is not the Monte Carlo approach.  ID and natural selection actually use the same algorithm to get design: variations, selection of the successful variation, keep the successful variation to the next environment. The difference is that natural selection works this process in a population of organisms while Intelligent Design does so in a population of ideas within the mind and then manufactures only the final design. 

What you have stated is not so much Intelligent Design as Special Creation: a benevolent and omniscient deity put together the best possible design before manufacturing it.  What you raise are not scientific objections to ID but theological.

The first is Suddent Infant Death Syndrone (SIDS).  Why would someone design this process in?  It seems if there is Intelligent Design, it is designed towards suffering. 

See? That's a theological objection.  Science doesn't care if the ID is sadistic.

Evolution allows for this because only enough offspring have to live to pass on the genes.

And the way evolution helped Christianity off the hook Special Creation made for it. 

The next is cancer.  We know there are genes that make a person more resistant to cancer.  Intelligent Design should have these genes within everyone.  Evolution would not be too concerned with cancer since our lifespans use to be around 35 years max which is before the time that cancer acts.

A better observation is that cancer doesn't show up until the reproductive years are past, so the genes are already passed to the next generation and genes causing or preventing cancer are invisible to natural selection.

The last one is sickle cell anemia.  In Africa, this gene is very common.  If a person has one gene for sickle cell anemia and one regular gene, they have great resistance to malaria.  If you have 2 genes, you get the sickle cell disease.  If you have no genes, you get malaria and usually die.  So this makes great sense from evolution.  It makes no sense from Intelligent Design since malaria did not need to be invented.  .. This just reeks of bad design.

Another theological objection.  The ID/deity is incompetent.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 11:24 AM PhantomLlama said this in Post #2

Apparently our eyes are wired the wrong way round as well. The optic nerves pass through the retina at the blind spot and loop back down to the retina cells, as opposed to just connecting to the back of the eye. This is just very bad design, but could have come about through evolution depending on what the eye evolved from.

Another theological objection.  Octupi are wired correctly, so the ID knew the right way to wire an eye.  Did the ID forget when it came time to design humans?  That implies the ID is either stupid or suffering from Alzheimer's.  That's a problem for a deity that people would want to worship, but isn't a scientific problem. 

I think the real objections to ID is the Rube Goldberg complexity at the cellular level, such as the blood clotting system.  Most of that complexity comes from a new control level to counteract another control level.  An Intelligent Designer would simply have eliminated the earlier control level and made the system simpler.  But natural selection can't do that.  It is very easy to add information under natural selection but very difficult to subtract.  The end result is the mind-numbing complexity whereas an Intelligent Designer could have made the internal workings of the cell a lot simpler.

 

[paulewog]

don't forget about sin.

God created a perfect world.

Sin came.

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

 

[DivineOb]

Today at 05:22 PM paulewog said this in Post #5

don't forget about sin.

God created a perfect world.

Sin came.

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

Why do theists think that bare assertions with no evidence whatsoever are somehow compelling?

 

[Arikay]

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

How can you be sure? Adam and Eve were there for a very short time.

Its like going to a country club, coming home after a day. Not getting a sun burn, so you assume that sun burns must not have existed at the country club.

dont forget that god created everything needed for sin. So it wasnt really a perfect world.

The funny thing here is that this just shows Adam and Eve were only perfect in their environment, but not perfect overall. They were created without cancer resistance, because they didnt need it. However an all knowing god should have realized that cancer would be a problem, but he didnt. So Adam and Eve were only perfect compared to their soroundings. Making many people on earth practically as perfect as Adam and Eve.

Thanks for making that point.

Today at 09:22 AM paulewog said this in Post #5 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=702873#post702873)

don't forget about sin.

God created a perfect world.

Sin came.

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

 

[Quath]

lucaspa

What you have stated is not so much Intelligent Design as Special Creation: a benevolent and omniscient deity put together the best possible design before manufacturing it.  What you raise are not scientific objections to ID but theological.

See? That's a theological objection.  Science doesn't care if the ID is sadistic.

That is a very good point.  I hadn't of thought of it in that manner.

paulewog

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

So did God design Adam and Eve to have damage resistant DNA or not?  If He did not, then cancer was possible.  If He did, why did those genes go away?

Scott (Quath)

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 12:22 PM paulewog said this in Post #5

don't forget about sin.

God created a perfect world.

Sin came.

Cancer was not in the Garden of Eden

To add to DivineOb, why do you think you can just make things up and tell us they are Biblical? 

Genesis 1 explicitly does not say God created a "perfect" world.  God only says that creation is "good" or sometimes "very good", never perfect.  Neither does Genesis 2 say what was or was not in the Garden of Eden. In particular it doesn't mention cancer.

The whole idea of perfection and sin seems to be an invention by creationists to try to 1) get the Bible to correspond to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and 2) to try to get around the massive extrabiblical evidence that death and disease have been around since life originated.

Look, if you want to make up a theology, that's one thing. Be honest that this is your theology.  To try to con us: Christians, agnostics, and atheists alike that your made up theology is Biblical and Christian is something else.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 02:54 PM Arikay said this in Post #7

The funny thing here is that this just shows Adam and Eve were only perfect in their environment, but not perfect overall. ... So Adam and Eve were only perfect compared to their soroundings.

Sounds like evolution, doesn't it?

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 03:14 PM Quath said this in Post #8

That is a very good point.  I hadn't of thought of it in that manner.

Give credit to some very smart Christian theologians and naturalists in the 19th century, such as Charles Kingsley and Edward Blythe, for figuring that out.  

If we take the designs in nature and infer the characteristics of the supposed Intelligent Designer, we end up inferring that the ID is stupid, sadistic, and suffering from Alzheimer's.  Science can live with that.  Christianity can't. 

Some religions could.  Old Norse religion could live with that if Loki were the ID.

What the poor designs in nature really do is say that a benevolent, loving, super-intelligent deity could not have manufactured those species directly.  Evolution, as you point out, explains them nicely because natural selection only has to be good enough, not benevolent, loving, and super-intelligent.

As designs go, you don't have to be able to outrun the bear to have a better design.  You only have to be able to outrun your companion.

 

[JohnR7]

Today at 11:15 PM lucaspa said this in Post #9

The whole idea of perfection and sin seems to be an invention by creationists

Genesis 6:9
    These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Job 1:8
    And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Psalm 37:37
    Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

It would seem that perfection could be found outside of Eden. Long before Creationism was a glimmer in it's daddy's eye.







 

 

[Arikay]

Of course, that would assume that the bible was a correct historical record. So far it doesnt seem to be too good.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 11:33 PM JohnR7 said this in Post #12

Genesis 6:9
    These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Job 1:8
    And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Psalm 37:37
    Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

It would seem that perfection could be found outside of Eden. Long before Creationism was a glimmer in it's daddy's eye.  

That doesn't address the creationists contention that only before Adam's "sin" was creation perfect.  What you have done is further falsify the theology presented by paulewog. Thanks, John.

Of course, nowhere have you shown that Genesis says creation was perfect.  So you haven't really addressed the paulewog's theological claims.

Just for the fun of it, I looked up the newer translations of your verses from the NIV.

"This is the account of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. "

There goes your "perfect" out of that verse.

"Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "

Oops, there goes "perfect" out of that one, too.

Finally, the Psalm:
"Consider the blameless, observe the upright;
there is a future for the man of peace."

Bye bye to "perfect" again.  It appears that you are basing your theology on a faulty translation, John.

What is the original Hebrew word you are translating as "perfect"?  "Blameless" is far short of "perfect".

 

[Cantuar]

I was thinking about what should be different between these two theories.

The difference as far as I'm concerned is that by falling back on the God of the Gaps, ID isn't really a theory. I mean, parts of it are, just like parts of young-Earth creationism are. But any system that requires supernatural intervention of an unpredictable sort doesn't deserve to be called a theory IMO.

 

[lucaspa]

Today at 12:21 AM Cantuar said this in Post #15

The difference as far as I'm concerned is that by falling back on the God of the Gaps, ID isn't really a theory. I mean, parts of it are, just like parts of young-Earth creationism are. But any system that requires supernatural intervention of an unpredictable sort doesn't deserve to be called a theory IMO.

In invoking god-of-the-gaps, ID loses the ability to claim it is consistent with Christianity. It becomes poor theology.  That says nothing about it's validity as a scientific theory.

Where ID invokes "gaps" that invalidate it as a theory is when it focusses only on systems that supposedly don't have an evolutionary explanation.  This occurs when Behe abandons as IC systems that fit the definition of IC but have been shown to have a Darwinian route of formation.  Then it is science-of-the-gaps and ID stays in the gaps solely to avoid being falsified.  That's not good science.

I don't see ID invoking supernatural manufacture of an unpredictable sort. Instead, I see the opposite in IDers attempting to discover the parameters where they can tell there was supernatural manufacture.  Their methodology to do this is faulty and leads to faulty conclusions, but they are not invoking the supernatural in unpredictable ways but trying to actually predict when entities are manufactured artifacts.

Invoking supernatural intervention in not, by itself, grounds to rule a theory unscientific.

You can see by this post, Cantaur, that while I think that ID is a falsified theory, I want the criticism of it (or any other idea) to be accurate and for the idea to be accurately stated.  Making inaccurate statements about ID, IMO, is no different than saying "evolution is pure chance". 




 

 

[Cantuar]

You know, you and I have disagreed about this on another forum, and I was trying to word my post so that it wouldn't get up your nose this time. I see I haven't managed again. WHAT a surprise.

All the ID stuff I've read has come down to saying that there are things that can't be explained by natural processes. Some of the ID proponents are more willing than others to allow natural processes a major part in the development of life; Michael Behe seems a lot more amenable to natural processes in the development of the diversity of life than Jonathan Wells does, but even Michael Behe has drawn lines and categorically stated that natural processes can go so far but no farther. That implies that the unnatural processes the other side of the line are unpredictable, because if they weren't unpredictable they could be studied by the scientific method. What the guy is actually saying (although for political reasons not explicitly saying) is that God created certain biochemical systems by processes that can't be accessed by the scientific method. If they could be accessed by the scientific method, they'd be exactly the same as any other sorts of natural processes.

Of course they're trying to discover ways of telling whether there was supernatural manufacture. They're trying to discover ways in which they can tell when this Creator of theirs stepped outside the laws of nature to do his creating. If the creator stayed within the laws of nature, you have theistic evolution. And once the creator steps outside the laws of nature, then things are unpredictable.

Please stop treating everybody else like idiots. It really isn't the best possible way of interacting with them.

 

[Quath]

Today at 09:40 PM lucaspa said this in Post #16
Invoking supernatural intervention in not, by itself, grounds to rule a theory unscientific. 

That makes me think of the Authur C. Clarke's quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If you reverse this then you get magic can be seen as advanced technology.  So an Intelligent Designer using "magic" would be equivalent to one using advanced technology.

However, I think this may worry religious people because magic is a gift that can be given while technology is open to people with resources and intelligence.  So any "magical trick" of an Intelligent Designer could in theory be done by man if we had the resources.

It kind of reduces the image of a god down to an engineer.

Scott (Quath)

 

[Cantuar]

So an Intelligent Designer using "magic" would be equivalent to one using advanced technology.

Oh, sure. But I think we all know that an extraterrestrial civilisation with extremely advanced technology isn't what IDists have in mind. They wouldn't be doing all this writing about the terrible ills of materialist philosophies if they seriously thought that an occupant of the universe was really the creator of life on earth, because even if we didn't happen to understand that advanced technology, it's still bound by the laws of nature.

I gather Phillip Johnson's latest book actually has a chapter about the designer being God. I'm waiting for it to be available second-hand so I haven't got a copy yet. That'd be an interesting development because I thought the idea was to get it into the schools first and reveal the nature of teh Designer later.

 

[DivineOb]

Today at 04:33 AM JohnR7 said this in Post #12

Genesis 6:9
    These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Job 1:8
    And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Psalm 37:37
    Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

It would seem that perfection could be found outside of Eden. Long before Creationism was a glimmer in it's daddy's eye. 


 

If those people were "perfect", wouldn't it also mean they were without sin?  I thought Jesus was the only one who never sinned.