Why ID is logically incoherant.

[plindboe]

Indeed, ID fails before it even takes off. I'm amazed how seemingly intelligent people can fall for something that is so obviously flawed from the get-go.

Perhaps my biggest problem is the sheer laziness and hypocracy of the movement. With a sentence uttered in a couple of seconds they demand alot of in depth research, while they simply lean back and declare victory if the other party isn't an evolutionary biologist with the answers in hand. They bring nothing to the table themselves so there's nothing to ask them to explain, no mechanisms, no evidence, no models, no predictions, no knowledge whatsoever.

The tactics show clearly that we're dealing with a project of propaganda. Their aim is to win fast arguments among the public, and not among scientists, and in the end try to introduce their "theory" into the class rooms by political pressure.

Peter

 

[mpok1519]

I think ID is unprovable, for in order for intellegent design to be true, an intellegent designer with a personafiable mind must be behind the cause of it all.

but, since one cannot prove the existence of God, one cannot prove the existence of ID.

its jut another faith issue like ALL ISSUES HERE ON THE BOARD!

lol

why not just have one board with one topic, one category and only two sides; why faith is a) good or b) bad.

thats the only thing we really should be debating, because that seems to be what ALL DEBATES come down to on these threads.

 

[Baggins]

Let's not focus so much on the design as we do on intelligence. It was a being with intelligence that put it all together. It did not just "happen" into being. It would be illogical to believe anything else.

By which reasoning it would also be illogical to believe that this intelligent being wasn't itself designed.

And, oops, look where that gets us, it's intelligent designers all the way down.

You need to do a bit of work on what is logical and what is illogical

 

[Maxwell511]

Indeed, ID fails before it even takes off. I'm amazed how seemingly intelligent people can fall for something that is so obviously flawed from the get-go.

To be fair most intellectuals that support ID are engineers. We are presupposed to think in functionality and design. It is not our fault.

I remember reading a paper by an old professor of mine about the mechanism with which the eye reacts to changes in light intensity. He expressed awe in the fact the "evolution could design" such a system. Sometimes awe turns to disbelief.

 

[RevCowboy]

There's another logical problem with ID, if its proponents want to pass it off as supporting their theological beliefs.

Namely, the entire thrust of ID is that it is possible to distinguish designed things from non-designed things in the universe. However, the religious underpinning of ID posit that the entire universe and everything in it is the creation of an omnipotent being - in other words, everything is designed. If everything in nature has the same designer, then it should not be possible to single out some things as designed and others as not.

Indeed, one of the reasons we can detect human design is that we know of so many things that were not man-made, making the characteristics of human design stand out.

If it were ever possible to prove the design "hypothesis", it would show that the "designer" is some kind of interloper, not the omnipotent, omniscient creator god of the Abrahamic religions.

The biggest theological problem of ID is that it promotes a "God of the Gaps". Folks used to think that there were angels in charge of moving heavenly bodies, that is until planetary wobble was understood. In the same way Irreducible Complexity is setting up a God of the Gaps. As science explains more, God gets squeezed out of the picture.

However, this does not rule out an Intelligent Designer or that the amazing beauty, complexity and order of creation could be a sign of a creator. It just means that the formal theory of Intelligent Design is both scientifically and theologically corrupt. And it is, in fact, also philosophically corrupt because the measure of the physical and empirical cannot by definition prove or disprove God. Besides shouldn't God have something better to do than making micro- cellular outboard motors?

 

[Bushido216]

To be fair most intellectuals that support ID are engineers. We are presupposed to think in functionality and design. It is not our fault.

I remember reading a paper by an old professor of mine about the mechanism with which the eye reacts to changes in light intensity. He expressed awe in the fact the "evolution could design" such a system. Sometimes awe turns to disbelief.

I've been held in awe by creationists for years and they haven't gone away yet. I call shenanigans.

 

[TheOutsider]

Indeed, ID fails before it even takes off. I'm amazed how seemingly intelligent people can fall for something that is so obviously flawed from the get-go.

Perhaps my biggest problem is the sheer laziness and hypocracy of the movement. With a sentence uttered in a couple of seconds they demand alot of in depth research, while they simply lean back and declare victory if the other party isn't an evolutionary biologist with the answers in hand. They bring nothing to the table themselves so there's nothing to ask them to explain, no mechanisms, no evidence, no models, no predictions, no knowledge whatsoever.

The tactics show clearly that we're dealing with a project of propaganda. Their aim is to win fast arguments among the public, and not among scientists, and in the end try to introduce their "theory" into the class rooms by political pressure.

Peter

I listened to an interview with Behe on Point of Inquiry the other day and he used exactly that tactic when asked why there hasn't been any research into ID. He seemed to think that he didn't need to bring anything to the table because ID is "obvious" and wins by default.

BTW, have the IDers ever come up with a definition of "designed" other than "really really complicated"?

 

[RedAndy]

BTW, have the IDers ever come up with a definition of "designed" other than "really really complicated"?

"Stuff that couldn't have evolved." After that it is trivially easy to slide in an argument from incredulity and declare that everything from this eye here to that flagellum over there was designed.

 

[uberd00b]

What gets me is that IDists, being generally religious, believe everything was designed.

In which case the label "designed" becomes meaningless, as there is nothing that was not designed to compare to.

 

[Patashu]

By which reasoning it would also be illogical to believe that this intelligent being wasn't itself designed.

And, oops, look where that gets us, it's intelligent designers all the way down.

You need to do a bit of work on what is logical and what is illogical

Wow! God is so perfect and so powerful and so lovely...

...he must have been designed! Nothing like this could come about by chance!

 

[flatworm]

Let's not focus so much on the design as we do on intelligence. It was a being with intelligence that put it all together. It did not just "happen" into being. It would be illogical to believe anything else.

The fundamental flaw remains that ID claims we can distinguish between the two, when its underlying theology says everything was created by a common intelligence. That's a contradiction.

 

[PeterMaclellan]

I'm still waiting for Inan's evidence, apparently it would be wasted on us. Seeing as no ID proponent or creationist has ever presented coherant evidence for their position, I'm going to assume it doesn't exist.

You're of course free to prove me wrong Inan, but the onus is on you.

 

[Loudmouth]

Like another poster said, the ID movement is rife with hypocracy.

They argue that no one has ever witnessed an irreducible system evolve. They then reject evolution.

But has anyone ever observed their supposed designer producing an irreducibly complex system? Nope. And yet they accept ID.

Even worse, how does one test ID? By attempting to find evolutionary pathways for complex systems. Scientists are already doing that without ID. Once those pathways are found then ID is thrown out.

ID also sticks out like a sore thumb. Can anyone name a currently accepted scientific theory that is solely supported by the failure of another theory? I can't. Every theory in science is supported by POSITIVE evidence, not negative evidence. ID is truly a God-of-the-Gaps argument.

 

[Split Rock]

There are two major fallacies underlying I.D.

1. The assumption that natural mechanisms cannot produce certain complex systems. Therefore, I.D. wins by default.

2. I.D. puts natural intelligence in the same box as supernatural intelligence. We know that intelligence exists in the natural world, but we know nothing about intelligence in the supernatural world. So, rather than distinguish between natural and supernatural mechanisms, they distinguish between intelligent and non-intelligent "natural" mechanisms. This makes little sense since we know nature can produce intelligent beings as we see it happen everyday.

 

[LittleNipper]

There are two major fallacies underlying I.D.

1. The assumption that natural mechanisms cannot produce certain complex systems. Therefore, I.D. wins by default.

2. I.D. puts natural intelligence in the same box as supernatural intelligence. We know that intelligence exists in the natural world, but we know nothing about intelligence in the supernatural world. So, rather than distinguish between natural and supernatural mechanisms, they distinguish between intelligent and non-intelligent "natural" mechanisms. This makes little sense since we know nature can produce intelligent beings as we see it happen everyday.

Can intelligence originate from no intelligence at all? Everything that has a beginning comes from something else that shares traits. Can people rationally feel that thinking organisms had their origin from the mindless inorganic?

 

[Split Rock]

He admits that it came about by accident but offers no explanation of how it originally came about to even be an accident. No evolutionist has ever been able to answer this. Logic tells us that it had to start from something or someone. I have never seen an accident or explosion from nothing become something and neither have you or any scientist.

He really should have stated that IDers claim life could not have come about via natural mechanisms rather than "by accident."

Delusional and obvious that it is you rather than us who would try to disprove creation rather than us disproving evolution.

The ID argument is a Negative argument by its very nature. If natural mechanisms could not have produced life, then by default, an intelligent designer must have. Thus, IDers have to prove that natural mechanisms could not have produced life on earth, in order to claim that it was the responsibility of an Intelligent designer. So far, they have failed to do this.

We have evidence it is just not the evidence you want and it will always be that way.

What evidence. I hope you don't mean the Bible, because we all know that I.D. has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible.... right?

 

[Bushido216]

Says you, Nipper.

 

[Split Rock]

Can intelligence originate from no intelligence at all? Everything that has a beginning comes from something else that shares traits. Can people rationally feel that thinking organisms had their origin from the mindless inorganic?

Can crystals form from a liquid?

Can differentiated cells come from non-differentiated cells?

Don't insects share traits with humans? Are insects intelligent?

 

[Loudmouth]

Can intelligence originate from no intelligence at all?

It would appear so.

Everything that has a beginning comes from something else that shares traits.

And? Every atom in our bodies shares traits with the rest of the material in the universe.

Can people rationally feel that thinking organisms had their origin from the mindless inorganic?

"Rationally feel" is a bit of an oxymoron. If you mean "rationally conclude", yes we can. Every atom in our bodies was at one time inorganic. This is a fact.

 

[Soul Searcher]

I was watching a show last night where they were showing an experiment that used gases that make up the atmosphere on one of the moons of Saturn and when they subjected these gases to sunlight organic material was created. I did not catch a lot of detail but it seemed very interesting.