Balance of Truth as expressed in Biblical Scripture and Science

[dlamberth]

I'm asking for clarity please....
The subject as I understand it from the ID side is that it's centered more around the idea that life is way to complicated to have risen by random chance changes in DNA. And that's why an outside controlling factor (God) is seen as being directly involved.

So, the picture in my mind of ID is of a God playing a direct roll in planning and executing life's changes. I imagine a tool at His disposal to carry out His design plan is God's direct control of DNA change over time. From a scientific perspective we call that DNA change "evolution". But a person who espouses ID might call that God center process "theistic evolution".

Do I basically have that image of ID correct?

 

[DennisF]

More is being understood, but nothing that supports ID. And the theory of evolution does not, cannot disprove the existence of God. What other breaking news do you have?

What support do you have for your claims about ID?

 

[Astrid]

More is being understood, but nothing that supports ID. And the theory of evolution does not, cannot disprove the existence of God. What other breaking news do you have?

Hope you aren’t really asking.

 

[BCP1928]

What support do you have for your claims about ID?

I haven't made any. There is nothing to make claims about--I notice that you haven't made any yourself, merely made false claims about the theory of evolution, chief among them that it denies the existence of God.

 

[DennisF]

I haven't made any. There is nothing to make claims about--I notice that you haven't made any yourself, merely made false claims about the theory of evolution, chief among them that it denies the existence of God.

Learn to read with comprehension. I have claimed that ID is not very well understood in the little you have said about it with cognitive content. I have given an explanation for why. You have not responded to it.

I have not claimed that evolution denies the existence of God. If you learn to read, you will note that in a previous response I have mentioned another category of people involved in the creation-evolution debate, the evolutionary creationsists. Did you miss that?
It is difficult to have a mature discussion with someone who makes these basic kinds of errors.

 

[BCP1928]

So you're not defending the Discovery Institute's version of ID any more? And you don't see it as a threat to your faith? Then what's your beef with evolution?

 

[DennisF]

So you're not defending the Discovery Institute's version of ID any more? And you don't see it as a threat to your faith? Then what's your beef with evolution?

Who are you talking to? Go re-read (slowly!) what I have said and compare it to what you have imagined that I said.

 

[Astrid]

I'm asking for clarity please....
The subject as I understand it from the ID side is that it's centered more around the idea that life is way to complicated to have risen by random chance changes in DNA. And that's why an outside controlling factor (God) is seen as being directly involved.

So, the picture in my mind of ID is of a God playing a direct roll in planning and executing life's changes. I imagine a tool at His disposal to carry out His design plan is God's direct control of DNA change over time. From a scientific perspective we call that DNA change "evolution". But a person who espouses ID might call that God center process "theistic evolution".

Do I basically have that image of ID correct?

Go to wiki, look up “ discovery institute”

 

[Astrid]

So you're not defending the Discovery Institute's version of ID any more? And you don't see it as a threat to your faith? Then what's your beef with evolution?

Made up version of ID should be a perfect fit for made up version of evolution.

 

[BCP1928]

Who are you talking to? Go re-read (slowly!) what I have said and compare it to what you have imagined that I said.

You entered this discussion by posting a Discovery Institute video. You have posted in favor of the Discovery Institute's ID and the likes of Johnson, Behe and Dembski. I think you have made your position perfectly clear.

 

[DennisF]

You entered this discussion by posting a Discovery Institute video. You have posted in favor of the Discovery Institute's ID and the likes of Johnson, Behe and Dembski. I think you have made your position perfectly clear.

I posted the video to show what three people favorably disposed to ID had to give as arguments. You should look the word "presumptuous" up in the dictionary. I think it applies in your case. It would improve your ability to think to be less presumptuous. You have yet to address the substantive content of that ID discussion and, if you are so inclined, rebut their arguments with facts and logic, not nay-saying and scoffing.

 

[DennisF]

I'm asking for clarity please....
The subject as I understand it from the ID side is that it's centered more around the idea that life is way to complicated to have risen by random chance changes in DNA. And that's why an outside controlling factor (God) is seen as being directly involved.

So, the picture in my mind of ID is of a God playing a direct roll in planning and executing life's changes. I imagine a tool at His disposal to carry out His design plan is God's direct control of DNA change over time. From a scientific perspective we call that DNA change "evolution". But a person who espouses ID might call that God center process "theistic evolution".

Do I basically have that image of ID correct?

Anyone who cares to listen to what the ID people are actually saying discovers that they are not talking about God anymore than Carl Sagan does in denying God in the Cosmos series, though the implications in both cases tend toward and favor (if thus presented) a given meta-scientific outcome.

What ID is actually saying is simple and specific: the current neo-Darwinian theory in biology is not sufficient in that it does not adequately present mechanisms for the development of certain complexities seen in life. Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, gives examples. There is simply no explanation for how some anatomical features of some forms of life can arise by incremental development. Unlike the presumptions of some, the ID people all have scientific and other credentials that entitle them to be taken seriously. Some of their critics on this list cannot handle that (What are their credentials? What do they know?) and instead of trying to rebut them rationally instead turn to nay-saying and pontificating without giving any factual support for their scoffing.

Where am I on this? I know essentially everyone involved in both the ID and evolutionary creationist positions, but because others have initiated an attack on ID, they suppose I am pro-ID simply because I am challenging the depth of their understanding of ID, and it comes up lacking thus far.

 

[dlamberth]

Anyone who cares to listen to what the ID people are actually saying discovers that they are not talking about God anymore than Carl Sagan does in denying God in the Cosmos series, though the implications in both cases tend toward and favor (if thus presented) a given meta-scientific outcome.

What ID is actually saying is simple and specific: the current neo-Darwinian theory in biology is not sufficient in that it does not adequately present mechanisms for the development of certain complexities seen in life. Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, gives examples. There is simply no explanation for how some anatomical features of some forms of life can arise by incremental development. Unlike the presumptions of some, the ID people all have scientific and other credentials that entitle them to be taken seriously. Some of their critics on this list cannot handle that (What are their credentials? What do they know?) and instead of trying to rebut them rationally instead turn to nay-saying and pontificating without giving any factual support for their scoffing.

Where am I on this? I know essentially everyone involved in both the ID and evolutionary creationist positions, but because others have initiated an attack on ID, they suppose I am pro-ID simply because I am challenging the depth of their understanding of ID, and it comes up lacking thus far.

As I understand it, ID implies that life forms are somehow being designed. And an intelligence of some sort is behind the designing. How does that work with out some kind of God image doing the designing? If not God, where does the intelligence of ID as your presenting it sit? And where is the designing happening?

 

[BCP1928]

Anyone who cares to listen to what the ID people are actually saying discovers that they are not talking about God anymore than Carl Sagan does in denying God in the Cosmos series, though the implications in both cases tend toward and favor (if thus presented) a given meta-scientific outcome.

What ID is actually saying is simple and specific: the current neo-Darwinian theory in biology is not sufficient in that it does not adequately present mechanisms for the development of certain complexities seen in life. Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, gives examples. There is simply no explanation for how some anatomical features of some forms of life can arise by incremental development. Unlike the presumptions of some, the ID people all have scientific and other credentials that entitle them to be taken seriously. Some of their critics on this list cannot handle that (What are their credentials? What do they know?) and instead of trying to rebut them rationally instead turn to nay-saying and pontificating without giving any factual support for their scoffing.

Where am I on this? I know essentially everyone involved in both the ID and evolutionary creationist positions, but because others have initiated an attack on ID, they suppose I am pro-ID simply because I am challenging the depth of their understanding of ID, and it comes up lacking thus far.

I've read The Design Inference and Darwin's Black Box. Can I be excused from watching your video? I'm away from my computer working from my phone and it would be a nuisance to watch the video unless there's something new in it.

 

[Astrid]

As I understand it, ID implies that life forms are somehow being designed. And an intelligence of some sort is behind the designing. How does that work with out some kind of God image doing the designing? If not God, where does the intelligence of ID as your presenting it sit? And where is the designing happening?

ID assumes that the God they imagine is not
smart enough to set up a universe that brings
forth life without said God having to tinker and
meddle to keep it running.

And assumes we are not smart enough
to know that it’s GD, not “I”D they are pushing
with bad math and zero data.

 

[DennisF]

As I understand it, ID implies that life forms are somehow being designed. And an intelligence of some sort is behind the designing. How does that work with out some kind of God image doing the designing? If not God, where does the intelligence of ID as your presenting it sit? And where is the designing happening?

Yes, the structure of the entire physical universe shows that intelligence is involved. When it is attributed to God, the word "God" has one of the widest ranges of meanings of any word. To the pagan worldview, God is the physical world itself, and the intelligence of it is part of it. Those who view God as transcending the physical world, it is the intelligence of the Creator. So you might view this argument about the development of life as a theological-philosophical argument by both theists and atheists. When Carl Sagan starts the Cosmos series by stating that the (physical) universe is all that was, is, or will be, that is a worldview statement, not a scientific statement. Some cling to evolution as the foundation of their atheistic faith, but it should be recognized that whether atheists try to employ evolution in that way or theists employ ID, both would at that point be going beyond the limitations of what science can accomplish and have extrapolated to the realm of philosophy and worldviews. The IDers I know understand that; too many evolutionary biologists do not, but some do.

What the ID people are interested in is the same as the Santa Fe Institute people: trying to resolve the question of how life can develop incrementally - that is, one small change at a time - without any feedback loops in the process. The question is not simple because some states of development require that they already be present in order to develop them. (See Behe and others on this.) This problem has been recognized for some time, along with the time-scale for incremental development, among mainstream evolutionists, and is why some, such as Stephen Jay Gould, hypothesized that there must be greater than incremental changes for the theory to work. IDer John Wiester and others have pointed out that evolution is not incremental anyway; the Cambrian explosion of new lifeforms in what in the geological and evolutionary time-scale is nearly instantaneous leaves neo-Darwinism without an explanation. Yet it is there in the fossil record. How it happened cannot be explained on the basis of present neo-Darwinian theory.

Take-away thought: Beware of anyone trying to use "science" (whether neo-Darwinism or ID) as the basis for their worldview. Science as a means of truth-seeking has inherent limitations in how it can find out knowledge that keep it from being an adequate worldview in itself.

 

[sesquiterpene]

Selection is random though the physical constraints imposed by selection would not be, if only it were known what they were. Suppose some or all of them are identified. Then they impose some guidance on the life development process and it makes no sense any more to talk of "blind chance" the way evolutionists getting rid of God through ignorance (blind chance) in the name of science have done in the past. Stephen Jay Gould understood this. Once evolution is no longer blind, God could be working in and through it.

This is pretty much incoherent. Can you give us an actual example of what you think random selection is?

 

[dlamberth]

Yes, the structure of the entire physical universe shows that intelligence is involved. When it is attributed to God, the word "God" has one of the widest ranges of meanings of any word. To the pagan worldview, God is the physical world itself, and the intelligence of it is part of it. Those who view God as transcending the physical world, it is the intelligence of the Creator.

Your describing is a type of Panenthesim.

 

[sesquiterpene]

That is a rather far-reaching question, considering that it depends on which of the various contexts is being considered. Is it the biochemical level? Genetic level? Morphological level? Biological system level? Environmental level? Informationally or computationally?

This is some rather desperate deflection on your part. Remember it is you who is claiming that selection is random, something I don't think any biologist claims. Why don't you give us an example of selection being random, at whatever level you wish.

 

[DennisF]

I've read The Design Inference and Darwin's Black Box. Can I be excused from watching your video? I'm away from my computer working from my phone and it would be a nuisance to watch the video unless there's something new in it.

If you are referring to the YouTube video with Meyer and a couple of guys from the MIT AI Lab, no; if you don't see it, how can you know what to respond to? I don't know what is in your mind, so you will have to determine novelties yourself. However, I can say that it is a fairly high-level discussion of the subject and I found its insight rate high enough to recommend it.