Beyond Intelligent Design - the Scientific Case for a Creator

So, a conscious, omnipotent being appearing out of nothing is more likely than basic matter and energy appearing out of nothing?

Also, the reproduction bit was rediculous and it's argument is simple to attack.

For instance, compare a living thing to a powerful computer or robot. They could very likely have the same capabilities in cognition, movement, survival, etcetera. However, the living thing can reproduce, so if one were to leave the two alone, exposed to weather, volcanoes, etcetera, only the reproducing one, or rather, it's descendants, would remain in the far future. If one were to return, then, it would appear as though only the reproducing one ever existed, because only reproducing ones would remain.

Therefore, we can imagine seperate life forms, or rather, complex molecules, arising more or less simultaneously. They may have all had the coding capabilities of RNA, but only RNA could reproduce, so therefore it appears, to far newer observers, to be the only one that has ever existed, giving the illusion of design. Of course, it's survivability lies not only in it's ability to reproduce, but on it's ability to adapt, since the reproduction isn't always perfect.

Therefore, we observe it because it reproduced. It didn't reproduce so that we could observe it.

[SNIP]

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[edit on 30-6-2008 by Gemwolf]

Originally posted by Lasheic
Ech, I hope you guys don't have to go through all the BS wait times for videos and other media as you do for video games.

i dont know, because i dont know when it comes out usually. i just see it in the store, i knew something was up because they had the trailer for futurama on the simpsons movie

But that's what I'm saying. Evolution may have it's gaps and it's contentions, but for the most part it all fits.

where did birds come from?

how did the eye develop?

these are not gaps but huge chasms. huge parts of the picture missing with theories and little to none evidence to back them up.

its real easy to say that the cambrian explosion was this massive move by evolution, but the fact is, lots of fully developed organisms suddenly showed up, with no transitionals or anything, just "pop" there they are.

what im saying is that the links between species are speculative. you have parts of the puzzle which have pictures. but the pictures dont attach.

ill give an example
so you have the horse and all the variations that exist today. (one picture)

equus (another picture)

merychippus (another picture)

miohippus (another)

and hyracotherium (another)

keeping in mind, that we dont have transitionals inbetween. we have multiple merychippus fossils, but they are all distinctly merychippus. even in the other "branches" there are distinct fossils that point to a distinct species

now you can connect these images together, afterall it would seem logical, but 2 things you have to keep in mind, the connection is speculative, and doesnt have solid proof besides (they look alike) and 2, the pieces of this part of the puzzle dont fit perfectly

variations in number of teeth and ribs, make making a timeline difficult at best. ribs going from 18 to 15 to 19 to 18 make for a very confusing timeline.

but lets say we can make the pieces fit, just press down alittle bit here and there and wa la, we have a section of the puzzle that shows the evolution of the horse.

now take that section and try to connect that to anything else. you cant. there isnt anything like it. the closest they got to it was condylarthra. now that is a big jump.

the fossil record has lots of these "gaps"

if someone was to say that all animals are separated into their kind and that one species doesnt evolve into another (like creationist and IDer's do), he would be making a statement that doesnt conflict with the fossil record.

There's literally millions of research papers written on all aspects of Evolution as applies to Biology. I simply don't see this from the Intelligent Design movement. If they had the facts on their side, then it would be easy to demonstrate and offer a much more plausible explanation. But this isn't the case. When you visit a creationist website, nearly everything you get is simply attempts to poke holes in the theory of evolution. There is no other alternative proposed with the research to back it up.

in some cases i agree with you, thats why i stay away from creationist websites.

but from my point of view alot of these papers are misapplied. if you read alot of them, they are mostly theories based on facts, but the conclusions are speculative.

take a petri dish and put some e.coli in it and watch evolution work. problem is they dont know how the changes take place (the theory may be mutations) but there is no proof. and then there is the problem of when does e.coli stop being e.coli and start evolving into something else? 60 years of fruit fly mutations along with acceleration with x-rays which would equal 1,000,000 years of evolution on man's scale (which supposedly man changed quite a bit in 1,000,000 million years) and you still have a fruit fly. ok fruit fly with mutations like smaller wings or no wings or different colors but they are still fruit flys.

i read that from scientific journals, not creationist websites

you have this fossil record and a bunch of animals that can be organized. but there is no defined way that one animal came to be another

I don't understand. Expound on this a bit, because it seems to me you're discussing Taxonomy and Phylogeny.

sorry i got ahead of myself abit, see the horse arguement

for this theory to work, you need an infinate amount of transitional forms. so much so that i would guess you wouldnt even be able to tell one species from another.

I wouldn't say infinite - but each successive generation is a different transitional form, yet. We are all transitional forms.

yes inifinate, thats how gradualism works, slowly.

miohippus is nearly double the size of hyracotherium, the teeth change slightly, ribs go from 18 to 15. toes less one and i believe the number of vertebras changes but im not sure about that one.

so if hyracotherium evolved into miohippus, where are the transitionals? you mean a hyracotherium had a baby one day and it was a miohippus? the fossil record would they that (if they are infact the same species)

its because of this that many evolutionist reject gradualism and favor mutations and the cause for evolution. and it makes sense because each change in the fossil is significant enough to make it plain to see that gradualism doesnt work.

when does a t-rex become an allosaurus? no idea because the line would be blurred so many times with transitional forms. does the fossil record support this? certainly not. t rex is a t rex, allosaurus is and allosaurus

Are you saying that we should have every single fossil of every single generation of every single creature which ever walked/flew/swam across the surface of the Earth? What you're asking for simply isn't possible because of how difficult a process fossilization is.

why not? we have at least 30 different specimens of the t-rex from all over, if there are tons of transitionals, why do we have distinct species?

When paleontologists went looking for a transitional fossil between panderichthys and acanthostega - they used Evolution to come up with an idea of where to dig, in what rock layer, and what they would find. And wouldn't you know it... they did. Tiktaalik turned out to be exactly what they were looking for.

but again that raises the question, did a panderichthys suddenly one day have a tiktaalik for a baby?

if not then were are the infinite transitionals inbetween? you have to understand something, if change is gradual, then the fossile record would show that. you'd have a skeleton that is exactly the same as the one before it except maybe it has and extra pair of teeth, or maybe its a cm longer.

if the fossil record had this, it would be quite hard to identify species. if you had a tiktaalik with 15 fin bones (im guessing that number, dont hold me to it) and i found a skeleton with 16, then is mine a new species? they are the same size and shape except for the amount of fin bones. then bob joins us, he has a tiktaalik with 15 fin bones (same as yours) but one less vertebra. what do we call his?

simply, we dont see this. according to the fossil record (if evolution is true) a panderichthys suddenly had a baby that was a tiktaalik

A bit of a misconception. The vast majority of mutations are completely benign. Of those that aren't, most of them are detrimental and get weeded out. Some, however, are beneficial and help the organism to survive.

i would have no problem believing that if it were proven true, but as of yet it is speculation.

but lets say for a second that they do, right? how many mutations do you need to make a new species? it goes back to the whole gradual arguement again. even mutations are gradual. they usually change on feature at a time.

back to the horses

miohippus is nearly double the size of hyracotherium, the teeth change slightly, ribs go from 18 to 15. toes less one and i believe the number of vertebras changes but im not sure about that one.

how many mutations for this single evolutionary "hop"?

if beneficial mutations happen, they are definatly rare. and in one tiny example in the fossil record we see we would need 4? healthy mutations at once.

have you ever heard of someone winning the lottery 4 times on the same day?

reply to post by Lasheic



as for the second part of your post, i addressed alot of it in my first post so please dont feel like im ignoring it.

i am a little "typed out" and i still have a few more posts to respond to.

Originally posted by SlyCM
So, a conscious, omnipotent being appearing out of nothing is more likely than basic matter and energy appearing out of nothing?

neither are logical, one always had to have existed.

on other words, for something to exist now, something has to have always existed.

evidence shows that the universe had a beginning.

Also, the reproduction bit was rediculous and it's argument is simple to attack.

it is simple, but its logic.

your entire argument is good, but your talking about survivability without asking why its there in the first place.

why does life reproduce? why does it feel a cumpulsion to pass on and continue? does a rock care if its going to be pulverized? will it react to defend it's self? will a planet change trajectory to save it'self from a hit from an asteroid? or maybe water evolves a way to stop itself from evaporating.

the question is why not how. and if you try to answer that independently of a creator or god, then you have nothing. there is no reason life would develop a desire to live and survive.

the very concept of surviving is an abstract thought that could only be defined by an intelligent mind. there is no way a single cell organism could define something like that for itself.

Another thing I would like to point out, is that considering how unlikely an animal is to fossilize, we cannot expect to find every species that ever lived. In fact, the true number is probably closer to 0.01%. It is likely that, in a sense, all are transitions, because all eventually gave way to new organisms; we can see that by looking out the window, or in the mirror.

Many dinosaur fossils have highly subjective groupings, a perfect example being the genera Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus. Tarbosaurus was marginally smaller and had some skull differences from Tyrannosaurus, and lived on a different continent, present day Asia. However, many paleontologists insist that the two genera are actually one. The matter now is debated, and since we can't use DNA testing in most cases, the matter will remain unresolved for a while.

Or the white cedar, Thuja occidentalis. I work in a garden centre and was stunned to discover that T. o. "Teddy" is the same species as T. o. "Smaragd". These two varieties are the same species, but represent significant morphological and physiological change.

So, the point being, groupings are man-made and can be subjective. The lack of an in-between grouping does not support creationism, and as of yet there is no universally accepted definition of "species". I could easily point out the fact that triggerfish are a clear "in-between" of pufferfish and "regular" ray-finned fish, and that swamp eels are a clear "in-between" of muraenids and "regular" eels, but since we are not totally sure of these fishes' phylogeny I cannot know for certain.

"Why"... because certain chemicals mixed in a certain way, by chance.

Evolution is not goal oriented. Cells "wish" to reproduce no more than a motor "wishes" to turn when a current is applied. They are simply "wired" to do it, the same way the motor is wired. The cells have no choice.

Of course, we know for certain that the motor was intelligently designed, while the life form may or may not have been. Hypothesis have been proposed to explain abiogenesis, and amino acids are known to assemble. But so far, science cannot explain the origins of RNA, but that's no reason to give up on it. We wouldn't be sitting here typing if God still created electrons, now would we?

[edit on 30-6-2008 by SlyCM]

Originally posted by SlyCM
"Why"... because certain chemicals mixed in a certain way, by chance.

thats the same as saying "because god did it"

reproduction has a very really purpose and is a very complex action that has obvious benefits.

why did the chemicals mix that way when they dont in any only form in the universe.

you can make sound mundane all you like but reproduction (even it is a single cell organism) is a scientific miracle.

i find it interesting that you use a comparison with a motor being that a motar of obviously designed, and your right, a motor does "wish to turn", its designed to. it really all that hard to see the possibility that life doesnt "wish to reproduce" but instead its designed to?

somehow the random alternative seems less likely

We wouldn't be sitting here typing if God still created electrons, now would we?

im sorry, i dont understand you here.

"Why"... because certain chemicals mixed in a certain way, by chance.

The atheism of the gaps.

Absurd - Ever here of entropy? It's the most sure law in science.

The whole point of ID is that "chance" isn't an explanation at all - in fact it's a lot worse than God did it. We have some compelling reasons like the Big bang creation to believe in a transcendental creator.

We have more reason to believe in the tooth fairy than to believe the second law of thermodynamics was lifted for a moment just to create the atheistic faith.

?

Your argument can be refuted by simply reffering to the stunning improbability that any superintelligent, calculating, conscious being arising out of nothing and continually bending laws of physics carries.

Entropy doesn't always increase in molecular systems. Some particles (phospholipid bilayers) arrange spontaneously and cells can assemble molecules, among other examples. Amino acids can assemble when electricity is applied, and rubber fuses into one giant molecule when heat is applied.

Abundant things in the Archean Eon include heat, static electricity, and precursors to phospholipid bilayers and amino acids. The result being, no God needed. The problem here is that God is superfluous and violates Occam's razor (God would need to "bend the laws of physics" anyways).

Before the question of how God created the universe can be hazarded a guess, the more fundamental problem of where God came from must be answered.

And yes, "He always existed" is a weak cop-out.

[edit on 30-6-2008 by SlyCM]

reply to post by miriam0566

Like I said before, we can imagine, at first, several different "life" forms all arising more or less at the same time. However, and as my "robot" example clearly expains, in the far future only the reproducing one would remain, because it reproduced. There is no "spirituality" in reproduction per se, and the ability to reproduce does not aid in the individual animal's survival; in fact, if anything, it detracts from it.

We can also see, in the present day, mutations or hybridizations that produce sterile animals. They, although perfectly suited to survival, are unable to reproduce, so in a few hundred years it will be like the irreproducing animal never existed, leaving a sapient species to wonder "why all animals reproduce" when in reality they don't all reproduce. We only see those that did, and therefore it appears to us that no other type ever existed, creating the illusion of purpose and design.

Which brings me back to the idea of "We see them because they reproduced. They didn't reproduce to allow us to see them".

The "God created electrons" bit was to convey the idea that if we still resorted to the "God did it" cop out in other areas of science, we would still be cavemen writing on walls. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in my opinion.

[edit on 30-6-2008 by SlyCM]

Originally posted by SlyCM

Another thing I would like to point out, is that considering how unlikely an animal is to fossilize, we cannot expect to find every species that ever lived. In fact, the true number is probably closer to 0.01%. It is likely that, in a sense, all are transitions, because all eventually gave way to new organisms; we can see that by looking out the window, or in the mirror.

hehe I got to say,, meriam really puts you guys to shame lol. Her posts impress the hell out of me.

Now,, about this fantasy of yours, the entire first paragrapgh you are assuming the consequent, Just because you want to believe they are all transitions, then that means they are?

Now that we have that established, you insist on more hallucinating saying they all gave way to new organisms which is supported by your first hallucination which means when I look in the mirror I am actually looking at a being in transition regardless of anything showing in the fossil record to substantiate that claim so you explain away that one with the old interchangeable "fossils are hard to come by" excuse, which is not our fault. It isnt our fault there is no proof in the fossil record and that is YOUR problem not ours to believe it because they can't find it.

You can't find it so we have no reason to believe it

Makes sense if you think hard about it.

So, the point being, groupings are man-made and can be subjective. The lack of an in-between grouping does not support creationism

depends on how you say it,, if we were talking about evolution you would have said it this way, so far no fossils ever found, disprove evolution.

Now why do you say it doesn't support creationism when you seem to be missing a very important factor which doesn't apply to creationism like it does to evolution. Ill let you figure it out and hopefully you will post what I think you are going to post so it will have more impact or at least for me it will. hehe .

You talk a lot about hearsay and subscribe to more BS then any of the other evolutionists on ATS most all the examples you gave in this thread are shrouded in controversy and deceptions www.abovetopsecret.com...

In all meriam has said you ignore the crux of her argument which is simply this,, EVOLUTION did not, has not and will not ever find fossils like that simply because it didn't happen that way and ALL of the "this to that" sotry is just that, a story.

Obviously these were not legs on this fish no more then your arms are legs. If I were to call your arms, legs, how many legs would you have?

Two is all because I called them legs doesn't me they are legs when they are arms. The artist renderings the dogma the manufactured black market for transition fossils, the absolutley pathetic peer review process and the myth of the scientific method, the BS gets piled so high and rather then cart it off to a landfill somewhere, they call it the mountain of evidence LOL. The rest of those you name,,

all "fish storys"

Always chaaasing raaainbows

- Con





[edit on 1-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

Originally posted by SlyCM

Your argument can be refuted by simply reffering to the stunning improbability that any superintelligent, calculating, conscious being arising out of nothing and continually bending laws of physics carries
Your argument can be refuted by simply reffering to the stunning improbability that any superintelligent, calculating, conscious being arising out of nothing and continually bending laws of physics carries.

Ever hear the phrase, "it's easy when ya know how?"

Well Obviously YOU DON'T

Abundant things in the Archean Eon include heat, static electricity, and precursors to phospholipid bilayers and amino acids. The result being, no God needed.

There is if you want to include that list you just mentioned as matter doesn't create itself and all that even anti matter is all moving toward the new multi universe argument to offset the damage to evolutionists cosmology poses. If we are to accept the multi universe I suppose ANYTHING can exist in a multi universe.

even God.

And yes, "He always existed" is a weak cop-out.

So the truth isn't good enough for you it is a cop out?

Another words,, give you something you can better understand while you actively disbelieve in God.

pffft

- Con

Originally posted by miriam0566

...on other words, for something to exist now, something has to have always existed.

Logically speaking eternal existence is simply equivalent to existence that has not started at all, which is obviously far away from eternal. It actually contradicts existance itself, does it not ?

Using existence of something to explain existence of something else is circular logic, only non-existance can be way out of it.

This certainly gives a weight to the thought that everything came to existence out of NOTHING (non-existance).

Eh, weird, isn't it ?

Originally posted by SlyCM

The problem here is that God is superfluous and violates Occam's razor

Unless you are omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent; i don't see how G*d could be superfluous.

G*d can actually be supported by Occam's razor.

"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."

The simplest "solution" to the queries of the universe is to just say that G*d did it . . . any other explanation is more complicated and requires a stretch of the imagination.

(God would need to "bend the laws of physics" anyways).

Last i checked, G*d could do whatever G*d wants . . . so i don't see a problem there.

Before the question of how God created the universe can be hazarded a guess, the more fundamental problem of where God came from must be answered.

Must be answered? for? who? what? why?

And yes, "He always existed" is a weak cop-out.

If you know that "He always existed" is a non applicable or incorrect answer, are you implying you know the correct answer?

Originally posted by 5thElement

Originally posted by miriam0566

...on other words, for something to exist now, something has to have always existed.

Logically speaking eternal existence is simply equivalent to existence that has not started at all, which is obviously far away from eternal. It actually contradicts existance itself, does it not ?

Using existence of something to explain existence of something else is circular logic, only non-existance can be way out of it.

This certainly gives a weight to the thought that everything came to existence out of NOTHING (non-existance).

Eh, weird, isn't it ?

You are missing her point slick, what she is talking about is for something to exist that is created, it has to have a cause, that means a begining and a creator who exists outside of cause and effect outside of time which also was created for this very reason.

We know time has a begining which means everything that came after that begins, but outside of the realm of time is where God would have always been. She wasn't asserting that as part of her argument but explaining why sly's idea is flawed and to explain this is hard for most people to fathom.

BTW, no, eternal existence doesn't contradict finite existence.

See Below:

Logically speaking eternal existence is simply equivalent to existence that has not started at all,

Exactly! and that is just what she was trying to say.

Now if it is eternal and never started does not mean it never existed, it just means it was not in the dimension of time to define its begining. This is how God uses this as a means to do all things and be all places at the same time because it doesn't take any "time" for him to do it.

This is also the method he uses to reveal divine providence, why there are gaps and all the other God like idiosyncrasies people like sly can't wrap his mind around without the Biblical knowledge to understand.

- Con



[edit on 1-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

Originally posted by 5thElement

This certainly gives a weight to the thought that everything came to existence out of NOTHING (non-existance).

Eh, weird, isn't it ?

sorry im in hospital right now and my modem gets signal and sometimes not.

anyway, what is one universal law that we have seen, that has never ever been broken?

something NEVER comes from nothing. even in our universe, something ALWAYS comes from something. from energy to matter or vice versa.

to get ash, you need a fire.

to get tea, you need water and leaves.

everything single thing needs raw material to form into something.

why would the beginning of the universe suddenly break that law, and then after adhere to it perfectly?

the arguement that anything (universe, god, etc etc) can come into existance from an infinite state of nothing breaks down the very foundation of logic.

if thats true, then anything is possible. by anything i mean ANYTHING.

it also makes no sense why the universe would suddenly change its mind.

the only logical conclusion is that "something" had to have always existed.

Originally posted by miriam0566
the arguement that anything (universe, god, etc etc) can come into existance from an infinite state of nothing breaks down the very foundation of logic.

Lol, people take this matter often too seriously... More important thing to realize here is that logic is something which is a limited. This limit becomes more visible the closer we get to the most ultimate question of them all:

Why there is something rather then nothing ?

No matter how disappointing it is, answer to this question is impossible to obtain. If we go deep enough we start running in circles and logic and/or presence of god are irrelevant

Originally posted by 5thElement
Why there is something rather then nothing ?

No matter how disappointing it is, answer to this question is impossible to obtain. If we go deep enough we start running in circles and logic and/or presence of god are irrelevant

i dont understand why it would be impossible to obtain.

you have 2 possibilties

something came from nothing

and

something always was.

which one makes more sense?

now if you are an atheist and specifically do not wish to believe in god, i can understand why you would have difficulty with this question. it forces you to admit that an eternal god becomes more logical than a universe which sprang from nothing for no reason.

thats why there are still people who argue against the big bang, admitting the universe has a beginning is to be forced to admit that "something" else, other than our universe, existed before. and so people wiggle around the logic until they come up with a theory that satisfies them. but it still boils down to the same simple question. "can something come from nothing." it doesnt take much to see that the obvious answer is no.