Why do intelligent designers have to oppose evolution?

I've been looking up a number of articles concerning the long drawn out debate on evolution and I've come across those who call themselves intelligent designers and their position. Now I always believed at one point that intelligent design and creationism were the same thing, but no, intelligent designers do not claim to be of the same belief as creationists:

Is Intelligent Design the same thing as Creationism?

No. Intelligent Design adherents believe only that the complexity of the natural world could not have occurred by chance. Some intelligent entity must have created the complexity, they reason, but that "designer" could in theory be anything or anyone. In 1802, William Paley used the "divine watchmaker" analogy to popularize the design argument *: If we assume that a watch must have been fashioned by a watchmaker, then we should assume that an ordered universe must have been fashioned by a divine Creator. Many traditional Creationists have embraced this argument over the years, and most, if not all, modern advocates for Intelligent Design are Christians who believe that God is the designer.

www.slate.com...

From what I understand, intelligent design is merely the belief that our world, our existence, cannot purely be coincidence. Creationists believe in the very same thing, but the difference here is that they go so far argue that biblical references are relevant to our existence.

But this is where I begin to question Intelligent design. I mean a person may believe in God or that there is a god, they may believe in the after life, they may even believe that there is some truth to the Abrahamic religions, but at the same time they may also believe in evolution. Surely it doesn't go against the principals of intelligent design to believe that God does exist, and he is responsible for evolution? How does evolution directly counter intelligent design? It doesn't make any sense from my understanding, it would make no sense to differentiate intelligent design if evolution can never be accepted. Any intelligent designers here?

reply to post by Southern Guardian


Look, to be honest? The main reason Creationists/Intelligent Designers/most Christians don't believe in Evolution, is because it just doesn't work. There is mountains of evidence that it DOES work, but there are mountains of evidence suggesting that it DOESN'T work.

There is nothing that "prevents" us from believing in it, it's not like if a Christian believes in Evolution he is going to hell - it's just like, say, the moon landing. There is NOTHING in the Bible that forces Christians to believe that man never went to the moon - yet I know several Christians (and non-believers) who don't believe in the Moon landing.

Why?

We're just different, we don't trust our Govt. Our faith is not in people, but in God, perhaps? There's probably hundreds of reasons, but believe me - none of those reasons is because it'll go against God if we do believe in it. We. Just. Don't. Know.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


I must be weird.

I am an "Intelligent design by God led to Evolution." guy...

People often miss that if God created man through evolution he is a greater God for seeing all that will ever be from the get go rather than having to do everything "on the spot."

My God is Big, but he LOVES freewill, so he stays out of the way of my path for the most part unless im being a continual idiot, and sometimes a god smack, to get that evolutionary spirit going again, is all that's needed.

Did god create tapeworms, leaches, the plague? Is he busy always creating New viruses?

I think things happen in the spirit vibration before physical manifestation. Being this way I think the holes in Evolution are there because beings decide how to evolve rather than just natural selection. We are creating things we think about... I think so maybe we can decide our own evolution. I would like wings personally haha.

Told you I was weird.


~Dusty

Consciousness (intelligence) creates, and the creation evolves. And spurts of evolution are created from that consciousness. Two spirals, one goes outward, one goes inward, both infinite.

There, all 3 incorporated into one. Was that hard?

All "things" grow and evolve, all "things" were created, all "things" are surrounded by consciousness.

reply to post by AdamsMurmur


Dang you said that concisely. I feel so clumsy in my explanation now. I concur 100%.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

....but the difference here is that they go so far argue that biblical references are relevant to our existence.

That's the main problem. If biblical references talked about evolution the followers would believe it. There is evidence of evolution in everyday life. Everyday your cells change and mutate, and in generations, certain groups pick up or completely discard genetic traits. What evolution is lacking, is some very old data that is not accessible anymore. DNA tends to break down over the years, and we do not have records of every species that ever existed.

However, evolution does not negate creation possibilities. (Something I've said in other threads.) It's entirely possible some grand designer fashioned our world and us to take a certain course and that included an evolutionary path.

I just wonder how you can take dinosaurs, and over a dozen hominid species and kind of pretend they didn't exist by reading a very old book.

Some people have tried to give biblical explanations for old fossil records, but a lot of it is just plain childish. The dragon theory (dinosaurs) is laughable. As we know dinosaurs do not meet the description of dragons in old texts. Although, if someone had stumbled upon dinosaur bones a few thousand years ago, it does seem like a plausible way that myth came about.

reply to post by Lionhearte

but there are mountains of evidence suggesting that it DOESN'T work.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, care to provide some?

reply to post by Atzil321


How about the Law of Non-contradiction? How do you explain "something" from "nothing", which is true, unguided randomness? Or rather, in more blatant terms life or consciousness from non-life and non-consciousness? Magic? Some magic called emergence? The fairy tale of the "frog prince"? Please use order to explain randomness and do so in a way in which I am expected to believe is not a fairy tale, since obviously your explanation will make a whole lot of sense. As a matter of fact, how about demonstrating to me how something comes from nothing, and THEN showing me how it develops consciousness - go!

On second thought, after doing that, then demonstrate for me, please (I would like to see it), how the Law of Non-contradiction is still true, since you would have just proven the absurd can be true, and science relies on that very Law. Yes, use your orderly demonstration to show me how random virtual particles can magically become ordered and real and evolve without any order. Show me how no intelligence is involved in the demonstration, and therefore is not part of it. I await your orderly and intelligent response to the impossible.

You may, questionably, have every right to say that order does not imply intelligence, but you have no right to say that orderly demonstration can in any way, shape, or form, prove, or even imply random and non-intelligent order. Until you can prove measurement without intelligence, and most would agree measurement is a necessary part of order, then total non-intelligent randomness must and should be considered a fairy tale. How can anything be orderly without measurement, and what does physics prove concerning measurement and the role of the observer?

How can anything be considered to have order without being measured?

Place the limitation on man if you desire, but the fact remains that his system of logic and thought depends upon it; therefore, no man can go beyond it using any method of "truth" and not move into the absurd.

reply to post by Lionhearte

Look, to be honest? The main reason Creationists/Intelligent Designers/most Christians don't believe in Evolution, is because it just doesn't work.

Except that it does work, and most ID believers (and laymen in general) tend to be ignorant about science, so they dont and often cannot even properly evaluate if it works or not.

The main reason is the presence of a meme among Christians which says "evolution = atheism, blasphemy, evil etc." Thats it, there is no deeper reason. Its just a part of a good Christian stereotype, at least in the US.

Originally posted by Lionhearte
Look, to be honest? The main reason Creationists/Intelligent Designers/most Christians don't believe in Evolution, is because it just doesn't work. There is mountains of evidence that it DOES work, but there are mountains of evidence suggesting that it DOESN'T work.

Mountain of evidence for evolution, yes. Evidence against evolution, nope. There is NONE. The irreducible complexity ignorance has been shown to be a false conclusion in every single case it has been suggested. These are the facts, so try to be honest. The main reason why religious people don't believe in Evolution is, because it contradicts their core magical beliefs. Evolution is not even a matter of belief, but understanding and logical reasoning, it's a law of nature just like gravity, and unlike for gravity, there actually is a complete theory that explains it.

The whole evolution vs. [insert deity mechanism here] debate is nonsense, and is a product of exclusivism. I consider myself a 'Christian', and there is nothing antithetical in the theory of evolution or its mechanics, because its epistemological and geological, whereas the theory of a Creator/deity is more metaphysical and mathematically dependent (i.e. negative theology). In this manner, I align myself with Theodosius Dobzhansky.

When I have a discussion or read a work of biology/theology, the minute it initiates the conflict thesis, I tune out/stop reading because it has become politically motivated.

Originally posted by AdamsMurmur
Consciousness (intelligence) creates, and the creation evolves. And spurts of evolution are created from that consciousness. Two spirals, one goes outward, one goes inward, both infinite.

There, all 3 incorporated into one. Was that hard?

All "things" grow and evolve, all "things" were created, all "things" are surrounded by consciousness.

That ignores the concept.

Evolution is a process that is slow. Creation is a concept of a process that is instant.

I plant a seed, I am intelligent. I then watch that seed change into a flower. I am not god.

I am not omnipotent nor am I supreme. Therein lies the difference.

Cant have your cake and eat it, you can say god created everything as it is NOW and deny evolution (or embrace it as a sect of creationism that says god IS evolution) or you can look at how fallible life is, how frail humans are, how so much poverty and suffering surrounds us and conclude that life is an erratic conflagration of energy that only things that can survive the extremes of it all, survive.

How is it inconceivable for someone to think that out of a fire is forged the strongest steel? Why does the fire become meaningless when god comes into play?

Evolution is simply survival of the most competent. Even when it comes to the high and mighty idea of humanity.

We get cancer. We get old. We get sick. We die in vitro. We are not supreme. We cannot live in a forrest without shelter. We cannot survive in the arctic regions. We cannot even survived in the heat if we are likely to suffer from it.

Would god go so far as to create a being so conscious of his own being to acknowledge himself, yet allow that creation to perish if left alone? AND THEN LEAVE US ALONE?

No... flowers are pretty, sky is blue. Water is cool. Fluffy bunnies are cute. Take away the human interpretation of it, and it's nothing more than eat or be eaten. Evolution is who survives the longest and even then, they will too perish.

evolution and god are not concepts mutually exclusive by any means, but as concepts they remain.

I can see a seed grown. I cannot see god.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


From my standpoint, evolution itself appears to be directed intelligently.

We know mutation rates and the size of genomes. We understand genetic drift in populations. We understand selection pressures like natural selection.

What we observe, however, in almost every case, is a speed of change, towards some optimized form, that exceeds what we calculate.

If random chance determined genetic mutation purely, then some mutations would be beneficial and that's all good. But the opposite side of the "random" coin is that, BY FAR, most mutations would NOT be beneficial and would rapidly "devolve" the species towards extinction. These crippled, blind and deformed organisms would compete for the same resources and through sheer force of numbers dangerously unbalance the environment for the entire species.

But we don't see that massive devolution, AT ALL! Not even anything vaguely like it.

What we do see, when we see genetic change, is positive change towards survivability, and happening in time frames that are simply too fast to be the result of the mechanisms of evolution (genetic mutation, genetic drift and survival of the fittest).

It's like directed genetic mutation, call it intelligent design, if you wish, but it's happening NOW as we watch.

God was not the master watchmaker who made his timepiece, wound it up and walked away. That is an outmoded Creationist and Evolutionist theory that assigns such change to the distant past.

God intelligently is directing the development of life towards higher forms right now. The signs of evolution we see also speaks, therefore, of intelligent design.

Originally posted by chr0naut
If random chance determined genetic mutation purely, then some mutations would be beneficial and that's all good. But he opposite side of the "random" coin is that, by far, most mutations would not be beneficial and would rapidly "devolve" the species towards extinction. These crippled, blind and deformed organisms would compete for the same resources and through sheer force of numbers dangerously unbalance the environment for the entire species.

Failing to take into an account natural selection that weeds out the "inferior" individuals, thus making the population more fit as a whole, e.g. those alleles with beneficial mutations increase in their frequency distribution. Mutation process is somewhat random, natural selection on the other hand is not. Together, these two factors cause the natural phenomenon of evolution, which the theory of evolution explains..

There are many who believe in "Intelligently Designed Evolution" or "Evolution as a tool god used for creation"

There's two reasons IDers tend not to believe in evolution. The first, is that Intelligent Design isn't completely separate from creationism, most intelligent designers are religious(creationists) but try to cover that motive up with calling it something supposedly scientific. The term Intelligent Design, was created as a response to the courts deeming creationism a religion. The second is psuedo-science put forth by religiously motivated men trying to make it seem like there's 'piles of evidence that evolution doesn't work', that there's so much misinformation out there that some get mislead.

~
The only controversy about evolution, is that it goes against a literal interpretation of genesis. That leads to piles of people trying to sound scientific, trying to debunk it.

Originally posted by xxsomexpersonxx
The only controversy about evolution, is that it goes against a literal interpretation of genesis.

Correct.

In my previous post, I should have added that i'm not of the opinion that the temporal nature of Genesis is literal.

reply to post by mainidh


I did not mention God. I mentioned consciousness. You can see yourself, and not your ego, right? When you do, you will see "God", and you will see that in everything.

A deity is something that's "supernatural", but the "supernatural" is only nature that's misunderstood or not truly known. So then "deity" becomes a creation of man, a word applied to something beyond man because man does not fully understand it, while nature is just there.

We can see nature, we can see the seed and it's fruit. This is the aspect of the natural that we understand, but the aspects of the natural that we don't understand is seen as either a figment or as a deity.

Life is only as fallible as we make it out to be. When humans realize that we're in control, then we can bring change. We focus all our love in the wrong direction, and we detest each other in the process, because most humans live in the ego, which is the source of fear, greed, intolerance, ignorance, and so on and so forth. We worship our egos, and we can become psychopaths in the process. An inflated ego only sees itself and not much else. When we see only our ego, we have the world we live in today; it lacks compassion because compassion is a two-way street between all life, and if one aspect of life (a human) lives in it's ego, then compassion has nowhere to go, and the person ends up loving their false self (narcissism). I say false self because we all came from a single point; we're made up of carbons and so on, we all bleed red, we're all one, but ego likes to pretend we aren't, it is selfish - not selfless. And there you get the schism and suffering that we experience today. It's our fault, not a "God" and not a "devil", it's us for allowing it to happen. We give in to our temptations, our ego, our desires, our selfishness, and that creates suffering in others. We submit to it, and we create hell.

If we can't forgive ourselves and others in the present moment, then we will continue to suffer in the present moment.

Survival is an aspect of ego, but we need to play by it's rules to an extent. We gotta eat food and drink water or the body will lose it's cohesion and die, but when it comes to "us vs them", we go overboard and create war. War is survival gone insane. And that's why anyone with "good conscience" knows and understands that war only exists because of greedy, selfish, people. But even all the bad has it's place: it serves us as contrast and creates different experiences. If we truly don't want it, then we'll change it, but everyone needs to "wake up" to that and make it happen.

You see a seed grow, but you don't ask yourself how come, but just believe whatever it is you believe. It's not simply by mistake, the seed knows to grow, it learned how. That's all I'm saying. But what I'm not saying is that that (an accident or fluke) can't happen. Yes things can evolve out of a "mistake" or "accident" - that's the beauty of life, anything is possible. Once in a while, life throws you a curve ball, right?

All life is an experience, good and bad. We should be thankful that we can even ask and talk about all of this. Question everything, even your beliefs or lack thereof. If we don't question, we won't learn, and if we don't learn, we don't grow - we stay as seeds.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

I am a Christian and I think God created evolution.

Originally posted by rhinoceros

Originally posted by chr0naut
If random chance determined genetic mutation purely, then some mutations would be beneficial and that's all good. But he opposite side of the "random" coin is that, by far, most mutations would not be beneficial and would rapidly "devolve" the species towards extinction. These crippled, blind and deformed organisms would compete for the same resources and through sheer force of numbers dangerously unbalance the environment for the entire species.

Failing to take into an account natural selection that weeds out the "inferior" individuals, thus making the population more fit as a whole, e.g. those alleles with beneficial mutations increase in their frequency distribution. Mutation process is somewhat random, natural selection on the other hand is not. Together, these two factors cause the natural phenomenon of evolution, which the theory of evolution explains..

edit on 4-4-2012 by rhinoceros because: (no reason given)

Where are the devolutionary trends in controlled environments with no predation (removing natural selection)?

If you gamble and the house has only a 51% chance of winning, you will loose all your money, especially if you play longer. Now apply that to genetic mutation.

I would have thought that natural selection and a high rate of deleterious genetic change just leads to faster extinction (two depopulative forces at once).

You may be surprised to find out that the human male chromosome has about 125,000 years left in it and then it will have become unviable (read "Adams Curse" by Sykes).

Heritable genetic damage is cumulative and destructive. The longer an organism has been around, the more damage is accumulated in its genome.

At some point, the viability of the species is compromised and the species goes extinct. We can observe this process happening.

It suggests that all species must be fairly recent, not millions of years old.

Originally posted by chr0naut
Where are the devolutionary trends in controlled environments with no predation (removing natural selection)?

Predation is not the only form of natural selection, on the contrary competition also happens in intraspecies manner. This is why e.g. peafowl males have such gigantic tales. From interspecies aspect it's a big minus, e.g. individuals with larger tails are more easily caught by e.g. foxes. On the other hand, the females are more willing to reproduce with big tailed individuals, so there it brings about a competitive advantage (sexual selection is but a subtype of natural selection). What on Earth made you assume that natural selection didn't apply inside species?