evolution does not explain the origin of the universe (part 2)

[Moderator]

[Moderator]

1. kick

:kick:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. Come on GODDAMMIT. DU's rules state it is not a right wing debate site

Google the term INTELLIGENT DESIGN and you will be led to a PLETHORA of right wing sites instructing people on how to litter every fucking corner of the internet universe with this unfounded tripe.

If something has changed and DU is now a right wing debate site, then please make a public announcment professing it to be so so that those of us who came to DU to get a reprieve from this bullshit can KNOW the terms of participation have changed.

400 posts later, there are one or two people arguing FOR it and at least 200 astute responses that are never addressed by the people who believe in Intelligent Design who CANNOT support their position with anything short of I THINK THEREFORE IT IS.

[Walt Starr]

3. Yup, it's pretty sickening when the reichwingnuts take over the debate

at DU.

Maybe I need a break. There are liberal blogs out there.

[Salviati]

5. Well, lets just hijack this thread before it gets started then...

got any pictures of kitties?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. For the record, you'll get in trouble if you do

[Salviati]

66. But I like cats...

What, do you have something against cats?

I hearby declare that All threads on DU should consist of cat pix, and DU shall henceforth be known as CU... Cat Underground


...or not...

sorry...

:silly:

[Walt Starr]

10. just pictures of Intelligent Design proponents

[rawtribe]

4. Well said n/t

[JitterbugPerfume]

12. it is the invasion

of the god people


it happens occasionally

[Kathy in Cambridge]

30. It's two stealth you-know-whats

who have been here posting disinformation for years.

[KittyWampus]

9. Actually, I Can Direct You To Some Sites That Are Entirely NON Sectarian

And those who argue against Intelligent Design literally don't know what they're even arguing against.

It's pathetic the Science Fundies are as idiotic as the Religious Fundies.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

13. Link away..no one is stopping you

[DrWeird]

22. Here's a link worth clicking.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=982475#982884

[Zenlitened]

58. You're right. I don't see how that post could be seen as anything...

... but conjecture, at best.

Starts off with a falsehood, re the universe evolving out of matter. Uh, no, it was energy.

And then the claim that consciousness has shaped the physical world. Evidence of this, anyone?

Then the idea that a universal consciousness caused itself to differentiate into matter. Again, where is some evidence of this? How is this different than saying it's all just a turtle's dream?

For good measure, toss in the old chestnut about "science can't PROVE" evolution or cosmology or whatever the case may be.

And yet... "Believe this! Now! Or else you are a Science Fundie!"

:eyes:

than the "theory" of Materialsim which posits that the Universe, Life and Intelligence evolved out of Physical Matter.

Western Science has never proven that Physical Matter can create Life OR Intelligence.

On the other hand, the entire world around us displays how our Consciousness has shaped the Physical World.

Intelligent Design does NOT say that some Creator/Limited Personality
created the Universe.

Rather, it posits the notion that Reality proceeds from Consiousness. That originally "All That Is, Was And Shall Be" was Consciousness... and that Consciousness began to differentiate itself into various states and then into various forms.

What happens is Religious AND Scientific Fundies project their own sense of Limited Personality onto the Intelligence inherent in all states of existence and all Physical Matter.

[KittyWampus]

23. Why? I've Posted Links, Books, Scientists. Made Perfectly Logical

Arguments and simple statements... and yet nooone reads any of it.

Why bother?

Science Fundies are as close-minded and dogmatic as Religious Fundies.

And meanwhile, those who are really interesting in Progress and forging ahead without you.

[DrWeird]

38. Do it again.

You never really posted them before.

[DrWeird]

14. Same could be said for you.

As you've said yourself, Intelligent Design doesn't require a God.

And that's obviously false.

[KittyWampus]

17. Actually, I Proved My Case Quite Well. Reality Has Been Proven To Be

non-local.

[DrWeird]

24. Actually, you just typed some nonsensical words.

You didn't prove anything to anybody, except maybe yourself.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DrWeird]

45. I'm honestly trying to make sense out of your argument.

Your argument was:

"experiments have shown that the universe is non-local."

Now, I'm a reasonably educated and open-minded human being, but what that means and what it has to do with "intelligent design" not implying a God, I haven't the foggiest. So, there's only two possible reasons why I can't make sense of it.

1. You haven't explained it properly.

2. It's just nonsense.

[DrWeird]

54. *crickets*

hello?

[Salviati]

67. The statement on it's own makes sense and is true...

The universe does have some phenomena that current theories can explain only by assuming non-local interactions (Or as Einstein put it "Spooky action at a distance")

These phenomena include the measurement of some property of two entangled particles. Measuring one of the particles, seemingly instantaniously determines the property of the other (of course WHAT it decides to settle on is completely and utterly random, so it's alas of no use for ansible (FTL radio) construction). It has been determined that the particles cannot conspire beforehand to "get their story straight", but rather the "decision" must be made instantaniously between the two particles seperated by an arbitary distance.

This is just a brief (and horribly incomplete) summery of the phenomena, you can google Bell's Theorem or Bell's Inequality to find out more. (As a word of caution, there's a lot of hooey out there that referances this, so make sure you're looking at a respectable source before you give the page any weight)

What all this has to do with God? You've got me...

[BBradley]

71. I don't understand what this means either.

Science usually doesn't deal with subjective ideas like locality. Besides that, I understand all of the individual words, just not what they're supposed to mean when you put them together.

[Walt Starr]

21. "Intelligent Design doesn't require a God"

Many, I have never heard that one outta anybody before! Seriously, I have never once heard anybody who pushes Creationism reworded as Intelligent Design say that!

WTF do they think the alleged "Intelligence" is supposed to be and how the hell did it get there?

[DrWeird]

26. said something about the "universe being nonlocal"

Therefore no God necessary.

Whatever that means.

[GiovanniC]

46. It Means Acid Is a Powerful Drug

[Zenlitened]

18. examples? - n/t

[Book Lover]

19. Well, what are these sites?

Care to provide a link or two?

[KittyWampus]

31. Again, Why Bother? There Would Be No Dialogue. No Consideration

of the points made.

I've done it time and again.

[Book Lover]

34. Then why say anything?

Oh, that's right - martyrdom is so much better when you let everyone know about it.

[Ediacara]

39. Wow

What a clumsy bait and switch...

[DrWeird]

41. How about a link...

to where you've done it before.

I double dog dare you.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

44. The science of psychology explains "passive-aggressive" well which

is what a post proclaiming "why bother? I've already told you once" is.

For the record, I've not participated with you in this circle jerk in the past. IF you have something that proves your point, by all means cough it up..I'll check it out.

[Ediacara]

20. Well then what IS the creator if not (a) God?

And who created the creator?

[KittyWampus]

32. Who Said Anything About A Creator?

[Ediacara]

37. Oh, sorry, I misspoke, I meant DESIGNER

Who's the Intelligent Designer, of not (a) God?

[Walt Starr]

42. The Designer just drew up the plans

I suppose somebody else implemented them.

Now we have two intelligences who have yet to have a shred of evidence presented to support their existance further complicating the issue about where these alleged intelligences came from.

Did the Designer create the implementer? OOPS, he only does design work, so the great Invisible Pink Unicorn must be responsible!

[Ediacara]

65. *crickets*

So did you find the names and addresses of Designer and Implementor?

[Zenlitened]

16. "...astute responses that are never addressed ..."

That's always one of the most telling features of a thread like this -- the questions that go unanswered.

The OP will throw out all sorts of buzzwords, drop lots of names.

But when you demand some specifics... well, golly, listen ta all them crickets! :D

[Kathy in Cambridge]

25. I agree-this is bullshit

we're pandering to right-wing idiocy if we even deign to discuss this bullshit theory.

[Walt Starr]

33. "Intelligent Design" does not even rise to the level of the hypothetical

let alone the theoretical.

Until some evidence to support the existance of the alleged intelligence is presented, formulating an hypothesis about intelligent design is impossible.

[GiovanniC]

52. It Is Not a Valid Hypothesis Because It Is Unprovable and Not Disprovable

Sometimes on the weekend, I don't set my alarm clock. Yet I still wake up in the morning about the same time as when my alarm clock is set. I have a hypothesis wild-ass speculation for why that happens. I hypothesize randomly guess that the reason for this is that invisible garden gnomes wake me up at 6:30, then vanish before I open my eyes.

The reason that the above is not a valid hypothesis is because nobody can either prove it, nor can they DISprove it.

[DrWeird]

29. agreed.

This is as much a rightwing/ leftwing debate as anything else is.

[Zenlitened]

72. These threads do have a way of...

... stimulating the tombstone-manufacturing sector of the economy, though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=134894

[independentchristian]

79. Right wing, left wing...

...when will people get over foolish labels?

I don't think that "disbelief" is a staple of the left anymore than I believe that "belief" is a staple of the right.

Anyone on either side who tries to "narrow" people into groups for "convenience" is "narrow"-minded.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

91. Yeah and anyone who dicks around on a progressive site

pretending to be progressive is a fraud

[The Doctor.]

86. My last word on ID...

(Until it looks like fun again)
:bounce:

The problem with the debate on intelligent design is not whether it can be proven or disproved… indeed, I believe we will not know until our next major phase of evolution.

You see; Intelligent Design is a theory whose sole basis is that the universe is geared to create life.
“If we live in a Universe who’s laws brought us into being; that Universe must have ‘Intelligent’ laws.” So the question is;
Is a Universe in which intelligence does rise an ‘Intelligent Universe’?

Unfortunately, that is not the right question.

The right question is…

Under what conditions could sentience NOT arise?

There is your disprovable.

Intelligent design is a retroactive notion of origin based on our own very subjective criteria.
How do we know that a completely different universe would not have supported sentience?
How do we know that the laws of our universe are the only laws conducive to cognizance?

We do not.

Therefore, from our very own perspective it is ONLY logical that the universe whose laws brought us about is considered ‘intelligent’… as it is our intelligence that the universe has so far achieved.

Let’s face it folks…

THAT could be ANY Universe.


Ok… I’ll admit, there are probably other universes out there that could only come up with ‘dumb’ life, but even a dumb universe is better than none at all. In which case I have to wonder…

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NeoGreen]

28. BING!!!

Alex, I think we have a winner...

the God Fundies are so clueless...

Evolution...universe... say what?

How about, evolution and inherited traits and variation.

[DrWeird]

7. Timecube explains the origin of the universe.

Real liberals that want a liberal education will demand that timecube be taught alongside all other classes.

[Az]

70. Hey!

That's my goto subref website for crazy theories!

[BBradley]

78. ROFL, That's what I was thinking the whole discussion with the OP

Matter is a curvature in space... Not only is that incorrect on many levels, but the way he was saying it was eerily similiar to the Time Cube dude.

[DrWeird]

89. Also, the "curvature of the universe"

which is confusing even more stuff.

That right there made me wonder if it wasn't all a practical joke.

[Ripley]

11. Evidence of Evolution in Action

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues05/jan05/mall.html

snip>>>

Most visitors to the "Life in Ancient Seas" hall at the National Museum of Natural History amble right past the modest glass display case full of fossilized crinoids, cousins of starfish and sand dollars. But scientists say the ancient specimens are definitely worth a second look: a new study of changes in crinoid anatomy over millions of years has provided unusual evidence of evolution in action.

snip>>>


But hey, it's only from the good folks at the Smithsonian, what do I know? Why do they hate America's preeminent most respected scholars? In fact, why do they hate Science?

[independentchristian]

80. Yeah...

...and there are more deadly strains of the same viruses out there today as well.

Think about it and see if you can figure out what that means.

[Ediacara]

15. To continue a point I was making (or attempting to) in the old thread

I don't believe everything Stanley (1979) writes concerning macroevolution, especially that microevolution and macroevolution are mechanistically decoupled (he just kind of threw that statement out there with no explanation), but he does give convenient definitions for microevolution (genetic drift over time within a population), and macroevolution (speciation and/or stepwise evolution).

The state of the science is this: only the most dishonest of creationists say that microevolution doesn't exist. Quite simply, the data supporting its existence is better than the data supporting the existence of extra-solar stars. It can be observed in the lab in human lifetimes. Heck, sometimes it can be observed over lunch!

Creationists often insist that all mutations are bad. Although it's true that most mutations are bad, by no means are all mutations bad. To say that they're all bad is a lie, and like with microevolution, only the most dishonest of creationists still say this.

So we're at the point where we've demonstrated all of Darwin's basic points way back in the 1840s and 1850s when he was formulating Natural Selection Theory:

1) Variations exist (and can arise).

2) Variations are heritable.

3) More offspring are produced than there are food resources for.

4) There is a struggle for survival.

So we're at a point where the honest Creationists must agree with Darwin, but then they say something like this, "No amount of microevolution can ever create macroevolution."

I ask , "Why?"

The response is invariably a lack of time. "Well the Earth is only 6,000/10,000 years old, so there isn't enough time for microevolution to explain the diversity of life we see before us." And then they proceed to attack stratigraphy and radioactive decay rates and the speed of light.

This is the crux of the ENTIRE matter, TIME is the problem creationists have, the last straw they are grasping, and the last hurdle the must pass before they move into the realm of sanity. Their attacks on geology, chemistry and astronomy in an attempt to prove a very young Earth are astoundingly foolish, as the data supporting consistent decay rates, a relatively consistent speed of light, and stratigraphic principles is better than the data supporting microevolution, which like I said earlier, was better than the data supporting extra-solar stars.

Which gets us to another matter. Macroevolution (sensu Stanley 1979) has been observed in human lifetimes. It's actually been observed a lot. This is the end of creationism as a pseudoscientific discipline. It must not move entirely into the realm of faith where Satan plants fossils to trick people, etc...

And now we get to IDers are nothing more than glitzed up creationists that do not have a theory (ID cannot be falsified, nor can it be predictive), use inane analogies (irreducible complexity doesn't apply to self-replicating machines), and well, are better liars than the dishonest creationists are.

And don't even get me started on the fossil record....

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

27. Great post...what IS their argument against carbon dating?

How do they explain dinosaurs..which make the world a hell of a lot older than their creationism would suggest?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

35. Evil people planted dinosaur bones to fool us

that's the fundie explanation.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

47. and fossil fuels came from where?

Who knows? Maybe the powers that be created the Intelligent Design frame so that people will stop thinking...hmmm...fossil fuels....hmmmm...finite...hmmmm...SUV or hybrid?

[GiovanniC]

53. No, God Put Them There

To test our faith.

See, God's a tricky bastard. He says, "You must belive in me, or I will torture you for all eternity!"

Then He says, "I wonder how many of those dumbasses I can fool with these fake giant lizard bones. And -- BONUS! -- anybody falls for it, I get to torture them for eternity! It's win-win for me!"

[rayofreason]

82. dino fossils...

...are just giants' bones buried by the flood.

I don't have any problem with someone believing that, but I do have a problem with someone calling it science.

[DrWeird]

36. carbon dating = you can't prove it, since maybe there was more C14

back then.

dinosaurs = didn't get on Noah's ark.

I'm not making this up. These are actual arguments from a "leading creation scientist."

[Zenlitened]

50. That's where the creationists always end up: "You can't PROVE evolution"

Then, at that point, you try to explain to them how science works, how evidence accumulates but there is never really a way of PROVING some things.

At which time they'll claim that science is a religion, that people who use science to understand the world have simply traded one faith for another.

And 'round and 'round it goes.

[Ediacara]

48. Well, Carbon dating isn't that big of a problem

Carbon dating is only good for a few thousand years, it's the deep time dating techniques they dislike. The major problem is the extreme time extrapolation into the millions and billions of years. The only problem for them is that when multiple dating techniques are used on the same sample, the dates ALWAYS coincide. This, coupled with an extreme lack of understanding of stratigraphy is the huge mental road black and lie factory for them.

Some even cling to Lord Kelvin's calculation of the age of the Earth based on cooling rates of magma (which was actually about 60,000,000 years too old for the Creationists), as proof that there wasn't enough time for evolution to take place. Too bad for them though that when Kelvin made the initial calculations, radioactivity was completely unknown. When radioactivity was discovered, Kelvin says, "Oh wow, that sure would keep the interior of the Earth tremendously hot for about 100x longer than I had calculated."

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

51. interesting...being a neophyte it's nice to have someone who is

actually in the field explaining this in laymen's terms. Thanks.

[0rganism]

55. Their argument is that carbon dating of dinosaurs is horribly inaccurate

...which, in fact, it is. Carbon dating is good to about 50,000 years back, and then you'd have to use other methods like radiometrics and isochron dating for something as old as dinosaur fossils.

They have to use different arguments against those. Varying the speed of light is quite popular.

[Az]

74. A fast response to their carbon argument is Ice Cores

Remember their argument is usually that the world is about 6000-10,000 years old. They can throw all sorts of subterfuge at Carbon dating but Ice Cores are like cryptonite to them.

Ice Cores: At the north and south poles the seasonal accumulation of snow/ice is relatively constant. As the seasons come and go the density of the ice accumulated changes. Over a year the cycle is consistant. And this cycle creates layers. Layers that can be seen when you drill a deep hole and pull a core out. Layers that can be counted. One layer per year.

In the mid 70s and 80s a core sample was taken from the ice in Eastern Antartica by the Russian Antarctic expedition. The Vostok Ice-Core is 2,083 meters long and was collected in two portions: 1) 0 - 950 m in 1970-1974, 2) 950 - 2083 m in 1982-1983. The total depth of the ice sheet from which the core was collected is approximately 3,700 meters.

By a simple process the rings were counted in the Vostok Ice Core and it was determined that its bottom rings were laid down over 160,000 years ago. Incidently there is no evidence in the ice core of a global flood either. Two birds with one stone.

Ice Cores alone demolish the notion that the earth is only 6,000 - 10,000 years old.

[independentchristian]

84. First of all, I would then ask you how do you explain...

...animals that are not evolving? Shouldn't we be evolving into something else right now or does evolution just "conveniently" stop?

Can you explain everything that you believe?

Prove beyond a shadow of a doubt everything that you have charged the Bush administration with.

Once again, as I said the other day, "not mentioning something" doesn't mean "support" for it, and not "mentioning" something doesn't meant that it doesn't exist.

Can you tell me as a statement of 100% fact that when God created "every living thing" according to the creation that he didn't create "dinosaurs" as well, or do you just "assume" that he did not because you have never heard that? Are there any "transitional forms" for dinosaurs, or do they just have the fossils of T-Rex, Tricerotops, etc, but not from anything that they supposedly came from "step by step"? Surely, if it's all about "evolution," then there must be some fossils of their "transitional forms" out there for us to see.

Is it all just one big cycle? What are we evolving into? What is evolving into us? If dinosaurs evolved from reptiles and they came from amphibians then won't reptiles eventually become dinosaurs again and amphibians will eventually become reptiles and something will become amphibians? But, if dinosaurs evolved from reptiles, then why are reptiles around and dinosaurs are not? If as some "evolutionists" say, a lot of the modern creatures "evolved" from dinosaurs or that dinosaurs were killed off by some natural disaster, then what did these dinosaurs evolve from and why did they evolve into huge creatures and then all of a sudden begin evolving into smaller creatures, or did they just "pop up" (were created)? So, humans evolved at the same time that dinosaurs were evolving into modern creatures?

Just as many holes in the "evolution alone" theory as you think there are in the "creationism alone" approach.

Who says that dinosaurs could not have been created when the other animals were?

You can't prove that they weren't just like I can't prove that they were, but I can suggest it just like you can suggest otherwise, although you cannot prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Another question. How do they actually decide how old a fossil is?

[Ediacara]

87. All populations are evolving at all times

Because you can't see it in a soundbite doesn't mean it isn't happening.

To answer your "questions:"

1) There are literally hundreds of transitional forms within the clade Dinosauria. What transitional forms would you like to see?

2) Amphibians will not evolve into Reptiles again. You seem to have a very profound misunderstanding of what evolution does. Each lineage has an evolutionary history uniquely its own, and they do not get repeated by a related lineage at some point later in time.

3) The only living descendants of dinosaurs are birds. The origin of humans follows the origin of birds by a tremendous amount of time.

4) A fossil is dated by the rock it is in. Sedimentary rocks are dated by using adjacent igneous rocks and the times are correlated by using the principle of superposition described by Nicholas Steno in the 1600s.

And, uh, lay off the crack man, and read a book.

[Az]

88. Um we are evolving

All life is transitory. As conditions change natural selection favors new priorities. With this shift new mutations will be favored over others. Its all transition. Without end. Of course it doesn't happen overnight. But its constantly going on.

As to transitionals... good grief. Even with our limited selection of fossils to work from we have tremendous examples of transitions between species. Especially amongst the dinosaurs.

Science doesn't work in absolutes. If you are holding out for 100% anything you are going to be forever waiting.

What are we evolving into? Who knows. Evolution doesn't know. It just adapts and favors whatever works best for the situation. Its not directed. Its not guided. It even makes mistakes it can't back out of and entire species go extinct. Maybe we are evolving into such a dead end species. Maybe our own medical intervention has stagnated our evolution.

Dinosaurs are still around. We call them birds now. Big dinos that most people think of when they hear the word dinosaur simply couldn't compete in the changing environment. They died out. The ones that could survive did so and their descendants are around us today.

We can show that dinos existed at vastly different times than humans and other species. Numerous methods allow us to show that they are from vastly different frames of time. Carbon dating. Depth of discovery. Ice Cores. And a miriad of other techniques allow us to discern when and where things existed.

While I can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt I can certainly provide sufficient evidence that to deny it as the likely truth would simply be ridiculous. And while we can't achieve absolute certainty we can currently provide such overwhelming evidence that to deny it truly places one in a rather indefensible position.

[slutticus]

43. Why the fuck are people arguing about this bullshit strawman?

Of course evolution doesn't explain the origin of the universe. Nor does it even attempt to.

This thread completely baffles me.

[Ripley]

49. I think the point of the original thread was...

A convoluted statement claiming evolution couldn't explain the beginning of the Universe. In the person's roundabout way, he was trying to "prove" evolution is just a theory, same as ID. Gag.

[Johonny]

56. Agreed

I mean evolution doesn't explain the pop tart therefore...

The original post had 3 strawman arguements that showed a lack of understanding about what evolution is. Then used scientist long dead before theory of evolution to back intelligent design.

[Ripley]

57. I missed the first thread...but I Googled "anthropic principle"

and got some really weird stuff about Doomsday. WTF is that about? And what does this mean: ...the apparent calibration of the universe to produce consciousness.

Is this hard-core pseudo-science or psychedelic trancing?

On edit: forgot to add groovy pic from one of the sites...about...There are several vexing facts about the Universe: *Horizon problem and then this image:

[Zenlitened]

60. No, the anthropic principle has been well-discussed in scientific circles

Largely discarded, it's true, but well-discussed.

What's telling to me, though, is the OP's total failure to discuss whet he/she meant by tossing the phrase into the discussion. How it relates to the debate.

I think the many ID-pushers have just memorized a few buzzwords, things they can toss into a discussion and hopefully win a point. Call 'em on it, though, and you'll witness a phenomenon known as 'spontaneous cricket-ogenisis.' :D

[Ripley]

63. Aha. Thanks.

I've never heard of it before. I don't have a problem with free-thinking folks who want to muse on the Universe in metaphysical meanderings, but sheesh to actually think they have the ANSWER and Science is just a "theory" is wacko to me!

I'm hearing those crickets tonight! :)

[Swamp Rat]

59. Popcorn anyone?

[Democrat Dragon]

64. pass the popcorn!

I've already quit with these ID vs. evolution things already. I google info backing up ID, then I goggle info countering claims by IDers against evolution, and then I also find IDer's responses to these counters and it just goes on and on and on.

And the funny thing is, most of it is ideological rhetoric, which makes a nice show.

[Zynx]

61. Anyone who claims to know exactly how the universe came to be is a fool.

I believe that there was a creator. Other people believe in a variety of scientific theories, but no one really knows nor can anyone claim to truly have an answer. We can only guess and believe.

[Zenlitened]

62. What do you base your belief on?

Edited to add: And how firmly do you hold to this belief?

And... who created the creator?

[Zynx]

75. I firmly hold this belief.

I have never seen any decent scientific explanation as to the creation of the universe. As to the creation of God, regardless of whether it was God or something else, at some point something just "was" in another dimension somewhere that we obviously cannot see. However, those forces, whether they are divine or merely physical, have an origin we are obviously not able to comprehend or understand. It does not make any sense that the universe as we know it just created itself.

[Az]

68. Evolution: The theory and the battle

Evolution is a theory concerning biology. As such it is not a decription of the theories concerning physics, cosmology, or quantum mechanics.

Succintly put evolution examines the behaviour of the matter in this universe as it goes through the motions of an ongoing selfreplicating process. If you want to know something about other aspects of this universe you will have to turn to other fields of science.

There is a tradition within the creationist community of refering to the evolution theory as the Big Bang theory. This is a form of subterfuge. It tries to rope in any problems another field of study may have and use it to implicate a completely different subject.

Creationists have of course made several attempts to shove their notions back into the classroom. But its not just access to students they want. If that was it they could be satisfied with a comparitive religion course. What they want is to have their doctrine taught as "The Truth". A comparitive religion course will not give them this. Only science carries with it the petina they want.

But the courts have consistantly recognised that a religious belief is not science. Thus they are constantly rebuffed in trying to force their religious teaching into a course that teaches science. Evolution is the scientific explanation of what is going on on this planet and creationism is the religious explanation.

Religious sects are devoted, not stupid. They can learn to change their tactics. They have come to realise that the notion of creationism as derived from their bible will not make it in the courts. Thus they have come up with a new tactic. Get a foot in the door. But make sure they distance themself as far from it in name as they can. This is ID.

ID proponents will swear up and down that they are not creationists. They will studiously make sure to make no biblical references. Its a tactic. Its not science.

The prime tactic of the IDers is to find problems in the theory of evolution. This is just a new version of the god of the gaps argument. Whatever science doesn't explain is placed in God's hands. And the punchline to this tactic is that once they get any notion of god on the table they promptly do a switch and place the god of the bible in its place.

The problem of course is even if they do find a flaw in the theory of evolution this does not mean that the only alternative is god. We don't jump up and conclude that a god must have made everything happen when we hit a rough spot. We need evidence to form conclusions. And there really is nothing to indicate that an intelligence arose from nothing to create the universe. There certainly are interesting patterns in the nature of this universe but there are a multitude of theories that can explain that without requiring a designer. The issues really do not rise to the point that a creator theory is warranted.

And that returns us back to the creationists. The creationists start with a conclusion. That there is a god and he created the universe. Everything in their view must lead back to that notion. IDers have the same problem. They start with the notion that something created this universe and all their ideas try to force the issue back to that starting point.

In the end the ID platform fails as science for the same reason Creationism did. Its simply not the result of the scientific process. The distinctions are muddied (and deliberately so) and as such can be difficult to discern. But in the end it simply offers no evidence concerning the means of an independent intelligence arising to create the universe.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

69. "Part 2"? Why was there even a "Part 1"? Good grief! n/t

[dsc]

73. actually I don't think it pretends to do so

I admit to having last taken science quite a few years ago, but evolution only addresses the variety of life on earth not the origin of the earth itself.

[BBradley]

76. I figure I'll post my little rant here too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3165611&mesg_id=3167705&page=

[ChairOne]

77. roflmao /eom

[RetroLounge]

81. Why? One thread wasn't enough?

Sheesh...

RL

[youngred]

83. Of course it doesn't

it was never meant to. That doesn't cast any doubt on the big bang theory or the theory that God did it in 7 days.

[drhilarius]

85. An answer and a question...

1. No, it does not.
2. What idiot suggested that it did. Darwin's origin of the species is intended to explain exactly that- the origin of the species. It is not concerned with cosmology or abiogenesis.

Again, what the hell does God did it explain? Bupkis. Jackshit. All "God did it" does is prohibit inquiry and maintain the power structure of the clergy/church.

Show me one cure, one technological advance, that was caused by "God did it" (btw, "God made it all" is not a valid answer).

[DrWeird]

90. You'll find an answer to your question...

in a 400+ post locked thread a couple pages back.

[Moderator]

92. Locking

After 2 threads devoted to this topic, it appears that this discussion has reached its inevitable conclusion