Evolution and Intelligent Design

[Pierson5]

what a lorra,lorra nonsense when all that is required via google box is [Quick....lets discriminate] and also [discrimination against creationists] - be quick and come back home - twinc

What? I understand English may not be your first language, but it is very hard to see what you are saying in your posts. If someone who disagrees with your beliefs is poking fun, don't be offended and "come back home." Put in an argument. If your beliefs are strong enough (which I assume they are), you will be able to defend your views. You will not need to say "that's offensive" or "you are just discriminating against creationists." You will say "No, here is where you're wrong, and here, and here." That's exactly what you should do.

[KBCid]

ID is already a scientific study in several areas?

So you don't know the definition of ID;

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php

I assume you are referring to humans being the intelligent designers, which is not the same thing as invoking the supernatural.

Assumption would be a bad thing in this case. Human beings are one type of being that posesses an aspect called intelligence;

Intelligence
1a : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations
b : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/intelligence

There are a variety of beings who posess varying degrees of intelligence. No one in the ID camp is asserting anything supernatural since such an assertion is beyoond the scope defined for ID.

If you are referring to the same designer responsible for life, which area of science is this designer invoked?

If you understood ID then you would know that a specified designer is not part of the scope that ID encompasses.

When you refer to falsifiability, you say ID can be falsified, except when it can't, and falls into a gray area.

ID can be eliminated as a "necessary" cause even though it still remains a possible cause because of the simplicity of a design. A pile of sand can be arranged by an intelligent designer to look like something that natural forces could form. Intelligence can cause a vast array of formations given the time and energy to allow it to perform.
So, if you read my point carefully it doesn't state that it can be falsified as a cause and if you understood how intelligence worked you would understand that there is almost nothing that inteligence cannot mimic in nature. There is simply a level of intelligent design that falls within the same observable characteristics as natural formation where one cannot empirically assert its necessity to explain the observation.

So if an experimenter theorizes that all life evolved from a common ancestor then he must also define an experiment to test his theory. Tell me what test can be performed to test this theory?. Historical happenings that are beyond an experimenters ability to verify is where the line is crossed for scientific methodology and plunges head first into religion.
You can religiously believe that life had a common ancestor but, you have zero observable historic evidence that there was one and you have no possible method to test it. Therefore, you have nothing to base the theory on. Unscientific in every sense but, a darned good religious philosophy to get others to believe in if your pushing a religious agenda.

You claim evolution is non-falsifiable because it's considered a "historical occurrence" and not reproducible. That's false.

Really? then you can show me all the variations that life went through to become what we observe today and you can show all the forces that played a part in making it happen?

Evolution is absolutely falsifiable. Here are a few things that would falsify evolution: If we found a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian period, a static (non-changing) fossil record over time,

Playing the micro card in a macro conversation I see. Typical and expected. Most everyone now is beyond that slight of hand though.

if genetic/molecular evidence came back showing human's closest ancestor was the parakeet,

How much of a genome is compared between assumed 'ancestors'? What exactly is compared?

confirmation that mutations are prevented from accumulating and, of course, any observations showing organisms being created supernaturally. "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." - Charles Darwin

Tell me what complex organ can you show that did come about by "numerous, successive, slight modifications". Science is not really about proving what is impossible it is more about providing empirical evidence for what is possible. It is not sciences job to prove that pink elephants and fairies don't exist. As noted it is the investigators job to provide a solution via scientific method to confirm or deny an assertion of a hypothesis.

Intelligent Design explanations involving the direct intervention of the supernatural in the physical world are not falsifiable, because any result of an experiment or investigation could be the unpredictable action of an omnipotent deity. I do agree with your last statement. Could you propose an experiment on how we could test (or falsify) ID?

Why do you feel that supernatural intervention is part of the explanitory scope posited by ID? Do you simply feel the need to set up strawmen? ID posits as much supernatural causes as evolution.

Aside from presupposing the existence of an all-knowing being that designed everything,

You are consistent with the strawman arguement. Does this method of debate somehow make you feel better about what your doing or are you simply regurgitating things you read somewhere else? You do realize that missrepresenting others is not a proper method of debate? This is a method of spreading propaganda.

ID doesn't explain a number of bizarre and harmful morphological and molecular features. (e.g. the fact that upright mammals support 70% of their weight on a single column.

it doesn't? and only 70% hmmmm.

STANDING, LINE OF GRAVITY AT JOINTS, POSTURAL SWAY and CORRECTION OF PERTURBATIONS

Changes in stance (Smith 1953,1956)
...most of the time, people tend to stand asymmetrically, with most of their weight on one leg (about 80 - 90% of body weight) while the other leg acts as a prop to control forward sway of the body
http://www.med.unsw.edu.au/somsweb.nsf/ ... stance.pdf

So in your engineering experience intelligent designers would not logically form any structures that support 70% of their weight on a single point. Interesting. Have you ever seen one of these intelligent designs; http://www.torkerusa.com/bikes/unicycles

The fact that human mouths don't have enough room for the teeth that come in.

Are we talking the original human mouth or one that has been in a state of variance for thousands of years?

The fact that our vision has severe problems compared to a number of other animals (much less what it could be).

Your vision has severe problems? mine seems to work just fine for what it is used for. So you 'assume' that the structure of the human body could be better based on what exactly? How would you engineer the human eye and how would it impact the performance. I would further ask how your proposed change would affect other bodily systems.

Men having nipples

Ah the age old evo question that infers no intelligence could possibly be involved. I have always liked this one. How much do you understand about reproduction? maybe a bit of biology education is in order here;
Zygote
A zygote is always synthesized from the union of two gametes, and constitutes the first stage in a unique organism's development. Zygotes are usually produced by a fertilization event between two haploid cells—an ovum (female gamete) and a sperm cell (male gamete)—which combine to form the single diploid cell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote

In order for the two gametes to properly meld together they must both have genetic information pertaining to the structures they each individually code for. If one of the parents supplying the gametes didn't have coding for a structure then it would not be able to match up with another gamete that did have the structure and it would have to work the same way as the x and y chromosome do.
Men have nipples simply to match the chromosomal structure that women have as part of their design necessary to care for an offspring. This, again is where your understanding of 3 dimensional structuring and replication is obviously nonexistent.

the existence of the human tailbone, etc, etc).

Ahh the mechanical engineer questions mechanical engineering again;
Coccyx
The coccyx commonly referred to as the tailbone, is the final segment of the vertebral column in tailless primates...
...it is an important attachment for various muscles, tendons and ligaments—which makes it necessary for physicians and patients to pay special attention to these attachments when considering surgical removal of the coccyx.[2] Additionally, it is also a part of the weight-bearing tripod structure which acts as a support for a sitting person. When a person sits leaning forward, the ischial tuberosities and inferior rami of the ischium take most of the weight, but as the sitting person leans backward, more weight is transferred to the coccyx.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx

If you really believe that your tailbone serves no purpose then I defy you to go to a doctor and ask to have it removed.

But it can always be said "Ah, but maybe that's what the designer wanted. We can't know his intentions." An eternal way to protect a flawed theory and is, again, unfalsifiable.

Wel for some people your answer is all they can muster because they are not mechanical engineers. however, in my case you didn't get that answer. You assume that since most people can't provide a rationale for something then that something has no purpose.
Did you ever reverse engineer something? This is a tough point of view to convey to someone who has never tried. I do this on a regular basis as well as forming 3 dimensional stutures de novo.
Here is a story for a budding reverse engineer.
I had a student who I was to train in some specific understandings about mechanical engineering and at the time we had an old car that was serving as a conceptual training device. As we were looking under the hood the student noticed 4 ring bolts that for all appearances performed absolutely no function in the normal operation of the machine itself so he asked what they were for.
I considered just telling him what they were but figured this would be a good time to see how his reverse engineering skills were coming along so I asked him to study them for awhile and see if he could solve this riddle on his own. Well he took this pretty serious as a challenge to his intelligence and he spent a few hours inspecting and analyzing and eventually he gave up and wanted the answer.
I told him that he must not just give up just because something isn't apparent from casual logic and I told him that maybe we should remove the engine from the car and possibly do some disassembly to see the inner workings and whether it may give further understanding to this mystery. So he commenced to disconnecting everything that held the motor in the car and then positioned the engine hoist in preparation for hoisting the engine out of the engine bay. As he stood there considering where to hook the chains to the motor he said "you know the rings will make nice points to connnect the chains to, do you suppose anything would be harmed if I hook onto them?" I assured him that would be fine and he hooked them up and began to lift the engine out. As the weight of the engine / transmission became suspended he notice how nicely the connection points allowed the weight to be supported evenly at an angle so that engine and tranny would slide cleanly out of the engine bay.
It was near the end of this excercise that it dawned on him that the ring bolts had nothing to do with the function of the motor.... they were the factory hoist points used for the assembly of the car itself. These point had been calculated by an intelligent designer to allow the factory to quickly assemble components.

As for "finding the common ancestor," I encourage you to study geology and evolutionary biology to understand why putting our finger on exactly where a common ancestor existed and what it looked like is nearly impossible. A lot things in science are known through inference (conclusion based on data).

I am quite well versed in the data.... errrr absence of data concerning the common ancestor of life.

I'm sure you could say "We can infer an intelligent designer." Then I would respond "Show me the converging lines of evidence that support that hypothesis."

Mechanisms that perform the same conceptual 'FUNCTIONS' that only intelligence has ever been seen to form. 3 dimensional structuring based on a reference point and defined points in space relative to the reference point which only intelligence has ever been seen to form structures with. Data storage and reader which must come coexist prior to 'function'ality. The list is quite long for all the converging lines of evidence but, it requires a bit of mechanical understanding to comprehend mechanically engineered structures.

Regardless, evolution is the change in species over time, it's a process.

Evolutions engine of change presumed / assumed to be random mutation and natural selection over time is the process by which alleles change. All you need to do is prove that the changes are really random.

I mean, even if God made the first life form, that would not invalidate evolution a tiny bit. You criticize that evolutionary theory takes this part for 'granted' (which I am not saying it does in any way), but if this part of the theory, the first parent organism, were to be proven to be invalidated, evolution would still be a viable theory, given our knowledge of genetics and other lines of evidence.

If God made life and designed in the variability then the change in alleles is not simply random mutation. Evolutions engine of change would indeed be invalidated as the mechanism of controlled variability is elucidated.
Evolutionary theory is the explanation used to explain the unknown to others without understanding who will believe anything that sounds logical to them. With a childs understanding of mechanics a cardbord box can logically fly to the moon. Evolution is the fairytale that adults use to assert that molecules can change bit by bit into any living thing they see.

[sandy_mcd]

... there really aren't any signs of evolution today.

If evolution were true, what signs would you expect to find?

[PaulSacramento]

... there really aren't any signs of evolution today.

If evolution were true, what signs would you expect to find?

Actually, since evolution is simply a change in a living organisim that allows it to better adapt to it environment so as to survive better, we do see this in viruses on a pretty regualar basis?
Why mostly on viruses? well, in a nutshell, because of how much "simpler" a life form they are, change is easier to see and quicker to happen.

[sandy_mcd]

A fascinatingly honest admission by a physicist indicates the passionate commitment of establishment scientists to naturalism. Speaking of the trust students naturally place in their highly educated college professors, he says:

And I use that trust to effectively brainwash them. . . . our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal -- without demonstration -- to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary

I can't remember where I got this from but I think it says a lot about what people are being taught and why..

Yes, it does. This quote is from some creationist site; the original article is http://scitation.aip.org/getpdf/servlet ... rog=normal or http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1306373.

The article basically says that teachers use their authority as a reason to believe what they teach, rather than demonstration (he is speaking of course of science). [However, there is no other way to cover large amounts of material.] But this method does not usually encourage people to think for themselves, which is supposedly the main point of a college education. The irony is that most readers of the creationist sites take the quote as presented out of context. If they actually thought for themselves, they would check the original article rather than just accepting the presentation. [But if they thought for themselves, they wouldn't need to check the original article. ]

[Pierson5]

ID is already a scientific study in several areas?

So you don't know the definition of ID;

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php

Oh yes, a definition of ID from the Discovery Institute which wouldn't be biased at all. Seeing as >40% of the PhD's held by the faculty are in philosophy/theology and <15% in actual biological sciences. Not to mention...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_ ... ontroversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html

Regardless, perhaps I unfairly grouped you into the majority here. Reactionary gave me a similar link saying the exact same thing. "ID doesn't identify the designer." Yet, when I asked for evidence, what do you think the evidence was (see page one)? So I apologize for making assumptions and putting you into the same category. Let me re-word the question. What area in science do we invoke an unknown designer, for which there is no evidence, as an explanation?

When you refer to falsifiability, you say ID can be falsified, except when it can't, and falls into a gray area.

ID can be eliminated as a "necessary" cause even though it still remains a possible cause because of the simplicity of a design. A pile of sand can be arranged by an intelligent designer to look like something that natural forces could form. Intelligence can cause a vast array of formations given the time and energy to allow it to perform.
So, if you read my point carefully it doesn't state that it can be falsified as a cause and if you understood how intelligence worked you would understand that there is almost nothing that inteligence cannot mimic in nature. There is simply a level of intelligent design that falls within the same observable characteristics as natural formation where one cannot empirically assert its necessity to explain the observation.

There are plenty things intelligence cannot mimic in nature. Up until a few years ago, it was impossible to produce clouds in the lab. Do we assume that because the cloud is so complex we cannot produce it in the lab, we therefore would need some sort of great intelligent designer? You say it's impossible to falsify if an intelligent agent is at work because intelligence can design something that natural forces could also form. So how do you tell the difference? If something simple could have been designed, how can you compare something complex to something simple when identifying design? Couldn't they have both been designed? Isn't this a problem when comparing something that is designed in nature vs. something that is not designed in nature? Without being able to test and falsify, this seems like a pretty big flaw to me.

It sounds like you are assuming these biological organisms are designed in order to prove that it is the work of a designer. Aren't you also begging the question as to whether something can be too complex to have come about through evolution?

So if an experimenter theorizes that all life evolved from a common ancestor then he must also define an experiment to test his theory. Tell me what test can be performed to test this theory?. Historical happenings that are beyond an experimenters ability to verify is where the line is crossed for scientific methodology and plunges head first into religion.
You can religiously believe that life had a common ancestor but, you have zero observable historic evidence that there was one and you have no possible method to test it. Therefore, you have nothing to base the theory on. Unscientific in every sense but, a darned good religious philosophy to get others to believe in if your pushing a religious agenda.

What religious agenda? The scientific community is made up of all kinds of cultures/religions etc... And 97% of them don't have an issue with evolutionary theory.

- All lifeforms use the same enantiomers (chiral mirror-image) for each asymmetrical molecule

- All lifeforms (except some viruses) use DNA as the genetic material

- The genetic code is practically universal, with minimal variants.

- All lifeforms use the same 20 aminoacids to synthetize proteins

- All lifeforms share ATP as an "energy currency" molecule

- All lifeforms share the details of processes like DNA replication using a RNA primer, protein synthesis via RNA-protein complexes called ribosomes, and basic ribosome, rRNA and tRNA structures and sequence features

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Unive ... n_Ancestor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_des ... on_descent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent

It is possible to build, by many ways, a correct phylogenetic tree for all organisms with a single endpoint, no "dangling trees". A statistically rigorous test of this has been made.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 09014.html

So, I have given you references to MANY different converging lines of evidence, as well as a formal test performed and published in Nature. Feel free to provide the evidence for your theory. With your high standards for evidence, I'm sure it's a mind boggling amount.

You claim evolution is non-falsifiable because it's considered a "historical occurrence" and not reproducible. That's false.

Really? then you can show me all the variations that life went through to become what we observe today and you can show all the forces that played a part in making it happen?

Can I show you how and why everything we observe today evolved? No. I don't think anyone can do that with any scientific theory (not to mention the amount of time it would take). Look back on page one for a small summary of some of the evidence for evolution. If you aren't convinced by it, I'm sorry. There are also over 300,000 published papers on PubMed if you'd like to take a look. I'll go back to my main point, if that doesn't convince you, the evidence for your alternate theory must be vast. Please post it.

Evolution is absolutely falsifiable. Here are a few things that would falsify evolution: If we found a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian period, a static (non-changing) fossil record over time,

Playing the micro card in a macro conversation I see. Typical and expected. Most everyone now is beyond that slight of hand though.

What? How is a rabbit found in the Precambrian period playing the "micro/macro" card? The only one I see playing that card is you. If the rabbit was found in this period or any other earlier period, or if the fossil record was static, this would falsify evolution. It's pretty cut and dry. This alone doesn't prove evolution, but it would certainly discredit it.

if genetic/molecular evidence came back showing human's closest ancestor was the parakeet,

How much of a genome is compared between assumed 'ancestors'? What exactly is compared?

See page one on "converging lines of evidence." Every field in biology and every experiment confirms that this tree of life (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... VG.svg.png) is the proper, most correct fit. I guess you could go back to the old "same designer, same genes" argument, but it is a huge misunderstanding. It's not the similarities or the differences, but the combination. You can actually think of it as a phone book or a dictionary. Just as you can take a word/or name in the English language and place it in its proper place in the dictionary/phone book, you can do the same thing with an organism on the tree of life. It's not just "same English language, same letters," that simply doesn't apply. The argument for "same genes, same designer" doesn't apply for the same reasons.

confirmation that mutations are prevented from accumulating and, of course, any observations showing organisms being created supernaturally. "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." - Charles Darwin

Tell me what complex organ can you show that did come about by "numerous, successive, slight modifications". Science is not really about proving what is impossible it is more about providing empirical evidence for what is possible. It is not sciences job to prove that pink elephants and fairies don't exist. As noted it is the investigators job to provide a solution via scientific method to confirm or deny an assertion of a hypothesis.

Is there a specific one you would like to know about? The eye is a popular one. All steps in the evolution of the eye are known to be viable because they exist is many different species today. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly the paths laid out in these papers, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

This: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/crea ... _time.html
Is based off of this: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 56/1345/53
Here is a pretty lengthy pdf published in the International Journal of Developmental Biology: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... iICi9EKigQ

Intelligent Design explanations involving the direct intervention of the supernatural in the physical world are not falsifiable, because any result of an experiment or investigation could be the unpredictable action of an omnipotent deity. I do agree with your last statement. Could you propose an experiment on how we could test (or falsify) ID?

Why do you feel that supernatural intervention is part of the explanitory scope posited by ID? Do you simply feel the need to set up strawmen? ID posits as much supernatural causes as evolution.

Again, I apologize for lumping you into the "supernatural" category. But could you please address my main question at the end of that statement?

ID doesn't explain a number of bizarre and harmful morphological and molecular features. (e.g. the fact that upright mammals support 70% of their weight on a single column.

it doesn't? and only 70% hmmmm.

STANDING, LINE OF GRAVITY AT JOINTS, POSTURAL SWAY and CORRECTION OF PERTURBATIONS

Changes in stance (Smith 1953,1956)
...most of the time, people tend to stand asymmetrically, with most of their weight on one leg (about 80 - 90% of body weight) while the other leg acts as a prop to control forward sway of the body
http://www.med.unsw.edu.au/somsweb.nsf/ ... stance.pdf

So in your engineering experience intelligent designers would not logically form any structures that support 70% of their weight on a single point. Interesting. Have you ever seen one of these intelligent designs; http://www.torkerusa.com/bikes/unicycles

Fascinating. I stand corrected. Also, I don't have a lot of engineering experience. I'm a biology major

The fact that our vision has severe problems compared to a number of other animals (much less what it could be).

Your vision has severe problems? mine seems to work just fine for what it is used for. So you 'assume' that the structure of the human body could be better based on what exactly? How would you engineer the human eye and how would it impact the performance. I would further ask how your proposed change would affect other bodily systems.

What is "better" based on? Comparative analysis. A popular example: Tiger woods had Lasik which improved his eyesight to 20/15.

Men having nipples

Ah the age old evo question that infers no intelligence could possibly be involved. I have always liked this one. How much do you understand about reproduction? maybe a bit of biology education is in order here;
Zygote
A zygote is always synthesized from the union of two gametes, and constitutes the first stage in a unique organism's development. Zygotes are usually produced by a fertilization event between two haploid cells—an ovum (female gamete) and a sperm cell (male gamete)—which combine to form the single diploid cell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote

In order for the two gametes to properly meld together they must both have genetic information pertaining to the structures they each individually code for. If one of the parents supplying the gametes didn't have coding for a structure then it would not be able to match up with another gamete that did have the structure and it would have to work the same way as the x and y chromosome do.
Men have nipples simply to match the chromosomal structure that women have as part of their design necessary to care for an offspring. This, again is where your understanding of 3 dimensional structuring and replication is obviously nonexistent.

lol, I was going from a functional standpoint... Not why/how they develop. All humans are based on the same default genes, this is a given. Modifications of this genetic default state equates to the differences between males and females. These modifications aren't only made on the X and Y chromosomes. The SRY gene on the Y chromosome acts as a signal to set the developmental pathway towards maleness. In a simple sense, this gene determines whether certain genes on other chromosomes are "switched on/off." I don't know, if I was a designer, I wouldn't see the need to keep the nipples "switched on." (I could be mistaken obviously).

the existence of the human tailbone, etc, etc).

Ahh the mechanical engineer questions mechanical engineering again;
Coccyx
The coccyx commonly referred to as the tailbone, is the final segment of the vertebral column in tailless primates...
...it is an important attachment for various muscles, tendons and ligaments—which makes it necessary for physicians and patients to pay special attention to these attachments when considering surgical removal of the coccyx.[2] Additionally, it is also a part of the weight-bearing tripod structure which acts as a support for a sitting person. When a person sits leaning forward, the ischial tuberosities and inferior rami of the ischium take most of the weight, but as the sitting person leans backward, more weight is transferred to the coccyx.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx

If you really believe that your tailbone serves no purpose then I defy you to go to a doctor and ask to have it removed.

Interesting. I stand corrected. Do you have an explanation for the leg bones in whales (from page one). I proposed the question a while back (not directed at you) and have yet to get an answer. Just curious.

EDIT: I decided to look into what you said about having a doctor remove the coccyx. Turns out the entire coccyx can be surgically removed without any ill effects (besides surgical complications, obviously). It seems like the only complaint is, in a small portion of patients, removal of the coccyx did not eliminate their pain.

http://www.coccyx.org/treatmen/ectomy.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8547 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1257 ... t=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1272 ... t=Abstract

Our small, rudimentary, fused caudal vertebrae might have some minor and inessential functions, but these vertebrae are useless for balance and grasping, their usual functions in other mammals.

But it can always be said "Ah, but maybe that's what the designer wanted. We can't know his intentions." An eternal way to protect a flawed theory and is, again, unfalsifiable.

Wel for some people your answer is all they can muster because they are not mechanical engineers. however, in my case you didn't get that answer. You assume that since most people can't provide a rationale for something then that something has no purpose.
Did you ever reverse engineer something? This is a tough point of view to convey to someone who has never tried. I do this on a regular basis as well as forming 3 dimensional stutures de novo.
Here is a story for a budding reverse engineer.
I had a student who ...
...It was near the end of this excercise that it dawned on him that the ring bolts had nothing to do with the function of the motor.... they were the factory hoist points used for the assembly of the car itself. These point had been calculated by an intelligent designer to allow the factory to quickly assemble components.

Being sort of a computer geek, I've had my fair share of "reverse engineering" pc's, hard drives (I have an external HD in several parts next to me ), etc... Excellent story/teaching methods by the way. The problem is, we know that man-made objects are designed a posteriori. We know companies that make cars/motors/workshops. They are made out of many materials such as polished, purified metal or plastic which does not occur in nature. We know these things are designed because we have evidence and knowledge of these situations and can logically conclude they are designed.

I'm sure you could say "We can infer an intelligent designer." Then I would respond "Show me the converging lines of evidence that support that hypothesis."

Mechanisms that perform the same conceptual 'FUNCTIONS' that only intelligence has ever been seen to form. 3 dimensional structuring based on a reference point and defined points in space relative to the reference point which only intelligence has ever been seen to form structures with. Data storage and reader which must come coexist prior to 'function'ality. The list is quite long for all the converging lines of evidence but, it requires a bit of mechanical understanding to comprehend mechanically engineered structures.

I understand what you are trying to say coming from an engineering perspective. This goes back to what I was saying about designer a posteriori. Do you have a list of converging evidence from a biological standpoint? Has this evidence been published? Perhaps start out slow and just give me one or two and we can go from there. I am genuinely curious.

Regardless, evolution is the change in species over time, it's a process.

Evolutions engine of change presumed / assumed to be random mutation and natural selection over time is the process by which alleles change. All you need to do is prove that the changes are really random.

Not quite. As an analogy, I could say "I'm just as good as Phil Hellmuth at Texas Hold'em because all the cards are random." An ordered process can have random components. This is an expanding area in evolutionary biology, and we can get into it if you REALLY want to, but I don't see the point. I just want the evidence for the alternate theory.

Oh, for those who aren't familiar with the analogy: http://www.wsop.com/players/index.asp

Evolutionary theory is the explanation used to explain the unknown to others without understanding who will believe anything that sounds logical to them. With a childs understanding of mechanics a cardbord box can logically fly to the moon.

And without a persons understanding of evolution, we cannot logically have a common ancestor with apes. There was an interesting video I recently watched on what may seem like common sense (logical) and it's application in science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60uJ7sOx ... ure=relmfu

Evolution is the fairytale that adults use to assert that molecules can change bit by bit into any living thing they see.

And is supported by many convergent lines of evidence, which I have yet to see for ID. What does that make ID?

[sandy_mcd]

...
In order for the two gametes to properly meld together they must both have genetic information pertaining to the structures they each individually code for. If one of the parents supplying the gametes didn't have coding for a structure then it would not be able to match up with another gamete that did have the structure and it would have to work the same way as the x and y chromosome do.
Men have nipples simply to match the chromosomal structure that women have as part of their design necessary to care for an offspring. This, again is where your understanding of 3 dimensional structuring and replication is obviously nonexistent.

... I don't know, if I was a designer, I wouldn't see the need to keep the nipples "switched on." (I could be mistaken obviously).

Exactly. There is no reason the switch for male nipples need to be turned on. Of course, there is always the explanation that the designer just did it that way which is completely irrefutable. But to use this as an argument for a designer means that anything can be used as an argument for a designer.

problem is, we know that man-made objects are designed a posteriori. We know companies that make cars/motors/workshops. They are made out of many materials such as polished, purified metal or plastic which does not occur in nature. We know these things are designed because we have evidence and knowledge of these situations and can logically conclude they are designed.

And that is something i have never seen an IDer admit. We can infer design just from materials or the name. Is a watch designed? You don't even have to see it to know the answer to that one.

[twinc]

all this endless reams and tomes of nonsense when the answer stares us in the face and goes unrecognised and unaccepted even though closer than even hands and feet and nearer still than breathing - o wisdom of the mind of man.o learned talk ,o ceaseless brain,when will you learn the secret plan,when will you learn to love again[Derek Naeville] - come home now,dont stay away too long - twinc

[Pierson5]

...
In order for the two gametes to properly meld together they must both have genetic information pertaining to the structures they each individually code for. If one of the parents supplying the gametes didn't have coding for a structure then it would not be able to match up with another gamete that did have the structure and it would have to work the same way as the x and y chromosome do.
Men have nipples simply to match the chromosomal structure that women have as part of their design necessary to care for an offspring. This, again is where your understanding of 3 dimensional structuring and replication is obviously nonexistent.

... I don't know, if I was a designer, I wouldn't see the need to keep the nipples "switched on." (I could be mistaken obviously).

Exactly. There is no reason the switch for male nipples need to be turned on. Of course, there is always the explanation that the designer just did it that way which is completely irrefutable. But to use this as an argument for a designer means that anything can be used as an argument for a designer.

Well, I think in KBCid's case (and what I take from his story): there may be things that seem to not have a function, but we just aren't aware of the function (or purpose of the designer) yet. This does seem like an ad hoc hypothesis and, as you said, irrefutable.

all this endless reams and tomes of nonsense when the answer stares us in the face and goes unrecognised and unaccepted even though closer than even hands and feet and nearer still than breathing - o wisdom of the mind of man.o learned talk ,o ceaseless brain,when will you learn the secret plan,when will you learn to love again[Derek Naeville] - come home now,dont stay away too long - twinc

I could just as easily say the same thing to you regarding evolution. The evidence is staring you right in the face and goes unrecognized/unaccepted. It may seem counter-intuitive, but we can't jump to conclusions based on what we think is common sense. This is the type of reasoning used by Ray Comfort. This video does a pretty good job of summing it up. Even if you don't take away the message, it's still an interesting watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60uJ7sOx ... ure=relmfu

[jlay]

Interesting. I stand corrected. Do you have an explanation for the leg bones in whales (from page one). I proposed the question a while back (not directed at you) and have yet to get an answer. Just curious.

PiersonGood grief, asked and answered. You are begging the question. There are no leg bones. Presuming it is a leg does not make it so. And if it was a leg, which it isn't, then how does losing genetic info for a leg account for the leg in the first place?

[BavarianWheels]

Interesting. I stand corrected. Do you have an explanation for the leg bones in whales (from page one). I proposed the question a while back (not directed at you) and have yet to get an answer. Just curious.

Good grief, asked and answered. You are begging the question. There are no leg bones. Presuming it is a leg does not make it so. And if it was a leg, which it isn't, then how does losing genetic info for a leg account for the leg in the first place?

Is it really that much of a task to enter the name of the person you are quoting? It makes it so much easier to follow along in the thread without having to hunt for who said what...just a thought.

Back to your discussion.
.
.

[Pierson5]

Interesting. I stand corrected. Do you have an explanation for the leg bones in whales (from page one). I proposed the question a while back (not directed at you) and have yet to get an answer. Just curious.

PiersonGood grief, asked and answered. You are begging the question. There are no leg bones. Presuming it is a leg does not make it so. And if it was a leg, which it isn't, then how does losing genetic info for a leg account for the leg in the first place?

I don't understand how something is "begging the question" if it is supported by multiple lines of evidence (see page 1).



I'm sure you've seen this image before, from: //digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/4849
According to the standard phylogenetic tree, whales are known to be the descendants of terrestrial mammals that had hindlimbs. Thus, we expect the possibility that rare mutant whales might occasionally develop atavistic hindlimbs. Many examples of many different whales include femurs, tibia, and fibulae. Some even have feet with complete digits.

I say, they are quite obviously leg bones. Now, with the evidence on page 1 (fossil, molecular, genetic, ERV etc...) supporting this theory, tell me what you think they are and please cite your evidence supporting your hypothesis. Just saying "They aren't legs, you're wrong. You are begging the question," does not make me wrong.

What is the obsession with the “loss of information” anyway. Genes/morphology/etc.. that is not useful in an organism’s current lifestyle will be lost. That is basic natural selection. DNA is costly in terms of energy to make. I don’t understand why this is supposed to be a weak point of Darwinian evolutionary theory? If you are going to address this question, be sure to address my other points as well. As I have said before:

If an “expert” has no direct evidence in support of his own position, but can only attempt to tear down the opposing position, you can reasonably conclude that he doesn’t have anything meaningful to offer.

My point here is, if you think ID has any chance at becoming a core idea in science do the work. If you disagree with my points above and you want ID to become a legitimate science, the burden of proof is on you to show that you have something that helps us understand the natural world. Tell me a way in which ID can be subjected to a scientific test, NOT a test of evolution. A common theme I see here is false dualism (if it's not evolution, then it's ID, which is the false dichotomy logical fallacy).

There are now over 100 posts in this thread and many people claiming evolution is false. Yet only 2 people have attempted to provide any evidence for their alternate hypothesis. One was for the existence of a deity and the other didn't have anything to do with ID and was just another argument from ignorance.

[Danieltwotwenty]

Yet only 2 people have attempted to provide any evidence for their alternate hypothesis.

I don't understand why an alternative hypothesis has to be provided to falsify evolution?

I can say that clouds are not made of wool put in the sky by little sheep and prove it without providing an alternative explanation.

Dan

[RickD]

Pierson5 wrote:

There are now over 100 posts in this thread and many people claiming evolution is false. Yet only 2 people have attempted to provide any evidence for their alternate hypothesis. One was for the existence of a deity and the other didn't have anything to do with ID and was just another argument from ignorance

Get the book, More Than A Theory by Hugh Ross. That is what you would call an alternative hypothesis.

[Gman]

Gman... You clearly can't differentiate whether we are talking about abiogenesis or evolution, you constantly confuse what is meant by a hypothesis and theory, you refuse to answer any of my questions and have yet to provide any evidence or anything meaningful to the discussion.

On the contrary... I have provided information from this post that certain scientists are in fact fusing concepts of abiogenesis into their "so called" biology. Why? It's all part of the philosophical question, "How did life arise?" No one really knows.. Therefore you are forced to inject your philosophy into your science.

here are now over 100 posts in this thread and many people claiming evolution is false.

Again, it appears that the confusion is on your part. No one here denies micro-evolution, the problem arises however when you have us blindly accept macro-evolution as fact... It most certainly isn't and is just another argument from ignorance.