Evolution explains something yet again!

[Byblos]

If intelligent design is correct then why does evlution continue?
Just a thought.

Because its continuity is an inherent consequence of its intelligence.

[Leprechaun]

Surely that means that we are not the pinnacle of creation ( at ths current moment in time) because more "advanced" (even if only slightly so) humans will evolve.

[Byblos]

Surely that means that we are not the pinnacle of creation ( at ths current moment in time) because more "advanced" (even if only slightly so) humans will evolve.

Evolve into what?

[Leprechaun]

Eh I can't predict the future....but first slightly more....advanced or evolvd humans and then? Who knows? If evolution is correct then whatever traits are successful today will be dominant in the future. The question is what traits are successful good-looking people have partners because they're good-looking rich people have partners cos they're rich (possibly as a result of intelligence(This doesn't apply in all cases I am just using it to prove that people who are..less good-looking than average still have partners so obviously looks aren't a successful factor. Observation also shows that on average poor people have more children than rich so being successful in today's world does not compute to Darwinian success as such. I don't really know maybe humanity will diverge the only fact is that we are still evolving, into what? God knows.

[Leprechaun]

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives ... lution.htm
I thought I should add that to give some basis for my statements.
BTW Byblos I am not trying to prove a point or anything nor am I saying that such and such a theory is wrong I am just offering my view on matters so please tell me if I offend you or anything similar ot if my info is wrong cos I'm not pretending to now the answers i was jsut trying to open up an avenue of discussion.

[godslanguage]

If intelligent design is correct then why does evlution continue?
Just a thought.

Evolution, whether it occurred or not in the past, seems to be at a halt at the present. The theory of evolution is deducted mostly from the fossil record and similarities between species, if it weren't it wouldn't have a leg to stand on. There are very few (if any) concrete examples of evolution being observed in the laboratory. A recently published article by Dr. Lenski is a good example of how-to-make-a-big-deal-out-of-nothing and present-it-as-something-substantial.

Either way, the Intelligent Design community has made it very clear that they are not against evolution, but against the idea that the chance and luck Darwinian fairytale had a lot to do with it. Everyone agrees that computers, automobiles etc...evolved by Intelligent Design. As you can see, evolution has many different meanings, one is the goal-directed one (front-loading hypothesis, embedded code into the first living cell, guidance by some external unknown force that may itself be embedded into the universe or laws of physics, the designer could be acting or not acting in many of the various forms, nobody is specifying this), the other is the undirected one(ie: Darwinian chance and luck happy worshipers, jumbo jets come together by purely natural mechanisms due to high winds at a junkyard, a game of flipping coins over a long period of time to get "working results")

[Leprechaun]

I'm not saying that evolution and intelligent design are at odds with each other I am jsut saying that if evolution or design is continuing then it means we aren't the pinnacle of Creation (even if we are close).
That is unless we are devolving....

[godslanguage]

If evolution was in fact working, we wouldn't be seeing the extinction rate skyrocket.If there was a period in our earths history where species needed to adapt to they're environment (ie: demand for change) and pass offspring to increase survivability plus the population, it would be right now (take for example: the causal effects from human induced (or not) Global warming).

Here are a few relational logical considerations:

• its a lot harder to upgrade then it is to downgrade
  its a lot easier to modify something for better or worse when the initial design is there
  its a lot easier to screw up something when modifying then it is to leave it alone
  its a lot harder to find a better working solution to a problem then one that already works
  sometimes there is only one solution to a problem

These are some of the arguments at the very bare core that ID addresses. It is not wise to dismiss them with a hand wave (not pointing directly at you here)

[Leprechaun]

I think you misread what I said.
What I am saying is that a lot of religions say that humanity is the pinnacle of Creation however how can this be so if we are continuing to evolve and/or be designed. Unless we are a stepping stone for "God's image" or unless the changes will be so insignificant that we won't be that much different.
PS: I am talking about recent evolution just over thousands of years (miniscule in evolution terms and only microevolution at the moment)

[godslanguage]

I think you misread what I said.
What I am saying is that a lot of religions say that humanity is the pinnacle of Creation however how can this be so if we are continuing to evolve and/or be designed. Unless we are a stepping stone for "God's image" or unless the changes will be so insignificant that we won't be that much different.
PS: I am talking about recent evolution just over thousands of years (miniscule in evolution terms and only microevolution at the moment)

The evidence is not for progressive evolution but devolution or no evolution at the present anyways. There are different meanings of evolution, different ways to define a function of change over time. Perhaps evolution is a product of design, to maintain the status quo, to keep species within set boundaries or constraints but at the same time friendly to micro-changes.

The obvious fact is that we humans are the only dominant species on the planet that are fully consciously aware of what they're doing. If we were the pinnacle of the creation, you could say we evolved to be by design. That is pushing it though, and I am not going to go further with that if you are asking about how this relates to Intelligent Design.

[zoegirl]

leprechaun, I think you are using antiquated terms.

The "pinnacle" of creation does not necessarily mean the most complex. We are the unique part of creation because we are made in God's image. I think most Christians would understand that in terms of biological amd physiological terms, we are mammals and have very similar workings.

But we understand that we are higher than the animals (At least I have heard this the most) because of that image of God, not because of our physiology. Certainly, the more we understand about even the common cell, we know that the complexioty and beuaty of creation is not limited to us.

Also, evolution does not imply scaling the ladder. That is also an antiquated term with regards to evolution. Natural selection can shift populations in one diretion, downgrade, or upgrade (and I would certainly agree with godslanguage that upgrading, by that I mean beneficial mutations, is harder than downgrading, losing genetic material.) So even if we ARE evolving in small scales, it ceratinly doesn't negate our uniqueness with regards to our being image-bearers.

FOr example, simply because a popualtion shifts in the percentage of people heterozygous for sickle-cell, this has no bearing on our identity from God.

I woiuld debate whether we are evolving on large scale simply because, for us, the evidence is still in the past and purely speculative.

[Byblos]

leprechaun, I think you are using antiquated terms.

The "pinnacle" of creation does not necessarily mean the most complex. We are the unique part of creation because we are made in God's image. I think most Christians would understand that in terms of biological amd physiological terms, we are mammals and have very similar workings.

But we understand that we are higher than the animals (At least I have heard this the most) because of that image of God, not because of our physiology. Certainly, the more we understand about even the common cell, we know that the complexioty and beuaty of creation is not limited to us.

Also, evolution does not imply scaling the ladder. That is also an antiquated term with regards to evolution. Natural selection can shift populations in one diretion, downgrade, or upgrade (and I would certainly agree with godslanguage that upgrading, by that I mean beneficial mutations, is harder than downgrading, losing genetic material.) So even if we ARE evolving in small scales, it ceratinly doesn't negate our uniqueness with regards to our being image-bearers.

FOr example, simply because a popualtion shifts in the percentage of people heterozygous for sickle-cell, this has no bearing on our identity from God.

I woiuld debate whether we are evolving on large scale simply because, for us, the evidence is still in the past and purely speculative.

Thank you Zoegirl, you beat me to the punch. That's exactly the point I was trying to get at, we are the pinnacle of creation not in the physical sense, although it does have physical manifestations. We are created in the image of God in the spiritual sense and that's what makes us the pinnacle of creation.

[godslanguage]

CSI is a term invented by, I think, Dembski. It is not a term in scientific usage within the scientific community. About the mousetrap, precursor arrangements of molecules that function elsewhere have been reused during evolution as assembly parts for completely different purposes. In the case of the eye, from which the original analogy came, the functionality of the eye in different species ranges from primitive light sensing devices to complicated eyes with lenses and everything in between, with a similar range of chemical and structural complexity. Some parts in the complex eye are not found in the simpler eye. Just because the simpler eye is missing parts doesn't mean it doesn't function at all.

Complex specified information is used on a daily basis, more so then any number of scientific experiments on that planet. We frequently read words and sentences , while reading out of a whole paragraph with 500 words we are able to compress that into a something much smaller in size. In actuality, we only extract and interpret a few bits of that information, the condensed form can be expressed in both logical and/or mathematical forms. We frequently read articles of interest which can be measured in terms of how complex and specified the information is. Our whole academic system works through the concept of complex specified information for that matter. Textbooks state whether its recommended for kids at a college/university(advanced) level or high school (intermediate) level. CSI is no different, just a different application.

Reusing parts is not against design. A designer would want to use pre-existing functions to speed up the process.
The concept of IC is based upon the current state of configuration, nothing more. How it got to that state is not part of IC, that is a different question. Behe's concept is very simple to understand. Behes IC is about the present-tense "is", not "how", even though Behe raises the "how" question in Darwin's Black Box to challenge the science fiction theory of Darwinian Evolution.

Don't have a good answer here. I don't necessarily agree with Dawkins' approach, but he is reacting to the efforts to interfere with the teaching of legitimate science - which is, like it or not, what evolution is - in our schools.

I don't have any answer to this except that Dawkins is not reacting, he and his "believers" are promoting nothing more then atheism fancied up as science.

[Leprechaun]

So the sum of it is that we are the apex if creation in terms of our soul/consciousness rather than in physcal terms (including the brain and it's size shape etc.).

[zoegirl]

Yes, in the image of God sets up apart from the rest of creation.