[Poll] Intelligent Design -- Yes/No (Explain)

[Mephisto]

It's something that we'll probably never understand, why are we here (we as in all organisms on Earth.) (And I don't mean why as in how, I mean why as in what purpose do we serve.)

Too bad science doesn't answer those questions, eh?

[MyndFyre]

This is so wrong.  Most important for you is to study evolution so you know what you are arguing for or against.  Evolution has nothing to do with adaptation of a species.  Adaptation is a trait the exists in the living.  For example, humans can adapt to many different living conditions.  Evolution is the unsurvivability of misfits to existing environments, leaving behind those better suited to survive the conditions.  Thus from generation to generation, you have changes that coincide with environmental pressures.

(emphasis added)
The species has thus evolved to be better-adapted to its environment.  Natural selection operates on the basis of adaptation of a population as an aggregate of its individual organisms.

Example:

A herd of musk oxen roaming the wild prarie are heading west because the grazing seems to be better in that direction.  After some time, they come to a mountain range.  Half of the population heads south, and the other heads north.

After several years, many of the oxen have produced offspring and possibly died off.  In the northern population (Pop. A), the short-haired oxen died off almost immediately, not allowing any offspring bearing that particular trait to survive.  In the southern population (Pop. B), the exact opposite happened: due to heat-related issues, the long-haired oxen were adversely affected, and died quickly.

Over hundreds and thousands of generations, small genetic differences built up in these oxen.  Finally, having grazed all the way around either side of the mountain, the now-cold-hardy Population A meets Population B on the other side.  Because they can no longer produce fertile offspring, they are said to be different species.

The process I have just described is speciation by adaptation.  I would be surprised if you guys haven't talked about it in your classes.  It's also called "microevolution," and if you didn't accept that as fact, I'd say "Huh?"  It's clearly plausible.

Having said so, the bacteria to the plant to man is somewhat more questionable.

In science, teach evolution.

In sociology/culture, teach intelligent design.

Many people supporting ID miss the boat entirely on science.  Generally, schools do not teach in secondary science (K-12) those theories which are not widely agreed upon and having enormous bodies of supporting fact.  Evolution meets the criteria.  Intelligent design is not even science.

Two comments about that:

First of all, I have never had any kind of sociology class, or any kind of social science class, that even approached discussing social science class in empirical terms until college.  Empiricism is built into physics and the other hard sciences; but because most schools don't teach statistics, trying to teach empirical classes in social science work would be fruitless anyway.  What good would telling students do that there's an r = 0.92, p < 0.001 if they don't know what these things mean?  I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't have really understood stats had I not taken calculus in some form.  Don't get me started on the inadequacy of American education, though.  

If as you say, you are only teaching that some things are designed instead of evolutioned, then that's perfectly valid. It is even 100% true. That is what our genetic manipulations are about, intelligently designing other species to improve crop harvest, make them more resistant to diseases, etc.

Bah, that's not what I meant, and you know it.  All I'm seeking is to have someone say "We have this model of evolution by means of natural selection, but some of these systems, like the process for blood clotting, seems to be evidence against it.  Here's why....  It would seem to indicate that the entire system was introduced at once into the genetics, which could not be explained by our current model of evolution."

IMO, evolution itself should not be taught as the end-all answer to every question about the origin of life, because it's not.  It is taught that way -- Grok, I don't know if you're just too old for that to have been true with you.

Blindly accepting that there are no phenomena in the universe that we cannot measure or observe is just as religious as believing in the supernatural.  The only thing is, this time, the religion is of faith in the human mind.

[Adron]

If as you say, you are only teaching that some things are designed instead of evolutioned, then that's perfectly valid. It is even 100% true. That is what our genetic manipulations are about, intelligently designing other species to improve crop harvest, make them more resistant to diseases, etc.

Bah, that's not what I meant, and you know it.  All I'm seeking is to have someone say "We have this model of evolution by means of natural selection, but some of these systems, like the process for blood clotting, seems to be evidence against it.  Here's why....  It would seem to indicate that the entire system was introduced at once into the genetics, which could not be explained by our current model of evolution."

Well, civilizations have come and gone before. It is not impossible that there was a higher level of civilization before, one that genetically altered humans to have certain features. Then, war killed all of them off pretty much and things regressed...

Though, it is also possible that there are valid intermediate stages for the process of blood clotting, ones that we have just not discovered yet. There might have been other proteins that were less efficient in the process, but that participated nonetheless. "Natural selection" between them eventually only left the ones we have today, making it seem like a mystery.

That, btw, is kind of like flowers and bees: Flowers depend on bees to pollinate them. Bees depend on flowers to feed them. They must have been intelligently designed, as there is no way they could have just instantly turned from goo into their current form, and neither survives without the other?

[Explicit]

That, btw, is kind of like flowers and bees: Flowers depend on bees to pollinate them. Bees depend on flowers to feed them. They must have been intelligently designed, as there is no way they could have just instantly turned from goo into their current form, and neither survives without the other?

Really nice analogy.

[MyndFyre]

That, btw, is kind of like flowers and bees: Flowers depend on bees to pollinate them. Bees depend on flowers to feed them. They must have been intelligently designed, as there is no way they could have just instantly turned from goo into their current form, and neither survives without the other?

Bees are much more dependent on flowers than the other way around.  Not all pollenators are dependent on nectar found in plants; and, don't forget, there always was wind to carry pollen. 

[Adron]

Bees are much more dependent on flowers than the other way around.  Not all pollenators are dependent on nectar found in plants; and, don't forget, there always was wind to carry pollen. 

Well, yes, pollination can be done by wind. Mostly trees are wind-pollinated. Most flowers do not get pollinated by wind though, for that to work they need to put out very many more pollen to have enough a chance of pollination to not lose in numbers each year. Also, many flowers' designs are specific to only accept pollination by a particular insect / animal.

[dxoigmn]

I found this on slashdot which was found on a blog.

Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!

Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!

Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.

Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!

Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.

[Explicit]

Hilarious.

[MyndFyre]

Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way.

That's the flaw of the argument: right at the beginning, and it shows that evolutionists won't even give someone who calls himself religious half a chance in the science field.

We allow evolution to take its course.  If that scientist's kneecap was designed that way, he wouldn't survive, and he wouldn't have offspring; if he did have offspring, they would be so severely impaired (gimped?) that they would not survive.

The scientist in this allegory is saying that the process is implausible.  ID advocates say that the result is implausible.

It is the same thing every time: people who believe that life happened to come out of nonlife through natural selection think that their science is divine.  They can know everything to know about how the universe works given enough time to identify and study all the phenomena.  People who don't believe this are religious nuts bent on destroying the world with their hate and non-logical approach to the world.  They obviously don't follow any kind of scientific procedure, and we can throw it out when dealing with them because of that.

It disgusts me.

[dxoigmn]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. It sounds like you misunderstood the anecdote, but I'll take a stab at this.

That's the flaw of the argument: right at the beginning, and it shows that evolutionists won't even give someone who calls himself religious half a chance in the science field.

We allow evolution to take its course.  If that scientist's kneecap was designed that way, he wouldn't survive, and he wouldn't have offspring; if he did have offspring, they would be so severely impaired (gimped?) that they would not survive.

This is flawed. It just doesn't work that way. Natural selection does not deal with inhertiable traits, rather heritable traits. In the context of this anecdote, a broken knee cap is not a heritable trait.

The scientist in this allegory is saying that the process is implausible.  ID advocates say that the result is implausible.

The result being living creatures exist? If so then I have a big problem with that...

It is the same thing every time: people who believe that life happened to come out of nonlife through natural selection think that their science is divine.  They can know everything to know about how the universe works given enough time to identify and study all the phenomena.  People who don't believe this are religious nuts bent on destroying the world with their hate and non-logical approach to the world.  They obviously don't follow any kind of scientific procedure, and we can throw it out when dealing with them because of that.

It disgusts me.

Natural selection does not work on non-living things, it is a process on living things. So those who "believe that life happened to come out of nonlife through natural selection" don't know what they're talking about.

[Adron]

Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way.

That's the flaw of the argument: right at the beginning, and it shows that evolutionists won't even give someone who calls himself religious half a chance in the science field.

But maybe it was? Who are you to say it was not designed that way? I fail to see how that is a flaw. In a designed world, things need not be optimal in an evolution / selection view. Look at cats or dogs bred for "beauty", or designed clothes/furniture that are uncomfortable or hardly functional, but that exist anyway. Look at meat animals, bred so they cannot walk very well, or so they cannot give natural birth.

Something that has been designed can look/be any way. It is all up to the designer.

[CrAz3D]

Logically, man wouldn't evolve in a way that would make travel harder/impossible.  As it seems to me through the lovely progressive fossil record diagram things, man has evolved in a way that has made it easier for him to move about as a bipedal species, we wouldnt want to lose one of our legs' operability because then mobility would end.

[Adron]

True. But the point of the story is that you can only conclude someone hit his leg if you apply a scientific/evolution analysis. Under the assumption that there is a designer creating the world, possibly planting evidence etc, it is possible that the broken kneecap was part of the initial design. Maybe it was put there to test the "Intelligent Design advocate", to make his life harder.