That's a blanket statement just as bad as intelligent design...you are just assuming there exist physical factors to make evolution occur, and even if we haven't identified all of them yet they obviously must exist...philosophically speaking, that isn't any better of an argument than intelligent design, which just assumes God aided evolution even though we have yet to prove that assertion...

Certainly science has a better track record and so there's nothing wrong with saying science is more likely to supply the correct answer than intelligent design...but you are assuming an absolute position...

In science, a physical reason is inherently assumed even if we don't know about it...the proper criticism of intelligent design from a scientific perspective is not that it is wrong and "real" science is right, but that intelligent design cannot be tested while physical theories can...

In philosophy, intelligent design cannot be ruled out unless a competing theory explains evolution just as well as intelligent design...obviously pulling the "God" card is hard to argue against (since you can't directly prove it's wrong) unless you have a complete physical theory...

Any theory regarding abiogenesis must explain not only how life arises, but what drives that process...intelligent design argues that God was needed to drive that particular processes as opposed to science showing physical reasons (such as entropy, for example) why that process would occur on its own...intelligent design is not an alternative to evolution as much as it is a theory regarding why evolution would occur...intelligent design may be completely bogus and proved wrong, but a wrong theory is still a theory...

There is no one single complete theory regarding abiogensis that has the consensus of the scientific community, pointing even more to the fact that the driving force behind evolution and the creation of life has yet to be solidly determined by science...doesn't automatically make intelligent design right, but your dismissal of it seems more based on a distaste for religion than anything else, and that attitude is about as far from scientific as one can get...

Creationism in its broadest sense argues that God created the world...but with the advent of the phrase "Intelligent Design" (as it relates to biology), Creationism usually refers to a literal interpretation of Genesis while Intelligent Design accepts the mechanism of evolution with the caveat that evolutionary forces are "inspired" by God...

Creationist museums will have people walking in the same "exhibit" as dinosaurs, adhering to the strict literal interpretation that all life was created at once simply by the word of God...so for all intents and purposes, contexts and connotation make Creationism and Intelligent Design different things...

Like Texas?  Not as bad as blanket state legislation (which is on the floor in Missouri)...

The scientific community is still in the process of forming a single, cohesive theory regarding abiogenesis...intelligent design, while definitely a theory, does not qualify as a scientific theory (since it cannot tested) and as such really is not relevant to the scientific community...independent of intelligent design though, to say evolution is complete is simply wrong...there is still a lot of work that needs to be done (especially regarding abiogenesis) and one does not need religion to see that...

Scientific theories do depend heavily on popular opinion...their "popularity" has no bearing on their correctness (the truth is the truth) but it does have bearing on their ability to be funded, supported, and incorporated into education...right or wrong, the science we accept today was proliferated by popular opinion...in fact, "correct" theories like gravitational lensing were popularized or vindicated by experiments rift with error...to think the history of science is a logical, unbiased pursuit of pure knowledge even in recent times is simply naive...the system may not be how science should work, but that's how the world is...

There are good reasons to dismiss Intelligent Design, but you should not be criticizing the theory because its advocates are loony "religious folk"...if you really are going to play the "unbiased, logical scientist", then Intelligent Design's association with religion should be entirely irrelevant...there are logical reasons for dismissing Intelligent Design, such as Popper's test or the argument of economy...so stick to those instead of critiquing the theory because of its advocates or associations....

As I noted above, Intelligent Design argues that science has failed to adequately explain why abiogenesis occurred and suggests that instead of a physical reason necessitating evolution to occur, God "weighted the dice" to create the world we live in....is it scientific?  Well, since it's not testable, technically no...but the creation of life is both scientific and philosophical, so a theory need not be scientific in order to be a contributing theory to the beginnings of life...and since intelligent design utilizes the scientific mechanism of evolution, a complete theory certainly could include intelligent design...

 

Abiogenesis is the scientific study of how organic life arises from inorganic matter from natural processes not supernatural processes. Intelligent Design theory is not scientific theory so it is not a theory of abiogenesis because that would require that ID was created through the scientific method. 

Seleuceia, many try to dismiss ‘science’ (when necessary) as some little competitive thing … but we are talking a lot more here. Evolution is independently verified by many different branches of science like Ecology, Genetics, Medicine, Cellular Biology, Immunology, Embryology, Anthropology, Molecular Biology, Histology, Cellular Biology, Anatomy, Paleontology, Cosmetology and logical common sense to name a few … independently confirm evolution … end  of the story.

Irrefutable Proof of Evolution

If you are waiting for absolute proof of anything ... you have a long wait ahead of you.

Hahahahaa. (Edit:From your vid post) Neanderthals have not disappeared, there is one living in the house next door. 

Seriously, I am pretty sure I read long ago we have had some cross breeding going on a while back and if you look close, they are among us.

I can just imagine the comic painted on the wall by a Neanderthal about his drunken Neanderthal buddy screwin' our monkey ancestor. 

The Neanderthal gave the vicious greedy evil Cro Magnon just enough brains to wipe out every Neanderthal and everything else that crosses their path soon to be including themselves. Ooohhh, a great move, "Planet of the Humans". 

Edit: Found 1 older story on it

hmmm, more neanderthal than human?

Unfortunately although my personal interests in the subject matter do include scientific and philosophical enlightenment I do not expect many of the questions I have to be answered "overnight", so I also have an interest in the advocates and lobbyists who are trying to force this kind of crap into the public education system which is something that is happening "overnight". In that regards court decisions in which Books such as "Of Pandas and People" are used as "evidence" are quite relevant. When the writers,editors,and publishers of such "science textbooks" are employed by political lobbies and published by religious media outlets then the current debate justifiable extends outside of scientific study. Particularly when you are debating some people who cannot or refuse to understand the difference between science and "science fiction".

Not to mention that my formal education and classroom debate ended many moons ago so although posting here is ultimately to learn about the subject matter and human nature I am not seeking to be graded by "the professor" so comic relief is quite welcome.

Smoothseas, hahaha, are you trying to tell me that Conon the Barbarian is in my ancestry ... OMG.

Looks like Ron Perlman after a hard night on the piss....

Samcro's "the morning after"....

I was thinking Nick Nolte before a shot,shower,and shave.

I am not questioning the validity of evolution, it is a mechanism with a lot of support for it...

What is not well understand that is point is the very beginnings of life...we don't know why life started any more than we know why the Big Bang occurred...we just know that both process happened and how they occurred, and that's as far as we've gotten so far...

Intelligent Design is not testable which is why we don't consider it scientific...nevertheless, it is still a theory, and it clearly is related to how life started...

Even if Intelligent Design isn't technically a scientific theory of abiogenesis, that doesn't really change anything philosophically...abiogenesis is so fundamental that it is tackling an issue inherently scientific and philosophical...

Philosophical inclinations are melded with science all the time, for better or worse....it is not uncommon for quantum mechanics to be taught and described with certain bias regarding its determinism (something that as of right now is entirely philosophical)...

 

Um, no.

There IS NO need for a 'why', and there's certainly no evidence of either 'starting', and certainly only evidence that the former is extant.

And because we don't know everything we are supposed to just start guessing? Any scientist worth much will be the first to indicate we do not know all there is to know about anything. But we know more than we did yesterday and we will learn more things tomorrow ... we will continue to build the big picture but we will not fill any of the gaps with magic ... ever. I don't know how current you are on genetics and the genetic codes we have recently unraveled, but we have come a long way and are now comfortable with our history. Today, we can trace the evolution of just about any living creature or plant. We know enough to rule out Noah and his arc, Adam and Eve, the beginning of the universe and life within it … and a lot more to boot. If the very fundamentals of the bible are so easily disproved, one would have to conclude the whole story line is faked or was gathered from mythology as can be demonstrated through archeological finds well predating Christianity. Do you honestly think that god would so thoroughly hide himself from the very people he supposedly created as to make it impossible to prove his very existance?  And would a god have some need to confuse his ‘children’ with a provable mythological ‘reality’ while promoting an improbable reality that is completely mythological and improvable? If you want to try and make sense of this, be my guest.

Humm, no takers huh ... that should tell us something important. If one is prone to be a biblical literalist, all fine and well, no skin off my nose ... don't call me is all. How about listing something externally generated as proof or even as a reason to consider ID as anything besides Creationism repackaged. Following is a simple demonstration of what I mean (my point of view) ... got anything besides a picture of Mt. Rushmore hahaha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Z3SAGDZXLxI

I took a vacation of sorts from the forums for a few weeks (only came back to help with modding questions) and then when I returned, my interest in this thread (and the other related ones) sort of waned...these aren't exactly the types of conversations to miss big chunks of and then dive right back in...

That evolution occurred is associated with completely different evidence than how evolution occurred...

Arguing against the occurence of evolution is, as far as I'm concerned, a ridiculous position to take as the evidence is quite overwhelming...

How did evolution occur?  We have pretty solid models regarding the evolution of a single species, though transmutation and abiogenesis are a little more wishy washy...it's not that we don't know anything, it's just that it's not fully understood...

Because there is uncertainty, there is wiggle room to say that God was involved...

Think of it this way...imagine I'm a desperate man greatly in need of money and I bet that I can flip a coin and get heads 100 times in a row...I proceed to flip the coin and amazingly, I get 100 heads in a row...

We know it is possible...we even understand the mathematics of the situation...but you have to admit it is pretty damn unlikely, and given the context (I really really needed to win the bet because I was desperate) it should be no surprise that someone would say "Looks like God was on your side"....

Evolution is really no different...right now, we have yet to prove that the evolution of sentient life is an inevitable outcome given the conditions on Earth...as such, there is wiggle room to say God "loaded the dice" or "tilted the odds" to get evolution to occur exactly the way it did...

It is not a logical argument, but people are not purely logical...you see something that is highly unlikely to occur by chance, and it's hard not to think an intelligent something had a hand in it...

We don't have evidence God exists or that God had to "intervene" or "tilt the odds" to get evolution to occur...but we don't have proof he didn't...and in this situation, the only thing science really has going for it is the argument of economy..."testibility" and all that great scientific stuff really doesn't matter because it dismisses ID rather than disproving it outright....

Hell, I could throw a little caveat into the 3rd postulate of Quantum Mechanics and say "any individual measurement obtained is decided by God"...you can't prove me wrong scientifically, you simply can't...dismissing my theory because it "can't be tested" and therefore "isn't scientific" is completely meaningless because you still haven't proved me wrong...

Being found "not guilty" isn't the same as being innocent...you might get off by a technicality or a screwy jury, but it doesn't change any fundamental truth about your innocence...the same goes here, you can dismiss ID because it can't be tested but you'll never disprove it...ID can always change and be exactly like evolution but with one caveat: God loaded the dice...

ID isn't just "scientific", it is also philosophical, and as such science will never be able to completely dismantle the theory...

Completely irrelevant...the existence of God (and therefore the possibility of his intervention in any evolutionary process) is independent of the "correctness" of the Bible...disproving the Bible does nothing to discredit the possibility of God or his likeliness to affect evolution on earth...

 

I think you are just creating a 'straw man' here. If your idea of ID differs from what the ID people themselves are stating, then we don't have much to discuss as I can only do 'personal' ID on a ‘personal’ level ... same for religious views … if one has their ‘personal’ ideas that varies from the main stream … it has to be dealt with on a ‘personal’ level. Experience has taught me that JU is not such a good place for this. Most of what you have stated here is little more than wistful thinking IMO. And before I continue … surely you understand that ID is nothing more than Creationism repackaged with a little more ‘wiggle room’ is all … but still unfounded. Theories are not random ideas someone decided to chat about. A theory is founded from scientific certainties (as best we can do) and are acceptable only after thorough scientific peer review … none of which applies to ID which has no scientific support at all and ID people stay as far away from scientific peer review as is humanly possible … wonder why??? But you are just wrong on many of your assertions again IMO. Wiggle room doesn’t at all imply that we can or should just “insert god’ just to fill the gaps. If that makes someone happy to do so that’s all well and good … but there is nothing to be gained by mystically inserting a ‘catch all’ like ‘god’ into the fray ... unless of course that is what one wants to do.

First I will address the absurdity of trying to use quantum mechanics in the same sentence with god. You have to be shitting me (or WTF mate) … now with that settled (IMO) it might be easier for all of us if you were just to explain what it is you do believe in as opposed to what it is that I (we) cannot are somehow supposed to disprove for you, just a simpler approach. I was to be a math major but never made it due to my military hitch (10 years) and never made it back. I can get by with physics and thermodynamics and a couple more (get by mind you), but QM is just above my pay grade to coin a phrase. That is why I try to stay clear of it and I would recommend you do likewise.

Secondly, our sciences are not in the business of disproving things (least of all magic), besides maybe other scientific works (aha, the coveted Nobel Prize). From your response, I will assume you are a protagonist for ID regardless of the fact that there is ZERO proof for it.

Thirdly, you are trying to take this to a ‘personal’ (individual) level which again countermands the nature of science altogether which deals with repeatability through thorough testing. Science does fill in blanks when it has to (and it does) but with other science … not magic at all, ever. Anyone who can read can insert quotes from well anywhere they want I guess … but understanding them and using them effectively is a whole different can of worms altogether. Here is some introductory level QM info if you feel the need to brush up some (boring, if one doesn’t like math and medical like terminology a lot) before responding.

Introduction to quantum mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics

Postulates of Quantum Mechanics   http://vergil.chemistry.gatech.edu/notes/quantrev/node20.html

Lastly, I am not at all fond of hypotheticals (in this context) and for good reason. It is just too damn easy to set them up through reverse engineering to promote only one conclusion (or so most users think) and that is what I call “intellectual dishonesty” … which I personally abhor. Note – I am not accusing you or anyone of anything … just clarifying my views. ID isn’t at all scientific no matter how hard you or anyone else tries to make it otherwise … just the facts of life I am afraid.

PS: Have you actually watched the movie … or are you just winging this??? It might help to understand some of the arguments better if you did.

Of course you cannot be proven wrong scientifically, because you're not using science to make your argument.

No, the same does not apply here.  Science isn't about a jury or a vote.  It's about observable facts.  Postulate a theory which has evidence which can be tested and you can lay a claim to being based in science.  Postulate that an invisible flatulent homosexual unicorn (you know... god...) stuck his horn in a fish and turned it into a frog...  That's ID.

ID isn't scientific.  PERIOD.  It's entirely philosophical and almost utterly laughable as it is commonly presented by the army of mouthbreathing christards who support it.  Science CANNOT dismantle the 'theory' because it's just some ridiculous nonsense based in poorly conceived probabilities with more assumptions than anyone would sanely bother with.  And its absolutely failing trump card, god.

 

This is true.  But disproving the bible goes a long way to demonstrating just how devoid of logic and reason Christianity (and other religions) is.  The ultimate question of god is really pretty damn boring and pointless anyway.  It's just when man decides to use god for his own purposes that it becomes interesting, though highly problematic.