I hoped that it was pretty clear from what I posted that I understood this, but that the notion of the concept (of anything) existing is unimportant when we are discussing the actuality. In other words, if we're discussing the existence of unicorns, it isn't really helpful if someone comes along and says "the concept of unicorns exists".
Intelligent Design
- Thread starter Thor 2
- Start date
I hoped that it was pretty clear from what I posted that I understood this, but that the notion of the concept (of anything) existing is unimportant when we are discussing the actuality. In other words, if we're discussing the existence of unicorns, it isn't really helpful if someone comes along and says "the concept of unicorns exists".
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
Exactly.
Alright I wasn't aware that one off statement was going to be this controversial.
What I meant was that Intelligent Design isn't some real opinion that people actually hold. It's a marketing ploy. It was specifically and intentionally (and openly admitted to being) created to backdoor good old fashioned religious creationism myths into science classes.
Creationism, 100% wrong as it is, is at least an opinion that people honestly hold and has developed naturally and organically. Intelligent Design was all but created in a marketing meeting.
What I meant was that Intelligent Design isn't some real opinion that people actually hold. It's a marketing ploy. It was specifically and intentionally (and openly admitted to being) created to backdoor good old fashioned religious creationism myths into science classes.
Creationism, 100% wrong as it is, is at least an opinion that people honestly hold and has developed naturally and organically. Intelligent Design was all but created in a marketing meeting.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
Question: Do you suppose there are non-theists who believe that there does at least appear to be design in nature?
My point is, I don't think that that position is 100% religious.
To be clear, it's not a position I hold.
I'm not gonna play a rousing game of "Find the technicality/exception."
ID has been around long enough that perhaps some of the rank and file have started to believe the mythology. And "design" arguments do exist that pre-date ID. "The world is too designed to not have a God" goes at least as far back as Aquinas.
But Intelligent Design itself is not a personal level opinion, it's a pseudo-scientific educational movement.
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Put together by the cdesign proponentsists.
That's a bit of a straw man, because we know that a small mutation in the genome can have a large change in the phenotype. There don't have to be all those gradual changes. For example, the offspring of an insect could have an extra pair of legs compared with the parent due to the replication of a section of DNA, there would not need to be several generations with increasing proportions of the extra pair of legs.
Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
Not even remotely. I'm hard pressed to see how you got from my words to that.When it doesn't even remotely resemble what was actually said, that's hardly a surprise.
Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
In addition, even if a possible and plausible path can be presented, they may well try to treat it as if it doesn't exist anytime that it's not brought up specifically each time they make the claim or dismiss it as speculation, if they can get away with it in that case. The arguments surrounding the eye that quote mine from Darwin's book show that quite well enough.
Ehh... that feels like a bit of a misrepresentation. The proponents actually tend not to ignore such. Rather, they're far more likely to rely on a couple reasonable principles to address such. First, the challenges are not being thrown out from a position of knowledge or understanding, but rather from a position of throwing a lot of mud at a wall and hoping that some sticks. Alternately, one could invoke the concept of grasping at straws. Second, that numerous such arguments have already been shown to be in error, with no good reason presented to treat any of the remainder differently. In fact, for many of them, it's not actually reasonable to expect us to have all the answers yet, given our current best levels of understanding. While we've come very far, there's so very much more left to explore and discover, after all.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
And yet at least two members did.
But using the Principle of Charity, I'll accept that's not what you meant.
Dave Rogers
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through
And third, the challenges are generally the first stage of a goalpost-moving exercise. The ID proponent starts by saying that there is no plausible route by which a set of changes could have occurred; the rationalist responds by proposing just such a route; the ID proponent then demands proof that the proposed route was the actual route by which the change occurred, and implies that in the absence of any such proof the theory of evolution has somehow been falsified. It's a standard technique in pseudoscience; first argue from incredulity, then abruptly shift the burden of proof when that incredulity is seen to be groundless.
Dave
Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
When the original claim being responded to was that the concept of ID doesn't really exist, as JoeBentley was kind enough to repeat right after your post...
Speaking of which, did you miss the part where ID is pretty much inseparable from creationism, JoeBentley? Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook that they pushed, was shown to originally have been using "creationists" rather than than "design proponents," as one of many examples. Intelligent Design IS some real opinion that people actually hold, regardless of whether its right or wrong, rebranded or not. It's not science, yes, but that's actually pretty irrelevant to the argument that you're actually making.
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Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
It would hardly be the first time that multiple people ignored the context and content of my posts here (sometimes even that found within a simple sentence) to try to challenge me to defend claims that I wasn't remotely making, to put it kindly.
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When the original claim being responded to was that the concept of ID doesn't really exist, as JoeBentley was kind enough to repeat right after your post...
Speaking of which, did you miss the part where ID is pretty much inseparable from creationism, JoeBentley? Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook that they pushed, was shown to originally have been using "creationists" rather than than "Intelligent design proponents," as one of many examples. Intelligent Design IS some real opinion that people actually hold, regardless of whether its right or wrong, rebranded or not. It's not science, yes, but that's actually pretty irrelevant to the argument that you're actually making.
Okay don't understand what completely non-semantic point you are making, what distinction you are pushing, or what hill you are dying to defend here so... YOU WIN! *Hands you a ribbon and a trophy.*
Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
*sigh* The simple version is that you chose to make blatantly false statements. I pointed out that they were false and why they were false. If you didn't actually mean them as you formulated them, just try to do better in the future.
I know many people who perceive both the reality of evolution and the appearance of design. Some of those believe in actual design as well (e.g. spiritual influences from higher planes influencing evolution toward some purpose), while others don't. Only some of them are Christians. Of course, none of them are Biblical Creationists.
One important thing about evolution that we don't often emphasize is that it can be viewed as a complex and massive ongoing computation. The process includes genomes that store information in a persistent and yet changeable structure, like synapses in our brains and memory arrays in computers. Individual organisms integrate a large number of inputs into a single go/no-go threshold (of whether or not the individual successfully produces surviving offspring), much like the firing of neurons in our brains or the operation of logic gates in a computer. And like brains and computers, the biosphere contains large numbers of these elements interacting simultaneously.
So, though evolution has no apparent goal and no observable supervisory sentience, that doesn't make it random or simple or straightforward.
This wouldn't matter if the only people questioning evolution or slyly sneaking their own speculative aspects into it were Creationists masquerading as "ID proponents," and the only people accepting evolution were atheist materialists. But the world of ideas is not that simple either.
One important thing about evolution that we don't often emphasize is that it can be viewed as a complex and massive ongoing computation. The process includes genomes that store information in a persistent and yet changeable structure, like synapses in our brains and memory arrays in computers. Individual organisms integrate a large number of inputs into a single go/no-go threshold (of whether or not the individual successfully produces surviving offspring), much like the firing of neurons in our brains or the operation of logic gates in a computer. And like brains and computers, the biosphere contains large numbers of these elements interacting simultaneously.
So, though evolution has no apparent goal and no observable supervisory sentience, that doesn't make it random or simple or straightforward.
This wouldn't matter if the only people questioning evolution or slyly sneaking their own speculative aspects into it were Creationists masquerading as "ID proponents," and the only people accepting evolution were atheist materialists. But the world of ideas is not that simple either.
The fact is that I asked you to expand on what you said because I wasn't clear as to the point you were trying to make. That was entirely neutral. You came back with a clarification.
Now, if those two posts were the sum total of your argument, and yet misled me and other posters, then I contend that the problem isn't ours, but in your clarity of thought and writing. Before you lace into everyone who has mistaken whatever it is you are trying to say, perhaps your time would be better employed seeing if you can put together a clear and cohesive argument.
korenyx
Graduate Poster
One of my cousins tried the "missing link" argument on me and I told him we will never have an unbroken chain of fossils for anything. He told me every fossil found makes two more gaps in the record. He also tried "the human body is perfect" argument. He thinks that every organ and every system in the body works just the way God wants it to and if something goes wrong it's our fault or God planned it that way.
Thor 2
Philosopher
The human body is perfect argument is a somewhat flawed argument. I suppose you have pointed out to your cousin some of the flaws in our bodies?
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/04/the-most-unfortunate-design-flaws-in-the-human-body/
Having a common canal for food and respiration is a flaw I am acutely aware of. I was intubated for a month many years back and suffer a bit of damage in that area, so often get something down my trachea. Dolphins have evolved beyond this flaw.
Thor 2
Philosopher
Of course if you scratch a proponent of intelligent design you will find a creationist, and if the creationist is a believer in the Abrahamic God, he/she will believe in the Noah's floating zoo idea.
To believe in the Noah thing is nothing short of remarkable for many reasons, but the one that comes to mind in the light of this discussion, is the extraordinary and rapid evolution that had to take place post the flood, for our diverse array of life today to come to exist. Noah only had space for different "kinds" of critters.
Now one of the creationists favourite arguments is to point to the absence of so called "missing links" between different animals as mentioned by korenyx above. Now if the extraordinarily rapid evolution took place after the flood there should be an abundant number of remains of transitional animals for us to study.
To believe in the Noah thing is nothing short of remarkable for many reasons, but the one that comes to mind in the light of this discussion, is the extraordinary and rapid evolution that had to take place post the flood, for our diverse array of life today to come to exist. Noah only had space for different "kinds" of critters.
Now one of the creationists favourite arguments is to point to the absence of so called "missing links" between different animals as mentioned by korenyx above. Now if the extraordinarily rapid evolution took place after the flood there should be an abundant number of remains of transitional animals for us to study.