Why isn't intricate design considered evidence of a higher intellence?

[Thunder]

There are some systems within nature that are incredibly intricate. Yet evolutionary purists refuse to accept that this could be evidence of an intelligent creator.

Why is that? If you saw a watch on the ground wouldn't it be insane to think it just grew there without a maker?

I don't believe in the silly God of the Bible. But I believe there is an argument to be made for a highly intelligent and advanced creator behind the universe and all living things.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

If the universe is hard to explain isn't the universe plus a highly intelligent and advanced creator even harder to explain?

 

[Thunder]

just because we cannot understand the creator does not mean it doesn't exist.

if Einstein is right, and we can bend and warp the space-time continuum, then certainly an all intelligent creator is not beyond possibility.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

just because we cannot understand the creator does not mean it doesn't exist.

if Einstein is right, and we can bend and warp the space-time continuum, then certainly an all intelligent creator is not beyond possibility.

Just because you don't understand evolution doesn't mean that others don't.

Just because you can't prove that the Universe wasn't created last Tuesday does not mean it was.

 

[arthwollipot]

Paley made a terrible mistake in his Watchmaker argument. He specifically noted that a rock is beneath notice, but the watch is specifically and noticably different from other objects that one might come across in a field. Creationists believe that the rock is equally as much designed as the watch is, and yet it is only the watch that attracts notice.

Paleys watchmaker argument is an argument for the existence of a watchmaker - in other words, a being that designs watches.

Furthermore, the design we see in a watch is many many orders of magnitude less complex than the intricacy we see in living cells. It is in no way comparable in terms of being able to detect design. The watch is fundamentally different from living things on every meaningful level.

There are two reasons why we dismiss the watchmaker argument.

 

[Molinaro]

just because we cannot understand the creator does not mean it doesn't exist.

if Einstein is right, and we can bend and warp the space-time continuum, then certainly an all intelligent creator is not beyond possibility.

But before you supose it's existance shouldn't you be left with something that is otherwise impossible to explain?

And don't you think you should 1st have as complete and clear understanding of that which you consider to be in need of such an explanation -- an understanding at least equal to that of the greatest experts in the field -- before coming to that conclusion?

Ignorance is evidence of nothing and is not a basis for demanding a supernatural explanation.

If the brightest minds in biology and microbiology see less and less of a need to point to a creator, as our knowlege increases year to year and decade to decade, why should someone who hasn't bothered to gain an equal knowledge feel right in discounting their efforts and conclusions?

 

[Twiler]

Parky, why would intricacy imply design?

 

[Perpetual Student]

Just think how much more complex and intricate a god would have to be to create all the intricate and complex things in our universe. Oh, but wait, that must mean an even more complex and intricate super-god must have made that god. Oh oh, that must mean an even more ultra-super-god must have made that super-god. Hm, seems like we have a problem. So, lets just accept the complex and intricate universe as it is and stop the nonsense.

 

[I Ratant]

Whatever "intricate and complex design" you chose to make an example, it is always possible to show the antecedents that lead up to that intricacy.
There's many a more complex example than watches today, yet even the most complex nano-circuits can be shown to be "evolved" from simpler devices.
There is nothing "intricate and complex" which exists without a past.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's simply really. Some designed things are complex, some are simple. Some non-designed things are complex, some are simple.

Therefore the intricacy of design is not a distinguishing feature of design or no design. The level of intricacy of design tells you no information about the nature of the maker/making of the thing.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Claiming to see design in life was contrived by Creationists. It was never based on any reason that held up to closer scrutiny. The same is true with the Creationists' claim that infinite monkeys typing infinitely couldn't type Shakespeare and throwing airplane parts in a hanger an infinite number of times would never make a plane.

These are contrived reasons that supposedly demonstrate evolution theory is false. In these examples they are false analogies. On closer exam, one can see why these are false analogies. Evolution does not work on the same principles as are being described. Random mutation is but one piece of the evolutionary process. If you just took one piece, of course the process would not be likely to work.

Saying complexity indicates design is slick, it fools lots of people into believing it, but you cannot show that complexity means designed or not designed. It is evidence of neither.

 

[Hokulele]

Parky, I think you are confusing processes and results. Although the result may seem absurdly intricate and complex, it doesn't take a very complex function or process to generate such. For example, have you ever played with fractals? The math used to generate these is often extremely simple, but the results are anything but.

So no, it doesn't any intelligence to create complexity, but rather to understand it.

 

[BillyJoe]

Three questions to resolve this issue...

Which is more intricate, a watch or a stone?
Which has an intelligent designer, a watch or a stone?
Are your answers to the above two questions the same?

 

[MG1962]

Claiming to see design in life was contrived by Creationists. It was never based on any reason that held up to closer scrutiny. The same is true with the Creationists' claim that infinite monkeys typing infinitely couldn't type Shakespeare and throwing airplane parts in a hanger an infinite number of times would never make a plane.

What if the argument is offered that evidence of design is in the process rather than the end product. As you point out Creationist use evidence in isolation to prove their point. In doing so they place themselves in an undefendable position

If the designer had a goal, that relied on the randomness of mutation. By this I mean if the designers ultimate goal was self aware intelligence rather than a specific bipedal five finger mammalian creation. Then could not the evolution of the universe and subsequent evolution of life on Earth be affected by intelligent design while not requiring the micro management expected by creationists

 

[Hokulele]

What if the argument is offered that evidence of design is in the process rather than the end product. As you point out Creationist use evidence in isolation to prove their point. In doing so they place themselves in an undefendable position

If the designer had a goal, that relied on the randomness of mutation. By this I mean if the designers ultimate goal was self aware intelligence rather than a specific bipedal five finger mammalian creation. Then could not the evolution of the universe and subsequent evolution of life on Earth be affected by intelligent design while not requiring the micro management expected by creationists

In which case I wouldn't call it design, but rather wishful thinking.

Either way, Happy Birthday!

 

[babbits]

Parky76 asks us: If you saw a watch on the ground wouldn't it be insane to think it just grew there without a maker?

It would be equally insane if you found a watch on the ground and no one had ever seen any timepiece anywhere on earth before -- and yet you knew it was a watch! When you figured it out, you might wonder if a UFO brought it here.

But when we look at a beautifully-designed mechanism, we know there is a whole technological background behind it:
- the shadow stick
- the hourglass
- the water clock
- marked candles
- mechanical clocks (with escapements) that derive their power from falling weights
- spring-driven clocks
- pendulum clocks
- electric clocks
- atomic clocks.

So in Esau the Shepherd, used to telling time by the sun, didn't just sit down one day around 1007 BCE and hew out an atomic clock from gopherwood.

Similarly, we don't just find a complex organism on the ground. We find a whole sequence of organisms, from the simplest through intermediate forms to the complex organism.

We look at the mechanism that humans have used to customize the design of horses, cattle, dogs, etc., to make them more useful to humans. We call that mechanism artificial selection.

Then a great light dawns. We see that organisms are naturally selected by the natural workings of wind, weather, temperature, volcanoes, flooding, drying, meteorites, ice ages, and so forth.

We also see that there are variations within any naturally existing species in the wild, some bigger, some redder, some with better tolerance for cold, and so forth. We might call each form a 'subset' of that species.

With each naturally-occurring change, one or more subsets of existing species may survive, because of the natural variation it happens to possess. And some just can't make it.

We call this "natural" selection.

And the great light that dawns leads to wonderful insights into just how the world works. Well. It doesn't dawn on everyone.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Blind Watchmaker FTW!!!

When I studied biology, natural selection and random mutation was really very fulfilling, and they can make for quite intricate "designs".

 

[tyr_13]

And now I'm going to go play with my Spore: Creature Creator.

 

[ben m]

There are some systems within nature that are incredibly intricate. Yet evolutionary purists refuse to accept that this could be evidence of an intelligent creator.

Three resposes:

1) "There are some systems within nature that are incredibly intricate. Yet evolutionary crystallization purists refuse to accept that this could be evidence of an intelligent creator icemaker." Why not?

2) There are some systems in nature that are incredibly intricate. There exists in nature a well-known, well-tested, spontaneous process which tends to produce intricate structures. Connect the dots. Why not?

3) Focus on the words "could be evidence". Put that into the past-conditional and I will agree with it. Patterns in nature could have been evidence of an intelligent creator if they had disagreed with common descent ... but they didn't. Similarly, the Michelson-Moreley experiment could have been evidence for the Luminiferous Ether if it had had a nonzero result ... but it didn't. Redi's experiment could have been evidence for the spontaneous generation of maggots, if flies had appeared in the sealed jars ... but they didn't.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What if the argument is offered that evidence of design is in the process rather than the end product. As you point out Creationist use evidence in isolation to prove their point. In doing so they place themselves in an undefendable position

If the designer had a goal, that relied on the randomness of mutation. By this I mean if the designers ultimate goal was self aware intelligence rather than a specific bipedal five finger mammalian creation. Then could not the evolution of the universe and subsequent evolution of life on Earth be affected by intelligent design while not requiring the micro management expected by creationists

This has nothing to do with the question, "Why isn't intricate design considered evidence of a higher intellence?" [Whoops, mods to the rescue, the thread title is spelled wrongly.]

This is the same argument I am griping about in my thread, "Taking a second look at untestable gods". Because it could be designed is not evidence. Period, end of story. It is not evidence.