Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution?

[bige1030]

bige, if we can't test for God, then why test for anything?

I was just hinting at that Bible verse that forbids us from putting God to the test. If my assumption is correct (that the designer is the Christian God), the Bible does apply.

How does randomness bring about order though? What about entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

I think this answers that question:

Self-organization vs. entropy

The idea of self-organization challenges an earlier paradigm of ever-decreasing order which was based on a philosophical generalization from the second law of thermodynamics in statistical thermodynamics where entropy is envisioned as a measure of the statistical "disorder" at a microstate level. However, at the microscopic or local level, the two need not be in contradiction: it is possible for a system to reduce its entropy by transferring it to its environment.

In open systems, it is the flow of matter and energy through the system that allows the system to self-organize, and to exchange entropy with the environment. This is the basis of the theory of dissipative structures. Ilya Prigogine noted that self-organization can only occur far away from thermodynamic equilibrium.

It would appear that, since isolated systems cannot decrease their entropy, only open systems can exhibit self-organization. However, such a system can gain macroscopic order while increasing its overall entropy. Specifically, a few of the system's macroscopic degrees of freedom can become more ordered at the expense of microscopic disorder.

In many cases of biological self-assembly, for instance metabolism, the increasing organization of large molecules is more than compensated for by the increasing entropy of small molecules, especially water. At the level of a whole organism and over longer time scales, though, biological systems are open systems feeding from the environment and dumping waste into it.

from Wikipedia, Self-organization

[LCPLPunk]

Cool post man, i'm not 100% sure what it means but i think i get enough to get the point.

J-villa, i really don't believe (and i could be wrong) that the birds on the Galapagos evolved every year..if that were true why wouldn't every species evolve every year?

As for extra terrestrial life..who knows? I flip this idea in my head and sometimes i feel there is, sometimes isn't. As far another race of humanoids, from the odds i posted earlier i highly doubt it, but what do i know. As far as there being other animals, could be.

The main thing I see that seperates humanity from other species however is our conscience. What other species knows right from wrong, has empathy, creates art, music, etc?

I talked to my friend about that and he said that basically they were traits that evolved into us for survival, but if they were so important why wouldn't much earlier species have had them and how have other species survived without them? Couldn't humanity have been just like any other species and lived without it?

Interesting questions and we'll probably never know the answers.

[(sic)Arkangel]

This is a hell of a thing to discuss in a freaking thread.
First, Darwinian theory tells us how a certain amount of diversity in life forms can develop once we have various types of complex living organisms already in existence. So you bird shit comes from If a small population of birds happens to migrate to an isolated island, for example, a combination of inbreeding, mutation, and natural selection may cause this isolated population to develop different characteristics from those possessed by the ancestral population on the mainland. When the theory is understood in this limited sense, Darwinian evolution is uncontroversial, and has no important philosophical or theological implications.

So now the Evolutionary biologists are not content merely to explain how variation occurs within limits. They aspire to answer a much broader question-which is how complex organisms like birds, and flowers, and human beings came into existence in the first place. The Darwinian answer to this second question is that the creative force that produced complex plants and animals from single-celled predecessors over long stretches of geological time is essentially the same as the mechanism that produces variations in flowers, insects, and domestic animals before our very eyes. In the words of Ernst Mayr, the dean of living Darwinists, "transspecific evolution [i.e., macroevolution] is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species." Neo-Darwinian evolution in this broad sense is a philosophical doctrine so lacking in empirical support that Mayr's successor at Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould, once pronounced it in a reckless moment to be "effectively dead." Yet neo-Darwinism is far from dead; on the contrary, it is continually proclaimed in the textbooks and the media as unchallengeable fact. How does it happen that so many scientists and intellectuals, who pride themselves on their empiricism and open-mindedness, continue to accept an unempirical theory as scientific fact?

Some of this is cut and paste some of it came from my class notes.. We are going at this right now in class

[neon_ert3]

heres the way i see it:
the theory states that in the begining there were single celled oragnaism that evolved into people in millions of years, right?

but scientist have proven(!) that a single celled organism can not create a multicelled organism which we, as humans, are.

i think both should be taugh in schools if usa is suposed to be "one nation under GOD" if not then we should just be a nation.

[bige1030]

i think both should be taugh in schools if usa is suposed to be "one nation under GOD" if not then we should just be a nation.

We were "one nation, indivisible" according to the Pledge of Allegiance until Congress changed it in 1954. I think it's surprising that people think that "under God" phrase is traditional, when it wasn't even there from 1892-1954. (Source: Wikipedia)

Edit: The motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" began to appear on money in 1864, but it didn't appear on paper money until 1957 with the $1 silver certificate. My original posting said 1964, but that was for plain old currency.(Source: U.S. Treasury)

[LCPLPunk]

I have to agree with bige on that one. It does seem that at least half of us believe in some sort of Creator, and honestly if there is so much debate about it, i feel it should at least be mentioned in schools. You may open up a can of worms with it, but you do so when you teach evolution as well.

Now, the even better part is i may change my mind in the next 5 minutes, gotta love free will.

[bige1030]

IMHO we ought to teach people about religious belief in schools, but we should teach it in a cultural context, rather than in a scientific context. I do think, though, that origins science is a bit lacking, and perhaps, our origin is something that we can never know for sure without relying on faith.

[Diablo0]

I'm still trying to figure out how this was bumped from about a year ago lol

[(sic)Arkangel]

Well it just shows you how much we evoled, this is still a single cell thread

[LCPLPunk]

lol

[Midnight_Rider]

I'm still trying to figure out how this was bumped from about a year ago lol

Wow, dummy here didn't even look at the dates on the threads before my first comment, I just jumped in!

[Nick Drake]

After living in the bible belt, I'm tired of arguing that Creation is just a happy little thought we'd all like to believe.

So I'll just vote on this old thread. I hope my vote helps your 1 year old paper Frizbe

[Frizbe]

So I'll just vote on this old thread. I hope my vote helps your 1 year old paper Frizbe

LOL Now that the paper's due every one decides to post
Losers. It's cool to read everyone's opinion on this, but then again I am weird like that.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

School sucks.