Why do people believe in evolution and not Intellegent Design?

Question

Okay, I asked a question earlier about why people think believing in God is primitive. This is my sequal to that question. People say Intellegent Design doesn't exist, and evolution does. Then why do humans have the ability to love. We love other people, we love our work, we love money, we love all kinds of things. Love would serve no purpose with evolution. In fact nothing would have purpose if only evolution existed. There's no reason to even teach evolution, if it exists, becuase we would have no reason to live, we really would be here just to live and die, so why even bother having a job and family, and loving people. There's no purpose in any of that if we just live to survive and then die.
Intellegent Design is necessary if you want to have a purpose for livng. Love is real, and so is purpose, we aren't on earth just to live and die, we have a creator. Why do we accept evolution as the only theory of truth? Can't there be other possibilities as to why we humans exist?

Although I don't agree with all of your opinions, I have to say you all did a wonderful job answering. I found your answers for this question to be even better than my other question "Why do people think believing in God is primitive?". Thanks so much for all of your answers, I think there are holes in both evolution and Intellegent Design, I just happen to lean more towards Intellegent Design. I hope someday we will be able to prove one or the other completely. I think Christians don't believe in both because of the way the Bible explains creation. I know a lot of people don't consider the Bible to be a reliable source, and I know it's not a science book, but it is a historical book (it's non-fiction, not fiction) I know not everyone will agree with that, but oh well, I can't change people's opinions, and I don't see that as the big problem, I believe there is a God and I want to prove it completely. Thanks again for answering and reading!

Answer 1

First to tackle your inquiry alone, some 'people' believe in Intelligent Design and some in 'evolution.' Others discredit both. What people select to 'believe' in is an investment of faith, but certainly not worth arguing about, given the subjectivity of it and how belief is a matter of personal perogative. Whether one is more valid than the other insofar as reason, data, fact, the scientific method, and empiricism are concerned is a different matter entirely.
But arguing about belief is just as fruitless now as it was during Gallileo's time.
-To address the second component of your question, who are these people who consider 'God' to be primitive? Is it "God" or is it the 'human faith in God' that they claim is primitive? The Judeo-Christian-Islamic God by default is 'primitive' on account of how God predates time. That claim is certainly valid, although I'm sure you were referring to 'human faith in a god/and or gods'--which is also primitive, but in the truest sense.
Every account of evidence of early man demonstrates that humans worshipped 'something'--whether it was their ancestors or spirits. I could direct you to samples, but I'm sure you also conceive this as common knowledge.

As for what 'people say'--that is also not of absolute consequence, for what 'people say' does not establish a true objective 'fact'. People can say that Zeus exists, and Ahura Mazda, but neither are going to be fabricated into reality as substantial forms on account of it. As for them disclaiming Intelligent Design (from hereon referred to as ID), they are 'wrong' because the theory of Intelligent Design does in fact exist. Whether it is a valid way to explain how nature progressed through time is a different matter entirely.

Evolution also exists as a theory. That is obvious. It holds greater weight than ID because it has had more than a century of developments whereas ID has barely made a decade.

Moreover, the founders of ID--both W. Dembsky and M. Behe are questionable promoters since they have partisan affiliations with religion. Dempsky attended Princeton Seminary and majored in Math theory while Behe is an outspoken Catholic that studies biochemistry. I have attended presentations from both in person, and neither could effectively conceal his religious agenda. Both raced to the conclusion that on account of science and evolution's inability to explain every aspect of the universe's development, another explanation must be sought. Since the universe is of unfathomable complexity, but falls into patterns that we can observe, it must have been made by and intelligent creator.
This is fallacious reasoning. The fact is simple. Humans do not conceive everything nor understand everything. Humans can never fathom nor conceive everything in the universe. Many things are unknown and shall remain that way. Some things may be discovered at a future time. The end. There is no need for a general assumption. If humans don't know how or why something happened--they simply don't know why or how something happened. There is no need for an 'intelligent designer' to make up for our ignorance.

The next portion of your question introduces love, which at first seems unrelated to the aforementioned topics. Nevertheless, through your examples, you define love as something humans have the ability to do with either other people, work, money, or things as its subjects. They way you frame it makes it interchangeable with 'attachment' and 'bond'. Using it as such becomes instrumental in evolution because 'bonds' and 'attachments' are integral to the survival of social species.

Where love is interchangeable with 'bond' and 'attachment' as well as 'affiliation,' or even 'addiction' it has clear physiological, biological and psychological relevance to evolution. If you would like to find out more on how love is pertinant to the evolution of social creatures, look up Gould's textbook on Animal Behavior and also ethology such as the works of Konrad Lorenz and others in that field of study (check wikipedia.org). Once you learn of animal imprinting, pair bonding, fixed-action-patterns, courtship, and the difference between R and K species, I'm sure you'll rescind that claim that 'love would serve no purpose in evolution.'
For example, without the pair-bonding involved in seagull mating, the two parents could not properly coordinate protection of their offspring and would expose the fragile eggs to dangers which would threaten the survival of the species.
Pair bonding or 'love' for most animals that have young which develop slowly such as humans, elephants, and other K-selected species is very adaptive and directly related to their survival. You can look up K-selected species on Wikipedia.org as well. So long as you conceive 'love' as an 'affiliation' or 'attachment', it serves an egregious role in social animal evolution.

But if you are relating to love in the mystical sense--then there really isn't much to discuss.

So how is it that nothing has a 'purpose' if evolution existed? You claim that evolution is limited to survival--living and dying. You missed the whole 'reproduction' step, reproductive selection as well as the 'eating' and 'resting' and 'competition.' There is also the importance of 'play' and 'learning' which all factor into evolution with plenty of examples in the animal kingdom. If you'd like to investigate more about natural 'purposes', read Gould's textbook on Animal Behavior.
You'd be amazed to find that we humans have a genetic propensity for playing games, establishing language, and forming communities--and that the propensity is adaptive.

It is not a fault of evolution, but merely a deficiency of understanding evolutionary biology and ethology.

ID, however, isn't necessary for having a purpose nor is evolution. Having a purpose is an individual or a social decision. You are free to corroborate the decision to have a purpose and to select your own purpose as well as what you 'believe' to be the purpose of the rest of humanity (although they may not be inclined to agree). Your are also free to object that humans have purposes altogether. It is a choice to invest a belief, not a fact. Your faith no matter what it is can never govern the opinions of the other 6 billion plus human beings on this planet. There is no point in being frustrated that others do not agree with your view.

You have a lot of beliefs to shop from that may satisfy you more than your current ones, so help yourself. You can also chose not to believe and just admit that you personally don't know why we humans exist.
Although there are many solutions to subscribe to, the decision is yours.

Answer 2

There's no intelligent design in what you describe. It must surely be the ultimate failure of a theory when not even those with an interest in its success can quote it recognisably. You're just using "intelligent design" as a code word for a belief that you're ashamed to support openly. Nor is there any particular reason to believe the energy for the Big Bang, which is not a part of the theory of evolution in the first place, arose from some severed portion (I hesitate to speculate which part) of an anthropomorphic sky daddy.

Answer 3

Evolution is simply a process we've learned about based upon our observation of the world. It's scientific and makes no claims about our purpose or any other-wordly creators.

Intelligent design is not based upon science- it assumes the existence of a designer or designers (whose presence must then be explained)

The whole point of science is to understand the world as governed by physical laws and processes, without bringing any supernatural entities into the picture. That doesn't mean they don't exist (maybe so, maybe not), but such questions are outside the realm of science, so scientific theories must not veer off into that territory.

Answer 4

Some people believe in evolution, but not ID, because they just don't believe in a supreme being. The ability to love comes from the fact that our species has advanced to the point that we are outgrowing our old survival instincts and are learning to really think and feel.
As for accepting evolution as "the only theory of truth," not everyone does. Sure, a lot of people do, but many believe in ID/religion. I think there can be other possibilities as to why we exist; I just can't believe them.
For instance, I accept that some people believe in a Christian god, but I just can't believe that a supreme being created me; I just CAN'T. Still, like I said before, love is possible without a supreme creator, as is purpose, but to smaller extent.

Answer 5

Creationist belief seems to come from the human frame of reference, in that the universe is such an amazing thing, how can it possibly have evolved, someone must've designed it. On the other hand, evolution can be proven - *but* who created the rules that made the universe and evolution on earth (and maybe other planets) possible?

Myself, I'm keeping an open mind.

With regard to Love, I can only theorise from an evolutionary standpoint that it became to enable bonding between tribe and family members and forge co-operation in order to survive, as humans became more...well...human, it got very complex and now encompasses all aspects of our lives.

Answer 6

Why we exist and how we came to exist as human beings are two different questions. Evolution is not incompatible to believing in God. There are plenty of people who believe in both. As to purpose, lots of atheists would argue that their life has plenty of meaning without any god or afterlife.

My God gave me a mind and free will for a reason. We are a species blessed with curiosity and understanding and to simply stop investigating and questioning the beautiful complex universe in which we were placed is an afront to that gift that god has given us.

Peace

Answer 7

evolution is a product of intelligent design.


dont you christians ever think that evolution is the answer to how not why??

Answer 8

I don't know that "people believe in evolution and not ID" as a whole. There are many beliefs and grey areas.Since there is not proof, fact, evidence, there can be no one answer. Can both exist together? Can all creation ideas be true at once with some people coming from one thing and others from other things? What if god saw a bunch of monkeys in a tree and put human souls into them so both theories exist. lol
You have a lot of rash generalizations of what all people think at once. But why do some people believe in one over the other? CHOICE. There really is no proof either way AND you would not like it if someone said "lets just erase the bible and no one can believe it anymore. That crazy book is sooo silly." I bet you would have somethign to say! I think that in order to have purpose for living, you need some integrity and higher awareness but not necessarily religion or ID theory. There are plenty of purpose driven people who don't share the same religion or philosophy.
Allow others to have their beliefs and you can have yours.

Answer 9

Some people believe that there is a supreme being guiding our lives, fates, and oppertunites, and some just don't. The idea of a god (in my humble opinion) sprouted from the human need to see reason in all things and not have to blame things on themselves, to use a god figure as a scapegoat, to be able to say it wasn't in my hands, I didn't do it, ect. Others, believe that some how, organisms began changing. Little by little, year after year, age upon age, the organisms of our planet (perhaps many others, as well) began to change. Small changes, maybey resistance to certain disease, or physical and mental features that help them fill missing niches or roles in their society and world that needed to be filled. It may have been upon theese changes that our current states were achieved. Evolution doesn't try to explain everything, and no one said it does, but what it does explain, I believe it does well. The only thing I need to know, is if there is a god, why didn't he give man writing when he was first created?? Why wouldn't he want his children to be able to recount what happend from the beginning?? I also yearn to know why God might have created only 2 humans instead of more (eve was even supposedly created from adam's rib, SICK). Because if theology is correct, then we are all inbread freaks, and adam and eve may have looked completely different, and may have even been apes. (a prototype is never perfect the first time arround.)

Answer 10

people that believe in evolution are stupid-just my straight out blunt opinion