are you just lazy?

Question

so i offered up the challenge to prove the intelligent design "theory" using the scientific method? my first two responses stated something to the effect of evolution being a lie and nothing more. thanks for the input... i received several more stabs at evolution. i did get one response which attempted, but nothing really compelling or convincing as far as evidence is concerned. so my question is this. shouldn't the advocates of intelligent design be working harder to legitimize this "theory" doing the necessary fieldwork, rather than sending half-@$$ claims to school boards. the reason why evolution is so widely accepted as being scientific fact is not because some kook came up with a hypothesis that man came from monkeys. to make that claim would deny the years and years of scientific research which went in to support the actual hypotheses of evolution. so how about it? are you willing to put in the work to support your claims?

higgie, oh gawd!!! not the watchmaker analogy again... please!!! it's been debunked. read a science book for the love of pete!!!

Answer 1

that's a great question. it baffles me that creationists can so easily dismiss evolution when they don't have a good arguement as to the validity of creationism

Answer 2

First off you are asking your question here in this forum. Second this is a trick question, you cannot use the scientific method to prove either "intelligent design" (or let's call it what it is, creation) any more than you can use it to prove evolution.

Consider the claim that creation is more religious than evolution. If you have done any study in science you will have noticed that it has prerequisites which distinguish it from other subjects. Its primary means of success have been dependence upon the concept of repeatable testing. It is not enough to argue. You must repeatedly test a theory before you can claim you have proved anything. But, in accepting the repeatable test as a basis for empirical science, there emerge at least four areas of knowledge into which 'science' as a method can scarcely begin to enter.

(1) Science has limitations with events which only happen once, because they cannot be repeatedly tested. (2) Science has problems with events or things that cannot be measured, either because they have no agreed measure or they are too big or too small to be measured with present equipment. For example, 'Who wrote better music, Beethoven or Bach?' There is no sort of agreed scientific measure for good music or bad. (3) Science has a problem with events which it is claimed cannot happen. There is no way to prove an event cannot happen or an item does not exist, e.g. 'God does not exist' is not a scientific statement—it is a belief statement—a blind faith concept based on no evidence.

Let us study some situations relevant to creation-evolution. If you claim that life only evolved once then you are looking at a unique event and you have a problem with scientific method. If you claim that evolution is occurring so slowly it cannot be observed, as many evolutionists do, a second problem emerges. If you claim, as did Prof. Watson at London University, that creation is impossible, you have an absolute negative.

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Even though the scientific method is supposed to encourage objectivity, some data get recorded and some get ignored, some articles get published and some get rejected—a lot depends on the very human motives of individual people. Even looking at the same data and the same articles, different observers can come to different conclusions.

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I would submit that, at the most basic level, the scientific endeavour has a lot to do with a search for truth. Unless our study of ‘how the world works’ is trying to get us even closer to something that is objectively true, is trying to bring our limited understanding of the world closer to what the world is really like, what is the point of doing science at all? In the same way, when we attempt to study origins scientifically, surely we are trying to get as close as possible to the details of what really happened (keeping in mind that the scientific method cannot ultimately prove or disprove matters related to origins because they involve the unrepeatable, unobservable past).

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There are many people who have been willing to put in the work to support their claims. The question is....Are you lazy? Are you to lazy to read objectively and research what is already out there? Or are you like others, and where Creation is mentioned you automatically dismiss it claiming it is not real science? Just because evolution is widely accepted as being fact does not make it so or make it truth. If the whole world believed 2 + 2 is 5 would that make them right? Understand the pursuit of truth through science can be tainted by the initial beliefs and presuppositions the scientist has prior to their journey. If they do not believe in God they will not see or attribute the things of God to Him and are forced to look for other means to explain them.

Why is it the first thing a person who criticizes the bible will do is tell you that the men who wrote it were just that, men, and that because of that they are fallible? Yet they hold scientists up as the arbiters of truth as if they are unable to make mistakes and everything they speak is just that, truth and fact, yet over the years science has been proven innumerable times that what it has discovered was initially wrong and constantly has to be changed and revised. I love how Atheists are not religious yet they hold scientists up on a pedestal with the same blind faith they accuse Christians of holding up the authors of the bible on the same pedestal with blind faith.

Answer 3

There are 2 things that come to mind. First one is pretty simple. Most people have a car or a watch, which are pretty complicated mechanisms. We know they exist because we can see them. We all know that someone created them because they did not just randomly come together. We have never seen the person who made them but we know they exist.
Look how complicated the human body is. All the things that work together to make it function. No other machine an do everything that the human body does. So we are to assume that all this happened at random? If a car cannot occur at random why should the human body?
A single strand of DNA has millions of codes put together to create a single cell. Is this just random chance? If you were to take scrabble tiles and just toss them on a table and as the letters appear use them to write a Shakespeare sonnet. How long do you think that would take? But first you had to get a pile of blank tiles and randomly splatter paint on them until you had letters. And they think that we who believe in God have faith.

Answer 4

Reliable methods for detecting design exist and are employed in forensics, archeology, and data fraud analysis. These methods can easily be employed to detect design in biological systems.

When being interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “There are developments in some technical fields, complexity and information sciences, that actually enable us to distinguish the results of intelligence as a cause from natural processes. When we run those modes of analysis on the information in DNA, they kick out the answer, ‘Yeah, this was intelligently designed’ . . . There is actually a science of design detection and when you analyze life through the filters of that science, it shows that life was intelligently designed.”

Answer 5

I asked in a MySpace blog for just one advance in the biological sciences that could only be explained by ID with the following rules:

1) Only positive evidence of ID will be considered.
2) Casting doubt on other competing theories does not count as positive evidence for yours.
3) By "advance", I mean something substantive (such as a vaccine) that could only have been brought about by the use of ID theory and can only be explained as a result of ID theory.

The only response I got was "The same could be said for evolution". So, based on such a limited sample, I would draw the inference that casting doubt on evolution would be the sum of their entire argument for ID.

Answer 6

I think a lot of anti-evolution believers are more annoyed that we may have evolved from something lower, as almost like an insult or something.

I'm not sure, but I agree with you that a lot don't have very compelling arguments beyond saying "have faith" or "believe" or "read the bible" or any of those other generalized logics that can only apply to one scenario, not others.

It's ironic that they need convincing on evolution, yet, do essentially nothing to support their own side. It's just a lot of "clinging."

Note: Thumbs down given in this thread are by Creationist with nothing better then to ignore the other side. So shallow, so ignorant

Answer 7

I'd personally be happy to create the foundation for intelligent design studies, assume the obviously critical position of chief overseer, take a nice monthly stipend and sign a golden parachute agreement so that they can't fire me while I make sure every last dollar is used intelligently (read, paying for my house in the Cayman Islands).

Answer 8

If they did any of this one of two things would happen:

1. They would realize they are wrong and have been living a lie.

2. They would find out they are wrong and "fix" the data to show otherwise.

But in their defence I do believe it is impossible to prove apriori.

Answer 9

They HAVE no evidence. None. Zilch. Nada. Zip. They depend solely on analogies and wishful thinking. There is NO evidence for any sort of "higher being".

Answer 10

'Intelligent Design' is nothing more than a desparate attempt to inject religion into public schools.