Intelligent Design in Biology

Originally posted by RJHinds
Again the question how the laws came into being is ignored. Why should their be any laws at all, if everything happened by chance in the beginning?

It's not being ignored it's just a different question.


Evolution talks about the development and diversity of life in this universe.

Any and all questions about how this universe came to exist and how it came to be the way
it is are the purview of Cosmology and physics and have nothing whatsoever to do with biology
or evolutionary theory.



There are several possibilities as to where the 'laws of physics' come from and why they are the
way they are but we don't yet (and might never) have a definitive answer.


However that doesn't mean that you get to say that because we don't know god did it.

First this is the moronic god of the gaps argument which has your god getting smaller and smaller
with every increase in scientific knowledge.

Second god doesn't actually explain anything as we don't understand god and all explanations must
be in terms of things we do understand.

Thirdly if you try to explain what caused everything by positing the existence of god the very next question
is where god comes from and how do you explain god...

If you say god can't be explained or that god exists forever then you have not explained anything.

All you have done is declare that it's impossible to know, and stop looking for answers.

Which is what every and all 'god did it' explanation does.

Every scientific advance we have is because people decided that 'god did it' is not a viable explanation and
went actually looking for answers and found them.


Saying god did it is giving up.

Science doesn't do that.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, it isn't comparable. A much better analogy would be the formation of complex patterns in snowflakes, or some of the interesting patterns generated by turing machines or the game of life.

Snowflakes don't keep blood from clotting, or anything else other than fall
to the ground. You cannot compare a living system's functions to that of
a snow flake it isn't apples to apples, find something with moving parts that
are doing different jobs within a system then we can talk.
Kelly

Originally posted by googlefudge
A very very very tiny minority of biologists think that DNA is evidence of design.

And they are wrong.


The vast overwhelming majority of biologists (and scientists in general) do not look at DNA
and see evidence for a designer or creation.

I don't care how much you want to disagree with that position it is an undeniable fact that
the overw ...[text shortened]... direct conflict with all the known evidence and with the entirety of science and it's methods.

My position is mainly faith based, since I am not a scientists. But facts should be considered by everyone in determining their beliefs. The facts are not there to believe in evolution. Flew said he changed his mind about the existence of God due to the discovery of the amazing integrated complexity of life and that if Einstein thought there was enough integrated complexity in the physical universe to belive in God, then that argument was even greater when it come to the much greater integrated complexity of the biological universe. It should be clear to every reasonable thinking person that the information code that is in DNA has to be placed there by some superior intelligence.

Originally posted by jaywill
Also ignored, I think, is that DNA scheme represents a language. As far as we know that is not the case with snowflake structure.

I leave a little room for the possibility that in the future perhaps some astounding discovery will be made about the coordination of billions of snowflakes to do something beside pile up snow on the ground, will amaze a future generation.

DNA does not represent a language.

That is a false analogy.


As I say it is 'sometimes' useful to simplistically talk about DNA being a 'blueprint' or
'computer program' but that is not in reality what it is.
They are just simplistic analogies to help understand certain aspects of what it does.

To properly understand how DNA works you would need a proper understanding of
organic chemistry, Biological systems, Fractals, emergence and chaos theory, information
theory, and evolution. (and probably a number of other things I have missed out).

Unless you understand these things (and this includes being able to do the maths which is
the language of science) then you can't claim to properly understand how DNA operates and
functions and thus you are just left with simplistic analogies that don't fully represent reality.

Science is hard, and takes years and years of study to properly understand a tiny part of the whole.

Nobody who hasn't spent the time and effort to learn the maths and study the subject in detail
and learn the evidence has any business telling scientists, who have put in that effort, what they
are doing or dispute what they have discovered.


If you can't understand evolution or DNA or physics or chemistry.

Then you can't dispute the findings of the scientists who do.



If you want to dispute general relativity, or quantum mechanics, or the standard model of cosmology then
you must first learn those theories inside and out including the mind bogglingly hard maths and learn
all the evidence and observation that backs those theories up before anyone will or should take any
criticism you have of those theories seriously.

Originally posted by RJHinds
My position is mainly faith based, since I am not a scientists. But facts should be considered by everyone in determining their beliefs. The facts are not there to believe in evolution. Flew said he changed his mind about the existence of God due to the discovery of the amazing integrated complexity of life and that if Einstein thought there was enough in ...[text shortened]... n that the information code that is in DNA has to be placed there by some superior intelligence.

No your position is entirely faith based.

And Flew was wrong. His position is not supported by evidence or mathematics or logic.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Snowflakes don't keep blood from clotting, or anything else other than fall
to the ground. You cannot compare a living system's functions to that of
a snow flake it isn't apples to apples, find something with moving parts that
are doing different jobs within a system then we can talk.
Kelly

I have already dealt with this.

The analogy is of complexity arising from simple rules.

Not saying that snowflakes are life forms.

Can you understand that an analogy doesn't mean that one thing is exactly like another thing?

Originally posted by googlefudge
DNA does not represent a language.

That is a false analogy.


As I say it is 'sometimes' useful to simplistically talk about DNA being a 'blueprint' or
'computer program' but that is not in reality what it is.
They are just simplistic analogies to help understand certain aspects of what it does.

To properly understand how DNA works you would ...[text shortened]... fore anyone will or should take any
criticism you have of those theories seriously.

You are saying that " Go away, you theist idiots ! Science is for scientists only. " What an arrogance !
So, since we theists obviously will take a no. of life times to understand what is DNA, we are not to dispute but meekly accept your say on it , is it ? By the way, how many life times did you spend on being a polymath just to understand what is DNA ?
If you have understood DNA, just tell us like it is, in simple English, will you ?

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
You are saying that " Go away, you theist idiots ! Science is for scientists only. " What an arrogance !
So, since we theists obviously will take a no. of life times to understand what is DNA, we are not to dispute but meekly accept your say on it , is it ? By the way, how many life times did you spend on being a polymath just to understand what is DNA ?
If you have understood DNA, just tell us like it is, in simple English, will you ?

No that is not at all what I am saying.

There are many scientists who are theists. (although I do think that that requires a certain
amount of cognitive dissonance and partitioning of beliefs.)

What I am saying is that modern science is incredibly complicated and that those that study it
spend many years doing so to learn enough to understand some small portion of it.

It is incredibly arrogant and inane to think that you can dispute the findings of science if you have
not done the work and actually understood the theories you are disputing and the evidence that
supports them.

Anyone can (assuming that they are up to it mentally) do the work and learn the science.
There is nothing stopping you from learning the science if you choose.

But to claim that you know better than people who have spent years learning and acquiring skills and
knowledge and analysing evidence without even bothering to try to learn what it is science says is
incredibly arrogant and insulting.


For one thing the first language of science is maths. Often really really hard maths.

If you can't or haven't done the maths then you don't understand the theories you are talking about.

So no I can't explain fully DNA in 'plain English'.

All you will ever get in 'plain English' are analogies and simplifications for a lay audience.

These are useful and good things to learn.

But don't ever mistake these analogies and simplifications for the real hard science.

Originally posted by galveston75
Hummm. So where did this intelligence come from that DNA has? How did it become intelligent or who taught it or better yet, who programed it??
Can a computer program itself?

In my view it would have bootstrapped itself up in complexity from a start in a clay pit where membranes form without biology, some of those membranes would have become filled with chemicals that would have been at first totally unorganized except for being already amino acids and other complexes that would have interacted with each other in a tiny lab experiment setting where it would have had heat from some source like a crustal vent like we see today, after umteenth number of iterations the complex starts resembling RNA which can start the process of reproducing other bits of RNA and so forth, maybe taking a million years of this kind of combinatorial exercise and ending up with a reproducing cell complete with its own much simpler DNA base then evolution can start. Not one second before. All I mentioned previous to that single cell is abiogenisis, a separate science from evolution.

The thing creationists keep insisting on is there would never be enough time for all that to take place. But the thing I keep saying is those clay formations that form natural occurring membranes don't just start with one membrane, they start with literally quadrillions, since they are about the size of a single cell it doesn't take much mass to have quadrillions of the little buggers around and each one of them could have had amino acids sifted in and out of those quadrillions of membranes, each one like a little lab experiment, it only takes one cell to start reproduction, and there would have been literally millions of years to do all that in, so looking at say, one reaction per second time 1 quadrillion (1E15) then you get about 33E6 seconds in one year, or 3.3E22 reactions each year times 1E6 years(one million years), a grand total with my totally inaccurate numbers which are just for illustration, of 3 E28 reactions happening. We don't even have a name for that number, 3 with 28 zero's after it.
With that many reactions taking place, I may have even underestimated how many separate reactions can happen in one second, if so we may get up to 1E30 reactions possible.

Creationists cannot wrap their dogma around such numbers.

Originally posted by googlefudge
DNA does not represent a language.

That is a false analogy.


As I say it is 'sometimes' useful to simplistically talk about DNA being a 'blueprint' or
'computer program' but that is not in reality what it is.
They are just simplistic analogies to help understand certain aspects of what it does.

To properly understand how DNA works you would ...[text shortened]... fore anyone will or should take any
criticism you have of those theories seriously.

The origin of the of the first life form is a part of the evolutionary theory as the following Video proves:

YouTube&feature=relmfu

Originally posted by googlefudge
It's not being ignored it's just a different question.


Evolution talks about the development and diversity of life in this universe.

Any and all questions about how this universe came to exist and how it came to be the way
it is are the purview of Cosmology and physics and have nothing whatsoever to do with biology
or evolutionary theory.

and found them.


Saying god did it is giving up.

Science doesn't do that.

Perhaps if science gave up on evolution, questions would be answered if they looked to the right source for those answers instead of mans foolish godless philosophies.
Evolution is nothing more then a religion that many believe in and worship in a non traditional way.
Most humans want to believe in something and want to know where we came from and why we are here.
But sadly many don't want to "answer" to a higher being for selfish reasons and have chose to believe in evolution.
Satan knows many do not fall for "false" religion and it's untruths and Satan has also painted God as some evil and self centered God when in fact he is just the opposite.
Satan is the RULER of this world and will use anything to take away humans from knowing God including the THEORY of evolution.

Originally posted by sonhouse
In my view it would have bootstrapped itself up in complexity from a start in a clay pit where membranes form without biology, some of those membranes would have become filled with chemicals that would have been at first totally unorganized except for being already amino acids and other complexes that would have interacted with each other in a tiny lab expe ...[text shortened]... up to 1E30 reactions possible.

Creationists cannot wrap their dogma around such numbers.

Neither can evolutionists. It is only opinion. Opinion is not fact. The fact is that life has never been seen to evolve from simple chemicals. It don't happen.
It would take a much more superior intellegence to combine them than even man has to produce a living cell. Man can't do it and certainly it is absurd to think it happened by chance.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Snowflakes don't keep blood from clotting, or anything else other than fall
to the ground. You cannot compare a living system's functions to that of
a snow flake it isn't apples to apples, find something with moving parts that
are doing different jobs within a system then we can talk.
Kelly

That is missing the point: Certain theists claim that complexity in something in nature means it must be designed intelligently with intent.
A snowflake has complexity -so it was designed with intelligently with intent?

If you add up all the complexity of each snowflake that makes up a snowfield then the total complexity of that snowfield is truly immense ( perhaps even comparable to that of a life form or even a whole human including the human brain ) . So a snowfield isn't produced and shaped ( i.e unintelligently designed using the non-standard meaning of the word “design” ) by unintelligent natural forces such as snowstorms, wind etc but rather a snowfield is designed intelligently with intent?

find something with moving parts that
are doing different jobs within a system then we can talk.

no, because that was not the theist argument here. The flawed argument that we hear again and again is that complexity in something in nature means it must be designed intelligently with intent -nothing said nor implied about “moving parts that are doing different jobs within a system” there.
Besides, what about the sun? The sun has different moving parts ( the interior of the sun is very turbulent and those patterns of turbulence have immense complexity ) that are doing different 'jobs'! For example, unlike the rest of the sun, the suns core is doing the 'job' of powering the sun with nuclear energy while the outer part of the sun is doing the 'job' of dispersing that energy into space and without that energy dispersal the sun will be unstable because it will get hotter and hotter.
-so, OK, what about the sun then? Will you be willing to explain to us why what determines patterns of turbulence in the sun that has immense complexity must be intelligent design and could not be natural forces because it is “complex”?

Originally posted by googlefudge
No that is not at all what I am saying.

There are many scientists who are theists. (although I do think that that requires a certain
amount of cognitive dissonance and partitioning of beliefs.)

What I am saying is that modern science is incredibly complicated and that those that study it
spend many years doing so to learn enough to understand s ...[text shortened]...
But don't ever mistake these analogies and simplifications for the real hard science.

I am a Structural Engineer having graduated from a top Engineering Institute in India, namely the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Maths is no stranger to me neither is IT. I do not believe that Science has become too esoteric for a non-scientist even to understand a word. The day it so becomes, humanity will be headed towards Armageddon.
Arrogance is clearly becoming a hallmark of the new generation atheists as I note here and you have overreached yourself when you claimed that any no. of disciplines are required to be mastered before you can understand what is DNA.
Hargobind Khurana ,Watson and Crick were much more modest and knew only there own spheres of knowledge. No Polymaths, they were humbler humans.
So,do you or do you not understand what is DNA ?

Originally posted by rvsakhadeo
I am a Structural Engineer having graduated from a top Engineering Institute in India, namely the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Maths is no stranger to me neither is IT. I do not believe that Science has become too esoteric for a non-scientist even to understand a word. The day it so becomes, humanity will be headed towards Armageddon.
Arrogan ...[text shortened]... ledge. No Polymaths, they were humbler humans.
So,do you or do you not understand what is DNA ?

Arrogance is clearly becoming a hallmark of the new generation atheists as I note here and you have overreached yourself when you claimed that any no. of disciplines are required to be mastered before you can understand what is DNA.

no, he didn't say you cannot “understand what is DNA” if you don't master many disciplines but rather you cannot explain it fully and your understanding of it will be simplistic.

He also explicitly said he could not fully explain DNA himself in plain English and I don't see how you can mistake that for “arrogance” for he is admitting to an inability -right?