Originally posted by RJHinds
A wise person learns from the folly of others. 😏

You have quite a bit of walking to get to that wise thing. You don't get wise parroting other people's thoughts. You get wise by using your own brain and seeing the manipulations of those around you but you are too deep in the thrall of that manipulation to get out of it. I feel sorry for what is left of your brain.

Originally posted by sonhouse
You have quite a bit of walking to get to that wise thing. You don't get wise parroting other people's thoughts. You get wise by using your own brain and seeing the manipulations of those around you but you are too deep in the thrall of that manipulation to get out of it. I feel sorry for what is left of your brain.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.

Proverbs 12:15

Originally posted by RJHinds
[b]The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.

Proverbs 12:15[/b]

And he who can GIVE council is wiser yet.

Originally posted by sonhouse

A less than optimal design is still a design.

Responding "Boy, I could have done better than that" doesn't make it not an intelligent design.

Whether you actually could or not, of course, is another story.
And I don't want to search for it now, but someone has addressed the "less than optimal design of the human eye" objection.

Don't remember the details but the bottom line was that there was a good reason for the human eye BEING the way it is.

Originally posted by sonhouse
And he who can GIVE council is wiser yet.

You must be referring to me. 😏

Originally posted by sonship
A less than optimal design is still a design.

Responding "Boy, I could have done better than that" doesn't make it not an intelligent design.

Whether you actually could or not, of course, is another story.
And I don't want to search for it now, but someone has addressed the "less than optimal design of the human eye" objection.

Don ...[text shortened]... ils but the bottom line was that there was a good reason for the human eye BEING the way it is.

Yes, it turned out that the human eye was optimally designed for a human. 😏

Originally posted by sonship
A less than optimal design is still a design.

Responding "Boy, I could have done better than that" doesn't make it not an intelligent design.

Whether you actually could or not, of course, is another story.
And I don't want to search for it now, but someone has addressed the "less than optimal design of the human eye" objection.

Don ...[text shortened]... ils but the bottom line was that there was a good reason for the human eye BEING the way it is.

To successfully deduce that an object is designed by an intelligence one must explain exactly what it is about an object that would allow us to say with certainty that it could not have been designed by a blind natural process. So far all I've heard from creationists is that objects are complex, ergo they're designed. But that has little value when we know that all the mechanisms required for the blind design by evolutionary means are in effect in nature. And not only that, when we see that the "design" in nature fits with what you'd expect from evolutionary processes, reusing different parts in new ways, the burden of proof weighs even heavier on the shoulders of the intelligent design proponents.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Yes, it turned out that the human eye was optimally designed for a human. 😏

Except for the blind spot.

Originally posted by C Hess

To successfully deduce that an object is designed by an intelligence one must explain exactly what it is about an object that would allow us to say with certainty that it could not have been designed by a blind natural process.

I don't know about "with certainty". I think we can think of probably what is more likely.

The faces on Mt. Rushmore probably are there by someone/s intelligent design rather than the erosion of wind. I don't know if "certainty" means it is impossible that the winds could have caused those faces to be carved.

I think if we had no history of the sculptures' activity, its more probable that that is how they got there if not 100% certain.

So far all I've heard from creationists is that objects are complex, ergo they're designed.

I think you're not reading some material closely enough.
I think maybe you are not taking the initiative to research what some ID proponents are saying.

Is that possible?

But that has little value when we know that all the mechanisms required for the blind design by evolutionary means are in effect in nature. And not only that, when we see that the "design" in nature fits with what you'd expect from evolutionary processes, reusing different parts in new ways, the burden of proof weighs even heavier on the shoulders of the intelligent design proponents.

I think we wouldn't expect anything from a purposeless, aimless, goalless evolutionary process.

If I tossed a grand piano down the side of a mountain, I could only expect to hear the chaos of atonal notes or clusters of notes from the keys of the piano. I would expect randomness. Maybe I would expect something sounding like a composition of chance composer John Cage.

I would not expect to hear Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" to be played from the random tumbling, pounding, and sliding of the instrument over the rocks.

I think an evolution of some kind intelligently directed, I might not rule out. Otherwise I see it as a tumbling kind of matter outcomes being at the mercy of full random chance.

I guess I go with what is more probable rather than what with mathematical certainty is a absolute proof of what occurred.

Originally posted by sonship
I don't know about "with certainty". I think we can think of probably what is more likely.

The faces on Mt. Rushmore probably are there by someone/s intelligent design rather than the erosion of wind. I don't know if "certainty" means it is impossible that the winds could have caused those faces to be carved.

I think if we had no history of th ...[text shortened]... lptures' activity, its [b]more probable that that is how they got there if not 100% certain.[/b]

Oh, but you have to have a standard of determining whether or not something is designed by an intelligence, if you're going to claim that nature itself is designed by an intelligence. How else can we test this claim? And such a standard must clearly be such that any natural explanation is automatically ruled out.

How do we know that mount rushmore has been sculpted? Because nowhere else in nature do we see the likeness of four human heads on mountain sides. This is a far cry from biological complexity, which is everywhere. You can't logically assume that because a pattern is recognisable by you as complex, or even meaningful in some sense, that therefore it must be a pattern laid down by an intelligence, unless the pattern appears in one, or a few place alone, or can't be explained as the result of natural forces. If however, we see a repeated complex pattern in nature, and we can run experiments that demonstrate how such a pattern can come about without intelligent input, through natural forces alone, you have a problem with your assertion. You can always argue that the natural forces themselves are designed, but then you've retreated to a gaps argument, and most intelligent people will stop listening.

Originally posted by sonship
I think you're not reading some material closely enough.
I think maybe you are not taking the initiative to research what some ID proponents are saying.

Is that possible?

It's possible. So far, the only challenging arguments I've heard from creationists are the argument about "irreducable complexity" (which is busted), and the "information" argument (which completely ignores the inherent flaws in DNA and the natural cell - flaws that makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective, by the way).

Originally posted by sonship
I think we wouldn't expect anything from a purposeless, aimless, goalless evolutionary process.

If I tossed a grand piano down the side of a mountain, I could only expect to hear the chaos of atonal notes or clusters of notes from the keys of the piano. I would expect randomness. Maybe I would expect something sounding like a composition of chanc ...[text shortened]... more probable rather than what with mathematical certainty is a absolute proof of what occurred.

If you think of evolution without an intelligence guiding it as a completely random process, like throwing a piano off a cliff playing Bach as it hits the ground, I can see why you're sceptical about it. Now, ask yourself, do you really believe that the very same people that's made modern technology possible could be convinced that completely random events can produce biological complexity?

Evolution is not a completely random process, that through sheer luck, where once was nothing but chemicals - poof - there stands a fully formed human being. You know who holds to the poof-hypothesis, right? It ain't our side of the argument.

Originally posted by C Hess
If you think of evolution without an intelligence guiding it as a completely random process, like throwing a piano off a cliff playing Bach as it hits the ground, I can see why you're sceptical about it. Now, ask yourself, do you really believe that the very same people that's made modern technology possible could be convinced that completely random events ca ...[text shortened]... uman being. You know who holds to the poof-hypothesis, right? It ain't our side of the argument.

"If you think of evolution without an intelligence guiding it as a completely random process, like throwing a piano off a cliff playing Bach as it hits the ground, I can see why you're sceptical about it."

This is backwards. If belief in ID is already in place, I can see why he thinks about evolution without ID like he thinks about piano tossing. OTOH, if he thinks about how atoms naturally combine to form molecular structures, he'll be more likely to accept the emergence of self-replicating DNA precursors. Of course he is still free to ascribe the molecular combining rules to ID.

Originally posted by C Hess
If you think of evolution without an intelligence guiding it as a completely random process, like throwing a piano off a cliff playing Bach as it hits the ground, I can see why you're sceptical about it. Now, ask yourself, do you really believe that the very same people that's made modern technology possible could be convinced that completely random events ca ...[text shortened]... uman being. You know who holds to the poof-hypothesis, right? It ain't our side of the argument.

Evolution is yet to be proved. In fact, the evolutionists are yet to agree on what evolution is and how it works or if it does work. There is only much speculation of what might have happened long, long ago in a fairy tale world of make believe imaginations.

Originally posted by JS357
"If you think of evolution without an intelligence guiding it as a completely random process, like throwing a piano off a cliff playing Bach as it hits the ground, I can see why you're sceptical about it."

This is backwards. If belief in ID is already in place, I can see why he thinks about evolution without ID like he thinks about piano tossing. OTOH, if h ...[text shortened]... ating DNA precursors. Of course he is still free to ascribe the molecular combining rules to ID.

We think of evolution as an accident waiting millions or billions of years to happen because that is the way most evolutionist describe the process. They always say evolution has no intelligence guiding it and is a completely random process that is supposed to conform to the laws of nature. But if that were so there would be no nature due to the laws of physics.