I. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, called natural selection, stated that different species originated from shared ancestors, with the differences in the organisms being caused by adaptations to different environments. The environment determines which species are best fit to survive, and the traits of the organisms are passed down to new generations. With enough time, such passages of traits could lead to whole new species. This theory was developed after more than two decades of observations, studying thousands of animal and plant samples, all with extraordinary inferences drawn from observed similarities and differences.
II. Intelligent Design (ID) is essentially a negative argument: the forces at work, whether natural selection or something else, are not sufficient to bring about aspects of life which we observe, such as humans—therefore, there must have been an intelligent designer. The appearances of organisms, then, have nothing to do with the survival success of their ancestors, like in natural selection: the intelligent designer brought life about quickly in all the various forms we observe today, as opposed to the slow process theorized in natural selection.
III. Using the evidence I’ve seen for both proposals, I’ve concluded that evolutionary theory better explains the phenomena of different life-forms. I’ll establish why I think so by considering the simplicity, explanatory power, and predictive success of both ideas.
IV. In terms of simplicity, I think that evolutionary theory wins hands down. Speaking about ontological complexity, both ideas incorporate the existence of various life-forms, but with Intelligent Design one must also include the existence of the designer, as well as the tools used in the design. In addition, a problem is raised regarding the origin of the existence of the intelligent designer; since it has abilities far more complex than even the current abilities of human beings, are we to suppose that it too was designed? In respect to dynamic complexity, both theories appear to accept the reproductive capabilities of organisms (I’m not sure about Intelligent Design), but Intelligent Design is the more complex nonetheless. Natural selection would imply the existence of biological processes which explain the similarities between offspring and parent organisms; such a thing isn’t too hard to believe because we can observe reproduction in organisms, meaning that something must be functioning within them which allows for such a thing. But Intelligent Design posits the existence of design processes outside of what goes on in reproduction, which have to be more complex because such designing gives rise to not just one type of organism, like a calf, but a multitude of organisms.
V. Evolutionary theory also wins in regards to its explanatory power. Through the fossil records, the gaps between species are bridged; fossils indicate a transitional stage from one type of organism to another, just as Darwin believed would be the case. Intelligent Design cannot account for such transitional fossils, and every fossil found sheds greater light on the bridges between species and the weakness of ID’s hypothesis.
VI. ID’s argument of irreducible complexity, which argues against evolution, fails to explain life forms because certain organisms have parts which are similar to other organism’s parts, but serve different purposes which lend support to evolution. A great example of this was the bacterial flagellum, which ID posits as an organism with an irreducibly complex motor; its motor has a similar structure to a syringe-like part belonging to the Yersinia pestis bacterium, and this is because they are made of the same kind of protein, but the Yersinia simply lacks the number of proteins need for the motor. Despite missing such proteins, the structure functions as an apparatus for carrying diseases, particularly the Bubonic plague; this is hard evidence that this motor then is not “irreducibly complex.”
VII. Lastly, I think evolution sort of wins by default in regard to predictive success, even though its success is astoundingly positive. ID offers no predictions. After its initial claims regarding the designing of species, it is silent regarding the implications of such designs, if any—meaning that there is nothing for scientists to test. Whereas evolution offers a plethora of predictions, with no scientific discoveries ever found which contradict such predictions in over 150 years. Darwin’s prediction about the fossil record was proven true, and modern genetics has recently proven Darwin’s contention of a common ancestry of humans and apes. In fact, every observation and experiment made, whether in molecular biology or modern genetics, has only confirmed the truth of evolution’s theory. This shows evolution to be an argument with a high degree of predictive success.
VIII. The conclusion then is that whether one looks at simplicity, explanatory power, or predictive success, it is clear that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection trumps the idea of Intelligent Design, and demonstrates a coherent and testable prediction regarding the origin of species.
Notes and References
Some of the material for this essay is from the PBS video “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.”
[...] stated that different species originated from shared ancestors, with the differences in thehttp://umso.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/intelligent-design-vs-evolutionary-theory-a-brief-comparison/Evolution/Creation: Which Do You Believe?There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in [...]
As a scientist and as a person who seeks to accept all truth objectively without regard to prior philosophical and/or religious presuppositions, I would vehemently disagree with you on all of the points you just made. With all due respect this article is an example of poor research and strawman arguments.
Before I begin my rebuttal, I would like to make a point of clarification. All intelligent design theorists do not believe, as you seem to suggest, in a recent creation of all living beings. This is not a central tenet of ID. Many if not most ID theorists are scientists who have rightly concluded that the vast functional complexity easily seen in nature requires a transcendent cause and mechanisms that are beyond what is currently being observed in natural processes. Intelligent Design is not a religious belief. Many ID theorists believe that who or what this transcendent cause is should be left to the field of philosophy and/or theology.
That being said, I would like to take this opportunity to rebut some of the unfounded comments that you made. I would like to start with the simplicity of the two theories. What most evolutionists fail to realize is that both evolution and Intelligent Design rely on axiomatic assumptions about the nature of reality that are beyond the scope of science and lie in the field of metaphysics. Both theories are on equal ground in that respect. ID theory is more compatible with reality in this sense because it recognizes this metaphysical aspect of both disciplines and starts off with an intelligent designer (not necessarily God). Evolution on the other hand chooses to ignore the metaphysical underpinnings of its own theory and deifies ideas like mutation and natural selection. Another problem is in the fact that evolution suffers from incoherence due to its very evident vitalism. Any evolutionist will tell you that humans are the crowning achievement of an essentially blind natural process that created the living world from molecules to man. This assumes that there is a “gradient of intent” as Biochemist Neil Brooms puts it. The idea is that “natural selection” favors those mutations that would ultimately lead to man. This teleological aspect of evolutionary theory cannot be denied. To use an illustration that Broom uses in his book How Blind is The Watchmaker?, it is impossible for someone to climb Mount Everest, or any peak for that matter, without first intending to do so. The correlation is that evolution states that man (Mount Everest) can be arrived at by purely blind natural processes with no underlying intent starting with inanimate matter. This assumption brings up another question that is never fully explained by evolutionists which I just want to state without further explanation because its force is quite obvious. What could possibly be the selection criteria on pre-biotic molecules? In other words, unless the evolutionist claims that “Natural Selection” was aware of and striving for the yet unrealized idea of “life”, the theory of evolution fails at this very basic level. A prominent evolutionist once said that pre-biotic Natural Selection is a contradiction in terms. Neither could the pre-biotic selection criteria be increasing complexity because even as complexity increases we come nowhere near the functional complexity of even the smallest living organism. Snowflakes are very complex and create very interesting patterns, but their complexity does not serve an ultimate purpose inside a living organism. Therefore, the evolutionist is forced to personify the idea of “Natural Selection” and give it the very attributes that the evolutionist rejects in a transcendent designer. Even if Natural Selection could be employed to increase functional complexity in already living beings, which I will argue later that it cannot, it fails to account for the emergence of even the smallest living organism from lifeless matter without a heavy dependence on the unscientific idea of vitalism.
Another problem I have with the theory of evolution is in its falsifiability. This is a claim that is most often used against ID theorists by evolutionists who don’t understand the vulnerability of their own theory on this level. Evolutionary theory ultimately cannot be falsified. Even though there have been many new discoveries in the last century about the amazing functional complexity of the living world that should have been a death blow to the theory of evolution, we find that evolutionists just work these new discoveries into a new “just so” narrative of how evolution works. This kind of adherence to the theory of evolution despite mounting problems reveals evolution for what it is, purely a naturalistic faith built on conjecture and presupposition. I would argue that on this level, contrary to what you asserted, ID theory is the simpler of the two theories. Another problem for evolutionists related to this idea is that as evolutionists continue to ascribe more and more duties to natural selection, and attempt to explain the ever increasing levels of complexity found in the living cell in term of natural selection, the explanatory power of the theory decreases. Natural selection itself then has to have great complexity to account for the complexity that it produces in living organisms and is itself in need of an explanation. Perhaps an illustration would best explain this idea. In an aircraft there are certain levers that control certain functions of the aircraft. If one were to take away one of these levers, the function that the lever controls would cease to operate. Now let’s imagine that instead of many levers and buttons, the cockpit of an aircraft just had one button marked “fly”. Pushing this button would perform all the integrated and highly technical operations required to fly the aircraft including taking off and landing. One would be quite naïve to assert that the airplane flies because the “fly” button was pushed. Pushing the fly button merely starts a chain of events that operates the airplanes various systems in conjunction with one another. This kind of operation would require an engineering feat beyond which has ever been seen before. This one button would have to control systems, that control systems, that control systems through many layers of complexity. So we see that this is an apt illustration of what evolutionary theorists are trying to do with Natural Selection. They are ascribing more and more complex biological functions to natural selection. Therefore, natural selection itself is in need of an explanation in terms of the mechanisms that would allow it to perform its myriad tasks ascribed to it by the evolutionist. It is easily seen that something that explains everything actually explains nothing.
Another point I wanted to make is regarding the points you made regarding reproduction. Designs theorists do not state that design is continually operating in reproduction. Design theorists also believe as you stated in the
“existence of biological processes which explain the similarities between offspring and parent organisms; such a thing isn’t too hard to believe because we can observe reproduction in organisms, meaning that something must be functioning within them which allows for such a thing.”
Design theorists do not conjecture the active intervention of the designer in each act of reproduction. However, I believe the way that you stated this point actually entails, instead of contradicts intelligent design. You stated that, “something must be functioning within them which allows for such a thing.” The ID theorists would state that the functioning organism is a product of design instead of blind chance. Just as every machine has a designer, the highly functional “something” that allows an organism to reproduce seems to be very mechanical and orderly. This “functioning” itself is in need of an explanation that transcends natural processes. Also, ID theorists rightly understand that any process has to have a beginning. This is an aspect that you have overlooked in your treatment of this subject. So where did this functioning organism that you propose start to reproduce?
With that being said, I would like to move into your argument about the explanatory power of evolution. I would be the first to tell you that as an ID theorist if there were any unequivocal examples of transitional species found in the fossil record I would gladly concede the point. Charles Darwin himself said that if his theory were correct it would be evident from the fossil record. Hundreds of years later, there has still been no conclusive linking between organisms through fossils. Here I would not fault you for believing otherwise because the evolutionary establishment would have you believe to the contrary with their charts of the “evolution of man” and their idealized drawing of what transitional species would look like. In fact, there have been so few “transitional species” found and so many of the hypothesized lines of descent still remain without fossil representation, that many have turned to touting any fossil that is found as the long awaited missing link. Most of the time these fossils turn out to be an extinct animal that was already known, or they turn out to be elaborative hoaxes. I would urge you before you made such sweeping claims to research both the positive and the negative argument. I think that you would find that the fossil record has been a complete disappointment for evolutionists. There is much more that I could say beyond this regarding what would constitute a transitional species, but that would greatly lengthen this paper beyond which I am willing to commit to at this point in time. In conclusion, I would just ask that you take a clear an objective look at the fossil record and see whether it truly supports evolution as you claim.
Next, on you claim against irreducible complexity. Here you are completely off the mark. The idea that certain organisms have parts that are similar to other organisms no more supports evolution then the idea that certain cars have similar functioning parts because they naturalistically evolved from each other by chance. This can just as easily support the idea of a common designed as it could the idea of common descent. Here again we see a strawman argument being set up. The ID theorist’s claim of irreducible complexity does not state that no other organisms have similar attributes, but it instead states that there is a certain level of functionality that a molecular system or an organism must attain to before it could be operated on by natural selection. Your example of the two species of bacterium actually supports the idea of intelligent design because they are both in need of an explanation of how they seem to function beautifully in the way they do. You even betray your point in stating that the Yersinia Pestis bacterium has a syringe like motor. I can tell you that every syringe I have ever seen has come about not by purely natural processes but by the direct input of a designing agent. The fact that the Yersinia Pestis bacterium has a syringe-like motor that is functional does not go against the idea of irreducible complexity. This motor in and of itself is irreducibly complex. The bacterium has a sequence in its DNA that code for the proteins that make up the motor. This sequence is transcribed into RNA, taken outside the nucleus where this “motor” is built by a very elaborate process involving the complex molecular machinery of the ribosome (which itself is coded for in the DNA) and other apparatuses that shape this protein into just the right shape to function as it does. My counter argument would be that in evolutionary though before this functioning motor “evolved” by chance what would be the selection criteria that would retain the nucleotide sequences that would code for the as of yet non-functioning proteins of the as of yet unrealized motor. Here again vitalism creeps in through the back door. As I bring myself to this point, I am also reminded about the many inconsistencies in evolutionary theory brought to light by the field of genetics. These are beyond the scope of our current debate, but I would recommend Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome by Dr. J.C. Sanford for a well reasoned and well researched look at the inability of natural selection at the level of the organism to be dependent on mutations in DNA sequences at the molecular level. This is a very misunderstood aspect of evolutionary theory. The best new research shows that our genome is deteriorating rapidly due to mutation with Natural Selection unable to stop the downward spiral due to selection costs and the disconnect between the DNA nucleotides and organism carries and its overall functionality. It is clearly seen that the vast majority of deleterious mutations continue to build up in the genome and are leading to what genetists call “mutational meltdown”. This fact speaks strongly against the idea that a similar process created the genome. I might conclude by stating the fact that evolution requires beneficial mutations to occur to bring about additions in information at the molecular level of the DNA. After many years of research, no such mutations have ever been observed to happen by chance. Any seemingly beneficial mutations that have been observed are due to a loss of information. Such an example would be low phytate corn which was produced by artificially selecting the strains of corn in which the machinery that produces phytic acid was damaged. This is actually a loss of genetic information. Dr. Sanford also points out in his book that even if a very rare beneficial mutation did occur it could not be selected for because of the increasingly small effect that one nucleotide out of 3 billion has on the overall functioning of the organism. This is a greatly simplified version of what is called “biological noise”. Such beneficial mutations (if there actually are any, the jury is still out on this point) fall in what A.S. Kondrashov calls a no selection region. I have regressed and have much more to say on this subject, but I would direct the interested reader to the aforementioned book among others for further research.
Lastly, the ideas that you propose in saying that evolution wins by default in predictive success are absurd. Some of them I have touched on in other portions of this paper, but I would like to conclude by drawing the distinction between function and purpose. Modern science has been very successful in giving us a lower understanding of how living organisms function down to even the tiniest cells, but it can never begin to explain the purpose of those organisms of why they work like they do. The naturalist’s best attempt at such an explanation is the theory of evolution, which has been tried over and over again and found wanting. Your conclusions in point V represent a completely un-researched and biased assumptions that are so prevalent today in people who have been taught evolution as fact since their primary education. I would ask that you come up with a single example to support your assumption that evolution has so much experimental support. The only experimental support evolution has is because evolutionists continually tweak their theory to fit the facts. Also, many of these apparent experimental successes that you speak of can be just as well, if not better, understood in terms of a creator/designer, but evolutionists are philosophically even religiously committed to naturalism, and will never allow such an idea to creep in and taint what they like to call “science”. I would like to conclude with a quote from Nobel Laureate and Harvard Biochemist George Wald which I thing aptly summarizes this idea.
“When it comes to the origin of life on this earth, there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved 100 years ago, but that leads us only to one other conclusion: that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance.”
Greetings: this is the poster of the essay on “Evolutionary theory vs. Intelligent Design.”
I don’t believe any scientific theory can stand without an underlying perspective on how things operate–a certain metaphysical view of reality. Even “truth” presupposes a certain relationship between reality and human beings.
I am not a scientist, but a philosophy student, one concerned with seeking the truth through my observations of facts and inferences drawn thereof.
Consequently, my understanding of evolutionary theory is very limited, but I thought it was sufficient to write a short paper for a logic course comparing it to ID theory. I still believe that it was sufficient, because ID has so little to say.
In my view, ID is not science, but an unfounded metaphysical exercise. In absence of observation or means of testing, certain people claim that some being (designer) somehow designs certain biological systems. This is ridiculously unsatisfactory for a supposed scientific theory (I may not be a scientist, but I do know the distinctions between hypothesis, theory, and law). It explains nothing regarding how biological systems come into existence, or how they are different from one another, by merely positing that “some intelligent designer made them.” Science is concerned with discovering the causal mechanisms of all the phenomena we observe; ID is not a theory concerned with discovering the cause, but with merely showing that evolution can’t explain the cause, thereby showing the validity of the “designer” thesis.
Take the example of “irreducible complexity.” Let’s assume that some things are, in fact, “irreducibly complex”; this tells us nothing regarding the thing’s origin, whether it occurred by some yet undiscovered natural occurrence, or if something/someone actually designed it. In this context, it doesn’t matter what natural selection’s stance on this issue is, even if it’s wrong, because the (assumed) fact of irreducible complexity doesn’t prove ID; to claim that it does because natural selection couldn’t (or will never be able to) account for it is to commit the “argument from ignorance” logical fallacy.
The claim of “intelligent design” is just as arbitrary as the claim of the existence of aliens, and for the same reason: we have no evidence of the existence of such things. The ID theory offers absolutely nothing for scientists to consider, and should be discarded by anyone concerned with discovering the truths of biology.
Roderick Fitts
Dear Sir while I do enjoy a lively debate on this topic, I must admit that you have not tried to respond to any of the objections that I brought up in my rebuttal to your arguments. I do commend you for understanding as you say that every scientific system relies on metaphysical views of truth and reality. You have admitted a fundamental truth that many origin of life scientists refuse to admit. The philosophical underpinnings of evolutionary theory is the baseless philosophy of naturalism. Naturalism is a presupposition for many if not all science. Therefore, the evidence for a designer is all to often ignored or brushed a side with some “just so” evolutionary story among scientists who are committed to philosophical naturalism. These stories are proposed so that the scientific dilettante who believes in evolution may rest assured that the more educated evolutionists have the problem all figured out. That could not be further from the truth. Science is supposed to be a discipline where the results of an experiment determine the inferences drawn thereof. However, it has become a field in which philosophical naturalism presupposes the inferences that are allowed to be drawn by experiment in order attempt to save the failing current paradigm.
You’re assertion that ID theory has so little to say, is just as baseless as the arbitrary philosophical underpinnings that attempt to support evolution. ID theory is and can be a fully testable scientific theory using quite obvious inferences drawn from our understanding of information theory and our observation of the world around us.(let’s remember that evolutionary theory has had over to 150 years to solidify its methods and seek to explain biological complexity and information in terms of them and has met with complete failure). The criterion that William Dembski proposes is sufficient for such a task. Dembski gives every opportunity for evolution and naturalism to vindicate itself in his criterion. He says that we can only attribute design to something after every possible avenue of naturalistic explanation is exhausted. His model of specified complexity in inferring design is quite blatantly obvious when applied to any other field, but once it is applied to biology it elicits such a strong emotional (unscientific/uncritical) response. As your assertion that “ID theory has so little to say” betrays you as one who has not read Dembski’s book, I consider it necessary that I briefly summarize his design criterion here. I will begin by quoting directly from Dembski’s book Intelligent Design:
“Whenever we infer design, we must establish three
things: contingency, complexity, and specification.
Contingency ensures that the object in question is not
the result of an automatic and therefore unintelligent
process that had no choice in its production. Complexity
ensures that the object is not so simple that it can
readily be explained by chance. Finally, specification
ensures that the object exhibit the type of pattern
characteristic of intelligence” (Dembski, 128).
We have here a very robust method for determining design. One that only infers design when it is the only viable explanation. This criterion is readily testable in determining design. The evolutionist would tell us untested and untestable “just so” stories of how evolution proceeds over time, but would then accuse the ID theorists of not having a testable criterion for inferring design. I find this the sickening pinnacle of intellectual dishonesty.
In fact, ID theory, contrary to your claims, does a better job in explaining how biological systems came to be than does the theory of evolution. This is because ID theory understands the necessity of a designer (which is transcendent of the physical universe) whereas the evolutionist just scratches his head and lulls the believer to complacency with some fairytale about how Darwinian mechanisms created the amazing complexity and diversity of life that we see all around us. I do hope that you would take the time to read about the absolute inability of mutation and natural selection (Darwinian mechanisms) to even secure the genome from further deterioration, let alone build the genome in the first place. This is an example of somewhere that the idea of specified complexity can be applied. Secondly, on this point, I would like to draw attention to a slight mistake you made in the aspirations that you attribute to science. Science is not concerned with discovering the causal mechanism of all the phenomena we observe. Science is concerned with the observations themselves and using these observations to determine relationships of correlation (not necessarily cause and effect). Science gets beyond its boundaries when it tries to test an unobserved, non-repeatable occurrence somewhere in the distant past; therefore, the theories of evolution and intelligent design are on the same platform. Intelligent Design though has the advantage in that it realizes that this deeper understanding of reality is beyond the ability of science to provide, so it describes a criterion to infer design in observing currently functioning biological system, and then leaves the who, what, when, and how of said design securely where it belongs, in the field of metaphysics, the domain of the philosophers and theologians.
Next, I want to draw attention to something you said in your next paragraph. Irreducible Complexity is quite simply a means by which we can infer that a system could not have come into being by currently accepted darwinian methods (ie. stepwise mutation and natural selection). Dr. Behe in introducing the idea of irreducible complexity applauds the furtherance of research into any possible naturalistic mechanisms that could create said systems. This does in fact tell us about the “things” origin. It shows us that some thing must have designed it. It is humorous to me that you suggest that such a system could have come about by “some yet undiscovered natural occurrence”. The very idea of irreducible complexity shows the inability of such a “natural occurrence” and the criterion of specified complexity lends further support to this conclusion. What I find most amusing though sir is that your reliance on “some yet undiscovered natural occurrence” seems to me to be exactly the same as the “argument from ignorance” that you so vehemently attribute to the ID theorists. The argument from ignorance in intelligent design would state that intelligent design is true because it has not yet been proven false. However, the argument from ignorance of evolution would state that even though evolution has failed on every level to explain the specified complexity of living things there may yet be an “undiscovered natural occurrence” that does explain them. So you commit the same fallacy that you ascribe to the ID theorists. Here I would like to quote evolutionary molecular biologist James Shapiro in his review of Micheal Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box:
“there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinianism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject -evolution- with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity” (James Shapiro as quoted in Dembski The Design Revolution, 215).
The fact of the matter is that a well known evolutionary biologist calls these just so stories of evolutionary pathways “wishful thinking”. Also with all the expert research, funding, and testing of Darwinian theories of evolution over the years these problems still remain. Dembski later goes on to correctly assert that Darwin’s theory has failed in accounting for biological complexity and there are no other naturalistic theories “waiting in the wings” to start from where Darwinianism fails. So expecting such a theory to emerge is “wishful thinking” and also constitutes and argument from ignorance.
Again your concluding paragraph is quite sensationalized. The fact is that ID theory is nothing like the claim for the existence of aliens. ID theory is a testable working hypothesis that is observed daily in the amazing specified, functional complexity of biological systems and biological information. The ID theorists have made a very succinct case that specified complexity in biological systems cannot evolve using currently propagated theories of naturalistic evolution, so the burden of proof is on the evolutionist to show another viable naturalistic pathway to biological complexity or to show, contra the ID theorists, that Darwinian mechanisms can account for biological complexity. Again here we see that you are making baseless claims about the viability of ID theory as a scientific hypothesis. These are the same claims that I have heard over and over by the more prominent opponents of ID theory and are regurgitated here without supporting documentation, obviously without research, and with the same emotional (instead of critical and orderly) response so often exemplified by ID theory’s detractors. Again, I would encourage you to look into the issue, research it thoroughly. Research both the pros and cons of the subject and I believe you will find the absolute beauty, simplicity, and blatantly intuitive aspects of ID theory.
Joel Guess
As I said, I’m a philosophy student, not a scientist (nor an aspiring scientist); I simply do not have the knowledge necessary to challenge your scientific claims. If that is what you’re really seeking, please contact any available evolutionary biologists.
If you’re willing to discuss the metaphysical basis for each theory, then we could present our views. One of the topics I’d like to look into eventually is how my philosophy (Objectivism) is related to naturalism, including both metaphysical and methodological naturalism (the kind you disagree with).
But back to the philosophy of ID theory:
What does it mean to “transcend” the physical universe? If indeed ID theory believes that such a being is possible (you say “necessary”), then how does this being go about “transcending” realms? The only “intelligent beings” I’m aware of are conscious organisms, and such beings live within this universe and don’t “transcend” reality in the religious sense of the word (admittedly, I know of no sense of the word which could apply here besides the religious one).
I won’t be able to send a more comprehensive reply, so I’ll say one more thing:
I did not commit the “argument from ignorance” fallacy, because I did not commit to evolution’s correctness. I was merely making claims based on the assumption that “irreducible complexity” was correct. If an evolution theorist (or anyone) claimed that evolution was true because ID was false, then they’re committing the fallacy.
I don’t have time to research either theory, but perhaps I’ll do so in the future.
Roderick Fitts
Roderick -
It is pointless to engage Joel and other advocates of “intelligent design” (which for accuracy should always be called “ID *creationism*”) on point-for-point scientific arguments. The reason is that the whole movement was built upon a contempt for reality and rationality.
No ID creationist believes in something so vague as an “intelligent designer.” What they believe in is quite specific: Yahweh, a.k.a. the God of Abraham. When they criticize “naturalistic” assumptions, they are actually criticizing any worldview that elevates the Law of Identity over a Bronze Age sky-wizard.
Existence and identity are not optional “presuppositions” subject to uncertainty or revision. Neither is the efficacy of human perception and reason. As proper axioms, they underlie all cognition. ID creationists try to muddy the waters here to open up a gap for Thor … er, Yahweh to squirm his way through. Their arguments amount to a denial of reality, an appeal to the arbitrary, or both. We Objectivists need to call them out on this irrationalism, clearly and repeatedly.
In fact, ID creationists deserve no debate other than to be called out on their brazen irrationalism. And of course, they must be opposed in their primary battlefield, which is politics.
For the dishonest goals and tactics of ID creationism, I recommend this lecture by Kenneth Miller: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com/2008/05/devastating-take-on-intelligent-design.html . (Dr. Miller is a Catholic but doesn’t pretend that religion is science. You will notice, however, that his compartmentalization weakens some of his arguments.)
when are the evolutionists going to wake up?
sdfdfdfdf says “when are the evolutionists going to wake up?”
To what? To the baseless claim that living organisms on earth were “created” by a “transcendent” designer?
You imply that evolution-supporters (and presumably those who don’t support Creationism) are ignorant to some set of facts which demonstrate your position (hence the phrase “wake up”); well, what are those facts? What “facts” can point to such a being?
Hi Roderick,
It is not clear that you have employed any sound principle of philosophy (the perspective from which you wrote) in your submissions. If you entered a hypothesis claiming to be “scientific” (darwinian evolution) and yet could not stand up to its scrutiny offered from a scientific perspective, one should seriously wonder what in fact you set out to accomplish in the first instance.
It makes me wonder that you shied away from Joel Guess’ pointer summations, viz: “Dear Sir while I do enjoy a lively debate on this topic, I must admit that you have not tried to respond to any of the objections that I brought up in my rebuttal to your arguments.” And your response to that was “I simply do not have the knowledge necessary to challenge your scientific claims”?!? Did I miss the fact that you acknowledged indeed that Joel’s arguments were rather ’scientific’? So, where does your adulator’s (Dalton’s) supposition come in to mistake ID for a movement built upon “a contempt for reality and rationality”? Was Joel not being rational – if you could indeed acquisce that his objections were “scientific”?
Well, I don’t know what essentially you have attempted here (if you could not defend them ’scientifically’); nor do I assume any contempt either ways. I don’t think the accusations were necessary, though. . . but these are my observations – respectfully submitted.
kind regards.
Anyone who denies Intelligent Design being creationism is either a fool or a fraud. ID suspiciously surfaced shortly after the Supreme Court ruled the teaching of creationism in public schools to be unconstitutional. It is part a fundamentalist Christian ploy known as the “wedge strategy” to sneak their version of Christianity into government.
Yes, in fact the fundamentalist ploy is clearly demonstrated in that Kenneth Miller video that I linked to in my previous post.
This is the reason why it is pointless to argue with ID creationists on narrow scientific issues. The fact is, they do not argue in good faith. They are following an originally Leftist template of concealing their true nature, while trying to infiltrate and subvert government institutions. The Orwellian-named Discovery Institute is their primary front group for this infiltration.
Like all religious apologists, the ID creationists do not see reason as a means of understanding the world. Instead, their “reason” is a social tool for tricking other people into believing what the religionists think they ought to have accepted on faith in the first place.
[...] Intelligent Design vs. Evolution – A philosophy student at the University of Michigan started the topic, and then a debate followed. To be far, the philosophy student was not properly armed to really engage the debater in favor of ID. I include this link not to discredit Evolution, but to provide some information for what the ID argument is. [...]