The Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design

Thought it might be a good idea to summarize what exactly ID is for the many laman who dogmatically and unquestionably follow Darwinian theory within these forums. Enjoy.

- Whob

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Upon observing and studying the earth and its inhabitants, it is quite apparent that it is comprised of a large amount of diverse organisms and systems. From the simplest of organisms in nature such as the one celled ameba, to the intricate systems of proteins and amino acids that make up DNA, it seems more often than not much of the processes that make up life have logical patterns to them.

Some believe that these complex systems originated from a series of random mutations and chemical processes gradually over the years. This philosophical belief system is the embodiment of the widely excepted scientific theory known as Evolution.

In recent years, however, many scientists are starting to question the validity of the widely accepted evolutionary theory, particularly the aspect of it that subscribes to complex organisms evolving from simpler organisms through random circumstances. These scientists suggest that it would mathematically improbable for randomness to initiate the start of any complex system. In lieu of Evolutionary theory, they adhere to a study which suggests that some form of intelligence designed these systems. This theory that describes life as being created by some form of intelligence is entitled Intelligent Design(ID), and it is one of the most controversial theories presented amongst the modern scientific community.

The concept of nature having a design to it is nothing new. Many liken it to the design theory that proceeded it entitled Creationism, which is exclusively based off of the Christian religion. Although many ID scientists are indeed Christian, the theory itself is not exclusively based on Christian doctrine nor is it based on the supernatural. Instead it is based on understanding the natural complexities that make up nature, and the impossibility of such perfect conditions to arise from random circumstance.

In 1802, theologian Whilliam Paley presented a theory entitled the Watchmaker Design Thesis. The following is an excerpt from his thesis:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever. ... But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think the answer, which I had before given. (1)

The “rock” in the thesis is representative of a simplistic organism, while the “clock” is representative of a complex one. Using this analogy, Paley was asserting that the more complex an object is, greater is the likely hood that the object was at some point intelligently created. As simple as his thesis may sound, this type of rationale is the basis behind modern design theory.

Biology is but one of the many modern scientific facets that have assisted in giving the design theory credibility. In 1996, biochemist Michael Behe devised a theory, which expanded upon Paley’s initial Watchmaker thesis. Behe described biological systems as being too complicated on a molecular level, or too irreducibly complex to be formed by random processes within an organism and its environment.

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. (2)

Many biological systems are composed of codependent parts. Removing any part within these systems would cause them to not function properly, and in many cases not function at all. These irreducibly complex systems as Behe defines them, could not be reduced into simpler ones based on the dependency each part has with another. By adhering to Behe’s rationale, one would then have to attribute such a process as being part of a design, as opposed to being initiated from unplanned circumstances.

Modern concepts involving mathematics and statistics also shed new light on the validity of the design theory. Mathematician Whilliam Dembski suggests that it is statistically impossible to define complex organisms as the byproduct of random events. There are three core components to Dembski’s thesis. These components relate to the relationships of objects that are in a string, or a series of objects that have some form of coexistence. (3)

The first component, or contingency as Dembski terms it, relates to the freedom of choice objects within a string have. The second component, complexity, refers to the inability of a string’s creation to be defined by mere chance. (4)

Dembski asserts that one can only define a string’s creation as being unplanned if it is made up of very few contingent components. For example the word “an” can be thought of as a simple string. The words that make up a short story can be thought of as a complex string. It is somewhat probable to surmise that one can randomly throw two letters together on a page and create a simple word such as “an.” However, it is grossly illogical to assume that hundreds of letters can be thrown together at random on a page to create a story. The probability of the later string being generated from random circumstance would be around 10^-150, or in laman’s terms nearly
impossible. (5)

With such dramatic findings being presented, one can only conclude that the complexity of the string alludes to the third component of Dembski’s design theory being true. This third component or specification as he defines it, asserts that some type of intelligent pattern exists within the complex string and that the intelligence demonstrated within the pattern alludes to it being designed. (6)

Although ID greatly contradicts much of modern evolutionary theory on a philosophical level, there is one core belief that it shares with it. Microevolution, sometimes termed variation or adaptation, is generally the term used when describing this type of evolution. Examples of microevolution are represented in different species of dogs, cats, fish, and other organisms within a particular family. It is important to note, however, that ID does not support the concept known as macroevolution, which theorizes that species of different families at some point randomly evolved into species of another family. The existence of this type of evolution is widely debated between the proponents of both theories, and at this time no conclusive specimens have been found to confirm this type of evolution as being possible.

1. Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, 12th edition Paley. Pg. 3.

2. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.Behe.
Free Press, 1996, pg. 39.

3. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm

4. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm.

5. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm.

This has been done. Now that you have tried to enlighten people on Intelligent Design, perhaps you could now study evolution (and it's many schools of thought) so that you yourself don't make so many generalized and erroneous comments as to that subject.

As I understand ID, the core of the belief is that given the mind-blowing complexity of the universe--not just living things, though they are at the pinnacle of complexity--but given this incredible complexity, all the constants, the laws, everything working together: the idea that this all occured randomly is even more mind-boggling than the universe itself.

If ours were the only universe, this argument would carry a lot of weight.

The thing is, there is a great deal of theoretical work--with potential for experimental validation--which strongly suggests (not proves) that ours is not the only universe. Theoretically, there may be an infinite number of universes, most with different laws, most without life. But, given an infinite number of opportunities, sooner or later you are gonna get a universe that functions as ours does. We are here simply because our universe allows for life, for us to be here, to think, to wonder. It's a numbers game, pure and simple.

Again, one can say, "Well, there is no proof of multiple universes, so why accept that over God?"
First of all, testing for the existence of other universes--ie, acquiring empirical evidence--is theoretically possible. We may not have the technology yet for generating the energies required, but the theories appear sound.
Secondly, if we operationally define God as a spiritually/supernaturally transcendent being, then even theoretically we can't empirically test for His existence. Advantage: other universes. And if we define God based on his physical, immanent properties, then how do we separate the workings of God from the workings of nature? If you say they are equivalent, well, then, all we did is rename. And it still leaves open the question of God's spiritual/transcendent quality, which, IMO, is what most people are looking for.

For what it's worth, I personally feel God can be tested for scientifically, but not empirically. I've always felt that Science is defined by Method, not by nature of proof, therefore if one uses the proper tools and collects the proper data, God and Science can mesh. In other words: if God is Spirit/Supernature/Transcendent, the tools used and data collected should be appropriate, which means, at least in part, nonempirical.

But that is a discussion for another thread.

Occam's Razor demands we go for the simple and straightforward first. And that means we seek empirical evidence for empirical phenomena before delving into esoteria.

I just feel like telling that little story - if you had enough monkeys chained to enough typewriters for long enough probability says they will eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare.

Complicity, logical patterns - might be foreboding but they are far from knock out punches that win a debate for ID.

In recent years, however, many scientists are starting to question the validity of the widely accepted evolutionary theory, particularly the aspect of it that subscribes to complex organisms evolving from simpler organisms through random circumstances.

That just seems odd. It makes it sound as if evolution has sat unchallenged as the explanation for a long time, when that is quite untrue. Creationism of various forms did that and when the first tentative steps of the theory of evolution were taken it faced considerable opposition from these "traditional lobbies". It has only really been accepted to a greater extent in the last century or so - as science is building upon it's validity as we come to understand more about the natural world and it's formation. I for one haven't seen droves of science turning from evolution in horror saying "how could we have been so wrong?"

Curses, double post for some reason!

Originally posted by KharmaDog
..so that you yourself don't make so many generalized and erroneous comments as to that subject.

Yes all of my positions that contradict any form of naturalistic philosophy are erroneous and generalized. Is it just me, or did Karmadog just contradict himself by making a generalization about another individual making generalizations..🙄

Well I guess I'll go ahead and make another generalization from the generalization that you've just made. That generalization being, that you know very little about molecular biology & modern probability theory, thus possess very little ability to comment on how they've essentially disproved the possibility of "macro - evolution" existing. 😉

Any more comments on ID or generalizations of generalizations that anyone feels the need to add?

As I understand ID, the core of the belief is that, given the incredible, mind-boggling complexity of our universe--not just living things, though they are at the pinnacle of complexity--but given the complexity of our universe, its constants, its laws, everything working together; that this all occurred randomly is even more mind-boggling than the universe itself.

This argument will carry a lot of weight IF our universe proves to be the only one.

There is a great deal of theoretical work, and potential for experimental validation--basically in the field of M-theory--which strongly suggests (not proves) that ours is not the only universe. Theoretically, there is an infinite number of universes, most with different physical laws, most without life. However, given an infinite number of universes, that means an infinite number of opportunities for all kinds of universes to exist, which means sooner or later you're gonna get one which functions as ours does, with our combination of laws, such that, you get life and consciousness. We are here simply because our particular universe allows for us to be here. It's a numbers game, pure and simple.

Now, why accept the idea of multiple universes over God if there is (currently) no proof for either?
First of all, testing for the existence of other universes is theoretically possible. We may not yet have the technology for generating the energies theory requires, but the possibility for acquiring empirical evidence of other universes is on the table.
On the same token: if we define God as a spiritually/supernaturally transcendent being, then even theoretically we can not empirically test for God's existence. Advantage: other universes. One can say, we will test for God's physical/immanent qualities, but how do we separate the workings of nature from the workings of God? And certainly, if we say they are the same thing, then all we've done is rename, not prove. Besides, the spiritual/transcendent aspect of God is, IMO, what most people are after.

For what it's worth, personally I feel God can be scientifically tested for, but not empirically. IMO, Science is defined by Method, not nature of proof, and if we are defining God as nonempirical, then the tools used and data collected should reflect the domain being studied.

But this is a topic for another thread.

Occam's Razor demands we go for the simple and straightforward explanation first. That means, we test empirically before we delve into esoteria.

Sorry for the double post. I had a glitch in my computer and didn't realize the first one went through.

Like one genetleman so eloquently put it- saying that the world as we have it is so complex it could never happen is akin to saying that the 13 randomly picked bridge cards in your hand aren't really there. (And the probability of drawing any thirteen bridge cards is into the billions. But point being, we'd be foolish to say it doesn't exist because there's a low probability of it existing randomly).

Originally posted by KharmaDog
..so that you yourself don't make so many generalized and erroneous comments as to that subject.

Originally posted by whobdamandog
Yes all of my positions that contradict any form of naturalistic philosophy are erroneous and generalized. Is it just me, or did Karmadog just contradict himself by making a generalization about another individual making generalizations..🙄

Well I guess I'll go ahead and make another generalization from the generalization that you've just made. That generalization being, that you know very little about molecular biology & modern probability theory, thus possess very little ability to comment on how they've essentially disproved the possibility of "macro - evolution" existing. 😉

Any more comments on ID or generalizations of generalizations that anyone feels the need to add?

Let's take a quick look here.

I said, "perhaps you could now study evolution (and it's many schools of thought) so that you yourself don't make so many generalized and erroneous comments as to that subject."

You chose to focus only on the point ," so that you yourself don't make so many generalized and erroneous comments as to that subject.' and then proceed your retort with,"Yes all of my positions that contradict any form of naturalistic philosophy are erroneous and generalized."

Once again you respond to a comment that wasn't there to try and post a diatribe that only impresses yourself an has little to do with anything.

And I did not contradict myself, if I had of said, "everything that you say is a generalization" then I myself would have made a generalization myself.

What is truly ironic is that you ignored everyone else's posts in order to respond to mine and derail your own thread. Why do you choose that avenue Whob?

Intelligent Design is the concept that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process."

In this sense, Intelligent Design is less of an explanation of complexity and order in the universe and in living things, than it is an argument for the existence of an Intelligent Designer.

Moreover, Intelligent Design is not even science; it is not empirically testable, is not correctable, is not falsifiable, does not generate predictions, violates the principle of parsimony, and so on.

Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
I just feel like telling that little story - if you had enough monkeys chained to enough typewriters for long enough probability says they will eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare.

You know you're just supporting ID with the quote above when you insinuate that a certain level of "intelligence" is necessary to write a fictitious work on par with Shakespeare...🙄

Anyway as the old saying goes.. give the monkeys a couple hundred million years, and eventually they'll be able to do it. 😉

Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
That just seems odd. It makes it sound as if evolution has sat unchallenged as the explanation for a long time...

You are correct sir. We all know that many transitionals have been found supporting macro-evolution over the years, which completely invalidate ID as being a plausible scientific theory.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Yeah I'm definitely wrong. Scientist's just recently claimed that they had found a "missing link" several days ago.

So does that now mean that all of the other transitional fossils found in prior years were in actuality not missing links at all? 😕

the thing about this subject is........

the proponents of intelligent design are not referring to intelligence, they are referring to a creator, a god. If they simply stated, "intellegent" design........then I would have no problem at all agreeing with them.

what we humans refer to as intelligence is a completely natural occurance. We human beings ourselves have intelligence. The existence of naturally occuring intelligence has never been in doubt nor debated. Why don't these intelligent design proponents simply take the position that our universe itself has an underlying intelligence to it? It has certainly been around long enough to attain intelligence. Our human intelligence is some how derrived from the interaction between chemicals, electrical impulses and tissue. All 3 are certainly known to exists in almost infinite abundance in our universe. Doesn't this seem to be the best arguement for intelligent design? After all, not only can we prove the universe itself exists......we can also prove that the pre-requisites for intelligence exist in infinite abundance within it.

The thing is....these guys aren't actually arguing intelligent design. They are arguing "creator" or "god". They use the serious study or our sciences to progress their religious beliefs, which by very definition of belief, is unsubstantiated. These people don't want to hear about real intelligent design.......... intelligent design does not give them the feeling that someone is looking over their shoulders, judging others with different morals than their own and punishing them for not believing as they do. They want a god, not intelligent design. As previously stated, all the elements for intelligence exists naturally in our universe in abundance.........they are real, they can be studied. There is even periphrial evidence to bolster the claim.......such as the quantum spooky affect at a distance......which is also being studied......not to mention very real and known universal intelligences like mathmatics. Yet these guys want something that is completely irrational, illogical......an invisible man with his own erector set running people's lives, watching and judging.

ID is a way for some extremist Christians to confuse the issue of evolution by creating a scientific sounding theory that promotes Christianity. ID is not good science because it is subject to interpretation. Depending on how you view the intelligence, the theory would fit well with several creation stories. So, if school have to teach ID, then they should teach more then just the Christian creation myth, but the Hindu, the native Americans, the Norse, the Greek and others.

Originally posted by whobdamandog
You know you're just supporting ID with the quote above when you insinuate that a certain level of "intelligence" is necessary to write a fictitious work on par with Shakespeare...🙄

Anyway as the old saying goes.. give the monkeys a couple hundred million years, and eventually they'll be able to do it. 😉

Just like if you give, oh I don't know, a certain species of prehistoric fish a couple hundred million years during which its habitat changes significantly leading to many micro-evolutionary changes so it can survive, changes that accumulate to the point where it is genetically no longer the fish it began as. Or a fish at all.

You are correct sir. We all know that many transitionals have been found supporting macro-evolution over the years, which completely invalidte any design theories.

While genetic designs or something like that have been found that invalidate evolution? Personally I will wait with baited breath for the day when I can go to a museum to see the "blue prints" of life.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Yeah I'm definitely wrong. Scientist's just recently claimed that they had found a "missing link" several days ago.

So does that now mean that all of the other transitional fossils found in prior years were in actuality not missing links at all? 😕

First of all, fossils that qualify as "missing links" are not common, though I guess your being sarcastic. However even if hundreds of different transitional fossils had been discovered, or are to be discovered it is no problem. Why? Because the massively diverse array of life means there might very well have been hundreds, if not thousands of "transitory" species, while many others will have undergone such gradual change there is will be no single "link" - and once a link is found, and verified as such, well, it's not called a "missing" link anymore, is it? At least not in the evolutionary path of that species.

http://www.wasdarwinright.com/simplecells-f.htm

The failed theory of Abiogenesis

Abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is the theory that life (e.g. simple cells) can arise spontaneously from non-life molecules under proper conditions (click here for some more details). Evidence for a large number of transitional forms to bridge the stages of this process is critical to prove the abiogenesis theory, especially during the early stages of the process. The view of how life originally developed from non-life to an organism capable of independent life and reproduction presented by the mass media is very similar to the following widely publicized account:-

Four and a half billion years ago the young planet Earth... was almost completely engulfed by the shallow primordial seas. Powerful winds gathered random molecules from the atmosphere. Some were deposited in the seas. Tides and currents swept the molecules together. And somewhere in this ancient ocean the miracle of life began... The first organized form of primitive life was a tiny protozoan [a one-celled animal]. Millions of protozoa populated the ancient seas. These early organisms were completely self-sufficient in their sea-water world. They moved about their aquatic environment feeding on bacteria and other organisms... From these one-celled organisms evolved all life on earth (from the Emmy award winning PBS NOVA film The Miracle of Life quoted in Hanegraaff, 1998, p. 70, emphasis in original). To top

Life in a test tube. One of the most famous experiments that has been used to support the emergence of life from the "primeval soup" was published in Science magazine in 1953 and was performed by Dr Stanley Miller (Ankerberg, 1998a). In this experiment water vapour, ammonia, methane and hydrogen was subjected to spark discharges and simple amino acids were formed. After this experiment was performed, a newspaper headline proclaimed that life had been made in a test tube!

However, amino acids, whilst constituents of living cells are no more living cells that iron ore in the ground is a car. The experiment also had lots of shortfalls:-

In brief, some of the shortfalls:-

A methane-ammonium reducing atmosphere would be fatal to life forms (Wysong, 1981).

There is no evidence that the earth's early atmosphere was reducing atmosphere (White, 1978).

In the presence of excess water, polypeptides (chains of amino acids) are broken down into amino acids . "The ocean is practically the last place on this or any other planet where the proteins of life could have formed spontaneously from amino acids" (Wilder- Smith, Dr, 1981).

No geological evidence has been found anywhere on earth for the alleged primordial soup. See Primeval soup — failed paradigm

since nobody has replied to my last post.......I feel like pointing this out from the original post in this thread.

Instead it is based on understanding the natural complexities that make up nature, and the impossibility of such perfect conditions to arise from random circumstance.

there is a major flaw in this theory based soly on the fact that you say anything complex cannot happen through random circumstance, it must be intelligently designed. Intelligence itself must arrise from random circumstance otherwise intelligence itself would need and intelligent designer..........and so the neverending cycle of bullshit begins. There is nothing more complex than intelligence. If it was not arrived at via naturally occuring random circumstance, then it would have to be intelligently created........yet where did the intelligent creator get his intelligence?.....where did his intelligent creator get it's intelligence? where did his intelligent creator get it's intelligence? etc. etc. etc.

http://www.wasdarwinright.net/sciencequotes-f.htm

The Complexity of DNA replication and protein synthesis

"To produce this miracle of molecular construction all the cell need do is to string together the amino acids (which make up the polypeptide chain) in the correct order. This is a complicated biochemical process, a molecular assembly line, using instructions in the form of a nucleic acid tape (the so-called messenger RNA). Here we need only ask, how many possible proteins are there? If a particular amino acid sequence was selected by chance, how rare of an event would that be?
This is an easy exercise in combinatorials. Suppose the chain is about two hundred amino acids long; this is, if anything, rather less than the average length of proteins of all types. Since we have just twenty possibilities at each place, the number of possibilities is twenty multiplied by itself some two hundred times. This is conveniently written 20200, that is a one followed by 260 zeros!

This number is quite beyond our everyday comprehension. For comparison, consider the number of fundamental particles (atoms, speaking loosely) in the entire visible universe, not just in our own galaxy with its 1011 stars, but in all the billions of galaxies, out to the limits of observable space. This number, which is estimated to be 1080, is quite paltry by comparison to 10260. Moreover, we have only considered a polypeptide chain of a rather modest length. Had we considered longer ones as well, the figure would have been even more immense." Francis Crick, [Crick received a Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA.] Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature (1981), pp 51-52.

Originally posted by whobdamandog

1. Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, 12th edition Paley. Pg. 3.

2. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.Behe.
Free Press, 1996, pg. 39.

3. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm

4. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm.

5. Review of Whilliam Dembski Intelligent Design the Bridge Between Science and Theology. Korthoff. World Wide Web, 2002. http://www.home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm.

1. First off, this guy was an author in 1802 and he is a Creationist, whose views are not based on anything close to the scientific method. His words are basically shit now as far as science goes. But anyway, Richard Dawkins refutes him with 'The Blind Watchmaker'. Check it out.

2. Michael Behe has been refuted multiple times, even by a fellow Christian scientist, Kenneth Miller. Ironic how that one works. Even other Christians don't believe his crap.

3. You cite this source 3 times. Doesnt really make it any more credible. Besides, the link doesn't work. Dembski has a degree in mathematical philosophy, not science. His arguments are based on statistical speculation, not the scientific method. As for statistics, even if something has a 0.000001% chance of happening, the chance still exists.

And these 'scientists' you refer to early in your post aren't scientists at all. They get their degrees in theology and philosophy from Christian institutions.

ID isn't a science. A few reasons why: http://www.naturalism.org/science.htm#whyintelligent

Your sources are garbage, which means the "facts" in your argument are based on garbage, which makes your argument garbage.

why the hell don't these christian nuts reply to my posts? why are they dodging me?