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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2007 : 16:16:42 [Permalink]
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Bill:
Look, you might buy this explanation, but as a designer I don't see it even remotely plausible. |
Hey Bill. What do you think God was thinking when he gave us wisdom teeth? Or an appendix? Or the weakest back of any mammal? As a designer, is that the sort of thing you would have built into your most prized creation?
Nature is full of shitty designs. Humans are lacking in so many areas, it's a good thing we're clever and have opposable thumbs, because the rest of the design pretty much sucks. I do believe a human designer could make vast improvements on the human design were it possible to do so…
Oh, by the way Bill. Can't say I blame you for not commenting on my previous post. I suppose all you could do was to admit you were misrepresenting what I wrote or come up with some more bullshit.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 07/25/2007 : 16:27:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
As a design Eng. I have spent years at a profession where I am always looking for the intent of the design. Whether it be drawings for a new project or trying to revamp an older piece of equipment. When I look at the workings and goings on of the human body, vision, respiratory systems, nervous systems, the skeletal system, hearing etc.... It cries out design to me so loud it is deafening. |
Correct me if I get this wrong, but when you look at a living thing, it looks designed to you? Therefore, you believe it is designed?
For 'Design by a Creator' theory to be scientific, you would first of all need some evidence that your observation is correct. Thus far, I've only seen you appeal to appearance of design. Have you ever considered that natural forces can be a designer? You accept "micro-evolution", don't you? Isn't that an example of natural causes designing small changes in a species?
| Personally, I see nothing but a designed creation as a possibility, which would require a designer or creator. |
Can you imagine that people may see a designer other than God/Jesus/Yahweh?
It is no different to me then when I sit a stare at a 2007 Z06 Vette...
...I would say the person who stands in front of the Z06 Vette and denies the efforts and forethought that went into that machine are just denying reality. |
Although I'm an electronics engineer, I do have an appreciation of mechanical design too.
When I look at that Vette, I think of the many versions of the car that came before. Stingray is cool, but I don't like the design on the first models. But I think of more than that. I think of T-Ford, diesel powered cars, old electrical cars. What I see is an evolution of automobiles from the horse-and-carriage, a vehicle that has evolved in a lot of small steps. Several inventions have been added, only to later be discarded as new inventions increase performance, or safety, or comfort. The 2007 Z06 Vette is by no means the end of the line, to will continue to evolve.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/25/2007 : 16:58:15 [Permalink]
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"All Things Dull And Ugly
from Monty Python's Contractual Obligations Album
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures, short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen."
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2007 : 16:59:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
You refuse to even consider the evidence for the resurrection because your already indoctrinated and a belief in materialism.
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Lol! In America, people are brought up to believe in ghosts, spirits, the supernatural and theism. Children are told all about the magical resurrection from a very young age. That's the indoctrination, bill. It is only by becoming un-indoctrinated that one may give up those fantasies. You don't get to call higher learning "indoctrination" just because it explodes your personal myths.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 07/25/2007 17:00:25 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2007 : 22:29:48 [Permalink]
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Bill wrote:| As a design Eng. I have spent years at a profession where I am always looking for the intent of the design. Whether it be drawings for a new project or trying to revamp an older piece of equipment. When I look at the workings and goings on of the human body, vision, respiratory systems, nervous systems, the skeletal system, hearing etc.... It cries out design to me so loud it is deafening. Same with the balance of the eco system, the planet, and the universe we call home. Personally, I see nothing but a designed creation as a possibility, which would require a designer or creator. |
Chapter 4 of Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion (which I suppose, admittedly without firm evidence, you'd not read if you had a million years on your hands in Purgatory), covers this appearance of design quite well. Before Darwin's great conceptual breakthrough, any thinking person would naturally assume that lifeforms were deliberately designed. It was just "common sense."
But evolution (in my own words) is, in the sense of its end products, a powerful design engine. Where failed human engineering designs end up as discarded prototypes on scrapheaps, nature uses a different, arguably less efficient, research and development process. It, too, has its scrapheaps, enormous ones. But it also has best selling "designs".
Instead of deliberately trying for improvements in the latest model, nature uses mutations, like billions of monkeys at word processors, randomly creating design specs. Most of these are of little or no positive or negative value in terms of survival, and many are lethal. But a very, very small percentage of these mutations actually are helpful in species survival.
It's an extremely inefficient process, but the fact that nature operates over billions of years, and has millions of such simian design teams, means it works. As far as we know, there is no intent in this "design" process. Each successful adaptation is added to a huge, already tested inventory of existing adaptations. The result is that evolution has the appearance of design. Not perfect design, because there really are only those metaphorical monkeys writing the specs, but good enough for survival.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 07/25/2007 23:58:56 |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 06:32:47 [Permalink]
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Halfmooner said:
But evolution (in my own words) is, in the sense of its end products, a powerful design engine. |
I agree with that statement completely.
Of course the animals we see are designed, they are designed by the environment. It is not an accident that polar bears are white or that whales have blowholes at the top of their heads, the point is these 'designed' animals do not need a entity that is the designer. The environment and genetic variation/mutation will work just fine, thank you very much.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 10:08:44 [Permalink]
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The problem with these concepts of design is that when most people think of design, they imagine people sitting down and thinking about a problem, and purposefully coming up with a solution.
Evolution provides designs which solve problems, but without any forethought or direction. It's really two different "classes" of design which, when properly conflated, equals "there must be a Designer." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 10:41:09 [Permalink]
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| I really dont think the word design fits, that and it confuses an already confusing situation. Evolution produces results, not designs, like an elephant painting a picture. Or like a Pollack painting, the result may not be planned but if you follow simple rules during formation you will finish with something which looks pleasant or planned. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 10:44:09 [Permalink]
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| A better example is a spirograph, the result looks amazingly detailed and designed when all that happened was that a pencil followed the path of least resistance. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 10:56:56 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by Siberia |
| So you're saying that because they look designed, they're designed. Like snowflakes. Well, please show me the designer, 'cause my body was very badly designed indeed - what with arthritis at eight months old and myopic eyes and thyroid problem and all of that. Maybe I can file a complaint. |
One thing you fail to consider it that this is a distorted version of the original state of the creation. Sin has tainted everything that was created good. This is the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us. Because of Christ, and the work he did on the cross for those who will except the salvation he offers, paid for with his own blood, we now have a hope that transcends death and the grave.
My favorite and most inspiring hero in the faith is Joni Erickson Tada. Maybe your familiar with her, but she has been a quadriplegic for 40 years now. I have heard her speak and the joy and the optimism this women radiates is truly inspiring to all who hear her. In fact she has called her wheelchair her blessing in the rough as she realizes that the assurance of an eternal salvation with, and fully paid for by, her creator is worth infinitely more then being able to walk around for the few short years we are given in this life.
I may not be able to dance, but this quadriplegic sure is dancing in her heart as I approach the 40 year mark in my wheelchair. You may think, Joni, that's no reason to celebrate. Oh, but yes! For God has turned my despair into joy, and my heart just has to shout and sing about it.
Joni Erickson Tada
http://www.joniandfriends.org
| (and just in case: I don't blame God for my health problems. That wasn't even the reason I became an atheist - I was never a theist, anyway - it's silly to blame something I don't believe exists for something perfectly explicable by, lo and behold, biology and evolution.) |
But biological evolution explains very little. It offers thoughts on how life may have been tweaked over billions of years and has nothing to say on how that life was created and sustained in the first place, nor does it offer an explanation for the origin of the creation that sustains this created life, nor does cosmology. We basically start with a warm little pond, and all the material objects, that was just there. If you want to know where this pond came from you must take off your evolution hat and put on your cosmology hat. This keeps the two separated and independent. Of course when the atheist/humanist/materialist goes to explain their entire worldview the cosmology part leaves a big whole in their story. It's like they start their story in the middle of the book. Once upon a time in the primordial haze of long ago their existed a warm little pond and....
| Frankly, I don't see the design of it; if there is such, it's crappy design. It's full of flaws, some lethal, some just annoying, some just really out there. Some design, that is. |
Yet man, in all his glory, can not even duplicate the creator and reproduce the most simplest forms of life, from nothing. Heck, he can't even produce the most simple materialistic objects from nothing. Yet in his arrogance he feels he can criticize the one who did create life from nothing. The creation uses his finely honed and complex brain to dream up ideas of how to deny the very one who gave him/her his complex brain to begin with.
| See, Bill, I'm a designer too. I'm a webdesigner, as well as a programmer. And I know that some softwares can generate new softwares. There's a whole branch of computer science dedicated to algorithms that change themselves (care to guess the name? That's right - evolutionary computation). |
Yet what does the software that generates new software require? A programmer, as it did not program itself. What else did the software need? How about a computer to operate the software. This computer, as well as the original software, both required a creator and a programmer before anything happens. Design is written all over your evolutionary computation.
And still - what guarantees your creator is the creator?
Or rather;
Why the resurrection of Jesus (if the man even existed) is more credible than, say, the immortality of Achilles? Or, what the heck, I'm sure Greek mythology has a dozen stories about resurrection as well, of demigods and mortals alike. As do most mythologies I'm aware of. And I'm sure that with enough study, you'll find as many references and testimonies about those as about Jesus'. Except maybe that history might've erased them - there are too many cults and too many of them like to ignore and obliterate their competitors.
Hell, Jesus claimed to be son of a God. So did Alexander the Great - and we know for sure Alexander existed, unlike, say, Jesus. Jesus - or the people who wrote about him - said he did miracles. Then again, there are several people, even in my country, alive, today, who say they can do miracles. They also have lots of people saying such miracles happened.
Why Alexander's claim, or those people's claims, are not credible, but Jesus' is? |
I listed 10+ historical facts on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, of which you addressed none of them. Also, please tell me what you know of this Alexander and how did you come about to know it?
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 11:02:43 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by GeeMack |
| All that says, Bill, is that you don't understand biology well enough to understand how the process of evolution works. Your simple lack of understanding evolution doesn't in any way support the idea that magic is a reasonable explanation for life and its diversity. Well, other than in your own imagination, of course. If you want to propose that magic is the explanation, you'll have to show how that explanation is falsifiable and testable, and provide scientifically based evidence to support it. So far nobody has been able to do that. |
Your use of the word magic clearly shows that you have comprehended zero % of my posts and the low levels of your maturity status. Magic would be the mechanism that produced the warm little pond, and the primordial earth to sustain the warm pond, and this magic also washes away the need for understanding the origin of this warm pond to begin with. Not to mention the magic used by random mutations to design the human brain with intent and forethought.
| Evolution, on the other hand, is a process which occurs. All the time. Pretty much everywhere on Earth. It's a matter of fact. |
I don't deny this. Heck, look at evolutionary computing. But what was needed to kick off the evolutionary process? A programmer but of course.
| The theories which explain the process of evolution do so according to the scientific method. They are falsifiable, testable, and are supported with evidence, real scientifically valid evidence. |
Micro evolution? Yes, then I would agree
| You see, science is the real stuff, Bill. It is the base used to explain why the frame of that Corvette holds up against the torque of the engine, the method that explains how much friction is necessary to stop that Corvette in a given distance from a given speed, the method used to determine how much fuel needs to mix with how much air to create the explosions required to send that Corvette cruising down the highway. |
Which is mostly the laws of physics, but forth by the creator. Science is just a method to prove what God has already established. Through science we establish and define the law of gravity. Does not mean that science created gravity, the creator created gravity, only that science was used to explain gravity.
| And although there are a lot of people who don't (or can't) grasp the design and engineering concepts involved, pretty much no moderately intelligent human being would suggest that, simply because they don't understand internal combustion, that Corvette must scoot along by the power of magic. |
And just because they are having trouble grasping the design and effort and forethought that went into the creation of the Z06 this does not mean the Z06 was just there by default, with no designer or creator required to put it there. It was just there is not science.
| The power of magic works equally as well to explain the origin and diversity of life as it does to explain anything about that Corvette. |
Is this the same magic where warm little ponds and life are just there, with no explanation required?
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 11:07:14 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by furshur |
| The environment and genetic variation/mutation will work just fine, thank you very much. |
Is this the same enviroment and genetic mutaions that designed the human brain with intent and forethought?
Hey fur, I got a nice bridge down south that I would be willing to part with. For you my friend a speacial price.
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 11:14:43 [Permalink]
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Alexander the Great:
Bill, you should study some real history once in a while. Then, you wouldn't have to ask.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/26/2007 11:15:44 |
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 11:18:06 [Permalink]
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| Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse |
| Can you imagine that people may see a designer other than God/Jesus/Yahweh? |
I can imagine it, but what do they base this off of? My bases is the historical event of the resurrection Christ.
| Although I'm an electronics engineer, I do have an appreciation of mechanical design too |
To the pessimist the cup is half empty. To the optimist the cup is half full. But to the engineer the cup is twice as big as it needs to be. 
| When I look at that Vette, I think of the many versions of the car that came before. Stingray is cool, but I don't like the design on the first models. |
I agree. If money were no object I would have a 1970 LS6 sitting in my garage. (4 speed no doubt)
| But I think of more than that. I think of T-Ford, diesel powered cars, old electrical cars. What I see is an evolution of automobiles from the horse-and-carriage, a vehicle that has evolved in a lot of small steps. Several inventions have been added, only to later be discarded as new inventions increase performance, or safety, or comfort. The 2007 Z06 Vette is by no means the end of the line, to will continue to evolve. |
But behind all these improvements to the automobile was what? A designer who designed with forethought and intent.
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 07/26/2007 : 11:25:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Alexander the Great:
Bill, you should study some real history once in a while. Then, you wouldn't have to ask.
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So you accept Alex the great and reject Jesus the king, even though the historical evidence for the resurrection is more abundant and more recent then that for Alex? That is not very scholarly of you and one might say even indicates bias.
I claim to be an historian. My approach to Classics is historical. And I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history . . .
E. M. Blaiklock
Professor of Classics
Auckland University
If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.
F. F. Bruce
Manchester University
For the New Testament of Acts, the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in matters of detail, must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.
A. N. Sherwin-White
Classical Roman Historian
"Luke is a historian of the first rank . . . This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians. "
Sir William Ramsay
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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www.notjustatheory.com
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