What the fuck is Intelligent Design?
Update: Intelligent design is a creationist' scam as shown during the Dover trial. You can check-out the legal text here and the expert witness here
Calling it as it is. Creationist leaders are scam artists (liars). They deliberately concocted the ID movement to get creationism taught in schools.
If you are a Christian, according to your faith, lying is a "sin". Think about the lack of ethics of these people.
End update - January 3rd, 2017
The original article below:
I contend that nobody knows. According to IDelists I've come across with, other IDelists are wrong. It may be that I'm constructing a Strawman logical fallacy, but I think ID is deliberately constructing a logical fallacy of confusion.
That's reasoning by analogy. Things look complex and therefore they are designed.
The definition is vague; 'certain types of information' 'intelligence'.
The theory doesn't actually explain anything at all because it doesn't answer the 'how' question. This is very similar to saying 'Goddidit'. Charles Darwin called it (referring to creationism) 'a restatement of fact'. His example was that things were like they are because 'it pleased the lord'.
These people say that DNA is caused by an intelligence. How?
Anyway, they have their sense of humour.
Calling it as it is. Creationist leaders are scam artists (liars). They deliberately concocted the ID movement to get creationism taught in schools.
If you are a Christian, according to your faith, lying is a "sin". Think about the lack of ethics of these people.
End update - January 3rd, 2017
The original article below:
I contend that nobody knows. According to IDelists I've come across with, other IDelists are wrong. It may be that I'm constructing a Strawman logical fallacy, but I think ID is deliberately constructing a logical fallacy of confusion.
Here's what I
understand.
- ID is against the scientific theory of evolution, because evolution doesn't explain abiogenesis.
- ID explains abiogenesis with an unnamed designer, either supernatural or … alien.
- ID does not accept evolution but adaptation (what's the difference?).
- ID is guided evolution/adaptation.
- ID is unguided evolution/adaptation.
- Design is everywhere (look around you).
- Design is undefined.
- Irreducible complexity is the key.
- Irreducible complexity has been debunked, now we believe in inconceivable complexity.
- DNA is a genetic code therefore it's designed.
- Human DNA is more than 90% functional therefore Intelligently designed.
- The best explanation for some natural phenomena is an intelligence cause [Added - November 2nd, 2014]
- ID is against the scientific theory of evolution, because evolution doesn't explain abiogenesis.Abiogenesis is the scientific hypothesis that life started on earth about 4 billion years ago. Chemicals reacted with each other to form biochemical compounds that formed primitive cells with primitive cell-walls and primitive RNA. There was no 'information' on the primitive RNA. This hypothesis is being investigated for it's plausibility. So far, it looks like it's plausible. Google Jack Szostak, for instance, or just read the Wikipedia article about abiogenesis.The scientific theory of evolution explains how these primitive cells evolved into modern cells and into all lifeforms we see on earth.As you can see, abiogenesis is related with evolution at the most elementary level.
- ID explains abiogenesis with an unnamed designer, either supernatural or … alien.Could you please make up your mind? If it's a supernatural designer, then you have a religion and if it's an alien... where the fuck is the alien? How did the alien get here? How did the alien come into existence? Etcetera.
- ID does not accept evolution but adaptation.What's the difference? The fact of evolution is defined as “changes in allele frequencies in populations”. This is a truism. Alleles (gene variations) are differently mixed (their frequency changes) in different generations. In other words, the number of blue eyes vs brown eyes changes from one generation to the next.I suspect 'adaptation' is the IDelist term for micro-evolution. What genetic mechanism stops micro-evolution to continue evolving into macro-evolution?
- ID is guided evolution/adaptation.Where's the guide? Is there a goal to evolution? Are we the goal (surprise!)?
- ID is unguided evolution/adaptation.Again, what's the difference (see point 3 above). How come some IDelists hold on to the notion that ID is guided and others that it's unguided. That's confusing, folks.
- Design is everywhere (look around you).The natural world is all around us, also known as reality. So far, we have zero evidence for the supernatural (designer or not) or for aliens. If you have no evidence, why hold on to a silly belief?
- Design is undefined.Haw, haw, haw.The fact that design is undefined is a strong point of ID. Something undefined cannot be attacked.... unless you think about it. The lack of definition of ID can be attacked as it's incredibly unscientific to not define the object of study as precise as possible.
- Irreducible complexity is the key.
Irreducible
complexity is the concept that some structures (DNA, the bacterial
flagellum) cannot be reduced without breaking it's functionality
therefore it was 'created' fully functional by a designer.
The RNA/DNA world
hypothesis doesn't require any creation event.
The bacterial
flagellum is actually an evolved trait. All components that make up
the bacterial flagellum can be found functioning in other organisms.
The flagellum most likely evolved with more parts, each additional
part beneficial for it's host, and then, later, evolved to a less
complex form...
Abiogenesis/evolution
can account for all irreducibly complex arguments.
- Irreducible complexity has been debunked, now we believe in inconceivable complexity.
- DNA is a
genetic code therefore it's designed.
What is
inconceivable for one person is conceivable for another person. This
is a personal incredulity logical fallacy. I, for instance, cannot
conceive of the Higgs boson but that doesn't mean the boson was
designed by a supernatural designer. The Higgs boson cannot have
been designed by aliens as aliens must be formed with, amongst
others, Higgs bosons (and there go the aliens nobody believed in
anyway).
DNA is compared to computer code by geneticists because it's a
reasonable analogy. However, DNA is not
a computer code. Let me explain.
Computers understand zeros (zero
voltage) and ones (an electrical current). Humans have designed
machine languages
composed of zeros and ones... (which
is the only thing computers understand, sorry
for the repetition).
Humans can
program computers by
using computer
languages. The computer
languages can be understood by humans because
it's text, but cannot
be understood by computers.
Computer languages get converted
into machine languages through a process called 'compiling'. The
first step of compilation is the elimination of all comments and all
white space (tabs, caret returns, double spaces, etc). Comments
in computer languages are texts that cannot or should not be
compiled.
The resulting machine language is
100% executable code. To make the analogy with DNA, this would mean
that 'machine language'
DNA is 100% functional. IDelists claim that human DNA is over 90%
functional...
Geneticists believe human
DNA to
be about 8% functional.
The rest of the DNA, are 'comments'
the compilation phase of human designed compilers eliminate.
Humans put a number of things in
'comments'. Some information about what the function is doing, who
wrote it... and old
code.
Old code is commented out by novice
programmers. Old dogs eliminate old code altogether because humans
have designed 'source control' and all old code is kept there
indefinitely. This means that the non-functional DNA in the human
genome is left over by either
incompetent or novice
'intelligent designers'
who had no access to source control... nor
to compilers.
To clarify this. DNA is not a
designed code as it does not have the features of designed code. It's
a useful analogy for geneticists, but
it's not the real McCoy.
- Human DNA is more than 90% functional therefore Intelligently designed.
More than 90% still isn't 100%, but what the heck? Let's accept, for
one moment, that human DNA is over 90% functional.
What does ID say about other organisms? Surely, if human DNA is 90%
functional, other organisms should be comparatively similar? That is,
shouldn't all mammals have about the same number of genes (and
chromosomes) as humans? Shouldn't all trees have about the same
number of genes as the other trees? Or single celled organisms?
Yet mammals have widely different numbers of genes (and chromosomes).
Trees have widely different genomes amongst themselves. Unicellular
lifeforms are champs. Some have very small genomes and others
incredibly large genomes. How does ID explain the 90% functional
genomes in similar organisms with widely different genome sizes?
What does ID say about genome size? If genomes are 90% functional,
then larger genomes should have more functionality, right? How come
amoebas have hugely larger genomes than humans? How does ID explain
that? I'd like to know.
Evolution, on the other hand, doesn't make any claim on the size of
genomes. It does make claims about similarities between
genomes. Similar organisms must have similar genomes... phylogenetic
trees confirm this.
Humans share 99,5% genetic information with other humans... because
we're closely related. Humans share less genetic information with
trees because we're less closely related.
Phylogenetic trees find the genetic similarities between organisms on
a number of criteria. How does ID explain that, for different
criteria, phylogenetic trees find the same tree of life?
Phylogenetic trees confirm that our shagging ancestors are closely
related to chimpanzees through their shagging ancestors... all thanks
to meiosis, but ID doesn't accept that... or maybe it does?
- The best explanation for some natural phenomena is an intelligence cause [Added - November 2nd, 2014]
Today, I got fresh information about ID. This is a very short analysis.
It seems that my claim that nobody knows what ID is, is false. It is defined as:
It seems that my claim that nobody knows what ID is, is false. It is defined as:
Intelligent design is a scientific theory that argues that the best explanation for some natural phenomena is an intelligence cause, especially when we find certain types of information and complexity in nature which in our experience are caused by intelligence. Source
...
But where in our experience do things like language, complex and specified information, programming code, or machines come from? They have one and only one known source: intelligence.
That's reasoning by analogy. Things look complex and therefore they are designed.
The definition is vague; 'certain types of information' 'intelligence'.
The theory doesn't actually explain anything at all because it doesn't answer the 'how' question. This is very similar to saying 'Goddidit'. Charles Darwin called it (referring to creationism) 'a restatement of fact'. His example was that things were like they are because 'it pleased the lord'.
These people say that DNA is caused by an intelligence. How?
Anyway, they have their sense of humour.
But if you want to know whether something was designed or not, turn to the study of intelligent design.
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