Intelligent Design, Evolution & Creationism

[johnny_t]

Now I know that we've covered this before, but I am in America at the moment and there was a Gallup poll in my USA Today this morning on the subject, measuring which of the following were Definitely/Probably True, Definitely/Probably False or Not Familiar/No Opinion. Ignoring the fact that the maths don't quite stack up, and people seem to believe more than one scenario to be true, the figures are still:

Creationism: True 58%, False 26%

Evolution: True 55%, False 34%

Intelligent Design: True 31%, False 32%

I've been discussing this with my US colleagues today and I've kind of given the impression to all that any who believed literally that the Creation happened as per Genesis, or that Intelligent Design had any merit and was actually a valid scientific position, would be regarded as a bit mental throughout almost all of Europe as if they had just declared that they believe in Fairies.

Understandably, they then treat that last statement of mine as if I am mental. Leaving the question of religious fundamentalism aside, as it only causes arguments, it seems strange that a country that is considered to be culturally one of the closest to us can be so different.



On a lighter note - 65% of American boys are circumcised at birth, compared to 0.41% in the UK. Apparently the cavalier look is considered the height of unhygienicness.

 

[johnny_t]

BTW, I'm not dissing Christians in the above. In this country, I believe that most Christians see the OT as being largely allegorical, don't they ??

 

[AdamW]

Yes, I agree with you there on the "what Christians think about genesis" bit. There are Christians and then there are Christians.

I regard myself as Christian by birth, upbringing and by the way I live my life. I believe that Genesis is a nice story, and that evolution through mutation and natural selection is the fact.

Intelligent design is an attempt to lend credence to Creationism through the application of misunderstood science and non-truths (irreducible complexity of the eye, for Pete's sake!)

I think you will find there is now a stigma to "admitting" that you are a Christian, simply because some ill-informed people are of the opinion that all Christians ring on your doorbell on a Sunday morning, get offended if you say "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation and don't believe in sex before marriage.

Not the case though. Not all Jewish people are tax collectors and accountants. Not all muslims are suicide bombers. Not all Hindus are doctors and shopkeepers. Not all pagans are new age travellers.

 

[notb665]

Circumcision is considered more hygenic as Muslim and Jewish women have a lower rate of cervical cancer compared to their counterparts whose husbands aren't circumcised.

As for the Genesis story, Islamic, Jewish and Christian scholars believe that it is not about two individual people who were created by God, but is actually about something completely different.

 

[TexMex]

I don't see any reason to assume a divine engineer at work. There are a great many phenomena that appear to have been "designed", as the odds of such things occurring naturally just seem too ridiculous to comprehend.

Well now look at the odds of getting all six numbers on the national lottery. It's so unlikely that it's never going to happen. Yet, practically every week, someone, somewhere gets just such luck! If one week you happen to be the lucky winner, should you assume that some divine force has decided that you deserve it? No, it's just luck. The laws of averages dictate that even rank outsiders come in, regularly (if less frequently than the more likely).

With evolution, though, we have a ratchet effect. Once a beneficial result has occurred, it's effect will be indelibly stored in the gene pool. Over the millennia, the accumulated effects of the multitude of rank outside chances results in the staggeringly unbelievable.

irreducible complexity of the eye, for Pete's sake!

How is the complexity of the eye irreducible? There are plenty of examples of eyes at practically every stage of evolution, from simple light sensitivity (as displayed by narcissus plants), to those of a hawk. In fact, the design of our eyes has some serious shortcomings that should have been sorted (had they been designed by some deity.)

 

[AdamW]

Exactly, that's my point! "Intelligent Designists" use the eye as an example of why they don't think it can be done without a power at work. However, I would refer them to occuli: the light sensitive organs present on many animals, such as jellyfish. Can't resolve an image, but detect changes in light.

Then you have parallel evolutionary traits: flight for example. It has evolved at least 3 times separately, possibly more. Insects, birds and bats all evolved flight independently of one another (other than, perhaps, the reason of eating insects for food!). Why the hell would an intelligent designer come up with so many different types of flight?

And then what about snakes and caecilians? Caecilians are basically the amphibian equivalent of snakes: and they are pretty rubbish really. Why bother "designing" them when you have snakes already.

Whoever came up with "Intelligent Design" must have watched that episode of Star Trek where it turns out all the humanoid races evolved through genetic predestination from some progenitor race.

 

[Nige F]

Yes, I agree with you
I think you will find there is now a stigma to "admitting" that you are a Christian, But there`s no Smegma if you are a Jew or a Yank

 

[joe-90]

One of the arguments re 'Intelligent design' is often to do with the eye.

Take a look at this link:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=G

Scroll down to the bottom image where you can see the muscles that control the eye.

Take a look at the bit which is called: 'trochlee'

The argument is that svolution cannot 'thread' the muscle through the eye of the needle. Only 3rd party intervention could do this. Can anyone answer how such a mechanism could evolve and thread itself?

joe

 

[AdamW]

Well, the key to that would be to observe how it happens in a foetus.

I suspect that the Trochlee started off further back, at the "root" of the greater oblique muscle. Positioning the Trochlee further forward would allow greater/faster manoeuvrability of the eye. Thus rendering one more likely to spot an insect, thus eating it, thus ensuring your survival to pass on your genes instead of starving. Over the course of time it moved forwards to it's current position.

The fact it is "threaded", probably a quirk more than anything else.

 

[Moz]

johnny_t
the whole point to your thread was your in USA...

go to deepiest Africa ... or ends of the world , for intelligent replies but for Gods sake get out of U$ land for real answers ...

come here next best thing an you will get good replies an below me ...
ho hum .. you already got that kind of reply lol..lol..lol the loonies replying ...