[QUOTE=TomOfSweden;256774]That's hardly the case is it. This is the old deist argument for god. According to Darwins theory, there's nothing accidental about natural selection so your point is what?[/QUOTE}

Here is what Darwin said about Natural selection:

Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects of man's selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has even been urged that, as plants have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements?--and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in preference combines. It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.

His understanding of natural laws was rudimentary compared to ours, but he took the view of a scientist. He was lloking for an explanation of what he observed in nature, and he found on in his Origen of the Species. However his explanation no longer satands upo to the scrutiny of modern science. There are those who say it does, but they are unable to account for the fact that life exists. simply pointing to life and claiming that because it is there it must have been an accident is not an explanation, it is a rationalization.

Who cares what Darwin knew or didn't know. His claim to fame is that he was the first scientist who tested the theory and had the guts to stand by it, in spite of it being very shaky at the time. He unlocked and opened the door, but only a crack. Others after him found the serious proof, ripping the whole door off it's hinges. We've got many times more evidence suporting Darwins theory now than we did when he was alive. It's no accident that the theory wasn't fully accepted by the scientific comunity until well into the 1920'ies. For good reason. Darwin was wrong about a whole boat-load of stuff. Let's focus on what he was right about.
Actually, he was not the first, not even in the sense of publishing, but that is another issue. I am still waiting for someone to show me the proof that evolution is true in a general sense. I can see adaptation to environmnet, and even generla genetic drift on a limited scale resulting in some rather interesting differences among different types of the same species. But where is the so called proof that species develop spontaneously?



I belong to the crowd who think DNA easily can form spontaneously anywhere. Even in vacuum. This is based on one experiment made in California, so it doesn't really hold water yet. My point is, be careful with saying that things cannot come to be through natural processes. Chances are that they can. There's a big difference between improbable and impossible.
I never heard of this experiment, so i will just ask, if proteins have not yet been proven to develop spontaneously, how can a complex chain of proteins and amino acids form into DNA?

The problem is that intelligent design is just taken straight out of thin air. It's not backed up by anything. If your only case is that you can't imagine it coming to be naturally, it says more about you than the theory of evolution. Argument from ignorance is not valid in logic.
And exactly how is evolution any better? Do they also not argue from ignorance?

Let me point out though that i am not arguing from ignorance, I am arguing against implausiblity. I simply state that statisticle odds seem to be stacked against evolution. I then offer the opinion that Intelligent Design actually has an explanation that will deal with these discrepencies, but evolutionary theorists do not. They have postualated that there may be laws of nature that we do not know about that actually force DNA to evolve in the proper conditions. Yet they offer neither mathematical or experimental evidence to support this. yet I am arguing from ignorance because I point this out? Interesting, to say the least.

Science should not be in the business of rejecting a hypothesis just becuse it does not agree with the general idea of the way the universe is. They should test to prove or disprove any hypothesis, even if it goes against personal beliefs. If someone presented evidence that could refute the existence of God I would accept it because I have a scientific outlook. Would you accept evidence that proved the existence of God? If not, which one of us is close minded?

And then you've got the next problem, in that the "designing" isn't particularly intelligent. It's as if our creator couldn't make his mind up if humans should be quadrapeds or bipepeds, so we ended up being something in between, resulting in most humans having back-ache from ordinary life. Why is our vision centre at the back of the head, slowing down our response time? Our most critical sense being in our most vulnerable place in the brain. There's stupidity everywhere in our "design". And it gets worse if we move to other species. The closer you get to the cellular level it gives the impression of being more and more random.
Really? Do you know what the initial design parameters were? How can you be sure that this is not the best of the choices that was available?

This pretty much catches the whole point. Yes, we need to be open to all possiblities, which is important within science. But I think we can wait with taking intelligent design seriously until it at least has a coherrant logical model.

And then you've got the problem that Intelligent design isn't really a theory at all. It's more of an anti-theory. Saying that something else, (ie god or gods) has it covered, isn't saying anything at all. All it tries to do is point to the holes in Darwinism without having anything else in it's place. The intelligent design people make no claims at all as to what god is or how it did it. Considering the overwhelming evidence that suports evolution Intelligent design as a long way to go before being a credible competitor.
I agree, but my point is that this is axactly what evolution does. In fact, evolution is so inconsistent that they are no beeter than those idiots that want me to believe the earth is only 6000 years old. They both ignore any evidence contrary to what they believe, which is why I insist that evolution is not science, but philosophy. I am not pointing to Intelligent Desing as the answer because it has no more basis in science than creationism or evolution. But it does answer some questions that is raised by evolution. We are then left with another question if we acccept ID, where did the designer come from?

Regarding speciasation. Science hasn't decided what defines a unique species yet. It's got more to do with politics than biology. In my ears, the debates between scientists so far tend to be extremly silly. They're all on the who-gets-to-get-their-name-on-what level. So it's not clear what you mean by the term. It tends to shift between kingdoms. Let's agree here in the thread that it means stable reproduction of a distinct creature. It seems to me, what what you mean by it?

I have a vivid memory of a discussion, (over a few beers) with a fish expert I had this autumn about a stream in Sweden. In the 18'th century they had one species of fish living in it and in the 20'th century had 4 different stable species, all in different sections of the stream. But beer was involved so I won't swear on having the details right. So I'm not so sure about your claim about specisation never being witnessed in nature. I'll e-mail him for the name of the fish, (if anybody cares).

I would be delighted to hear about evidence of speciation, but first let us define our terms. Merriam Webster (http://m-w.com) defines
speciation as: the process of biological species formation.
And a species as: a class of individuals having common attributes and designated by a common name; specifically : a logical division of a genus or more comprehensive class <confessing sins in species and in number> c: the human race : human beings — often used with the <survival of the species in the nuclear age> d (1): a category of biological classification ranking immediately below the genus or subgenus, comprising related organisms or populations potentially capable of interbreeding, and being designated by a binomial that consists of the name of a genus followed by a Latin or latinized uncapitalized noun or adjective agreeing grammatically with the genus name

The key part of this is that different speciess are not capable of interbreeding, and if I remember my biology correctly this is a key element of detirmining species. Older classifications of species have had to be changed becuse interbreeding was detirmined to be possible where it was initially thought to be impossible. Ths actually causes some of the argument about names that you probably are recalling.

(Of course, by this definition, Vulcans and Humans are the same species, and observation that does not really belong here, but one I am incapable of bypassing due to my nature.)