The teleological argument is not one of my preferred methods of rationalizing my belief in God. I don't think you were here when Cimber posted this, but this particular video will show you why irreducible complexity, and therefore 'design' is an illogical argument:
Intelligent Design on Trial, part 8
Its about 10 minutes long, but it gets the point across and it uses one of the ID supporters favorite examples against them: Bacterial Flagella.

Also, this:
Ken Miller on Irreducible Complexity... again.
Shorter, but again, same concept.

So irreducible complexity is out the window, but perhaps you should look at the teleological argument (argument from design) and tell me if you can find anything wrong with it:
1. X is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
3. God is that sentient, intelligent, wise, or purposeful being.
4. Therefore, God exists.
or, if you prefer:
1. Complexity implies a designer.
2. The universe is highly complex.
3. Therefore, the universe has a designer.

Ok, and just remember, before you respond Yetihunter I mean Guyver, please provide a counter argument to what I posted. I think this debate would go much more smoothly if someone would kindly take a stab at refuting Ken Miller's refutation of irreducible complexity. Oh, and some scientific papers would be nice too.

Well, Church; I don't think one should be so quick to dismiss the argument from irreducible complexity. And you already know that your side has a lock on most of the scientific papers. All we offer is logic, common sense and a reasonable defense for our faith. However, as soon as I'm done with work today I'll give it a shot. Good to be back in the saddle again - for a little while.

I won't dismiss it when I see something that actually is irreducibly complex.


Why is that? Why is it that 'your side' doesn't produce papers?


While I wouldn't necessarily agree with the first two, I would never deny you a reasonable defense of your faith. Faith is faith, and just because I accept abiogenesis and evolution, among other scientific theories like general relativity and gravity does not mean that I deny the existence of a higher power, far from it, in fact.


Ok, take your time.

I made an attempt to bring something to the table other than my witty post earlier - but it's too much. I could spend alot of time and effort on a post to which you could simply reply "the fossil record appears to show gaps, or limited transitional fossils because of the inherent difficulty in fossil creation and their scarcity in the first place." I obviously would have now way to prove otherwise. You might also respond with punctuated equilibrium which would just send us spiraling back to the same old arguments as before. So... I give. It's all a matter of opinion - in my opinion.

I will intertect my opinion (that I tried to slip in on another thread but everyone slipped) that evolution and creationism are both belief systems. In fact, I'll go so far as to assert that scientific evolution is an unclassified religion and provide a good link for the statement.

http://mikeschuler.web.aplus.net/id10.html

I need a citation. Who discovered this? When? Where were the results published - publication, volume, date? What was the title of the article? Don't just repeat yourself - I want to know that this is not just a fairy tale or an "urban legend," but something based on fact. Good as your memory may be, it does not establish the truth of what you are saying.
Doug

It sounds like the author read the original article; unfortunately, the original citation was not given here, either. This particular publication is not juried, does not give its source and was written by a professional writer, not a scientist. Until adequate support for your idea can be presented, we must conclude that the story is without basis.
Doug

The "designer" component is fatal only if the process cannot be explained without it. Science maintains that the process can be explained without reference to God. I take it that you are maintaining that God is an essential element. Time to present your reasoning and any supporting evidence.
Doug

Please show any evidence of a designer. If you cannot then please explain why we should accept blind conjecture.

You see here is the problem anything you can show that God/someone was not involved in making life on earth. We can use the same thing to show that said someone who doesn't want to be known was involved. That has been the claim for 2000 years.


But on the other hand anything we can use to show involvment can also be used to show non-involvment.


I will go back on my three examples anyways. water, ice and salt.

Your examples are rubbish. You basically can not back up your point.

Then you explain why water is made up of rocket fuel. Salt is made up of two poisons one of which explodes in water. Ice floats in water and no other solid floats in it's liquid form that is of the elements. There is one other but it is a compound not an element.


Please no chemical explanations. God made the Chemical connection work the way they do. By the way Oxygen is also a poison.

Anything in sufficiently high concentration is poisonous. Even the inert gases are deadly in that they exclude breathable oxygen from the environment.

Resorting to the "explanation" that "God did it" is no explanation at all. Why not just admit you don't know?
Doug

Everything is a poison in a high enough dose what is you point. Can you provide evidence of God making chemicals work they way they do?
Many no toxic things are made of toxins, your whole argument is completely baseless.

That are vital for life on earth. What if we find that carbon floats on another planet where they breath carbon instead of oxygen.

Well since Carbon its self is not a gas except in extreme heat (ever tried melting graphite or diamond).
Fluoride is used commonly in dental products and fluorine is considerable more dangerous than chlorine (no smell no taste and it killed the first 3 people to discover it). Your argument is completely baseless.

I should have used the element below oxygen in the table but I forgot to save the table so i don't remember it either sorry.


As stated in high school science if life was based on something than carbon it might be based on silicon. I think that is the right one. or any of the other elements in that column. MAYBE


My argument isn't point less. I have heard on more than one science show that life using oxygen was a bad choice.

Which is exactly why "intelligent design" is a poor philosophy.

Which is exactly why it is a good one.

Then why do we need oxygen to survive, can you please explain that?

No.

Intelligent design says don't research something: there are gaps so the 'designer' did it. Leave it to us. We know how it worked since you've not found an explanation yet. In fact, leave out that transitional fossil. The designer designed it.

Again, no.

The simplest explanation is often times the best one, and the simplest one is that humans and all other life evolved on Earth after appearing via abiogenesis. On its surface, the god hypothesis is the simplest explanation, but it's not. Who designed the designer? There had to be an 'original' designer, a first cause. If there is some person or thing that can create all life, it's certainly more complex than anything that it has created. If we're talking a personal creator who intervenes in your every day life, answers prayers, hears prayers, still cares about his creation... he's infinitely more complex than that. If this creator not only created everything, but instead knows everything, I postulate that this creator is infinitely more complex than all of his creation.

Big thanks to Richard Dawkins for the rhetoric, but I've always felt this way. To follow up, here's something from the God Delusion paraphrased because I'm too lazy to look it up, cite it, etc.:

Imagine there's a cliff by the name of mount improbable. It's a sheer cliff. Intelligent design would have us believe that we went from the base (one-celled organisms) to the top (humans) in one single sudden bound. Evolution, which lies on the other side of the cliff, presents itself as a gentle slope up which life ascends from the base (one-celled) to the top (humans) gradually.

That's one hell of analogy and in my mind the best analogy for naturalism as opposed to supernaturalism.

I can't agree with your logic on that one. First, you made a statement about getting past abiogenesis. You make that sound simple when if fact according to mathematical theory it's impossible, or a near zero event. According to the laws of probability, as the factors that affect an outcome increase, the unlikelyhood of the event increase exponentially; quickly reaching a near zero probability.

Yes, the simplest solution is often the right one. However, it would seem much simpler to me for a supreme architect to be the one responsible for the creation of complex organisms. Let's just say that against all odds abiogenesis did happen. Now, from the proteins and amino acids present in the primordial soup, you have unicellular organisms. How do you make the jump to more complex organisms? If they are self-replicating then you need a mutation to make that leap. Even in healthy populations genetic drift is due to something scientists call the phenomena of probability. That is, even allelic drift is subject to time and chance.

Scientists have been culturing and studying bacteria for a long time. Bacteria can be cultured in a petri dish overnight. There have been literally millions of populations of bacteria studied by scientists. Have bacteria ever evolved into something other than prokaryotes? No. There are resistent strains and that's it - according to my knowledge.

Your statement about the Supreme Creator is also illogical to me. He is the source. He doesn't need a source or a cause when he himself is it. The very universe itself came forth from him. I think the illusion is that life could arise any other way besides a designer.

Why are the odds of abiogenesis 0, can you back this up.

Why is a supreme creator the simplest answer when there is no evidence for a supreme creator, that is pure conjecture.

No one would expect a group of prokaryotes in isolation to ever evolve in eukaryotes.

Why can a supreme creator just exist, that is hypocritical. He can't have just existed. Just because you think think something doesn't make it right either, it is just you are not willing to learn.

Guyver- It seems you are thinking in moments for the span of this incident to occur. When it is not at all being
suggested in such a manner. With the right elements plus chemical make-up and millions of years, abiogenesis
seems more than likely probable to occur.

Just because you don't believe something doesn't mean it isn't real.

Yes but I have evidential support senor yeti does not, he relies on conjecture and refusal to educate himself.

Of course I can back it up. My question is...why would I need to? Finite or discrete mathematics was a standard requirement for my undergraduate coursework - was it not for you? If you've never had finite math then yes I would be happy to post some equations for you.

No one would expect a group of prokaryotes in isolation to ever evolve into eukaryotes. OK then, that's settled.


Hypocrital? Do you mean hypothetical? You may want to use the define function on your search engine so that you can understand the meaning of the word hypocrite. Or if all else fails, grab a dictionary. Or maybe you're claiming that the Supreme Creator is being hypocritical because he hasn't personally appeared to you? Just think of all the science courses that you would've missed out on.

I guess that depends on your def. of real. lol.

I think that this is what most non-believers are having a problem with. But if he did appear to them then they would no longer have to believe would they. Belief is believing in something without knowledge. Just as Columbus believed that he could get to china by sailing west.

No I mean hypocritical. You refuse to believe life can be formed spontaneously has 0 probability but you argue for a deity just existing (something with the available evidence would have 0 probability ).

You made the silly 0 probability claim, I am asking you to back it up or retract it (obviously you know more than the scientific community on this point).
I did a BSc in Zoology with Marine Zoology so I covered biological stats and which tests where suitable for the experiment and how to use SPSS. The rest of my course was on biology oddly enough (UK degrees are almost entirely single subject there is no major/minor).

Since you (after months of trying) still don't understand what evolution is, I severely doubt you'll understand the concept of endosymbiosis which is how you go from pro to eu. Endosymbiosis.
Now explain how that would work with an isolated culture.

It is nothing to do with belief. There are plenty of deist scientists who understand and accept abiogenesis and evolution and the evidence behind it. Also personal experience is always subjective.

Question why did the bigger cell simply digest the smaller one as it had so many times before. Why did it decide not to digest this cell.

Edit: Triple post

Edit: Double post.

I don't know, microbiology is not my field, Cimber or Copasetic would be the ones to ask about that, my specialisation is in stuff that is much bigger. Why do we have bacteria in our stomach to help us digest food? Why does coral have algae living in it (coral is a close relation to the jellyfish) why do the animals that form the Portuguese man'o war for a colonial animal. Guess they got an advantage out of it.

I'm going to guess being a bacteria that it was not a conscious decision though.

The other question is why didn't the smaller cell just keep dividing until the bigger cell burst, like viruses do.




your point has nothing to do with belief but his does.

Well I presume that it that the smaller cell couldn't divide and the genetic material became shared for the cell. Viruses have to hijack a cells DNA to reproduce (hence they are not alive) and this causes them to constantly replicated by the cell so the scenario is different.

Yes but he is using his belief to argue a scientific point, which is a bad approach.

The only thing a cell needs to divide is food. The smaller cell is sitting inside a buffet of food.

It is not that simple (if the genetic material has combined for example how would it reproduce?) also these are organisms that do not actually think to make such a decision so clearly that could not be case.

1 The smaller cell would eat the food before they combined.

2 This one is as far as you know they don't think. I have to agree that I don't think that they think. Which means that perhaps someone did the thinking for them.

1. You do not know that and the evidence is against you (hence the algae in coral does not eat the animal).

2. It is instinct control by their genetics, it probably also has something to do with the plasmids (free floating DNA rings exchanged amongst bacteria). Bacteria don't have anything to thing with and they do not display complex behaviour.

OK - I see your point now. No, I don't think it hypocritical of me at all. It would be hypocrital of me to believe that something so marvelous, and unlikely like the creation of complex life could defy probability and happen all by itself. It's not hard to imagine the infinitely wise and powerful Supreme Being thinking and speaking our entire universe into existence. You want to talk about a big bang. He spoke and it was. That must have been quite a commotion.

algie is a plant not a bacteria. bacteria is closer to an animal.


Plants do not have anything to think with either but they communicate with others of their type.

"God did it." That's just another way of saying "I don't know." But it's dishonest: it implies the speaker knows something he doesn't.

Life is so complicated it could not be created by chance? That implies God. But what existed before God? Chance? We are saying that chance created God, yet life is too complex for chance? That means God is not as complex as a living organism, such as you or me. Which says that we can create God. Hmmmm!

To my way of thinking: a supreme creator, if there is one, did not create a universe of logical inconsistencies and rational non sequitirs. The universe I see is a unified whole, not a bunch of disjointed pieces that don't fit together. However it happened, the theist argument lacks both knowledge and depth. I'm not saying they're wrong, just that they aren't making any sense.
Doug

Plants and animals are both eukaryotes. Bacteria is in a completely different domain. It is about as far from an algae as it is possible for a living thing to be. Plants and animals are more-closely related to each other than they are to bacteria.

The plants I work with every day (mostly trees) do not communicate in any way that we would call communication. They react to the presense of other plants in their immediate environment, but do not exchange information. I would not call what they do "communication."
Doug

No algae is NOT a plant.
If you are going to make such statements please make sure you understand what you are debating. Seaweed is not a plant, algae in coral is not a plant (but it does in symbiosis (or mutual parasitism) with an animal).

It doesn't defy probability at all and you saying so doesn't make it so. Life is just a series of chemical reactions, these happen all the time.

If yuo want to imply a supremely wise and powerful being did, then feel free to explain he did it so poorly. Life is inefficient, cell production can lead to fatal illness and why viruses?

You argue for ignorance.

I believe in the holy scriptures. They teach us quite a bit. Yes, I could answer your question from my viewpoint of the scriptures and what they say about that. It would be my opinion and a matter of faith. You don't accept faith. That's why these debates/discussions are so difficult.

As far as transitional forms go.....you guys like to say that evolution has no direction. That natural selection favors certain organisms to pass their traits on, etc. That sounds good. I mean the whole theory sounds good. You've got alot of science to back it up. But is it true?

At some point you have to admit that evolution does have a direction. Once you can get past accepting abiogenesis - then you can move on to actually accept evolution. But if you think about it, evolution had to have a direction to be so. Simple celled organisms had to evolve into more complex, ordered organisms in order to happen. The unicellular organisms had to evolve into multicellular organisms - there's no other way; unless you believe in magic. Do you believe in magic....in a young girls heart - to the tune of a goofy song from the seventies.

You are well aware that scientists have been attempting to reproduce abiogenesis under controlled environments in the lab for decades now. It hasn't happend yet, although every couple of years they say they are near a breakthrough. If scientists can't make it happen in a lab, why would it happen by chance in nature? And even it they could; wouldn't the observer effect taint the results? Now your putting a designer in the equtation.

Well to accept faith why should it b yours that is accepted? If we take the bible as evidence then we have to take the just as valid Ra masturbating the world into existence. Faith is not based on evidence and is highly subjective. For example most European Christians are not creationists and the ideas have little weight over here.

Simple organisms did not have to evolve in complex ones, they just did. Organism can evolve in to less complex forms too. It doesn't have to become more complex. This is a complete misnomer. If simple organism had to evolve into more complex ones we would not have a situation where simple organisms are the most successful and where more complex organisms are completely reliant on them.

As for abiogenesis in the lab, no it is not design it an attempt to recreate conditions that will lead to life forming spontaneously. This is not design and nor is it evidence for a designer.

Can you provide one example of an organism evolving into a less complicated one? And even the very world evolution implies change for the better, does it not?

The difference between us is that I openly believe in magic. I believe that God's wisdom, knowledge and capabilities are so far superior to ours that his ways would seem like magic to us. Just like if we could somehow fly a modern plane or drive a modern car back to the 1700's or 1800's the people there would think we were magic.

NO EVOLUTION MEANS A CHANGE IN ALLELE FREQUENCY OVER A GENERATION.

How many times does that have to be explained to you before you bother to understand it? Seriously, get over the selective memory.

Look at obligate parasites if you want an evolution to a simpler form.

You know though that understanding shows that flight and the internal combustion engine are not magic (I don't think the Victorians would have thought it was either, you'd have to go pre-industrial revolution). It is merely and increase in knowledge.

As I said why is your belief more valid than the belief of Ra masturbating the world into existence (the ancient Egyptians believed that).