I'm not really into this debate one way or t'other but this documentary sure makes a compelling case for intelligent design......It's not sponsored by any religion BTW as far as i can tell.
Those little "machines" inside of our cells are so craaaaaaazy
This is a must see........enjoy....hope this link works

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5...duration%3Along

This video is a piece of propaganda made by a not for profit organisation group called Illustra Media. They are a pro intelligent design group.

In 2005 a PBS affiliate station refused to broadcast one of their documentaries because it was funded by evangellical Christian groups. Source: MSNBC

Intelligent design has next to zero support in the scientific community.

Intelligent Design may be considered as a compelling faith based hypothesis, but ID is not in any way, shape, or form a scientific hypothesis.

Whoa ...slow down ...there are a lot of heavy hitter proffessors and scientists in there.......did you watch it ?

As i said i'm not up to speed enough to take sides on this as it doesn't really push my buttons.....but watch it and then come back and counter their arguments.....tut tut you two above all people should know this ...

I mean that "motorised" flossiem (or whatever) bacteria sure looks like a machinistic piece of kit to me


It's as simple as this ...is what they say true or not ?
And hey ......MSNBC ?....they really are the truthbringers arent they ......NOT
in the documentary there are contributions by the following

Michael Behe ...Biochemist Lehigh University
Jed Macosko... Biologist university of California,Berkley
Scott Minnich...Molecular biologist university of Idaho
Dean Kenyon....Proffessor of Biology San Francisco university

Some of whom were dedicated "darwinists" before delving deeper...are they misleading us when describing these cells and bacteria ?

I have to admit that I haven't watched the whole video yet, but a Horizon programme on just this subject was aired in the UK earlier this year.

The big hitters are admitting they can not explain this mechanism. How many of them are saying "well that means Intelligent Design" is the answer?

The motorised component is admittedly difficult to explain in a purely Darwinian way. However just because there is a very minor difficulty with one theory (which may be explained ay a later date) it in no way constitutes evidence for Intelligent Design. There is little or no evoidence for Intelligent Design (which is just a relabelled creationism theory). Even if Darwinism is proved to be wrong it is not evidence for any other theory.

Science needs evidence for a theory for it to be accepted. None has been provided.

Actually the MSNBC information was simply about why a TV station refused to air an Illustra Media documentary... I provided it because you stated this documentary was not sponsered by any religion, when in fact it is made by acompany funded by a religion.

And where did I find the link to the MSNBCs story... on the Illustra Media web site.

Intelligent Design is a load of tripe for one it's the churches attempt to say that their is no explanation other than the existence of god. This view makes me angry but it may have been an ancient alien civilization duping waste on earth and from the waste was bacteria from which humans eventually evolved from. That sounds more possible to me.

Well
One of those proffessors had written a book backing up darwinian theories and he tried to explain how natural selection started by an "accidental" combination of elements.....Then one of his students asked him ..."where did the blueprint come from ?" ...because DNA contains the blueprints for every cell and organism in our body...he had no answer to this and when he looked deper he had to totally reassess his views......You dont see scientists on this level backtraking too often..
Anyway's from what i could see the science is totally valid and the documentary is well worth a look.
That flossiem bacteria looks and works exactly like an outboard motor with over 40 component parts ...and a prop that spins at 100,000 RPM
when they get into what constitutes "intelligent design" it does make you wonder how something like that can just happen !

"how something like that can just happen"
That's the fundamental flaw in the religious response to science. Science does not say that things "just happen". That flagellum is the result of billions of years of evolution. It did not suddenly appear in its present form. It started out as a simple organ that moved something or eliminated something from the cell or detected light...who knows? Over billions of years it changed and changed and changed again and now is in its present form.
Remember that we're talking about BILLIONS of years. That's an unthinkably long time. Bacteria reproduce extremely quickly. The number of generations of bacteria since the beginning is unimaginable. Life and natural selection are tremedously powerful. Acting over that length of time, things this amazing and more amazing are entirely possible. Gods are not needed to explain life.
The ID arguments always come down to "I don't know how it happened, therefore gods must have made it happen." That's called an argument from ignorance. It's a worthless argument. Just because we can't explain a thing doesn't mean that it has to be supernatural.

You're totally misrepresenting my views there blizno.....
First off i'm not religious
2nd i never thought that it appeared suddenly in it's present form......

Heres the argument against evolution from Michael Behe

"Because the bacterial flagellum is necessarily composed of at least three parts -- a paddle,a rotor, and a motor -- it is irreducibly complex. Gradual evolution of the flagellum, like the cilium, therefore faces mammoth hurdles"

Is this a true statment ?
Have you watched the movie btw ?

Scientific Hypothesis??? The mere mention of something as scientific subjects it to fallibility. Here's how science works; hypothesis, testing, theory supporting or contradicting the hypothesis based on testing. Theories may be correct or incorrect. That's why they are called theories. When a hypothesis is proven true 100% no exceptions it is no longer considered scientific, it becomes fact. At this point both ID and evolution are theories and to accept either of them requires faith.

Evolution is fact. Anyone who looks at the fossil record can tell you that. Evolution by natural selection, however, is a theory. The difference between ID and evolution by natural selection is one a religious belief and one is a scientific theory that has been studied the world over by people who are trained to be objective. Yes, both are theories, and both require a kind of "faith," however, any theory, whether it's the theory of gravity or the theory that Giant Snake People From Underground will one day cause the sun to explode, will require that until enough evidence can be gathered to show that it is a working hypothesis. And the last I checked, scientists studying EbNS didn't falsify evidence, twist words, ignore evidence that refutes their claims, or cling to "evidence" that has been proven time and time again as hoaxes.

Intelligent Design is a religious-based theory proposed by a religion. To say it's not religious is like saying a welding torch isn't hot because it's blue.

You have to have faith to believe a Magic Sky Man pointed and made things appear. If you want to call looking at the evidence and reaching a conclusion "faith," then I suggest you get a dictionary.

By the way, science is about doubt. You have to doubt and doubt and doubt until something stands up to your doubt. In science, nothing is proven, only falsified. It's not proven that the sun will come up tomorrow. If the sun comes up tomorrow, then the theory that it won't has been falsified. If it fails to come up tomorrow, then the theory that it will come up tomorrow has been falsified. But that doesn't mean it will never come up again. Every day, every scrap of evidence falsifies one theory, continues to falsify a theory, or falsifies the theory we thought was right.

So you're saying that ID is infallible because it's from God? In which case, it's not scientific at all. Of course science is fallible. Everything is. Except God, apparently. If God is infallible, why bother searching for evidence?

Edit: Becaues my fingers outyped my brain.

I think you meant to say "science is fallible."

ID will never be a "theory" simply because it fails to meet one of the requirements for a theory: the ability to predict (to some extent) future outcomes. We can reasonably extrapolate how a species might evolve in response to environment pressures and other stimuli. However, if everything is controlled by an independent being, then it is basically impossible to predict which direction things will go in since only that being will know.

Yup, I meant fallible. Oy.

Not to mention, the Big Magic Sky Man seems to like changing the rules on us too, if the "textbook" by which ID proponents live by is any indication...

Intelligent Design in no way nessecitates the existence of a spiritual deity. If a scientist were to create life in a test-tube would that scientist become a spiritual deity??? I think not. Would that life-form be of intelligent design? Yes it would.

What could create the universe other than gods? Aliens? What "designed" the aliens that would have to be vastly more complex than Earthly life? Other aliens? What "designed" them? The ID scheme requires gods. Nothing else could possible create the universe.

No, the ID scheme simply requires prior intelligence not gods.

As I had mentioned in another forum, evolution by natural selection only describes how life changed over the billions of years it's been on the planet. It in no way says anything about how that life started. Life could have appeared when God took a dump, aliens tossed some garbage out of their spaceship, or Galactus spit out a piece of another planet. We don't know how life started but we do know how it changed through time. That's all evolution really is. Why it's such a controversial topic is beyond me.

So yeah, God could have started it all and just left the universe to grow and change in the laws he dictated the universe obey. Makes more sense than the world on the back of a turtle.

ID specifically states that present life had to be designed as we see it now or almost as we see it now. ID isn't satisfied with starting a very primitive cell and letting it change through natural means.

How did this "prior intelligence" appear? It has to be far more complex than bacteria, humans and all other earthly life in order to have created earthly life as it is now, so either it evolved through natural means or something even more complex created it. If humans are much too complex to have evolved, then the creating intelligences are much, much too complex to have evolved.
To say that ID doesn't require gods is false. ID does require gods.

How the prior intelligence appeared is irrelevant to intelligent design.

Huh? Earthly life is too complex to appear without a creator but a creator capable of creating all Earthly life COULD appear without a creator?

This issue is CENTRAL to ID.

Nope. ID is simply the assertion that earthly life is by design.

Correct. Design requires a designer. ID says there must have been an "intelligent designer". Who is this designer?

That doesn't mean it had to pop up automatically. It's like building a Lego set. Someone, the Designer, made the plans for a particular Lego set and put down the necessary blocks for that set. You the builder, i.e. Evolution, take that design and the building blocks and start putting it all together. Over time, the blocks go from something simple to a more complex construction. Then tada! You have a Star Wars Tie Fighter. Or a housecat.

Evolution is just the building process.

Just because evolution occurs doesn't mean that it didn't have a designer at the beginning. Evolution does not rule out the existence of a higher being starting the whole shebang.

Edit: I can't believe I had to equate evolution to Legos...

Okay, so what I take from what has been intelligently argued thus far is that if gods/aliens exist, ‘they’ could of followed a natural process that we could say is of an evolutionary design. Space and lots of time coming together and ‘tada’ we have the gods and in that or through them humanity and the earth could have had its evolutionary path played around with and ‘wham-bam’ thank you mam, we have us, an intelligent design…

Is this the theory I have right, through standing on the shoulders of giants ( that’s you guys )I reach for an intelligent explanation that this argument is more a battle of ego’s than intelligent discussion on a complexed matter of fiction over fact, or is that the other way round….

How ever you look at it you have to give in to the suggestion that its bloody intelligent in its design, evolution/creation, one of the same me thinks, some how something has a hand it somewhere, if only we could meet them…..

What does science and religion have in common? Holes, bloody big ones….!

Which would I take to bed? Neither, as soon as your head hit’s the pillar they’d be throwing another lame ass theory for why we are here with little to no respect for the fact I’ve still got work in a morning…!

Keep on chasing the dream and who ever gets there first wins the apple….. Ain’t that what got us in this mess in the first place…

Ciao…

Hi Everyone, (this post has been adopted from another forum. I am the author.)

The argument for 'ID' on this forum is quite robust and polarised.

I think what those scientists whom brought the idea of ID into mainstream thought should have stated is that the complexity of life 'looks' as though it has been designed. I could agree to that.

However, the problem inherent in ID is that whatever has been designed (if it has been so) can only act to the purpose of the design; it cannot act outside of its designed purpose. So, ID has to show that inherent also in the design, lay optional, and self-adaptive mechanisms that allow the design to evolve as the environment changes. This is where Darwinism comes in.

It seems that Darwin saw this problem when he saw how his theory of 'natural selection' would break down if an intelligence could be found within the design, but I think he was wrong on this. I think what he should have stated is that his theory would break down if it was discovered that the 'designer' of life was still around tinkering with the design. So far, we have only uncovered what looks like inherent design.

I submit that 'ID' should not be defined by 'intelligence', but by 'inherent'. Little of what was stated in the programme denies Darwinism, but actually bolsters it: it's a matter of realising when natural selection takes over from the original blueprint to create adaptions to the blueprint to create alternate and diverse life-forms, in alternate and diverse environments. Darwinism remains quite valid.

Tegards

I don't see why ID needs to necessarily be of a 'top down' nature. ie whoever did the designing must be of far more complexity than ourselves, or a god etc . Why can't ID have been a bottom up design.. aka derived from a more primitive organism , such as it would be should mankind ever decide one day to create a 'super race' by modifying our own gene code. The knowledge to create such as species as ourselves would be greater than we have at this present day.. but not necessarily of greater intelligence or complexity of species.

For all we know, we might be at the pinnacle of complexity in our universe.

As i stated earlier i'm not really up to speed on this debate because it's way too complex for me to pretend to have any authority on.
That makes it easier for me to ask this.
If Evolution is the right theory and there's no "designer" or "God" well then life first came into being by the accidental combination of all the right elements ....Is this the case ?
If this is the case well why or how does DNA become so important in providing the blueprint for all living organisms......it's a bit like the chicken and the egg isn't it ?
As the former Darwinist scientist in the video said .... and i'm paraphrasing here.
"when one of my students asked me where the blueprint for the first organism came from ...i knew i had to rethink my research"
This is the confusing part for me.....without DNA there can be no life without life there's no DNA ?
Am i looking at this in the right way ?.

DNA can exist without life, it is just a chemical (an organic acid in fact).

Life maybe able to exist without DNA. Organic chemistry can produce amazingly complex molecules. It is not impossible that there are other molecules that can fill the same role as DNA (in fact living things have a similar molecule called RNA. It has been hypothesised that artificial RNA based life could be made).

DNA is so important because it has a nifty little trick.. it can self replicate. This self replication means that if DNA came about accidently it would reproduce itself. It doesn't need an outside intelligence to do this so it is quite easy to imagine this happening given the chemical soup and the tens of million years that it had early in the history of the earth.

Incidently Darwinism does not perclude the hand of (a) god. It is a description of how life changes with time.

ID on the other hand requires an outside intelligence. There is no evidence what so ever for ID. All ID believers will offer is minor (percieved) problems with Darwinism. Negative evidence for one theory is not positive evidence for another.

Also, evolution doesn't dismiss the existence that someone pointed and life went "poink!" All evolution describes is the way life has changed since the initial poink.