Keith

I agree. I can use a lake to cool off in the summer. I can't infer from this that the purpose of a lake is to cool me. Eyes, ears, and reproductive organs (to name a few parts) are quite different though. Unlike lakes, the number of functions that are served by eyes, ears, and reproductive organs is rather limited. We do not generally observe creatures using their eyes, ears, and reproductive organs for anything other than their usual purposes.

Keith

Doubting Didymus

How does this relate to my statement in any way at all?

Brother Fred

You just said that you agreed with me, yet in the latter part of your message you again bring up the assumption that they have purposes. That's exactly the point I'm enquiring about - do ears, and eyes have a purpose? Granted, they do something, but how do you know they have a purpose?

To suppose they have a purpose is to suppose there is a reason behind their being i.e. their existence is for an end. THis must be demonstrated and not just assumed.

You also need to explain how the fact that the eyes and ears have limited function...well what is your point behind this observation?

Alix Nenuphar

Precisely why is it obvious? You have stated this is several forms in the course of this thread; but you have not stated what characteristics of 'things' make it clear that we are dealing with intelligent design.

Examples:

Is a rock designed? If so, why?

Is a waterfall designed? If so, why?

Is the solar system designed? If so, why?

Is the internet designed? If so, why?

Is a cell designed? If so, why?

Please be precise in your answers; as you state that it is obvious, you must have objective criteria which can be used to demonstrate that even to people who do not necessarily see the design until you point it out to them.

Looking forward to your response.

Principia

Welcome to Infidels, Alix Nenuphar!

I have admired your posts at ARN for quite some time now, and it is good to have your input here.

Alix Nenuphar

Principia:

Thanks for the welcome. As ARN appears to be degenerating as a forum for serious discussion, I thought I would check out II; I certainly appreciate the 'take no prisoners' attitude!

leonarde

Et tu, Nenu?

Cheers!

Alix Nenuphar

Is that you, Leo? Or are you another Leo? I could also state that I am Scorpio, but that would simply confuse the issue.

Principia, Leo:

Do you feel that II is a forum in which ID could be discussed meaningfully? Of course, there are other things I'd like to talk about, but is II the place to do it?

What do you feel about ISCID?

(Apologies to Keith for this temporary derailment of this thread.)

(Sigh. 3 posts and I already have to edit.)

Principia

Alix,

Take no prisoners, indeed.

Can ID ever be discussed meaningfully? I am not sure, but we at II do our best to address ID arguments, whether or not they are actually originated here. I think you can judge for yourself from this thread by Keith.
Absolutely. 35 thousand posts in just this forum alone suggests that you have a whole lot of freedom to say just about anything at II. What you will not likely get, though, is a lot of exchange specfically with those from the ID/Creato side of things.
I would say lurk at ISCID a bit, before you commit -- ISCID is probably the only board that I know about where its Moderator is more active and obnoxious than any of its other posters. Check this link to see if the moderation suits your style. On the other hand, ISCID is really where most of the prominent ID proponents are active.

My 2 cents.

ferrocene

Wow...what a thread. I stumbled across this last night and didn't go to bed until 3am. Thanks a lot!

I regestered last night so I could get a piece of the action, and try to right some of Keith's wrong thinking. I do agree that he's letting the English language strain his concepts about evolution. I can tell you how a mice turns into a bat and develops the ear w/o having any outside knowledge that this would be useful or purposefull. Hell, flight seems fairly easy. All you need is a one in a million genetic mutation (which can easily arise from, say a gamma burst from the sun before the earth had much of a magnetic field, or during the time in which the poles "fliped" positions. This allows high energy particles to enter the atmosphere in great numbers and "kill" a section of DNA, or modify a carbon atom into a nitrogen one, etc).

If this "cancer" of sorts didn't kill the mouse (which I'm sure most of them did die), it may have webbed skin between the arm and torso. If such said mice were to hide up a tree to escape a predator, such mice who fell w/o dying would pass on genes to other webbed mice. Survival of the fittest and such. As with the complex ear, you make the mistake of giving it 300 parts. Animals don't have parts per se, that's a man-given idea. A different way to think about it is to see it as a big mass of chemical reactions, which it is. By labeling the different sections of tissue, you're turning it into an airplane that has to be assembled in the right order at the right rate, when in fact it's a big glob of neurons and other tissue structures that is there because it survives better with the tissue than without it. It's almost too easy if you give it enough time, say several billion years, and the whole entire planet to work on.

Another poster pointed out that it is a sieve, and there's no purpose in the sieving action, as there is no purpose when radioactive atoms decay, they're just following a set of laws. As to where the laws of physics came from, I guess that goes to the quantum level and is beyond me. The sieving action happens because things decay, the law of entropy says everything must become more disorganized over time, and to organize something takes energy into the system. Plants and animals become organized for brief periods of time, but entropy kicks in, things oxidize and eventually decay (and if lucky enough, reproduce before the decay), hence the sieve in an environment that favors the strong.

I also wanted to point out that anything we see that we don't understand, we're quick to label it as miraculous. That which is too complex is labeled supernatural. This happened with eclipses and planetary motion, earthquakes, volcanoes, conception, etc. To a 14h century inventor, a computer might as well come from the hand of God, but we know better. So to label something as supernatural only indicates a lack of knowledge for the said subject matter.

I will even go so far as to say that there is no such thing as randomness, it is just so complex (or more correct to say, humans are so weak and feeble-minded) that an event appears random. Think for a moment that we have a technology that can, in a giant matrix, tag and record every atom on earth with a position and velocity. Then there are no random events globally, because a hurricane is a result of so-many atoms moving in just the right order with each other. Computers don't have truely random number generators, it's just a complex algorithm fed with a "seed". So what appears as random is again just a perception of lack of knowledge. A random event can be very precisely defined until you go down to the quantum level, and then a lack of knowledge prevents us from exploring further.

I think the more interesting question is what began all of this, since everything in the last 5 billion years can be explained easily w/o any need for an outside intelligence, including human development. I'll call here for the particles in the universe to be scattered in a random way, because i lack the knowledge to understand it, and I'll also say that a God of sorts started the Big Bang, becuase once again, if you were paying attention, I lack the knowledge to explain it any other way.