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Originally posted by iman
Anyways, thanks for correcting me. But I still think something's fishy about how neatly parts of organisms seem to fit together.
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The interesting part is, whenever people look hard enough at one of those problems, a consistent answer is waiting to be found.
The timescales involved in evolution are huge. All of those well put together critters are the results of millions upon millions of years of evolution. Millions of years is a long time.
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By the way, some of the examples from Lebell's link could be interpreted as *supporting* intelligent design - like the stuff about the 13-letter word and how something as complex as that could be "randomly" generated quite simply w/ the help of a selection mechanism.
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*nod*. Just as when a scientist calculates how gravity works, they roll balls down slopes in controlled environments.
It doesn't mean that the controlled environment caused the ball to roll down the slope. It means it is easier to measure and experiment with when you are in a controlled environment.
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But that couldn't be the way selection "naturally" (without a designer) works in organisms. If there's a fixed goal (a certain 13-letter word / a certain organism - man, maybe??) that's being selected for there's your intelligent design right there.
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Yes, if a human designs an experiment, the experiment is a result of intelligent design.
We know that intelligence can guide evolution. This fact does not mean that intelligence is nessicary for evolution to occur.
I mean, set up a gradiant of antibiotics in a petri dish. Insert a bunch of bacteria into the less-deadly half, and feed regularly. The bacterea will evolve to survive the antibiotics. Now, is there some sort of energy field that comes from the intelligence directing the experiment that makes it only work if an intelligence where directing it?
Unless you are asserting that, the equivilent thing would happen if no intelligence caused the situation to occur. So the experiment shows evolution, not intelligent design causes evolution.
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The "hand of god" made things such that over time organisms were perfected so that eventually God was able to create a living being in His image, yada, yada, yada.
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Show how the "hand of god" is nessicary to explain the fossil record? Explanations that don't demand god get involved exist, and stand up pretty well. You could claim that aliens modified our DNA, but that isn't nessicary to explain anything either.
Yes, god is consistent with evolution. God is not nessicary to explain human life. God is not nessicary to explain the motions of the heavens. God is not nessicary to explain Thunderstorms. God is not nessicary to explain weather.
God is consistent with all of the above, but is not nessicary. The only reason I can think of objecting to science showing God is unnessicary to explain things is a lack of faith: they think they need evidence of the existance of God, that Faith is not enough.
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An evolutionist couldn't use that 13-letter-word argument except against the most hardcore of creationists.
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It demonstrates how easy incremental change is. It doesn't show much, I agree.
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An IDer *could* use that against evolutionists, though. I thought that was pretty funny.
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It could be used by a dunderhead. =p Natural evolutionists don't disagree intelligence can harness evolution and direct it. The 13 word example is just an example of that.
IDers DENY the possiblity that Natural evolution could result in specification and account for the fossil record. For them to use the 13 letter word arguement as a weapon, they'd have to show how it provides evidence against non-intelligence directed evolution...
Natural evolutionists do not deny that intelligence can use evolution.