design theory defeats itself

[jman06]

The idea of "intelligent design" defeats itself. It says that life forms are too complex to come about by chance. According to abiogenesis and evolution, the first life form was a simple single-cell creature. According to "intelligent design," the first life form was/is complex, intelligent and powerful.

If a simple single-cell life is too complex to come about by chance, then how could the "intelligent designer" have come to exist? The only way to believe in "intelligent design" is to ignore the origin of the designer, because intelligent design says that the designer is too complex to have come to be.

[Nephi]

The idea of "intelligent design" defeats itself. It says that life forms are too complex to come about by chance. According to abiogenesis and evolution, the first life form was a simple single-cell creature. According to "intelligent design," the first life form was/is complex, intelligent and powerful.

If a simple single-cell life is too complex to come about by chance, then how could the "intelligent designer" have come to exist? The only way to believe in "intelligent design" is to ignore the origin of the designer, because intelligent design says that the designer is too complex to have come to be.

Um, lemme make sure I understand what you are saying here. To boil it all down, you are saying that the intellegent designer itself wouldn't be there without some sort of intellegent designer making it, correct?

[jman06]

it's a paradox. read again.

[Mark Beesley]

Well, jman06, I read what you suggested, and read Nephi's response, and it seems that his question appreciated the paradox. He was just trying to clarify what you were stating by a restatement.

However, your thesis is flawed in that it attempts to impose on the intelligent designer, God, the same rules, limitations, and boundaries that confine us in this mortal exitence. Here's a concept for you to consider. "Time" is a concept that does not exist with God. There are no clocks, sundials, or calendars in heaven. God's existence is eternal. Can you begin to comprehend, even a little bit, a state in which "time" is non-existent. I cannot. If you can, then you will be in better position to adjudge whether or not mode in which the intelligent designer came into existence speaks at all to the theory of intelligent design of life on this planet.

[asbestosman]

The idea of "intelligent design" defeats itself. It says that life forms are too complex to come about by chance. According to abiogenesis and evolution, the first life form was a simple single-cell creature. According to "intelligent design," the first life form was/is complex, intelligent and powerful.

      If a simple single-cell life is too complex to come about by chance, then how could the "intelligent designer" have come to exist? The only way to believe in "intelligent design" is to ignore the origin of the designer, because intelligent design says that the designer is too complex to have come to be.

I'm not necessarily against evolution, but I might be able to give some possibilities.

One could argue that the Intelligent Designer is indeed complex, but that He did not need to be created. If he always existed then He was not designed. This would agree well with the theology of many Christians. That is different to life on this planet which apparently has not always existed. Since that is the case, there appears to be a time when this planet went from being desolate to one where life was found. Furthermore it appears that the universe has a finite beginning making it even less likely that life has always existed (in this universe anyhow).

Anyhow I don't see why God couldn't have used evolution. I don't fear the ideas, theories, and discoveries of scientists in this area.

[cjcampbell]

Personally, I have little patience for the "intelligent design" theory, which strikes me as being one of the silliest things to come along in decades. It purports to prove that "evolution" (whatever that is) is wrong and that Genesis is correct. Unfortunately, intelligent design is no more compatible with Genesis and the rest of the scriptures than evolution is.

I want my grandchildren to have best education possible, with the best understanding that science has to offer. If that understanding is currently evolution, then I want them to learn it, without any dishonest ploys about it being only a "theory" or anything like that. I will teach my grandchildren about religion, thank you.

When people tell me they don't believe in evolution, I ask them what part of them they don't believe. They usually answer that they don't believe that man descended from monkeys. That is what passes for understanding of evolution these days. Of course, no credible scientist claims that man descended from monkeys, either.

Evolution consists of three parts: inheritance, mutation, and natural selection. Even the most ardent haters of evolution usually have no problem with any of these three parts, confessing that they have been well demonstrated by science.

Honestly, most of the attacks on evolution seem to come from the same group using the same methods that they use to attack the church. It really bothers me that some members of the church fail to make that connection and even buy into the same atrocious arguments against evolution that they would not tolerate for a second if they were used against the church. Maybe there needs to be a FAIRevolution board.

The only real question worth debating is whether evolution is completely random or whether there is some plan guiding its course. I maintain the latter, which gets to the heart of your supposed contradiction.

Your contradiction presupposes that this is the only universe and that the physical laws of this universe must exist in any other universe. Neither, of course, can be demonstrated. I think Carl Sagan put it very well in his book "The Demon-Haunted World." As an atheist, Sagan was very concerned about the influence of religion, which he regarded (with considerable reason, I might add) as a set of superstitions having no bearing on scientific truth. The odd thing is that as a believing member of the church I tend to agree with him.

Sagan mentions the consolation of Descartes, a fairly well known philosophy. Descartes felt that there were so many planets in such a vast universe that virtually every possible form of life must exist somewhere on them. In what amounts to an infinite number of planets (infinite because there are new planets being formed all the time and old ones are being destroyed) there must be an infinite variety of life. So if there are no unicorns, dragons, gods, or sasquatches on earth, the odds are that they must exist somewhere else.

Sagan took this further. Since the universe is always creating itself and destroying itself, it must over an infinite time take on all possible forms. Even an atheist must believe that you will eventually live again in some future universe, associating with all the people that you do here, but you will have no memory of previous universes. Then Sagan had a thought: with an infinite number of universes, there must be some universes in which we do have a memory of previous universes. What Sagan failed to see was the implications of this theory, as it practically proves that in at least some universes there must be a God -- one who is able to reverse entropy and who is able to know what is going on in all other universes. And if such a being were to arise (as he must, according to Sagan's corollary to the consolation of Descartes), he would quite naturally begin to control the course of development of other universes in order to reproduce himself, have companionship, and prevent the collapse of his own universe.

Now, consider what the prophets have said about God, especially in the latter days:

1) He created the universe as we know it by speaking a word: "Let there be light."

2) The gods watched the universe "until they were obeyed" according Abraham.

3) Having found or created a universe that will obey, the gods began to control the development of that universe.

4) The gods created spirit children to inhabit that universe, and continue to select for those that will obey.

5) The gods created mortal bodies for those spirit children in order to give them practice in making the elements obey and in order to learn further which of the spirit children will obey.

6) The gods showed absolutely no compunction in using the materials found in the universe, being willing, essentially, to cause the extinction of whatever life may have existed on some planets in order to make room for the physical bodies that the spirits would inhabit. In other words, they destroy that which will not obey in order to make room for that which will.

7) The universe itself is currently subject to decay and entropy, but the gods have the power to reverse that and they will.

God is the source of all light in the universe, gives power to the sun and the stars, creates new worlds, and does everything else a being not subject to entropy would be expected to do.

9) God is perfect and just, and everything that happens in the universe must be balanced between justice and mercy, or the universe would be destroyed.

I think Hugh Nibley was beginning to think about this, from writings in "Temple and Cosmos" for example.

Now, there are several problems with this idea, not least the assertion in the scriptures that there was no death (and by extension, no entropy) before the fall of Adam. However, I do not see that as insurmountable, but rather something that shows a working theory like this requires some refinement yet.

[marvmax]

Well I agree with cjcampbell mostly.

Obviously evolution occurs within species, but I think evolution fails to account for many problems with the formation of life (such as the cambrian explosion, different species etc), unless God intervenes to get it over the hump.

I also wouldn't want to do away with the biological sciences and all the benefites that it brings me and my children, and biology is based on evolution so...

I just teach my kids that God did it, Genisis is the symbolic simplified account of it, (I mean how could he have explained DNA 60 years ago, or RNA 30 years ago, and how would we understand something that will be s comonplace 60 years from now. We barely read Genisis, Abraham, and Moses as simple as it is, imagine if it resembled a college biology text ) some day if we're dilligent we will know how he did it.

[katherine the great]

Now, consider what the prophets have said about God, especially in the latter days:

1) He created the universe as we know it by speaking a word: "Let there be light."

2) The gods watched the universe "until they were obeyed" according Abraham.

3) Having found or created a universe that will obey, the gods began to control the development of that universe.

4) The gods created spirit children to inhabit that universe, and continue to select for those that will obey.

5) The gods created mortal bodies for those spirit children in order to give them practice in making the elements obey and in order to learn further which of the spirit children will obey.

6) The gods showed absolutely no compunction in using the materials found in the universe, being willing, essentially, to cause the extinction of whatever life may have existed on some planets in order to make room for the physical bodies that the spirits would inhabit. In other words, they destroy that which will not obey in order to make room for that which will.

7) The universe itself is currently subject to decay and entropy, but the gods have the power to reverse that and they will.

God is the source of all light in the universe, gives power to the sun and the stars, creates new worlds, and does everything else a being not subject to entropy would be expected to do.

9) God is perfect and just, and everything that happens in the universe must be balanced between justice and mercy, or the universe would be destroyed.

Okay, I was with you up until this part. What have the prophets said about #6?

[Makarios]

The idea of "intelligent design" defeats itself. It says that life forms are too complex to come about by chance. According to abiogenesis and evolution, the first life form was a simple single-cell creature. According to "intelligent design," the first life form was/is complex, intelligent and powerful.

If a simple single-cell life is too complex to come about by chance, then how could the "intelligent designer" have come to exist? The only way to believe in "intelligent design" is to ignore the origin of the designer, because intelligent design says that the designer is too complex to have come to be.

Intelligent Design teaches that there is evidence of design in certain aspects of the universe. To ask "who designed the designer?" is a fine question, but does not disprove there was a designer.

To invoke the notion of the movement of unobservable particles to explain heat cannot be dismissed because the particles themselves need to be explained.

[BCSpace]

The idea of "intelligent design" defeats itself. It says that life forms are too complex to come about by chance. According to abiogenesis and evolution, the first life form was a simple single-cell creature. According to "intelligent design," the first life form was/is complex, intelligent and powerful.

If a simple single-cell life is too complex to come about by chance, then how could the "intelligent designer" have come to exist? The only way to believe in "intelligent design" is to ignore the origin of the designer, because intelligent design says that the designer is too complex to have come to be.

it's a paradox.

LOL! So 'intelligent design' disproves the existence of God? Sorta like this......

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best- selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 6

Of course, I personally believe in the Christian God and also subscribe to evolution theory.

[Tanyan]

Http://www.reasons.org/

[Dando]

Intelligent Design theory is discovering that some things in the natural world show evidence that they were designed. God is the uncaused-cause and super-natural, that is why we call him God. The term "God" means that he is outside of creation and it's physical laws. To suggest that God needs a creator takes you on an infinite regress and a logical contradiction.

ID theory does not necessarily contradict evolution. It contradicts blind evolution and secular naturalism.

I HIGHLY recommend Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe

Http://www.discovery.org

[Marcelo]

Personally, I have little patience for the "intelligent design" theory, which strikes me as being one of the silliest things to come along in decades. It purports to prove that "evolution" (whatever that is) is wrong and that Genesis is correct.

Sorry!

You don

[cdowis]

>it's a paradox. read again.

I read it again, and I see no paradox.

The intelligent designer also had an intelligent designer. This is an eternal process, with no beginning nor end.

[Magyar]

I hear the strains of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" playing somewhere in the background.

[Moon Quaker]

I believe Utah Gov., Jon Huntsman Jr., said he has no problem if ID is taught in school, but that it belongs in a philosophy class and NOT a science class. I agree with him.

On a side note, I believe it was in the 1950s or 1960s in which the first labratory-produced amino acids were created in an attempt to mimic the [what was thought then to be the] ancient atmosphere on earth. If artificially-sythesized amino acids are that easy to make, the natural synthesis of life is not that hard to imagine.

[cdowis]

Would you also agree that the theory of the evolution of man also belongs in a class of philosophy?

I might also bring out that the theory of the Big Bang was at one time considered controversial because it tended to represent a creationist (religious) point of view of the origin of the universe.

[Dando]

I might also bring out that the theory of the Big Bang was at one time considered controversial because it tended to represent a creationist (religious) point of view of the origin of the universe.

It still does. It proves that there was a beginning to the universe and that it hasn't always been here. If you have a beginning, you need a Beginner. It's just that the evidence is so strong it can't be denied any longer (the implications can just be ignored). The same will be said of ID Theory in the next 15-20 years. It will just take some time for the "open-minded-follow-the-evidence" scientific community to actually look into it.

[katherine the great]

Would you also agree that the theory of the evolution of man also belongs in a class of philosophy?

No. Evolutionary theory is science. There's a big difference between a scientific "theory" and a "theory" in the general usage.

[ZekeTheElder]

Personally, I have little patience for the "intelligent design" theory, which strikes me as being one of the silliest things to come along in decades. It purports to prove that "evolution" (whatever that is) is wrong and that Genesis is correct.

You don

[asbestosman]

I might also bring out that the theory of the Big Bang was at one time considered controversial because it tended to represent a creationist (religious) point of view of the origin of the universe.

It still does. It proves that there was a beginning to the universe and that it hasn't always been here. If you have a beginning, you need a Beginner. It's just that the evidence is so strong it can't be denied any longer (the implications can just be ignored). The same will be said of ID Theory in the next 15-20 years. It will just take some time for the "open-minded-follow-the-evidence" scientific community to actually look into it.

While a finite beginning of the universe is interesting, I think it's important to point out a few technicalities. Some scientists believe that the universe didn't have an absolut beginning. On a timeline this would be represented by having the line start at the smallest positive (non-zero) number and extending to positive infinity. If you name any small positive number, there is always a smaller one. In that sense the universe need not have an absolute beginning, just a finite past.

By the way, I should mention that I find a distinction between abiogenesis and evolution. I have no problem with evolution. Abiogenesis is much more difficult and seems to be what I.D. is really fighting over.

Anyhow it doesn't matter to me whether abiogenesis is practically impossible or not. Even if man did start with moonrocks and create life it wouldn't shake my faith in the least. Maybe that's one reason I think the I.D. debate is silly. If science could create conditions that produce life from "randomness" I would be excited to have more knowledge about life. If scientists already splice together genes from plants and insects or animals without it effecting our faith (LDS can ask where the mutant spirits come from) then why would abiogenesis change things?

The difficulty of abiogenesis may currently support the case for God, but fundamentally I think faith should rest on other things.

[cdowis]

>Evolutionary theory is science.

1. For purposes of our discussion, how are you defining science vs philosophy. I assume that you are willing to test your definition against all branches of science.

2. ID proports to provide an explanation of certain phenomena for which evolutionary theory is at present unable to provide a satisfactory or complete explanation.

[spinner]

Dando said:

"ID theory does not necessarily contradict evolution. It contradicts blind evolution and secular naturalism."

Sorry, ID does directly contradict evolution. According to evolutionary theory, the mechanism for change within a species is random genetic mutation. Mutations that prove advantageous provide the possessors of such mutations with a survival advantage, ensuring that such mutations are passed on. Thus, the catalyst of all evolutionary change is chance, random variation. Throwing god into the mix (and let's not be disingenuous and pretend that ID has any other goal) by saying that he/she/it/they somehow cause these variations completely revamps evolutionary theory to make it suit your beliefs.

[katherine the great]

1. For purposes of our discussion, how are you defining science vs philosophy. I assume that you are willing to test your definition against all branches of science.

"Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis."

I don't understand why the scientific theory of evolution (which is one of the most widely accepted of all scientific theories) would be taught as philosophy and not science. I certainly don't understand why anyone would think that ID fits the criteria of a scientific theory. Should the theory of electricity be taught as philosophy?

[cdowis]

I ask once again,

Please define *science*, and how it is distinguished from philosophy for our discussion on relegating ID to philosophy classes rather than science classes.

==Why can we not discuss evolution in the philosophy classes rather than the science classes==

Are you saying that philosophers cannot have theories, they cannot pose hypotheses?

I do not see how your post addresses my question.

Thanks.