How can intelligent design be intelectually thrown away?

Question

Can a watch create itself? No, so how much more would this masterfully designed world have needed a Creator? Take the Wombat for example: an animal with a pouch, but guess what, it opens upside down! Of all the marsupials out there, the wombat is the only one with an upside down pouch. Why? Because it is a burrowing animal. With an upright pouch, it would have buried it's young alive. Through evolutions explanation, the wombat species would have died out in a VERY short time, trying to adapt itself with an upside down pouch. HMMMMMM.... makes you think, don't it! The universe had, and has, an intelligent Creator.... His name is God. To deny that is to be ignorant.

Answer 1

You must realize that almost ALL current scientists today were taught in universities where creationism wasn't even discussed. Most of all creationists had to do the research on their own without the aid of colleges and universities. I've heard of students in college who would challenge the professors regarding creationism vs. evolution and they would literally get laughed at and not taken seriously.



It's funny, if you really do all the research, evolutionism is impossible and cannot be backed up. But we'll never hear that from any scientist today because "The darkness is offended by the light."

Answer 2

You know, the question about wombats is interesting and valid. But the answer is not as cut and dried as you seem to think. Let's back up a bit.



Let's assume we have a prehistoric wombat with a pouch that is right-side-up You could imagine that there are a few options for a new mother. She could deal with the problem of storing her young behaviorally. In other words, baked in instinct could be compensate for the poorly oriented pouch.



But it is also possible that she has specially developed muscles to hold her brood in the pouch while she is upside down. Now maybe this holding isn't perfect, maybe infants have a 50% chance of falling out..In this scenario, it's very possible that over evolutionary time, the orientation of the pouch changes. and the opening slowly rotates until it is completely upside down.



Now although I 've studied evolution in general, I don't know the specific answer to this. But I would guess that somebody is looking at the problem and trying to figure out exactly how the opening evolved that way. One way this could be done is through comparative anatomy.



But back to ID and why it is discounted in the world of grown up science. The difference here is that real science takes a problem like this and tries to figure out what the answer is through various means. What ID does is find something odd like this decide that the only way it could happen is for God to have done it, and then go out for pizza.



Basically you are arguing that the wombat pouch is irreducibly complex. But how do you demonstrate that it is. How do you prove that it could not have evolved. Just off the top of my head I have proposed a mechanism for such evolution. And I'm guessing that somebody with more expertise with wombats has a better answer than I do.



Irreducible complexity has yet to be demonstrated. And until it is demonstrated, ID is not a science.

Answer 3

Actually, evolution explains the pouch opening from underneath, for the reasons you explain. That particular trait was needed, so that the species didn't die out, by burying the young.



As for your other "example"...a watch and a living thing are 2 very different things. If you take the time to research the origins of the earth (from a scientific standpoint, not mythological), you will see all of the factors that had to be precisely met in order for life to come about.



To answer the actual questions: Yes it can, because its not based on intellect or research, but belief. This "masterfully designed" world needs no creator.



Just because you don't understand the mechanics of it, doesn't mean that its impossible. Saying that some invisible, all powerful entity went "poof...it is" is a cop-out to finding the real answers. To deny fact, something based on verifible evidence and INTELLECT, for mythology and unsubstantiated belief is what is ignorant. Remember, god didn't create science. A lack of science created gods.

Answer 4

You assume that there was once an animal exactly like the wombat, with the same behaviours, but with its pouch the other way up. There wasn't. The wombat's distant ancestors didn't really have pouches in the same sense as modern marsupials, they had loose flaps of skin (that could be folded either way). Over time different descendants of these ancestral marsupials began living in different places and acting in different ways. The wombat's ancestors started digging burrows, and over many thousands of years their loose flap of skin became the pouch of the modern wombat.

So basically your mistake was assuming that the upside down pouch evolved from the right way up pouch. In reality they both developed largely independently from the same ancestors.



It is ridiculous to say that evolution must be wrong because the probability of life developing as it has would be very small. Indeed it is unlikely that an animal would evolve by chance with an upside down pouch. Just as it's unlikely that last weeks lottery numbers would be 4, 23, 44, 36, 17 and 6. That's an extremely unlikely combination of numbers. But any other combination would be just as unlikely. Intelligent design is like saying 'the lottery must be rigged every week, because it's very unlikely that those specific numbers would come up by chance'.

Answer 5

A watch works the world doesn't . One is organic and evolved the other is man made ; Poor parallel.Your lack of scientific knowledge painfully shows .

the watch argument is lame ...., I've never been infected by viruses and other diseases from the making of a watch . the Imaginary gods supposed Creation couldn't get past the FDA .

the fact that the wombat survived supports Darwin's theory .If you think you are smart and the geniuses of history were ignorant think again..."If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires."

- [Religion] Sigmund Freud

Answer 6

Wow I am so glad you did such an extensive study of the wombat. You have completely explained intelligent design right there and completely destroyed the myth of evolution. We have been needing some intelligent fellow like you all along to come along and straighten us all out. Now you have solved it for us once and for all time. We just cant thank how to show our appreciation. Maybe the president could present you with an award. Would you like that. Or maybe even the Nobel piece prize.

Hisszzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Answer 7

HIS name? Prove God is a he -please.



When God can be proven scientifically, then the fact will stand as true, until then what makes the Christian myth more important than a Native American creation story, or an African one or for that matter any religious concept? Incidentally, I believe in a Creator but realize it is not something that should be taught as fact in a public classroom or paid for by the US taxpayers.



Unsuccessful species die out, those that adapt may live. Computers now design computers and shadows move across the planet showing the passage of time...it is natural. Chaos patterns exist and form into organized ways eventually! = )



Now thats amazing!

Answer 8

It can be thrown away if it isn't intelligent.

Can God create himself. Does he have testicles? Or is it a she.

Is it intelligent to say that there is one God but three parts, three segments, each doing different things, but still one? Is it intelligent to say that one part existed before the virgin birth, an impossibility, perhaps a virgin artificial insemination but not birth. Is it Intelligent to say that one part of God did Mary and begat itself? That whole thing is illogical.

NO. Forget the logic, forget the proofs, forget trying to prove that evolution didn't happen because there are gaps. You can't live in the gaps. Science fills the gaps. Get out of the gaps.

The only thing that you can do is say I have an irrational, illogical faith that passes all understanding. I believe what I believe because the pastor told me so. Period, that's it.

You Christians spend too much time on the trivial. Get a red letter version of the Bible and eliminate all the rest. Concentrate on what Jesus told you to do: love one another, take care of God's children, the least of his children, the most needy. You know Christians by their works. Get past the sniveling and whining. Build more Habitat houses. We know who you are.

Answer 9

What you're doing here is called an appeal to common sense, and it's a logical fallacy. Just because something seems intuitively correct does not prove that it is true. Also, you're comparing apples to oranges. Watches are made by people. There are 6.5 billion of us. You can't throw a Bible without hitting one. Wombats, you're saying, are made by God. People talk about Him a lot, but no one's ever seen him. There is obvious proof that people exist, but none that God does.



Common sense is just that: common I'd like to meet someone with uncommon sense.

Answer 10

You need to understand evolution, with all due respect.



Intelligent design is thrown out because it has no proof, on the contrary, all proof points against it. See I will help you a bit. Our universe has been expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light for long enough to make it infinite for all logical purposes. Go talk to any respected scientist, and he will tell you the same thing. Life did not happen by chance, it is something that is bound to happen when the right conditions are met in the universe, and with literally billions of stars in the galaxy, it is something that is bound to happen, period.



Every unique evolutionary trait is developed for a reason, and not all spell extinction for a race. Natural selection says the preferred characteristics between a specific animal pool will be passed on. Look at the physiological characteristics of the wombat, or ask a biologist or an evolutionary scientist for more detail on the specific animal. I know a lot about evolution, but for kingdom and phyla detail you would need to talk to a scientist.



EDIT: LIKE A ROLLING STONE

Evolution is an incredibly slow process, and to understand it you will need to know the driving force behind evolution, nature. Man has evolved to the stage where we are no longer in the hands of nature, so the driving force of macro-evolution is effectively turned off. Micro-evolution will still occur though sexual selection and many other of the guiding forces behind evolution.

Answer 11

As an engineer, I happen to know that watches aren't created, designed or survive like living things. Watches start with all of their parts in their final form and then are assembled by an outside force. All living thing starts out as single cells, the simplest of biological structures, and grow and multiply by their own power into more complex living things. You started as a single cell, but none of the cells you have now include that first cell. You have been growing from the day of your conception on your own power and continue to do so today (if you recognize it or not). You have none of the parts you had as a small child or in the womb, but you have parts that grew out of those younger version. All complex living things start out as simple living things yet all manufactured things start out as a pile of finished parts that can only form that one complex thing which will not change on its own, which requires no energy to survive, which is always the same, unlike living things including you.



Natural selection, the mechanism of evolution, explains how your wombat's pouch came to be. The "selection" is more like a filter because it takes no consciousness. The filter is the environment a living thing survives and reproduces in. It includes the weather, the sun, the plants, other animals, and even dirt. To continue to be seen in the future, living things must reproduce, but in reproduction there is always variation, just like in any process. The living things that handle the challenges of the environment better than the others will be more likely to survive and reproduce were as those who don't won't. Consider your wombat. If the wombat's ancestors were always burrowers and got some slight advantage by having some small variation like a pouchlike flap of skin, then with their advantage they would be more likely to reproduce than those that don't have it. If their next generation had a similar flap of skin, then they would likewise be more likely to reproduce than those without it. It is obvious that the "right side up" pouch wouldn't work for the wombat's ancestors. If one or a few of them had it, they would not be likely to reproduce, as you clearly state. However, the ones with the skin going upside-down would continue survive and reproduce because it is to their advantage. As the natural variations enlarge the pouch, the ancestors with the right shape to survive and reproduce in the burrows would be the ones that would out reproduce all the rest and form into what we now call a wombat.

Answer 12

One thing I have found interesting in evolution is that it slows it’s self down over time. For example if a hunter was to evolve the skills to know to make a spear he would need less muscles to perform a hunt, thus his off spring would lose muscle mass not gain. But however if another hunter did not have those skills he would grow muscle, because without a spear the hunt would require it, and then his off spring would gain muscles. Just some thing to think about.

Answer 13

we were intelligently designed in resembling our creators the elohim (which translates from the unique hebrew biblical texts to 'those who got here from the sky' The elohim are scientists 25,000 years ahead individuals. They scientifically mastered a thanks to be eternal purely our scientists will do faster or later.The bible has been mistranslated and misinterpreted and all the religions on earth are artifical making them imperfect and highly subjective.The prophets in the course of the a at the same time as generating all the religions (Jesus = Christianity, Buddha= Buddhism, Moses = Jewish, Mohammed= Muslim) should be respected as having served the objective of bringing messages to humanity relevent to what they could understand on the time to education guide humanity in the previous when we are waiting to understand our authentic origins via the mastery of DNA and wise layout and not decide on the former religions that are already fading away.

Answer 14

Life is only complex to someone who lacks intelligence, mainly people who believe that if life is so complex that it MUST come from a creator. But there is another way that life can EVOLVE into complexity. It's called EVOLUTION THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION. Humans invented god as a way to explain things that they couldn't OR wouldn't understand.



What all that means is people who believe in ID are intellectually lazy.

Answer 15

"For every problem, there is a solution that is neat, simple, and wrong."

H. L. Mencken



"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan



"A skeptic is a person who would ask God for his ID card."

Edgar A. Shoaff



"The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found."

Miguel De Unamuno



"There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation."

Richard Dawkins

http://www.scottsdalecc.edu/ricker/pests/skeptic_quotes.html

Answer 16

You grossly misunderstand the theory of evolution, and how natural selection works.



"How can intelligent design be intelectually thrown away?"

Easy. because there is no need for a designer.



"His name is God. To deny that is to be ignorant."

No, to assert it as fact without even trying to prove that such a being must exist, and that it is YOUR god that it must be, is ignorant.

Answer 17

because your endpoint answer for everything from marsupials to the planets to the universe is and always will be



"God did it"



And, like you do now, ID only attacks science, but poses no theory of their own (other than 'god did it')



plus, you have it the wrong way round, but honestly, why bother to argue with ignorance.

Answer 18

the essence of life is self organization - it is self-maintaining, self-renewing, and self-trancending --- since this is the nature of reality, it doesn't really matter if there was a god to create it (there can be no beginning or ending in a system that is composed of these three traits) - it came from forever into the past, and goes forever into the future (i.e. - it exists in eternity, outside of the concept and general use of time)

Answer 19

The reason why any intellectual person rejects so called intelligent design as a part of science it is antiscinetific.



In properly conducted scientific inquiry, one beings with a hypothesis and proceeds to test that hypothesis. One looks for a solution to existing data, rather than what intelligent design does which is to fit data to a pre-existing world view.



It's a function of our ineffective educational system and the general stupidity of most Americans that there is even a debate about this. Unless you think astrology should be taught alongside astronomy and there should be debates about whether the Earth is flat or round, questions about the metaphysical need to stay out of science which is about observable pheonmena..

Answer 20

I agree with you 100%. In evolution things supposedly do just that..they keep evolving into a better stage. So, what's mans next stage? Three eyes? Grow to be 8ft. tall? 6 fingers on all four hands? The watch thing. Yeah, I found a watch on the sea shore. I assumed someone dropped it. A evolutionist standing next to me said that he thinks it was finished evolving and washed up on the shore. That's about how much sense evolution makes.

Answer 21

Yes, but it ended up with the name 'Wombat'.

Answer 22

A watch was created by mankind and attributing intelligence

therein might be overly liberal with the term

Answer 23

Or he could have just Intelligent Designed wombats to give virgin birth from bat fairy ovaries.

Answer 24

Lindz, you're so smart that the atheists here who oppose you sound like little kids playing in a muddy backyard.



Where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise. Go girl!

Answer 25

Because it is garbage.



It has no scientific credibility, and is based on the logical fallacy Argument from Incredulity.



I.e. It is so complex, and because I can't conceive of how this could happen naturally, god must have done it.

Answer 26

That is very insightful. I hope to use that logic soon.



Do you use this very often.

Answer 27

Where are the baby watches? What do mommy and daddy watches look like? How do they reproduce? – Bad example.



Your lack of education is appalling and you really should think twice before calling anyone ignorant – even a wombat.



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stpolycar...--



You are not scientifically literate, are you? It shows.

Answer 28

they're going to attribute everything to a billion years or so of self evolution. me and you and others know, with so much diversity and beauty, what the truth is, but it has been made difficult to dispell evolution for those that created and beleive in it.

Answer 29

sounds like you've pretty much answered your own question.



you might want to ask, instead of, "Can a watch create itself", to ask, "Can God create himself?"



the problem (ok one, of many) for me with ID is that it doesn't answer anything, and doesn't offer any testable experiments, so it's sort of ho-hum and boring.

Answer 30

Because it isn't intelligent. Its ignorance to deny science, not a pixie sky fairie.

Answer 31

I deny God's existence. Do you care why? Do you care what any atheist's reasons are for intellectually rejecting intelligent design?

Answer 32

You make a great and obvious point, but get ready to be flamed by the "I love a rock" club.

Answer 33

Lindz your right on the money. total thumbs up, what a stumper for our athiest friends.

Answer 34

The amazing thing is we HAVE managed to answer all these questions.

Answer 35

Nope. Doesn't make me think. Sorry.

Answer 36

thumbs up!