Intelligent Design

Responses: >> "If there is a watch that has radom bits and bobs, and gizmos that have no purpose, we may jump to the conclusion that this watch maker is an idiot" You mean random bits and bobs and gizmos that have no purpose like vestigial organs and other evolutionary quirks? >> "But what if we turn it around and say that the intelligent watch maker wanted to make an unorthodox watch." A flawed watch, you mean... what if the INTELLIGENT designer wanted to make a BROKEN watch? Is that what you are asking? >> "If every fact pointed to a creator, and the creator wanted faith there is no point in his design. " This statement doesn't even make sense... >> "science cornered itself because of the famous Reid's experiment. He tested with the rotten meat and flies. He proved that spontaneous generation is not possible." Not exactly - Redi disproved the common (at the time) conception that maggots came from rotting meat. Redi wasn't concerned with spontaneous generation - he was convinced that maggots didn't come from meat. While "spontaneous generation" is highly unlikely, that's not the current evolutionary theory. Current evolutionary theory states that in the "primordial soup" of nonliving molecules and other matter, some chemical reactions produced organic molecules from non-organic molecules. Then, some of the organic molecules fit together in a way that allowed them to begin basic living processes. >> "there was a statistical test ..." Source? >> "So yes having a simple organism come from disjoint amino acids only needed to happen once, but that once is proven to be impossible." My opponent seems to be confused between an organism as we see them today, and self-replicating RNA or basic protein strands. Self-replicating RNA has been shown to "breed" and "speciate" in a lab setting (http://www.livescience.com...) and follow expected patterns of evolution. Granted, these strains of RNA are synthesized, but RNA is at at its core, just oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. >> "Now DNA is very complex if we are just hoping that phosphate, nitrogenous bases, and a Deoyyribose sugar would bind to each other in the correct formation. So this organism that stated life off must be more than protein, or a organic molecule." And here my opponent demonstrates one of the greatest flaws in creationist/ID thinking - that the first organisms had DNA and traits. It is more than likely that they did not - remember that all that is required for life (in this context) is the ability to reproduce. My opponent is correct that life must be more than a protein OR an organic molecule, but the argument that life started as a protein AND an organic molecule (http://www.pbs.org...). And Stanley Miller's experiments in the 1950's showed pretty conclusively that proteins were naturally occurring on the very young earth. All that remains is an organic molecule, like a fatty acid (http://www.scientificamerican.com...), which were also naturally occurring. >> "First is the famous law of conservation of matter. That matter cannot be created or destroyed. Well if that's true how could all of this matter get here?" This statement evidences an egregious misunderstanding of the Big Bang. The matter did not just "appear" - it was there already, but very, very compacted. Then it exploded. >> "Well the theory of a creator is one of the few explanations because it trumps the laws..." This statement is, to be honest, idiotic. You cannot use causation to prove that a being who defies causation exists. If you want to postulate a magical being that doesn't follow the laws of nature, you belong in church, not in a laboratory. >> "The problem is that science needs to be constant. The laws can't be broken at anytime. With a designer theory it does not follow set laws, which makes it difficult to be thought of as part of science." Which is precisely why ID is not thought of as "science" - it is a religious precept that has no scientific backing. >> "The theory of a higher being, or a creator that made who we are, and what we see is a reasonable approach to explaining how we got here" Readers take note that as we head into the third round of argumentation, we have yet to see any arguments for this proposition, only arguments against evolution. >> "Like our brains we don't see it, we have no proof that it is in our skulls right now but we know it is there. I don't think we can ever prove god, but we can't disprove him, and that's the point. " My opponent now adds the concept of "warranted assertability" to the list of concepts he does not grasp. There is warranted assertability to believe our brains are in our skulls - a primary reason being that brains are seen all the time in hospitals, and actually removed from skulls fairly frequently. If God happened to show up, say, ONE HUNDREDTH OF ONE PERCENT of the number of times we've seen a brain, there might be some warranted assertabiity for the fact that a creator exists.... ********************************************************************************* Readers, my opponent has done only two things: 1) Refrained from arguing FOR intelligent design, but rather arguing AGAINST evolution. 2) Postulated that since science cannot prove there is not a god, God exists, and intelligent design is correct. The untenability of the second position, and the fact that he *still* has not put forth an argument that actually addresses the resolution, has transformed this from a debate into a waste of time. NEGATED.