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ORIGINAL: mcp

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What I find revealing is how ID institutes like DI and this film production try to make this into a PR battle. The strategy is obvious. The more they can distract people from the actual science the better. This is why we hear stories of poor little so-and-so who was persecuted (hardly) for their ID beliefs. Next, let's compare our opponents to the most heinous people of the 20th century. Hmm, that should work. Oh, and throw in some phony appeal to "academic freedom", as if scientific theories are fads instead of well supported scientific findings.

Yeah, never been any PR battles on the TOE side. PR is how one lawyers their way into a conversation. When scientists accept the summary of science interpretations without some level of scrutiny on their own part, then how is science in the classroom any more than a 'fad' reflecting the consensus of the current industry? How much do the science classes offer in support of the theory? 3 transitional forms (part artist rendering) between whale and dog?

BTW, the nazis already believed in extermination; they could just use the eugenics theories that had co-developed with TOE to propogandize and justify their already held beliefs.

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It would behoove you to actually research transitional forms... if you did so you would realize there is more than idle speculation that stands behind the 'fad'...

But if you want a quick little video to explain it to you... you should watch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU

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ORIGINAL: mcp

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It would behoove you to actually research transitional forms... if you did so you would realize there is more than idle speculation that stands behind the 'fad'...

But if you want a quick little video to explain it to you... you should watch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU

It isn't so much idle speculation that I suggest, but more at presumptive interpretation, which should be conceded by true scientists. To me, it is understandable to assume the modern classifications seem reasonable. We seek to have a simple way to classify all of life which has such similarity in many respects; but justifying the classifications should be done with the appropriate levels of skepticism, which I never see in Nature articles or NOVA-type episodes. Granted I have read/seen very few of these overall, as I am not in the sciences; but the ones I have, seem conclusive and I can't tell how vetted are the assumptions in these pieces.

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BTW, it was Ken's presentation I saw somewhere that made the transitional argument between whales and dogs with 3 transitions (which he stated as sufficient evidence).

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I watched your video; even pausing to read what I could in the opposing statements. It supported part of its argument by showing how much work paleontologists have done over the years. Throwing a myriad of fossil evidence at the theories out there does not prove our classification system.

I am aware of the major arguments back and forth among the two groups regarding where the 'goal posts' should be to justify predictability of the theory. I am also aware of the fact that fossil evidence should be scarce compared to the vast amount of dead flora/fauna that has conceivably existed. But the video to me supports how both sides have different interpretations on this same evidence; the point of the video was to say that creationists only bring up facile arguments or move the predictability goalpost denying there is a lot of evidence collected. That may be, but despite their flaws at argument, I remain skeptical of the conclusiveness of the fossil record and the resulting classification system.

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ORIGINAL: drj11
Sure, we don't have all the info and sometimes also make wrong predictions, but nothing has seriously called the integrity of the classification system into question.

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It may have some errors, but it's a very sound system.

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The creationists are wrong on nearly all points, however.

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If we discovered an intergalactic spaceship embedded in rock 100 ft below the surface of the earth, we could not conclude it was intelligently designed unless we knew the ‘method’ by which it was produced. And that of course is absurd.

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There is a massive difference between mechanical devices and biological ones, and you know it, Jack.

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Secondly, for the sake of argument, let's assume that all of creation is manufactured by a supernatural being.

If so, why is that creation so riddled with flaws? Why do some cells spontaneously revert to a cancerous state, and destroy its larger organism? Why have 99% of all the species in Earth's history gone extinct? Why do planets like Mars suddenly lose their magnetic fields, and lead to the destruction of an entire ecosystem? Why do genetic illnesses such as Proteus Syndrome or Progeria exist? What about Alzheimer's Disease?

Was God asleep at the switch while developing creation, or did He think to add these snafus just to make life more interesting for humanity?
Your logic flawed in a few different ways.

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Well, no, there's not; only someone unacquainted with modern biology would say that.

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The first is that it assumes that what exists is running as it was intended to.

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The second is that a flaw is evidence against something being designed; if that were true, then we could say nothing is designed, even things we know to be designed, because every design that exists has some flaws.

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So there is no fundamental difference between a turbo-charged jet engine, and a fish's swim bladder? Then why aren't mechanical engineering, and biology classes taught side by side?

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And how do you prove this? Look at God's schematics?

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Everything designed by humanity is not flawless, yes. But again, a car is not equivalent to an human embryo, which is as vulnerable to fatal defects as any automobile built in a factory.

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There is a massive difference between mechanical devices and biological ones, and you know it, Jack.

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If so, why is that creation so riddled with flaws?

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Was God asleep at the switch while developing creation,

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL: todd_t

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There is a massive difference between mechanical devices and biological ones, and you know it, Jack.

Please explain the differences that make the analogy improper.

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If so, why is that creation so riddled with flaws?

Because of sin.

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Was God asleep at the switch while developing creation,

No, but you must have been when you thought these oft repeated childish questions pose a problem for creation or even ID.
If you try to ford a river in a car that wasn’t designed to be aquatic is it the manufacturer’s fault when the river destroys the car? Was the car destroyed because of poor design or because you chose to use the car for something it wasn’t designed to be used for?

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Well... human beings have yet to design something that reproduces unique offspring by mating and mixing schematics (and allowing for "crossover" and mutations) with another similar machine... that would be the biggy. This is the most unique and important property of life that always gets thrown by the wayside when one wants to make comparisons to human designed machines... its also the characteristic that enables biological systems to evolve, and is by far the most important. Humans havnt designed anything like it. Not even computer viruses come close.

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Not that anything else in biological life resembles human machines either. Sure if you abstract biological systems, like the intestinal tract, and compare it with a sewage system, they have much in common. But its superficial at best. Much the same if you abstract protein production, it seems like an assembly line or manufacturing plant, but most of the similarities you want to infer are simply products of the gross abstraction, not because they are inherently similar.

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Please explain the differences that make the analogy improper.

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Because of sin.

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No, but you must have been when you thought these oft repeated childish questions pose a problem for creation or even ID.

If you try to ford a river in a car that wasn’t designed to be aquatic is it the manufacturer’s fault when the river destroys the car? Was the car destroyed because of poor design or because you chose to use the car for something it wasn’t designed to be used for?

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Please explain the differences that make the analogy improper.

Let's see.., I simply don't know.

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So if a child is born with a congenitally malformed liver and dies in 24 hours, how is that failure like the car fording a river?

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Well whales didnt evolve into dogs or vice versa... without looking it up, I believe they are considered closely related with land animals like Hippo's.. I also think there are some organisms in the lineage that are somewhat reminiscent of canines, but not anything like we would think of today. Any chance you could locate this talk?

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So your judgment is based on ignorance then. How could anyone reject that sort of logic?

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Do you not believe there is such a thing as sin, or do you simply refuse to accept that sin is the cause of the flaws we see in creation?

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I thought it was dog-like creature per discussion (don't remember it being canidae family) to whale, but then I thought he had a cetacean type creature at the top showing a reverse transitional arrangement.