Intelligent Design (Zimmer)
November 8th, 2007 | Published in Biology, Quotes, Religion, Science | 12 Comments
Once Intelligent Design is shorn of its distracting attacks on evolution, there’s very little real science left to consider. How does Intelligent Design account for all the evidence in favor of evolution, from the fossil record to mutation rates to the similarities and differences between species? At what exact point did the designer intervene in the evolution of a horse, or bird flight, or the Cambrian explosion? And what did the designer do? How can we test these claims? What predictions has Intelligent Design made that have resulted in important new discoveries? If you look for answers to these questions, you end up only with contradictions, untestable claims, or most often, silence.
–Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, p. 330
November 8th, 2007 at 6:12 am (#)
How does Intelligent Design account for all the evidence in favor of evolution, from the fossil record to mutation rates to the similarities and differences between species?
So how do you account for the similarities and differences between my Kia and my Dodge Caravan? Hmm, *hmm*?
I’m still working out whether one evolved from the other or whether (more likely) they had a common ancestor. My next few years of digs at the junk yard may be quite illuminating.
At what exact point did the designer intervene in the evolution of a horse, or bird flight, or the Cambrian explosion? And what did the designer do?
You do realize that theistic evolution is a form of Intelligent Design, right? Unless you think that God is unintelligent or that He was surprised by the outcomes?
I know the culture is telling us to gather round and stone the ID people, and evangelicals as usual are lining up to comply with the culture, but could we stop and think for a minute?
November 8th, 2007 at 7:18 am (#)
It amazes me that the fossil record is constantly being cited as proof for evolution when in fact the vast majority of fossils show sudden appearance, long periods of time (according to geologists) where they do not change in any sense, and then disappear suddenly… please… explain to me how this confirms evolution?
It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee… evolution is a theory grasped upon, and religiously maintained in order to shore up the atheistic mindset that we are free to do whatever the heck we want without moral consequence.
Once Evolutionism is brought out into the light and actually allowed to be scientifically examined, folks will understand the fraud that it is.
November 8th, 2007 at 8:23 am (#)
“in fact the vast majority of fossils show sudden appearance, long periods of time (according to geologists) where they do not change in any sense, and then disappear suddenly”
[citation needed]
Seriously though, anyone I’ve ever met who believed evolution was bunk already had a preconceived notion of “how things happened,” and were finding “facts” to fill the gaps in their message. Perhaps not coincidentally, all were fundamentalist evangelicals. Massaging the fossil record won’t help the case for theism, simply because ID is *not* science.
“in order to shore up the atheistic mindset that we are free to do whatever the heck we want without moral consequence.”
Have you even met an atheist, or are you drawing upon the perpetuated caricature of one you saw in church? While morality is certainly flexible, (as is anything that is a product of society) most people conform readily to the norms of the society in which they live. That includes atheists.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:45 am (#)
The fossil record is full of transitionals. There is a fairly well established sequence for the reptile-mammal transition, cetacean and therapod evolution and last, but not least, our own evolution. Many of these were found in areas and strata as predicted. This is one of the reasons modern evolutionary biology is a science and intelligent design and creationism are something else. The fact that the overwhelming number of species that have existed on this planet no longer exist and that the general fossil sequence follows a pattern, the timing of which is independently confirmed by various dating methods, indicates common ancestry and descent with modification. The alternative is a Creator who required a lot of practice.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:09 pm (#)
“If you look for answers to these questions, you end up only with contradictions, untestable claims, or most often, silence.”
I reject the claim that RM/NS has been tested, as well. Fruit flies have a short gestation time, so have been used experimentally, but have failed to speciate.
The “evidence in favor of evolution” is actually evidence in favor of phyletic progressions, but the mechanism of change is still conjectural. Random mutations have not been demonstrated as sufficient for novel alterations.
It’s likely there have been multiple designers. ‘Theme Park Earth’ may also be a biologic work shop. Why would one designer take eons to create millions of species – what gain it?!
Consider motive. Would a design team making mammals also design a mosquito? I’ve studied them, and they’re much more complex than a B1 bomber. It’s eyes are mosaic lense affairs, with 180 degree vision. Their proboscis is retractible with anti-coagulant glands attached. Random selection of (mostly) deleterious mutations the answer? Only in Dawkins’ dreams.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:49 am (#)
“It’s likely there have been multiple designers.”
You mean multiple magicians, right? Creationists and their magic is boring. I wonder why they are so afraid of real science.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:54 am (#)
“It’s likely there have been multiple designers.”
You mean multiple magicians, right? Creationists and their magic is boring. I wonder why they are so afraid of real science.
“It amazes me that the fossil record is constantly being cited as proof for evolution…”
Who needs fossils? The DNA evidence shows beyond any doubt all life evolved. There is no real debate about the fact of evolution. Only the flat-earthers who believe in magic doubt evolution. Because the massive evidence for evolution, evidence the creationists constantly lie about, virtually the entire scientific community accepts evolution as fact. Only gullible people who believe any supernatural nonsense, and who can’t stand the fact their invisible friend is good for nothing, deny evolution.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:07 am (#)
On the basic of logic, saying that complexity, synergy of systems, and aesthetic features are illusionary is a contrived viewpoint to support the established theory of NDE. The scientific community is so heavily invested in it, to question it is heresy. It’s not that all scientists accept NDE. Careers and tenure are at stake, therefore no one will venture out.
I’m frequently termed an IDiot. But for Darwinists who insist upon the naturalistic approach, I have to use the word lemming…;-)
Cheers
November 9th, 2007 at 7:30 am (#)
Transitionals in the fossil record?… only in your dreams… about 95 percent of the fossil record is marine invertebrates… they appear fully formed suddenly and continue for supposed 100′s of millions of years and then disappear suddenly. Not one hint of transition there… the next largest group of fossils is composed of plants and algae which makes up about 4.5 percent of the remaining 5… not a single shred of transitional evidence… out of the remaining .5 percent of fossils about 95 percent of that group are other invertebrates, insects, spiders, worms etc…. no hint of evolution there either… where do you find the so-called evidence… in the last remaining, most incomplete group of fossils… the vertebrates which make up about .0125 percent of the fossil record. The vast majority of these vertebrate fossils are fish.. complete and whole and easily identified as fish… a very small part of the fossil record is human… most of these so-called specimens consist of a single tooth, or small piece of skull bone. Evolutionists stretch are credulity to the max by asking us to believe that these ridiculous specimens prove evolution when the vast majority of the fossil record says absolutely nothing.
Time for some honesty in the scientific community don’t you think?
November 9th, 2007 at 3:20 pm (#)
(For Edman) Citations: (more where these came from)
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF TRANSITIONAL SPECIES
If one species evolved into another, transitional species—halfway between one species and the next—should have been found. But they do not exist.
“It is not even possible to make a caricature [hazy sketch] of an evolution out of paleobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that . . the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of the material. The deficiencies are real; they will never be filled.”—*N. Heribert Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung (The Synthetic Origin of Species) (1953), p. 1212.
“. . Intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution].”—*Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, quoted in *David Raup, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” in Field Museum Bulletin, January 1979.
“The time required for one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has been estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. The essence of the new-Darwinian view is the slow gradual evolution of one plant or animal into another by the gradual accumulation of micromutations through natural selection of favored variants.
“If this view of evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected and classified. These fossil species have been collected at random from rocks that are supposed to represent all of the geological periods of earth’s history. Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000 species should represent transitional forms. Thus, if evolution is true, there should be no doubt, question, or debate as to the fact of evolution.”—Duane T. Gish, “The Origin of Mammals” in Creation: The Cutting Edge (1982), p. 76.
“Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms.”—*Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, 2nd edition (1960), p. 47.
“Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution, because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory.”—*Ronald R. West, “Paleontology and Uniformitarianism,” in Compass, May 1968, p. 216.
“I have dealt with biologists over the last twenty years now. I have found that, in a way, they are hampered by having too much education. They have been steeped from their childhood in the Darwinian views; and, as a result, it has taken possession of their minds to such an extent that they are almost unable to see many facts that are not in harmony with Darwinism. These facts simply aren’t there for them often, and other ones are sort of suppressed or distorted. I’ll give you some examples.
“First, and perhaps most important, is the first appearance of fossils. This occurs at a time called the “Cambrian,” 600 million years ago by the fossil reckoning. The fossils appear at that time in a pretty highly developed form. They don’t start very low and evolve bit by bit over long periods of time. In the lowest fossil-bearing strata of all [the Cambrian], they are already there, and are pretty complicated in more-or-less modern form.
“One example of this is the little animal called the trilobite. There are a great many fossils of the trilobite right there at the beginning, with no build-up to it [no evolution of life forms leading to it]. And, if you examine them closely, you will find that they are not simple animals. They are small, but they have an eye that has been discussed a great deal in recent years—an eye that is simply incredible.
“It is made up of dozens of little tubes which are all at sightly different angles, so that it covers the entire field of vision, with a different tube pointing at each spot on the horizon. But these tubes are more complicated than that, by far. They have a lens on them that is optically arranged in a very complicated way, and it is bound into another layer that has to be just exactly right for them to see anything . . But the more complicated it is, the less likely it is simply to have grown up out of nothing.
“And this situation has troubled everybody from the beginning—to have everything at the very opening of the drama. The curtain goes up [life forms first appear in the Cambrian strata] and you have the players on the stage already, entirely in modern costumes.”—Norman Macbeth, Speech at Harvard University, September 24, 1983, quoted in L.D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (1988), p. 150.
“The actual percentage of areas showing this progressive order, from the simple to the complex, is surprisingly small. Indeed formations with very complex forms of life are often found resting directly on the basic granites. Furthermore, I have in my own files a list of over 500 cases that attest to a reverse order; that is, simple forms of life resting on top of more advanced types.”—*Growing Doubts: Is Evolutionary Theory Valid? p. 4.
“[The 1976 discovery of the heterostracan fish fossil in Cambrian is discussed in detail] . . This discovery of fishes (vertebrates) in the Cambrian is, without question, the most significant fossil discovery in the period 1958-1979. The evidence is now complete that all of the major categories of animal and plant life are found in the Cambrian.”—Marvin L. Ludenow, “Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958,” in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1980, p. 157.
“Granted an evolutionary origin of the main groups of animals, and not an act of special creation, the absence of any record whatsoever of a single member of any of the phyla in the Precambrian rocks remains as inexplicable on orthodox grounds as it was to Darwin.”—*T. Neville George, “Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective,” in Science Progress, January 1960, p. 5.
“Evolution requires intermediate forms between species, and paleontology does not provide them.”—*D.B. Kitts, Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory (1974), p. 467.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:51 am (#)
Ray,
You’re spending way too much time in the lower depths of the quote mine. Try tunneling upward to some more more recent strata. And you can leave out Duane Gish, his opinions impress nobody.
I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t address the examples of transitional sequences I did offer. The existence and basic phenotype of titika rosea and some cetacean intermediates were found in strata in locations where predicted. The hominid sequence is confirmed by independent genetic analysis. What other explanation can you offer besides common descent? Does every new transitional require a new creation event?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am (#)
Lee,
“I reject the claim that RM/NS has been tested, as well. Fruit flies have a short gestation time, so have been used experimentally, but have failed to speciate.”
This is incorrect. The hawaiian drosophilia has evidently speciated from a small ancestral population. This is being confirmed by genetic analysis. One species has evolved specialized mouth parts to feed on bananas, an event that would have to have to occurred within the last 1000 years of human occupation of these islands.