Scientist Explore "Intellegent Design"

The following article in Newsweek shows a new (well, not that new if you've been hanging around ATS for a while) twist on evolution verses intellegent design.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

We have all seen a rising trend in scientific evidence that points less towards Darwinism, and more towards an "intellegent design". This article deals mostly with God as the intellegent designer. But as we all have seen, there has also been a rise on scientific studies and theories on the existence of ET's that have made it to mainstream media news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, Newsweek, etc.... So, it's my beleif that we could see some bold statements coming out from scientific sources that lean towards aliens as the "intellegent designer". Especially from those who have little or no desire to accept the existence of "God" but cannot come to grips with the ideas popular in evolution. Using the idea that aliens could be the intellegent designers may be easier on the ones who refuse to accept the possibilities of God.


[edit on 30-1-2005 by mpeake]

Okay, lets say yes we are the result of "intelligent design" and not evolution.
Aliens created us but then we have a loop. How were Aliens created?
It's too bad we can't solve this once and for all.

Evolution, which deals with events that no one was around to witness, will always be a "theory."

I would think in our life time we would be able to recreate evolution through intelligent design ourselves.

IMO people dont think outside the box.
what if things are created all the time,
and by dif beings at diff times,
does one being have to have created evrything every time?
I think not, i belive it is much more complex than one could imagine.

I belive that even humans were altered at diff times by diff beings,
so lets say a god made 1 man then eons later that man learned genetics and made another man but a little diff than him, so to say god made both is not correct especially if they keep changing the man....
And accourding to the bible god is flesh like us! so who made him?

let alone to generalize all of existence is really un educated IMO

[edit on 30-1-2005 by lizzardsamok]

Originally posted by mpeake
We have all seen a rising trend in scientific evidence that points less towards Darwinism, and more towards an "intellegent design".

Any appearance of such a trend is just that, appearance.

Using the idea that aliens could be the intellegent designers may be easier on the ones who refuse to accept the possibilities of God.

Regardless of who or what the'intelligent designer' is, the IDists have not been able to demonstrate intelligent design, nor come up with a way of measureing it nor really coming up with good operational definitions of their ideas.

Now, I say these things rather 'absolutely', because I have looked into it and am quite convinced of my position on it, but I add this little disclaimer to dispell any idea that I am anything even remotely resembling an 'authority' on the subject. However these are the conclusions that I have come to and if so desired I will be happy to discuss it further (iow, I am stating my conclusions first, just to save time so to speak, I hope that is not too presumptuous).


[edit on 30-1-2005 by mpeake]

Originally posted by mpeake
We have all seen a rising trend in scientific evidence that points less towards Darwinism, and more towards an "intellegent design".

Any appearance of such a trend is just that, appearance.

Using the idea that aliens could be the intellegent designers may be easier on the ones who refuse to accept the possibilities of God.

Regardless of who or what the'intelligent designer' is, the IDists have not been able to demonstrate intelligent design, nor come up with a way of measureing it nor really coming up with good operational definitions of their ideas.

Now, I say these things rather 'absolutely', because I have looked into it and am quite convinced of my position on it, but I add this little disclaimer to dispell any idea that I am anything even remotely resembling an 'authority' on the subject. However these are the conclusions that I have come to and if so desired I will be happy to discuss it further (iow, I am stating my conclusions first, just to save time so to speak, I hope that is not too presumptuous).


[edit on 30-1-2005 by mpeake]

If extra-terrestrials planted the seed of life, it doesn't discredit evolution. You just pass the evolution off to somewhere else.

Intelligent design or evolution? Why can't it be both? Why couldn't the universe have been created to evolve instead of having to create everything bit by bit?

If I were God, I would design a system whereby creation happened automatically, and that improvement was guaranteed by persistence, not by many interventions. Infact, evolution and constant improvement brings me closer to the believing in a creator or God, something the Bible was never able to do.

There are mathematical models which go alongside Darwinism that show everything in the known universe is in a state of constant improvement. We just happen to be part of the best this universe has to offer right now.

Something that confuses me is why people want to believe something is either one or the other, but never a combination of the two.

Let me just make it clear, that I can accept the possibility of evo and ID can exist together. It actually makes more sense to me that choosing one over the other. My goal with this thread was one where I tried to show that this topic can and may become yet one more link in the slow process of DISCLOSURE. I certainly wasn't trying to put together a debate forum for creationism and evolutionism. We all know that there is enough of that already.

I just think that this gives mainstream science one more outlet towards the disclosure of alien existence. Think about it. If mainstream science can accept that something as elusive as "God" could be the "Creator", then the next step could be that the seeds of life on earth could have also come from other ET beings, not of this planet, and not of spiritiual and religious attachments.

And even if the theory is completely wrong, the fact that it would be coming from mainstream scientific sources would be a huge leap forward in ultimate disclosure.

[edit on 31-1-2005 by mpeake]

No no no... we were all created by a race of trans-dimentional hyper intelligent beings as an experiment to find the question belonging to the answer of Life, The Universe, and Everything. The answer, of course, being 42.

Thank you, Doug Adams

Seriously, though. The theories presented towards intelligent design, while not typically holding a lot of water, are certainly interesting to comtemplate, and with what I've experienced in the paranormal realm, may not be completely unfounded. There's a lot of things about everything that we, as humans, are simply not able to comprehend - at least not in our current state of existence.

Where the evolution theories make sense, it's always left me thinking "Damn... that's one hell of a coincidence that just the right particles of matter associated themselves just so in order to create life."

By the same token, intelligent design makes sense in that the complexity of even the simplest lifeforms is something that denotes intelligent design (imagine if scientists found an object, that was naturally occuring on another world, but had properties that took humans thousands of years to accomplish, wouldn't they suspect that it was designed by some form of intelligence?). I don't know how much weight I'd put on the theories of creation by God (being an agnostic), but there is more than likely some other form of life or other entity that would at least have the capability of creating something like this planet and the lifeforms on it.

The universe is infinite (theoretically), and to think that we're the most intelligent thing in it is pretty arrogant of us. With an infinite universe comes infinite possibilities, and where anything is possible, anything is likely, and therefore, it's quite likely that there's someone or something out there vastly more intelligent than we are. It's also likely that someone or something created us, just as they were created by someone or something else, and so on.

I think the safest assumption on all of this is that it's a combination of intelligent design and evolution. We'll probably never know the entire truth, so all we can really do is speculate on it.

Originally posted by lizzardsamok

...And accourding to the bible god is flesh like us! so who made him?

And if your read more in the Bible it says, "In the beginning was God...". This can be taken in many ways, but this does point to the fact that there was no "Beginning" for God. He just is. It also states, that God is the "Creator of All Things".

Originally posted by Umbrax

Okay, lets say yes we are the result of "intelligent design" and not evolution.
Aliens created us but then we have a loop. How were Aliens created?
It's too bad we can't solve this once and for all.

Simple, God created Aliens.

Now on to my take: I believe that Intelligent Design is quite a viable theory, when not just taking into account Biological systems, which obvously point to ID in their complexity. Cosmically, if taking into account how vast the Universe is, we the Earth to move a small amount this way or that, the planet would be either too hot or too cold to sustain complex life. If Evolution is true, we literally "hit the jackpot so to speak.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by mpeake
We have all seen a rising trend in scientific evidence that points less towards Darwinism, and more towards an "intellegent design".

Any appearance of such a trend is just that, appearance.

There is no 'rising trend in scientific evidence' that points to ID over NDT. The evidence used by evolutionists, creationists, and ID theorists is the SAME. The difference lies within the interpretation of said evidence.

Using the idea that aliens could be the intellegent designers may be easier on the ones who refuse to accept the possibilities of God.

Regardless of who or what the'intelligent designer' is, the IDists have not been able to demonstrate intelligent design, nor come up with a way of measureing it nor really coming up with good operational definitions of their ideas.

Using ET's to explain ID, only displaces a fundamental problem to a different place. Explaining ID via ET's only displaces 'origin' theories; it does nothing to solve them.

Nygdan, not sure how one can 'demonstrate' ID, maybe by assembling organisms de novo from genetic code... much like the smallpox experiment that I am sure you are familiar with, and the stuff going on at Los Alamos now. Also... not sure what you mean by 'measure' ID. ID theorists look for signs of ID, such as things like observed fibonacci series in biological patterns, and the idea of irreducible complexity (IC). The entire SETI project is based on the notion that we CAN detect ID when we see it, even if we don't know what we are looking for. The ID theory is in fact spawned from the observations and assumptions of IC. The theory didn't arise from a void. What do you mean by 'operational definitions?' ID theorists frequently define those systems that needn't have arisen via ID (take for example the globin system), versus those that appear to have no precursors and seem to function with a high degree of IC... think Photosynthesis. Many ID theorists are perfectly comfortable operating in the realm of certain evolutionary processes. In general, 'legit' ID theorists have few or no presuppositions about which systems were IDed and those that arose via something resembling Darwinian theories. Many ID theorists are completely comfortable with the idea that apes and humans share a recent common ancestor. In fact, within the field ID theorists believe everything from Panspermia to Biblical Creation. While the perception is that ID theorists are robots simply trying to bend and flex observed data to fit nicely within their set of preconceived metaphysical presuppositions is popular, it is simply not true. Please save such a criticism for the young-earth creationists. Perhaps you can elaborate on your criticisms.

Using ET's to explain ID, only displaces a fundamental problem to a different place. Explaining ID via ET's only displaces 'origin' theories; it does nothing to solve them.

That's exactly my point! Like I said, it's not important that the theory is an accurate one or not. That's a whole philisophical debate for another time and another place. But, if this theory can go from God being the intellegent designer, to ET beings being the ID'er, then we are just one more step closer to sicentific mainstream sources stating that "we have evidence of ET existence".

In a sense evolution states that organisms have changed in such a way that does not require divine intervention/design. In fac thats what science in general says, not that there is no intervention, and not that there was intervention, merely that its an uncessary factor. Actual Intelligent Design ala Behe and Phillip Johnson contends that organisms cannot have evolved without intervention. In that way Evolution is at odds with Intelligent Design.

Originally posted by mpeake
ET beings, not of this planet, and not of spiritiual and religious attachments.

If life on earth was formed, and the organisms that are here were designed but advanced, but ultimately limited (wrt god anyway) aliens, then there would be some real evidence for that alien intervention, and, of course, it would just mean that life here was 'intelligently designed by aliens' but evolved naturally elsewhere.

And even if the theory is completely wrong, the fact that it would be coming from mainstream scientific sources would be a huge leap forward in ultimate disclosure.

The problem is that it is not comming from mainstream scienctific circles. There are rather well trained scientists who support Intelligent Design, but I've never heard of any that support it as alien intervention, its almost allways supernatural intervention for them.

[on demonstrating ID]much like the smallpox experiment that I am sure you are familiar with, and the stuff going on at Los Alamos now

I think that that wouldn't demonstrate the Intelligent Design is how things came about on earth tho, merely that living things can be designedr. I am not so certain that many scientists would say living things can't be designed

ID theorists look for signs of ID, such as things like observed fibonacci series in biological patterns, and the idea of irreducible complexity (IC

They also seem to claim to be able to measure and compare 'Complex Specified Information Content" of objects, or at least claim that its theoretically measurable.

The entire SETI project is based on the notion that we CAN detect ID when we see it

I don't think one needs to look at SETI to argue that there is some way to recognize messages. An airplane is something one can look at and state 'Its Designed'.

The ID theory is in fact spawned from the observations and assumptions of IC. The theory didn't arise from a void. What do you mean by 'operational definitions?'

Its intersting that you bring them up to gether, because I was thinking of IC as not having a workable 'operational definiton'. Think of, for example, the Biological Species Definition. It works when one can actually test it, observe mating and hybridization and the like, but isn't useful in other contexts. Irreducible Complexity is a good enough idea, someting thats designed can't be formed by natural selection acting on its parts (or some such), such as the bacterial flagella. But this is just the 'eye complexity' arguement from darwin's day. They argued that the eye is to complex to have formed thru intermediate stages, nevermind that those intermediate stages would also have to be adaptive. But no one argues now that the eye is an Irreducibly Complex Object.

must stop for the moment.

Originally posted by mpeake
That's exactly my point!

Like I said, it's not important that the theory is an accurate one or not. That's a whole philisophical debate for another time and another place. But, if this theory can go from God being the intellegent designer, to ET beings being the ID'er, then we are just one more step closer to sicentific mainstream sources stating that "we have evidence of ET existence".

I would have to disagree with the statement that says "it's not important that the theory is an accurate one or not." Why don't you believe it's important that a theory be accurate? A theory should have some basis in reality. Perhaps you can elaborate on exactly what you mean by this.

It seems like the postulate that ET's are the intelligent designer exists only because many people are unwilling or unable to accept a supernatural creation event. It's an out for people who want to question what they see about evolution/abiogenesis as being inaccurate or somewhat flawed, without acknowledging supernatural forces.

What evidence is there that ET's are the IDer's? It sounds like this is the theory you'd like to see promoted.

The ID theory is in fact spawned from the observations and assumptions of IC. The theory didn't arise from a void. What do you mean by 'operational definitions?'

Its intersting that you bring them up to gether, because I was thinking of IC as not having a workable 'operational definiton'. Think of, for example, the Biological Species Definition. It works when one can actually test it, observe mating and hybridization and the like, but isn't useful in other contexts. Irreducible Complexity is a good enough idea, someting thats designed can't be formed by natural selection acting on its parts (or some such), such as the bacterial flagella. But this is just the 'eye complexity' arguement from darwin's day. They argued that the eye is to complex to have formed thru intermediate stages, nevermind that those intermediate stages would also have to be adaptive. But no one argues now that the eye is an Irreducibly Complex Object.

Actually, many ID theorists DO in fact still argue that the eye is too complex to have arisen by chance. This argument (despite what TO might claim) is NOT dead in the minds of IDer's. Certainly, the bacterial flagella and the blood clotting system have been debated to death. IMO, Behe and Doolittle can continue with this. However systems that appear to be IC do exist. Photosynthesis is a huge one in my mind. Oxidative Phosphorylation, including electron transport would be another. Intercellular signalling is a great example also. Despite what TO claims also, many systems that are not necessarily IC, but appear to have IC qualities, like glycolysis are not explained in an evolutionary context. Sure, articles discussing the evolution of glycolytic enzymes exist, but all of the articles I am aware of (including the frickin' library posted on TO) deal with a COMPLETE pathway. The origin of these pathways is hardly ever dealt with. The existence and a valid description of HOW these pathways arose is rarely, if ever touched upon.

I've yet to see an article discussing how the alignment and perfect isotropic arrangement of just 2 chlorophylls or other pigments in the photosynthetic reaction center became so precisely arranged via random processes. This of course doesn't consider the fact that the PS reaction center is composed of a lot more than 2 pigments, all of which are necessary for PS to be a productive process. Since primary production had to be the first type of life evolved, how did these complex systems come to be? Especially given that natural selection can't work on prebiotic molecules.

There are rather well trained scientists who support Intelligent Design, but I've never heard of any that support it as alien intervention, its almost allways supernatural intervention for them.

Perhaps you've heard of Francis Crick, a proponent of Panspermia theories? How about Hoyle.... hmmm or Chandra Wickramasinghe (sp),.... or what about Paul Davies? These are 'well trained' scientists that support these theories. These are just off the top of my head. I can compile a more comprehensive list if necessary.


[edit on 31-1-2005 by mattison0922]

Originally posted by electric
If extra-terrestrials planted the seed of life, it doesn't discredit evolution. You just pass the evolution off to somewhere else.

Intelligent design or evolution? Why can't it be both? Why couldn't the universe have been created to evolve instead of having to create everything bit by bit?

If I were God, I would design a system whereby creation happened automatically, and that improvement was guaranteed by persistence, not by many interventions. Infact, evolution and constant improvement brings me closer to the believing in a creator or God, something the Bible was never able to do.

There are mathematical models which go alongside Darwinism that show everything in the known universe is in a state of constant improvement. We just happen to be part of the best this universe has to offer right now.

Something that confuses me is why people want to believe something is either one or the other, but never a combination of the two.

That is exactly my train of thought. Well said.

The entire SETI project is based on the notion that we CAN detect ID when we see it

I don't think one needs to look at SETI to argue that there is some way to recognize messages. An airplane is something one can look at and state 'Its Designed'.

Nygdan, I disagree with this statement. I think this a bad analogy. Everyone, or nearly everyone knows the origins of an airplane. I think a better analogy might be something like the Nazka(sp) lines. Certainly there is a probability that a volcano or something could have spewed debris in the rough shape of an animal. This is well within the realm of statistical probability, probably within 1/10^50. When one looks at the Nazka lines, one is not likely to assume this however. Why not? Because the possibility seems so remote. Incidentally, I picked 1/10^50 because a mathematician friend of mine informed me that this when mathematicians begin to regard something as 'pretty much impossible.'

Originally posted by mattison0922
Actually, many ID theorists DO in fact still argue that the eye is too complex to have arisen by chance.

I don't understand how this is tenable. The claim for detecting design is normally given first as 'Irreducible Complexity'. This means that the eye can't have formed 'progressively' from simpler, more 'primitive' eyes, because anything less than an actual eye would be non-functional (the very definition of Irreducible Complexity).

This argument (despite what TO might claim) is NOT dead in the minds of IDer's. Certainly, the bacterial flagella and the blood clotting system have been debated to death. IMO, Behe and Doolittle can continue with this. However systems that appear to be IC do exist.
I just have to question how much of an 'arguement from ignorance' it is tho. There is not a generally accepted phylogeny of some biological organs or systems, there for there cannot be one? I mean, there is defintly wiggle room here ina sense for IDism, afterall, if there is no way for 'evolution to have made' something, that would mean every attempt to explain how evolution made it would fail, but that would mean that there is allways another possible pathway to form it. At a certain point one might be able to say 'well, i don't know about proof positive, but its looking pretty darned unlikely'? The ancient greeks certainly considered how animals were made up, and no one ever really acheived a satisfactory answer for thousands of years unitl darwin came along (well, more or less). Its definitely difficult to decide at what point one has to say 'this thing can't arise naturally'.

There are rather well trained scientists who support Intelligent Design, but I've never heard of any that support it as alien intervention, its almost allways supernatural intervention for them.

Perhaps you've heard of Francis Crick, a proponent of Panspermia theories?
Crick is not anti-evolution tho no? Panspermia need not be an anti-evolutionary theory no?

Originally posted by mattison0922
Actually, many ID theorists DO in fact still argue that the eye is too complex to have arisen by chance.

Originally posted by Nygdan
I don't understand how this is tenable. The claim for detecting design is normally given first as 'Irreducible Complexity'. This means that the eye can't have formed 'progressively' from simpler, more 'primitive' eyes, because anything less than an actual eye would be non-functional (the very definition of Irreducible Complexity).

Actually, I believe it’s Behe, but the approach is more from the biochemical level now. I believe that the specific objections were related to the cis to trans retinal conversion, coupled with the conversion of rhodopsin to metarhodopsin, coupled to the transducin system, coupled to the cGMP system… I can’t remember the rest from there. Behe, being a biochemist is inclined to argue things from that perspective, though others (Denton, possibly) have argued the actual structure as well… can’t remember the argument about that one for sure.

This argument (despite what TO might claim) is NOT dead in the minds of IDer's. Certainly, the bacterial flagella and the blood clotting system have been debated to death. IMO, Behe and Doolittle can continue with this. However systems that appear to be IC do exist.

I just have to question how much of an 'arguement from ignorance' it is tho. There is not a generally accepted phylogeny of some biological organs or systems, there for there cannot be one?

Well, certainly this isn’t the case. But I don’t see the difficulty with this. It’s not like the ID crowd is saying "Stop the centrifuges, because ID can explain it all." It’s not like they’re saying, "Okay we’ve got it figured out let’s stop doing science." If they were that’d be a different story. But these guys still are doing research. They don’t think evolutionists should stop doing what they’re doing. They are simply investigating options other than abiogenesis, which for many is more of a faith issue than ID ever could be.

I mean, there is defintly wiggle room here ina sense for IDism, afterall, if there is no way for 'evolution to have made' something, that would mean every attempt to explain how evolution made it would fail,

Again, I don’t think this is the case. As I mentioned before, many in the ID crowd believe certain aspects of evolutionary theory to be true. For example, many are not opposed to the idea of apes and humans sharing a common ancestor. I think theories like ID wouldn’t exist if abiogenesis were a little more reasonable and easy to swallow.

The ancient greeks certainly considered how animals were made up, and no one ever really acheived a satisfactory answer for thousands of years unitl darwin came along (well, more or less). Its definitely difficult to decide at what point one has to say 'this thing can't arise naturally'.

But we never stopped looking. To quote George Costanza, "You can’t stop science. You can’t stop it…. You just can’t stop it." I agree it is difficult to say what can and can’t arise naturally… I agree completely. But I don’t think that’s the point. The ID crowd isn’t suggesting that we stop examining evolution… they are just interested in theories that might seem more reasonable than abiogenesis. It seems like it’s either one or the other, and until someone proposes something else, we’re sort of stuck with these two basic theories.

There are rather well trained scientists who support Intelligent Design, but I've never heard of any that support it as alien intervention, its almost allways supernatural intervention for them.

Perhaps you've heard of Francis Crick, a proponent of Panspermia theories?

Crick is not anti-evolution tho no? Panspermia need not be an anti-evolutionary theory no?

Correct, I don’t believe any of the others I mentioned were anti evolution either. And no Panspermia needn’t, and I would say in most cases, isn’t anti-evolution. Most panspermists(?) accept that some degree of evolution has and does occur. However, many in other areas of ID think this also. Hell, you’ve surfed TO, you must be aware of the Christians that ‘resolve’ evolutionary theory with Christian teachings. A lot of that goes on here in ATS. Ultimately though no ID theory needs to stand in complete opposition to evolutionary theory. It seems like the only theories that stand in complete opposition to evolutionary theory are the young earth creationist theories.

reply to post by mpeake


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