What good does ID do?

Seriously.

What good does it do to declare that an "intelligent designer" created life on Earth? I could see if the "theory" went further, but from I get here, all it does is say that we can tell from looking at organisms that they were designed. There's NOTHING on the nature of the designer, NOTHING on how the designer did it, and NOTHING on who designed the designer.

You can't even make predictions with it, besides "the next organism I look at will have evidence of intelligent design." It does nothing for the medical field, which evolution does. It does nothing for agriculture, which evolution does. It does nothing for pest control, which evolution does.

Really, what does the theory have to offer?

truthseeka... seems like a reasonable enough question, asked in an appropriate place, and definitely deserving of an answer. I will reply at length as time permits. My wife want's me to take her out so I'll get as far as I can for the moment.

Originally posted by truthseeka
Seriously.

What good does it do to declare that an "intelligent designer" created life on Earth? I could see if the "theory" went further, but from I get here, all it does is say that we can tell from looking at organisms that they were designed. There's NOTHING on the nature of the designer, NOTHING on how the designer did it, and NOTHING on who designed the designer.

These are all more or less true... there is no info about the designer or the manifestation of design... but that's not the perspective you should be considering it from....

gotta go... more later.

You can't even make predictions with it, besides "the next organism I look at will have evidence of intelligent design." It does nothing for the medical field, which evolution does. It does nothing for agriculture, which evolution does. It does nothing for pest control, which evolution does.

Really, what does the theory have to offer?

truthseeka... seems like a reasonable enough question, asked in an appropriate place, and definitely deserving of an answer. I will reply at length as time permits. My wife want's me to take her out so I'll get as far as I can for the moment.

Originally posted by truthseeka
Seriously.

What good does it do to declare that an "intelligent designer" created life on Earth? I could see if the "theory" went further, but from I get here, all it does is say that we can tell from looking at organisms that they were designed. There's NOTHING on the nature of the designer, NOTHING on how the designer did it, and NOTHING on who designed the designer.

These are all more or less true... there is no info about the designer or the manifestation of design... but that's not the perspective you should be considering it from.... As we've discussed before, the theory wasn't conceptualized for the purpose of acquiring info about the designer. The theory was conceptualized to 'test' for the hallmarks of design in biological systems.

You can't even make predictions with it, besides "the next organism I look at will have evidence of intelligent design."

I used to believe the ID had no predictive power, but I now think otherwise. In fact, I believe its predictive power to superior to that of Darwinian based theories, which pretty much have no predictive power.

Consider the example of 'junk DNA.' 'Junk' DNA acquired this unfortunate misnomer from the lack of foresight exhibited by many evolutionary biologists. It was unknown if this non-coding DNA had any purpose, but many operating from the evolutionist perspective assumed this 'junk' DNA was a mistake of evolution... a throwback to the imperfections of evolutionary mechanisms, etc.

The hypothesis from design makes no such assumption. IDT would predict that this non-coding DNA was not in fact junk, but had a purpose. This is of course being confirmed all the time: 'junk' DNA is not junk, but is actually essential in many cases.

The same could be said for pseudogenes. ET states that they are a mistake of evolutionary theory. IDT doesn't necessarily believe this.

So... IDT does in fact have some predictive capability, more so than Darwinism

It does nothing for the medical field, which evolution does. It does nothing for agriculture, which evolution does. It does nothing for pest control, which evolution does.

Hmmm... I am not sure how evolution does anything for medicine or agriculture, or pest control. I would imagine you are referring to the idea that evolution 'predicts' that bacteria, plant pathogens, and insects all 'evolve' resistance. This is not so much of a prediction as it is an observed fact.

Furthermore, these are not good representations of evolution.

Let's take the example of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance existed before widespread use of antibiotics. This can not only be confirmed just through logic, but scientists have in fact isolated antibiotic resistant bacteria from sailors who were frozen before penicillin was discovered. Antibiotic resistance genes existed before the introduction of antibiotics; if they didn't the organisms that make antibiotics would die too. Most antibiotics come from streptomyces species, and sure enough most antibiotic resistance genes appear to have come from streptomyces.

Now back to the question of resistance. Antibiotics merely shuffle the ratios of pre-existingalleles. What I mean is resistance is present in the population before the use of antibiotics, and antibiotics create a selective advantage for the organism that possess these alleles. So the genes actually exist irrespective of whether or not antibiotics are used. Antibiotics only change the proportions of alleles present within a population. They don't 'evolve' resistance. Resistance is present in some individuals, and those individuals survive, end of story. No genes have changed, the genes were already in existence, in many cases, the genes have been around for 100's even thousands of years. Antibiotics, insecticides, and other such chemicals merely alter the frequencies of pre-existing alleles.

Really, what does the theory have to offer?

The theory serves as an alternate basis of hypothesis formation. It provides researchers with another basis to plan their experiments from. It provides researchers with an alternative explanation for observed biological phenomena and systems that are not well explained via existing theories, and further allows those researchers to form hypotheses based on different assumptions, hopefully furthering the scientific process.

I know Matt and I disagree with this...what good will ID do?

It will help consolidate ToE. Although, some researchers will have to spend valuable time showing how each of the proposed systems are not IC.

Well let me ask you this:

Is it more illogical to believe that our creater had to of been created by another creater if he exists or that matter and energy existed forever and sprang to action and created everything that's in it now over time from no outside force? What I'm about to say now will prove that the existince of God is not illogical at all and obvious written proof that God must exist in the simplest and maybe best way.

As far as the scientists of earth know right now matter and energy itself does not have a concience and knowledge to create anything. Lol, that's proof right there that there must be a concious being with all this knowledge (God) to make this matter and energy create an entire universe and anything or that energy itself is concious and knowledgeable which would make us and everything God since everthing is made up of energy because everything needs it to exist.

[edit on 19-1-2006 by Seekerofthetruth]

Originally posted by Seekerofthetruth
Well let me ask you this:

Is it more illogical to believe that our creater had to of been created by another creater...

Hmmm... let me ask you something... a purely philosophical question: Does a 'creator' need to be created? If anything science says about the beginning of the universe, and the nature of the universe itself is true, then space-time didn't exist prior to the Big Bang... ie: time is a construct... mabye consequence is a better word... time is a consequence of the big bang. Space-time didn't exist prior to the big bang, hence time didn't exist prior to the big bang. This could place the creator outside of the realm of time, and thus not subject to a beginning or an end.

No I don't think a creater needs to be created otherwise we would have an infinite amount of Gods before the God that created the universe were in and that can't be possible. All of what you said is what I believe about God and how time and the universe began also. I know why would God have needed a creater when he has always been around because he is not subject to time because he lives in a realm that existed before time and if this is true then God couldn't of been created anyways because creating something takes time. So God must of created time the very first milesecond he started creating the universe.