Oh, yeah, as for wikipedia. Its recognized as a good *starting point*. If you’re interested, you’re supposed to follow the links to external sources. In fact, if you don’t have links to “more credible” sources, wikipedia tends to can your article.

Oh…and its been found at least as accurate as britannica.

Go figure. Its not science because, you know, people who actually know science have said it doesn’t mean their criteria. How terrible. I mean, I’d rather take the word of an evangelical preacher any day.

You need to go back to school frank. You might learn something. I know you already know everything, but its possible.

You did notice, I hope, that all the “supporting” links in the WikiPedia article, were other WikiPedia articles. And you are, I take it, aware that WikiPedia is not a peer reviewed journal, either.

And you were doing so well, for a minute.

In short, Frank, you’re arguing that Intelligent Design has a place because there are problems with the theory of evolution. In its stead, you offer ID.

ID, however, does not constitute a scientific theory. It is not:

Consistant: If anything sufficiently complex must have a designer, than that designer is necessarily more complex, and would require a designer. ID makes no allowance for this necessity.

Parimonious: Sparing in its entities and explanations (occam’s razor). Since ID relies on an explanation rather than on fact, it fails.

Useful: describes and explains observed phenomena. In so far as it goes, I suppose one can always explain anything by saying “magic”. Which is what ID does. However, it fails in the extension of this, that the theory be…

Empirically testable and falsifiable: This is the biggest failure of ID. You cannot make any prediction by ID that could, by failing, prove ID false. In fact, you really can’t make a prediction based on ID. It claims it already has all the answers. “Someone” (aka, God) designed everything. Ok, problem solved, next!

Based on multiple observations, preferably in the form of controlled, repeated experiments: Do I need to go into this one? ID comes up with a few examples where they cannot see a “logical” progression to arrive at the end result, and claim that this is sufficient, while ignoring the mountain of observations disproving “intelligent design”. For instance, male nippes and the ridiculously squashed sinuses that humans have, just to name a few…but I digress and it is probably at this point that Frank will base his argument. Just so ya’ll know.

Correctable and dynamic: Well, ID has no need of this, given it already explains everything.

Progressive: acheives everything that previous theories have and more. well, I suppose if you’re willing to buy ID explaining everythig with no further science needed, then you could try and say this…I’d say ID is a bit of a step backward, since it does nothing to explain anything, or be able to predict anything.

Provisional or tentative: Admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty. This is kind of funny, since your average ID’er will claim that it is specifically because they do not claim absolutely to be correct that theories are “flawed”.

So frank, come up with something that fits these criteria, get it peer reviewed by people who are skeptical of the idea. For instance, check out hydrino theory or the possibility of something akin to a “warp drive”. These are disputed, but in a true scientific sense.

You’ll find that if you actually dig into the “peer review” done on ID, they can’t get it published in established journals, so they have to go make their own. Unlike these issues.

Okay, the “Designer” of the Natural Universe must be greater than it. He/She/It would have had to exist before, and likely after the begining and end of it, and have enough power to manifest everything within it, right? So, while they may exist at least partly within the Natural, they must also exist outwise it, right? Well, see, in my book, external to the Natural is what supernatural means. And since my book is a dictionary, you can lick it.
Supernatural (adj.) - 1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. 2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
See, what it is is that Super- the prefix comes from Superior, which is a synonym for Greater, so yeah, the two words mean the same thing, and I know you’ll find this shocking, but your cute little riddle doesnt relate at all, sorry.
Now, you say that the Designer would not necessarily require worship and such, but the problem is that you cant believe in ID without at least acknowledging him. And acknowledging the existence of a supernatural entity, one who’s existance cannot be proven fully within the natural world, requires an act of faith, belief. Hence, if you think ID is true, then you believe in the existence of the designer. What you believe about him/her/it can be debatable, but you must at least believe he exists, which inherently excludes, for instance, atheism, which is a contrary belief.

As for the second bit, since youre clearly trying to get me into a lengthy discussion about an admittadly stupid attempt at humor on my part, devoting, lets see… seven paragraphs to part of a sentence, the part, you’ll note, I began with the word “Ignore”, which obviously, I repeat Obviously, I didnt want to become a major point of contention, I will instead refrain from discussing it at any unnnecessary… length… dammit, now youve got me going on about it for no good reason. I hope youre happy. Look, fine, I’m done trying to make my case when you wont listen. Read this post or dont, reply or not, whatever, I’m done with you.

*This is an example of ironic insult through simultanoues self-deprication. I’m pointing this out here in case you feel the need to devote seven paragraphs to how cruel and viscious I am, when really I’m only trying to be funny. You must, logically, only take as much offense at it as I do. I take none.

The point that IDers don t get is that the numbers are big like that.
Yeah, that’s it. Let’s see if can wrap my puny non – technological mind around a large number. First, .003%. If I remember back to the 8th grade, when I last heard about or saw a percentage (even though I spent 15 years working for the IRS), is 3 one – hundredths of a per cent, or thee over 10,000. Do I have it right so far, Mr. Munck? OK, then we multiply that really, really small percentage by a really, really large number like a bajillion, and we get a smaller number like a zillion. Did I get it right, Mr. Munck, huh, huh, did I? Did I? Puhleeese.

Your turn, Rex:
the designer of all things natural would himself have to be greater than it, ergo supernatural
BZZZT! Wrong! You are playing a semantic game. You are trying to make “greater” equal to “super.*” Obviously — I repeat, obviously — if Intelligent Design were 100% provably correct, then it would be a natural force.
As I said before, an Intelligent Designer would not require worship, obedience, rituals or even right behavior.
The attributes of Intelligent Design could have been generated in the Big Bang.

Thanks for taking the time to point out to me that  different people are different people. Serves me right for putting in a throwaway line intended to be a joke.

It’s a common practice for liberals on these threads to make a ridiculous statement,and then, when it is pointed out to them, they pretend it was a joke. First of all, the last paragraph of my post says nothing about “different people being different.” Secondly, you made the statement, not I.

So, wiseguy, since it was a joke, what’s so friggin’ jolly about the concept that we will advance beyond the Enlightenment?

*There’s a riddle that illustrates what you have done: Which is better, unending happiness, or a ham sandwich? Answer: A ham sandwich. Why? Because nothing is better than unending happiness, and a ham sandwich is better than nothing.

And as far as  Intelligent design doesn t go so far as to identify the agent of change… doesn t start with religious assumptions, thats just plain silly. If you acknowledge that the universe is designed, doesnt it require acknowledging the designer explicitly? As I said, the intelligent design itself wouldnt exist were it not for the Creator of such a design. And, the designer of all things natural would himself have to be greater than it, ergo supernatural, and as such having no place in science class. If the design happened without the designer, coming about randomly or naturally or whatever, then its not actually designed is it? Saying that Intelligent Design, though it cleary requires a God figure to even exist, doesnt explicitly identify God as the designer, is like saying “The arrow hit the target at trajectory such that following it backwards we can see that it came from the precise area of the bow that Robin Hood is holding, and we can see that for the arrow to be there, he must have shot it, though that’s not to say we are specifically identifying him as the bowman.” Seriously, I dont know how else to say it, but ID does require a godlike designer. Any legitimate study (tries really hard not to scoff) of ID would have to include that, and its just flat out wrong to suggest otherwise.

Surely you don’t think that The Age of Enlightenment is the end of the line in human introspection? Now you’re on my turf.

There’s a sizeable patch of land to the east of Russia, called Asia, where almost half the people in the world live, and most of them have a totally different way from us of viewing the world — without an “Enlightenment”.

The Islamic world thinks differently from us, and we wouldn’t have had a Renaissance (plus Reformation plus Enlightenment) without them. In fact, there wouldn’t have been an America without them. The astrolabe and compass were perfected so that devout Muslims all over the Islamic empire could be sure they were facing Mecca when they prayed. Prince Henry the Navigator taught at his school for explorers following an Islamic model.

And then, of course, there’s the survivalism and animism of Australia’s aborigines, and Africa’s sub – Saharans. Thanks to the Internet, in a
hundred years or so, the period from 1884 to sometime beyond right now — I’m not sure when (it depends on when we finally engage the Islamic world), will be known simply as the Post – Monarchical Era.

The Enlightenment will be a small part of the Asian and African philosophies that drive us. Think big, Rex. The dinosaurs survived 65 million years (you say). Do you think we’re going to make it that long on an “If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck,” philosophy? No way.

When I was in high school (of the Catholic kind) [1959 -1963 BTWFA*], we learned about something called Mitigated Evolution: the Bible’s days were long periods of time, until man was created, and history was written. God began and oversaw the process of evolution, and as such, was the Creator.

It so happens that that is what I believe, not ID.

That wouldn’t pass muster either, I suppose, because, to fit the secularist nature of the theory of evolution (which is like so totally not anti – religious), God has to exit, appropriately enough, stage left.

*Before The World Fell Apart

the complexities of this sophisticated theory that popped into a man s head on a visit to an isolated island.

So basically you’re disagreeing with only that tiny part of evolution that Darwin came up with on the few months of the Beagle’s voyage, and not the huge amount of evidence and analysis created by tens of thousands of scientists working for the past few centuries? OK, that seems fair, though it could be said that there was more science in that little bit that Darwin did than in the whole modern ID postulate.

As far as I know, Darwin didn’t do much with probabilities. His thoughts were basically of the form of “this mutation wasn’t very probably, but there were lots of members of the species, so it was likely to happen several times.” A modern geneticist would say something like “this mutation had a probability of 0.003%, but the species existed for 30,000 years over a range of 2 million square miles, so there were about 100 million members of the species and the mutation would have happened about 3,000 times.”

The point that IDers don’t get is that the numbers are big like that. Things that seem so extremely improbably that you view them as impossible are actually likely when the numbers are large enough. 500 million years and a plant and animal population large enough to fill up an entire planet. That’s a lot.

It s not about religion, or God, either, as I pointed out above, It s about order, hence the name Intelligent Design, not creation.

An Inteligent design that does not necessite the existence of the designer, right? A designer that would have to be all powerful, knowing, and have a consciousness, yeah? And is not necessarily a God figure? Wow, that makes so very very much sense. Thank you for exposing me to the light of sense, good sir.

What about tomorrow? I am absolutely sure that evolution is an artifact of the Enlightenment. As we advance away from it, evolution will be found to be an unsophisticated stab at explaining what really happened.

Ignoring for now the jolly concept of “advancing away from enlightenment,” you’re ignoring the fact that the theory of evolution, as all scientific theories do, has itself evolved over time as new information is entered into the equation. It grows to encompass these things, and the theory changes. Darwin’s specific theory is not what is believed in today, and indeed there is disagreement within ght legitimate scientific community as to what specifically are the finer points of the theory and how other things can be explained, but the entire theory need not be thrown out. It changes, adapting to survive.

Intelligent design (which is like so totally not creationism) does not change, indeed can never change because it is set up in contrast to all scientific experimental theory in that there is no way you could actually prove it wrong. Not because it’s right, but because it doesnt adhere to logic. The Faerie argument above is exactly like this, as there is no objective way to prove or disprove the supernatural. Godsdamnit, thats what supernatural means! This is merely personal opinion, mark you, but comparing a theory that develops over time in adherence to scientific principles, and one that stays rigid in defiancee of them, which do you really think is the “unsophisticated stab at explaining what happened?”

As far as “knowing the most obvious things about the fusion processes needed to produce elements like iron and the time it takes for a star to cycle through them and go supernova”, you are kidding right? You don’t really think that is common knowledge, do you? I hate to think about what you do for fun.

The basic postulate of ID is not that ID’ers are too stupid to understand evolution. That’s the most ridiculous of all the arguments that claim to refute ID. “If only they were as smart as I, they would understand the complexities of this sophisticated theory that popped into a man’s head on a visit to an isolated island.” Yeah, that’s it.

It’s not about religion, or God, either, as I pointed out above, It’s about order, hence the name Intelligent Design, not creation.

One question I have always had is what happens when a particular “skill” or “talent” doesn’t replicate itself? That’s it, right? Or does it reappear a zillion years later? There should have been primates popping up all over the place… trees and dinosaurs evolving together, cockroaches and cockatoos, etc. Not one thing, then an improved thing, then another improved thing, another improved thing, until, lo and behold, cro – magnon knocks neanderthal’s larger brains out, and here we are!

Interestingly, only 30 or 40 years ago, it was hypothesized that neanderthal still survived, then it was theorized that they interbred with cro – magnon, and finally a few years ago — just a few years ago — it was decided by the scientists that neanderthals were wiped out by the smart Frenchmen from the south.

What about tomorrow? I am absolutely sure that evolution is an artifact of the Enlightenment. As we advance away from it, evolution will be found to be an unsophisticated stab at explaining what really happened. As Feynman said (I paraphrase) about quantum physics,”We’re looking at one corner of a chessboard that is lit, while the rest of the board is in darkness. Pieces come in out of the square, and we have yet to figure out the pattern, let alone make a prediction.”

Some folks of a particular persuasion try to paper over the differences, and at least one translation of the Bible actually combines the two into a single story. While I don’t agree with the theology of the Worldwide Church of God, this article on their website provides one of the best analyses that I have seen of Genesis and the creation stories. Michael Morrison, the author, says:

The Bible is not meant to be a scientific textbook. Nor is it designed to reveal secrets about primordial history that have no relevance to salvation. The Bible does not answer the questions that science asks. Nor does science address all the issues the creation account does. The two approaches are different tools for different jobs, and if people perceive conflicts between the two, it is because they are trying to force a tool to do a job it wasn t designed to do.

However, many people think that science and Christianity conflict. They think they have to choose between science on one hand and belief in a six-day creation on the other. This is unfortunate, because there shouldn t be any conflict. We can have faith in God and believe facts.

This is exactly the mistake that the supporters of “Intelligent Design” make when they attempt to redefine science to include supernatural causes and give credibility to a non-existent scientific controversy about evolutionary theory. Morrison anticipated just this sort of action when he said:

Faith should be built on the correct foundation, not on an overly specific interpretation when other interpretations make better sense. Belief in God can legitimately be combined with a nonliteral view of Genesis 1. Christians do not need to feel that faith requires a 6,000-year-old-earth theory, a six-day creation theory, a “gap” theory or any other theory that attempts to squeeze scientific precision out of the biblical creation account. Such theories may, in the long run, do faith more harm than good, if they cause people to reject the Bible.

For those on both sides of this issue, I highly recommend Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth R. Miller, a devout Catholic and a professor of biology at Brown University. Miller clearly and irrefutably rebuts every “theory” of creation science through a systematic and even-handed examination of the evidence. He also shows how creation science is bankrupt of ideas, both as science and as an expression of Christian faith.

Ultimately, the question is not how human beings came about, but how we use our gift of life. For me, it doesn’t matter if humans evolved from something else. Humanity is still set apart, something special. As humans, our consciences tell us right from wrong. We feel love and compassion. We have minds that can discover and understand new ideas and concepts. As a result, we and we alone are responsible for our actions, and we must answer to God for the choices we make.

Finally, as a Christian I just don’t understand those who want to use the coercive power of the state to indoctrinate our students with a warped and cartoonish view of our Creator. Our God is an awesome and powerful God, and He doesn’t need any help from our government.

Frank_D: By and large, however, evolution draws impossibly direct lines from the past to the present, with few, if any, errors, no mistakes, no maladaptations.

“Direct lines” only because any organism is linked to the past by parent-child relationships; how could it be anything but direct lines? However, there are billions of lines that branch off and … terminate. Billions of mistakes, billions of errors, billions of maladaptations.
The salient point is that every time there’s a branch (split) in a line, there are copies, maybe millions of copies, of each side of the branch. The viability of both forms is tested many, many times as they multiply through many generations. If one or both branches aren’t viable — can’t compete — they don’t survive and that line dies out. (But they might split off a line that can survive before going extinct.)
In 500 million years, there’s time for a lot of generations. That’s 20 million human generations, and most organisms have much shorter generations than we do (days, weeks, or months rather than decades). Proponents of ID are basically unable or unwilling to understand this, so they declare that it can’t be true. That’s the basic postulate of ID.

…and not just his quotations, but at least several of his books.

Second Law of Thermodynamics? Pfft. Earth — as a closed biological system — has been receiving massive amounts of energy from the sun for four-point-three billion years; additional energy is input from radioactive decay of earth’s heavy metals.

I guess the Chinese philosopher was right: The more we know… the more we see we don’t know.

By and large, however, evolution draws impossibly direct lines from the past to the present, with few, if any, errors, no mistakes, no maladaptations.

I could swear I learned something about a crazy notion called “extinction,” but maybe I’m just confused.

Now, if someone were to run a file across the fingernail of your right middle finger, then the time that humans have been on the earth would be erased.

1) I wonder what the Intelligent Designer was waiting for?
2) Maybe humans are just a good, long living host for the multitudes of different organisms that inhabit our bodies. It took the designer a while to design a host that could withstand various elements for decades to carry His favored creatures.