Sunday, February 22, 2009

Evolution and Intelligent Design (2)

I like Anonymous’s comments on my original post so much I am reproducing them here for better access.

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1) There cannot be scientific proof of the existence of a god. There can neither be scientific proof of the non-existence of a god.

2) In a nutshell, nothing --> simple elements --> inorganic compounds --> organic matter --> simple life forms --> complex fife forms --> humans is evolution. About 10 years after Pasteur's refutation of spontaneous generation, Darwin mentioned the idea of abiogenesis, "some warm little pond" in a letter. This is the area of chemical evolution, though of course he didn't use the term.

3) There is microevolution, and macroevolution. No one argues with microevolution. Microevolution is slight, short-term evolutionary changes within species. Macroevolution is the origin and diversification of species. ID questions whether Darwinian evolution (abiogenesis, common ancestor, descent with modification, natural selection, random genetic mutation) can account for the many macroevolutionary changes and the origin of biological complexity.

4) Have there been detailed mechanisms or models of intermediates in the development of complex biological structures? There are alternative explanations for homologous structures and universally shared biochemical processes etc. (The scientific method cannot be used to argue for evolution here. So is evolution really science? Evolutionists' arguments are: it must have happened in this way. But give me the evidence please.)

5) Scientists should be allowed to follow evidences to the conclusions, even though they may feel uncomfortable with the conclusions. a priori commitment to only naturalistic explanations is a 'religious faith' in science itself.

6) The naturalistic worldview has dominated academia for the past 150 years. It is naive to think there is no persecution for dissidents. Just check out what happened to Prof. Reiss (himself an evolutionist) of the Royal Society in Sept 2008. Even suggestions for debating evolution are not allowed.

7) Scientists are people too. We have our likes and dislikes and prejudices. Science done by people cannot be totally neutral.

Evolutionists believe the universe has no design, no purpose. The inevitable outlook is: humans are one big (or maybe just a small) accident. They don't know where they are going. To me, this is sad. But maybe since there's no evolutionary advantage of being sad, natural selection will select for pitiless indifference.




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