Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Science and scientific thought Intelligent design shouldn't be dismissed

It concerns me that someone can write what professor Granville Sewell has written and be taken seriously as a mathematics professor. Perhaps the article is not indicative of the typical depth of his thought, but if I were grading this piece as a mathematical expression he would not get a passing grade. My primary criticism relates to his leaps and points where he skips logical steps. I'll be more specific when I can.

Generally, I agree that intelligent design should not be dismissed.

It should however be supported by evidence. It is not evidence to say that primitive people from ancient times have all believed in ID..... or is it?

It is not evidence to say that a design is intricate, and therefore must have originated from ID.

It is not evidence of ID to point out some of the shrinkig gaps in scientific theory on this issue.

As far as I am aware, mostly none of the people who support ID can agree on very much about this w intelligent designer.... Was he Jewish, or Muslim, or native American, or Greek? Let's assume that he was a christian, was he catholic, or 7th day adventist, or methodist, or a mormon, or an evangelical, or a greek orthodox, or coptic?

Maybe this intelligent designer was all things to all people? And that is pretty intelligent.

When exactly did he design this place? Did he start with the big bang, or 6,000 years ago? Why did he give men nipples? Did he really start with a literal garden of Eden, and 7 real days.... before there was a day.

So let's start having some answers fron thew ID folks. I have lots and lots of questions that need answers. Any takers?

I thought not.

Let's evaluate the base assertion: "we should accept intelligent design because all cultures had a belief that creation was the result of some intelligent being".

First, a couple of the more entertaining Egyptian theories:

My personal favorite because it so precisely frames the meaning of the word "intelligent" is Atum, "who made everything (even himself) of his own sperm through masturbating". Yep, that's intelligent!

The other very illustrative one, also Egyption, was Khunum, who made the world from mud taken from the Nile (so the Earth already existed when this really smart guy grabbed some mud and made the world). Just how intelligent was this Khunum thing?
http://www.nemo.nu/ibisportal/0egyptintro/1egypt/

The Greeks were a bit too creative for me to find their intelligence and too complex for me to summarize here so read for yourself and let's see who can spot the intelligence in this design. Was it the brilliant act by which "the unknowable place where Death dwells" slept with "Night" who produced Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, and the god of anger (Nemesis)? How intelligent was that?

Or was it when Gaea (the Earth) and Cronus (not the timekeeping system) ambushed Uranus and castrated him, throwing the offal into the sea? A move clearly calculated to make Uranus a better father? I mean, how much more intelligent can one be than to want Uranus as a father?
http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/The_Creation/the_creation.html

Romans? Well, under they're theory, it was all here alreay; they're god just gave it some order, rolling "stuff" into a ball to make earth (what 2 year-old doesn't know how to make mud pies?) Not particularly intelligent, but a darn good mechanic. Also organized all the other "stuff" to bring about harmony. A kind of community organizer. So the Roman god was simply the precursor to Barack Obama!
http://www.ehow.com/info_8243452_creation-myths-ancient-romans.html

Buddha just didn't want to think about it; wasn't a topic of enough importance to be considered (so, amazing as this intelligence must have been, it wasn't intelligent enough to learn from it).

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?96097-How-does-buddhism-explain-creation

And then, of coure, we have the Bible, which has 3 different versions in Genesis alone and apparently spawned 8 or 9 (depending on how you count) generations of people coming from the same womb (Eve's) or just spawning from all those hoary old men emulating Atum to begat this and that but seemed never to get around to begatting a second woman. Real intelligent to just keep on masturbating instead of making at least one more woman to help out around the boudoir!

I have no idea and really no concern with where I stand with anyone else on this subject.

I joined the Republican Party on my 21st birthday and until that terrible day when I was asked to leave the convention had given the GOP every chance at getting my vote. Gradually, over the years as the GOP grew to extend their agenda to fit within the Evangelical leaders, I wandered off into the world of Libertarianism. I did not go lightly and studied all there was to know about religious leadership.

How was it possible that all my years believing in Capitalism that I found myself out of step with others? I used research on the subject of successful people walking all over others. When I use the term "research" it means stripping the libraries of all subjects on the subject. I wrote dozens of notebooks on the subject of the best size of government and where I was able to fit into the plan. I ventured into the study of morals (right over wrong) and try to determine just who I could trust. I was not a good judge of morals and even tried the bible to guide me. If one can be developed by the use of bull pucky from others, then obviously it was a quick learning tool; but not for me.

I have learned only one thing in my first 80 years and that is to trust no one!

I judge no one on their ignorance but it is my decision to never learn from them.

Why don't people research the subjects they want to debate? On these forums, it is more important to find others who agree with one no matter how wrong they are. R.R. is becoming a warring field. This happened when Doug took a couple of years off when he had his brain surgery. 70% of the old forums are gone having run out of even a small number of free thinkers.

I will try again in 6 months to see if a single intelligent subject can be found here. I don't have one to offer except on the subject of UFOs. I'm even rethinking Big Foot. My grandfather drove us up to the Oregon border to look for signs of Big Foot. This was in the late 1940's. My husband drove us to New Mexico to search for information on the UFO crash sight. This was just before we had J.J. 1963. I've read all the books written on both subjects and began to write to a couple of scientists on the subject. I asked if these things could be related and opened a can of worms calling for investigation.

Not once was my IQ questioned or my morals degraded. I must keep these lines of intelligence discussions open before I kick the old bucket.

I hope you all have a happy Christmas. I did my "what's left of the family" Christmas party last night. The food was great and the music perfect. We opened our presents because many are leaving today for Hong Kong. Secretly, I said goodbye to a new friend who died of blood poisoning at the age of 35 on 12/20/12. He wrote many books on ancient history and guided my reading for the last couple of years.

"Sleep well, Phillip Coppens, we will all miss you here on earth."

My, my, Ms Saint of the Sand Pile (get it? san dune). That was the most remarkable post you've given us since I joined your fan club. Sparkling wit, complex satire, and a congenial eloquence nonpareil.

Thank you, and Merry Xmas to ya'll!

I was thinking that 'intelligent design' shouldn't be dismissed. It shouldn't be considered... Heh.

I have no problem with people who want to marvel at the majesty of the world and its intricacies and believe that it requires a 'creator' - as long as they accept that it is a matter of faith, and not attempt to foist it on others as 'scientifically proveable.' That is just silly.

I was thinking that 'intelligent design' shouldn't be dismissed. It shouldn't be considered... Heh.

I have no problem with people who want to marvel at the majesty of the world and its intricacies and believe that it requires a 'creator' - as long as they accept that it is a matter of faith, and not attempt to foist it on others as 'scientifically proveable.' That is just silly.

I promised to be more specific in my criticism of Professor Sewell's opinion piece, and here it is:

In the first paragraph, Professor Sewell asserts, "the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID) continues to gain momentum." There are two false claims embedded in this one statement - first that "Intelligent Design" is a "scientific theory." It is not. It is a statement of belief, and is not, in fact, supportable by scientific proof. Second, the assertion that it is "gaining momentum" is unsupportable. There are all kinds of fallacies wrapped up in this statement(e.g., the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy; The bandwagon fallacy), the most egregious of which are, ironically, mathematical. (A collection of data points does not create "momentum.")

It does not get better as the article progresses, e.g. "Until Charles Darwin, almost everyone everywhere believed in some form of intelligent design (the majority still do)," which combines the "Bandwagon" fallacy with "appeal to authority" and "argumentum ad antiquitatem" appeal to tradition. Mostly, it just doesn't make sense (as it is beside the point). He continues to pile fallacy on top of fallacy, saying "not just Christians, Jews and Muslims [tradition, authority], but almost every tribesman in every remote corner of the world [bandwagon] drew the obvious conclusion [begging the question] from observing animals and plants that there must have been [naturalistic, circular] a mind behind the creation of living things." Which is about as obvious a circular argument as is possible to make. Paragraph 3 again combines multiple fallacies - strawmen, false equivalency, and the "black and white" fallacy. And this is just the set up...

When he comes to actually presenting "what ID scientists believe" he starts with this whopper: "There is no general agreement among advocates of intelligent design as to exactly where, when or how design was manifested in the history of life." In other words, there is no theory of intelligent design. He goes on to reintroduce false equivalence by asserting, "This is what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design" adding in large doses of "composition/division", "the fallacy fallacy" ("Probably all reject natural selection as an adequate explanation for the complexity of life"), more strawmen ("This is what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design"), argument ad absurdum, "gambler's fallacy" and "slippery slope" ("The prevailing view in science today is that physics explains all of chemistry, chemistry explains all of biology, and biology completely explains the human mind; thus physics alone explains the human mind and all it does. ... to "Thus you must believe that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into computers and science texts and jet airplanes.")

Indeed, it is amazing, in such a short piece, that Professor Sewell was able to cram in at least a dozen, and probably closer to two, common fallacies (List of fallacies). That takes talent, or persistence, or an astounding lack of grasping common logical constructive techniques. It is, in short, a breathtaking work of illogic.

Did I dismiss intelligent design? Or did the thread just go extinct?