Wow i cannot believe there was a debate about the absurd notion of intelligent design that I have missed for so long. I guess its time for me to step up.
First off i would like to state my premise, that Intelligent design is the most ludicrisly illogical concept ever attempted to be presented by pseudoscientific, pseudological, fundamentalists.
OK now let us examine what intelligent design states.
Intelligent design claims, that the complexity and "order" of the natural world, both in the realm of life and in the universe in general, can only have been brought about by a higher being, a god if you will, and thus all of modern biology, physics, astronomy, geology, and basically all of science is wrong. (the anti-science part is rarely stated but it is implied in the basic claim).
Now in order to defend intelligent design there are several standard arguments, many brought up by Preacher (now i know why he is called that). They all either illustrate a logical fallacy, or are just plain based in incorrect facts. I will now present a sampling of each of these and will demonstrate why they are fallicious.
1. "The second law of thermodynamics claims that everything is moving towards chaos, not order, thus (evolution, the evolution of galaxys stars planets etc) must be wrong and god must have done it"
This statement is insidious for several reasons, firstly most people dont know enough about thermodynamics etc to be able to see the fallacy with this argument making it an appeal to the ignorance of the general populace, secondly it sounds smart. It is just completely WRONG. The second law of thermodynamics roughly states that "Entropy will always increase within a closed system". Entropy can be taken in this context to mean disorder, chaos, wasted energy. Now what is a "closed system" you may ask, a closed system is a system that does not have any interactions with any other system, no energy or matter transfer. This is important because the earth is an open system, each star is an open system, any square parsec of space is an open system, but the universe as a whole is a closed system. Within an open system entropy can be decreased considerably but in order to do this the entropy outside of this system must be increased. Thus individual eddys of order can and are created in exchange for generally increasing the disorder of the universe. As such all the things mentioned in fact can happen in accordance wiht the 2nd law of thermodynamics and form an integral part of it because one of the primary ways in which entropy is increasing throughout the universe is via the creation of temporary sub-systems of order.
Just think about this. If evolution (the most commonly argued point) violated the second law of thermodynamics, so would a baby growing from a single fertilized cell into a multicellular functional organism. Thus there would be no people.
Also think about this, we as humans increase the entropy of the outside world all the time. We take a fully formed reletively ordered piece of meat, with complex protiens, carbohydrates, etc. and break it down into its component elemts then release portions of this back into the system of the earth in the form of excrament and CO2.
Next argument:
1. Look at the world around you, everything in nature is so interrelated and complex that it can only have been designed, if you remove a single species from the chain of life entire portions fall apart. God must be responsable.
Im sorry but if god is responsable for life then he is either an idiot or grossly incompetent. Since we are talking about complexity of design engineering may be a good thing to bring up. An axiom for engineers is the concept of Occams Razor, basically that all other things being equal the least complex method should be chosen. In other words the less complex the better. Life on earth is interdependant, complex, and generally flawed, a better example of jury rigging I have never seen. The "best" most "intelligently designed" system would be one with the least interdependacy, the least complex, and the least flawed.
Flaws in the system present themselves well in humanity. First off the vast majority of our DNA is unneeded by a human being, it is waste leftovers of former evolutionary pathways, if humanity was designed, why would we need the gene codes to produce gills? More improtantly is the human eye. Basically it is wired backwards, the neurons on the retina must obstruct the detection abilitiy of the eye inorder to relay data back to the brain, they reduce our visual accuity. Now some would claim that this is the only way to makean eye, or the best way that exists, however the Eye for the branch that contains the Squid and the Octapus has a properly wired eye. Why would god have replicated the same bad design in 95% of all vertebrate animals only to use a good design in 5% of the animals. There is a word for when an engineer or designer uses a design that he knows is subpar that can lead to death and danger and a reduction in efficiency, it is called incompetant, or more often "criminally negligent". Your "intelligent designer" is not only incompetent but also should be arrested for his gross negligence.
Next argument:
1. The universe works so perfectly planets revolve around stars, etc. God must have done it.
Answer: The laws of physics work well to
Follow up
2. Those laws of physics must have been created by a designer to work so perfectly.
Answer: IN this case the argument presented is that the laws of physics need a god to create them. The choice is between: the observed properties of the universe as generated in the big bang (an observed phenomina) and all those exact same properties but with some dude sitting around thinking them up then taking a 13 billion year long vacation. This once again is where Occams Razor as a philisophical concept comes into play, all other things being equal take the least complex. Well both claimants dont dispute the laws of physics so the only difference is god. Thus god can be removed, eliminating redundancy which in this model of god, he is.
There are alot more arguments i could refute, i havent the time, and this is already too long a post
rolleyes: ) laws? ?
