[extropy-chat] intelligent design homework

[The Avantguardian]

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> ...I was going to debate your points, but on this
> one you are correct.
> If you want a more thorough proof of why "evolution"
> is not the same as
> "God's will" than I can provide, go talk to
> professional biologists.

      Hold on tiger. I AM a professional biologist and
although I can prove that, given an existing organism,
evolution can proceed without the existence of God,
nothing that I know, nor experiments that I can
conceive of with existing technology, can prove that
evolution can proceed without some a priori life form.
Nor can I prove that evolution is NOT the will of God.
I think its a shame that both camps don't realize that
evolution and ID are not mutually exclusive. If one
posits that life was a bunch of special creations
(sort of like product patents) by some designer, well
I can show you a ton of evidence why this is not the
case (like dinosaurs with feathers). But if one posits
that God or whoever instead simply designed the
progenote and its capacity to reproduce and undergo
evolution (like a process patent), there is no way to
disprove it. Indeed, in the complete lack of evidence,
experimental proof, and a sample size of one, this
hypothesis is by Bayesian standards of equal
probability of being true as any other hypothesis
about the origin of life.
      
     I KNOW evolution is true. The theory of evolution
alone however is not capable of disproving nor proving
the existense of an intelligent designer. Only that
that designer was not needed to explain the diversity
of life on Earth. One can speculate either way, but
one CANNOT know. Not unless we can figure out a way to
empirically determine it one way or another. I am not
talking about the synthesis of amino acids in the lab,
I am talking about the spontaneous generation of de
novo life in vitro.

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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