James Bond 3rd wrote: If all you are saying is that we don't need to invoke a designer to explain "non-designed" phenomenon, I agree. But of course this begs the question: how does one determine something is not designed?
Random ignorant chance theory of the origin of life from non design is not a fact of life, it is gobbledygook. Oh, I quite agree, which is why I get confused when the non IDer's push out as fact such nonsense as the origin of life is known to be a product of non design and random ignorant chance. Evolution, if you want to narrowly define it as the observed changes of biological organisms, is of course a fact. However, when you ask most people what evolution is, they think unguided change of biological species from lower to higher species which of course is not itself a fact, as it is not known if it guided or unguided, or if higher species did in fact have their origin in lower species. Pompous jargon is the hallmark of the so called "scientists" and ID critics...who push their beliefs on people as if they were facts of life.
You're just showing your ignorance. So you think you are showing your intelligence? LOL! Physicists know a lot about what happened "during the big bang." Here is an introduction for your benefit: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/InTheBeginning.html No physicist knows that there even was a big bang. It is just a guess, so is what happend during that so called big bang is also just a guess... Then you're twisting scientists words to fit your own religion. I see you twist words of scientists to fit your own agenda constantly... The scientists are saying that the universe "appears designed." This makes perfect sense to me. It makes perfect sense, as it does appear designed, and as of yet, there is no proof that it wasn't designed. Not even a logical argument that shows how it is an impossibility for the universe to be a product of design. But what do the scientists do? They assume non design first, then fix and fit the data in such a way as to make that appear as a possible truth. Go figure... There are things that we don't yet understand so these things appear to us to be "designed" by some superbeing. A human being to a dog may appear to be a superbeing. It is relative. A higher natural being is hardly impossible, and given the unending universe is a possibility, if not probability. I would think that even the evolutionists would hold that evolution in other parts of the universe could easily have produced beings so superior to man that they would appear as superbeings. It's just a way to marvel at the beauty of the universe. It does not necessarily reflect a belief that there is a "Designer." However, such marveling is not part of scientific endeavor. Says who? You? Scientists marvel at the universe, which is why most were attracted to science in the first place. They found the world around them so marvelous that they seek to understand it more and more comprehensively... I don't need to invoke a "Designer." Whether there is or is not a "Designer" is irrelevant to science. A designer would hardly be irrelevant to science, a designer would be most relevant to understanding what we discover through science. Up til today at least, all understood natural phenomena have physical explanations that do not need a "Designer." We have had explanations throughout the history of science that sounded good, and maybe felt right, but were none the less false. A scientific explanation is not a truth by itself, not is a scientific explanation necessarily scientific. The standard seems to be if there is broad enough acceptance of an explanation by scientists, then it is put forth as a "scientific" explanation. Phenomena not yet understood appear to us to have a "Designer" behind them. A scientist believes that in a matter of time, these will be understood scientifically as well - which means that they too, will be explained without the need to invoke a "Designer." Yes, scientist may believe that because of their faith in science... Just a faith though...a belief system, which is seen very often as a dogma... The day we need a "Designer" to explain a natural phenomenon, is the day when science dies. Hardly...
Teleologist asked: TraderNik responded: How does one determine if something in nature is not designed?
You're a lost cause. But for others' benefit, here is the reason why the Big Bang is not just a guess, but a scientific theory verified experimentally. When the Big Bang theory was first proposed in 1927 by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, it was regarded by most scientist at the time as simply a curiosity. A speculation that didn't really mean anything. At the time, Einstein's general relativity was attacting all the attention. Einstein's theory did not predict the Big Bang. This was considered Einstein's biggest blunder of his life. What made the Big Bang theory real science rather than one of many speculations? It made a bold prediction and the prediction was verified experimentally. The Big Bang theory predicted that there should be a uniform background microwave radiation, the "echo" of the original Big Bang. This radiation should be equivalent to a temperature of 3 degree Kelvin (or -454.27 degree Fahrenheit). In other words, the theory not only predicts that we should "hear" an echo of the Big Bang, it predicts precisely how "loud" that echo is. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson measured the background microwave radiation, and found that it indeed is 3 degree Kelvin. They received Nobel Prize for this measurement, and the Big Bang theory became confirmed science. Even though we were not there to witness the Bang, we are still "hearing" its echos today. Today's state of art measurement is many times more accurate than the Nobel Prize winning measurement done 42 years ago. The theoretical prediction and the measurement agree to a T. Exactly what predictions can an ID theory make?
Oh, and how do you rule out a spurious correlation? Oh, and how do you know that the "uniform background microwave radiation" was in fact produced by some mythical big bang? The only possible explanation is a big bang theory? How do you know this radiation exists in all parts of the universe? Hell, we haven't even found the beginning point or the end point, of if there is an end point, or if there is a beginning point, yet people think that a big bang that could produce the universe, of which we probably know next to nothing of given our limited tools, limited intellect, and limited point of view...came from nothing...all the organizing power of the universe came from nothing... Too funny. LOL! Oy vey, too funny... Big bang is a guess, not a fact in evidence. There are literally scores of problems with the theory: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=problems+with+big+bang+theory&btnG=Google+Search Just like the fact that some people believe they are descended from apes, as a product of some ignorant chance evolutions...and obviously, some people in this thread are doing their best to prove it correct by their massive apebrained assumptions. I am continually amazed the lengths people will go to in order to avoid what is obvious...
Simple. Just show how it can be done by a random cause. For example, look at the beautiful patterns in this picture Are these "designed?" They appear to be. What is the scientific answer to this phenomenon? Should we simply say "these patterns cannot happen by random chance. Someone must have designed them" and stop there? No. As a scientist, one wants to find out what are the natural forces that caused these patterns. This turned out to be one of the classical examples of nonlinear dynamics in chaotic systems. See here for the story: http://fpnew.ccit.arizona.edu/kkh/climate/regional.htm Put two forces of nature, gravity and temperature, together with random chance, you get these beautifully "designed" patterns. So if you don't know the cause of a phenomenon, it would appear to you to be "designed." But once you get to the bottom of it, it's just random "ignorant" chance.
Go ahead, make a bold prediction based on your ID theory. Very few "theories" can make actual predictions. Fewer still get their predictions right. If the Big Bang theory is only a "guess," then it is one heck of a guess to get everything that it predicts correct. As for the "problems" with the Big Bang theory, the first link on your google search states, "These difficulties are not so much errors as they are assumptions that are necessary but that do not have a fundamental justification." In other words, these are more like unanswered questions rather than deficiencies of the theory as you implied. No scientific theory can answer all questions. We make progress by answering more of them everyday. But each time we anwer a question, new questions come up. The more we know, the more we know how little we know. Except for people like you who refuse to learn.
There's something called "Occam's razor." Haven't you heard of it? If you see dinosaur fossiles, you can choose between these equally valid theories: 1. There were dinosaurs that lived 65 million years ago, the age determined from carbon dating; 2. God placed these fossiles there to test our faith, and made the carbon isotope in exact the correct amount so that the fossiles would appear 65 million years old. The first choice doesn't require any additional assumption other than the data we already have. The second choice requires not only the assumption of a God, which may not be a problem by itself, but it assumes a mischieveous God. Now even a lot of Christians would object to that! Likewise, when you hear an echo, you can choose to believe that there was a "bang" from an explosion, or that Invisible Freddie was playing tricks with your ears. One is science, the other is delusion. Your pick.