Quack
Posts: 1961 Joined: May 2007
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Quote | I recently published 4 peer-reviewed articles that each propose design-based alternative theories to areas of evolutionary research and consider my research the link between ID and hard science.
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I have no reason to doubt the quality of the articles mentioned, except I am very skeptical about the premise upon which they apparently rest. To me, mention of a “link between ID and hard science” lights a warning light. A link between ?? and ‘hard science? Even the link?
Quote | Future research should be able to tell whether natural causes or driving forces will be enough to create an intricate molecular machine such as Life. It will be a question for engineers, who in general are much more skeptical about the feasibility of reaching such a complex system in a relatively short time.
I consider my use of design patterns as the link between evolutionary science and intelligent design. It is based on the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine, and when you try to understand how a machine works, you study its design.
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I don’t know to what degree I may qualify as an engineer, but I have at least been working with engineered machines & electronics most of my life.
Firstly, let me say that I object to the implied similarity between manmade – designed, manufactured or built machines – and [an] “intricate molecular machine as Life”. I’d rather limit the validity of such comparisons to be between regular machines and robots.
I don’t think manmade machinery and life have anything in common. Otherwise, I believe we have to include the entire universe or solar systems in our definition of designed systems. After all, the solar system behaves like any other machine.
Put simply, the premise that Life is an evolving molecular machine is wrong. Whenever I have been studying a machine, I have studied how it works. I never have bothered with thoughts about its design. I have assumed that it was designed and built for a specific purpose and left it at that.
So what is the purpose of life? Off the top of my head, I would say ‘to procreate.’ I do in fact believe that is all there is to it. If we consider the fact that all life display this tendency, this drive towards procreation, and also take into consideration that this seems to be of such importance that it takes precedence even before preservation of individual life, that is the most reasonable inference.
The higher goal, survival of the genes takes precedence over individual life. A strange purpose for any machine. Machines are made for quite specific purposes.
WRT “engineers, who in general are much more skeptical about the feasibility of reaching such a complex system in a relatively short time”, I am rather sceptical about that statement.
What does it mean – is 3+ billion years insufficient to account for evolution? In my opinion, the geological and fossil record, in addition to other evidence shows it absolutely sufficient.
As long as ID remains an alternative that needs artificial links to science, it will remain simply the argument that it is too complex to have evolved, ergo it was designed.”
It doesn’t seem reasonable to believe that we will find any (better) answers about the origins of species by abandoning tried and sound scientific methods.
BTW, AdR's homepage is very hard to read - i can't read it. I have tried both Firefox, Opera and MSIE, but the light characters on a black background are too dim.
-------------- Rocks have no biology. Robert Byers.
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