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Numsgil:
My personal take on all of it is that ID is not precluded from the realm of possibility, so we shouldn't dismiss it. There were many rather stocastic evolutionary developments that can be explained as outside interference.
Cambrian explosion/development of eukaryotes comes to mind. It also doesn't necessarily need to be explained that way. But being able to explain something using a different set of events doesn't mean that set of events is wrong.
What bugs me is the fanatics on the side of evolution. I can understand fanatics on the side of ID, since it has religious undertones, but science is supposed to be less religious and more logic. Since strong ID theories say evolution is impossible, "science" people feel the need to say ID is impossible, and totally dismiss it.
Which gets annoying really fast for me. It is not outside the realm of possibility, or even probability, that our planet's development has been influenced at some point by an intelligent outsider. We've been here for 5 billion years, the universe is huge, life probably developed elsewhere. Why can't we assume that at some point in 5 billion years, something intelligent somewhere influenced the Earth one way or another.
It's simply unreasonable to assume we've been in our own little bubble for 5 billion years. Which is an interesting statement because it probably would tick off both evolutionists and creationists at the same time.
Endy:
Probably. :D
Who knows? My own guess is that there a whole slew of factors known and unknown affecting life. Most of the "positive proofs" I've seen can be taken either way supporting the complex logic and richness of evolution or the insightfulness of a creator.
Do you ever sleep? Man it must be really early where you are. :)
Have a good week.
Make sure DB is simulating reality perfectly by the time I get back :lol: :D :lol:
shvarz:
--- Quote ---My personal take on all of it is that ID is not precluded from the realm of possibility, so we shouldn't dismiss it.
--- End quote ---
The problem with ID is that in essense it is not a scientific theory. Not because "it is wrong", but simply because it is not a scientific theory. Take any poem - it is a perfectly nice thing to learn and ponder about, but it is not a scientific theory. So, it should not be discussed as such.
Any scientific theory should be testable by an experiment. It is impossible to come up with an experiment that would either prove or disprove ID. So, I'll repeat, it is not a scientific theory. It's place is in phylosophy class, not in science.
Numsgil:
Is forming an artificial organism impossible? I'd say no, as I bet most people would say.
Can organisms form themselves? Again, I'd say yes.
So I really don't see what all the fuss is about in the turf of science. I mean, evolution throws some kinks in many religions, but the reverse simply isn't true.
Testable? Why, ID is very nearly testable. Right now we're just copying and pasting genes around, but very soon I'll wager we will be able to create custom genes that do what we want (or not do what we want, but that's really another issue). Genetic manipulation is truly coming into its own.
Once we're at that point, we've just proved that ID is indeed possible and really not all that difficult with the right tools.
Is it unfeasible that we humans, in the future, would genetically engineer different life forms to exist and colonize different worlds? Leaving the pure desire for creation aside, a dead planet is much less productive than a somewhat terraformed planet. Admitedly it would take many, many years to form free oxygen in the atmosphere, but terraforming a dead planet like Mars into something with a thick atmosphere and some form of life is really not all that difficult. It's almost within the realm of present technology (if not prohibively expensive).
What does it mean if we were engineered, leaving philosphy aside for the moment? Evolution is really one of the least explored theories. We just chalk up so many things to evolution without really understanding the intracacies of the process.
Maybe some things really are impossible for evolution to do. Within a limited time period anyway (say, the 10 billion years our sun is stable). Can we say one way or another how complex evolution can form things? Do we have experimental evidence?
Maybe ID and evolution are components in part of a large, intergalactic ecosystem that spans the beginning to the end of time. Understanding the interaction between the two could be a science in and of itself.
Just thinking outloud really. My point is that ID is no more or less intrinsically scientific than evolution. They are just different modus operandi for the same process.
Griz:
take it to the limit:
in an infinite universe ...
not only is anything possible ...
it already IS.
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