This science is the study of.

Theories are to speculate possibilities, not just discoveries.

which means exactly what?

certainly, but scientific theory is different remember? They have no scientific theory.....they just have a theory.

The title of this thread is....

Speculations on Intelligent Design, & the Real World

Science is valuable when it leads to new technology. However, theories that cannot be "proven" and do not produce real world applications are either "science fiction" or merely a substitute for religion and/or philosophy.

Can we consider the "Real World" and perceptual ambiguity.
How do we know that what we are "seeing" is real?

Here is a familiar example:

What do you see?

Some people see the profile of a young woman with a small nose and long eyelash. Other people see the lowered face of an old woman with a big nose and chin. Scientific data can also be subject to perceptual ambiguity.

Perceptual ambiguity can be found in studies as complex as the mind’s perception and interpretation of the origin and nature of life and the universe.

How can that be?
Look at the image - the pixels on your screen that form the image are a FACT. Yet your perception of the physical facts can "shift". Your interpretation of the FACT before your eyes is not determined by the fact itself.

Do you see an old woman or a young woman in the illustration? They are both present, but you will not be able to see both of them simultaneously. Once you perceive both figures, see if you can get them to fluctuate back and forth between the two interpretations.

What's Going on Here?

This type of reversible figure concerns the meaningful content of what is interpreted by your brain from the same static image. Your perception of each figure tends to remain stable until you attend to different regions or contours. Certain regions and contours tend to favor one perception, others the alternative.

Researchers have stablized the image directly onto the retina to eliminate any effects that may arise from eye movements. Even uder these conditions, a perceptual reversal may occur. This indicates that higher cortical processing occurs that strives to make meaning out of a stable image presented to the retina. This illustrates once more that vision is an active process that attempts to make sense of incoming information. As the late David Marr said, "Perception is the construction of a description."

Science, religion, politics, sports and even art can often be influenced by "group think". Perception is influenced by language and culture. "Groups" form their own sub-cultures and have their own "language". This is true of groups in all fields, including science.

Can we consider Speculations on Intelligent Design?

I would hope so.

The marketplace of ideas - It should be a free market. We should not allow religious, political or scientific dogma to inhibit our creative consideration of "alternate" views of reality.

I was on an airplane sitting next to a woman who was afraid of flying. I asked her why, and she said because she did not know what kept the plane from falling. I tried to comfort her by explaining the Bernoulli principle. She wasn't satisfied, she asked me, "how do we know if Mr. Bernoulli really knew what he was talking about?" I just smiled and said, "well, we haven't fallen yet."

Science - isn't always as comforting as some "scientists" would believe.

what you are talking about is subjectivity and perception.....there is also objectivity.....

Speculation is fine....but it belongs in a different course......if you read my earlier posts it is not about suppressing ideas it is about the appropriate course to discuss these ideas.........

and if you read any of the posts on narrative we could expand the comfort zone of those who perceive science as being unfeeling.

In fact ......it is a beautiful story about our world.

The problem of perceptual ambiguity is where "objectivity" and "subjectivity" overlap. The image of the young/old lady is a FACT on your screen. Which "interpretation" is real?

This thread is that "different course"

The way you tell it, it is.

visual interpretation is sometimes faulty that's why we rely on technological tools
with which we can base objective judgement.



Sorry I thought this was a discussion about the inclusion of ID in science courses....if you are developing your own theory I would have to bow out of this discussion....so as not to confuse the two


Thanks, must be the writer in me

I wonder, is there "consciousness" above or beyond the intellect? If the mind could be quiet long enough to consider the possibility... to observe its own thought processes...

Now, if we see the truth - that the thinker is thought, that there is no thinker separate from thought, but only the process of thinking, then what happens?

If we see that there is only thinking and not a thinker trying to modify thought, what is the result? The thinker is operating upon thought, and this creates conflict between the thinker and the thought; but if we see the truth that there is only thought and not a thinker, that the thinker is arbitrary, artificial and entirely fictitious - then what happens?

Is not the process of conflict removed? At present our life is a conflict, a series of battles between the thinker and the thought - what to do and what not to do, what should be and what should not be. The thinker is always separating himself as the `me' remaining outside of action.

But when we see that there is only thought, have we not then removed the cause of conflict? Then we are able to be choicelessly aware of thought and not as the thinker observing thought from outside.

When we remove the entity that creates conflict, surely then there is a possibility of understanding thought.

When there is no thinker observing, judging, molding thought, but only choiceless awareness of the whole process of thinking, without any resistance, without battle, without conflict, then the thought process comes to an end. J.Krishnamurti Paris 2nd Public Talk 16th April 1950

The data exist to calculate the probability within a small margin of error that
the next driver will yield. Probability statements are the only kind of knowledge available and that's good enough for me.

Specifically, which scientists or fields of science are you criticising?

That would apply if you are measuring something like a chemical or other physical sample, but if you are then "interpreting" many results, that are not directly connected by anything "measurable", then you are just giving it your best "scientific guess".
I believe this thread was started to "speculate" on the nature of "intelligent design" - if it is real, what "evidence" would point to it.

Yes, this would be a discussion for a "philosophy class".

Strictly speaking, blind means you can't see. We're using a metaphor here. A lack of "material evidence" or logical conclusion from the available material evidence can be called "blind" in a metaphoric sense. More so when the evidence is against you and you can't see it.



As usual, Bill, you're dead wrong. We do have evidence of "consciousness" existing in other people and animals.

But take heart, you're not the only one who got it wrong. Some years ago there was a big debate about something called "the Zombie Paradox" in AI.

Daniel C. Dennett answered the claim against not having evidence of consciousness, here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/unzombie.htm



This is why you should drive defensively. Slow down a bit and watch him, does it look like he sees you? Does it look like he's going to yield? You may have to break fast.



If you're stupid and always assume a driver will yield, yes. It would be. I once in awhile find myself yielding to someone who doesn't have the right of way because they're in a hurry and not paying attention.

Any natural science field that denies the possibilities of discovering the creation or intelligent design process through study.

We're not denying it. We're just saying that the attempts to prove this have rested on faulty and sometimes fraudulent evidence, bad logic and bad science. All that bad logic and science is itself a case against it.

But again -- what do you mean by intelligence?

I mean a complete system, where the problem solver has the problem. The reason I don't say evolution is intelligent is because evolution in itself alone has no problems, the living things it "designs" have problems -- but they don't solve them, they just get lucky enough to have what it takes to survive and breed and maybe pass that on to their offspring.

That's the thing about evolution -- it takes a horrifying amount of time and death to get results. For everyone of us who's ancestors survived and bred and got us to human, behind us are a billion, billion little corpses who didn't win the genetic lottery.

We've gotten off track here. My original point was that confidence = faith. I disputed that faith = blind faith. In the dictionary definition, confident is the first word of the first and most commonly used definition. The word blind, doesn't appear in the definition at all. You could argue lack of material evidence or mathematical logic equals blindness, but what about reasoning based on past experience. That isn't exactly blindness. I would argue that every assumption is based on past experience. There is no literal or metaphoric blindness in faith. Otherwise it wouldn't be faith. It would be a shot in the dark, hoping for luck.

The problem here is that science requires a degree of creativity that many scientists lack. Creativity is all about breaking the rules. It's hard to break the rules when you are the one who wrote them. Creation/ID is a blind spot for scientists (especially natural scientists) because they can't see past the limits of their own methodology. At minimum, it's a debate over semantics. There are rules that are destine to be broken. There are rules that have yet to be discovered. In the end, rules are man made, but nature doesn't live by the rules of man.

Maybe the macro system doesn't solve the problems, but perhaps the micro system does. If you look at each cell in the body as an independently intelligent life-form, the body is a pretty busy city. It may be on the micro level that the creation/design process is discovered.

How does dNA get re-coded from a learned experience. I don't consciously re-code my own dNA when I have a bad evolution experience. So who does? And is there information carried elsewhere besides the dNA?

Here is a reference that supports what you are saying Bill.

Although not the most entertaining, engrossing, or fascinating book (especially since decades have passed since Kuhn's ideas were first widely spread), the dialogue can certainly inspire the reader to continually question and keep an open mind. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is more than a discourse on the philosophy of science history. It is a wake up call to experiment scientifically when you don't already know, or think you know, what the result(s) will be.

Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data. History of science indicates that, particularly in the early developmental stages of a new paradigm, it is not even very difficult to invent such alternates. But that invention of alternates is just what scientists seldom undertake except during the pre-paradigm stage of their science's development and at very special occasions during its subsequent evolution. So long as the tools a paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through confident employment of those tools. The reason is clear. As in manufacture so in science--retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived. (p. 76)
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn

Thomas S. Kuhn was the Laurence Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I'd like to know what the process is Bill, if you do not think scientists are creative......that's just patently false.....

and I think the blind spot lies elsewhere!

A good science fiction story can stir the creative juices...
Have you read Darwin's Radio In the next stage of evolution, humans are history...
by GREG BEAR

The author's "hypothesis" is that the stress of modern life triggers a latent DNA virus that creates a radical evolutionary stage. He seems to be suggesting that radical evolutionary change can take place in a single generation, something like when a "seed" sprouts in fertile soil under the right conditions.

What "designed" the seed? The book doesn't go into that, but it does suggest some "creative" possibilities.

We will never know the process if it is never researched.

I didn't say all scientists and I didn't say absolutely lacking. I acknowledge that science requires creativity. Obviously science would have never advanced if all scientists absolutely lacked creativity. I was just pointing out that the lack of creativity that scientists have, to break their own rules, may slow the rate of discovery, or even stop it altogether in certain fields of study.

first of all you took this out of the context of what I said......
and secondly....what are you proposing now? That we study creativity itself? seems like a different topic altogether.





scientists break rules all the time when they modify theory......or challenge existing ones.....Remember Bohm?

Experience is the lowest form of scientific evidence. It's a call to look for better evidence but not a reason to reach conclusions unless you absolutely must act fast. What science does is take that as something to investigate -- and it has -- and I wrote about Michael Persinger in another thread.



I would argue that most assumptions are based on trust. Do you have any personal experience of Australia or China? They're just stories and blobby shapes on maps and globes -- maybe it's all a conspiracy, like Santa Claus?



If there is no other evidence but personal experiences that other people cannot verify then it's not trust worthy.



Science is generally defined by its methodology -- it's called the scientific method. It's limits are necessary. Can you come up with a different, better methodology? Or, are you saying science should abandon the scientific, experimental method?

Well, why don't you come up with a way to give single-cells an IQ test?

You are right, and this argument has come full circle.

Bill is saying he thinks the problem is one of semantics. Yes, that is true; if the word "science" is the issue.

Bill keeps trying to "redefine" the word science. Norm and DW wont let him get away with it.

Bill, why not just use the word philosophy. Because that is what you are doing - your "theory" of media science is a "philosophy".

Earlier, many posts were made discussing "string theory". In the PBS Nova presentation of The Elegant Universe, one of the physicists said, string theory can never be disproved, so "is it a theory or merely a philosophy". He wasn't "putting it down" - he was suggesting it did not meet the requirement of a "scientific theory".

Does it support what Bill is saying?



There is no crisis demanding retooling.

Correct because it is an hypothesis that is still being tested.....I am hoping it does advance .....

Physics might need re-tooling -- there does seem to be a crisis there. But not with Darwinian evolution.

That's the what real Creation/ID would be.


I agree. I was only making the point that they limit their own rate of discovery with their lack of willingness to break rules.

I know they are having a tough time....did you read the post I put in the old thread about a discussion by Ed Witten?

Your highlights were most appropriate. Thomas Kuhn intended to show the positive nature of science - some people accuse him of being anti-science. His work explains how science "evolves" by "revolutionary" changes triggered by crisis.

You say: "There is no crisis demanding retooling".

Well, the standard model is pushing the outside of the envelope... Human civilization is on the verge of dramatic change - what direction will that take? War, pandemic... or, an unforeseen "discovery" that changes the "energy" politics of the world, and the world economy?

Nanotechnology, biotechnology... I know you will say these are not in crisis, but evidence that science is succeeding.

Please answer this question: If you were put in charge of a national science R&D program and given a budget of 20 billion per year, how would you spend it?

Maybe scientists should expand the method.

If I were a biology scientist, I might.

Bill, what if there really is no distinction between macro/micro what if there are correlations or linkage? Maybe it is separate only for the purpose of definition........

I don't have a theory of media science. I just know that it is a science. There are many books and now schools that agree. But it has nothing to do with Creation/ID. I just bring it up, as a solution for science, whenever the political problem is discussed.

There is a distinction in scale of reference.

I went back to the other thread and got the link norm posted:

http://nobelprize.org/physics/articles/polanyi/index.html
On Being a Scientist: A Personal View
by John C. Polanyi
1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

Doing Science
Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. It is civilizing because it puts truth ahead of all else, including personal interests. These are grand claims, but so is the enterprise in which scientists share.
How do we encourage the civilizing effects of science? First, we have to understand science.

Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts. That is of course flattering, since facts are incontrovertible. But it is also demeaning, since facts are meaningless. They contain no narrative.

Science, by contrast, is story-telling. This is evident in the way we use our primary scientific instrument, the eye. The eye searches for shapes. It searches for a beginning, a middle, and an end.

What we see is as a consequence, culturally conditioned. This is open to misunderstanding. It might be construed to mean that our conclusions are simply a matter of taste, which they are not. Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal. It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people's experience.

This in turn, implies a commonality of human worth. If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people’s experience. Reality is no less precious if it presents itself to someone else. All are discoverers, and if we disenfranchise any, all suffer.

...Have we failed, as scientists, to explain science? Seemingly. Have we, too often, kept silent because we thought it expedient? Undoubtedly.

Being a Citizen
Though neglectful of their responsibility to protect science, scientists are increasingly aware of their responsibility to society. But what is this responsibility?

Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good. That is impossible. Science gives us a powerful vocabulary, and it is impossible to produce a vocabulary with which one can only say nice things.

Others think it the responsibility of scientists to coerce the rest of society, because they have the power that derives from special knowledge. But scientists, like any other group, are not permitted to seize the levers of power. Nor should they be blamed for failing to do so. They must work through democratic channels. Anything else would be incredible arrogance.

What responsibilities remain? Plenty. Scientists are only beginning to come to terms with them.

...What we in the scientific community were seeking, in our idealism, was a world ruled by law. The moral force that we brought to this debate derived from our membership in an international community ruled by law - albeit unwritten law. For without the acceptance and enforcement of standards of probity, there would be no functioning scientific community.

And without steps being taken to widen this realm of rule-based co-operation, beyond the narrow bounds of science and similar professions, there will be anarchy leading ultimately to all-out war. But technology had made such war intolerable. The solution is to be found not in more technology, but in less war.

...In science, truth must take precedence not only over individual advantage, but also over 'group advantage' - sectional interests such as nationality, creed or ethnicity.

This assertion of higher purpose has made scientists (and all scholars) supporters of human rights. Our championing of human rights puts to rest the notion that what we are offering is primarily technical expertise. Technical expertise has nothing directly to do with human rights. It is once more the moral force of science - evident in such individuals as Einstein, Russell, Pauling, and Sakharov - that makes it effective.

Our community's voyage of self-discovery is not over. I believe that it will lead us to a more active support of democracy, wherever it is threatened.

That notion would have seemed preposterous when I began my life as a scientist. But no longer. Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights. They should do the same for democracy, for the death of democracy is the death of free enquiry. The bell tolls for us.

I remember you posted this link:
http://superstringtheory.com/people/witten.html

Not exactly sure what you're getting at.

no it was the second to last post.....basically he stated that what was discovered in the 20th century was meant for the 21st.....that they are having to work backward to peel the onion.......and that that has added to the complexity

Scientists might not think Darwinian evolution is in crisis - but it certainly is facing a political crisis...

As I have said before, I have no problem with evolution as a biological process. I do however have a problem when it is suggested that the process "proves" there is no God.

I am willing to accept that the definition of the word "God" can be the source of the problem. But if not, then I must insist that those who are claiming "proof" of the absence of a "Higher Power", a "creative source" or "designer" are introducing "religion" into their "science".

Otherwise, I am fully supportive of the "science" of evolution.

The discussion of "intelligent design" or God, or not god, is Philosophy, not science or religion.

Speculations on the Philosophy of "intelligent design" would be a valuable discussion, I believe.

Physics is different. Evolutionary biology is not in need of re-tooling. And physics has been going through crisises for the past 80 years and has never wavered from the scientific method.



Top priorities:

1) Alternative energy -- oil is going to run out one day. Hydrogen production using biology -- genetically engineered microbes that produce separate the hydrogen out of water.

2) Re-work the green revolution and see if we can feed the world. Explore whether we can feed and house the world and make a growing though minimal survival and eduction a human right.

3) Reverse engineer the brain. Make sure we can make accurate models of all human neurons and study the psychology of all our would be enemies and create smart artificial intelligences that can do science.

4) Explore the possibility of Drexlarian nantechnology.

Very good choices - kind of loops back to the theme of this forum, Common Ground, Common sense: If all goes well (a big if) human civilization will be quite different in 100 years. Physical labor will be unnecessary because machines will obsolete manual human labor.

We will need big changes in economic theory. Political organization.

Can a democracy do it? Will we submit to the "wise and benign dictator"? Plenty of volunteers for that job.

The marketplace of ideas - that is where the future will be decided.

So, when we "construct" our own reality what we are really doing is "constructing a description" of what we perceive. In group think a whole lot of us construct the same description. The reality, apart from the description we construct of it, has it's own existence, including "perceptual reversals."

night Gals.....off to watch a movie......need to take a load off my brain cells......

Yes - this is the line of thinking that could be explored here. We see physical "evidence" of this phenomena in examples like "perceptual ambiguity". The popular "Stereograms" are another example.

Add the "group think" to this, such as collective "beliefs" and "prejudices"... we move away from the purely "physical" sciences.

Politics, religion, economics.... art, love.

Shared consciousness... for example, we are walking together on the beach at sunset, a breathtaking scene of clouds, light, color, reflections on the surface of the water, the rolling waves, the sounds of the ocean... it is beautiful.

Can we be satisfied with a "scientific" description of what we see and hear? If we attemt to describe the scene in terms of chemistry or physics, we lose sight of what we are looking at, and begin to see only the symbols and "descriptions" of science. Beauty remains in its own realm - apart from science.

We can also share experiences of ugliness and horror - loss and hopelessness.

Where is the "designer" in these things?

All science starts off as just philosophy.

Norm, this is a quote of yours from a previous thread - creationism in public schools. This was a very interesting interaction between you and Bill.





Norm, why would evolution create a place for God in our minds? What's the edge faith gives to survival? Why do humans have a need to create these fictional dieties? What purpose does the concept of God serve?





But we know our brains have evolved to include a concept of God. Whether or not God actually exists we have evidence pointing to the existence of neuroanatomical/neurophysiological God structures. Why?



A kid can disprove the existence of a white bearded fat dude who lives at the North Pole - but nobody can disprove the existence of the "magic" our belief in Santa yields. Even adults who no longer believe in Santa literally, continue to believe in him as a magical myth of childhood. Those of us who celebrate Christmas know well the reality of the "Christmas spirit."

Some concepts cannot be understood, some mysteries can't be "seen," until after we allow ourselves to believe. It's like belief can be a key that unlocks new "universes" of experience. Belief is the aperture through which new descriptions of reality are often constructed.

The human brain has evolved to contain a concept of the divine. It has also evolved to dispute the existence of the divine. What are possible evolutionary benefits of both?

It seems to me one of the most important things we (human race) will be doing in the coming decades is helping others construct healthier/more adaptive/more evolutionarily successful descriptions of reality. But we have to understand belief to do so. And we have to be willing to respect the varieties of belief in order be authentic enough to effect change.

BTW: I'm waiting for like 10 books to get here from Amazon - everything from the secret organization of ants to string theory. I think this thread should get some kind of royalties for all the business they're sending Amazon!

It didn't. The monotheistic God I defined is just one of the latest manifestation of the religious instinct.

Look back to Egypt, to a time before Judaism and Christianity... Egyptians worshiped many gods and goddesses and they had a few qualities of the Jewish/Islamic/Christian style God.

Here are just a few of the Egyptian gods:
http://www.egyptologyonline.com/egyptian_gods.htm

Egyptians thought that their kings descended from Re (or Ra), the sun god:
http://library.thinkquest.org/6182/religionandgods.html



The Egyptian citizens yielded to the Pharaohs as gods. The Pharaohs basically were gods. The citizens believed that if they did not serve the Pharaohs well, the Nile would not rise and they would not have a good farming season. State religion tended to focus on the concerns of the state and kingship.

The religion of Neolithic and predynastic Egypt appears to have been animistic nature worship, with each village or town with its own spirit in the form of an animal, bird, reptile, tree, plant or object. The spirit was always in something that played a prominent part in the life of the people of that locality. The spirits fell into two general groups - that which was friendly and helpful, such as cattle, or that which was menacing and powerful such as the crocodile or snakes. In both cases, the favour of the spirit had to be solicited with a set formula of words and action, and they had to have houses built for them and offerings made to them. This can be called superstition -- superstition is a big part of the religious instinct.

Religion in ancient Egypt later became a tool of statecraft and Egypt grew beyond its villages and became a world power the first of them. Thus religion has been a tool of statecraft for most of human history since. The Pharaohs ruled for 2,000 more years and called themselves gods. There has never been any other government that lasted so long. That was before something called "the Enlightenment" and a lot of revolutions like our American revolution as well as the french and communist revolution that got rid of their priest-endorsed rulers. Yet, the ancients were far more corrupt in their use of religion than the Catholics. A shift has occured in the human psyche, but it hasn't happened for everyone.

What those ancients did, consciously or unconsciously, was they started taming animals and plants and creating farms -- but they didn't just tame animals, they tamed other people too. Conquest followed their new material riches and religion became part of taming the other people who worshipped mere pagan spirits.

http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/egyptian.htm

Also consider the Code of Hammurabi:
http://www.answers.com/topic/code-of-hammurabi
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557..._Hammurabi.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html

There is a bas-relief in which the king is depicted receiving the code from the sun god, Shamash. The quality most usually associated with this god is justice. Many immoral acts, such as the use of false weights, lying, etc., which could not be brought into court, are severely denounced in the Omen Tablets as likely to bring the offender into "the hand of God" as opposed to "the hand of the king."

Religion thus helps put a policeman inside your head.



No. I said we had a religious instinct. Read Persinger for more details on what he's discovered. The religious instinct is a drive to trust authorities, especially ones introduced during childhood (like parents) and to reason badly and superstitiously. Part of that instinct is projecting ourselves, our own sense of consciousness and purpose onto the world when it's not appropriate. We were born to be part of a human world and we make the world around us seem as human as possible.



And what evidence do you have that you actually understand anything?

My understandings give me power. What do yours give you?

Because people don't understand the theory. They don't understand that at heart it's an algorithm that gives natural selection its power to design. They don't understand the algorithm is part of AI.

They should produce a few TV specials... Alas, the TV specials we get on major networks are more like "UFOs are here!" And they just recycle old info over and over.



Well, what evolution "proves" has more to do with what you think "God" did than whether some undefined entity exists. If you think God wrote the genetic code for human beings and then slapped them down on Earth with no evolutionary history then you're wrong. If you think God planned and wrote our long strings of genetic codes after the first cells and mammals appeared using some supernatural tool and then inserted them at various stages then you're wrong. As slim as the evidence is, it very conclusively points to human beings emerging naturally, by evolutionary means, by natural selection, from pre-human primates that were also great-great-great-etc. grandfather and grandmother to the monkeys.

If you think God wrote the genetic codes for the first cells and then let them evolve, well, I can't prove you wrong in the way I can prove monkeys and humans are related but that proposition does violate Occam's razor for it seems some form of evolution from replicating molecules would account for that too. If complex organisms like humans evolve, then certainly simple molecules would be subject to the same principle.

If you want to say God kicked off the universe and made sure it would evolve life, then all I can say is that the God assumption is silly and unnecessary for explaining why there is a universe that evolves life in it. We may not know where matter, energy, time and the universe came from -- yet. But we know they're here and saying God did only raises the question -- where did God come from and how did he do it? As such the God-explanation is no explanation at all because nothing is really explained. All you've got is a "god-of-the-gaps."

I can't prove there's no God. But I can show that thinking in those terms is useless for science.



What is this, black-mail? You'll stop supporting evolution as long as we don't step on the toes of your precious little illusion? Wouldn't you rather know the truth than continue to believe in a lie?

Well, tough "expletive deleted". The evidence is what the evidence is and in the end we're looking for some metaphysical truth which is beyond any kind of proving. You're free to assume you can know more than what can be indicated by science, but you can't falsely claim science supports your views. Your religious faith in this modern world has to be blind.



Yes, it would be -- but you can't teach "intelligent design" in a science class because it's not science. You also can't claim it's a competing theory with little stickers because ID is not a scientific theory.

Some other scientist beat you to the punch again, Bill:
http://beliefbook.com/page.php?id=23

It's a new-age piece of fluff, but, he's thinking of cells as human-like with personalities of a sort. It's the sin of anthropomorphism, but it's a neat metaphor. The cells in your body are a society working together.