Intelligent Design vs Evolution

I'm beginning to believe that those who are atheist have as much faith in the theory of evolution as much as those who believe in a God. I don't believe in a particular God but I'm beginning to believe in intelligent design. Its beginning to make more sence to me than evolution. And when I hear religious people talk about how God created everything in 7 days, I immediately believe that they are not representing those who lean toward intelligent design but more of the atheist who go by faith.

I was recently studying how auditory sensory (nerves that lead to the brain to allow the brain to comprehend) develop in babies and studies show that they are in place and activated only when parents begin to speak to the child. If parent don't speak to the baby, the nerves will deteriate and the child will not learn to comprehend. We know this from feral children. In order to have speech, you must have hearing and comprehension. If a baby doesn't have comprehention, they won't learn from the parents and try to communicate. With no effects in articulation, the muscles in the tongue and around the mouth will not develop. With no comprehension, certain parts of the brain don't develop. All this and more shows that speech is very important. To the design theorist it was intelligently put in place. To the atheist its like which evolved first, the chicken or the egg? Speech or auditory comprehension?

Humans need speech to develop auditory comprehension and auditory comprehension to develop speech. Evolutionist cannot explain how speech evolved. One reason is that they would also have to explain how auditory comprehension and parts of the brain evolved all at the same time. Studies show that grunts are not enough. When I spoke to atheist about this, they relied on their faith in evolution. Not on scientific facts.

Pete

hey pete, i've thought about these things as well. i've learned though that evolution does not explain the origin of all things, it only explains the process. i do believe that there is sufficient evidence to show that evolution is a fact. missing links and fossils keep turning up all the time. what kick-started this process is still up for debate, and honestly i don't think we'll ever really know.

i've looked at the flipside of what appears to be intelligent design, and one has to wonder why the human body has such apparent flaws. such as the birth canal in a woman, and why without modern medicine, 1 in every 5 women die (and throughout history, have died) in childbirth. the journey of a baby through the canal is twisted and puts both the mother and child in peril. in most animals, the baby pops right out. why not in humans? also the design of the back appears flawed, as humans were not meant to walk upright and put all their weight on their hips and knees. that is why so many people suffer from lower back, knee and hip problems. the way a woman is designed appears flawed as well, in that their hips are not parallel to their knees, putting undue pressure on joints.

i kind of know what you're saying about the faith issue. that's why i take the stance of an agnostic. i cannot say what has driven the universe to create. is the universe self-created? i like to think of the laws that govern the universe kind of as 'God' (for lack of a better term).

if the universe is self-governed, without an intelligent mind behind it, that would explain why there are so many hits and misses. it seems as if we are for the most part a 'hit' something that worked out right. if you look into the universe though, there are colliding galaxies and failed stars and blackholes that suck up anything in their path. if someone was intentionally directing these things, then why? why so little life in a vast universe? is the universe (or a creator) interested in creating life? it doesn't appear to be so. also looking at the longterm of things, someday the sun will die out. someday our galaxy will collide with another galaxy. someday the universe will expand so much that stars will not have the nuclear fusion they need to burn. the universe will grow cold and die. it's just the process of things. in learning about the universe i see that it's on it's own path. and we are lucky to be a part of the ride.

the more i read and research, the more i appreciate the universe and my part in it. it doesn't make me feel insignificant at all. it makes me realize that we are all connected to something, whatever that something may be.

sarah

Hi Sarah, I don't totally dismiss evolution. Some of the theory may be true but I believe there are some limits to what it claims. I don't think it has all the answers. Believing in intelligent design is believing that we may not be alone in this universe. Unlike creationist, it doesn't say if the designer is perfect and therefore its creation are perfect. It just says that ID may have some influence. People confuse the creationist with the design theorist.

Science shows that there were the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. In each case it seems that the pre, Jurassic, and post dinosaurs all of a sudden disappeared with each period suddenly starting over. Evolutionist try desperately to find links. They haven't. They always come up with something tied to a theory that eventually falls apart. I have heard people say jokingly, "God was experimenting wiping them (dinosaurs) out and starting over". Well maybe that was the case. Maybe that is what led up to us. Maybe we are not perfectly made because it is not perfect. Maybe it has limits. Maybe there is more than one. Maybe some are more powerful than others. Maybe this explains UFO sightings.

The belief in intelligent design is not like the belief in creation. This is what many people don't understand. Design theorist say that just "maybe evolution or natural selection is not involved in this one. It looks like some outside force may have had some influence." Then sees it as a possible theory.

I believe that the evolutionist are hogging up science for themselves and don't want ID in because this gives the creationist an opportunity to say, "This is what we have been telling you all along." And they don't want that. They don't want religion involved. I love science and I have come across Many Many of the questions that are similar to: which came first the chicken or the egg. And don't you know that evolutionist have not been able to reasonably solve not even ONE.

Pete

>>> missing links and fossils keep turning up all the time.

Was somebody talking about me again?

The way I see it - if we were intelligently designed, then whoever that designer was - he was one sadistic bastard. Everything in nature is about killing or avoiding being killed. Look into the marvelous ways that animals are equipted to slaughter each other. Do you think someone can be that intelligent, and that heartless at the same time?

>>> missing links and fossils keep turning up all the time.

Was somebody talking about me again?

The way I see it - if we were intelligently designed, then whoever that designer was - he was one sadistic bastard. Everything in nature is about killing or avoiding being killed. Look into the marvelous ways that animals are equipted to slaughter each other. Do you think someone can be that intelligent, and that heartless at the same time?

I thought about that and the answer is, yes!! We might just be an experiment. Once they get tired of us, we will be wiped out like the dinosaurs, And then they will have new species millions of years from now looking at our bones and trying to find links with their own taking about how we evolved into them. LOL Or maybe they are like the creapy person in this video.

http://www.youtube.co...

Pete

I'm an Atheist and if I take the time to consider how man got here, I think the big bang theory and evolution best explains it. Creationism and intelligent design just don't have enough physical proof IMO.
Possibly the source of life, with its zero intelligence, is overlooked and may possibly be the creator of life as well.

I've read and re-read Petes opening post and subsequents. Pete am I right in understanding that you think that there wasa designer, but if wasn't necessarily god? Stop me if I'm missing the point and heading in the wrong direction here.

Just going by the subject heading 'intelligent design vs evolution'. My question is if you take a a single designer out of the scenario does it really have to be 'vs' in an 'either-or'? I don't see the two as mutually exclusive.

Interesting points about speach development. I was watching a documentory a while back on Neanderthal man. As I understood it Neanderthal was a species very similar to homo-sapien (or another branch of homo-sapien and humans were the other species - i cant be arse to look on wikipedia now). Anyway Neanderthals and Humans were a bit like sheep and goats, horses and donkeys etc. It seemed that humans flourished as hunters, and later farmers and Neanderthals became extinct in the same areas with the same resources and the more-or-less the same mental capacity. The main difference scientists noticed, were the absence of any workable vocal system, that humans posessed. Therefore speach never happened in Neanderthals and so they never bred as effectively or formed communities like humans did. So most neanderthals were isolated hunters. That speaks both intelligent design and evolution to me. A species dies out due to one missing factor, a design flaw and another progresses to a level where they build cities and polute the environment and blow it up (but thats a whole other rant). I think if god cared more about his earth, which he designed - he would have given the neanderthals the right to just carry on hunting, breeding in a less drastic way, and keep the poles frozen.

While on holiday I had a discussion with a current JW. She came back with the washing machine and computer theory to prove designer above chance. A computer had to have a designer, so why not much more complex humans. Well computers did have designers, but which one was the designer. The ancients that discovered binary? The abacus, IBM, Bill Gates? The computer has evolved from a bulky thing with a green and black screen, to laptops the size on an A4 notepad with much more memory. There is more capacity in our cell phones than 1970-80s computers. Design is there but not one designer, more glaringly - evolution is there also. So I guess my point is, as the ongoing development and demise of species, incl humans, cannot be down to any one thing, and therefore finding that point of singularity that created it is an impossible task.

Pete am I right in understanding that you think that there wasa designer, but if wasn't necessarily god? Stop me if I'm missing the point and heading in the wrong direction here.

Chris, that is exactly what I'm saying. When I say ID versus evolution, and not saying that there is one designer like what the creationist believe and ruling evolution completely out. There may be some who believe in ID and believe that there is one designer. To me that is a creationist. By having the subheading as ID vs evolution I guess I'm leaving it open for all to join in. The problem that I have notice is that every time one mentions ID, atheist think of the creationist. They right away think of a loving, caring, intelligent, perfect God.

I just starting reading some of writings of the theories of the design theorist so I can't comment on all of their beliefs/theoreis or on that community just yet. I can only comment on what presently makes sense to me. When I think of an intelligent designer, I think of one or more who adds to a process. For example, One ID starts the life going. It reaches a plateau. An ID then adds to it keeping the evolution or natural selection going.


You stated: Neanderthals became extinct in the same areas with the same resources and the more-or-less the same mental capacity. The main difference scientists noticed, were the absence of any workable vocal system, that humans posessed. Therefore speach never happened in Neanderthals and so they never bred as effectively or formed communities like humans did. Now things evolve for a reason. Right? What triggered speech in the humans and why didn't it trigger it in the Neanderthals?

Notice what an evolutionist Steve Olson says about this problem: ?Of course, language could not have come from nowhere. To speak, early humans needed particular vocal and neural mechanisms. But here a notorious problem arises. Any adaptations produced by evolution are useful only in the present, not in some vaguely defined future.?

Steve Olson, Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002), 87.

In other words, for human speech to work, the brain structure, the tongue, the larynx, the vocal cords, and many other parts all need to be fully developed before speech can even begin. Also, all of those structures need to be already develop before auditory comprehension and come into play which goes hand and hand with speech. So how can evolution evolve these structures in prepartion for speech? Evolution does not work that way.

Also, what evolutionary advantage brought about those changes in humans? And why only in humans and not in the Neanderthals? This makes me think not in a loving creator but in some kind of ID.

Pete

With all the galacies out there, I don't think we are alone in this universe. If we are trying to travel in space, what makes us so special to think that the other species are not already doing it? And if they are, why can't some think that it is possible that they have dabbled on this earth? If it is possible that they have dabbled on this earth, why do they have to have emotions like we do? Why can't they be like Mr. Spock. What we see as sadistic they might find it interesting. What we see as us polluting the earth, they might be wondering what we are going to do about it. Or perhaps wondering how we are going to get out of it. Why do they have to be the God that we created from our minds. I think to understand ID one must have to be more logical, looking at all possibilities, keeping our emotions out, and understand that evolution, alone, does not have to be the absolute answer to everything. Those putting all their faith in evolution as though it's the creator of everything, to me, are similar to those who put all their faith in a God.

Pete

According to evlution, I was always under the impression that we (humans) evloved from the cave man. And they were not two diffrent species. although I don`t agree with that theory. I do believe in creation but am open to other ideas. The ID theory is something I have wondered about. Instead of a god that we all thought created us. Maybe we were created by aliens from another planet and they threw the god thing in to keep us in line. But then the question would be, who created them? There has to be a beginning. So who or what started all this? Rose