The Evidence for Intelligent Design

Don't be confused. This blog does not contain evidence for the existence of an Intelligent Designer. This blog contains evidence showing that things were designed by an intelligence.

For now I have copied and adjusted @WillPayton: s Thread Design for this blog. I will add to, and adjust this OP over time.

The Theory of Intelligent Design is going to become one of the most tested, well supported, and accepted theories in science. Quite often on this site people get into arguments about whether Intelligent Design is actually even true or not. This tends to happen in the various religion threads like clockwork.

The purpose of this thread is to present and compile informational links, videos, and pieces of evidence for why Intelligent Design is true, and to be able to use this as a resource in future discussions. Instead of getting into yet another argument about whether there is or isnt evidence supporting Intelligent Design, you can now just link to this thread and be done with it.

(If you run across any new pieces of evidence or interesting resources, please PM me and I can include it here at the top of the thread.)

Let's begin!

What is a scientific "theory" and how is it validated?

A theory in science is an explanation of some system or aspect of the natural world. A theory usually explains how individual facts and natural laws fit together, makes testable and falsifiable predictions about what that system should look like, and is generally very well substantiated by observations and experimentation.

When a scientific theory becomes an "accepted" theory (i.e. it gains scientific consensus) that theory is pretty much understood to be a fact and a correct explanation of how that aspect of nature works. Examples of such theories are Quantum Mechanics, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the Germ Theory of Disease, and Plate Tectonics.

In science, theories make predictions, those predictions are then tested, and either the tests support the theory or contradict it. If they support it, we keep testing in new ways until we have a very high level of confidence in the theory. If any observation or experiment contradicts the theory, that theory is discarded. All it takes is one of a theories predictions to shown false for a theory to be rejected.

What is the Theory of Intelligent Design?

Intelligent Design says that all organisms on Earth are linked through a common designer. Organisms are designed to change as they reproduce, these changes lead to new and different traits. By the process of Natural Selection, those traits that allow an organism to reproduce more are then more likely to be represented in the next generation. Through this process beneficial genes are passed on and harmful ones die off. DNA is designed to change in certain loci and the selective process of the environment causes organisms to adapt.

The strength of Intelligent Design as a theory is that its predictions have been tested and supported over more than 150 years by many different and independent types of evidence, from DNA to fossils to geographical distributions and comparative anatomy. And, no one has yet found any evidence that contradicts Intelligent Design.

What predictions does Intelligent Design make?

1. We should find that organisms of the same Genus/Family are more complex in the fossil record the further back we look.


2. · Traces of the Common Design between species should be observed in their DNA.


3. · The first Phyla (organisms) should appear suddenly in the fossil record.


4. · Designs such as, body type, organs, systems etc should appear suddenly in the fossil record.


5. · Species should be seen to become specialized for their environment over time.


6. · Species should devolve in the course of specialization.


7. · We should find that organs, and systems within organisms have a purpose, even if currently unknown.


8. · We should find codes, complex and specialized information, encryptions, translations, transcriptions, editing, correction mechanisms, adjustment mechanisms at the base level of an organism.


9. · Mutations should be repeatable in the same species by applying the same selective pressure.


10. · Natural selection conserves genetic information so we should see organisms that have hardly changed since their initial design.

So lets build a case for prediction 1

1. We should find that organisms of the same Genus/Family are more complex in the fossil record the further back we look. (oh no now I have some work to do.....Ill be back.)

Excellent thread and good thinking.

I don’t get how some of these support intelligent design

@giliad_:

pick one and I will see what if I was a bit hasty about putting it there.

I think your "prediction" list is kinda misleading.

An intelligent designer could easily start off his creation using simple, non-complex, but finely tuned agents but the interactions could lead to advancing complexity (or not - depending on his actual goal).

Initial problems with the claims above:

1. Intelligent Design is described as a scientific theory, but no description of this theory or link is given. Also, generally, ID is understood to NOT be scientific in any way, so this is a huge problem already.

2. No actual explanation is given to what a "design" is or how you can tell what is designed or what isnt. This gets back to point 1 above. In reality, there's no objective way to tell if something is designed or not. Normally the way we can tell if something is "designed" is because we already know it's designed or that something very similar is designed based on our previous experience. I could go on about how an infinite universe means that any configuration of atoms that can exist WILL exist somewhere in that universe, and how that totally invalidates the possibility of telling designed from not designed... but I wont.

3. The description that is given for Intelligent Design makes claims that are not supported. For example, it's claimed that all organisms are "linked through a common designer", but what does that even mean? Also, why just one designer? How about 2 designers? 3? A million? Please explain why there's only 1 allowed in this "theory" and how that number was arrived at and how that claim is falsifiable.

4. By the description given about what a scientific theory is, it's claimed that ID has make predictions that have been tested and not falsified. However the very first prediction says that organisms should be more complex the further back we look... which is false. The fossil record, DNA record, and other lines of evidence show that life on Earth becomes less complex the further back we look. So, immediately, ID seems to be DOA.

5. Some of what's claimed for ID is really just Evolution and has nothing to do with ID. For example, the idea that species change over time due to natural selection. This is Evolution and has nothing to do with whether the original organisms or DNA was designed or not.

6. Some of the predictions listed either make no sense or are un-scientific and un-falsifiable. For example: "We should find that organs, and systems within organisms have a purpose, even if currently unknown." First, "purpose" is a meaningless concept because it's subjective. Second, there's no way to disprove this because even if we agree on what "purpose" means, either finding or not finding it conforms with the statement. So, this is nonsense.

There's many more issues with this, but that's enough. Point is, Intelligent Design is not science, no matter how many coats of paint you put on it. ID is religion, and has been since it was created as a rebranding of Creationism to try to inject religion into science classrooms in the US.

@mimisalome:

Not trying to mislead anyone.

I will hopefully make things clearer as time permits.

@willpayton:

1: getting to it. Thanks for advice. ID is science ask forensics, ask archeology. Detecting possible design is part of science.

2: getting to it. Thanks for advice. We will see if we can detect design in nature or not.

3: true. The unity of the proposed design suggests unity of the designers so we may as well just use the singular for convenience

4: you were too hasty there. Read it more carefully.

5: if I can show that change is designed to happen and can't happen without des

1% battery bye for now

The only evidence for intelligent design is muh crotch.

@icedemonking:

And mine

Billions of years of evolution.

@willpayton:

5: if I can show that change is designed to happen and can't happen without designed molecular machines and code systems, then I show that "evolution" has everything to do with ID

6: well maybe I should change it to "We should find that no organs, and systems within organisms are without purpose,."

Like they used to think PseudoGenes were without purpose.

Thankyou for picking the fook out of this work. It's just what I was hoping for : D

Ps you are wrong, as usual : p hehe 😂

I'll not discuss points from the realm of philosophy here. In the realm of science itself, Look at some of the postulates of the Anthropic Principle. Study about the Goldilocks zone in the solar system and the Galaxy itself. You'll have more faith on the concept of intelligent design.

Even some top tier physicists believe that the universe is fine tuned for our existence by someone or something.

But do keep an open mind. Nobody can confirm or deny anything with absolute certainty.

@deltahuman:

Thankyou

I was just thinking of biology, I don't know why I didn't think of other disciplines. I spose I will get to them after I have posted all of the overwhelmingly abundant amounts of biological evidence that exists in support of ID.

When there is nothing more to ponder on, you'd have turned a full circle and realized that there is a Creator.

This was fine if you had kept it simply as a blog, but we already have threads for this kind of thing.