A sceptic's guide to intelligent design. http://evolution.htmlplanet.com/ webmaster@evolution.htmlplanet.com.
You may freely copy any of my files and print it out provided you keep my Email and web address on it.




A sceptic's guide to intelligent design.
NewScientist, 9 July 2005
An intelligent consideration of their article.

NewScientist:
Quote from page 10, 2nd paragraph:
Intelligent design (ID) is more sophisticated than its predecessor, "creation science" which sought to gather scientific evidence in support of the Christian creation story. By starting from a pre-conceived conclusion and selectively using evidence to back it up, creation science was clearly unscientific.

But this is the problem with evolution, the sentence would be absolutely true if it read: By starting from a pre-conceived conclusion and selectively using evidence to back it up, evolutionary science is clearly unscientific.
Evolution starts with a pre-conceived conclusion, namely random mistakes or copying errors have produced perfection in thousands of highly complex designs, and explains everything, and we cannot let a divine foot in the door.
Working on simple projects I have very rarely found that a mistake has been of little consequence to the success of the project, it nearly always causes a problem as the work progresses, often necessitating doing that part again.
Scientist have never found mistakes to produce new improved specifications, in living organisms. The mistakes that evolutionists sing about are usually the loss of a function, or proper control of it, that gives a bacterium resistance to antibiotics, But this is the loss of information, often only one bit, leaving the bacterium weaker than the original type, as usually energy is wasted in producing an excess of the protecting substance. When conditions return to normal this strain usually disappears as it is out produced by the original strain. The one bit sometimes is corrected later restoring the full function, but this is not evolution, as the information was always there.
NewScientist:
Their (ID) case centres on the question of how complex structures originated. Living things are full of multi-component structures that only function if all their parts are present. The bacterial flagellum, a spinning whip-like tail, for example, is made up of 40 or more proteins; blood clotting involves the coordinated interaction of 10 different proteins.
These systems are examples of what Behe calls "irreducible complexity" meaning that they cannot function properly without all their components. Such systems, he says, could not evolve by the accumulation of chance mutations, since partial assemblies are useless. Dembski argues that the odds against getting complex structures from chance mutations are insurmountable. For two proteins to interact to perform some new function, for example, their shapes would have to fit together. So in principle, he says, we can calculate the probability that one protein could change by chance to fit perfectly with another. Two such studies have been done. In both cases, Dembski claims the odds were so long as to rule out an explanation based on chance events.
But these calculations are logically flawed because they focus on a single, specified outcome, says Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, a leading critic of ID. "It's what statisticians call a retrospective fallacy" It Is like equating the odds of drawing two pairs in poker with the odds of drawing a particular two-pair hand- say a pair of red queens, a pair of black 10s and the ace of clubs. "By demanding a particular outcome, as opposed to a functional outcome, you stack the odds",
Where Kenneth Miller is deliberately misleading you, particularly with the cards requiring numerous combinations, is that the research Dembski is referring to was for getting any functional outcome, not a particular outcome, just anything that could conceivably work, though no function was actually required of it, just the theory that it could or could not happen.
Also evolutionists are into retrospective fallacy in a big way, trying to match up species that look, on the surface, as if they might be intermediates, and trying to make a plausible sounding story to support that supposition.
NewScientist:
Miller says. What these calculations fail to recognise is that many different protein sequences can be functional. It is not uncommon for proteins in different species to vary by 80 to 90 per cent, yet still perform the same function.
This was taken into account. Research would probably show that if proteins in different species to vary by 80 to 90 per cent, the chemistry they work with would also have been adjusted to function with the changed proteins.
NewScientist:
The "improbability argument" also misrepresents natural selection. It is correct to say that a set of simultaneous mutations that form a complex protein structure is so unlikely as to be unfeasible, but that is not what Darwin advocated. His explanation is based on small accumulated changes that take place without a final goal. Each step must be advantageous in its own right, although biologists may not yet understand the reason behind all of them.
Emphasis added.
Most copying mistakes are corrected by a checking and correcting mechanism, and the few that do get through probably degrade, making some function less effective, or inoperative, the chance that further small changes will add to this one to perform some function, but not kill the host, and still be left to accumulate more errors, until a useful functional outcome occurs is a ridiculous religious hope in evolution. Statistically other errors or small changes would be randomly distributed throughout the DNA, and not associated with the first, so there is little chance that the organism would survive the damage until something useful turns up, the effect would be like being peppered with a machine gun. If something with a "functional outcome" occurs, as it has no purpose it will waste resources and degrade the species, but I do not think for a moment that any such accidental function could occur.
Ask anyone who writes computer programs if "small accumulated changes that take place without a final goal" will help to make a program run better, perform a new useful task, or destroy it. The complexities of the DNA and life processes are more complex than computer programs.

If ID is true, and if there is a God who created as creationists claim, then evolutionists can never find the truth, and will never find scientific evidence to support their suppositions. That is why their theories/suppositions are always changing, always chasing after the latest and greatest supposition/theory to keep up the "excitement of the chase" for the "magic" evidence that will give complete satisfaction, but oh the disappointment. A quick fix is to seriously ask Jesus for help in understanding the creationist claims.

Go to index page


This page operated by Ken:- http://evolution.htmlplanet.com/
Email:- postmaster@evolution.htmlplanet.com


Are you switched onto Creation Magazine Live yet?

Episode #2 now is available at www.CreationMagazineLive.org. In the few short weeks that Episode 1 has been available, it has been one of the most heavily visited pages on our entire website! Find out why people all over the world are watching this Canadian-produced, faith-building complement to Creation magazine. We have received substantial feedback from the first episode.