This is just silly ID is based on the idea the life is irreducibly complex. This idea flies in the face of history, our understanding of nature increases every year and will continue to. Just because we are ignorant of some process now does not means we will in the future. Care to give any examples of something that we have not learnt more about ? 200 hundred years ago there were a number of competing ideas about origins they have fallen by the way side by careful testing and evaluation of the facts. No discoveries have disproved evolution. A simply test for evolution is showing a complex animal in the wrong geo-layer, can you give me any examples of this? ID states that only micro evolution is possible so all major life forms where "created" in roughly their present state. Therefore there should be fossil evidence to support this, is there?

My video is irreducibly complex to my Mum!

Kenny, I agree with your comments about the fossil layer but suspect that you've missed the point on ID. ID is a means for those who want their god to have something to do to deal with the evidence for evolution. They argue that just as your Video could not have occurred by juggling the raw components around for a long period our wonderful universe could not have occured without some serious help.

I would prefer to take my chances on chance than trust to their deranged gods.

R0bert

Yeah it's confusing, because as Deuc pointed out, there's nothing about evolutionary theory that says God couldn't have kicked off the process, by planting the first seed, so to speak. So there's no need for religious people to deny evolution. Many important religious figures believe that science and religion can go hand in hand.

Evolution is not an attack on religion. But it certainly looks like ID is an attack on science.

spendocrat said it on Tues.13th but it, demonstrably, needs repeating. There is no Theory of Evolution. Evolution is an observable fact. It is the name which has been given to describe the process of birth, development and decay. Everything in the universe goes through that process in its own time. Every star does it, every human being does it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of gods have done it.

The recognition of evolution existed long before Darwin came on the scene.

Darwin’s great contribution was to propose Natural Selection as the process by which biological species evolved. Natural Selection is the only theory which can be attributed to Darwin. That theory says, in essence, that any new form of an organism will only survive to perpetuate itself if it “fits” into the pre-existing environment.

The shock to tradition which the theory of natural selection created was the fact that it did not require the hand of any supernatural force or being. Nor did it require a pre-existing design, much less an Intelligent Designer.

There are many complex problems to be worked out in understanding the process of natural selection. The only tools we have are the scientific ones of observation and experiment. It is not much use to be told that it has all already been worked out by an Intelligent Designer if that Designer keeps the design locked away in a supernatural planning cabinet.

Whilst I might be prepared to go along with Spendocrat's, "there's nothing about evolutionary theory that says God couldn't have kicked off the process, by planting the first seed, so to speak.", John Warren's comment, "Evolution is an observable fact. It is the name which has been given to describe the process of birth, development and decay. Everything in the universe goes through that process in its own time. Every star does it, every human being does it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of gods have done it." is nothing but sheer hubris, a point I hope, time willing to come back to over the weekend.

Talk about having your head in the sand.......

Ditto, David, I agree, although I see ongoing involvement of some sort (provenance). (I also agree with your comments about Calvin).

Spendocrat, you missed my point. Karl Popper may have been the most influential philosopher of science of the 20th century. He developed the falsifiability theory, and also the hypothetico-deductive method. As such, he has had a huge influence on a very wide range of scientific thought, and a large number of scientists have found his writings useful in their work. The quotes I mentioned are not the subject of some crackpot (nor did he believe in God the way I do). I could quote a number of other well-regarded scientists, including supporters of biological evolution, who are very cautious about the so-called "scientific evidence" for macro-evolution or evolution as the origin of life. It would seem arrogant to me to ignore (or vilify) this voice.

Many people do speak of science as having somehow proven that life arose by a random evolutionary process, and that species developed the same way (major changes). I don't think this can be proven or falsified by _science_ alone. Furthermore, it seems a little arrogant to exclude the possibility of an external being who acts on the system using laws we already know about or laws we don't yet understand (or in any other way we don't yet understand). It is this arrogance that gets me fired up, rather than evolution itself.

I doubt that considering ID as a possibility would hold back scientific discoveries. There is too much that we don't yet know. A refusal to consider options other than evolution may hold back a small amount of scientific research. My perception is that the major objections to ID are on philosophical grounds, not scientific ones.

I look forward to David's weekend post :-).