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Intelligent Design and Selfish Biocosm as a theory

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Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Mar 8 2017 2:19 PM
What do you see the merits of a theory postulating that the universe was the result of an intelligent society engineering it? Eventually, our society may make it to a state where we can create universes and we are just one insignificant speck of an entire multiverse. More universes may be life permitting.
Or just the basic ID theory:
certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Maybe this was all the result of random processes, but I can't help but wonder if the true explanation is that intelligence actually played a role and mainstream science had the wrong framework and assumptions.
admin
By admin | Mar 8 2017 7:47 PM
Bi0Hazard: I think there's an important issue underlying this post. Philosophically, science itself is open to scientific scrutiny. So your wonderings are merited.
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Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Mar 9 2017 6:01 AM
admin: What do you think of the merits of Intelligent Design?
Could past societies have influenced our universe to a point of shaping our lives?
Do you design could be an adequate explanation for biology or is evolution by mutations and natural selection the more sufficient explanation?

admin
By admin | Mar 9 2017 6:59 PM
Bi0Hazard: Duh. Heck, society yesterday shaped my views today because I saw an ad on TV.

Design could be, but in my view, the naturalist perspective of evolution is more scientific in terms of providing a detailed, evidenced explanation.
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Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Mar 10 2017 7:27 AM
admin: Duh. Heck, society yesterday shaped my views today because I saw an ad on TV.
But not the conditions of your existence.
Design could be, but in my view, the naturalist perspective of evolution is more scientific in terms of providing a detailed, evidenced explanation.
Can chemistry adequately explain the origin of the genetic code? How is natural processes a better explanation for life than design?
I think even if you do come up with a way to explain the origin of life and its evolution through naturalistic means, I wouldn't say it is therefore the best explanation.
Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Apr 1 2017 4:18 PM
admin: Do you think it could be that an ET civilization designed cells billions of years ago and they got to earth via a asteroid or they purposely left them on earth by exploration and they evolved into the many life forms we see today?
If that was true, it would fulfill design theory, but it seems scientists don't seem to consider that, probably since they are skeptical of the assumption that ET's have been traveling near earth.

Of course, design theory has an issue with this as an explanation, since if life was started on earth by other biological intelligent minds, then what explains them? It is central to design theory that specified complex patterns in systems suggest design, but surely cognitive systems like ET's would contain these features that design theory claims to be best explained by design, and then if they are designed and so on, it must stop at some point and the design theorist is forced to accept that at some point, purely naturalistic processes brought up an intelligent life form. If this is so, then how do we know human civilization isn't that life form?

It seems we have a problem here, that is unless we bring God in to save the design hypothesis, since God is supposedly eternal, uncaused, and logically necessary, and therefore doesn't need further explanation.
admin
By admin | Apr 1 2017 4:26 PM
Bi0Hazard: Depends what you call adequate. You could say that naturalistic models of weather are inadequate because weather forecasts are often wrong. It's still the most reliable way we have to know what the weather will be. Same story with the origin of life.

God doesn't really save the design hypothesis any more than a kid can ask "who caused God"... if God is uncaused why can't an alien race or even life on earth be uncaused? At the point where you abandon naturalistic norms it seems this is perfectly justified.
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Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Apr 1 2017 6:19 PM
admin: Same story with the origin of life.
So, because other systems we know of are adequately explained by natural processes that the origin of life will therefore contain only natural processes?

God is the explanation we give when we don't want further explanation, after all, God wouldn't be touchable by science. We may have reason to believe that biological systems of any kind began at some point, but never a reason for God to have a beginning. It just seems to be problematic with design as you would just be passing the explanation to another being, and that being will likely be designed by the same reasoning that we use to determine that today's life forms may been designed and it goes on until a natural explanation explains the first intelligence (which means, why not us? Then we have no reason to think life forms here were designed, as opposed to the intelligence that supposedly designed the designer that designed the designer that designed the designer that designed earth life forms) or we say "God did it" and leave it at that and if someone asks "What explains God?" we just say "Just exists inexplicably and that's all, no need to question it, it is outside of our understanding".

A possible way out of this is to develop some way of determining what is designed and not designed by measuring it in systems and have it independent of just assuming complex patterns require a designer.
admin
By admin | Apr 1 2017 6:25 PM
Bi0Hazard: No, I'm just saying the same principle can be applied in both cases. That doesn't mean they support each other. A naturalistic explanation could be the best explanation and still not meet your arbitrary standard for evidence.
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Bi0Hazard
By Bi0Hazard | Apr 3 2017 11:27 AM
admin: How do you think life began?
RNA world?
Primordial soup?
Came via meteor (panspermia)?
ET civilization designed a cell and launched it onto earth (that civilization would very likely be long dead)?