# To People Who Believe in Evolution and Not ID **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 6, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745 "2010-09-06T02:18:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/61 "2010-09-06T20:34:38Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > We’re using the ‘have faith in’ sense because of the thread title, which is (apparently) trying to use _both senses at once_: You can only believe in ID based on faith, whereas people believe in evolution based on the balance of the evidence. That’s not true at all. You can believe in ID based on the balance of the evidence. You just can’t believe in it based on _correct_ analysis of the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Bpelta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Bpelta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bpelta)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/62 "2010-09-06T21:10:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Sorry, when I look up Question of Truth in Google books it only goes up to page 31. That’s so weird. I was actually looking at those pages on Google Books yesterday, but now you’re right, it only goes up to page 31.. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/63 "2010-09-06T21:22:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > [@Derleth](#): > > > > We’re using the ‘have faith in’ sense because of the thread title, which is (apparently) trying to use _both senses at once_: You can only believe in ID based on faith, whereas people believe in evolution based on the balance of the evidence. > > That’s not true at all. You can believe in ID based on the balance of the evidence. You just can’t believe in it based on _correct_ analysis of the evidence. The whole idea behind ID is that there _is_ evidence for it and that you _should_ believe it because of the evidence - or at least enough evidence to cast it as a viable alternative to natural evolution. Keep in mind that ID’s main goal is to get accepted as a somewhat scientific alternative to natural evolution that can be taught in the classroom so the proponents cannot use faith-based arguments if they want to accomplish their goals. The problem is that all the “evidence” that I know of that has been proposed has been debunked - sometimes over a century ago, by Darwin himself, even. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/64 "2010-09-06T22:11:03Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > > [@Zebra](#): > > > > Hey, if you look at the four boys in Stand by Me and had to say which one would probably marry one of the hottest women in film would you pick the fat stupid one? No you would not. > > Hey, that had to be an act of God! And I bet Jerry O’Connell would agree with me. Nope, natural selection. One, turned into Wesley Crusher, clearly eliminating himself form the gene pool. One died from use of illegal drugs, and the other turned into one of the Corey’s. Mr. O’Connell lost weight, and was only playing dumb. Clearly this turned out to be advantageous because of all of them he has the most opportunity to mate. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/65 "2010-09-06T23:01:35Z")
> [@Bpelta](#): > > > [@Voyager](#): > > > > Sorry, when I look up Question of Truth in Google books it only goes up to page 31. > > That’s so weird. I was actually looking at those pages on Google Books yesterday, but now you’re right, it only goes up to page 31.. Goddidit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/66 "2010-09-06T23:05:56Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > That’s not true at all. You can believe in ID based on the balance of the evidence. You just can’t believe in it based on _correct_ analysis of the evidence. > > The whole idea behind ID is that there _is_ evidence for it and that you _should_ believe it because of the evidence - or at least enough evidence to cast it as a viable alternative to natural evolution. Keep in mind that ID’s main goal is to get accepted as a somewhat scientific alternative to natural evolution that can be taught in the classroom so the proponents cannot use faith-based arguments if they want to accomplish their goals. The problem is that all the “evidence” that I know of that has been proposed has been debunked - sometimes over a century ago, by Darwin himself, even. ID is poorly defined. The originator of ID, Behe, accepts evolution, but claims that there are some features not possible through evolution only. They keep changing as he is proven wrong. The typical fundamentalist has done an s/creationism/intelligent design/ to try go get around the First Amendment - unsuccessfully. And Intelligent Design does not have to be done by some god - advanced aliens are fine, and we’ve intelligently designed tons of plants and animals ourselves. If a future civilization digs up fossils of poodles, they can be damn sure that they never would have lived in the wild. Ditto cows. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/67 "2010-09-07T11:52:42Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > > [@Staggerlee](#): > > > > So you’re saying that God is like a benevolent grocer, handing out rewards when organisms modify themselves according to His will? That seems a far-from-intelligent design > > First of all, my story was meant as an (imperfect) analogy for evolution, not for God. Secondly, it is indeed an imperfect analogy, which I attempted to address in the paragraph which immediately followed the two which you quoted: > > [QUOTE=me] > Of course, this analogy is wrong because there is still a human intelligence steering the process. In real evolution, what matters is not producing a work of literary value, but merely producing an organism which can survive long enough to produce offspring, which is a considerably lower bar. Also, it has the convenient feature that no human arbiter is needed, because the environment in which the organism has to survive, does the scoring and culling/rewarding automatically. The nice thing about natural selection is that there’s no artifical rewards mechanism needed. The reward for being good at survival is that you get to live longer. The reward for being good at producing offspring, is that a larger percentage of the next generation will contain your genes. [/QUOTE] Sorry; I was only being silly. I know that natural selection is inevitable in a system with random mutations between generations. The beauty is that something so simple can produce such complex, finely-tuned organisms. I just liked the image of God handing out bananas in the Garden of Eden. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/68 "2010-09-07T13:55:54Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you look at it another way, primates have already written Hamlet on a typewriter. Truth! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/69 "2010-09-07T14:32:51Z")
As mentioned above (and in several critiques of this point of view), the processes that have lead to the creation of life are definitely not random. In a given circumstance, there are many chemical processes that are likely to occur, and life occurred in one of those. In a lot of other milieus, lots of other, different (but not random) chemical reactions occurred, but _didn’t_ produce life. It also didn’t produce introspective intelligent life that speculated on its own origins – it couldn’t. A better analogy to your Probability of Life being Determined by Monkeys on a Typewriter would be. W. R. Bennett’s experiments with theoretical monkeys hitting keys with different probabilities. The thing is, his fifth and sixth order monkeys start producing words and even phrases: W.R. Bennett, Jr., “How Artificial is Intelligence”, American Scientist , 65(1977),694- 702. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/70 "2010-09-07T15:05:18Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > ID is poorly defined. The originator of ID, Behe, accepts evolution, but claims that there are some features not possible through evolution only. They keep changing as he is proven wrong. The typical fundamentalist has done an s/creationism/intelligent design/ to try go get around the First Amendment - unsuccessfully. And Intelligent Design does not have to be done by some god - advanced aliens are fine, and we’ve intelligently designed tons of plants and animals ourselves. If a future civilization digs up fossils of poodles, they can be damn sure that they never would have lived in the wild. Ditto cows. ID has a pretty clear agenda. It’s sneaking religion in through the back door. It’s designed to create (puns intended) a god-sized hole in the middle of evolutionary science. And then, once they’ve convinced the public that the hole exists, the ID’ers can claim in mock-amazement that by an incredible coincidence God would be an exact fit for that hole. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/71 "2010-09-07T15:14:53Z")
I believe there is a smoking gun in the form of something called the ‘wedge document’. More here: [Wedge\_strategy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy) ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/72 "2010-09-07T15:20:44Z")
“… rarity by itself shouldn’t necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable.” (Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences) ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/73 "2010-09-07T15:27:38Z")
I like the combination lock analogy. It’s simple enough for even the most hardcore creationist to understand. (Maybe not buy into, but at least understand.) Another one that I like is the poker analogy. What are the odds of gettig dealt a royal flush? Something like 1 in 600,000? Not terribly good. But let’s suppose that once you are dealt your original hand, you can ask the dealer to replace some cards that don’t fit the royal flush configuration. Your odds go up slightly. Let’s suppose you could do this as many times as you want. It wouldn’t take 600,000 times to get a RF – you’d get one before the deck ran out – the dealer would have to give you 16 redeals, tops. This analogy breaks down in that evolution isn’t directed towards one specific and perfect “hand”, though. In real poker, you just need to get a hand good enough to beat your competition and stay in the game a little longer. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/74 "2010-09-07T15:49:34Z")
How many monkeys are sitting around pounding away on typewriters anyway? Why haven’t they upgraded to Word Processors??? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/75 "2010-09-07T16:00:31Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > How many monkeys are sitting around pounding away on typewriters anyway? Why haven’t they upgraded to Word Processors??? [They have](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3013959.stm) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/76 "2010-09-07T16:12:38Z")
> [@Bpelta](#): > > I’ve changed his name to “Mac.” How would you respond? “Hey. . . my name isn’t “Mac”. WTF is wrong with you, changing my name like that?” ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/77 "2010-09-07T16:44:44Z")
> [@Bpelta](#): > > Here is a question: > A smart friend of mine and I were having a google chat and I was a bit dumbstruck by what he said. I’ve changed his name to “Mac.” How would you respond? > > * * * > > Mac: Well, statistically, the creation of the universe and evolution in particular are soooooooooo far off that it leads me to think a higher power at least guided evolution and started the creation > If this seems probable then we have to ask ourselves, is there a purpose > Me: I don’t know that that’s true. Remember, it only needs to happen once. > Mac: Ok, I hear that from skeptics/atheists all the time > Have you ever seen a monkey randomly strike a type writer and come close to writing a coherent sentence? > The world being created and humans being created from evolution are about as liekly to happen as a monkey striking a keyboard and writing hamlet > Those things DO NOT HAPPEN There are theories that we live in a multi-verse, and endless trillions of other universes exist out there. In order for life as we know it to exist in this universe, endless physics constants had to be at or near where they are in our universe. The strong force, weak force, gravitation, planck constant, speed of light, etc. If any of these were off chemistry couldn’t exist and w/o them, neither could life. > **[Fine-tuned universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > > The fine-tuned universe is the hypothesis that, because "life as we know it" could not exist if the constants of nature – such as the electron charge, the gravitational constant and others – had been even slightly different, the universe must be tuned specifically for life. In practice, this hypothesis is formulated in terms of dimensionless physical constants. > In 1913, chemist Lawrence Joseph Henderson wrote The Fitness of the Environment, one of the ... So we are discussing these issues because we are in a universe where the universal constants allowed chemistry to exist and because chemistry eventually led to biology which eventually led to a tool making civilization species. the odds are trillions to one that it happens, but if endless trillions of universes exist it was bound to happen somewhere. An issue I’ve always wondered about religion is that conscious, directed effort occured very late in evolution. I don’t know the exact date, but I’d assume within the last few hundred million years (life is about 3.8 billion years old) brains evolved to that point. So why would conscious, directed action taken by life exist at the beginning of the universe if it is so rare among life? Most life forms that make up the earth’s biomass do not have that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/78 "2010-09-07T20:18:52Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > > > If you look at it another way, primates have already written Hamlet on a typewriter. > > Truth! Yes! I am so stealing this comment. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/79 "2010-09-07T20:21:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > ID has a pretty clear agenda. It’s sneaking religion in through the back door. > > It’s designed to create (puns intended) a god-sized hole in the middle of evolutionary science. And then, once they’ve convinced the public that the hole exists, the ID’ers can claim in mock-amazement that by an incredible coincidence God would be an exact fit for that hole. Well, Behe published his acceptance of evolution in the NY Times, which his creationist fans who fund him won’t read - or can’t without a dictionary and someone to sound out the words for them. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745/80 "2010-09-07T21:11:56Z")
Oh! This thread reminds me that I was going to mention that National Geographic has an article about a type of skink (lizard) that has taken an evolutionary step:[Live birthing lizard!](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100901-science-animals-evolution-australia-lizard-skink-live-birth-eggs/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-people-who-believe-in-evolution-and-not-id/552745.md?page=5)