What exactly do you mean by “the same thing”? The question is not whether large-scale evolution has stopped but, if it had, what would explain it and whether it would be expected under some general theory. Your sole appeal to a “general theory” is to Genesis.
So you agree that you are the pinnacle and reason of creation?
Piling on:
A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1817407116
Putting aside the connection with dinosaur extinction for a moment, do you accept the geology establishing the Chicxulub impact event and the K-Pg boundary?
Then the designer and builder is not omnipotent. ID is horrible theology.
What happened to your claim that sonar is an example of a “new functional system” that somehow is a problem for evolution?
ID is not theology.
I have no reason to reject it. But I’m skeptical of a direct connection with dinosaurs extinction. Although the impact might have accelerated extinction, I think it was under way anyway.
No. If you reread my post at 95, you will see that the idea that large scale evolution is now finished makes sense also within an ID framework.
Yes, as a Christian, I believe that humans are the pinnacle and reason of creation. Now, you don’t need to be a Christian to held the view that life has progressed toward more advanced forms with time. For example, here is a quote from an article of the encyclopedia Britannica :
« The history of animal and plant life is replete with successions as early forms are replaced by new and often more advanced form. »
Any theory of ID that aims to replace or supplement evolution would necessarily make claims about the designers capabilities and intents. Even claiming that the designer acts in certain ways has implications that can and should be examined. If ID is apologetic in nature as it clearly is - then the theology should be included.
But the whole point of ID - the only point of ID - is to leave the theology out.
Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory. – William Dembski.
ID leaves theology out because it is trying to pretend to be science. It may be that that pretence is the point of ID, but that’s hardly to ID’s credit.
But if ID’s conclusions boil down to “God did it - don’t ask why or how” - it certainly can’t be productive science.
The cathedral thing? That makes no sense in an ID framework. Life is not a cathedral, and there is no sign in the history of life that it’s building toward anything. Current life is only special in the fact that it’s current. (I will also note what many have mentioned and you have ignored: your metaphor is senseless if applied to a supposedly omnipotent designer.)
Doesn’t that seem a bit egotistical? And if we’re even the current pinnacle, what makes you think there’s no room for improvement either in humans or in any other species?
ID leaves the theology out because it is pretending not to be creationism.
“Scientific creationism” was trying to pretend to be science. ID is a response to laws against teaching creationism. Without those laws, ID would still be scientific creationism.
Nothing makes sense “within an ID framework.” For example, your claim that there is a theory makes a mockery of the term.
Note the emphasis. Souvent, not toujours.
To the cathedral metaphor, your answer seems to be that it is nonsensical because, in your own words, it « limits God’s capability to create, so that his “cathedral” takes billions of years to build, when just could have produced the current biota instantly ». But I think this is a weak argument. Indeed, since God transcends time, is timeless, he does not experience temporal succession, contrary to us. So, in our eyes in this material world, while a given work appears to take time to unfold to its fulfillment, this is not the case in God’s eyes.
Thing what you like. The point is that the metaphor doesn’t work. You can’t use it to predict that building our current biota should take a long time because building a cathedral takes a long time. Even if God doesn’t care about time, we have no reason to expect him to take either a long or short time to make our world. Thus your metaphor makes no argument. Further, it fails in a second way: you can tell when a cathedral is finished, but our current biota differs in no particular way from past biotas other than it most closely resembles what it is now. There’s no objective standard by which to judge “completeness”.
“If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”
I’d ask how you know this and what evidence you have, but I know you don’t and haven’t.
The existence of species which have only recently adapted to a new niche and which have clear potential for further adaptation[1] suggest to me that were creation actually the case, we would not be at the pinnacle of creation, and due to extinction events never would be.
(I noticed that @Giltil didn’t answer your question about their being room for improvement in extant species.)
I’m looking at you, tree kangaroos ↩︎
I tend to agree. But then why, when I put forward the cathedral metaphor, did you ask me to explain why God didn’t make our world instantly, as if it would be a problem if it took time to make it?
Because the cathedral metaphor entails the assumption that God would take a long time, and I pointed out that the assumption is unwarranted and that the metaphor is therefore inapplicable. The argument you were making, such as it was, collapses upon examination, and I imagine you didn’t think much before presenting it
By the way, if God is outside of time, that implies that this moment is in no way special.
If he sees the universe through time as a whole, why should we consider our world the culmination of events, any more than whatever was happening in the Whirlpool Galaxy 8 billion years ago? It’s all the cathedral, isn’t it?