Evolution is the design process used by God

[fdesilva]

Natural Selection
All manufacturing processors use a selection process to maintain standard. All quality assurance systems use selection methods to select only the best. When a product hits the market it competes with rival products. Here again a selection process is at work. Take in the case of designing of a building. The architect would come up with many designs and keep improving on the design by selecting the best attributes at any stage. Consider the case of a factory that uses robotics to manufacture something. Here again a selection process would be involved in coming up with what is acceptable. The fact that a selection method is involved would not lead anybody to believe the whole automated process was not designed. Man learns to be creative from his Maker(God). The Maker of man teaches the process of creativity by example. Now the Makers manufacturing plant is the whole universe. Thus the fact that this factory uses natural selection just like man does in his own little factories only goes to show another aspect of man being thought by and reflecting his maker in his creativity.Evolution is a design Process. It’s the design process used by God. A design process chosen by God to suit the intellectual capacity given to man, so that we may understand it and use it.

[Heretical Rants]

If I were God, that´s definitely how it would go down.

The only Holy Text would be a small inscription on a rock somewhere stating, "The world is my sand box and you are my little experiment."

Hehehehe.

[karadan]

You may as well say, that flower is yellow, therefore someone must have painted it.

I don't understand why you easily jump to the conclusion of 'natural selection means there must be a god'. I'm going to need empirical proof before i buy that.

[kelltrill]

This is why I don't see religion and science as being vaguely compatible. If someone wants to marry the two somehow then I would rather approve of that then watch religiously inclined people completely disregard evidence for our biological history so blatantly and ignorantly, of course. But at the end of the day what's the point of mapping it out like that? If you want to believe God set natural selection and Evolution in progress then where do you draw the line? How involved in human affairs is your God then? How do you find a space for God in the world today when the majority of the answers are based on fact, science, and peer-tested and reviewed research? Surely if you believe in natural selection and Evolution it is logical just to take that extra leap (not of faith) and conclude that there is no need for a deity in our existence and development. It's like you're trying to force two incredibly incompatible worldviews together while still trying to find room for a god to exist in the nooks and crannies.

[Heathen's Guide]

A belief in God is based on faith, not evidence.  As there are so many gods out there, this same argument could be used for any (conflicting) religions as well.  Simply replace the word Maker (God) in this paragraph with the word Satan or Zeus or Cosmic Bunny and you have an equal argument for Satan, Zeus, or Cosmic Bunnies.

You can sometimes use fact to augment faith, but you can never use faith to augment fact.

Natural Selection
All manufacturing processors use a selection process to maintain standard. All quality assurance systems use selection methods to select only the best. When a product hits the market it competes with rival products. Here again a selection process is at work. Take in the case of designing of a building. The architect would come up with many designs and keep improving on the design by selecting the best attributes at any stage. Consider the case of a factory that uses robotics to manufacture something. Here again a selection process would be involved in coming up with what is acceptable. The fact that a selection method is involved would not lead anybody to believe the whole automated process was not designed. Man learns to be creative from his Maker(God). The Maker of man teaches the process of creativity by example. Now the Makers manufacturing plant is the whole universe. Thus the fact that this factory uses natural selection just like man does in his own little factories only goes to show another aspect of man being thought by and reflecting his maker in his creativity.Evolution is a design Process. It’s the design process used by God. A design process chosen by God to suit the intellectual capacity given to man, so that we may understand it and use it.

[Whitney]

While a liberal interpretation of the bible does allow for accepting evolution as valid, natural selection itself in no way points to the existence or nonexistence of a god.

[curiosityandthecat]

In short, in responding to the thread's title, "Evolution is the design process used by God:"

[Xaxyx]

Natural Selection
All manufacturing processors use a selection process to maintain standard. All quality assurance systems use selection methods to select only the best. When a product hits the market it competes with rival products. Here again a selection process is at work. Take in the case of designing of a building. The architect would come up with many designs and keep improving on the design by selecting the best attributes at any stage. Consider the case of a factory that uses robotics to manufacture something. Here again a selection process would be involved in coming up with what is acceptable. The fact that a selection method is involved would not lead anybody to believe the whole automated process was not designed. Man learns to be creative from his Maker(God). The Maker of man teaches the process of creativity by example. Now the Makers manufacturing plant is the whole universe. Thus the fact that this factory uses natural selection just like man does in his own little factories only goes to show another aspect of man being thought by and reflecting his maker in his creativity.Evolution is a design Process. It’s the design process used by God. A design process chosen by God to suit the intellectual capacity given to man, so that we may understand it and use it.

The only problem with this design process is that it sucks.

Manufacturing processors have a goal in mind.  That goal is perfection.  Even if perfection is unattainable -- as, I'm sure you'll agree, it's practical to assume -- nevertheless, that is their aim.  Hence, every change that is made to the process is in an effort to better the result.  As you say: QA systems use selection methods to select *only* the best.  The inferior is discarded.

Natural selection doesn't work that way.  Natural selection has no model for what's perfect or what's best.  Natural selection has no conscious criteria for what is superior.  Superiority is an accident of circumstance, a fortuitous result of random chance.  Indeed: oftentimes in nature, "superior" does not mean "best".

The classic example is, of course, the human eye.  It is readily demonstrable in nature that the eye has evolved through a great number of steps to eventually result in the sort we're using at the moment.  A great number of creatures, both living and extinct, serve to exemplify these steps.  But the final product -- the human eye, as it is currently designed -- is greatly flawed.

Consider, firstly, that the capabilities of the human eye are greatly inferior to many other animals.  Bird eyes have ten times as many photoreceptors and significantly more color-detecting cones.  Octopod eyes possess a statocyst, allowing the eyeball to maintain a constant position relative to the Earth's gravitational field.  Yet despite these deficiencies, the oxygen consumption demands of the human retina is higher than any other tissue in the human body.

Mind you, the human eye does have certain advantages, arguably, such as its capacity to focus on a specific field of vision without being distracted by peripherals.  One might argue that the human eye exists as an example of a trade-off: advantages in some area, deficiencies in others.  Nevertheless, it seems arguable, reasonable, that an eye could be designed that has all of the capabilities of all of the eyes that exist in the animal kingdom.  Surely therefore, any engineer setting forth to design the ultimate eye (making the presumption, of course, that humans are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process) would attempt to incorporate as many beneficial features as possible given available capabilities and within existing constraints.  Yet this is clearly not the case for us.

Compound this with the fact that our eyes have our photocells on the wrong side of the nerves connecting to the brain.  Consequently, photons entering the eye must first pass through these nerve connection tissues before finally reaching the photocells, resulting in some distortion.  This design is clearly not necessary, as demonstrated by the existence of eyes in nature that do not have this connection inverted.  However, this evolutionary mistake was sufficiently minor that the human eye developed this way nevertheless.

Now, seriously.  Would a conscious, intelligent designer, whose goal it was to create a useful, functional eye, ignore this simple though admittedly tiny flaw?  Next, extenuating to your argument: would an engineer designing an "automated" system for the development of a product implement a system capable of generating such flaws, or accept its flawed results as satisfactory?

[Ellainix]

Yes, but a wizard is equally capable of using evolution to create a world filled with life.

[Sophus]

[G-Roll]

While a liberal interpretation of the bible does allow for accepting evolution as valid, natural selection itself in no way points to the existence or nonexistence of a god.

i think natural selection points out randomness in our world. how else would the peacock still be around?
and i dont think randomness is evidence of an intelligent creator. rather chance and luck good or bad.

[fdesilva]

Natural Selection
All manufacturing processors use a selection process to maintain standard. All quality assurance systems use selection methods to select only the best. When a product hits the market it competes with rival products. Here again a selection process is at work. Take in the case of designing of a building. The architect would come up with many designs and keep improving on the design by selecting the best attributes at any stage. Consider the case of a factory that uses robotics to manufacture something. Here again a selection process would be involved in coming up with what is acceptable. The fact that a selection method is involved would not lead anybody to believe the whole automated process was not designed. Man learns to be creative from his Maker(God). The Maker of man teaches the process of creativity by example. Now the Makers manufacturing plant is the whole universe. Thus the fact that this factory uses natural selection just like man does in his own little factories only goes to show another aspect of man being thought by and reflecting his maker in his creativity.Evolution is a design Process. It’s the design process used by God. A design process chosen by God to suit the intellectual capacity given to man, so that we may understand it and use it.

The only problem with this design process is that it sucks.

Manufacturing processors have a goal in mind.  That goal is perfection.  Even if perfection is unattainable -- as, I'm sure you'll agree, it's practical to assume -- nevertheless, that is their aim.  Hence, every change that is made to the process is in an effort to better the result.  As you say: QA systems use selection methods to select *only* the best.  The inferior is discarded.

Natural selection doesn't work that way.  Natural selection has no model for what's perfect or what's best.  Natural selection has no conscious criteria for what is superior.  Superiority is an accident of circumstance, a fortuitous result of random chance.  Indeed: oftentimes in nature, "superior" does not mean "best".

The classic example is, of course, the human eye.  It is readily demonstrable in nature that the eye has evolved through a great number of steps to eventually result in the sort we're using at the moment.  A great number of creatures, both living and extinct, serve to exemplify these steps.  But the final product -- the human eye, as it is currently designed -- is greatly flawed.

Consider, firstly, that the capabilities of the human eye are greatly inferior to many other animals.  Bird eyes have ten times as many photoreceptors and significantly more color-detecting cones.  Octopod eyes possess a statocyst, allowing the eyeball to maintain a constant position relative to the Earth's gravitational field.  Yet despite these deficiencies, the oxygen consumption demands of the human retina is higher than any other tissue in the human body.

Mind you, the human eye does have certain advantages, arguably, such as its capacity to focus on a specific field of vision without being distracted by peripherals.  One might argue that the human eye exists as an example of a trade-off: advantages in some area, deficiencies in others.  Nevertheless, it seems arguable, reasonable, that an eye could be designed that has all of the capabilities of all of the eyes that exist in the animal kingdom.  Surely therefore, any engineer setting forth to design the ultimate eye (making the presumption, of course, that humans are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process) would attempt to incorporate as many beneficial features as possible given available capabilities and within existing constraints.  Yet this is clearly not the case for us.

Compound this with the fact that our eyes have our photocells on the wrong side of the nerves connecting to the brain.  Consequently, photons entering the eye must first pass through these nerve connection tissues before finally reaching the photocells, resulting in some distortion.  This design is clearly not necessary, as demonstrated by the existence of eyes in nature that do not have this connection inverted.  However, this evolutionary mistake was sufficiently minor that the human eye developed this way nevertheless.

Now, seriously.  Would a conscious, intelligent designer, whose goal it was to create a useful, functional eye, ignore this simple though admittedly tiny flaw?  Next, extenuating to your argument: would an engineer designing an "automated" system for the development of a product implement a system capable of generating such flaws, or accept its flawed results as satisfactory?

Consider this.
If your eyes could be as powerful as an electron microscope and see distancee as well as the Hubel telescope, what’s your motivation to use your brain to invent either?
God gave man a very special brain that needs to be used.

[skwurll]

If god is using this design process to create humanity, than please explain why humans are susceptible to disease. Surely a deity would want his creations to be perfect.

[Ellainix]

Consider this.
If your eyes could be as powerful as an electron microscope and see distancee as well as the Hubel telescope, what’s your motivation to use your brain to invent either?
God gave man a very special brain that needs to be used.

I don't understand this question. If we had significantly better vision, why would we need more motivation to invent?

[Whitney]

Even if we had telescopic vision we would still want to invent ways of seeing even farther.  

You seem to be not only drawing random lines but also making up god's plan.