If the eye is so complicated as to have only come from an intelligent designer, what about cancer?
The eye is often held up as a system that could only have been designed, but the peer reviewed scientific literature has given detailed mechanisms of their appearance. However if you want something really complicated that might suggest an intelligent designer. Why not look at cancer?
There are more gaps in our understanding of cancer than about evolution. Childhood cancers in are a particular case in point; we know very little about their causes. The gaps in evolution are pretty small. Classic puzzlers, like the eye, the bacterial flagellum, the wing etc. have been stitched up very well. If you don't agree, then search the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Modern phylogenetics has accelerated our understanding of evolution and has reconfirmed the process at the molecular level, and with greater detail. If you don't know what "phylogenetics" is, then you probably aren't in a position to claim that evolution is full of gaps, just that your education has some. But cancer really does have gaps, loads of them, even these days. If evoking a supernatural being is fair game to plug supposed gaps in evolution, then it is just as legitimate, if not more so, to do this for cancer research? In which case, we just down tools, shake our heads at child leukemia sufferers, turn to the poor parents and say "it is the will of God that your child has cancer, so we're going to do nothing", rather than attempting to find a "materialistic" cause that we could block or interfere with it, either now or for future sufferers.
Why is the supernatural is so enthusiastically embraced by some people for evolution (which has almost no gaps) but not applied with the same vigor for cancer (which has many)? If you are going to use religion to stomp over evolution, why tiptoe around cancer?
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Journal references for the evolution of the Eye.
Nilsson, D.E. (1996) Curr. Biol 6: 39–42.
Halder, G., Callaerts, P. and Gehring, W.J. (1995). Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 5 (pp. 602–609)
Yes, evolution is a scientific theory and the only one of its kind. Gravity is also a scientific theory. I.d. isn't a scientific theory. Your point?
I for one would not want to tell a small child with leukemia that God gave him cancer. Attributing it to the devil doesn't seem to make it any better.
So the devil is an intelligent designer as well? A pretty good one if he designed cancer. Who designed HIV?
- Gelatin Dessert
pfft, the eye is only complicated to creationists because they don't under stand words like 'photon' and 'retinol'.
- vérité
God worked extra hard on that cancer bug... he wanted to make sure we'd crack that puzzle last!
- jon_henryviii
Do you think reason has ever changed the mind of an ID believer? All ID is, is fundie doublespeak for taking Genesis literally. You are trying to teach a pig to sing.
- whitehorse456
You're right. We should pay more attention to the fact that cancer too is part of the Creator's plan, and focus on that which we can do to overcome it, as God has destined for us to do. As we learn the spiritual lessons from it, perhaps the physical manifestation of it will no longer be necessary, and we will discover a cure.
None of this is to say the pursuit of scientific understanding should cease....regarding either evolution / Creationism or cancer research.
- Anthony B
Either you are created or not. Either man is fallen or not. Either there is something called sin or there is not. There is no middle ground here.
Leukemia — Comprehensive overview covers symptoms, causes, risk factors, treatment of this blood-related cancer.
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