A few days ago I stumbled upon a web site which linked a video titled “The Scientific Case for Intelligent Design – Darwinism Debunked“. I didn’t have the time to watch it then so I put the link aside. Today I had a quiet afternoon and so I watched it. Below are my notes dissecting the video as it went.
Please remember that I took these notes as the video was playing. I’ve copied them here unedited – spolling mistooks, abysmal punctuation and grammar unaltered.
First few minutes, Behe and Meyer! This should be awful
Overly dramatic music
Are we dealing with Evolution or Abiogenesis?
Bill Dempskey too!!!
Up to 10 mins, OK, not too bad. Standard documentary fayre – narrator with deep gravelly voice, a bunch of names all with impressive sounding titles Dr, Prof etc.
10:00 Aaargh! Darwinism! You lose. It’s called Evolution numbnuts.
And almost straight into micro-eveolution being ok, but macro not being possible.
11:20 Funny how basically every other evolutionary biologist does the same thing but comes up with a very different answer.
12:00 again with Darwinism. Also, seems to think that Evolution hasn’t progressed as a theory in the 150years since publication of Origin.
12:15 OK, onto Behe and his discredited idea of irreducible complexity it seems.
12:30 Nope, you weren’t taught Darwinian biology, you were taught evolution that was started by the ideas of Darwin. There is a difference.
14:00 And none of that knowledge has dented Evolutionary theory at all, in fact it’s completely supported it.
16:00 Hahahaha Bacterial Flagellum. FAIL!
18:00 Not sure when this film was made, but this apparent failure to explain the flagellum is out of date. It has been explained quite successfully.
19:00 The Mouse trap analogy. FAIL. Every single one of those parts works as something by themselves. Just because they don’t necessarily work as a mouse trap individually means nothing.
20:20 Not quite. You need to explain what function they do do individually or in smaller groups. Or at least show they aren’t detremental to the organism.
20:45 Please tell me they aren’t going to mis-quote Darwin about the eye. Please!
22:00 OK, no eye, thankfully.
23:00 A tail that didn’t function as a flagellum would be selected against? What if that tail did do something useful that wasn’t a flagellum? What then?
23:50 And Behe was an idiot.
24:10 And is was religiously motivated.
25:40 Assembly instructions? What, bacteria shop at IKEA too?
28:20 It’s no use, it’s Turtles all the way down. Pity, I was almost starting to … nah. 
29:30 Game over man! Game over.
29:35 Oh, wait…
30:50 So, because Darwin couldn’t explain how life began, that means that his theory – which works on the assumption that life has already begun by some other mechanism – is wrong? Fail.
31:50 So, Darwin speculated, nothing more. He never proposed a theory for the origin of life.
32:30 Let’s be clear, using evolutionary principles, is not saying that evolution had any hand in it.
34:30 OK, on to proteins, this is all way beyond my pay grade so I’ll probably mostly shut up for a while now.
37:00 Oh hang on, I see where this is going.
37:51 He said it, he said Computer Code! As a programmer he’s now encroaching on my territory.
40:39 Again, not sure how old this film is, but recent studies have shown that certain proteins can indeed spontaneously assemble.
41:30 And we’re back to saying that DNA is computer code.
42:50 Oooh, name dropper. You worked at NASA huh.
44:20 Chemical evolution theory – proved or disproved has not bearing on the veracity of biological evolution.
44:50 You’re not serious are you? If you have thousands of people doing it constantly for billions of years … well, what do you think will happen?
45:40 Wow, wasn’t expecting that. So, you just basically said that biological evolution was irrelevant for causing the start of life. So why have you just spent so much time going on about how we can’t explain the start of life? I’m a bit lost here.
46:20 Oh please, please, don’t lets have an apparently respected scientist just say ‘GODDIDIT’.
46:30 Bugger, he did. Oh well, you just lost all your science privileges. Hand in your lab coat at the door on your way out.
48:00 All very pretty for sure, but I’m hoping that you’re going to actually give a SCIENTIFIC explanation for it all that isn’t GODDIDIT. Or are you hoping we won’t actually notice that lack?
48:50 I love how this bit is suddenly accompanied by uplifting music. YAY, go GOGDIDIT, I love you now because this video has made me feel so much happier.
51:10 Sure, it’s ‘possible’, but it’s not likely. It doesn’t explain anything, it just poses more – and usually unanswerable – questions.
51:20 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is PRECISELY what most of the ‘scientists’ presented in this film have done. FAIL
52:10 Because science is about explaining the universe around us, and it must be repeatable and testable. A guiding intelligence doesn’t fit, not when it could change it’s mind and make everything work in a different way when ever it felt like it.
52:29 Nope, because we KNOW how they were made.
54:10 And humans are INCREDIBLY bad at judging how probably an event actually is.
55:15 Peridolia, so, your God really does have nothing better to do that make shapes in grilled cheese sandwhiches huh?
55:55 Nope, because we frequently observe PEOPLE DRAWING IN THE SAND. If we had never observed that we mmight come to all sorts of conclusions. Most of which would be wildly wrong. It’s interesting that you’re not claiming the very regular almost symmetrical ripples left in the sand by waves – which do look at least as ‘designed’ as the writing were created by an intelligence. Is it because you also know how they were formed?
57:00 Huh? SETI? WTF?
57:30 And just to be clear before they carry on, even if we never detect such a signal it does not disprove intelligent life beyond earth. Also, irrespective of the type of signals received, it says precicely ZERO about non intelligent life.
58:50 Oh WOW. In one breath you say we haven’t found any other life, then in the next you say that the life here on Earth is the BEST! Statistically irrelevant sample anyone?
1:00:00 GOD OF THE GAPS! So, presumably when scientists DO find the answer you’ll STFU?
1:01:21 There is no comprehensive case. They’ve still COMPREHENSIVELY failed to provide the actual evidence that both proves intelligence and disproves evolution.
1:02:00 And so far the evidence has pointed comprehensively away from intelligence.
1:02:30 Again with the uplifting music to add gravity to what these idiots are saying.
1:03:09 GOD OF THE GAPS again. Proves nothing.
1:03:45 If there was a supreme intelligence that wanted the world to be understood, then why did he apparently make it so difficult. If I want my young daughter to understand something I explain it in nice simple terms for her. I don’t give her a book on electronic theory and circuit design so she can understand how to use her MP3 player.
1:04:10 Pity we also find irrationality, pain, and suffering. All things that we would expect to find if the universe wasn’t guided by an intelligent agent.
1:05:21 And what do you think will happen in the 22nd century when all that is explained by naturalistic methods just as you are dismissing what happened in the 19th century?
1:06:54 OK, (C) 2002, so that explains why some of the claims are so out of date then.
Well, yes, that was almost completely awful. Very little actual substance to the arguments. I can sum the whole thing up with … “We don’t yet understand how it happened so we’ll just go with GODDIDIT.” But my hopes weren’t high to be honest.
As usual, I’ll just take a minute to remind everyone I don’t claim to be a scientist of any kind. I’m just an interested bystander. I welcome reasoned and informed discussion. If I have made an egregious error then I am happy to be corrected – especially if you can provide evidence to back up your position that will allow me to learn my mistake.