Some gods that probably would not be capable of undetectable intelligent design:
Aniger - The minor goddess of squashed animals, as in “Oh God, what was that I hit?”.
Anoia - The minor goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers.
Bibulous - The God of Wine and Things on Sticks.
Bilious - The “Oh God of Hangovers”.
Urika - The Goddess of Snow, Saunas and Theatrical Performances for Fewer than 120 People.
How could I leave out Herne the Hunted!
“Herne, The God of Hunted Animals. Herne appears as a small figure with floppy rabbit ears, small horns and a good turn of speed. He has the unfortunate job of being the constantly terrified and apprehensive god of all small furry creatures whose destiny it is to end their lives as a brief, crunchy squeak”
This would be an example of “Last Thursdayism” (Omphalos hypothesis - Wikipedia).
Basically this is the idea that “the world might have been created last Thursday (or by implication, on any other given date and time), but with the appearance of age: people’s memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth.”
Science can not contradict Last Thursdayism. However, there is no way to distinguish between different variations of last Thursdayism, no matter how fanciful or ridiculous these are. Therefore it is silly and should be dismissed with contempt.
6. Do Last Thursdayists believe in evolutionary theory?
While it may seem initially that Last Thursdayists do not believe in
evolution, the official Church stance whole-hearted accepts the
notion that evidence suggests we evolved to our current forms. Indeed,
evolution is one of the many tests of intelligence set up by Queen Maeve.
Of course, it really didn't happen that way, but Last Thursdayists must
act and think rationally when interpeting their world.</blockquote>
What I am arguing is that a god that performed genetic modification would (albeit in a limited sense) be performing “intelligent design”. You say that it could be done in a manner that would appear consistent with the exhibition of evolutionary heritage. Mefiante claims that ID would necessarily involve genes that do not display evolutionary heritage. I suspect that the requirement for ID, as espoused by its proponents, might require more than rudimentary GM.
You say that it could be done in a manner that would appear consistent with the exhibition of evolutionary heritage.
Yes, if we agree for the sake of argument that the god under discussion is all powerful and can do anything.
Mefiante claims that ID would necessarily involve genes that do not display evolutionary heritage. I suspect that the requirement for ID, as espoused by its proponents, might require more than rudimentary GM.
Perhaps if Mefiante is referring to particular arguments put forward by these ID proponents (Discovery Institute perhaps), these can be refuted by the observed lack of genes without evolutionary heritage. But in theory, a general argument for ID would not necessarily be refuted by this absence, since an intelligent designer could always give his designed genes the appearance of an evolutionary heritage.
I do not see your previous stance requiring any supernatural powers. If humans can modify a genome in a way that is not detectable later, why would gods require supernatural qualities to do so?
Perhaps if Mefiante is referring to particular arguments put forward by these ID proponents (Discovery Institute perhaps), these can be refuted by the observed lack of genes without evolutionary heritage. But in theory, a general argument for ID would not necessarily be refuted by this absence, since an intelligent designer could always give his designed genes the appearance of an evolutionary heritage.
Agreed, if we introduce Thursdayism into it, an IDiot could use that argument.
One of the most popular ID arguments is the one of irreducible complexity. To genetically modify a life form to the extent that a complex organ is introduced would probably require a level of genetic manipulation that would be easily detectable later. I will leave this to more knowledgeable members rather than to speculate.
Yes, indeed s/he could. However, in that case, we hardly have any reason at all to take seriously the hypothesis that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” That is, IDiocy would be sliced to shreds by Occam’s Razor and also die a lonely death, wholly deprived of any supportive evidence, simply because we have a simpler and better explanation already that makes fewer and enormously less demanding assumptions. Of course, if you take a supernatural creator god as a given, then the opposite is true.
At this point, it should be obvious just how tricky this science thing can get… :
Good point, they wouldn’t. However if they wanted to produce significant and undetectable changes, they would require abilities far greater than our own.
One must be careful here and conscientiously distinguish between a gene and a genome. Still, the presence of a frost-resistant gene that humans have taken from a fish and engineered into a tomato’s genome would cause more than a little consternation among scientists who knew nothing of our tinkering and who found the gene in related fish (sub)species and yet only in one variety of tomato. As a side note, just such genetic engineering has in fact been done. (ETA: And more.)
