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ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,10:09   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,09:28)

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,21:15)
But that seems about as useful and necessary as making a phlogiston detector, trying to generate an improved flat earth hypothesis, investigating whether the order of fossils could be generated by sorting in really big floods, or working on an improved version of Lysenkoism or Lamarckianism.


Not quite N.Wells…. phlogiston, flat earth hypothesis, Lysenkoism, Lamarckianism, geological fossil column via giant/global flood have all been shown to be wrong so far.  We just don’t know yet when it comes to an ultimate creator and I admit we may never know.  But I think it’s worth a try.  Such an endeavor would be useful, because of the social impact it would have.  Do you think social and political issues are “useless?”  I’ve argued with creationists who say that paleontology is useless.  What good does digging up bones do?  What practical purpose they would say?  Life would go on as normal if we didn’t know about all the fossils we have now.  I disagreed when they would say this because knowing about our origins has impacts across the entire spectrum of our lives.  So knowing if there was an ultimate creator at some point would be useful.
 
Quote (midwifetoad @ Mar. 01 2015,21:43)
Theistic evolutionists have formulated any number of private ID hypotheses. All of them are indistinguishable from mainstream evolution.
  Are you in fact admitting here that there is “real” design in nature, not just appearance design?  I though most evolutionists advocated the latter.  You used the word indistinguishable?  Are you saying that the process of evolution points to intelligence?  If so then I agree despite the fact that there is randomness involved.  I’m not saying that an intelligent agency guided evolution, intervened with ex nihilo creation events, or even knew what the products of evolution would be, only that it knew evolution would generate life and order much like a human programmers creating an evolution simulation.  I am a deist theistic evolutionist.

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,09:28)
 You want to mislead them as well, just down a slightly different path.  

Okay NoName, how am I misleading people?  I’m not taking science facts and trying to misconstrue them, fudging data to make promote false conclusions publically, perjuring, lying to school children etc.  I accept evolution theory in its’ entirety according to what science tells us with the caveat that theories are never set in stone and subject to change.  You accuse me of trying to be misleading for doing what is common in science?  
Researchers competing with each other, proposing hypothesis to be tested no matter how preposterous they might sound to others, is part of science.  If you don’t know this than you’re the one that needs to review science.  I accept that my deist evolutionary creator is just that, a religious belief and I argue for it currently on those grounds alone.  I have not represented it as a scientific fact either here or at any other point, rather on philosophical or as you put is metaphysical platforms.   How is that imposing my beliefs on people?  
I recognize that my preferred worldview is just one of many, even though I believe mine is right (it could be wrong however), or I wouldn’t have it, all such views have equal standing from a personal POV.   Now that being said all I’m saying, because I suspect there is a Creator(s), maybe it can scientifically verified?  If not, I’m not going to go around an tell people that a Creators is a scientific fact or no.  This is what Creationists/ID people do.  They tell children in school and church that the facts that we have about evolution are lies from scientists!!!!  I don’t misrepresent science like this.  I don’t say a creator is a scientific fact until it’s gained a high level scientific status like a theorem or theory.  
You accuse me of being a “control freak.”  You can think that if you want to.  But most science types are controlling because that’s what experiments are all about, trying to micromanage and control factors to be tested.  There is even a control to measure against in an experiment.  If trying to make sure that evolution remains taught in schools make me a “control freak” by your standards you’ll have to indict the majority of the scientific community.  You’re leveling the same accusation at me that almost half the country that doesn’t accept evolution levels at people like you.  I can just as easily point out that these people think you are dangerous to society and the body politic for spewing you evolution religion in the schools….tying to shove it down kid’s throats.  You accusation is baseless.
I’ve explained why I would propose a evolutionary ID hypothesis.  It should be vetted through the scientific method like all ideas.  If it stands up then great if not fine.  The fact that I want to compete is not a vice as you imply.  So go ahead think what you want.  I am within scientific bounds with my proposal and have no nefarious reasons only to uncover the truth and pre-empt people who have demonstrated the spreading of untruths.  If anything is meaningless around here so far it’s your ad hominems and baseless accusations.

  
Cubist



Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,10:15   

One thing arborealdescendant doesn't seem to have considered: Those people who hear ID-pushers' propaganda, and buy into it? Those people don't fact-check. If they did, they would fact-check the pro-ID propaganda, and (correctly) conclude that it's bullshit. Alternately, they have actually fact-checked, and they don't care that the pro-ID propaganda is bullshit, or at least they don't care enough to let that stop them from drinking the ID Kool-aid.

So.

What, exactly, does arborealdescendant propose as a solution to the problem of people who buy into pro-ID propaganda cuz they don't give a damn about fact/accuracy/truth?

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,10:23   

Quote (Cubist @ Mar. 02 2015,10:15)
One thing arborealdescendant doesn't seem to have considered: Those people who hear ID-pushers' propaganda, and buy into it? Those people don't fact-check. If they did, they would fact-check the pro-ID propaganda, and (correctly) conclude that it's bullshit. Alternately, they have actually fact-checked, and they don't care that the pro-ID propaganda is bullshit, or at least they don't care enough to let that stop them from drinking the ID Kool-aid.

So.

What, exactly, does arborealdescendant propose as a solution to the problem of people who buy into pro-ID propaganda cuz they don't give a damn about fact/accuracy/truth?

I've got to go back to work....I'll ponder your question and respond later.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,10:41   

Another item for the reading list:

The advantages of theft over toil

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
JohnW



Posts: 3217
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,10:59   

Quote (Cubist @ Mar. 02 2015,08:15)
One thing arborealdescendant doesn't seem to have considered: Those people who hear ID-pushers' propaganda, and buy into it? Those people don't fact-check. If they did, they would fact-check the pro-ID propaganda, and (correctly) conclude that it's bullshit. Alternately, they have actually fact-checked, and they don't care that the pro-ID propaganda is bullshit, or at least they don't care enough to let that stop them from drinking the ID Kool-aid.

So.

What, exactly, does arborealdescendant propose as a solution to the problem of people who buy into pro-ID propaganda cuz they don't give a damn about fact/accuracy/truth?

I have a somewhat less harsh take on this, while broadly agreeing.

Back in the pre-Dover heyday of ID, most of the "popular" support for ID, such as it was, was among religious people with no strong interest in science.  What got them interested was the idea that scientists* had evidence** that life was designed.  Which was exactly what they wanted to hear, because (as far as they were concerned) this meant that they could go ahead and demand the teaching of that old-time religion in schools***.  All the details (irreducible complexity, CSI, FIASCO...) were just window-dressing for most people - it just made the whole exercise sound more technical and scientific.  But I don't think people actively didn't give a damn - they were just happy to hear what they wanted to hear and weren't interested in digging any deeper.  We all do this to some extent - I don't do a detailed fact-check every time I hear about more incompetence in the administration of English cricket.  But it's worth noting that among those who had the skills and inclination to critically examine ID claims, the ID enterprise picked up almost no converts.  I can't think of any working scientists who were convinced by ID arguments.

And what now?  Kitzmiller v. Dover ended over nine years ago.  Behe's muttering to himself.  Dembski's given up.  There have been a few ID-themed books aimed at religious readers.  There's no ID research in science journals, and there isn't even any ID research in their own journals.  Dembski's blog is now a religio-fascist circle jerk, run by a lawyer.

ID's dead.  Why should scientists resurrect it?





* No they weren't, Behe excepted.
** But not good evidence.
*** Which was probably the whole point of ID in the first place.

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Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,11:08   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 02 2015,11:09)
 
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,09:28)

   
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,21:15)
But that seems about as useful and necessary as making a phlogiston detector, trying to generate an improved flat earth hypothesis, investigating whether the order of fossils could be generated by sorting in really big floods, or working on an improved version of Lysenkoism or Lamarckianism.


Not quite N.Wells…. phlogiston, flat earth hypothesis, Lysenkoism, Lamarckianism, geological fossil column via giant/global flood have all been shown to be wrong so far.

So has a creator god hypothesis, not least because of its complete lack of operational definitions and testable hypotheses.
 
Quote
We just don’t know yet when it comes to an ultimate creator and I admit we may never know.  But I think it’s worth a try.

It's been tried.  Why repeat centuries of failures?
 
Quote
 Such an endeavor would be useful, because of the social impact it would have.  Do you think social and political issues are “useless?”

I, and I suspect many of those of us arguing with you, don't think those issues are 'useless', we just think they are strictly orthogonal to questions about an 'ultimate creator'.  There is a slight correlation between religion, considered broadly, and bad social and political outcomes.
There are many reasons to suppose that rather than the source of moral positions or moral reasoning, religions are one of the targets of improved moral positions and moral reasoning.  The Bible, for example, does not explicitly condemn slavery, but any 'civilized' modern society does.  And religion does not focus on slaveholding as an issue, it has been dragged along by the growing understanding of morality and improved moral reasoning that has arisen over time.  Countless examples exist, they apply pretty much across religions, and there are examples, all horrifying, where moral reasoning, moral behavior, has been damaged or destroyed by a resurgence of older and more 'rigorous' conformance to religious precepts.
Religion doesn't driver morality, quite the converse -- morality drives religion, drives it to change fundamentally.  Abraham was praised and revered for an appalling act of child abuse and an appalling surrender to brute force, the fear of power.  There's nothing admirable there.
 
Quote
 I’ve argued with creationists who say that paleontology is useless.  What good does digging up bones do?  What practical purpose they would say?  Life would go on as normal if we didn’t know about all the fossils we have now.  I disagreed when they would say this because knowing about our origins has impacts across the entire spectrum of our lives.  So knowing if there was an ultimate creator at some point would be useful.

How and why?  It really rather depends on what we find out about such an alleged entity.  Kant famously pointed out that existence is not a predicate.  The existence of an ultimate creator is meaningless without knowing something about it beyond the mere fact of its existence.  What does it even mean to exist outside the natural world?Surely it matters whether the 'ultimate creator' has one set of characteristics versus another -- Baal or YHVH, Shiva or Thoth, Set or Odin.   Yes, I know, not all of these claimants to deity-hood are taken to be ultimate creators.  But the pointed end of the argument is that it matters less whether the 'ultimate creator' exists than *which* ultimate creator.  And that boils down to finding out not just existence, but nature.  The god of Abraham is monstrous and unworthy of worship.  Some of us, certainly I, believe that all suggested claimants to status as 'ultimate creator' are unworthy of any positive regard.
 
 
Quote
   
Quote (midwifetoad @ Mar. 01 2015,21:43)
Theistic evolutionists have formulated any number of private ID hypotheses. All of them are indistinguishable from mainstream evolution.
  Are you in fact admitting here that there is “real” design in nature, not just appearance design?  I though most evolutionists advocated the latter.  You used the word indistinguishable?  Are you saying that the process of evolution points to intelligence?  If so then I agree despite the fact that there is randomness involved.  I’m not saying that an intelligent agency guided evolution, intervened with ex nihilo creation events, or even knew what the products of evolution would be, only that it knew evolution would generate life and order much like a human programmers creating an evolution simulation.  I am a deist theistic evolutionist.

   
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,09:28)
 You want to mislead them as well, just down a slightly different path.  

Okay NoName, how am I misleading people?  I’m not taking science facts and trying to misconstrue them, fudging data to make promote false conclusions publically, perjuring, lying to school children etc.  I accept evolution theory in its’ entirety according to what science tells us with the caveat that theories are never set in stone and subject to change.  You accuse me of trying to be misleading for doing what is common in science?  
Researchers competing with each other, proposing hypothesis to be tested no matter how preposterous they might sound to others, is part of science.
 If you don’t know this than you’re the one that needs to review science.  I accept that my deist evolutionary creator is just that, a religious belief and I argue for it currently on those grounds alone.  I have not represented it as a scientific fact either here or at any other point, rather on philosophical or as you put is metaphysical platforms.   How is that imposing my beliefs on people?  
I recognize that my preferred worldview is just one of many, even though I believe mine is right (it could be wrong however), or I wouldn’t have it, all such views have equal standing from a personal POV.   Now that being said all I’m saying, because I suspect there is a Creator(s), maybe it can scientifically verified?  If not, I’m not going to go around an tell people that a Creators is a scientific fact or no.  This is what Creationists/ID people do.  They tell children in school and church that the facts that we have about evolution are lies from scientists!!!!  I don’t misrepresent science like this.  I don’t say a creator is a scientific fact until it’s gained a high level scientific status like a theorem or theory.  
You accuse me of being a “control freak.”  You can think that if you want to.  But most science types are controlling because that’s what experiments are all about, trying to micromanage and control factors to be tested.  There is even a control to measure against in an experiment.  If trying to make sure that evolution remains taught in schools make me a “control freak” by your standards you’ll have to indict the majority of the scientific community.  You’re leveling the same accusation at me that almost half the country that doesn’t accept evolution levels at people like you.  I can just as easily point out that these people think you are dangerous to society and the body politic for spewing you evolution religion in the schools….tying to shove it down kid’s throats.  You accusation is baseless.
I’ve explained why I would propose a evolutionary ID hypothesis.  It should be vetted through the scientific method like all ideas.  If it stands up then great if not fine.  The fact that I want to compete is not a vice as you imply.  So go ahead think what you want.  I am within scientific bounds with my proposal and have no nefarious reasons only to uncover the truth and pre-empt people who have demonstrated the spreading of untruths.  If anything is meaningless around here so far it’s your ad hominems and baseless accusations.

Well, I seem to have touched a nerve.
Good.
I've bolded one place where you are misleading people.
It is false to assert or imply that there has been no scientific work done in the areas you feel are being neglected.  That it is false is demonstrable by the very fact that you claim that the ID proponents are misconstruing science facts, fudging data, perjuring themselves, etc.  We know this to be the case because of several centuries of hard scientific work.
You do know, do you not, that 17th and 18th century science is rife with individuals proposing testable hypotheses for the confirmation of, for example, the truth of the Biblical flood story?  All such efforts have failed, on the merits, and through work done by scientists.
You are misleading people by asserting, without foundation, that there is something new to be considered, that there are new warrants for inserting the now-settled claims about the relevance of an 'ultimate creator' to science back into science.
And you are doing it by insisting that others should because you can't.  If that is not a call to action for others, rather than yourself, how is it not what you protest it is not?
Also, you are misleading others, and demonstrating a lack of understanding of the scientific enterprise, by claiming that the work of science includes 'proposing hypothesis to be tested no matter how preposterous they might sound to others'.  That is, at best, a radically incomplete statement.  We do not need nor do we have in science a 'random proposition generator' the outputs of which must all be taken seriously and with equal weight.  Your statement implies that this is how science works.  It is not.  The hypotheses need to be warranted.  They need to be based on evidence, they need either to accommodate the 'known facts' or present excellent reasons for supposing the 'known facts' to be misconstrued.
Your 'explanation' of why you propose evolutionary ID simply fails to make a case that has not already been addressed and found not just wanting, but false -- as is shown by the history of geology and biology and physics and astronomy and the rest of the sciences, and their consilience.  Adding an 'ultimate creator' adds nothing, because it offers zero explanatory power, it is based on no other warrant than personal hopes/fears/superstitions, and violates the common and standard meanings of the necessary terms. What would change in science if through some efforts, unspecified because unspecifiable, you or some other were to come out of a lab or research instituted and proclaim to have 'scientific evidence' or 'scientific proof' of the existence, in some unspecified because unspecifiable sense of the term, of an 'ultimate creator'?  What would scientists do differently than they are doing now?  What would you do if the 'ultimate creator' were found to be Odin, or Baal, or Cthulhu?
Insofar as there was a need for competition, which was seen by many of us at the time as scientifically needless, it was settled handily by the Dover case, and has been bolstered by other lawsuits, and more particularly, by the solid work of scientists.
Every time any sort of ID notion, including 'evolutionary ID' is proposed, it is blown out of the water, by science or its own inanity and/or internal contradictions, its lack of operational definitions and testable hypotheses.
The competition you think is  needed has either already happened or continues to happen when such foolishness as ID, in any flavor, raises its head.
There's nothing more to be done.
That you are concerned is obvious.  That the concern is misplaced, and includes calls to action that, at best, are susceptible to being misunderstood as calls to actions you disavow, should be obvious by now.
That it is not is suggestive.  Draw your own conclusions.

  
Glen Davidson



Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,11:50   

The problem isn't just that evidence for design isn't found, evidence contrary to design is rife in life.  

There are the vestigial organs, like our coccyx (minor function, clearly not best-served by fused tail vertebrae) and teeth in juvenile platypuses, to mammalian spermatogenesis which can't occur at typical mammalian body temperatures--while in birds it can happen at rather high body temperatures.  Birds have a "pecten" that, along with other factors, helps to provide them very good eyesight, while we're stuck with less good eyes, yet mammals have the three ear bones that transfer signals into liquid well and other vertebrates don't get those.  

Why not?  It's evolution, we're all stuck with our inheritances (barring HGT, barely a factor, if at all, for most vertebrates), with apparently no intelligence figuring things out and doing a bit of genetic engineering, or whatever.  Maybe the designer chooses not to do so?  OK, but then where's the design?

Evolutionary evidence exists as evidence that evolution occurs quite apart from being anti-design evidence.  However, evolutionary evidence is also evidence against design, because any reasonable expectation for design is that design should transcend the limits imposed by mere evolutionary mechanisms.

Glen Davidson

--------------
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p....p

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy

   
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,12:02   

Quote
We just don’t know yet when it comes to an ultimate creator and I admit we may never know.
We cannot disprove that the world was created last Thursday by an omnipotent god with an appearance of age, that we came into being with all our memories and all our stuff being created right along with it.  However, no one bothers with this hypothesis, because it is pointless and useless.  We can't prove it nor can we disprove it.  

The 1700s and 1800s saw a lot of work into biblical biology (were fossils once real animals, have creatures gone extinct, can we see a pattern of one or more special creations, are animal kinds fixed, do animal kinds exist, does biological change happen suddenly and by fiat, is biology teleological?).  The "creator/designer" model failed to explain anything and was tossed, along with phlogistons and flat earth models.  

If a large and vocal portion of the public believed in a flat earth, would science be required to develop a better flat earth model, so that in case the flat-earthists turned out to be correct, science could claim not to have lost?

The "creation scientists" of the 1960's, '70's, and '80's tried to argue for a Noachian flood and against the geological column on the basis of supposedly scientific facts.  The problem was that the facts didn't support their views, so their arguments turned out to be wrong, based on mistaken understanding, or out and out lies.  Failure was pre-ordained, because the arguments had all failed in the early to mid 1800's, but hope springs eternal.  More and more, the Gish, Morris, and Hovind model for argument became "throw out enough complex-sounding lies quickly enough and the truth will never catch up with you".  However, eventually books, other resources, their ever-growing piles of lies, and the law caught up with them, and "fact"-based creation-science arguments became untenable.

At that point, ID arose.  It relies on some warmed over creationist arguments (Henry Morris' probability arguments, Paley's wonderfully intricate designs, and personal incredulity arguments such as by Hugh Montefiore), but its whole stock in trade was to be simultaneously as obscure as possible and as authoritative and jargony as possible, in order to make it appear that they had something, and to make counter-arguments very difficult.  Their competition needed to spend an hour explaining fine nuances of Shannon information and the like for lay people to understand what was wrong with the arguments, by which time most of the audience is either asleep or has concluded that "it's so complicated that even the experts disagree, so I guess there's two sides to the story".  This is why you still think there is something to what they say and why you haven't understood how devastating Wesley's paper is to Dembski's arguments.  Your take from his paper seems to be, "it's all too complicated for me, but it sounds like Dembski has something that can't easily be dismissed", when in fact if you had understood Wesley's paper you would see clearly that Dembski is left pitifully dragging himself through a sludge of his bodily fluids looking for his teeth.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,14:11   

Phlogiston is a good example of science being able to exclude what is wrong; I used it here, among other places.

--------------
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,15:37   

Quote
Are you in fact admitting here that there is “real” design in nature, not just appearance design?  I though most evolutionists advocated the latter.  You used the word indistinguishable?  Are you saying that the process of evolution points to intelligence?


Evolution is a kind of intelligence, and the operation of brains is somewhat analogous to evolution.

All versions of artificial intelligence use learning algorithms that are somewhat analogous to evolution.

One can speculate on omniscience, but actual intelligence involves trial and error learning.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,20:35   

[quote=NoName,Mar. 02 2015,11:08][/quote]
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)

So has a creator god hypothesis, not least because of its complete lack of operational definitions and testable hypotheses…..It's been tried.  Why repeat centuries of failures?

Because scientific technology, methods, and problem solving have increased significantly since centuries past, and will only continue to do so, thus opening doors to potential discoveries that heretofore were considered impossible.  There was a time when traveling to the moon was likely thought impossible, and some people still deny we ever went, but we kept at it and voila.  SETI and exobiologists have never found life beyond Earth….have they given up?   We’ve always speculated about life on other planets and we should keep taping this curiosity.  Likewise, the sheer fact that 99% of humanity intuitively believes in the existence of a deity/creator….whatever…warrants that we always remain open to it as a real scientifically verifiable possibility.  Proving the existence of a creator is also likely a much harder problem then the aforementioned comparisons, perhaps on par with warp drive or something like that, so it may take longer.  
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)

…..religions are one of the targets of improved moral positions and moral reasoning.

I agree with your opinion here and with what else you say about religion.  I’m not a big fan of organized religion even though I was forced to go to southern baptist churches growing up.  As just a young kid I would get admonished by other members for bringing books to church that showed dinos living millions of years ago.  Eventually, at age 12, I got kicked out of Sunday school by the teacher in front of the entire class for defending dinosaurs and evolution.  I had to stand up for evolution against parents, friends, teachers/librarians at school….across the board.  I’ve lived in the south since age 3 and know first-hand what the great majority of people down here are like religiously and how they view most of science.  
It is not on religious grounds I would care that a creator’s existence be proven, rather it’s mostly for philosophical and teleological reasons.   Life should have purpose and ….certain, verifiable meaning….not just on a religious bases.  This in my opinion would have huge positive social, moral, and political consequences in my book.   Implicit to atheism, it seems to me, is an ultimate lack of greater purpose and meaning.  That in my opinion is morbid and depressing.  
So no I don’t care for religion….rather meaning and purpose.
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)

I've bolded one place where you are misleading people.

Synonyms of mislead:  deceive and lie….. which implies malicious intent.  I have no malicious intention of leading anyone astray.  I could be honestly mistaken I admit….as you say “demonstrating a lack of knowledge,”  but this is far different than lying in this case.  So your allegations are wrong in my opinion.   Creationists truly mislead because they know what they are saying is not true.
I do know, not in detail, the scientists past have attempted to test hypothesis such as the Biblical flood, Jesus’s shroud….all that ; and like you said they failed on merits.  What’s the problem with letting them propose these things and if it doesn’t work fine.  This can’t be taken as an inviolable precedent that must never be trespassed on again.  There are no hypotheses police in science.  Anyone can propose or test any hypothesis they like and submit their experimental results for peer-review….this is where the police work is done.  
You claim that a hypothesis must be “warranted” by peers in order go beyond.  This to me seems a very closed minded way to conduct science.  When Stephen Hawking first presented his breakthrough work showing that black holes sometimes ultimately collapse and disappear after spitting off particles throughout their lifetime, his peers in the audience stood up and shouted “preposterous.”  Do you think said peers would have condoned, or thought worthwhile, his hypothesis before he started researching.  Probably not.  If Stephen had listened, it would have unnecessarily prolonged a great discovery.   Your hypothesis filter would stifle innovation, and thinking outside the box, it seems to me.  
I thought there might be other theistic evolutionists on here that might agree with an “evolutionary ID” hypothesis….guess not.  
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)

You are misleading people by asserting, without foundation, that there is something new to be considered, that there are new warrants for inserting the now-settled claims about the relevance of an 'ultimate creator' to science back into science.
 
If you and others on this site know that what I am proposing is not new, how can I mislead you? Mostly, someone has to be unknowledgeable and/or gullible in order to be in danger of being misled.  Are there uniformed children on here that might fall victim to what you call my “misleading?”  If anything, all I’m doing is offering a proposal that should be reconsidered, since as you say, an ‘ultimate creator’ in science is a “settled claim…. and found not just wanting, but false.”  Nothing is ever truly “settled” in science and always up for re-examination, you should know this.  So how is my calling for such causing any harm…worse yet, misleading?  
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)
Adding an 'ultimate creator' adds nothing, because it offers zero explanatory power…..What would change in science....  What would scientists do differently than they are doing now?  What would you do if the 'ultimate creator' were found to be Odin, or Baal, or Cthulhu?

What would change in science if, through a powerful telescope, we discovered extraterrestrial life, currently unreachable on planet 1000 light years away?  Nothing in the near or foreseeable future…..  Yet scientists consider this a very worthwhile question and have, and continue to contribute substantial resources towards answering it.  Should we stop searching for ET?  Defund SETI?  I don’t think so.  Mostly, we just want to know if we are alone or not.   Your stance shows a complete lack of inspiration, curiosity, wonder, tantalization etc., which are the things that make science fun.   Science serves not just practical purposes but also the search for meaning and our place in the universe.  Ask just about anyone if they thought reasonable scientific certainty on the question a creator’s existence would be worthwhile knowledge and I venture to guess the vast majority would say emphatically yes.
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 02 2015,11:08)
That the concern is misplaced, and includes calls to action that, at best, are susceptible to being misunderstood as calls to actions you disavow, should be obvious by now.  
   
It should be clear by now that I support actions by well intentioned, honest, scientists to research ID.  If Dembski et al., fit this category then great, all the credit to their possibly discovery.   What I don’t support is creationists unjustly using such a discovery to mislead people, which Dembski and company have demonstrated a propensity to do in the past.  If I’m guilty of anything it might be proposing a bad strategy to prevent this.  Far from bad intentions…

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,21:26   

Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,11:50)
The problem isn't just that evidence for design isn't found, evidence contrary to design is rife in life.  

There are the vestigial organs.....

I agree that vestigial structures support natural selection and other natural macro-evolutionary mechanisms.  However, this misses the point that I've been trying to make.  What if the chemical and physical universal laws were "designed," coded, stipulated...whatever... so that evolution, by non-divine interference trial-and-error, was the inevitable outcome for the explicit purpose of allowing life to exist on it's own terms....take it's own course so to speak? This is what we do when we program evolutionary simulations in the computer.  

We detect design in nature and attribute it only to appearance because we accurately observe natural laws, that seemingly have no guidance.  However, that doesn't mean that the laws themselves couldn't have been designed.  Many mainstream and reputable scientists take this position.  Many of the laws in the universe, to my admittedly relatively limited knowledge, seem to be fine-tuned for life.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,22:02   

So the laws of nature required five major extinctions, timed just right, so as to allow mammals and then primates to evolve. Seems likely.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,22:05   

Quote
You claim that a hypothesis must be “warranted” by peers in order go beyond.
 Scientists are always short of time and money, and to be productive science should focus on answerable questions (the most difficult and interesting questions that the researcher thinks that he or she might be able to resolve).  Also, the hypotheses need to be falsifiable and really ought to stand a chance of being correct.  We are supposed to examine as many hypotheses as we come up with, but they do need to be reasonable.  Science is tentative, but if done properly the tentativeness is forward-oriented but not backward-oriented: disproof is permanent.  We don't need to keep checking to see if maybe, just maybe, this week phlogistons will finally turn out to have been correct.

Likewise, "fairies did it" is not one of the hypotheses that is perennially added to the list of potential explanations - there's no evidence for them, they are supernatural, and there are no necessary predictions about them, possible tests for them, or ways measure them, so they are excluded from being useful hypotheses.  

Biology has done the debate over teleology and divine guidance, and what's been concluded is that there is no need of divine intervention within the domain of evolutionary change: what we see is exactly what we'd expect to see if no gods or fairies were involved, so giving those hypotheses a pass with respect to matters  since the origin of life isn't warranted.

Earlier?  Well, we can't say much so if you can think of a way to investigate roles for gods or fairies, have at it, but as we don't have any ways to get at them scientifically, it would seem to be a waste of time.

  
Glen Davidson



Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,22:33   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 02 2015,21:26)
     
Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,11:50)
The problem isn't just that evidence for design isn't found, evidence contrary to design is rife in life.  

There are the vestigial organs.....

I agree that vestigial structures support natural selection and other natural macro-evolutionary mechanisms.  However, this misses the point that I've been trying to make.  What if the chemical and physical universal laws were "designed," coded, stipulated...whatever... so that evolution, by non-divine interference trial-and-error, was the inevitable outcome for the explicit purpose of allowing life to exist on it's own terms....take it's own course so to speak?


But seriously, why?  And maybe more importantly, to what do we compare such a goal and purpose?  Do we have an example of such a cause acting, or any reasonable analogy to it?  If not, how are we ever to conclude that such a thing has occurred?

     
Quote
This is what we do when we program evolutionary simulations in the computer.  


Yes, because we desire to simulate something that isn't going to be properly modeled as design practices.

     
Quote
We detect design in nature and attribute it only to appearance because we accurately observe natural laws, that seemingly have no guidance.


I have yet to see any evidence that we detect design in nature, outside of animal (esp. human) productions.  How do organisms appear designed, unless one merely assumes that functionality appears designed?  Is there any excuse to consider such an assumption as anything other than a result of bias?

     
Quote
 However, that doesn't mean that the laws themselves couldn't have been designed.


I suppose not, but I've never seen any evidence of the laws of physics being designed.  Until and unless we do, I can't imagine how we could legitimately infer such an event.

     
Quote
 Many mainstream and reputable scientists take this position.  Many of the laws in the universe, to my admittedly relatively limited knowledge, seem to be fine-tuned for life.


It's a fair question of why the universe has the properties that can support known life, when those properties are rather narrow and not likely "by chance."  How one gets from acknowledging the question to supposing that religion has the answers seems not to be the result of evidence and logic, however.

Glen Davidson

--------------
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p....p

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy

   
Woodbine



Posts: 1218
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,01:10   

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. - Lou FCD]

Quote (Dhokahai7 @ Mar. 03 2015,06:23)
Put down the Coast 2 Coast AM.

Step away from the Coast 2 Coast AM.


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baki teri marzi hai

I thought this sounded familiar.

It's from here....

http://tinyurl.com/o73jt22....o73jt22

And this one from another necro'd thread....
   
Quote
After Comrade Mao's momentous victory, he jumped into the Yangtze river and set a new world record in swimming.

...belongs to Steve from here....

http://tinyurl.com/q62ovbz....q62ovbz

???

  
Cubist



Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,04:33   

Re-posting a query arborealdescendent made some noise about getting to by and by:

One thing arborealdescendant doesn't seem to have considered: Those people who hear ID-pushers' propaganda, and buy into it? Those people don't fact-check. If they did, they would fact-check the pro-ID propaganda, and (correctly) conclude that it's bullshit. Alternately, they have actually fact-checked, and they don't care that the pro-ID propaganda is bullshit, or at least they don't care enough to let that stop them from drinking the ID Kool-aid.

So.

What, exactly, does arborealdescendant propose as a solution to the problem of people who buy into pro-ID propaganda cuz they don't give a damn about fact/accuracy/truth?

  
fnxtr



Posts: 3504
Joined: June 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,08:56   

Seems to be infecting us here, too: http://www.cbc.ca/news.......2978984

--------------
"[A] book said there were 5 trillion witnesses. Who am I supposed to believe, 5 trillion witnesses or you? That shit's, like, ironclad. " -- stevestory

"Wow, you must be retarded. I said that CO2 does not trap heat. If it did then it would not cool down at night."  Joe G

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,10:45   

Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,22:33)
But seriously, why?  
 

Why would such a process as evolution possibly be set forth by a creator you mean?  Just speculating but perhaps in order to grant life complete autonomy, free-will, who knows?  Apparently, evolution is the exact appropriate design necessary so that life forms can better survive in a universe that is more interesting and diverse compared to one that is boring and static, with no change in weather or seasons for example.  In this regard evolution would be the more intelligent process, even via an omnipotent creator(s).   There are higher levels of reason than can be gleaned than just through mere scientific reductionism.  
Seems to me the reasons are not as important per this discussion as did it happen.  Either way fingerprints of design are there.  Mainstream scientists, like Ken Miller, attributes said design to mere “appearance” because of the match of form to function in organisms, that we rightly observe is the result of a blind natural process, guided by law.   This argument, I suspect, is missing the forest for the trees.   Either way form matching function in nature is still evidence of “design” is it not?  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s most likely a duck.  
There is a level of law above the blind, randomness involved in natural selection and those are the physics and chemistry that have been fine-tuned to allow for evolution and thus adaptable life; that is evolution is an embedded subroutine in these higher laws not unlike a random number generator in an evolutionary algorithm.   In this regard, where at one level we rightly define design as mere “appearance”, becomes “real” design through a larger lens.

Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,22:33)
Do we have an example of such a cause acting, or any reasonable analogy to it?  If not, how are we ever to conclude that such a thing has occurred?
 

Even if we can’t empirically observe said cause in action, we can indirectly detect it.  The interpretation of this evidence is based on perspective.  I gave a reasonable analogy as human evolutionary computer simulations.  You think this analogy falls apart:
Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,22:33)
 because we desire to simulate something that isn't going to be properly modeled as design practices.


Evolution in my mind is a valid form of design practice.  Scientists us it to find solutions no one previously thought of.  Just because it involves random chance trial and error doesn’t mean it can’t be properly considered part of the design process itself.  To the contrary, on the whole computer simulations demonstrate that evolution can indirectly properly be considered an intelligent design process.  No?  Whether it is the most effective design process depends on your goals and aims.
 
Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 02 2015,22:33)
I have yet to see any evidence that we detect design in nature, outside of animal (esp. human) productions.  How do organisms appear designed, unless one merely assumes that functionality appears designed?  Is there any excuse to consider such an assumption as anything other than a result of bias?


Again, many mainstream scientists (e.g. Kenneth Miller) say that of form matching function IS DESIGN.  However, they say that this is a mere illusion…. only an appearance of design because empirically we observe it a product of the “blind watchmaker.”  Once you consider a higher level of physics the blind-fold comes off so to speak.  
I don’t think this is religious bias, but a reasonable inference.  Relatively speaking, we all know that animals (e.g. humans) intelligently design items, which we can then be describe as designed.   Hypothetically, suppose in the future humans use evolutionary algorithms and neural nets to design and create fully, self-aware, “artificial’ intelligence which they then embody in the form of sentient robots.  These living robots then create and design their own lifeforms and so on the cycle continues, like a living micro-cosmic fractal, until life spreads across the universe.  According to many evolutionists, the repetition in this cycle demonstrating that an IDed lifeform create other IDed lifeforms and so on, can only start with the initial invention of the first IDed robotic entities.  Why, because they say that humans, despite being capable of ID, were never IDed themselves.  
So in essence, ultimately design came from non-design.  How does that follow?  How can you get something from nothing?  Why does something exist at all if there was nothing to begin with?  There is no religious bias in this question….it’s rational in my opinion.  The way it’s been put to me one this forum is the scientific evidence does indeed point to a proposition that something came from nothing…design came from non-design etc.  Maybe it’s not the evidence that is wrong but the interpretation.  

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 02 2015,22:05)
Biology has done the debate over teleology and divine guidance, and what's been concluded is that there is no need of divine intervention within the domain of evolutionary change what we see is exactly what we'd expect to see if no gods or fairies were involved, so giving those hypotheses a pass with respect to matters  since the origin of life isn't warranted.


This is the interpretation I’m talking about.  I agree natural evolutionary design can occur without direct divine intervention, which is why we don’t observe it.  However, that doesn’t mean that “gods” can’t be indirectly involved like a human programmer is indirectly involved with an evolution simulation.  Depending intentions, evolution can indirectly be an intelligent design process, as I mentioned to Glen.  So no, natural evolution does not preclude involvement of a deity of some sort.
 
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 02 2015,22:05)
 Also, the hypotheses need to be falsifiable and really ought to stand a chance of being correct.  We are supposed to examine as many hypotheses as we come up with, but they do need to be reasonable.  Science is tentative, but if done properly the tentativeness is forward-oriented but not backward-oriented: disproof is permanent.  We don't need to keep checking to see if maybe, just maybe, this week phlogistons will finally turn out to have been correct.  


Sometimes existing evidence just needs to be re-examined or interpreted in a broader and different context.  Then hypotheses previously thought untenable might have something to add.

Quote (midwifetoal @ Mar. 02 2015,22:02)
So the laws of nature required five major extinctions, timed just right, so as to allow mammals and then primates to evolve. Seems likely.


The endless physical possibilities in the universe make it likely that at least one planet might experience periodic asteroid impacts that coincidentally seemed timed just right to allow a course of evolution as observed on Earth.  I’ve heard speculations on Discovery Channel that asteroid impact may serve a real purpose to usher life towards higher intelligence.  Less cerebrally derived species get killed off and the evolutionary cycle continues until a species evolves that is intelligent enough to intercept and prevent the next event.  Out of destruction new live arise allowing more new diversity thus ushering evolution onward.  

Quote (Cubist @ Mar. 03 2015,04:33)

What, exactly, does arborealdescendant propose as a solution to the problem of people who buy into pro-ID propaganda cuz they don't give a damn about fact/accuracy/truth?


I know the types of people you are talking about.  They are dogmatic and no matter how compelling the evidence for evolution that they are presented with they will not budge.  I don’t know what to do about them.  Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs so you can’t force them to change their minds….and we shouldn’t.  Science just needs to keep trying to find new ways to persuade the public about the evidence.  If I was rich….I’d build a huge, comprehensive natural history and science museum right here in the small southern town that I live in….this could make science more accessible to the kids.  Listening to NPR there is a man, wish I could remember his name, who moved away from his southern town, became rich, and returned home and did this.  He funded it for the next 20 years.  I suspect the minds of residents regarding evolution and science will change more quickly than other southern towns.
I think holding public debates is a good idea.  The losing side might eventually fail on their own merits.  Eventually, it may just come down to a battle of attrition.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,12:34   

Quote
The endless physical possibilities in the universe make it likely that at least one planet might experience periodic asteroid impacts that coincidentally seemed timed just right to allow a course of evolution as observed on Earth.


How about applying Dembski's math to that?

Science fiction has conditioned us to expect humanoid beings spread throughout the universe, but it's more likely that most hospitable worlds are dominated by microbes.

As we are and shall be for the foreseeable future.

We are the holders of a winning lottery ticket trying to read destiny into our win. Michael Denton even used the word Destiny in a book title. Chardin made a living hawking  the inevitability of humans and beyond.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Glen Davidson



Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,12:45   

Quote
Why would such a process as evolution possibly be set forth by a creator you mean?  Just speculating but perhaps in order to grant life complete autonomy, free-will, who knows?  


This is why these discussions get surreal very quickly.  Speculations having nothing to do with known design motives and purposes begin to be called reasons for design.  What evidence do we have to justify those as purposes to design?  These seem more like reasons to have children, likely not a coincidence.

 
Quote
There are higher levels of reason than can be gleaned than just through mere scientific reductionism.  


Philosophically, this is likely so, depending on what is meant by "higher."  For dealing with details comprehensively and relatively non-prejudicially, however, science is the best that we have, or the epistemologically-similar judicial fact-finding processes (other processes are empirically sound, but are rarely formalized to attempt to make them as empiric as possible).  Matching observable cause to observable effect is the basic means in either case, and you don't have even a candidate for such a cause.

 
Quote
Seems to me the reasons are not as important per this discussion as did it happen.  Either way fingerprints of design are there.


This you do assert, without justification.

 
Quote
Mainstream scientists, like Ken Miller, attributes said design to mere “appearance” because of the match of form to function in organisms, that we rightly observe is the result of a blind natural process, guided by law.


Then he does not agree that there is design, but apparently only the appearance thereof.  Why would he say that?  Probably because life fails to provide evidence for the sort of thought normally considered to go into design.

Actually, I'm not clear on what Miller says about design, as he once was saying that we should reclaim "design" for evolution, apparently using the wider sense of "design" that can include snowflakes and the like within the scope of "design."  But I think it would just confuse things--how then are we to use English to compare and contrast "design" and "evolutionary processes"?

 
Quote
  This argument, I suspect, is missing the forest for the trees.   Either way form matching function in nature is still evidence of “design” is it not?


That seems to be your assumption, for which I can see no good justification.  Are weather patterns, precipitation in general, designed, then, since these phenomena clearly perform functions?  Is language designed because it is functional?  I don't deny all design in language, of course, but language on the whole is not designed--and is analogous in many ways with biologic evolution.
 
 
Quote
There is a level of law above the blind, randomness involved in natural selection and those are the physics and chemistry that have been fine-tuned to allow for evolution and thus adaptable life; that is evolution is an embedded subroutine in these higher laws not unlike a random number generator in an evolutionary algorithm.   In this regard, where at one level we rightly define design as mere “appearance”, becomes “real” design through a larger lens.


As a faith statement, a religious tenet, etc., that's fine.  But there's certainly no evidence that backs up such a claim, and thus it's hardly scientific.

 
Quote
Even if we can’t empirically observe said cause in action, we can indirectly detect it.  The interpretation of this evidence is based on perspective.


And not on solid causes.  We indirectly detect all sorts of phenomena, but these are based upon solid evidence.  You seem not to realize that you have no solid evidence for a "designer," but like to virtually use homiletics to "analogize" between the known and the unobserved and speculative.

 
Quote
 I gave a reasonable analogy as human evolutionary computer simulations.  


A simulation is just that.  A simulation of a supernova explosion doesn't analogically suggest, or show, that intelligence is involved with supernovas.


 
Quote
Evolution in my mind is a valid form of design practice.


Can be, by mimicking a non-design process.

 
Quote
Scientists us it to find solutions no one previously thought of.  Just because it involves random chance trial and error doesn’t mean it can’t be properly considered part of the design process itself.


Ringworm was designed?  Why?

   
Quote
To the contrary, on the whole computer simulations demonstrate that evolution can indirectly properly be considered an intelligent design process.  No?


For novel meanings of "intelligent" and "design," I suppose.

How could we ever simulate anything on computers if every such simulation merely showed that it was part of "intelligent design?"

 
Quote
Again, many mainstream scientists (e.g. Kenneth Miller) say that of form matching function IS DESIGN.


And many just leave it as having evolved.  As they should.

What really appear designed are actually crystals, for they appear rationally composed and may be almost perfect.  Many have functions as well.  

 
Quote
Once you consider a higher level of physics the blind-fold comes off so to speak.


Is earth designed as a sphere under such "higher level of physics" as well?  It's certainly more functional than dust grains crashing around in the nebula.

Is anything not designed?

 
Quote
[The claim is made that design comes from non-design with self-replicating robots]  Why, because they say that humans, despite being capable of ID, were never IDed themselves.  
So in essence, ultimately design came from non-design.  How does that follow?


It doesn't follow as a matter of course, it becomes possible via the evolution of intelligence.  Why shouldn't design come from non-design?  Must everything have always been?  

See, you're apparently not much interested in actual explanations, whereby designing entities evolve, evidently sans design.  You want regress, design causes design.  

 
Quote
The way it’s been put to me one this forum is the scientific evidence does indeed point to a proposition that something came from nothing…design came from non-design etc.


Evolution isn't nothing.

 
Quote
 Maybe it’s not the evidence that is wrong but the interpretation.  


Perhaps this has much to do with someone wanting to shoehorn a priori beliefs into science, rather than letting it discover what happened from the evidence.

Glen Davidson

--------------
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p....p

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy

   
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,14:49   

More bafflegab.
The point remains clear -- the significant question, if there is one, is not whether or not there is an 'ultimate creator' or a 'proximate creator' responsible for the "manufacture" of the universe.  Still less is there any reason to think about whether or not the universe was "manufactured" according to some 'prior' design spec.
What would matter, after all the above were to be settled, is *what are the characteristics of this "creator"*.
As I pointed it above, it matters a great deal whether the "ultimate creator" is Baal or YHVH, or some previously unknown deity with previously unknown characteristics.

Insofar as it might make sense to inquire after a 'design spec' for the universe, there are no reasons, no warrant, for believing that there could be any better way to determine what that is than through the work of science and scientists.
At least they have the humility to acknowledge [i]as part of their process[/i/] that they could be wrong, and are willing to revisit previously accepted "truths".
What other approach to learning and knowing demonstrates this ability to change, to adapt, to take on board new understanding, new insights, and to be capable of generating them?

But of course these are the rocks on which "ArborealDescendent's" 'arguments' shatter.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,15:18   

Quote
design came from non-design etc.


Quote
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is conceived as a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.


Emergence

   
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,15:35   

Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 03 2015,13:45)
...
   
Quote
 Maybe it’s not the evidence that is wrong but the interpretation.  


Perhaps this has much to do with someone wanting to shoehorn a priori beliefs into science, rather than letting it discover what happened from the evidence.

Glen Davidson

Gee, ya think?

That's been the only consistent thread throughout AD's extended whinge.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,18:01   

Quote
the interpretation.


That's the spiel at Ken Ham's Creation Museum.

There's not much new in creation world.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,18:23   

midwifetoad, I hope it's clear I'm not a Creationist.  I believe in a Creator(s) but not by the arguments or Creatonists or current IDers proper.  I'm a deist theistic evolutionists.  This may be considered some form of ID I don't know.

Quote (Glen Davidson @ Mar. 03 2015,12:45)
For dealing with details comprehensively and relatively non-prejudicially, however, science is the best that we have….Matching observable cause to observable effect is the basic means in either case, and you don't have even a candidate for such a cause.


I agree with this statement, that’s why I’m trying to figure out how to formulate my ideas into scientific hypotheses.  Admittedly, I’ve not made the case yet….these are tough questions and my answers as they stand are still religious beliefs.  However, I don’t think continuing to try and elevate them to a level of scientific certainty is a futile undertaking, like many of you seem to have concluded.  I need to clarify some of my definitions as you folks point out…that’s the first step.
I’ve taken the time to manually transcribe, because I couldn’t find it on the internet, part of Kenneth Miller’s Chautauqua speech to help elucidate the what I’m trying to say in my arguments.  I agree with pretty much everything he says here.
About one hour into his speech he comments on Senator Rick Santorum’s views of evolution.  “What [Santorum] is saying that if Darwin was right….morality….good and evil…the right thing and the wrong thing is all an illusion….and for someone who had tried to organize his life around a certain moral sense this would be a disaster.  Now Santorum’s misunderstanding, I think, of the meaning of evolution is part and parcel of why SCIENCE IS IN TROUBLE in the country today.”  You see this is partly why I’m so concerned…..someone of Miller’s caliber admitting science is in trouble!!!  You’all say my concern is an illusion….a “monster under the bed” as NoName put it if I remember correctly.  
Miller goes on, “…and I think science has allowed itself to be forced into a corner by this design argument.  And many of my colleagues in science recoil from what they regard is the theological implications of design, which of course requires a designer and they fool themselves by, in effect, getting up  and arguing that there is no design in nature.  Now in a religious nation like ours this really plays into the hands of those who oppose evolution and science in general, and the reason for that is arguing that there is no design in nature implies that the form and the function of living things are simply the random and accidental mistakes of nature, just like Rick Santorum said they were.  And if you and I are random accidental mistakes our lives have no significance, the choices we make have no significance, and morality itself are an illusion.  But remember [Santorum’s] statement, ‘living things are just the random and accidental mistakes in nature.’  In closing today I want to make a simple argument….THEY AREN’T.  And I want to make the argument in this way.  Here’s the reality….life is material….and the capacity for life is built into the physics of chemistry of matter itself; and evolution, therefore, is an inherent and a predictable property of nature….it’s not a mistake.  It’s something that matter itself allows.  And evolutionary processes explore, what biologists often call, adaptive space….and it explores it in kind of predictable way.  And it is driven by a very non-random force, natural selection…natural selection is not random at all…and by the reality of the laws of physics and chemistry, which are also non-random.  Now what does all this mean?  It means that the evolutionary design of life is part of the inherent fabric of the natural world.  Evolution isn’t a strange add-on…it’s is built into nature itself.  So the lesson in this respect….is that the idea of design is not a theologically inspired illusion to be dismissed, it is a scientific reality to be embraced. How come?  To rescue the argument of design for the cause of science and to enlist it in the cause of science.  I’ll give you an example of what I mean.  Does the human body have a design?  Well I think it does.  Reverend William Paley, fifty years before Darwin wrote a book called ‘Natural Theology,” in which he argued that the design of the human body is a design given by God.  Well I think the human body does have a design, but it’s the design produced by evolution.....What we mean by design is the exquisite correlation, produced by evolution, between structure and function.”
Now I can’t make it more clear than this.  As Miller says, SCIENSE IS IN TROUBLE and I’ve seen it my entire life here in the south with these people down here.  Just about everything I’ve heard from you folks, even though I agree with you entirely about evolution proper….not maybe you religious conclusions that you draw from it…..validates in my mind what Miller spoke about.  Almost all of you have seemed to recoil at the notion of any kind of design…I think Glen mentioned form and function as design.  Cubist asked me what can be do about those people that accept ID arguments even though they don’t care about the facts.  We need to revise the argument as Miller says and make it clear that there is design in evolution….if some of you do this I apologize, I may not sense it yet.
Where I would to further than Miller is that form/function design via evolution is in fact the same as “real” design via a Creator(s)….that they are indistinguishable, because in my view a Creator(s) designed the laws that made evolution design and produce life without further intervention.  So I interpret the scientific evidence different, obviously, than you folks.  I’m trying to think of a testable hypothesis to bear this out, but yes, right now it’s only conjecture I admit.  I don’t think we should give up and say, science hasn’t been able to do this for centuries and therefore it will never be able to do it.    
I hope at least scientists would universally adopt the strategy that Miller proposes.  It may already, I don’t know….but I’ve not sensed it on this forum….I may have missed it.  It seems to me that if you accept Miller’s assessment of design in evolution, on a philosophical level you would admit it’s a possibility that this could be the same as the indirect handiwork of a ‘designer.’  Just because we can’t observe a ghostly hand mutating the DNA or changing the weather doesn’t mean said entity didn’t start the process off and then stepped back in a deistic sense….right?

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,19:11   

That's exactly what SAI does. It provides a means of rejecting chance in preference of a hypothesis that something has come about for a reason. Because "a reason" could be secondary causes, like evolutionary descent with modification, it gives nothing to the IDC contingent, but it takes away the notion that they have a methodology for "design detection" worth the name. SAI is workable; CSI is not.

The other paper I mentioned, The advantages of theft over toil, delineates the difference between ordinary design inferences (the sort we make all the time in knowledge of the capabilities and preferences of known designers) and rarefied design inferences (the sort that are made in complete ignorance of any putative designer for an artifact or event). We can justify ordinary design inferences. We cannot justify rarefied design inferences.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,19:21   

How is deism distinguished from "materialism"? Other than deism might make you feel better?

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,20:17   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 03 2015,19:23)
...Just because we can’t observe a ghostly hand mutating the DNA or changing the weather doesn’t mean said entity didn’t start the process off and then stepped back in a deistic sense….right?

And just because we can't observe, nor test, the notion that the universe was brought into existence last Thursday, complete with the appearance of age, and complete with memories of the early days of their lives prior to that wondrous day, when the Invisible Pink Unicorn, pbuh, doesn't mean we should rule it out, right?
I mean, just think of the social effects if we could show that this is true!  Surely it must matter, matter enough for science to take seriously, and begin searching for the fingerprints of her awesome hoofs, right?

  
Glen Davidson



Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 03 2015,21:17   

Quote
About one hour into his speech he comments on Senator Rick Santorum’s views of evolution.  “What [Santorum] is saying that if Darwin was right….morality….good and evil…the right thing and the wrong thing is all an illusion….


Really?  I didn't know that evolution was either prescriptive or capable of claiming that morality is only an illusion.  There could be a god who prescribes morality, for all that "evolution knows," and if that seems unlikely (does to me), it hardly means that the sense of good and evil didn't evolve.  

There are people mistaking evolution for a totalist view, when it is ideally open, and limited in its claims.

   
Quote
Miller goes on, “…and I think science has allowed itself to be forced into a corner by this design argument.  And many of my colleagues in science recoil from what they regard is the theological implications of design, which of course requires a designer and they fool themselves by, in effect, getting up  and arguing that there is no design in nature.


Not true, at least not for the most part.  Scientists rightly say that there isn't evidence for design in nature, not that there is no design.  At least most do when they're being careful.

   
Quote
 Now in a religious nation like ours this really plays into the hands of those who oppose evolution and science in general, and the reason for that is arguing that there is no design in nature implies that the form and the function of living things are simply the random and accidental mistakes of nature, just like Rick Santorum said they were.


So wrong.  By no means is evolution random or accidental, nor could anything random and accidental give rise to the life that we see.  Now in one sense it might be called "accidental," or at least accidental insofar as we can determine, which is that we have no evidence that the universe was set up for evolution, and in that sense the whole process could be "accidental" in the same way that weather apparently is.  

   
Quote
Here’s the reality….life is material….and the capacity for life is built into the physics of chemistry of matter itself; and evolution, therefore, is an inherent and a predictable property of nature….it’s not a mistake.


Speculation and wish projection.  How was the capacity for life built into physics, chemistry?  What is inherent about it?  We have carbon, which makes four strong covalent bonds, and with some other important elements this makes life possible.  Of course evolution is, more or less, predictable (that is, many of its effects are expected, while the forms taken are not, long-term), and that truth is thrown in as if to make the questionable claims soak up some of its legitimacy.  They don't.

   
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It means that the evolutionary design of life is part of the inherent fabric of the natural world.


Not even close.  The "natural world" can allow evolutionary development, there's nothing that makes it "inherent."  

   
Quote
Does the human body have a design?  Well I think it does.  Reverend William Paley, fifty years before Darwin wrote a book called ‘Natural Theology,” in which he argued that the design of the human body is a design given by God.  Well I think the human body does have a design, but it’s the design produced by evolution.....


Hm, well, in some broad sense I'm willing to call it a design, but in what way does inheritance imply any sort of design that Paley would recognize?

   
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What we mean by design is the exquisite correlation, produced by evolution, between structure and function.”


Structure tends to dictate function.  I can't even imagine how this truism is supposed to relate to such design claims.

   
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even though I agree with you entirely about evolution proper….not maybe you religious conclusions that you draw from it…..validates in my mind what Miller spoke about.


What religious conclusions?  I think many who don't believe in God would hardly credit evolution with having a lot to do with it, save perhaps for discrediting very creationist religions.  The lack of any apparent intervention throughout phenomena studied by science really does have a lot to do with it, for many.

   
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Almost all of you have seemed to recoil at the notion of any kind of design…I think Glen mentioned form and function as design.


No, I was disagreeing with the notion that functionality indicates design.

   
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We need to revise the argument as Miller says and make it clear that there is design in evolution….


We're waiting for evidence to do that.

   
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Where I would to further than Miller is that form/function design via evolution is in fact the same as “real” design via a Creator(s)….that they are indistinguishable, because in my view a Creator(s) designed the laws that made evolution design and produce life without further intervention.


You're welcome to that view.  What makes you think that we have any reason to adopt it, sans good evidence?

   
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So I interpret the scientific evidence different, obviously, than you folks.


You insist on including your preferences.

   
Quote
I’m trying to think of a testable hypothesis to bear this out, but yes, right now it’s only conjecture I admit.  I don’t think we should give up and say, science hasn’t been able to do this for centuries and therefore it will never be able to do it.


Who said that it will never be able to do so?  The usefulness of trying to do so is in question, it is true.    

   
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I hope at least scientists would universally adopt the strategy that Miller proposes.


I would prefer that science would be honest about the data and what may be inferred from it.

   
Quote
It seems to me that if you accept Miller’s assessment of design in evolution, on a philosophical level you would admit it’s a possibility that this could be the same as the indirect handiwork of a ‘designer.’


I suppose if I began with such an untenable assumption I would admit the possibility.  

You really seem to think that because Miller made some claims that the argument has been made, possibly even won.  It doesn't work that way.

   
Quote
 Just because we can’t observe a ghostly hand mutating the DNA or changing the weather doesn’t mean said entity didn’t start the process off and then stepped back in a deistic sense….right?


This is where the intellectual bankruptcy of such a position really shows.  First off, no one said that the lack of evidence does allow anyone to categorically deny the possibility of a godly role in the universe, and secondly, the problem is that it is up to you and your fellow believers to give us a reason to suppose that some spiritual (or whatever) entity is responsible for the universe/evolution.

Glen Davidson

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http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p....p

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy

   
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