stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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BS77 responds with precise, topical, insightful rebuttals. Ha just kidding!
| Quote | 124
Bornagain77
February 21, 2020 at 4:12 am
Bob states
He’ll probably accuse me of bobbing and weaving, and then change the subject.
Says the man who just blatantly ignored the fact that Darwinists simply cannot ground ‘permanence of form’ of any sort, and thus cannot provide a rigid definition of species in the first place (post 120), (certainly not a minor problem for Bob), and then directly signed on to the side issue of horizontal disease resistance so as to avoid having to deal with his ‘species problem’. ,,, More on horizontal disease resistance later.
But first, Darwinists, as is clearly illustrated in post 120, in their inability to define what a species truly is. simply have no overarching unifying principle in order to explain life, nor to explain why there should be an overarching ‘top down’ classification scheme apparent for life. (i.e. kingdom, phyla, classes. orders, families, genera, species).
To repeat, Darwin, because of the reductive materialistic foundation that his theory rested upon, denied that there were any true ‘species’. He held the the term species “as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience” and that it “does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms.”
“I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.”
– Origin of Species: second British edition (1860), page 52
As unbiased readers can clearly see, Darwin was hardly being concrete in his definition of species. And the reason for his fuzziness in his definition of species is clear, the term species is an abstract property and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible materialistic explanations. i.e. How much does the concept of species weigh? How long in the concept of species in millimeters? How fast does the concept go? Is the concept of species positively or negatively charged? etc.. etc..
The term species, just like all other abstract properties of the immaterial mind, simply can find no grounding within materialism. The fact that the term species is an abstract definition that is created by the immaterial mind creates an irredeemable problem for Darwinists. You don’t have to take my word for it. To repeat what was said in post 120, a Darwinist admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery – July 16, 2019
https://theconversation.com/what-is....-119200
Besides destroying the ability of Darwinists to build any coherent classification scheme for life, this inability for Darwinists to define what the concept of species truly is within the materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution gives us a glimpse into a irredeemable, and catastrophic, defect within the Darwinist’s reductive materialistic framework.
Darwinists ultimately seek to ‘scientifically’ explain everything in materialistic terms. i.e. Reductive materialism. And yet, if something is not composed of particles or does not have physical properties (e.g., length, mass, energy, momentum, orientation, position, etc), it is abstract, i.e., spiritual. Numbers, mathematics, logic, truth, distance, time, beauty, ugliness, species, person, information, etc.. etc.. all fall into that category of being an abstract property of the immaterial mind. It is amazing how many things fall into that ‘abstract’ category even though most of us, including scientists, (“scientists” also happens to be an abstract term itself), swear that they exist physically.
This inability of Darwinists to ground abstract immaterial concepts within their reductive materialistic worldview leads to the catastrophic failure of Darwinian evolution as a scientific worldview.
The main, and primary, reason that Darwinian evolution winds up in catastrophic epistemological failure as a scientific worldview is that mathematics itself, (which is the very backbone of all science, engineering and technology), is an abstract concept that simply can find no basis within the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution.
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? – M. Anthony Mills – April 16, 2018
Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories.
As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents.
In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities.
https://www.realclearreligion.org/article....ct.html
Simply put, Mathematics itself, (as well as logic itself), exists in a transcendent, beyond space and time realm. A platonic immaterial mathematical realm of abstract concepts which simply is not reducible to any possible materialistic explanation. (Of note, Plato was a Theist)
Platonic mathematical world compared to physical world – image
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js....cal.gif
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018
Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”?,,, What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,,,
Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame.
The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it.
https://evolutionnews.org/2018....utation
Simply put, Mathematics itself, contrary to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, does not need the physical world in order to exist. And yet Darwinists, although they deny that anything beyond the physical world exists, need this transcendent world of mathematics in order for their theory to be considered scientific in the first place. The predicament that Darwinists find themselves in regards to denying the reality of this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics in order to be their theory to even be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview.
Moreover, the fact that mathematics in and of itself is immaterial, and yet we have the ability to utilize mathematics, is proof that we ourselves MUST have an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the materialistic explanations of Darwinists. As Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s contemporary, noted “Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.”
Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.
– Alfred Russel Wallace
Thus mathematics itself, which is a primary prerequisite for any theory to be considered scientific in the first place, is scientific proof in and of itself that Darwinian materialism must be false and that we MUST have an immaterial mind and/or soul.
As Berlinski noted, “There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time….”
An Interview with David Berlinski – Jonathan Witt
Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time….
Interviewer:… Come again(?) …
Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects.
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/20.........re.html
Thus, I can see why Bob would want to sign on to the side issue of ‘horizontal disease resistance’ so quickly, and to ignore the ‘species problem’ for Darwinists. The ‘species problem’ when fleshed out in detail, points to an abstract immaterial realm of the mind, an abstract immaterial realm that also includes mathematics itself. A realm that, although it is necessary for us to even ‘do science’ in the first place, cannot possibly be grounded within the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinists.
Needless to say, this IS NOT a minor problem for Darwinists! |
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