Absolute chance vs. architect

[Ranklyfrank]

:banghead:

Thanks, Buffalo, in a sense you describe my situation exactly. Fortunately I’m not in it.

 

[Jim_Baur]

I started this thread.

Apparently this thread is being allowed.

In a short and clear answer, if it is possible, to what degree do the non-theist arguments for evolution make use of chance?

Also, concerning the existence of being, do the non-theists hold the position that being came about by chance?

If chance is used, how or to what degree?

I really do not want to argue. I am really curious about the positions.

Thanks!

 

[rossum]

In a short and clear answer, if it is possible, to what degree do the non-theist arguments for evolution make use of chance?

Very little. Evolution is an observed phenomenon; bacteria evolve resistance. Life fits into a tree of common descent.

The theory of evolution is supported by the standard scientific method which uses normal scientific statistics to evaluate predictions and to compare hypotheses.

The major element of chance in the area of evolution is the randomness of mutations. Note that this does not mean that mutations have no cause, they do. “Random mutation” is just a shorthand for “a mutation which is random with respect to its effect, if any, on the phenotype”. No directed mutations have been observed experimentally, only undirected mutations have been observed.

Also, concerning the existence of being, do the non-theists hold the position that being came about by chance?

That is an entirely different question, and nothing to do with either evolution or biology in general. It is possible the the Big Bang was initially a truly random quantum fluctuation.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Very little. Evolution is an observed phenomenon; bacteria evolve resistance. Life fits into a tree of common descent.

The theory of evolution is supported by the standard scientific method which uses normal scientific statistics to evaluate predictions and to compare hypotheses.

The major element of chance in the area of evolution is the randomness of mutations. Note that this does not mean that mutations have no cause, they do. “Random mutation” is just a shorthand for “a mutation which is random with respect to its effect, if any, on the phenotype”. No directed mutations have been observed experimentally, only undirected mutations have been observed.

That is an entirely different question, and nothing to do with either evolution or biology in general. It is possible the the Big Bang was initially a truly random quantum fluctuation.

rossum

No rossum - they utilize their “memory” to defeat antibiotics.

 

[rossum]

No rossum - they utilize their “memory” to defeat antibiotics.

Evidence please for bacteria having ‘memory’. Have you studied the Luria–Delbrück experiment?

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

Chance and design are interpretive factors pertinent to human perception regarding limited understanding within the entirety of Reality.

Do you mean they don’t exist beyond our thoughts? If so that argument could be applied to all human knowledge - including science…

 

[tonyrey]

Also, concerning the existence of being, do the non-theists hold the position that being came about by chance?

If chance is used, how or to what degree?

There is a famous book by Jacques Monod, Nobel Laureate, entitled “Chance and Necessity” in which he made the views of materialists abundantly clear:

“We call these events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism’s hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact.”

sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-science-writers-jacques-monod.htmlhttp://http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-science-writers-jacques-monod.html

 

[Jim_Baur]

tonyrey

Thank you!

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey
Thank you!

Don’t mention it, Jim.
There are materialists who disagree with Monod on the ground that chance is subordinate to physical necessity but they overlook the fact that in their scheme of things physical laws are uncaused and undesigned. So their concept of physical necessity is the supreme example of “pure chance”, i.e. that which exists for no reason or purpose. Everything is regarded as an accident! What could be more fortuitous than that?

 

[buffalo]

Don’t mention it, Jim.
There are materialists who disagree with Monod on the ground that chance is subordinate to physical necessity but they overlook the fact that in their scheme of things physical laws are uncaused and undesigned. So their concept of physical necessity is the supreme example of “pure chance”, i.e. that which exists for no reason or purpose. Everything is regarded as an accident! What could be more fortuitous than that?

Here is another guy who has issue with Monod:

…The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature “there is revealed such a superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection.” In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed a powerful reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: “Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb.”

Jacques Monod, who rejects as unscientific every kind of faith in God and who thinks that the world originated out of an interplay of chance and necessity, tells in the very work in which he attempts summarily to portray and justify his view of the world that, after attending the lectures which afterward appeared in book form, François Mauriac is supposed to have said: **“What this professor wants to afflict on us is far more unbelievable than what we poor Christians were ever expected to believe.”
**
Monod does not dispute this. His thesis is that the entire ensemble of nature has arisen out of errors and dissonances. He cannot help but say himself that such a conception is in fact absurd. But, according to him, the scientific method demands that a question not be permitted to which the answer would have to be God. One can only say that a method of this sort is pathetic. God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence…"
Pope Benedict XVI - (Munich 1981)​

Me thinks Pope Benedict XVI would like IDvolution too.

 

[tonyrey]

Here is another guy who has issue with Monod:

…The more we know of the universe the more profoundly we are struck by a Reason whose ways we can only contemplate with astonishment. In pursuing them we can see anew that creating Intelligence to whom we owe our own reason. Albert Einstein once said that in the laws of nature “there is revealed such a superior Reason that everything significant which has arisen out of human thought and arrangement is, in comparison with it, the merest empty reflection.” In what is most vast, in the world of heavenly bodies, we see revealed a powerful reason that holds the universe together. And we are penetrating ever deeper into what is smallest, into the cell and into the primordial units of life; here, too, we discover a reason that astounds us, such that we must say with Saint Bonaventure: “Whoever does not see here is blind. Whoever does not hear here is deaf. And whoever does not begin to adore here and to praise the creating Intelligence is dumb.”

Jacques Monod, who rejects as unscientific every kind of faith in God and who thinks that the world originated out of an interplay of chance and necessity, tells in the very work in which he attempts summarily to portray and justify his view of the world that, after attending the lectures which afterward appeared in book form, François Mauriac is supposed to have said: **“What this professor wants to afflict on us is far more unbelievable than what we poor Christians were ever expected to believe.”
**
Monod does not dispute this. His thesis is that the entire ensemble of nature has arisen out of errors and dissonances. He cannot help but say himself that such a conception is in fact absurd. But, according to him, the scientific method demands that a question not be permitted to which the answer would have to be God. One can only say that a method of this sort is pathetic. God himself shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with vast new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator and which make us realize once again that at the very beginning and foundation of all being there is a creating Intelligence…"
Pope Benedict XVI - (Munich 1981)​

Me thinks Pope Benedict XVI would like IDvolution too.

It is significant that no sane person relies on chance to make important choices and decisions…

 

[rossum]

It is significant that no sane person relies on chance to make important choices and decisions…

False. If I want to choose a secure key for encrypting my data then I want as much chance as possible in the key (cryptographic entropy) to make it more difficult for any attacker to guess.

If I am conducting a random survey then I want to use chance to pick the people I will interview.

If my scientific experiment requires a random sample then I need to use chance to pick.

There are other examples. You really need to think about things more carefully before you post.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

False. If I want to choose a secure key for encrypting my data then I want as much chance as possible in the key (cryptographic entropy) to make it more difficult for any attacker to guess.

If I am conducting a random survey then I want to use chance to pick the people I will interview.

If my scientific experiment requires a random sample then I need to use chance to pick.

There are other examples. You really need to think about things more carefully before you post.

rossum

You really need to think about things more carefully before you post. In a person’s daily life how often does a person rely on chance to make **important **choices and decisions?

 

[danserr]

False. If I want to choose a secure key for encrypting my data then I want as much chance as possible in the key (cryptographic entropy) to make it more difficult for any attacker to guess.

If I am conducting a random survey then I want to use chance to pick the people I will interview.

If my scientific experiment requires a random sample then I need to use chance to pick.

There are other examples. You really need to think about things more carefully before you post.

rossum

Exactly. Or when I open the medicine cabinet and need to tell the different between arsenic and aspirin. I just close my eyes and pick one. I find life so much more interesting that way.

 

[rossum]

Exactly. Or when I open the medicine cabinet and need to tell the different between arsenic and aspirin. I just close my eyes and pick one. I find life so much more interesting that way.

You need to empty your medicine cabinet more often. They stopped prescribing arsenic as a medicine back in the 19th Century.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

False. If I want to choose a secure key for encrypting my data then I want as much chance as possible in the key (cryptographic entropy) to make it more difficult for any attacker to guess.

If I am conducting a random survey then I want to use chance to pick the people I will interview.

If my scientific experiment requires a random sample then I need to use chance to pick.

There are other examples. You really need to think about things more carefully before you post.

rossum

In a macro sense he is right. The idea to use chance is by design.

 

[rossum]

You really need to think about things more carefully before you post. In a person’s daily life how often does a person rely on chance to make **important **choices and decisions?

Picking a secure password is important. Do you want to tell me the password you use to access your internet bank account? Would you pick something easy to guess like “password” as your password? Go have a look at the Diceware site: world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html. Given the ubiquity of passwords on the internet the need for secure passwords, that is random passwords, is increasing.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Picking a secure password is important. Do you want to tell me the password you use to access your internet bank account? Would you pick something easy to guess like “password” as your password? Go have a look at the Diceware site: world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html. Given the ubiquity of passwords on the internet the need for secure passwords, that is random passwords, is increasing.

rossum

We also know designed passwords are important. Those that specifically have capitalizations, numbers and other symbols minimally.

 

[tonyrey]

Picking a secure password is important.

I haven’t denied it but you can hardly use that as a basis for your argument that we should opt for chance rather than reason for making the important decisions in our daily lives! What percentage of your decisions do you leave to chance?

 

[Ranklyfrank]

I haven’t denied it but you can hardly use that as a basis for your argument that we should opt for chance rather than reason for making the important decisions in our daily lives! What percentage of your decisions do you leave to chance?

Well I think that if you believe that your important decisions don’t include chance, you are fooling yourself. Sure, you look at your choices as you perceive them to be with your limited mind, and take your best shot at a decision from your paradigm of experience + predilections + habit. Usually the outcome approximates what you intend. But perhaps you have heard the dictum “If you want to make God laugh, make plans?”