Biological Design Argument?

[inocente]

… And? Her brother would also deny all forms of organized religion. Laura deliberately chose to embrace her Catholicism.

Oh, it had to be said, you can’t make stuff like that up.

Are you trying to make a relevant point here? Notice that Laura did not herself convert to Buddhism.

Her mom was Catholic when she was growing up so that may have had an influence.

I quoted her since this kind of thread can give the impression that all Christians are ID fans but that’s not the case in the real world.

 

[rossum]

Let’s be clear that this is ridiculous and conspirational paranoia to boot. Teleology and the belief that the whole universe is rationally ordered goes back to possibly even before the Athenian constitution, let alone the American one. I think you might be in need of a history lesson that does not imply that time began when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

Merely because a belief is old, does not make it correct. After all, Buddhism is older than Christianity.

However, Innocente is almost right. The ID movement in the US is primarily a political movement intended to get round the constitutional rules preventing religion being taught in science classes. The two main pieces of evidence are first, the Wedge Strategy, published by the Discovery Institute and second, “cdesign proponentsists” [sic]. That arose following Edwards v Aguillard, which struck down ‘balanced treatment’ in science classes. Immediately a creationist textbook was changed to make it an Intelligent Design textbook. They replaced “creationists” with “design proponents”, but in one place the replacement was made incorrectly: “cdesign proponentsists”. A classic example of a transitional fossil.

The US version of Intelligent Design, as pushed by the Discovery Institute, is a political attempt to make an end-run round the American constitution. It is creationism in a cheap lab-coat.

rossum

 

[inocente]

They replaced “creationists” with “design proponents”, but in one place the replacement was made incorrectly: “cdesign proponentsists”. A classic example of a transitional fossil.

 

[rossum]

You are using your own subjective opinion,

And, as you have determined, a mere personal subjective opinion is not proper scientific evidence. That is why I find the arguments from the design side unconvincing – a distinct lack of objective scientific evidence.

We don’t pretend a squirrel’s tail isn’t wonderfully suited for providing the squirrel with balance as he, e.g., climbs trees;

Indeed we do not, and what is more we have a very good explanation of how the squirrel’s tail got to be so good at helping it climb trees. I have already posted these figures before, but it will help to have a more concrete example.

Falling from trees can cause death or injury. Neither is good for the chances of that particular squirrel reproducing. Death or injury will, on average, reduce the number of offspring that squirrel has. This gives rise to differential reproductive success, meat and drink to natural selection.

Take three groups of proto-squirrels, they are not quite squirrels yet, but are a small tree-climbing rodent. There is variation between the groups. One group has an average tail for their species – the Noorms. A second group has a tail that is slightly mutated and hence not so good for climbing trees. They fall off branches slightly more than average and so have a 1% reduced number of offspring. I’ll call them the Doons. A third group has a tail with a different mutation. Their tail is very slightly better suited to balance when climbing trees so they reproduce on average 1% more than average. This third group is the Beenies. Now let a new ground predator, say a species of fox, move into the area, so the forest floor becomes dangerous for the proto-squirrels. How well do they do when the have to live by climbing in trees?

You’ve seen it before (post #896) but here it is again. Each group starts with 100 members, and on average each Noorm will have one offspring (two per couple), each Doon 0.99 offspring and each Beenie 1.01 offspring:

Generation  Doons   Noorms   Beenies
----------  -----   ------   -------
     0       100     100         100
     1        99     100         101
    10        90     100         110
   100        37     100         270
   500         1     100       14477
   700         0     100      105916
  1000         0     100     2095916

Now, it is perfectly obvious to me why the squirrels that we see today have tails that are very good for balancing in trees. Any slight advantage from a random mutation in their ancestors’ tails would have spread due to increased reproductive success. Any of the many disadvantageous mutations would have disappeared – as with the Doons.

This works. It has been observed to work in the laboratory. It has been observed to work in the wild. It has been observed to work in hospitals: the Doons have 1% less resistance to antibiotics, the Noorms have normal resistance to antibiotics and the Beenies have 1% more resistance to antibiotics. That is how we get antibiotic resistant bacteria: they are all Beenie bacteria and the descendants of Beenie bacteria.

All of this is accepted by the majority of creationists – they often call it “microevolution”.

we don’t pretend that a Great White Shark’s teeth just so accidentally happen to make shredding Seal meat rather easy.

Nor do I. Natural selection is not an accidental process. Do you think it was “accidental” that the Beenies came out ahead when they were the ones who had more offspring per generation? The sharks with the better teeth had more offspring than the sharks with the less good teeth.

rossum

 

[nmgauss]

The designer might not be God. All of the suffering in the world can’t have been intentionally created – and so, the universe wasn’t created. Why would a benevolent God create a world where people suffer?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Nobody is opposed to looking at the truth. People, including myself, are opposed to pretending that something which is not science is science, and so should be taught in science classrooms. Teach it in philosophy classrooms by all means, but if it isn’t science don’t teach it in science classrooms.

rossum

Are you opposed to, say, teaching the limitations of science in science classrooms? Making very clear statements about what kinds of questions science can or cannot address, as well? It seems to me that teaching science as if there are no limitations to its reach is a dubious philosophical position and should also be kept out of the science classroom. No?

Pretending that science has answers to questions that are beyond the reach of its methods should be a no-no. Yes?

Scientists using the authority of their position and expertise to bolster philosophical forays as if their scientific expertise qualifies them to mold impressionable minds towards their tenuous and logically unwarranted metaphysical PsOV should likewise be opposed, right?

Another question: Where should the philosophical issues of science, aka philosophy of science, be taught and by whom?

 

[prodigalson2011]

Are you opposed to, say, teaching the limitations of science in science classrooms? Making very clear statements about what kinds of questions science can or cannot address, as well? It seems to me that teaching science as if there are no limitations to its reach is a dubious philosophical position and should also be kept out of the science classroom. No?

Pretending that science has answers to questions that are beyond the reach of its methods should be a no-no. Yes?

Scientists using the authority of their position and expertise to bolster philosophical forays as if their scientific expertise qualifies them to mold impressionable minds towards their tenuous and logically unwarranted metaphysical PsOV should likewise be opposed, right?

Another question: Where should the philosophical issues of science, aka philosophy of science, be taught and by whom?

The modus operandi of the Western educational system has been to keep philosophy out of the picture altogether. Less emphasis on critical thinking, more on practical thinking. I think this has a lot to do with why so many prestigious scientists (Hawking, Dawkins, etc.) are so prone to embarrassingly fallacious declarations.

I wish I could remember exactly where I read it - I know it was one essay or another by Noam Chomsky - but anyway, he cited a declassified early 20th century government document (American) that laid out just such a proposal; the idea being that a populace inclined to logical/critical thinking is apt to be a) less productive and b) less likely to yield to the desires of the cultural elite. A focus on mathematical/scientific thought would lead to a more industrious and acquiescent workforce. Peter Kreeft (who, coincidentally and completely irrelevantly, looks a lot like Noam Chomsky) noted a similar development, this time due to technological advances, in an interview with Patrick Coffin. As he relates:

*“Aristotelian logic was taught to almost everybody back in the 60s. Now it’s hardly ever taught. Symbolic logic is taught instead. That may be more useful in the sciences, especially the hard sciences, but it’s certainly less useful in the humanities: people don’t argue in symbolic logic, they argue in ordinary language. And one of the things students have lost the ability to do rather drastically is understand analogies and the analogical use of terms. I once had a phone call from somebody who had written a book about the computer revolution, so I was kind of flattered that he even called me. He said, ‘I noticed a warning in one of your books about computers. I would like to ratify that and predict that in the future people will have to think more as computers think, and one of the ways that computers do not think is analogically. So your logic student [recording cuts out] will simply not be able to understand analogical terms. Test it out, try it, use your old tests and see if they can handle it.’ And he made a prediction. He predicted that the SAT people who make these tests most American students have to take to get into college would have to subtract all analogies from their tests because even students who were going to Harvard and got hundreds on the rest of the tests would flunk those sections. So that seemed radical, but a few years later that’s exactly what happened.” *

Anyway, not really related to the topic of the thread, but food for thought. Whether by social orchestration or blind progress, the logical faculties of the Western world are diminishing into mathematics.

 

[nmgauss]

The designer might not be God. All of the suffering in the world can’t have been intentionally created – and so, the universe wasn’t created. Why would a benevolent God create a world where people suffer?

Biological life requires nourishment, water, and heat. If any one of these is not what the creature needs, it suffers. For humans, being born is a painful process, hence suffering is involved. Being born also means being susceptible to attack by parasites and predators. Why couldn’t God have created these life processes without suffering? It seems to me that He could have done a better job. Also, why couldn’t He have created creatures with similar energy requirements as the ones He uses? If universal sources of energy are available, what is stopping God from enabling corporeal specimens from tapping into these superior forms?

On the other hand weeding out inferior specimens in favor of those more able to deal with the suffering leads to stronger offspring. Now if God wanted to create strong creatures, why are inferior specimens in the world? The same goes for inferior sperm cells.

In Buddhism, suffering is considered a natural part of corporeal life. Because there is no God to create superior specimens, the next best thing is to escape suffering by entering into Nirvana through right living.

The more Western culture designates God as the designer, the more bad design we see.

 

[rossum]

Are you opposed to, say, teaching the limitations of science in science classrooms?

No. The limits can be mentioned briefly at the start, and repeated whenever a pupil askes a question outside those limits.

Scientists using the authority of their position and expertise to bolster philosophical forays as if their scientific expertise qualifies them to mold impressionable minds towards their tenuous and logically unwarranted metaphysical PsOV should likewise be opposed, right?

Not opposed, merely point out that the scientist is talking outside his or her area of expertise. That does not make the scientist either right or wrong, merely not an expert in the topic at hand. Some scientists write pro-religion books while other scientists write anti-religion books.

Another question: Where should the philosophical issues of science, aka philosophy of science, be taught and by whom?

Probably at university level. It is a complex subject and needs a lot of background in philosophy before it can be fully appreciated. You don’t teach Bessel Functions to ten year olds.

rossum

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You have no evidence. All you have is “it sure looks designed to me”. Well I have, “It sure don’t look designed to me.” What actual scientific, biological evidence do you have? Personal opinions are subjective, and do not count as scientific evidence within biology. Remember, we are talking about biological design in this thread.

rossum

That is what I thought, you are retreating behind the elitist scientism wall that claims for itself the arbiter of all truth and reason. Well of course, in that case you would not recognize my " proofs. " You could have saved us all a lot of time. You should open your threads with this statement: " I believe firmly in scientism and will not accept any " proof " or reason beyond what can be measured or detected in some manner by scientific instruments."

Linus2nd

 

[tonyrey]

The designer might not be God. All of the suffering in the world can’t have been intentionally created – and so, the universe wasn’t created. Why would a benevolent God create a world where people suffer?

Only hedonists believe **all **suffering is evil and should be dispensed with…

BTW Have you ever made anyone suffer either deliberately or unintentionally?

 

[rossum]

That is what I thought, you are retreating behind the elitist scientism wall that claims for itself the arbiter of all truth and reason.

False. I say that when discussing biology, which is a part of science, then we need to have scientific evidence. Science works for disciplines within science. I do not use science for disciplines outside science. If you had actually read my posts here, you would have noticed that I sometimes quite Buddhist scriptures. They are not a scientific source, but they are a valid source in their area.

It seems to me that you have no valid argument against my points, nor and valid scientific evidence, so you have to make up a strawman to criticise.

Where is your biological evidence for biological design? Evidence that is relevant to biology is useful when discussing biology, wouldn’t you agree. If you do not have any such evidence then just say so.

If you want non-scientific evidence of the absence of design, then would you accept Buddhist scripture as evidence? There is no creator god in Buddhism; life has no discernable beginning:

At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: “From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating and wandering on.”

– Assu sutta, Samyutta Nikaya, 15.3

I have scientific evidence to disprove design. I have non-scientific evidence to disprove design. All you have is strawmen.

rossum

 

[PRmerger]

The designer might not be God. All of the suffering in the world can’t have been intentionally created – and so, the universe wasn’t created. Why would a benevolent God create a world where people suffer?

The atheistic worldview is even more untenable: good people suffer and bad people win.

In the deistic worldview there is justice.

One of my co-workers relates how her grandfather used to beat up her grandmother, pulling her around the house by her hair.

In the atheistic worldview, he got away with that.
In the deistic worldview, there is justice for him.

I know of folks who watched insolently while a black man was injured in an accident, and no one lifted a finger to help him, because of his race.

I am quite confident that these folks who have now passed on realize the error and their sin, and are receiving justice for that.

In the atheistic worldview, these hateful folks won.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Biological life requires nourishment, water, and heat. If any one of these is not what the creature needs, it suffers. For humans, being born is a painful process, hence suffering is involved. Being born also means being susceptible to attack by parasites and predators. Why couldn’t God have created these life processes without suffering? It seems to me that He could have done a better job. Also, why couldn’t He have created creatures with similar energy requirements as the ones He uses? If universal sources of energy are available, what is stopping God from enabling corporeal specimens from tapping into these superior forms?

On the other hand weeding out inferior specimens in favor of those more able to deal with the suffering leads to stronger offspring. Now if God wanted to create strong creatures, why are inferior specimens in the world? The same goes for inferior sperm cells.

In Buddhism, suffering is considered a natural part of corporeal life. Because there is no God to create superior specimens, the next best thing is to escape suffering by entering into Nirvana through right living.

The more Western culture designates God as the designer, the more bad design we see.

Wouldn’t superior beings be much more tolerant of suffering rather than have a low threshold for it? Why would superior beings work so hard at escaping it or hiding from it? Suffering, it would seem, would not be all that problematic for superior beings. Perhaps that is why God allows it: humans may not be as weakly inferior as is made out and perhaps ought not to be so ruled by fear of suffering. To love frequently means to suffer because another person’s welfare is given precedence when needed and that can involve intentionally placing oneself in a position of suffering.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

False. I say that when discussing biology, which is a part of science, then we need to have scientific evidence. Science works for disciplines within science. I do not use science for disciplines outside science. If you had actually read my posts here, you would have noticed that I sometimes quite Buddhist scriptures. They are not a scientific source, but they are a valid source in their area.

It seems to me that you have no valid argument against my points, nor and valid scientific evidence, so you have to make up a strawman to criticise.

Where is your biological evidence for biological design? Evidence that is relevant to biology is useful when discussing biology, wouldn’t you agree. If you do not have any such evidence then just say so.

If you want non-scientific evidence of the absence of design, then would you accept Buddhist scripture as evidence? There is no creator god in Buddhism; life has no discernable beginning:

At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: “From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating and wandering on.”

– Assu sutta, Samyutta Nikaya, 15.3

I have scientific evidence to disprove design. I have non-scientific evidence to disprove design. All you have is strawmen.

rossum

Of course you are welcome to your opinions. You have no evidence to disprove biological design. It is obvious that all biological systems ( as well as non-biological systems ) function so as to bring about specific ends or goals. That means they operate according to the specific laws " written " into their natures. These laws are their design parameters. So, clearly there must be a designer, unless we conclude that these exist by happenstance, which is an unreasonable conclusion. Therefore there must be a designer, and since all biological systems and all non-biological systems operate harmoniously together, one depending on the other for the benefit of all, that designer is a living, intelligent, superior being, and this we call God.

I think that this is a reasonable case of the truth of the matter. The readers can judge for themselves.

Linus2nd

 

[rossum]

You have no evidence to disprove biological design.

And you have no evidence to disprove the existence of Russell’s Teapot. That is not how science works.

It is obvious that all biological systems ( as well as non-biological systems ) function so as to bring about specific ends or goals.

It is obvious that you have no substantive evidence, and that all biological systems function so as to bring about the end goal of reproducing successfully. Natural selection is a sufficient explanation for that goal. Any assertion of a designer needs to be supported by independent evidence of the existence of the designer(s) at the appropriate time and place.

You are falling back, yet again, or “It sure looks designed to me”. I have already told you that I do not accept your statement. I can explain the existence of MRSA. Are you telling us that your proposed designer wants to kill hospital patients by infecting them with the specially designed MRSA bacteria?

rossum

 

[1AugustSon7]

In that case next time I recommend leaving out the whole “after taking one of those post-high school tours of Europe for a few years” bit to be more accommodating to those of us not blessed with the ability to read minds.

Or you could just actually read what I wrote and the paragraph’s conclusion that: “So far I have seen an unfailing relationship between Westerners converting to Buddhism and becoming vicious as a consequence” not ‘people who travel across (Western) Europe hate all things Western’ or some such silliness. Notice also that in the concluding sentence I made plain the connection between a Westerner converting to Buddhism and said nothing about any geographical connection. I am not sure how you gathered your inference nor even why you restricted my saying this man’s travels across Europe were limited to specifically “Western” Europe: I simply said he travelled around Europe.

Thing is, Jesus never preached on any of this,

Romans 1:20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Whether or not the Gospels record the Lord preaching about the orderly goodness of Creation is irrelevant: it is a belief already well-testified to in the Old Testament and a doctrine that the Apostles continued in their preaching.

it must have been way down on His list, so if it has nothing to do with salvation then it can’t have anything important to do with faith and therefore it’s purely a secular pastime.

Again, Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen… so that they are without excuse”.

Where did that get laughed out of court then?

Roe v. Wade.

 

[1AugustSon7]

Her mom was Catholic when she was growing up so that may have had an influence.

I quoted her since this kind of thread can give the impression that all Christians are ID fans but that’s not the case in the real world.

No doubt. But also no doubt her mother’s abandonment of Catholicism, her brother’s abandonment of organized religion altogether and the culture that was highly critical of Christianity that she was raised in could also have caused her (like apparently her mother and brother) to abandon Catholicism. She is well educated (again in her higher education in a critical environment) but chose to remain Catholic and very much be a Catholic, as opposed to just being so nominally.

 

[1AugustSon7]

Merely because a belief is old, does not make it correct. After all, Buddhism is older than Christianity.

Christianity goes back to the garden of Eden:

Gen 3. 15 And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.

This is known as the protoevangelium in Christianity. It is a promise and prophecy of Christ.

Logic and mathematics are “old” too; but that hasn’t invalidated the syllogism or basic addition.

 

[1AugustSon7]

And, as you have determined, a mere personal subjective opinion is not proper scientific evidence. That is why I find the arguments from the design side unconvincing – a distinct lack of objective scientific evidence.

DNA is the blueprint of life. DNA points beyond itself to life; it is ordered to life. DNA, to be useful and operative, itself requires a living organism. Moreover, life as we know it is hierarchical and orderly: our organs are subservient and ordred to (facilitating) our higher functions. Your natural reflex is to protect your head and heart if you are attacked.

You are pretending as if there is anything remotely like an adequate materialist theory to explain the development of conscious experience or consciousness; or even one that explains it as it is. There is none; not only is there none, it is not even apparent how there could be one in physicalist terms or what such a theory might even look like: whether or not it even can be “scientific” in the sense of materialistic and mechanistic. To be sure, many eliminative materialists are inclined to explain away this “problem” (i.e., that of their own human experience as such) rather than actually explain it and account for it.

Life remains a scientific mystery, rossum; and especially those aspects of life traditionally associated with the classical doctrine of the soul (i.e. the life-principle).

And sadly I am out of time for today!