Conclusive evidence for Design!

[JDaniel]

Sure, the language of DNA.

Yes, here I have assumed that the language of DNA is not designed, hence my argument is circular, just like yours. I have done this deliberately to show how pointless it is to use circular arguments as evidence for things in the real world. The same “evidence” simultaneously shows that DNA is both designed and undesigned.

Candide:

Please explain.

Nope, but tautological arguments cannot be used for evidence about things in the real world. So we should certainly throw them out of discussions of evidence.

You are the one using tautological arguments: for your refutation. You are admitting that there is nothing, that is not man-made, that is designed. Yet, you provide no definition for “undesigned.” What on earth is more circular than: “There is no design as nothing is designed?”

Proponents of “design” have continuously defined “design.” There is no ambiguity. Your argument that the design arguments are circular is absurdo monkeybuns.

God bless,
jd

 

[tonyrey]

The question is whether you can recognise the science of the gaps fallacy. How do you determine the limits of scientific explanation?

The truth of Design is conclusive because it postulates the objective reality of rational activity without which no rational conclusions are possible. According to naturalists rational activity is “caused” by non-rational processes which amounts to saying dust makes itself capable of insight and understanding. No scientific experiment or explanation of any physical mechanism by which this astounding conjuring trick is performed has ever been presented to support such an absurd hypothesis.

A widespread mistake is to think reality consists only of things we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. Or at least it is thought that material objects are more certain than anything else. The truth is the exact opposite. If we didn’t have a mind we wouldn’t know anything exists! Our sole certainty is that we

are thinking, feeling, perceiving, choosing and making decisions.

We infer that material things exist. We don’t have direct knowledge of things whereas we do have direct knowledge of our mental activity. It doesn’t make sense to put what is observed and interpreted before the observers and interpreters. As far as we know the universe began with the Big Bang but it doesn’t follow that nothing else existed. It is folly to think minds didn’t and don’t exist because they can’t be detected with scientific instruments (designed by minds!) There is not one jot of evidence that inanimate objects are capable of designing anything.
I agree one hundred percent. “Cogito ergo sum” is part of how I try to discredit the null hypothesis.

 I'm delighted you agree. :)

It is ironic that people use their minds to “prove” minds don’t exist. They are living in a dream world constructed by themselves!

I know. The belief that the mind doesn’t exist is perhaps the most ridiculous notion I’ve ever heard. It’s self-evident!
However, that isn’t what I’m saying. The idea of most naturalists is that the mind does exist, but that material gives rise to it.

1.** How **are intangible thoughts caused by tangible electrical impulses?

1. If intangible reality had been produced by tangible things materialism would be the only valid explanation - and theism would be false.
2. Without Design everything would be valueless, purposeless and meaningless - in a word, absurd and nothing would make sense…
3. All explanations are equally possible **in theory **but they are far from being equally probable in reality.

 

[Candide_West]

Show me steps that evo took?

Look them up for yourself. There’s loads of information on the internet about it if you’re interested. Of course none of it has anything to do with our discussion here, which has been sucessfully concluded by showing that your “evidence” was in fact just a tautology.

 

[Candide_West]

Candide:

There is, but you refuse to address it. What is the definition of ‘natural’? This is very important as it is supposed to be the antithesis of “designed.”

This is just an attempt to move the burden of proof. Again, the subject of this thread is “Conclusive evidence **for **Design!” I have asked if there is any, (repeatedly) the only attempt that has been made to answer my question thus far reduced to tautology.

If I had started a thread called “Conclusive evidence for non-Design” then I’d be (quite rightly) expected to provide such evidence and defend it.

But, allow me to postulate that ‘natural’ equals ‘undesigned’. Then, in all fairness, I must ask, “What is an example of undesignedness?” Point out that which is undesigned. That should be easy for you. And, while you are doing that, tell me how or why it is undesigned.

God bless,
jd

Sure, you can postulate whatever you please. But that doesn’t suddenly mean that you don’t need any evidence in your “conclusive evidence”. Thus far (at least in all the pages of this thread that I have read) nobody has presented any evidence.

 

[tonyrey]

Science recognizes it as a language. In addition, it reads forwards and backwards.

                      **More support for IDvolution! :thumbsup:  God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the  “kinds” in the creative act. **

**The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control **

“The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control” ** is a peer-reviewed anthology of papers that focuses**, for the first time, entirely on the following difficult scientific questions:…

Abstract: Could a composome, chemoton, or RNA vesicular protocell come to life in the absence of formal instructions, controls and regulation? Redundant, low-informational selfordering is not organization. Organization must be programmed. Intertwined circular constraints (e.g. complex hypercylces), even with negative and positive feedback, do not steer physicochemical reactions toward formal function or metabolic success. Complex hypercycles quickly and selfishly exhaust sequence and other phase spaces of potential metabolic resources.

“Chance and necessity are completely inadequate to describe the most important elements of what we repeatedly observe in intra-cellular life, especially. Science must acknowledge the reality and validity not only of a very indirect, post facto natural selection,** but of purposeful selection for potential function as a fundamental category of reality. To disallow purposeful selection renders the practice of mathematics and science impossible.**”

A new technical book, The First Gene, edited by Gene Emergence Project director David L. Abel, …" Materialists will not like this book because its arguments are 100% scientific, devoid of religious, political, or cultural concerns, and most importantly, compelling.

From reading The First Gene, a number of minimal theoretical and material requirements for life emerge:

*High levels of prescriptive information - :yup:
*Programming - :yup:
*Symbol systems and language - :yup:
*Molecules which can carry this information and programming
*Highly unlikely sequences of functional information - :yup:
*Formal function - :yup:
*An “agent” capable of making “intentional choices of mind” which can “choose” between various options, select for future function, and instantiate these requirements for life. - :yup:

Anti-ID conspiracy theorists love to say that those pesky creationists are always changing their terminology to get around the First Amendment. ID’s intellectual pedigree refutes that charge, but The First Gene adds more reasons why that charge should not be taken seriously. The book offers highly technical, strictly scientific arguments about the nature of information, information processing, and biological functionality. Even a cursory read of this book shows that its contributors are just thinking about doing good science. And this science leads them to the conclusion that blind and unguided material causes cannot produce the complexity we observe in life. Some agent capable of making choices is required to produce the first life.

Free choices are the insurmountable obstacle for materialists. Either we are cogs or controllers…

 

[tonyrey]

I suppose I should have given an example, but I thought it would be obvious. When I let go of a rock, Gravity is what directly causes that rock to shorten the distance between itself and the earth. Gravity is a natural cause, in this example.

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes similar to gravity? In other words are you no more than a biological machine programmed from the first to the last conclusion and decision?

 

[Candide_West]

Candide:

Please explain.

Sure. Buffalo created a tautological argument showing the conclusion that DNA is designed by starting from the assumption that DNA was designed. I reversed this and refuted his argument by attacking the “All languages are designed” by using the reverse assumption that DNA is not designed.

This is of course just as tautological as the argument that Buffalo him/herself used, thus demonstrating my point.

You are the one using tautological arguments: for your refutation.

Yes, exactly, as in fact I stated when I said

“hence my argument is circular, just like yours.”

I was demonstrating the point that if we permit tautological arguments to be used for “evidence” for things in the real world we must throw out the law of non-contradiction and accept absurdities into logic. Which is why we DON’T use tautological arguments as evidence.

 

[tonyrey]

The truth makes us free but we have to be free to recognise the truth! If we cannot choose what to think our thoughts are worthless… And how could natural organisms possibly override the law of conservation of energy? Either we have self-control or we don’t - and without a self there would be nothing to do the controlling…

 

[tonyrey]

The only ones we see are produced by a mind. They require a sender, receiver and key.

Precisely! They presuppose syntax and syntactical thought which don’t exist in biochemical reactions.

 

[JDaniel]

This is just an attempt to move the burden of proof. Again, the subject of this thread is “Conclusive evidence **for **Design!” I have asked if there is any, (repeatedly) the only attempt that has been made to answer my question thus far reduced to tautology.

Candide:

But there is! If there is nothing that is undesigned, then it logically follows: everything is designed. And, there is nothing that is undesigned.

If I had started a thread called “Conclusive evidence for non-Design” then I’d be (quite rightly) expected to provide such evidence and defend it.

But you can’t; no one can. Which further adds to the conclusivity of the evidence!

God bless,
jd

 

[tonyrey]

As we learn more about the world around us, we can only learn about the natural causes, not the supernatural ones. If there were some supernatural causes, They would obviously be the last ones we could discover.

You are assuming all our mental activity is natural - which is the very issue at stake. As our mental activity is the basis of all our knowledge there is no reason why we shouldn’t be making any discoveries about ourselves. Personal development is ignored by materialists because it doesn’t fit into their scheme of things. When all is said and done what counts most in our lives is what occurs within and not in the outside world. One can be as rich as hell and as miserable as sin!

 

[zro_x]

The truth of Design is conclusive because it postulates the objective reality of rational activity without which no rational conclusions are possible. According to naturalists rational activity is “caused” by non-rational processes which amounts to saying dust makes itself capable of insight and understanding. No scientific experiment or explanation of any physical mechanism by which this astounding conjuring trick is performed has ever been presented to support such an absurd hypothesis.

that only shows that our thinking capabilities are compromised. It doesn’t show that naturalism isn’t true.

1.** How **are intangible thoughts caused by tangible electrical impulses?

I don’t know! but that’s the point I’m trying to make! you can’t conclude that God is responsible for thoughts just because science can’t provide an explantion for them.

1. If intangible reality had been produced by tangible things materialism would be the only valid explanation - and theism would be false.

that’s right. I’m saying that we don’t know which yet, from a scientific perspective.

1. Without Design everything would be valueless, purposeless and meaningless - in a word, absurd and nothing would make sense…

I agree. But that only shows that the existence of god is more disireable, not that his existence is more likely.

1. All explanations are equally possible **in theory **but they are far from being equally probable in reality.

This could be interpreted in more than way. Could you elaborate?

 

[zro_x]

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes similar to gravity? In other words are you no more than a biological machine programmed from the first to the last conclusion and decision?

I believe that it is a scientific possibility, yes.

 

[JDaniel]

Sure. Buffalo created a tautological argument showing the conclusion that DNA is designed by starting from the assumption that DNA was designed. I reversed this and refuted his argument by attacking the “All languages are designed” by using the reverse assumption that DNA is not designed.

Candide:

Would you then say, “It is not true that a motion picture is designed?” We have zero examples of things as complex and directed to an end, or final cause, as DNA is, just as we have zero examples of a motion picture that was not designed.

This is of course just as tautological as the argument that Buffalo him/herself used, thus demonstrating my point.

Then this is a perfect example of a tautology (if that’s what it is) that represents the truth.

Yes, exactly, as in fact I stated when I said,
“hence my argument is circular, just like yours.”

But you have not defined your most critical term for your argument. Design proponents have, and to my knowledge, no one seems to have a problem with it.

I was demonstrating the point that if we permit tautological arguments to be used for “evidence” for things in the real world we must throw out the law of non-contradiction and accept absurdities into logic. Which is why we DON’T use tautological arguments as evidence.

Not so: Find me a definition of “motion” - anywhere in Physics (except Aristotelean Physics) - that is not circular. Yet physicists the world over are perfectly fine with them.

God bless,
jd

 

[buffalo]

Not Designed?

Get a load of this: Visualization

%between%

                        **Abstract**

                        The bacterial flagellum is a  motility organelle that consists of a rotary motor and a helical  propeller. The flagella usually                               work individually or by forming a loose  bundle to produce thrust. However, the flagellar apparatus of marine  bacterium MO-1                               is a tight bundle of seven flagellar  filaments enveloped in a sheath, and it has been a mystery as to how the  flagella rotate                               smoothly in coordination. Here we have  used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the  sheathed flagella.                               The seven filaments are enveloped with 24  fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an  intertwined hexagonal                               array similar to the thick and thin  filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite  architecture strongly                               suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate  between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of  high-speed rotation                               of individual flagella in the tight bundle  within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s.

…Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath… the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.

 

[tonyrey]

The truth of Design is conclusive because it postulates the objective reality of rational activity without which no rational conclusions are possible

It shows our thinking capabilities would be imaginary and all theories equally worthless! If we couldn’t think for ourselves there would be no guarantee any of our conclusions are true.

1.** How **

are intangible thoughts caused by tangible electrical impulses? I don’t know! but that’s the point I’m trying to make! you can’t conclude that God is responsible for thoughts just because science can’t provide an explanation for them.

In a discussion of Design God doesn’t come into the picture. The issue is whether reason is a reality or a fantasy.

2. If intangible reality had been produced by tangible things materialism would be the only valid explanation - and theism would be false.

that’s right. I’m saying that we don’t know which yet, from a scientific perspective.

Science doesn’t even come into the picture either! It is restricted to physical reality and cannot tell us anything about anything else.

3. Without Design everything would be valueless, purposeless and meaningless - in a word, absurd and nothing would make sense…

I agree. But that only shows that the existence of god is more desirable, not that his existence is more likely.

It shows that the success of science is evidence of Design because it demonstrates the power and value of reasoning.

4. All explanations are equally possible **in theory **

but they are far from being equally probable in reality. This could be interpreted in more than way. Could you elaborate?

Our lives are based on probability not on possibilities. Otherwise we wouldn’t survive for very long!

 

[tonyrey]

Not Designed?

Get a load of this: Visualization

                        **Abstract**

                        The bacterial flagellum is a  motility organelle that consists of a rotary motor and a helical  propeller. The flagella usually                               work individually or by forming a loose  bundle to produce thrust. However, the flagellar apparatus of marine  bacterium MO-1                               is a tight bundle of seven flagellar  filaments enveloped in a sheath, and it has been a mystery as to how the  flagella rotate                               smoothly in coordination. Here we have  used electron cryotomography to visualize the 3D architecture of the  sheathed flagella.                               The seven filaments are enveloped with 24  fibrils in the sheath, and their basal bodies are arranged in an  intertwined hexagonal                               array similar to the thick and thin  filaments of vertebrate skeletal muscles. This complex and exquisite  architecture strongly                               suggests that the fibrils counter-rotate  between flagella in direct contact to minimize the friction of  high-speed rotation                               of individual flagella in the tight bundle  within the sheath to enable MO-1 cells to swim at about 300 µm/s.

…Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath… the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle.

None are so blind as those who **will **not see…

 

[tonyrey]

Candide:

Would you then say, “It is not true that a motion picture is designed?” We have zero examples of things as complex and directed to an end, or final cause, as DNA is, just as we have zero examples of a motion picture that was not designed.

Then this is a perfect example of a tautology (if that’s what it is) that represents the truth.

But you have not defined your most critical term for your argument. Design proponents have, and to my knowledge, no one seems to have a problem with it.

Not so: Find me a definition of “motion” - anywhere in Physics (except Aristotelean Physics) - that is not circular. Yet physicists the world over are perfectly fine with them.

God bless,
jd

In fact the whole of science is a closed system with a raft of interdependent theories. It’s not based on thin air!

 

[tonyrey]

Do you believe all your mental activity has natural causes similar to gravity? In other words are you no more than a biological machine programmed from the first to the last conclusion and decision?

If it were true you wouldn’t be responsible of any of your thoughts, beliefs or conclusions which would depend on factors entirely beyond your control and worth no more than anyone else’s, i.e. they would have negligible significance.

 

[zro_x]

It shows our thinking capabilities would be imaginary and all theories equally worthless! If we couldn’t think for ourselves there would be no guarantee any of our conclusions are true.

And how do we know that all our theories aren’t completely worthless?

In a discussion of Design God doesn’t come into the picture.

ummmm… yes he does. When you started this thread, you probably meant: conclusive evidence that God designed the world.

The issue is whether reason is a reality or a fantasy.

That’s part of the design debate, certainly. But just as certainly not all of it.

Science doesn’t even come into the picture either! It is restricted to physical reality and cannot tell us anything about anything else.

Yes it can. If our research continues, we may hit an insurmountable scientific roadblock.
but it is equally possible that we might discover that everything in the universe can be explained scientifically. Or else we will discover localized miricles, like in the brain, that prove God and free will do exist.

It shows that the success of science is evidence of Design because it demonstrates the power and value of reasoning.

No it doesn’t.

1. We may not have reasoning powers at all, in which case everything we know is worthless.
2. It is possible that we are able to reach correct conclusions about the universe without resorting to spiritual rationality. We would essentially be biological computers, and we wouldn’t have responsibility for our own thoughts, but it is a possibility.

Our lives are based on probability not on possibilities. Otherwise we wouldn’t survive for very long!

That’s a good point. Even when we don’t know something for certain, we have to base our lives and decisions around how probable something is. In that context, I think that Theism is more probable because of miricles like the Sun dance, the incorruptible saints, etc., which is why I’m a Catholic. Without those miricles, I see both as equally probable.