Evidence against Design?

[Sair]

I think you’ll have to get two gold stars for that thought. No, make it three.

Mind, I’m not supposed to agree with that kind of thing and yet again will get branded a very naughty Christian. But Jesus said the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children, and little children get excited about anything. For me it drains the color out of everything when, instead of admitting we don’t know, we invent answers that give the illusion of knowing.

Many here would accuse scientists of creating the illusion of knowledge with their tentative, evidence-based proposals…but then would substitute their preferred creative deity as the ultimate explanation, no questions asked It seems that we humans are, on the whole, very reluctant to admit our ignorance!

 

[inocente]

Jesus pointed to the beauty of the lilies as evidence of divine Providence.

Providence is another thing that post-dates scripture. Try telling someone starving to death about Providence. Jesus is talking about something deeper - “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

Non sequitur.

You’ve had several opportunities to dispute that the position and shape of all the trillions of stars is the product of blind forces alone, and you’ve not done so. At some point it must follow, logically, that you can’t. One last chance, please walk the walk not just talk the talk.

*What is seen or sensed is not the **sole ***form of evidence.

Already agreed, could we move on?

 

[inocente]

Many here would accuse scientists of creating the illusion of knowledge with their tentative, evidence-based proposals…but then would substitute their preferred creative deity as the ultimate explanation, no questions asked It seems that we humans are, on the whole, very reluctant to admit our ignorance!

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. - Richard Fenyman

 

[wanstronian]

Metascientific, epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence.

Can you give me an example of each of these kinds of evidence?

 

[buffalo]

This is your opinion, but the thread is about evidence.

The following video shows continuous, infinite, beautiful patterns which look as if they are designed by a mind, but it’s just a computer program iterating simple arithmetic (z := z[sup]2[/sup] + c), the Mandelbrot set.

youtube.com/watch?v=WAJE35wX1nQ

Certainly everyone should come over all spiritual looking at this, but the amazement is surely that these designs don’t come from a mind but just simple, mechanistic, blind arithmetic.

I am open to hearing about a naturally produced map, symbol, language or codes. Got any to share?

 

[tonyrey]

Jesus pointed to the beauty of the lilies as evidence of divine Providence

The teaching of Jesus is the most important part of Scripture.

Try telling someone starving to death about Providence.

The fact that people starve to death is not evidence that God never answers prayers. Otherwise Jesus would not have asked us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”.

Jesus is talking about something deeper - “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

Jesus is talking about** asking God to help us** in our struggle against evil because He is a loving Father who does not stand by and do nothing while His children suffer. He said “Ask and you shall receive.”

You’ve had several opportunities to dispute that the position and shape of all the trillions of stars is the product of blind forces alone, and you’ve not done so.

The fact that the position and shape of all the trillions of stars is the product of blind forces is not evidence that all events are the product of blind forces.

*What is seen or sensed is not the **sole ***

form of evidence.Already agreed, could we move on?

The fact that what is seen or sensed is not the sole form of evidence proves that science is not the sole form of evidence. There is also metascientific, epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence for Design.

 

[wanstronian]

Metascientific, epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence.

Can you give me an example of each of these kinds of evidence?

 

[tonyrey]

Can you give me an example of each of these kinds of evidence?

The topic of this thread is Evidence **against **Design but there are ample examples on another thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9608246&postcount=324

 

[tonyrey]

The more meagerly an explanation is the more eagerly it is welcomed!

Knowledge of - and insight into - forces, laws and random fluctuations presupposes the existence of rational, powerful, creative and autonomous minds.

Until such is evidenced, the assumption of an eternally-existing deity of the kind imagined by monotheism is vastly less parsimonious an explanation for the natural universe than mindless forces and particles…

One Supreme Mind is the most parsimonious, most adequate and most fertile explanation of not only the natural universe but also rational, powerful, creative and autonomous minds.

…if anything, it looks like an easy way out of actually finding an explanation.

The easy way out for closed minds is to restrict themselves to the things that can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted and touched…

And, really, what would you find more marvellous - a highly accomplished, established and experienced artist creating a painting of great intricacy and merit, or the same painting being created by a five-year-old throwing paint at a canvas?

The insight, creative power, dedicated experience and aesthetic sensibility of the highly accomplished, established and experienced artist is incomparably more significant than the accidental products of random events.

Modern art has such vague parameters (Blue Poles, anyone?), this is not entirely inconceivable…what the observer reads into it seems almost more important than the original intention!

As I pointed out, it goes to show that we get what we deserve. Those who want the absurd are not disappointed…

 

[wanstronian]

The topic of this thread is Evidence **against **Design

Well, you bought these types of evidence up, and it’s your thread. Not only that, you made the assertion that “Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.” If you’re not willing to defend this assertion, why make it?

but there are ample examples on another thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9608246&postcount=324

You link to a single post with 100 assertions, and sorry but I can’t see where the examples of these nine types of evidence are.

Can you give me an example of each of these kinds of evidence, identifying each? There are only nine of them, so it shouldn’t take you long.

 

[tonyrey]

Well, you bought these types of evidence up, and it’s your thread. Not only that, you made the assertion that “Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.” If you’re not willing to defend this assertion, why make it?

1. I brought up the subject in answer to the assertion that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design - which is nonsense.
2. The other person agreed that scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.
3. Scientific evidence is based on metascientific principles, e.g. the validity of reason and the intelligibility of the universe.
4. Therefore scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.
5. If you disagree the onus is on you to explain how it can be proved by science that it is the sole form of evidence.

 

[da_nolo]

Yes, the laws of nature are designed by humans to describe part of nature. Your opinion may be that those laws reflect an underlying design, fine, but your opinion isn’t evidence.

first, laws of nature were never designed by humans. rather; language was designed to describe what already had been designed and in existence.

even w/o humans and our language - those laws would still exist. your wording describes it as if it is influenced by our terms.

I never said my opinion was evidence.

what was stated, and clearly adds to the support for the concept that design is possible would be the universal ‘order’ of things.

 

[da_nolo]

Otherwise the laws of nature just happen to exist for no reason or purpose!

I don’t get your point here. mostly due to the “otherwise”.

I don’t see how laws of nature/universe don’t or could not have some reason or purpose since we continue due in part by what is the universe. all being in accord to God.

 

[da_nolo]

Well, you bought these types of evidence up, and it’s your thread. Not only that, you made the assertion that “Scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.” If you’re not willing to defend this assertion, why make it?

hasn’t anyone who claimed to know what evidence is, noticed that the very first post is not ‘evidence’ as explained by science, but rather simple, human logic?

obviously in this thread, philosophy would be included as providing possible ‘evidence’

 

[wanstronian]

1. I brought up the subject in answer to the assertion that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design - which is nonsense.
2. The other person agreed that scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.
3. Scientific evidence is based on metascientific principles, e.g. the validity of reason and the intelligibility of the universe.
4. Therefore scientific evidence is not the sole form of evidence.
5. If you disagree the onus is on you to explain how it can be proved by science that it is the sole form of evidence.

Okay, so you can’t provide examples. That’s what I thought.

Incidentally, you still seem unaware of how the concept of “burden of proof” works. He who makes an assertion, must be able to defend it. You made an assertion, that you have subsequently been unable, or unwilling, to defend. The onus is not on me to prove your assertion wrong, but upon you to defend it against scrutiny. You haven’t done so.

 

[wanstronian]

hasn’t anyone who claimed to know what evidence is, noticed that the very first post is not ‘evidence’ as explained by science, but rather simple, human logic?

obviously in this thread, philosophy would be included as providing possible ‘evidence’

Perhaps, but that isn’t the assertion that Tony made.

I’d still like to hear an example of these types of evidence. If Tony can’t provide, maybe someone else can?

Note that I’m not actually denying these types of evidence might exist, I just can’t imagine what they might look like and still be reliable forms of evidence. Apart from historical evidence, which is empirical if it’s worth anything.

 

[Sair]

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty damn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes this is true. Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained. - Richard Fenyman

To paraphrase (only because my memory is imperfect) one of my favourite comedians, Dara O’Briain, “Science knows it doesn’t know everything - if it did, it would stop.”

I think it’s fair to say that acknowledging one’s ignorance is a healthy first step to overcoming it

 

[Sair]

One Supreme Mind is the most parsimonious, most adequate and most fertile explanation of not only the natural universe but also rational, powerful, creative and autonomous minds.

Not until you can explain the existence of this supreme mind in terms of simpler entities that form or express it. An immensely complex entity - one that manifests supreme intelligence, creativity, emotion, activity, limitless power, and all this without physical (or any discernible) substance - that is claimed to simply exist without cause, without development from simpler entities, is not parsimonious; it’s an escape clause for the incurious, those who don’t wish to approach the deepest mysteries of reality. Positing one highly complex entity (God) as the originating cause of another highly complex entity (the universe) doesn’t actually provide an explanation - it just moves the need for explanation back a step. This objection to the argument from design has been posed many times, by minds much sharper than mine…

 

[Sair]

Perhaps, but that isn’t the assertion that Tony made.

I’d still like to hear an example of these types of evidence. If Tony can’t provide, maybe someone else can?

Note that I’m not actually denying these types of evidence might exist, I just can’t imagine what they might look like and still be reliable forms of evidence. Apart from historical evidence, which is empirical if it’s worth anything.

Just as an aside, you’re quite right about historical evidence - any historian who cannot support their assertions with well-examined primary sources (or tries to prove too much with those sources) - gets rightly pilloried by their peers.

This particular subject, of course, at least as it relates to the consideration of scripture and other roughly contemporary writings as evidence for Christian doctrine, could be - and has been - fuel for many other threads…

 

[tonyrey]

1. I brought up the subject in answer to the assertion that the position and shape of stars is evidence against Design - which is nonsense.

False! I have already provided one that you have ignored:

1. Scientific evidence is based on metascientific principles, e.g. the validity of reason and the intelligibility of the universe.

If you do not refute this statement it will be clear to everyone that you cannot do so.

Incidentally, you still seem unaware of how the concept of “burden of proof” works. He who makes an assertion, must be able to defend it. You made an assertion, that you have subsequently been unable, or unwilling, to defend. The onus is not on me to prove your assertion wrong, but upon you to defend it against scrutiny. You haven’t done so.

You also have a burden of proof: that science is the sole form of knowledge. If you do not do so it will be clear to everyone that you cannot do so.

In the meantime I am selecting a list of examples of epistemological, historical, moral, social, religious, aesthetic, psychological and personal evidence for Design - in stark contrast to your failure to produce evidence for anything whatsoever.The sceptic deems himself invulnerable because he offers nothing positive but that is the cause of his downfall because scepticism is patently self-destructive…