Evidence for Design?

[Al_Moritz]

Thanks for responding.
I will make this more specific.
Biological science claims, as you admit, to give an account of the “biological orgins of humans”. You fully accept this – you even state clearly that science does this.
Official scientific programs do this. Every pubilc school science program does this.
It gives “biological orgins of humans”.
You say that without even hesitating – and yet, it’s obviously a conflation of metaphysics and science. Every science program is making a metaphysical claim, and you admit it here.

Why?

Why is a biological origin of humans a metaphysical claim? As already scholastic philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, humans are “rational animals”, which means we are not some magical species apart from other animals, except that we are rational, which requires an immaterial soul. Yet just because we humans have souls, we do not float incorporeally like angels do. We do have a biological body and brain, and as animals (the animal part in “rational animals”) we do descend from a common ancestor with apes *) (which can be proven on a genetic level). The theist’s metaphysical claim is that humans in addition have an immaterial soul, necessary for intellect and will. Yet our soul does not affect the biological origin of our body (that it might have shaped our brain size is a different issue). So looking for our biological origin makes no metaphysical claim whatsoever.

Every human being, including you, has also a more recent biological origin. Your body was not directly created by God, but has its biological origin in your parents and developed in your mother’s womb. Yet God directly created your soul, and voila, you were born.

In order for a Non-human being to be an ancestor to a human being, a non-human being must give birth to a human being. How is that possible?

It is not possible. I believe that God gave a humanoid a soul, and that made the humanoid a human being. That human then begot other humans, by God giving all those descendents a soul, just like it happens nowadays (we do not inherit a soul from our parents).

The radical difference between us and other animals lies not in some magical radical biological difference, it lies in our having an immaterial rational soul. That is the crucial metaphysical difference, and that is where the scholastic term “rational animal” comes in.

(By the way, with all this my views are fully within Catholic doctrine. The Church allows to accept an evolutionary origin of the human body, as long as the belief is upheld that the soul is a special creation from God.)

Again, as you admit – science merely makes the claim that it can determine the origin of human beings, and that humans descended from non-humans. That is obviously a metaphysical claim.

No, it is not. We did descend biologically from non-humans. Whether in addition we have an immaterial soul, that is something that science cannot decide, and makes no metaphysical claim about.

Incredibly, many Catholics – like yourself – simply accept this scientific declaration of metaphysical matters.

See above.

and you simply avoided even more difficult questions on post #42.

No I didn’t. I had told you that further discussion would be futile, and I only got dragged into the discussion again by answering a post by Shoe, and went from there.

So, if I’m that uninformed – it should be a lot easier for you to deal with this.

It is very easy for me as you can see from my answers. However, it takes a lot of time, and depending on your further replies I will decide if I am in the mood of answering your post # 42.

I can observe you – you’ve surrendered to science the authority to claim that there is a “biological human being” – a metaphysical claim.

Where did I use the term “biological human being”? Post # please. I was talking about the “biological origins of humans”, which is substantially different.

---

*) not apes, as is widely believed

 

[Borz]

I had rather hoped that people would read it and smile.

Oh, I had a huge smile reading it. But it would be impossible from someone whose view has just been invalidated. I don’t know anything about your background, so maybe you are not familiar with the saying of “read this weep” when a surefire winning hand in poker is laid down on the table. Because your little essay was precisely that: “a royal flush” against a “one pair of deuces”…

There is another of my pieces relevant here as well, an actual design for a working design detector: Proposal for a Theistic Design Detector. That is another, indirect, approach to the same problem.

Good writing. I enjoyed it.

 

[reggieM]

Without an objective method, we are reduced to subjective methods:

“It sure looks designed to me.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Does too.”

“Not to me.”

You build a consensus. That’s how science works. In the case above, 50% of the population observed that the object fit the definition of “designed”. A much larger sample size will provide more certain results. In any case, it’s a perfectly legitimate scientific approach to the problem.

Richard Dawkins, for example, believes that the entire discipline of biology is focused on the study of things that “look like they have been designed”.

'Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose’

So, one cannot even understand biology if one does not know what “things having been designed for a purpose” are or how to detect them, according to see this scientist who was the University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.

In order to have an objective method, we need to test our method on things with known answers. That means coming up with an assortment of objects that are known to be designed and not designed.

Right, because the term “design” means something and it is used frequently by scientists.

In order to know in advance that something is not designed, we need to make a determination of what the proposed designer can, and cannot, do.

You’ve changed the argument here from what a designed thing is, to what the proposed designer can do. All that is required is to know that design originates from reason and intelligence – because design requires a purpose and there can be no purpose where there is no intelligence. One does not need to know if a group of logs arranged in a stream was created by human or animal intelligence to recognize that it was designed for a purpose, and is therefore different from a scattering of logs that are the result of an accidental, natural process.

We need something that could not have been designed. If our proposed designer is supposed to be omnipotent, then finding something that could not possibly have been designed becomes a real problem.

If you want to change the topic to the nature of proposed designers, then it would be necessary first to propose various designers and give some information about them.
But you started the topic with a discussion on “design”, not on proposed designers.

We can see the possibility of a “human design detector”, which detects design by humans. That can be tested, because there are things which we know a priori cannot have been designed by humans, just as there are things which we know have been designed by humans.

We can also see the possibility of a “natural-process design detector” which detects the possibility of design by natural processes. That can be tested because there are things we know, cannot have been designed by natural processes.

So, in using both the human design detector, and the natural-process design detector, whatever things we find that do not register positive in either must necessarily have been designed by some other Designer.

It’s a simple process of elimination and a nice scientific test.

 

[tonyrey]

Can you show just ONE object that is “not designed”? Read rossum’s excellent essay about the subject… forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8781889&postcount=17 … as the old card game saying goes: “read this and weep”.

A deformity.

 

[Whadyamean]

A deformity.

Wrong, a deformity is the result of an occurrence exactly following the design of the events and genetics that caused it.

 

[rossum]

or we calculate the odds and measure them against the Universal Probablity Bound.

You are suggesting a method to test for design. Have you tested this method against known designed objects, and known not-designed objects? Unless you have tested your method, then it must be considered of doubtful reliability.

Show us your test results and we can determine within what limits your proposed method is accurate.

rossum

 

[Whadyamean]

My apologies; post #92 ought to have been edited and formatted as follows:

Originally Posted by Buffalo
“The fact that every scientist alive has a worldview is irrelevant?”

Of course they have a world view. It comes with being human. But that isn’t their science, even if there is an agenda stemming from their world view. Equations and laws work irregardless of the worldview of the one using then, other than that using them is necessarily part of their worldview.

(snip ) How on earth did the science community convince taxpayers the return on investment was valid?..Is this a case of science for the sake of science? I see this kind of spending all over the place.

I’m sorry, but are you using a computer and the internet??? have you any idea how many conveniences we thoughtlessly luxuriate in due to “pure” science and also its serendipitous discoveries?

Hmm… And you may want to look again at the arrangement of your circles. They might just be more pious than logical? I mean I don’t necessarily disagree with them in a way, but are they really in the right order and relationship?

 

[reggieM]

Why is a biological origin of humans a metaphysical claim?

I think I mentioned it already, but here’s another approach.

In order to even discuss the “biological origin of human beings”, science would have to first determine what the demarcation line is between a human being and the last non-human ancestor. Science boldly does that, and makes a claim that “human beings emerged …” from some time and place. At one moment there were no human beings. Then, science claims, there was an “origin” of human beings.

Organisms are judged to be “early humans” based on biological evidence alone. That again is a metaphysical claim through a scientific method. It is not possible to determine that a biological, human-looking organism is actually human without knowing if it has an immortal soul or not.

In order to know that there was this “origin”, science would have to know where, on the gradualistic continuum, an organism should be called a “human being”.

But a human being can only be understood as a metaphysical entity – namely, because a human being is a “different kind of being” than an animal. That’s what is meant by the “ontological leap”.

The gradualistic theory would actually have to say that there was a long period of time when there were organisms that were “part human”. But this is impossible, because as you say, a human being is a “rational animal” – and the “rational” part of a human comes from the immortal soul.

A soul cannot be divided into parts – either you have it or you don’t. You’re either a human or your not. Science claims to know the difference between a non-human and a human merely through the observation of biological forms.

As already scholastic philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, humans are “rational animals”, which means we are not some magical species apart from other animals, except that we are rational, which requires an immaterial soul.

Actually, I think you just explained the point here.
Look again – humans are “not apart from other animals” – so, a non-human ancestor is an animal. The difference is, “except that we are rational”.
In order to claim that you know how humans originated, science has to claim to know the origin of rationality – since that is essential in even defining what a human being is.
That is science taking the role of metaphysics. Science cannot declare that some beings were rational and virtually identical beings were not – without making metaphysical conclusions.

Yet just because we humans have souls, we do not float incorporeally like angels do. We do have a biological body and brain, and as animals (the animal part in “rational animals”) we do descend from a common ancestor with apes *) (which can be proven on a genetic level).

Notice, you believe that a similarity in genetics means ancestry. So, a non-rational animal can produce a rational human being. The only way to prove that true is for science to be able to biologically observe the presence of rationality – which is part of the immaterial soul. So, science would have to claim that it can determine whether an animal has a rational soul or not. That’s what is required in order to claim that a non-rational animal was the ancestor of a rational being. That’s metaphysics again.

Yet our soul does not affect the biological origin of our body (that it might have shaped our brain size is a different issue).

That’s a metaphysical claim. In order to know that is true, you have to study the effect of our soul on the body. You simply do not know if what you said is true. I notice that you say that “immaterial soul” actually shaped our brain, but there is nowhere an any science literature that states that. So, I can’t even categorize what that comment is – metaphysics? biology? science? Could it be a philosophical statement about how the human brain has been physically shaped?

Your body was not directly created by God, but has its biological origin in your parents and developed in your mother’s womb. Yet God directly created your soul, and voila, you were born.

I fully agree. This is an extremely important topic also because the question of “when” I received a soul is a metaphysical truth also that has huge implications.

It is not possible. I believe that God gave a humanoid a soul, and that made the humanoid a human being.

Science necessarily must define what human beings are. It has nothing to do with your important belief here.

The only way to know that an organism was a human being is to know that it had a rational soul, created and given by God. Science claims to know that various fossils were of human beings without ever knowing if they had a rational soul or not. Metaphysics.

The radical difference between us and other animals lies not in some magical radical biological difference, it lies in our having an immaterial rational soul.

Absolutely. That’s the whole problem. A human being is defined, and can only be defined, from the quality of having a soul. If science cannot determine if a humanoid has a soul, then it cannot make claims about when or how human beings originated. You can’t even talk about the “biological origins” of humans because you have to know how and when humans were first created (and humans necessarily had to be created directly since the soul cannot be the product of a natural, material process).

But this does not stop science from claiming that it knows when humans first “emerged”. That’s a metaphysical claim. You’d have to know when the rational soul was created.

Where did I use the term “biological human being”?

I withdraw that comment - you didn’t use the term.

 

[buffalo]

(By the way, with all this my views are fully within Catholic doctrine. The Church allows to accept an evolutionary origin of the human body, as long as the belief is upheld that the soul is a special creation from God.)

I disagree, and you know why, but as you know we cannot discuss it.

 

[rossum]

You build a consensus. That’s how science works.

Science does build a consensus, but it is not a democratic consensus. Both expertise and evidence can add weight to the argument. In the argument between Big Bang and Steady State, initially there were roughly equal numbers on both sides. However, as new evidence came in, the consensus followed the evidence and moved towards the big Bang.

Richard Dawkins, for example, believes that the entire discipline of biology is focused on the study of things that “look like they have been designed”.

Indeed, and he made the point that in this case appearances are deceptive. When I observe at the Sun in the sky, it looks like the Earth is static and the Sun is moving. That appearance is deceptive, and it is science that has allowed us to work out that it is deceptive.

Right, because the term “design” means something and it is used frequently by scientists.

Indeed, but it usually means “human design” as in the sciences of archaeology and forensics.

You’ve changed the argument here from what a designed thing is, to what the proposed designer can do.

I do not think it is unreasonable to infer the existence of a designer from the existence of a designed object.

All that is required is to know that design originates from reason and intelligence

We require more than that. We require a reliable way to test for design. Given that we cannot interview any non-human designer to determine what they did, or did not, make and that we do not have “Copyright Sirius Genomics Corporation” encoded in our DNA, then we need a reliable way to determine whether or not something is designed. Without a reliable test – a test which can provide the evidence that science requires – then we cannot be reliably assured that something that we think is designed, actually is designed.

If you want to change the topic to the nature of proposed designers, then it would be necessary first to propose various designers and give some information about them. But you started the topic with a discussion on “design”, not on proposed designers.

My topic is “the reliable detection of design”, and in particular, “how do we test a design detector in order to assure ourselves that it is reliable”. Testing requires both designed and non-designed objects. Since we are testing a detector itself, we cannot use the detector at this point – we need an independent way to assess whether or not something is designed. I am merely pointing out the difficulties of doing that for an unspecified designer with unknown powers.

An archaeologist works with human design. An archaeologist knows that if she finds an aluminium cylinder block then it was not made by Neolithic farmers. Because she is aware of the limitations of Neolithic farmers as designers, she can be sure that they did not design the aluminium cylinder block. That would allow the testing of a putative “Neolithic farmer design detector”. She uses the known capabilities of Neolithic farmers, that is the known capabilities of the designers in question.

However, if we are looking at an “Any designer design detector”, then our cylinder block is designed, because modern humans are capable of such design. What is the equivalent of the cylinder block for any possible designer with unspecified powers? Where is something that could not be designed by such a designer to allow us to test our “Any designer design detector”?

We can also see the possibility of a “natural-process design detector” which detects the possibility of design by natural processes. That can be tested because there are things we know, cannot have been designed by natural processes.

Above, you associated the process of design with reason and intelligence. Are you changing your definition of design, or are you asserting that natural processes have reason and intelligence?

So, in using both the human design detector, and the natural-process design detector, whatever things we find that do not register positive in either must necessarily have been designed by some other Designer.

Or the object is not designed at all. An undesigned object will always register negative in all possible design detectors. We still need a positive result in some detector or other in order to detect design. Negative results can always indicate an undesigned object.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

Science does build a consensus, but it is not a democratic consensus. Both expertise and evidence can add weight to the argument. In the argument between Big Bang and Steady State, initially there were roughly equal numbers on both sides. However, as new evidence came in, the consensus followed the evidence and moved towards the big Bang.

Indeed, and he made the point that in this case appearances are deceptive. When I observe at the Sun in the sky, it looks like the Earth is static and the Sun is moving. That appearance is deceptive, and it is science that has allowed us to work out that it is deceptive.

Indeed, but it usually means “human design” as in the sciences of archaeology and forensics.

I do not think it is unreasonable to infer the existence of a designer from the existence of a designed object.

We require more than that. We require a reliable way to test for design. Given that we cannot interview any non-human designer to determine what they did, or did not, make and that we do not have “Copyright Sirius Genomics Corporation” encoded in our DNA, then we need a reliable way to determine whether or not something is designed. Without a reliable test – a test which can provide the evidence that science requires – then we cannot be reliably assured that something that we think is designed, actually is designed.

My topic is “the reliable detection of design”, and in particular, “how do we test a design detector in order to assure ourselves that it is reliable”. Testing requires both designed and non-designed objects. Since we are testing a detector itself, we cannot use the detector at this point – we need an independent way to assess whether or not something is designed. I am merely pointing out the difficulties of doing that for an unspecified designer with unknown powers.

An archaeologist works with human design. An archaeologist knows that if she finds an aluminium cylinder block then it was not made by Neolithic farmers. Because she is aware of the limitations of Neolithic farmers as designers, she can be sure that they did not design the aluminium cylinder block. That would allow the testing of a putative “Neolithic farmer design detector”. She uses the known capabilities of Neolithic farmers, that is the known capabilities of the designers in question.

However, if we are looking at an “Any designer design detector”, then our cylinder block is designed, because modern humans are capable of such design. What is the equivalent of the cylinder block for any possible designer with unspecified powers? Where is something that could not be designed by such a designer to allow us to test our “Any designer design detector”?

Above, you associated the process of design with reason and intelligence. Are you changing your definition of design, or are you asserting that natural processes have reason and intelligence?

Or the object is not designed at all. An undesigned object will always register negative in all possible design detectors. We still need a positive result in some detector or other in order to detect design. Negative results can always indicate an undesigned object.

rossum

So, it was a good thing SETI was cancelled. A case of wasted money.

Remember - ID is about highly improbable events and independently designed specification. Both are needed.

 

[buffalo]

Self-organisation in dynamical systems: a limiting result

Self organization, or “order for free”, is an important (and expanding) area of inquiry.
Self-organized structures occur in many contexts, including biology. While these
structures may be intricate and impressive, there are some limitations on the kinds of
structure than can self-organize, given the dynamical laws. (William Paley pointed out,
for example, that a watch cannot be produced by “the laws of metallic nature”.) In this
paper I will demonstrate that certain fundamental symmetries in the laws of physics
constrain self organization in an interesting way. Roughly speaking, structures that are
both large and non-self-similar cannot self organize in any dynamical system.

…We should therefore be wary of any general argument that seeks to show that a
complex object can be produced gradually, by a cumulative process, far more rapidly
than the Limitative Theorem allows.

 

[tonyrey]

If we wish to test for design, then we need an objective method by which to detect design. Without an objective method, we are reduced to subjective methods:“It sure looks designed to me.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Does too.”

"Not to me."In order to have an objective method, we need to test our method on things with known answers. That means coming up with an assortment of objects that are known to be designed and not designed. In order to know in advance that something is not designed, we need to make a determination of what the proposed designer can, and cannot, do. The latter being the more important. We need something that could not have been designed. If our proposed designer is supposed to be omnipotent, then finding something that could not possibly have been designed becomes a real problem.

In the absence of something not designed, we cannot properly test any proposed design detector. How could we be sure it was reliable without a full test?

1. If an object serves no useful purpose it is unlikely to have been designed.
2. Even if an object serves no useful purpose it may be necessary for the existence of another object which does serve a useful purpose, e.g. the elements necessary for life.
3. The greater the number of factors required for serving a useful purpose the greater the probability of design.
4. The greater the co-ordination of factors required for serving a useful purpose the greater the probability of design.
5. The greater the stability of factors required for serving a useful purpose the greater the probability of design.
6. The greater the efficiency of factors required for serving a useful purpose the greater the probability of design.
7. Omnipotence is irrelevant because the issue is** not **the nature of the designer but evidence of design.

We can see the possibility of a “human design detector”, which detects design by humans. That can be tested, because there are things which we know a priori cannot have been designed by humans, just as there are things which we know have been designed by humans.

SETI functions on the valid principle that design by any intelligent being can be detected.

If we want a “general design detector” then we need something which cannot possibly have been designed by any possible designer with which to test our detector. That is a very tall order.

It is an absurd requirement! It is tantamount to denying there are criteria by which intelligent activity elsewhere in the universe can be detected. Any object which serves a useful purpose and satisfies the foregoing criteria is evidence of design.

 

[tonyrey]

		 		 	 	 Wrong, a deformity is the result of an occurrence exactly following the design of the events and genetics that caused it. 		Wrong, a deformity is the result of an occurrence exactly following the design of the events and genetics that caused it.

False! A deformity is the result of a coincidence that is foreseen and permitted but** not intended **because it is an inevitable, **dysteleological **consequence of the interplay of laws of nature.

 

[reggieM]

Indeed, and he made the point that in this case appearances are deceptive.

The point was that he referred to “things that are designed for a purpose”. Those things must necessarily exist because he referenced them – and in fact, they are the basis of the study of biology. If one cannot recognize “things that are designed for a purpose”, one cannot do biology at all, according to him.

I do not think it is unreasonable to infer the existence of a designer from the existence of a designed object.

True, but it is unreasonable to necessarily infer the identity of the designer from the existence of a designed object. I go to the jewelry store and see many designed items – but none of them indicate the identity of their designers. I know they’re designed though.

Testing requires both designed and non-designed objects.

We see things that are designed for a purpose. We see things that are not designed for a purpose.

Above, you associated the process of design with reason and intelligence. Are you changing your definition of design, or are you asserting that natural processes have reason and intelligence?

The word design means with purpose or goal – both of which require reason. Unintelligent forces cannot be the ultimate cause of the purpose of things – but they can secondarily create design. They do not possess reason but in order to produce design secondarily then they must have been created by reason themselves.

Or the object is not designed at all.

True, or we could be hallucinating or mentally ill.

But generally we assume that what we see reflects reality. We see something that looks very much like it was designed. We see that human beings could not have produced it and natural processes could not have produced it.
Therefore, the most reasonable inference is that it was designed but by another intelligence.

 

[reggieM]

SETI functions on the valid principle that design by any intelligent being can be detected.

Good point. SETI is seeking something that appears to have been designed by intelligent beings that have what is in some way analogous to human intelligence.

 

[tonyrey]

SETI is seeking something that appears to have been designed by intelligent beings that have what is in some way analogous to human intelligence.

I believe intelligence has fundamental elements which are universal. How could the laws of reasoning differ from one rational being to another?

 

[buffalo]

Al and rossum - here is The Independent Origins Science Education course -is a (draft) critical, independent, balancing survey of origins science topics; to equip students, educators and citizens to develop a critically aware, independent viewpoint on origins and on science.

 

[tonyrey]

A positive result is an intelligent response!

There have been discoveries of exquisitely adapted natural mechanisms which succeed in performing feats that were beyond the scope of the most sophisticated equipment and the expertise of teams of dedicated scientists…

 

[Al_Moritz]

Al and rossum - here is The Independent Origins Science Education course -is a (draft) critical, independent, balancing survey of origins science topics; to equip students, educators and citizens to develop a critically aware, independent viewpoint on origins and on science.

This is hilarious:

*In recent decades, some educators, public policy advocates – and, most importantly, some scientists – through adopting methodological naturalism, have thought and taught that science can only work properly if it is understood as a search for “natural causes.” *

In recent decades, “some scientists”? Haha, science has always followed methodological naturalism, introduced by the scientists of the scientific revolution who were all believers in God.