Evidence for Design?

[tonyrey]

This is a pretty long thread. Can I ask, have you defined what you mean by “Design” which you seem to capitalize consistently?

I’m trying to figure out what it is, exactly, you believe there is, or are looking for, evidence of? Could you please define the word “Design” as you are using it in the thread?

Thanks

Design is intelligent activity which uses specific means to achieve specific goals. The term is also used to describe the product of such activity. Anaxagoras was one of the first to state explicitly:

“Mind arranged all things to be and were… and such as are at present”.

Plato believed the intelligibility of the universe is more adequately explained by intelligence than “a fortuitous concourse of atoms”.

In his “Critique of Pure Reason” Kant states:

"1st. There are everywhere in the world clear indications of an intentional arrangement carried out with great wisdom, and forming a whole indescribably varied in its contents and infinite in extent.

2ndly. The fitness of this arrangement is entirely foreign to the things existing in the world, and belongs to them contingently only; that is, the nature of different things could never spontaneously, by the combination of so many means, co-operate towards definite aims, if these means had not been selected and arranged on purpose by a rational disposing principle, according to certain fundamental ideas.

3rdly. There exists, therefore, a sublime and wise cause (or many), which must be the cause of the world, not only as a blind and all-powerful nature, by means of unconscious fecundity, but as an intelligence, by freedom.

4thly. The unity of that cause may be inferred with certainty from the unity of the reciprocal relation of the parts of the world, as portions of a skilful edifice, so far as our experience reaches, and beyond it, with plausibility, according to the principles of analogy."

oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1442&chapter=97928&layout=html&Itemid=27

He believed the argument “is the oldest, the clearest, and most in conformity with human reason” but it is inductive and based on probability.

The term is capitalised to indicate (in Kant’s words) that “reason soars from height to height till it reaches the highest, from the conditioned to conditions, till it reaches the supreme and unconditioned Author of all.”

 

[tonyrey]

You know that already.

 

[tonyrey]

Precisely. But that is not what biological ID claims. It claims that evolution following the laws of nature cannot be sufficient to create so-called ‘irreducibly complex’ structures. God Himself would have had to step in to assemble the first bacteria or ‘front-load life with DNA information’ or similar – instead of being able to let it happen by the natural causes that He created.

But I see that you have shifted your position. Some 20+ pages ago you claimed that abiogenesis could not have happened by natural causes.

1. The laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency
2. Without divine intervention there would be no guarantee that living organisms would appear, survive or develop to their present state of immense complexity
3. Natural disasters are evidence that the universe is not directly controlled by God
4. The immense complexity of the universe leads to many coincidences which have negative consequences
5. God intervenes to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequences

 

[inocente]

I’m shocked to discover that a good Protestant would drink alcohol. I’m afraid you may have been corrupted by Catholic practices somehow.

You speak the truth!

ID may even spread into Spain – so I hope you’re ready to fight against it! Yes, avoid Coca Cola – and also Starbucks.

The Spanish are too well educated to fall for ID. And given that church attendance is falling off a cliff here, and ID is way too dull to ever go viral on YouTube, you would need to send a lot of missionaries from the Church Of ID or your battle is already lost.

 

[inocente]

I’ve quoted 1 Cor 1:18-31 before, but many Catholics seem not to understand, perhaps you will. We preach Christ crucified has nothing to do with “proofs”, it says proofs are pointless foolishness, it has completely different apologetics and basis for faith. Maybe that’s a Baptist thing.
reggieM;8897800:

Maybe you could try to prove that point to me.

Paul says Christ was no great prince, He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem (Isaiah 53:3). Yet He died for us, alongside which all attempts at signs and proofs are foolishness.

 

[inocente]

1. The laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency

You’ve said this before and it still makes no sense to me. Name one situation where the laws of nature can’t cope. Name one occasion where the universe stopped dead in its tracks and had to be rebooted. Apart from being highly illogical and having no evidence, why isn’t it an insult to Almighty God to say His design of the physical law is too poor to cater for every contingency?

2. Without divine intervention there would be no guarantee that living organisms would appear, survive or develop to their present state of immense complexity

You’ll need to prove at least one visible intervention, and then explain why you think Paul was completely wrong in Rom 1:20.

3. Natural disasters are evidence that the universe is not directly controlled by God

You never read the OT then, the Flood, etc.

4. The immense complexity of the universe leads to many coincidences which have negative consequences

Objectively negative, or in the eye of the beholder?

5. God intervenes to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequences

Or not.

Anyway, after some of yesterday’s posts it’s good to get away from ban territory.

 

[Sair]

1. The laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency

How could we possibly know this is the case?

1. Without divine intervention there would be no guarantee that living organisms would appear, survive or develop to their present state of immense complexity

When did there ever need to be a guarantee that these states of affairs would obtain?

1. Natural disasters are evidence that the universe is not directly controlled by God

Which is odd, given the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence generally ascribed to the God of Classical Theism.

1. The immense complexity of the universe leads to many coincidences which have negative consequences

Certainly negative from the perspective of those individuals and communities adversely affected by said coincidences - and again, an odd circumstance if the universe was indeed the creation of the God of Classical Theism.

1. God intervenes to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequences

How? When? Why?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Let me ask you something.

Do you admit that evolution could have happened naturally?

 

[tonyrey]

1. The laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency

The occurrence of disease, deformities and natural disasters.

2. Without divine intervention there would be no guarantee that living organisms would appear, survive or develop to their present state of immense complexity

When did there ever need to be a guarantee that these states of affairs would obtain?

Never from **your **point of view!

3. Natural disasters are evidence that the universe is not directly controlled by God

Which is odd, given the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence generally ascribed to the God of Classical Theism.

Not if you understand the implications of creating an **orderly **physical universe. Consult David Hume’s Dialogues.

4. The immense complexity of the universe leads to many coincidences which have negative consequences

Certainly negative from the perspective of those individuals and communities adversely affected by said coincidences - and again, an odd circumstance if the universe was indeed the creation of the God of Classical Theism.

Not if you understand the implications of creating an orderly physical universe. . Consult David Hume’s Dialogues.

5. God intervenes to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequences

How? When? Why?

By suspending the laws of nature when necessary to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequence.

 

[tonyrey]

1. The laws of nature cannot cater for every contingency

The occurrence of disease, deformities and natural disasters.

  Name one occasion  where the universe stopped dead in its tracks and had to be rebooted.

Irrelevant.

Apart from being highly illogical and having no evidence, why isn’t it an insult to Almighty God to say His design of the physical law is too poor to cater for every contingency?

Explain how every disease, deformity and natural disaster could be prevented…

2. Without divine intervention there would be no guarantee that living organisms would appear, survive or develop to their present state of immense complexity

You’ll need to prove at least one visible intervention, and then explain why you think Paul was completely wrong in Rom 1:20.

The overwhelming odds against life in a hostile universe

3. Natural disasters are evidence that the universe is not directly controlled by God

You never read the OT then, the Flood, etc.

Inconsistent with Christ’s teaching that God is a loving Father.

4. The immense complexity of the universe leads to many coincidences which have negative consequences

Objectively negative, or in the eye of the beholder?

Are disease, deformities and natural disasters solely in the eye of the beholder?

5. God intervenes to mitigate the suffering caused by negative consequences

Or not.

You deny the occurrence of miracles?

 

[tonyrey]

Let me ask you something.

Do you admit that evolution could have happened naturally?

A logical possibility but inconsistent with the belief that God is a loving Father and an inadequate explanation of** the existence of persons with the power of reason, free will and moral responsibility**.

 

[inocente]

The occurrence of disease, deformities and natural disasters.

Before going any further, how in heaven’s name are they against the laws of nature? Which laws of nature do you think they break?

 

[buffalo]

Precisely. But that is not what biological ID claims. It claims that evolution following the laws of nature cannot be sufficient to create so-called ‘irreducibly complex’ structures. God Himself would have had to step in to assemble the first bacteria or ‘front-load life with DNA information’ or similar – instead of being able to let it happen by the natural causes that He created.

But I see that you have shifted your position. Some 20+ pages ago you claimed that abiogenesis could not have happened by natural causes.

Indeed, in the beginning God breathed the language of DNA into the kinds.

We look to St Augustine and potency and prime matter.

“Thus, omnia simul is, as it were, his keynote. He conceived creation as proceeding from its Creator, a unit including all things whatsoever that are to exist to the end of time, and corresponding to the single creative mandate. Having as his foundation all creatures as yet non-existent in themselves, yet existing in God in their exemplary ideas as the object of divine knowledge, he places the analogue of all things, as yet without individual existence, existing in elementary matter as forms in potency, forms decreed to exist, therefore no figments of the mind, no mere entia rationis, but, as he terms them, rationes seminales. They are the reasons, distinguishing objectively
the things that are to be, from mere possibilities never to be actuated. They are seminal, not seeds yet following the analogy of seeds; because, impressed on matter, they determine its potency to what is to exist, and exclude all other possibilities, as the virtue of the seed determines matter to this species and excludes that. They are realities so strictly, as to be the objects of the angels’ evening knowledge, the motive of their morning praise. Nothing material that is to exist can escape them.
“As mothers are pregnant of their children, so the world is pregnant with the causes of things coming to birth.”17 On the one side, the Saint sees God, His divine Essence infinitely imitable, its actual imitation formulated in exemplary ideas. On the other, the creature, matter, in the abstract infinite in potency, its actual potency formulated in seminal reasons. A parallelism worthy of an intelligence penetrating deeply into mysteries, but a long, long way from natural history and physical science.”

 

[grannymh]

Before going any further, how in heaven’s name are they against the laws of nature? Which laws of nature do you think they break?

What about the laws for evidence? Are there any such laws?

Blessings,
the nitty-gritty granny

Science is not lawless.

 

[inocente]

What about the laws for evidence? Are there any such laws?

In criminal law apparently.

To be fair, let’s wait for evidence that the laws of nature can’t cope with a common cold, bandy legs and a flood before deciding that stating they don’t cater for “disease, deformities and natural disasters” is criminally silly.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Design is intelligent activity which uses specific means to achieve specific goals. The term is also used to describe the product of such activity.

So the thread is about evidence that all that exists (outside of the Creator) does so by the Intent of the Creator. Is that correct?

 

[grannymh]

In criminal law apparently.

To be fair, let’s wait for evidence that the laws of nature can’t cope with a common cold, bandy legs and a flood before deciding that stating they don’t cater for “disease, deformities and natural disasters” is criminally silly.

What I am getting at is --what constitutes scientific evidence? (Though I would think that would be somewhat similar to criminal situations since both would have to be objective rather than subjective.)

What kind of laws does research evidence itself have to follow? In one of the issues of Science , the validity of a particular research paper was being questioned because of its “sloppy” record keeping. At that time, the experiments were being replicated.

For example, if I am looking at a clinical trial for a cold remedy, the evidence has to have 10,000 starting participants at the minimum for longer than a couple of years. Some clinical trials do not include people over 65 as part of the evidence. You may guess what I did with that report.

Obviously, 10,000 participants, as in a clinical trial for nose relief, would not be practical in a genetic study. Yet, apparently there are guidelines as to where the “selected genes” or “DNA” come from.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Al

**But I see that you have shifted your position. Some 20+ pages ago you claimed that abiogenesis could not have happened by natural causes. **

As usual, you are not honest in this discussion.

What I clearly said is that evolution is not possible by chance or random events. Evolution could be natural and simultaneously designed to occur in the mind of God. If you do not believe this, you are not a Catholic, nor even a Christian.

 

[inocente]

What I am getting at is --what constitutes scientific evidence? (Though I would think they would be somewhat similar to criminal situtuations since both would have to be objective rather than subjective.)

Interesting topic but I’m having trouble seeing the relevance, can you explain?

I mean it doesn’t matter at all whether we fully know and understand the laws of nature, what science says is irrelevant. The laws are still there and they apply just as much to bandy legs as straight legs, they apply just as much to a river that has flooded its banks as to one that hasn’t, just as much to a cold virus as everything else. It’s seem like pure superstition to think that a disease, deformity or disaster are some kind of magic that somehow break the laws of nature.

 

[inocente]

So the thread is about evidence that all that exists (outside of the Creator) does so by the Intent of the Creator. Is that correct?

I very much like your straight-forward directness but from what I’ve learned on this thread, it isn’t the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, there is no righteousness that is by faith from first to last, and what may be known about God isn’t at all plain, because God hasn’t made it plain. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—haven’t been clearly seen, not being understood from what has been made, so that people have loads of excuses as the evidence is really, really complicated, I mean don’t get me started on how really complicated it is, you would not believe how ridiculously complicated it is.

With apologies to Paul (Rom 1).