Evidence for Design?

[tonyrey]

All you can manage is pathetic ad hominem after pathetic ad hominem.

False:

Where was I asked about the frequency of miracles? Give the post number. Are you mixing me up with someone else or lying through your teeth? Which is it?

You have made your opinion abundantly clear with your sarcastic references to divine intervention:

I’m quite sure the vast majority of Catholics, Christians and members of other religions believe miracles often occur in answer to prayer - and even when they are not requested. Support for that view on this forum so far has amounted to 90% - which is consistent with the teaching of the Church that evidence of at least two verifiable miracles is required for canonisation. Is it likely that all the saints were restricted to the basic minimum to satisfy the demand of those who maintain that such events are exceedingly rare?

Not sure you can go from that sample, the thread seemed very chocolate box to me.

I didn’t want to spoil the mood, so will say it here instead: If bees making honey or stars twinkling is a miracle, either we’re not thinking it through or a moral statement is being made, that we’re more interested in feeling nice happy thoughts than acknowledging all the suffering in the world.

And if it’s a miracle when a baby is born healthy, or when someone walks away from a car crash or a disaster, either we’re not thinking it through or a moral statement is being made, that we think God condemned the rest, or at best is capricious.

How often do you believe God intervenes to alleviate suffering and answer prayers for our physical needs?

Every time someone falls down and another picks them up.

Can you explain how that remark is consistent with the belief that God is a loving Father?

 

[tonyrey]

I think you’re stretching the analogy beyond breaking point. It may be a long day before any design fanatic admits that HIV was designed by the same agent that designed pretty little ponies.

Apparently there are two design agents, one for the nice stuff and another to blame for the bad stuff, or else something like HIV or gonorrhea develops all on its own and doesn’t need a designer. Which begs the question why anything else would, but there you go.

This is the sceptic’s typical rejection of a loving God with an argument which overlooks the inevitability of misfortunes due to the interplay of natural laws in an immensely complex system. No one has ever explained how **all or even the majority of **dysteleological coincidences could be prevented without undermining the order and regularity of events.

 

[reggieM]

The latest findings are showing the limits of NS. It is now thought to be a conservative process not a creative one.

True. Add that to the fact that advantageous mutations rarely if ever occur and there is no natural mechanism left to explain the diversity of life.

This lack of beneficial morphological novelty in fruit fly mutations
nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7315/full/nature09352.html

On the basis of 688,520 intermediate-frequency, high-quality single nucleotide polymorphisms … signatures of selection are qualitatively different than what has been observed in asexual species; in our sexual populations, adaptation is not associated with ‘classic’ sweeps whereby newly arising, unconditionally advantageous mutations become fixed. More parsimonious explanations include ‘incomplete’ sweep models, in which mutations have not had enough time to fix, and ‘soft’ sweep models, in which selection acts on pre-existing, common genetic variants. We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles rarely arise, are associated with small net fitness gains or cannot fix because selection coefficients change over time.

 

[reggieM]

A superb summary of the roles of philosophy and science, Reggie! I believe it is “the best explanation” we have had on this thread.

There are enough facts in your post to dispel any confusion about the nature of evidence for Design - without wishing to detract from all the **evidence **provided by other members. :clapping:

Thanks, Tony. :tiphat:

I hope all the members of this thread will enjoy the **purpose **for which I **designed **it also.

 

[reggieM]

My apology, but I can no longer deal with this thread.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Your Church “allows” you (and how damning is that verb?) to believe in a hijacked, wishy-washy, God-guided bastardisation of the real theory. Calling it “evolution” is equivalent to breach of trademark.

I intend to respect the ban on the discussion of evolution. I’ve been pulled in too far and I won’t go any farther. However, your disdain of the Church appears to extend to a disdain of science and the truths for which it can provide evidence. I am a Catholic who happens to also be a scientist. I don’t believe in any “hijacked, wishy-washy, God-guided bastardization of the real theory.” Strange that you aren’t even aware that there is more than one theory! :tsktsk:

The Church is the Body of Christ and what she teaches is truth - tantamount to God teaching us. I am fully obedient to God and will happily believe what He “allows” me to accept while remaining a faithful Catholic.

Thank you for using an upper-case “C” in the word “Church.”

 

[LittleSoldier]

1. To live without recognising any higher authority or source of knowledge is hubris and belief in one’s own infallibility.
2. An appeal to science is absurd because even in science there are divergences of opinion - particularly regarding development in the universe.
3. Your invective is a flagrant breach of the forum rule that there should be respect for the beliefs of Catholics.

HOOAH!!!

 

[tonyrey]

There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of “chance” - which is not surprising because it is used with five different meanings:

"1a**:** something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause b : the assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings : luck <an outcome decided by chance> c : the fortuitous or incalculable element in existence : contingency

2**:** a situation favoring some purpose : opportunity <needed a chance to relax>

3**:** a fielding opportunity in baseball (or cricket)

4a : the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation; also : the degree of likelihood of such an outcome <a small chance of success> b plural : the more likely indications <chance**s are he’s already gone>

5a : risk <not taking any chance**s> b : a raffle ticket

— chance adjective
— by chance : in the haphazard course of events <they met by chance>"

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chance

“By chance” is obviously equivalent to non-design but in the context of the entire universe it is clearer to use “Chance” (or non-Design) in contrast to “Design” - like Jacques Monod who entitled his book Chance and Necessity:

"One may well find oneself beginning to doubt whether life is “**the product **of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random.” (p.138)

In spite of this concession he concludes:

“Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution… is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact.” (ibid.) !

The issue is not the process but the initial state and the outcome: the existence of purposeful beings.

It is absurd to allow our lives to be ruled by incalculable elements which don’t know what they are doing. It is equally absurd to believe all knowledge is produced by elements which know precisely nothing! That is a metaphysical conjuring trick almost as fantastic as the belief that everything is derived from precisely nothing…

 

[LittleSoldier]

The reason as I understand it ***** is banned is because the conversation always degrades to disrespect and personal attacks.

You’re right and I have a lot more I wish I could say but I can’t and remain a member of CAF. So I am not going to even bring up any banned topic again.

 

[tonyrey]

“Pure chance, absolutely free but blind… is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact.”

After conceding that there is room for doubt such a dogmatic assertion is unjustified, unscientific and unphilosophical…

 

[LittleSoldier]

I think you’re stretching the analogy beyond breaking point. It may be a long day before any design fanatic admits that HIV was designed by the same agent that designed pretty little ponies.

Apparently there are two design agents, one for the nice stuff and another to blame for the bad stuff, or else something like HIV or gonorrhea develops all on its own and doesn’t need a designer. Which begs the question why anything else would, but there you go.

Pretty little ponies? Yeah, they sure are cute, aren’t they? Take a close look and you will see that inside (and also on the skin and fur) of those pretty little ponies are parasites. I mean the ones that make people become ill when they look at them under a microscope. There are also bacteria in the GI tracts, and some grody, disgusting looking organs. Those pretty little ponies urinate and defecate, cough, sneeze, produce amazing amounts of mucus (sometimes mucopurulent), grow tumors (both benign and malignant) and if you look at enough of their features you might come to the conclusion that they are not pretty at all, although they may be little.

I have a very pretty cat. She had a small area at the base of her tail that appeared to be the beginnings of a bite abscess. One day it became very large and when she was examined by the vet it burst and nearly cleared out the entire clinic. That very pretty cat was being eaten up by bacteria and her own system healed the bite openings before her own dead white blood cells could be removed. They had no place to go so they just kept accumulating and her skin kept stretching until it finally burst at the weakest point - where the canine teeth had entered her during the bite. When the abscess burst the pus and other material inside had the consistency of cottage cheese and a smell that would wake the dead.

Very pretty kitty! And a good, very loved kitty.

Now did God create those pretty little ponies and my pretty kitty? Yes, He did - along with HIV, all bacteria, white blood cells, mucopurulent material and HIV. Why did He create all this stuff? I don’t know but I know His reasons are always loving and good, even if fallible, relatively unintelligent human beings don’t think so.

God created EVERYTHING! It’s His design and He knew and knows exactly what He was and is doing.

 

[tonyrey]

Pretty little ponies? Yeah, they sure are cute, aren’t they? Take a close look and you will see that inside (and also on the skin and fur) of those pretty little ponies are parasites. I mean the ones that make people become ill when they look at them under a microscope. There are also bacteria in the GI tracts, and some grody, disgusting looking organs. Those pretty little ponies urinate and defecate, cough, sneeze, produce amazing amounts of mucus (sometimes mucopurulent), grow tumors (both benign and malignant) and if you look at enough of their features you might come to the conclusion that they are not pretty at all, although they may be little.

I have a very pretty cat. She had a small area at the base of her tail that appeared to be the beginnings of a bite abscess. One day it became very large and when she was examined by the vet it burst and nearly cleared out the entire clinic. That very pretty cat was being eaten up by bacteria and her own system healed the bite openings before her own white blood cells could be excreted. So they just kept accumulating. When the abscess burst the pus and other material inside had the consistency of cottage cheese and a smell that would wake the dead.

Very pretty kitty! And a good, very loved kitty.

Now did God create those pretty little ponies and my pretty kitty? Yes, He did - along with HIV, all bacteria, white blood cells, mucopurulent material and HIV. Why did He create all this stuff? I don’t know but I know His reasons are always loving and good, even if fallible, relatively unintelligent human beings don’t think so.

God created EVERYTHING! It’s His design and He knew and knows exactly what He was and is doing.

A superb post which puts things (and persons) in their place!

 

[LittleSoldier]

Two questions that get to the heart of the matter:

Did God know what Adam would look like?

Yes.

Did Adam look as God planned?

Yes.

 

[LittleSoldier]

A superb post which puts things (and persons) in their place!

Thank you, kind sir! :curtsey:

(Oops, I put in that God created HIV twice! )

 

[tonyrey]

Another agnostic Nobel laureate observed:

“We still seek a theory of Order in its most interesting and important form, that which is represented by the complex functional and structural integration of living organisms… In our moods of abstract theorization we tend to forget how great and diverse are the functional commitments of biological macromolecules. They insulate, they fill out; they fetch and carry; they prevent the organism as a whole from falling apart or dissolving in water; they prop up, they protect; they attack and defend; they store energy and catalyze its transfer; they store information and convey messages. The successful prosecution of all these activities depends upon properties more complex, various and particular than can be written down in the language of energetics or information theory… A new theory of genetic variation will clearly be something in the nature of a sentential calculus of genetic messages.”

• Sir Peter Medawar: The Art of the Soluble.

 

[tonyrey]

Thank you, kind sir! :curtsey:

(Oops, I put in that God created HIV twice! )

A minor detail which simply underlines the accuracy and precision of your other statements…

 

[razredge]

Catholicism teaches that people are part of* both* the physical and spiritual worlds.
Catholics believe in a spiritual soul which is not physical nor material and therefore is beyond what is called the physical universe.

Ah certainly, but biological polygenism (which was my point) is a question about the physical universe.

Apparently there are two design agents, one for the nice stuff and another to blame for the bad stuff, or else something like HIV or gonorrhea develops all on its own and doesn’t need a designer. Which begs the question why anything else would, but there you go.

You must have missed the memo - Satan designs all the bad stuff.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Another agnostic Nobel laureate observed:

“We still seek a theory of Order in its most interesting and important form, that which is represented by the complex functional and structural integration of living organisms… In our moods of abstract theorization we tend to forget how great and diverse are the functional commitments of biological macromolecules. They insulate, they fill out; they fetch and carry; they prevent the organism as a whole from falling apart or dissolving in water; they prop up, they protect; they attack and defend; they store energy and catalyze its transfer; they store information and convey messages. The successful prosecution of all these activities depends upon properties more complex, various and particular than can be written down in the language of energetics or information theory… A new theory of genetic variation will clearly be something in the nature of a sentential calculus of genetic messages.”

• Sir Peter Medawar: The Art of the Soluble.

I’m a bit confused by the term “sentential calculus.” Could you explain what this means?

 

[LittleSoldier]

Ah certainly, but biological polygenism (which was my point) is a question about the physical universe.

I think she left the thread.

 

[razredge]

Sorry - forgot that I need to explain things in very simple terms to avoid your straw man arguments. Let me rephrase.

The study of “Intelligent Design” - the pseudo-scientific wrapper around the stone-age supersition of religious Creationism - is not a scientific pursuit. No scientific evidence for ID exists.

Wanstronian i’m afraid your wasting your time, even Al Moritz who is an actual biochemist (as well as a Catholic) can’t convince these people.