Is intelligent design a plausible theory? (part 2)

[itinerant1]

In a similar fashion, Einstein also opposed the concept of quantum physics not on the basis of scientific observation but rather on the basis of philosophy. The famous “God does not roll dice” hypotheses. Einstein spent what could have been very productive decades of his life trying to find a scientific alternative to quantum mechanics but ultimately failed.

We can therefore conclude that while Einstein was indeed a very smart person, there is no particular reasons to accept his philosophical opinions as being accurate.

Einstein opposed only a particular interpretation of quantum activity. The majority of physicists eventually accepted the indeterminancy principle that Einstein opposed. Nonetheless, Einstein was right, and there are a growing number of physicists ready to reject indeterminancy at the quantum level.

The Copenhagen school committed a gross error in logic and scientific procedure when it concluded that what cannot be measured exactly does not occur exactly. An epistemic principle was converted into an ontological principle. A very bad move.

The principle of indeterminancy is ontologically fallacious. Einstein will be vindicated in this matter. It is just a matter of time.

ADMIN NOTE:
Part 1 located [thread=327236]here[/thread].

 

[liquidpele]

Einstein opposed only a particular interpretation of quantum activity. The majority of physicists eventually accepted the indeterminancy principle that Einstein opposed. Nonetheless, Einstein was right, and there are a growing number of physicists ready to reject indeterminancy at the quantum level.

The Copenhagen school committed a gross error in logic and scientific procedure when it concluded that what cannot be measured exactly does not occur exactly. An epistemic principle was converted into an ontological principle. A very bad move.

The principle of indeterminancy is ontologically fallacious. Einstein will be vindicated in this matter. It is just a matter of time.

I’ve not heard of much contention around the uncertainty principal. Perhaps you can provide links to sources regarding your comments?

 

[greylorn]

Einstein is rightly honored as one of history’s greatest physicist but it is important to understand that, even within his chosen field of expertise, Einstein was often just plain wrong. The cosmological constant is perhaps the best known example. Einstein was philosophically convinced that the universe had to be static (neither expanding nor contracting). Unwilling to accept that his own theory of general relatively allowed for a non-static universe, Einstein added a “fudge” factor to rule out non-static universes. Later, when observations clearly indicated that the universe was indeed expanding, Einstein admitted his mistake and removed the fudge factor.

In a similar fashion, Einstein also opposed the concept of quantum physics not on the basis of scientific observation but rather on the basis of philosophy. The famous “God does not roll dice” hypotheses. Einstein spent what could have been very productive decades of his life trying to find a scientific alternative to quantum mechanics but ultimately failed.

We can therefore conclude that while Einstein was indeed a very smart person, there is no particular reasons to accept his philosophical opinions as being accurate.

Your comments about Einstein’s relationship to quantum mechanics are about what one might expect from a Nit-Geo and History Channel pseudo-scientific camp follower.

Einstein did not object to quantum mechanics, but to the philosophical interpretation to it which was adopted at the Copenhagen conference of physicists approximately 1930. The conference was named not for its physical location (Geneva) but for the dominance of Danish participants who packed the conference (they could afford the trip) and insured a vote in favor of their favorite physicists, dolts such as the affirmed Nazi, Werner Heisenberg.

Einstein was awarded his only Nobel Prize for a simple equation describing the photoelectric effect, which expressed the energy of a photon as the product of the frequency of light and the Planck constant. Max Planck was the guy who first discovered quantum principles.

Here’s a question you might better be qualified to answer. Why do guys (women never do this) who’ don’t know the difference between a differential and integral equation, but watch TV a lot, quote a theoretical physicist whose ideas few real physicists understand?
Are you trying to impress girls? That’s what God made barbells for.

 

[itinerant1]

I’ve not heard of much contention around the uncertainty principal. Perhaps you can provide links to sources regarding your comments?

I don’t have any links for you at this time. I read in a book about an international meeting of physicists in Israel, where the uncertainty principle was seriously questioned. When I first learned of the uncertainty principle, I knew immediately that something was rotten in Denmark, or rather Copenhagen. Philosophers in the tradition of the philosophia perennis have been critical of the uncertainty principle. For example, Mortimer J. Adler, decades ago exposed the fallacy of quantum uncertainty. Fr. Stanley L. Jaki does an eminent critique of the uncertainty principle. For now, I can provide an excerpt from one of Jaki’s essays. It will give you something substantial to consider for now.

The formulators of quantum theory “are bogged down in an equivocation which is the result of their failure to distinguish between two propositions: one states the limited nature of man’s ability to measure exactly, either in theory or practice, a physical interaction; the other states that because exact measurement of an interaction is impossible, the interaction itself is inexact in the sense that the effect can contain more than what is contained in its cause; that is, the effect is not caused fully, and may not be caused at all. The first of these statements is purely operational, the second is radically ontological. To suggest that the first implies the second is sheer equivocation, the result of an elementary mishandling of the laws of logic. It would not be tolerated in any moderately good freshman course untainted with that modal or subjective logic which Hegel grafted on to modern thought. Yet this equivocation or logical fallacy has become part and parcel of our modern scientific culture. There the notion of chance has grown, soon after Heisenberg’s enunciation of the uncertainty principle, into the basic dogma of anti-ontology. In that culture the real is replaced by the unreal garbed in the cloak of chance. While for the unwary that garb means only the absence of exact measurement, for the “initiated” it is a specious cover-up for a situation in which the real becomes in the end a mere appearance, to the delight of phenomenologist, who forgot their initial resolve to make no utterance whatever about reality as such. Hence, the rise of the widespread belief, amounting to a climate of opinion, that anything can happen and that man therefore is not bound by anything specific such as natural law, which obviously presupposes a specific ontological order.” (Stanley L. Jaki; The Absolute Beneath the Relative and Other Essays)

 

[greylorn]

A reference to the exact page. I assume it to be in the Dialogues…

This was your quote, not mine. I reiterated your quote, and you reiterated you quote. What do you want?

 

[greylorn]

I don’t have any links for you at this time. I read in a book about an international meeting of physicists in Israel, where the uncertainty principle was seriously questioned. When I first learned of the uncertainty principle, I knew immediately that something was rotten in Denmark, or rather Copenhagen. Philosophers in the tradition of the philosophia perennis have been critical of the uncertainty principle. For example, Mortimer J. Adler, decades ago exposed the fallacy of quantum uncertainty. Fr. Stanley L. Jaki does an eminent critique of the uncertainty principle. For now, I can provide an excerpt from one of Jaki’s essays. It will give you something substantial to consider for now.

The formulators of quantum theory “are bogged down in an equivocation which is the result of their failure to distinguish between two propositions: one states the limited nature of man’s ability to measure exactly, either in theory or practice, a physical interaction; the other states that because exact measurement of an interaction is impossible, the interaction itself is inexact in the sense that the effect can contain more than what is contained in its cause; that is, the effect is not caused fully, and may not be caused at all. The first of these statements is purely operational, the second is radically ontological. To suggest that the first implies the second is sheer equivocation, the result of an elementary mishandling of the laws of logic. It would not be tolerated in any moderately good freshman course untainted with that modal or subjective logic which Hegel grafted on to modern thought. Yet this equivocation or logical fallacy has become part and parcel of our modern scientific culture. There the notion of chance has grown, soon after Heisenberg’s enunciation of the uncertainty principle, into the basic dogma of anti-ontology. In that culture the real is replaced by the unreal garbed in the cloak of chance. While for the unwary that garb means only the absence of exact measurement, for the “initiated” it is a specious cover-up for a situation in which the real becomes in the end a mere appearance, to the delight of phenomenologist, who forgot their initial resolve to make no utterance whatever about reality as such. Hence, the rise of the widespread belief, amounting to a climate of opinion, that anything can happen and that man therefore is not bound by anything specific such as natural law, which obviously presupposes a specific ontological order.” (Stanley L. Jaki; The Absolute Beneath the Relative and Other Essays)

I was wondering if you were a physicist or just a philosopher. Alas. Nonetheless, you get lots of points for knowing anything whatsoever about the Copenhagen interpretation of Q.M.,multiplied manyfold for having moved halfway to the correct (imo) anaysis.

Surely you realize that at best two or three posters will glean more than a Shannon of information from your erudite explanations and quotes. Nonetheless, you will impress them.

While I can decipher the limited content of the extensive, obscure Jaki quote, and agree with it, since it represents the same conclusions I came to after my Quantum Mechanics course back in, what, maybe 1963, it stinks of intellectual obfuscation.

It would be a courtesy to readers to paragraph your posts. The simpleminded technology of paragraphing was introduced in my schooling at the fifth grade level, so we know that it is not rocket science. Failure to separate ideas in the conventional grammatical sense might be construed as a deliberate attempt to obfuscate.

If you presented the Jaki quote exactly as he wrote it, you would do him a great service by introducing paragraphs. Then apply for a job as his editor, because he badly needs one. Unless your primary purpose is to buffalo and impress readers, in which case, screw paragraphing, which was only designed to help readers understand what was written. .

Clearly you are aware of the effort and time required to construct grammitaclly correct written sentences of a hundred words, ten times longer than a person would use in normal speech. What is the point of the extra effort? Considering that the extra verbiage renders the words more difficult to interpret, what is the point of doing so? Anything other than to impress the rubes?

There are already enough casual attempts on this wonderful forum to obscure meaning and imply more knowledge than one actually owns. Why not speak your own mind in your own words and skip the arcane quotes and arrogant name-dropping?

We could then deal with you in the context of who you are instead of who you wanna-be.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Getting back to the topic of intelligent design, I watched a DVD called “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and after watching it, I seriously wonder how anybody can doubt that there is intelligence behind biological life. It was about the molecular machinery in the cell (all cells) and was quite incredible.

There is no way that a bunch of chemicals got together and came up with that, and in addition formed themselves into a machine that keeps replicating for thousands of years, from one generation to the next. The most complex human engineered chemical process wouldn’t go close to it for complexity.

 

[itinerant1]

I was wondering if you were a physicist or just a philosopher. Alas. Nonetheless, you get lots of points for knowing anything whatsoever about the Copenhagen interpretation of Q.M.,multiplied manyfold for having moved halfway to the correct (imo) anaysis.

Surely you realize that at best two or three posters will glean more than a Shannon of information from your erudite explanations and quotes. Nonetheless, you will impress them.

While I can decipher the limited content of the extensive, obscure Jaki quote, and agree with it, since it represents the same conclusions I came to after my Quantum Mechanics course back in, what, maybe 1963, it stinks of intellectual obfuscation.

It would be a courtesy to readers to paragraph your posts. The simpleminded technology of paragraphing was introduced in my schooling at the fifth grade level, so we know that it is not rocket science. Failure to separate ideas in the conventional grammatical sense might be construed as a deliberate attempt to obfuscate.

If you presented the Jaki quote exactly as he wrote it, you would do him a great service by introducing paragraphs. Then apply for a job as his editor, because he badly needs one. Unless your primary purpose is to buffalo and impress readers, in which case, screw paragraphing, which was only designed to help readers understand what was written. .

Clearly you are aware of the effort and time required to construct grammitaclly correct written sentences of a hundred words, ten times longer than a person would use in normal speech. What is the point of the extra effort? Considering that the extra verbiage renders the words more difficult to interpret, what is the point of doing so? Anything other than to impress the rubes?

There are already enough casual attempts on this wonderful forum to obscure meaning and imply more knowledge than one actually owns. Why not speak your own mind in your own words and skip the arcane quotes and arrogant name-dropping?

We could then deal with you in the context of who you are instead of who you wanna-be.

I quoted the text as is. I had no problem reading or understanding it. In fact, it was more satisfying to me to read Jaki unedited according to your specifications than it was to read your highly paragraphed yet irritating response. Touche!

Peace, nonetheless.

 

[tonyrey]

This was your quote, not mine. I reiterated your quote, and you reiterated you quote. What do you want?

You alleged that I had “lifted” my statement from Hume when I had done nothing of the kind. The onus is on you therefore to supply verse and chapter - or withdraw your allegation.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

My dear friends

My thoughts are-

If God is infinitely perfect and does all infinitely perfectly then intelligent design should show infinite intelligence in the design. Evolution is not the most perfect mode of creation. Creationism shows the perfect mode.

May God bless you and keep you:thumbsup:
John

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cerad

*We can therefore conclude that while Einstein was indeed a very smart person, there is no particular reasons to accept his philosophical opinions as being accurate. *

Ah, but then I suppose you don’t mind quoting him as an enemy of traditional religion.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

itinerant

To say there is “scientific evidence” for an Intelligent Designer puts one in opposition to sound Catholic philosophy and the mind of the Church on this subject.

Perhaps I am at a disadvantage here because I don’t know if you are an authority on “sound Catholic philosophy and the mind of the Church.”

Would you please cite the specific document (and sentences) in which the Church has officially denied that science can *point to * (if not show directly) the existence of an Intelligent Designer?

O.K., so you accept the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but deny that science can point to that Designer? Would you also say that the Big Bang cannot point to a First Cause of the universe?

One can be scientifically illiterate and see that the cosmos is the handiwork of God.

In what sense is this possible? By wonder? By faith? By wishful thinking? But not by studying the laws of nature?

 

[liquidpele]

Hey, over 1000 posts! I feel part of something special! Or circular… or maybe special AND circular

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Bob Crowley

*There is no way that a bunch of chemicals got together and came up with that, and in addition formed themselves into a machine that keeps replicating for thousands of years, from one generation to the next. The most complex human engineered chemical process wouldn’t go close to it for complexity. *

Yes, this is what the atheists don’t want to touch. When George Wald waxed enthusiastic in the 50s about the Miller experiment he noted that the time frame for the random collection of atoms to produce the first one-celled creature was two billion years, plenty of time to randomly produce life. Within 25 years this notion was blown to smithereens by geologic studies of bacteria fossils. The oldest such fossils can be dated to 3.5 billions of years. Water on the planet only appeared shortly before this. Therefore abiogenesis happened almost immediately (in geologic time) after the arrival of water, which is essential to life.

This is just one of a host of reasons for arguing the extreme unlikelihood of the random collection of chemical atoms needed for the immense complexity of the first living cell.

 

[liquidpele]

Getting back to the topic of intelligent design, I watched a DVD called “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and after watching it, I seriously wonder how anybody can doubt that there is intelligence behind biological life. It was about the molecular machinery in the cell (all cells) and was quite incredible.

There is no way that a bunch of chemicals got together and came up with that, and in addition formed themselves into a machine that keeps replicating for thousands of years, from one generation to the next. The most complex human engineered chemical process wouldn’t go close to it for complexity.

There is a major problem with your logic. Currently, we DO grow from a single cell, and cells DO survive with such complexity. Unless you are claiming that God uses magic to make all our cells continue to work, then things are working right now in a complexity you appear to be refuting. Or perhaps you think we were all created as is and never evolved?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Hey, over 1000 posts! I feel part of something special! Or circular… or maybe special AND circular
__________________

So I take it you’re still having fun?

 

[tonyrey]

If God is infinitely perfect and does all infinitely perfectly then intelligent design should show infinite intelligence in the design.

How can human beings with limited intelligence know what constitutes infinite perfection? Even if we could how would you demonstrate that there is not infinite intelligence in the design?

Evolution is not the most perfect mode of creation.

How do you reach that conclusion?

Creationism shows the perfect mode.

How do you reach that conclusion?
I suspect you have been brainwashed by advertising into believing that instant results are not only essential but the ideal solution: instant coffee, instant photos and instant Creation!

 

[cerad]

cerad

*We can therefore conclude that while Einstein was indeed a very smart person, there is no particular reasons to accept his philosophical opinions as being accurate. *

Ah, but then I suppose you don’t mind quoting him as an enemy of traditional religion.

Go ahead if you want to. I think it would be kind of silly but consistency can be a virtue.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

liquidpele

*Or perhaps you think we were all created as is and never evolved? *

Not me. I just don’t believe we evolved by chance. And I believe our evolution began with the Big Bang, which prepared the way for ultimate organic evolution.

I believe God in His infinite wisdom may well have created life in various parts of the universe. I also suspect that if so, He made us far enough apart from each other that we may never know of each others’ existence, or find ways to anihilate each others’ civilizations. These are just idle speculations with no firm ground in reality, but they are as valid as the speculations of certain atheists who think life was planted here by extra-terrestrials.

 

[itinerant1]

itinerant

To say there is “scientific evidence” for an Intelligent Designer puts one in opposition to sound Catholic philosophy and the mind of the Church on this subject.

Perhaps I am at a disadvantage here because I don’t know if you are an authority on “sound Catholic philosophy and the mind of the Church.”

Would you please cite the specific document (and sentences) in which the Church has officially denied that science can *point to *(if not show directly) the existence of an Intelligent Designer?

O.K., so you accept the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but deny that science can point to that Designer? Would you also say that the Big Bang cannot point to a First Cause of the universe?

One can be scientifically illiterate and see that the cosmos is the handiwork of God.

In what sense is this possible? By wonder? By faith? By wishful thinking? But not by studying the laws of nature?

itinerant

To say there is “scientific evidence” for an Intelligent Designer puts one in opposition to sound Catholic philosophy and the mind of the Church on this subject.

The natural sciences do not consider the type of causality that bespeaks intelligent design. For the natural sciences, the Big Bang does not point to a First Cause because there is a point in regression (from our present perspective) where the laws of nature and time break down. For the philosopher, though, the Big Bang can point to a First Cause, but only insofar as all contingent objects in nature do, as none have within themselves the cause or reason for their own existence, motion, and so on. The Big Bang should not be identified with Creation itself since the laws of physics do not apply in its earliest stages.

Back to ID. Consider this brief excerpt from a lecture by Cardinal Schönborn to the Austrian Academy of Sciences on “Creation and Evolution.”

---

"No, the idea of the creation of completed individual beings or species is absurd. It is as just as unsustainable as the creationist theses of a creation of the world in six 24-hour days, as the pseudo-scientific speculations about a “young” earth, about a historical interpretation of the Flood, etc…

"…At this point a look back in the field of humanities is necessary. Since the late middle ages, the stream of nominalism brought about an ever clearer mechanization of the world-view. Ever more all causality was reduced to material causality. The classic teaching on the four causes was lost, especially final causality and formal causality. As Werner Heisenberg established, the concept of the four causes became limited to the material and efficient cause, to “the rule of cause and effect”; this limitation reduction ever more the perception of truth to the material.

"In this reductionistic understanding of reality there are only extrinsic causes working “from without.” It is striking that in Darwin’s criticism of individual acts of creation these causes are understood entirely as material causes (and thus rightfully rejected). God appears as one cause among other material causes that are “within the world.” But that can not be the meaning of “creation.” If the concept of creation is to have meaning, it cannot be as one cause among others in the chain of efficient causes.

"As I see it, the mistake of the “Intelligent Design” school of thought (with which people always wrongly associate me): The attempt of this school to assess high complexity in nature as evidence or proof of “intelligent design” suffers from the fundamental failure in thought, that “design,” plan, directedness to an end cannot be found on the level of causality with which the scientific method (in natural science) is concerned.

“I am convinced that an origin and an end, and thus something that one could call “intelligent design” may be recognized in creation. For me it is a sensible, reasonable point of view to conclude to a creator. But it is not a scientific point of view. I do not expect scientific research to prove God to me. It can do that just as little as it can prove the opposite. Neither lays within the horizon of its method. But the scientist as a man, who thinks about nature, who asks himself the questions of the “from where,” “to where,” and “what for” of the world and of his life, can indeed come to the conclusion that the acceptance of a creator is a more sensible and reasonable point of view than the radical nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche.”