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Peter_Plato
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You didn’t specify anything, so the chance is not 1/(520000!). The chance is 520000/520000. You allow for the first card to be anything because no target is set. If you said, “Ace of spades” then the target would be set and the chance would be 10000/520000 and only then could we determine if you actually hit the target by an ace of spades actually turning up.
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buffalo
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Man defined mammals based on mammals. In other words we had samples to use and defined commonalities.
Design exists. (I emphasize this because there are still design deniers out there) We recognize design when we see it because is has been cognized. We move on to what are the characteristics of design? (same way we did with mammals).
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buffalo
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In a way that sounds paganlike. Catholics understood the universe to be intelligible, with purpose. Evolution being blind unguided chance seems to be going back to what the pagans thought, not worthy of study.
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Peter_Plato
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I assume you are an intelligent agent… How would I test that there is a “you” (an intentional agent) responsible for what appear to be intentional behaviours? How do we test for you? We, obviously cannot put YOU into a test tube in a lab. We assess your behaviours and come to a conclusion that such behaviours must involve some sort of intelligence (if we can put up with the brain farts.)
There are intelligence “tests” that provide clues as to whether intelligence exists. I’m not sure you have been so tested, so evidence of your “intelligence” might be lacking.
Information coding, such as found in computers, is not concocted by random chance anywhere.
If the coding in DNA is sufficiently like information coding in computers in all relevant respects and no other causal mechanisms can sufficiently account for that coding, we have warrant for inferring that some form of intelligence is, at least, a plausible explanation.
To insist that it can’t be, merely because we don’t want to invoke God or some metaphysical presumption stands in our way, is a dogmatic stance, not a reasonable one.
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Farsight001
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Who said anything about that? If you predict that they will all come up in order and suited, you are equally likely to be right as you would if you predicted a different apparently random order.
So probability comes into play when order must be specified, but despite me talking about probability this entire time, you assumed that I wasn’t talking about order being specified?
But if you start flipping the cards, the probability of getting some result is 100%. This is part of the issue. You guys say that the chances of DNA developing in exactly the way it did are 1/X, X being a very very large number. This is true. But what are the chances of DNA developing in SOME WAY? Much better. You’re all so focused on the probability that everything developed exactly as it did you’re ignoring the fact that there are many many other ways that it could have happened. You should be worried about the probability that things developed in some way versus not at all.
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Farsight001
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No one said theistic evolution was science, did they? Nope. So the statement remains quite true.
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Monkey1976
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Point of order: There are crystals which do have a function in nature. Plants use crystals of calcium oxalate for calcium regulation and defense against predation (Source). A direct quote from the abstract: “crystals are formed in specific shapes and sizes”. Are the crystals the result of conscious design by the plant? Why or why not?
How could I be dealt a heart royal flush from a fully-shuffled deck?
We agree that God knew the outcome, the initial configurations, and the exact details of every step along the way - He is God. The problem is that one cannot objectively determine that through repeatable measurements. As soon as God (or Shiva, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or aliens, etc) is referenced as an essential part of a hypothesis, we have moved into the realm of the unrepeatable subjective. When science uses the word, “random” all it means is, “We have no idea why, and that question is beyond the scope of this inquiry”.
Einstein was referencing the fact that quantum mechanics can only give probabilities of specific states for elementary particles - a feature of the theory that he strongly disagreed with. Does God play dice? Of course not, because in His omniscience, He actually DOES know the precise position and velocity of every single electron in the universe at any given time. But, because we are not God, we don’t know that, and the physical laws of the universe - which God imposed - prevent us from ever knowing that information. Because we are not God, we can never understand things as He does. The best we can do is draw analogies and make as much sense as we can of the rules He imposed upon all of creation. If the charge of an electron was even slightly different, stars would not have formed. What we cannot answer in an objective sense is why the electron has that specific charge. Atheists can claim that it’s the result of the anthropic principle, we can claim that God made it that way, and “pastafarians” can claim that it is the result of the FSM’s “noodly appendage”. There is no empirical, objective test for determining who is correct.
In proper usage, Faith directs Reason, and Reason informs Faith. In treating ID as a hard science, then Faith becomes the one informing Reason - placing them at odds, as God cannot be objectively proven. We can make reasoned arguments for Him, but in the end it will always come down to having to accept by faith that He is one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible…
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Bubba_Switzler
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My own theory of evolution is that public discussion of evoluiton has been hopelessly infantantilized:
Nowadays, it’s simply a loyalty test.
spectator.org/articles/57159/does-intelligent-design-provide-plausible-account-lifes-origins
Nowadays, it’s simply a loyalty test.
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Farsight001
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You’ve said this already. Again, nothing you suggested was evolution sounds anything like evolution. There is no evolutionary reason that cats and dogs would become more like each other, and almost no mutations are lethal.
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Farsight001
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sigh
Are you flipping serious? Do you actually want me to produce a hypothetical order for 520000 cards? The very fact that I suggested the chances were 1(520000!) should tell any thinking person that I was talking about probability of a hypothetical pre-specified order coming up. We even talked about it before when I said I was not talking about the chances of an “ace of spades” flipping, but rather the chances of “an ace of spades from deck 8573” flipping first, and so on. Did you not read a damn thing I wrote? If you’re not going to read what I write, then do us both a favor and stop wasting my time replying to me. I don’t appreciate typing out a detailed and lengthy explanation only to have it entirely ignored. Its rude.
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Monkey1976
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Let me try this again. My question is not “Does design exist?”. My question is: What are the specific, objective criteria for determining that design is present.
I’ll even start the answer for you:
“The objective criteria for determining that design is present are:* (list item goes here)* (next item)* (and so on)
And these criteria cannot be satisfied by anything that is not the result of conscious intelligent design”
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Farsight001
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This does not answer his question. Just answer the question or admit that you cannot. All this skirting around the question is a waste of time.
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Farsight001
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But evolution is not “blind unguided chance”. That is nowhere part of the defining characteristics of evolution.In a way that sounds paganlike. Catholics understood the universe to be intelligible, with purpose. Evolution being blind unguided chance seems to be going back to what the pagans thought, not worthy of study.
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Farsight001
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None of this serves to supply a test or experiment for design.I assume you are an intelligent agent… How would I test that there is a “you” (an intentional agent) responsible for what appear to be intentional behaviours? How do we test for you? We, obviously cannot put YOU into a test tube in a lab. We assess your behaviours and come to a conclusion that such behaviours must involve some sort of intelligence (if we can put up with the brain farts.)
There are intelligence “tests” that provide clues as to whether intelligence exists. I’m not sure you have been so tested, so evidence of your “intelligence” might be lacking.
Ok. So run some experiments to see whether or not DNA is sufficiently like information coding in computers.
Its a reasonable stance because there is no evidence to suggest otherwise because you guys don’t test or do experimentation to confirm any of your musings.
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Monkey1976
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The quickest and most certain way to fame beyond their lifetime and nigh-unlimited funding for any scientist is to overturn an established model. The catch is that there must be objective, repeatable, and empirical proof of the alternative model.
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Peter_Plato
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No it isn’t. Theistic evolution claims that the design and order was “preloaded” at the Big Bang and all subsequent “evolution” flows from that design embedded in physics and chemistry.
Intelligent Design make the claim that life itself had to be intervened by an intelligent agent in order for life to evolve because the information in genetic coding could not have arisen as the result of physics and chemistry. Big difference.
Thomistic metaphysics could be compatible with either view and doesn’t rule either one out but would regard both as insufficient to explain God’s action.
Didn’t you watch the Kenneth Miller video?
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Farsight001
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Do you know what those difficulties are that they candidly discuss in the journals? It is trivial things such as whether to call this new fossil find a “reptile-like mammal” or a “mammal-like reptile”. They get in fist fights about that stuff at conferences, but in the end, thats small stuff and there is no reason to talk about that “problem” to the general public because it is a problem of classification, not of whether or not the creature whose fossil they found evolved at all.
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Farsight001
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No it doesn’t and that is word for word the creationist lie about what theistic evolution is. They really don’t know how to be honest, do they?
Again, this is a lie. Intelligent Design, according to the ID bigwigs promoting it as a job, it is the idea that we came as is, produced by an “intelligent agent”. Should I pull out their own definition of the word as they put it in their own ID textbook? It specifically says life was created AS IS.
By the PROPER definitions of the words, you appear to be a theistic evolutionist, not an ID advocate. But if they can trick you into thinking that theistic evolution is actually ID and that something else is theistic evolution, then they can claim you among their numbers. This is another of their popular, yet deceptive, tactics that is well known.
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edwest2
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Agreed.I assume you are an intelligent agent… How would I test that there is a “you” (an intentional agent) responsible for what appear to be intentional behaviours? How do we test for you? We, obviously cannot put YOU into a test tube in a lab. We assess your behaviours and come to a conclusion that such behaviours must involve some sort of intelligence (if we can put up with the brain farts.)
There are intelligence “tests” that provide clues as to whether intelligence exists. I’m not sure you have been so tested, so evidence of your “intelligence” might be lacking.
Information coding, such as found in computers, is not concocted by random chance anywhere.
If the coding in DNA is sufficiently like information coding in computers in all relevant respects and no other causal mechanisms can sufficiently account for that coding, we have warrant for inferring that some form of intelligence is, at least, a plausible explanation.
To insist that it can’t be, merely because we don’t want to invoke God or some metaphysical presumption stands in our way, is a dogmatic stance, not a reasonable one.
Peace,
Ed
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