Overwhelming evidence for Design?

[Peter_Plato]

The fact that 85% of the members of the National Academy of Science do not agree with ID, leads me think think the assertion that the evidence is just slightly less than “overwhelming”.

When Darwin first proposed natural selection most scientists disagreed with the idea - science changes.

Most of the space in the universe has no life, most of the time of the universe (zero to 80 decimal places), will have no life,

So… what?
Quantity has no real bearing on meaningfulness. Enormous quantities of space and eons of time are only relatively important to observers with limited space and time resources. God, being eternal and immaterial may view both of these as irrelevant.

most of the genetic material in our genes is left-over “junk”,
perhaps might lead one to a different view.

Junk DNA is gradually being proven untrue. It seems to serve in ways not even thought of a few years ago. The jury is still out on this one.

 

[rossum]

You use a very attenuated concept of produced in your argument. Do you understand the idea of “no free lunch?” Genetic algorithm all front load information to “produce” results, no new information is produced.

I am well aware of the “No Free Lunch” theorems. The NFL theorems say that averaged over all possible fitness landscapes no search algorithm can do any better than random chance. Notice, in particular that “averaged over all possible fitness landscapes”. That means that in any specific fitness landscape, there is a 50% chance of doing better than random search.

The ID side are attempting to take a result that applies to an average and trying to apply it to the specific landscape found in real life. The average human being is 50% male and 50% female. How much sense does it make to apply that to an individual human?

You would also do well to read, “William Dembski’s treatment of the No Free Lunch theorems is written in jello” by David Wolpert. Dr Wolpert is one of the authors of the NFL theorems, so he definitely knows what he is talking about.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that neo-Darwinian evolution of ecosystems does not involve a set of genomes all searching the same, fixed fitness function, the situation considered by the NFL theorems. Rather it is a co-evolutionary process. Roughly speaking, as each genome changes from one generation to the next, it modifies the surfaces that the other genomes are searching. And recent results indicate that NFL results do not hold in co-evolution.

If the one of the authors of the theorems tells you that his theorems do not apply, then you have probably made a mistake in trying to apply them.

You still haven’t answered my question RE: the ants’ message to you.

I am waiting for the ants to let me know what language their message is in. I am not that familiar with Aldebaran II antenna-twiddling semaphore, which the ants are currently using.

Serious point: “language” in this context is a specification. By choosing a language (=specification) I can render the ant’s message meaningful or meaningless. The specified information in their message is not an inherent property of the symbols, but of the language/specification chosen. This reflects my earlier point about choosing different specifications to get different values for specified information.

Scientific definitions of information, like Shannon’s, do not consider meaning for just this reason. Meaning is subjective, not objective. By attempting to include meaning, ID has set itself a very difficult problem indeed.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

The fact that 85% of the members of the National Academy of Science do not agree with ID, leads me think think the assertion that the evidence is just slightly less than “overwhelming”.

1. ID is not Design.
2. Popularity is an unreliable guide to the truth.
3. The members of the National Academy of Science are not necessarily experts on metaphysics.
4. 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences are biased atheists.
5. The appeal to authority is a common fallacy .

Most of the space in the universe has no life, most of the time of the universe (zero to 80 decimal places), will have no life, most of the genetic material in our genes is left-over “junk”, perhaps might lead one to a different view.

1. Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality
2. Apparent junk is a sign of abundance which supports rather than weakens Design.

 

[tonyrey]

You have yet to prove scientifically that quantum theory explains beyond all shadow of doubt how

Ad hominem.

Science can never prove anything “beyond all shadow of doubt”, since everything in science is provisional. Newton’s theory of gravity was never proved “beyond all shadow of doubt” which is just as well, because it was replaced with Einstein’s theory.

I am well aware that everything in science is provisional. The fact remains that an unsubstantiated theory is not a proof nor even valid evidence that everything has emerged from nothing.

Second, you are making an unwarranted assumption about the nature of the universe:There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

• Hawking, A Brief History of Time
  Since the total energy of the universe is zero, then the universe is nothing from nothing, and there is no problem explaining it. Zero energy from zero energy is perfectly possible.

A fallacious argument based on the unsubstantiated theory that physical reality is **the sole reality **(which is an odd view for a Buddhist).

It is a common error to equate ID with Design - which is a **philosophical **

explanation. You are reifying again. That capital letter on “Design” is a dead giveaway.

Design is commonly used by philosophers to distinguish the metaphysical explanation from instances of design. Only those who are unacquainted with philosophy look at it askance…

I am far more interested in scientific explanations than philosophical ones.

Personal interests are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

It is on the scientific level that ID fails, because it puts far too much emphasis on its political purposes and too little on its scientific purposes.

Ad hominem. Supposed political purposes are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

Dr Dembski pointed out the problem in 2002, and ID has not made a lot of scientific progress since.

Meyer’s argument has not been refuted.

Physical events like raindrops are not knowledge. Awareness of physical events is knowledge. Knowledge exists in the mind not in the material world.

We disagree. The human mind is part material and part immaterial.

An unsubstantiated assumption.

"extra

intelligence" gives the game away! Explanation presupposes the existence of intelligence. I presume the existence of human intelligence. I do not presume the existence of a second intelligence ‘sending’ the knowledge that the human intelligence derives from observation. Knowledge is not a conserved quantity.

Information is not “sent”. It is implicit in sets of complex instructions for development - as in any machine designed for specific purposes…

You are misrepresenting his argument. Rain drops are not necessarily an example of intelligent design (as he points out). On the other hand DNA is because - unlike raindrops - it is an extremely complex set of instructions which are essential for an individual’s biological development. Out of the immense number of possible sets of instructions one is realized. Information happens in that reduction and realization.

We agree. Random mutation produces an “immense number of possible sets of instructions”. Natural selection reduces that set to only those that can successfully reproduce. That is how evolution produces the information seen in DNA.

Bears may have random mutations for different shades of fur. In the Arctic, the bears with the palest fur catch more prey and so survive better and have more cubs. Information is transferred from the environment into the bears’ genomes.

1. Evolution is a banned topic.
2. The issue is the origin of the information system - which is being taken for granted.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Second, you are making an unwarranted assumption about the nature of the universe:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

• Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Since the total energy of the universe is zero, then the universe is nothing from nothing, and there is no problem explaining it. Zero energy from zero energy is perfectly possible.
rossum

That is a fallacious conclusion. For starters, in the first moments after the big bang, there is a consensus view that holds that the number of particles outweighed the number of anti particles by something like 1 in 10,000,000,000. To quote Steven Weinberg, “The one in ten billion excess of matter over anti-matter is one of the key initial conditions that determined the future development of the universe.”

Secondly, even assuming that the balance of matter to antimatter were perfectly equal, it does not follow that the universe is “nothing from nothing.” It would have been a brief something that rather quickly became nothing.

However, we don’t have to worry about that dilemma because there is actually more matter than antimatter in the universe. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t be here. So in one very important sense, “something” outweighs “nothing.”

The zero energy of the universe, on the other hand, does not amount to a true cancellation. It is a “sum total” balance. In the same way that placing a 1 lb. counterweight on the opposite side of a balance from another 1 lb. weight doesn’t cause either of them to become “nothing”, neither does a balance of positive and negative energy equate to the universe being “nothing” from “nothing.” That is a complete non sequitur. This is not to mention the completely fallacious premise from which these “philosophies” arise: that the quantum fluctuations from which such opposing forces arise are themselves “nothing.”

 

[rossum]

I am well aware that everything in science is provisional.

Then why did you ask for proof “beyond all shadow of doubt”? Science is indeed provisional, so you were asking for the impossible.

A fallacious argument based on the unsubstantiated theory that physical reality is **the sole reality **(which is an odd view for a Buddhist).

Hawking shown that the argument “you can’t get something from nothing” fails for the material universe. Applying that argument to the spiritual universe raises the question of how God (something) arose from nothing. Do you really want to get into that?

You cannot use the something from nothing argument about the material universe, as Hawking shows. Using it about the spiritual universe raises a whole different set of problems, such as the origin of God/the gods.

Design is commonly used by philosophers to distinguish the metaphysical explanation from instances of design. Only those who are unacquainted with philosophy look at it askance…

I have no problem with design. There are areas of science that work on design: archaeology, forensic science and others. The problem I have is with reified “Design” floating around in the absence of a designer.

Meyer’s argument has not been refuted.

You need to read more. See Stephen Meyer’s Bogus Information Theory.

rossum

 

[rossum]

For starters, in the first moments after the big bang, there is a consensus view that holds that the number of particles outweighed the number of anti particles by something like 1 in 10,000,000,000.

Read Hawking again. He is not talking about particle/anti-particle, but about the potential energy needed to establish the separation of the galaxies. It takes energy to life one kilogramme through a distance of one metre against gravity. How much energy does it take to lift an entire galaxy millions of light years away from our galaxy against gravity? That is the negative energy Hawking is talking about. Potential energy is negative energy.

rossum

 

[ReapReason]

Hawking shown that the argument “you can’t get something from nothing” fails for the material universe.

Why can’t you understand the difference between peer review science and philosophy?

If Hawking is saying, as you imply, that it is a measurable scientific fact that something can come from absolutely nothing then this is obviously false to anybody who understands the scientific method. You cannot measure nothing so as to say that something came from it. This is not difficult to comprehend. If he is speaking in a strictly scientific sense, but is not promoting the implications that you are expressing here, then it is obvious to anybody who understands the scientific method that he does not mean nothing in the metaphysical sense of the word, but rather he means out of nothing “physical”, or from an existing physical vacuum full of fluctuating energy. Nether can one say that it is ontologically possible for something to begin to exist without any comprehensible cause simply by measuring an effect that has no measurable physical cause, because this claim goes beyond the epistemological limits of the scientific method insofar as it is the agenda of science to describe physical relationships and not what is ontologically possible. It is not a valid inference, much less a provable hypothesis. At most, from a philosophical stand-point, it is a circular argument since you are assuming that only physical reality exists.

Science uses methodical naturalism, not metaphysical naturalism. There is a difference.

There is 3 possibilities here.

1. Hawkings is a bad philosopher who does not understand the epistemological limitations of science in reference to what he can and cannot say about physical events. And neither does he understand what is meant by the term “out of nothing” in terms of how philosophers use it.
2. Hawkings is a misleading scientists who is purposely presenting metaphysical claims while presenting the illusions of having the scientific authority to do so.
3. You don’t understand what Hawkings is talking about, and neither do you understand the scientific method…

 

[oval]

Once there is something, there can never be nothing, because in order to have nothing…you cannot have anything relative anywhere, to identify nothing with. Nothingness is only a possible comprehension, as an impossibility.

Another redundant completely useless word. It is non applicable, even if it is used , it assumes an absolute unknown and those unknowns are usually what the term is used for trying to explain.

Mr Hawking would be a very smart man who could easily go through a philosophy text like a kid reading comic’s. His co-writer insists that the viewpoints do not express total personal idea’s.

The world from this area of power, is not the same world as a typical writer…he well knows everything he says orbits the headlines in days…even if which no one can truly say , and it would be none of the public business, he was a full God believer…why would an intelligent man give the idea to a great number, of handing God over to this culture?

things which have value need to be earned and lived out. people have a sense of responsibility with power given toward influence…stimulating society is the issue in objective to begin with. I’m sure the scientist can add things up and knows what the word consequence means.

 

[greylorn]

“In the absence of a brain, hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to form H2O, not H6O or HO2. When you calculate the odds of a few billion atoms behaving in exactly that way, you get the usual hugely improbable number. Chemistry does not require design, all it requires is valency.”

I’m not sure I understand your point, so I am going to respond based on what I THINK you are saying.

Atoms and the electrons in each valence do not happen by chance. One elemental atom can never be another elemental atom. When atoms share electrons in the outer valence to form chemical changes, what causes these electrons to do so? Some scientists say it is a magnetic/electronic attraction. Well then, what causes the attraction? I believe in the Big Bang theory–but not the conventional concept of it. I believe that God created all things from nothing and brought them into being…perhaps a BIG BANG. It seems to me that as we go back further and further, at some point there has to be a question of WHAT CAUSED THE FIRST CAUSE? There can only be ONE FIRST CAUSE because if there isn’t one cause, then whatever came before it IS the FIRST CAUSE. Scientists have not been able to answer that question because that would mean considering a Creator or Designer. To many scientists, that is anathema.

I am not a scholar or a philosopher. I can’t debate the issue on the scholarly level that most appear to do here. All I know is that until the First Cause can be scientifically determined absolutely (which would be to acknowledge a Supreme Being as creator), I simply believe that God exists, created all things out of nothing, and keeps everything in existence and in perfect harmony.

You are one of the more interesting minds on this thread, and remarkably honest, as demonstrated by your admissions of ignorance on subjects which others here seem, mostly to themselves, to be great scholars.

I’ve kind of lost track of this thread (day job impinged) but seem to recall a complaint from you, that you were unable to understand some of the cr-p (my word, not yours) posted here. I could be one of those offending posters, since at my break-point I was having a moderately technical conversation with an intelligent atheist.

It is not possible to manage a conversation at that level, and keep it intelligible to those who have not studied the same stuff. However, if you, or anyone on CAF ever genuinely wants to know what I’m trying to explain, please ask me. I love learning and teaching, and I learn more through teaching than I do through reading.

All of us on this planet are students, first and foremost. One of our jobs is to learn what we can. Then we can either get rich and famous off that knowledge, or pass it along, or combine these outcomes. I do not need to be rich, or well regarded. Therefore my promise to you is agenda-free: Ask me an honest question, and I will do my best to answer you in the context of your understandings.

 

[tonyrey]

T

hen why did you ask for proof “beyond all shadow of doubt”?

1. I asked for nothing. I stated a simple, irrefutable fact.

Hawking shown that the argument “you can’t get something from nothing” fails for the material universe.

1. Hawking has not shown anything. Human arguments do not determine the fundamental nature of reality.

Applying that argument to the spiritual universe raises the question of how God (something) arose from nothing. Do you really want to get into that? Using it about the spiritual universe raises a whole different set of problems, such as the origin of God/the gods.

1. The question of God is irrelevant to Design.
2. Spiritual reality is highly relevant to Design.

You cannot use the something from nothing argument about the material universe, as Hawking shows.

1. Hawking has shown nothing. He relies on his power of reason to reach his conclusions without explaining how his power of reason originated.

I have no problem with design. There are areas of science that work on design: archaeology, forensic science and others. The problem I have is with reified “Design” floating around in the absence of a designer.

6.** Design is a description of the results of rational activity**.
7. Do you deny that the universe is intelligible?
8. Can you give any reason why the universe is intelligible?

You need to read more.

Ad hominem.

See Stephen Meyer’s Bogus Information Theory.

There are so many false allegations and assumptions it is impossible to know where to begin. Please select one significant proposition that can be analysed logically.

 

[rossum]

1. Do you deny that the universe is intelligible?

Is the universe intelligible? We don’t know, and we cannot know. We don’t know because we are reliant on imperfect senses which do not give us a complete picture of the universe, but only an incomplete picture. A dog can smell the universe far better than we can. Our universe does not smell as detailed as a dog’s universe. Our eyes only deliver us a fuzzy blur compared to an Eagle’s eyes. Our universe is constructed on the basis of our fuzzy blur, not on the basis of what an Eagle sees.

Our brains are at one remove from our senses. Our imperfect smell sensations and our fuzzy blur, are transformed into electrical impulses in our nerves, and those impulses travel to our brains. Those impulses are not the universe, and cannot be the universe. They are a translation of an fuzzy, inaccurate, incomplete, image of the universe.

Our brain builds an internal model of the universe, based on the electrical impulses it receives along the sensory nerves. That model is built by our brains, and that internal model is indeed intelligible. Our brain has built it that way, since an intelligible model is of far more use than an unintelligible model.

Is our internal model of the universe intelligible? Yes it is.

Is our internal model of the universe accurate? No it isn’t. It cannot be, since our senses are themselves inaccurate.

Is the universe intelligible? We don’t know. All we have is inaccurate senses and an internal model built on the basis of inaccurate information from those senses. We have no direct knowledge of the universe.

1. Can you give any reason why the universe is intelligible?

Our internal model is intelligible because our brain built it that way. We do not know whether or not the universe itself, as opposed to our model, is intelligible and hence there may be nothing to explain.

It is an error to take a property of the model and to automatically attribute it to the actual universe. Is our internal model designed? Yes it is, because each of us designed our own model. Some people make the error of assuming that the design they, correctly, detect in the model also applies to the universe itself.

As an example of the model/universe dichotomy, consider someone with a phobia of spiders. The actual spider in the universe does not have terror attached to it. People can see it and think, “a spider”. The phobic has a lot of fear and terror attached to their internal model of a spider. When they see a spider, all that fear and terror from the model is attached to the external spider, and they go into a needless panic. They are attributing a property of their model to the actual external spider. That is an error. The fear is not part of the spider itself, but is part of their internal model of the spider. The internal model is not the external universe. The two are different, and have different properties that may not automatically translate between the two.

rossum

 

[Sister_Terese]

You are one of the more interesting minds on this thread, and remarkably honest, as demonstrated by your admissions of ignorance on subjects which others here seem, mostly to themselves, to be great scholars.

I’ve kind of lost track of this thread (day job impinged) but seem to recall a complaint from you, that you were unable to understand some of the cr-p (my word, not yours) posted here. I could be one of those offending posters, since at my break-point I was having a moderately technical conversation with an intelligent atheist.

It is not possible to manage a conversation at that level, and keep it intelligible to those who have not studied the same stuff. However, if you, or anyone on CAF ever genuinely wants to know what I’m trying to explain, please ask me. I love learning and teaching, and I learn more through teaching than I do through reading.

All of us on this planet are students, first and foremost. One of our jobs is to learn what we can. Then we can either get rich and famous off that knowledge, or pass it along, or combine these outcomes. I do not need to be rich, or well regarded. Therefore my promise to you is agenda-free: Ask me an honest question, and I will do my best to answer you in the context of your understandings.

I thank you for your kind thoughts. I don’t know if I would describe the confusing responses as “offending” though! I simply do not have the intellectual or scholarly aptitude to argue the points some folks have here. I love reading all of the comments because I learn something new each time I read one–whether I agree with them or not. Many times, even though I couldn’t possibly offer a scholarly response, I know in my very simple mind and heart what I believe to be true. I can only offer a simple explanation–and that is usually poorly done. But, I do enjoy all the posters here. It is wonderful to read through these and ponder all the brilliant points made here.

 

[tonyrey]

Is the universe intelligible? We don’t know, and we cannot know. We don’t know because we are reliant on imperfect senses which do not give us a complete picture of the universe, but only an incomplete picture. A dog can smell the universe far better than we can. Our universe does not smell as detailed as a dog’s universe. Our eyes only deliver us a fuzzy blur compared to an Eagle’s eyes. Our universe is constructed on the basis of our fuzzy blur, not on the basis of what an Eagle sees.

Individual models vary to a minor extent whereas the consensus is constant.

As an example of the model/universe dichotomy, consider someone with a phobia of spiders. The actual spider in the universe does not have terror attached to it. People can see it and think, “a spider”. The phobic has a lot of fear and terror attached to their internal model of a spider. When they see a spider, all that fear and terror from the model is attached to the external spider, and they go into a needless panic. They are attributing a property of their model to the actual external spider. That is an error. The fear is not part of the spider itself, but is part of their internal model of the spider. The internal model is not the external universe. The two are different, and have different properties that may not automatically translate between the two.

A pathological state of mind is an insufficient reason for rejecting a universal consensus.

[/QUOTE]

 

[prodigalson2011]

Read Hawking again. He is not talking about particle/anti-particle, but about the potential energy needed to establish the separation of the galaxies. It takes energy to life one kilogramme through a distance of one metre against gravity. How much energy does it take to lift an entire galaxy millions of light years away from our galaxy against gravity? That is the negative energy Hawking is talking about. Potential energy is negative energy.

rossum

I realize that. You will note that I addressed that separately. My point in first addressing the particle/antiparticle dilemma was to point out that, in the bigger picture, the balance is in favor of “something” rather than “nothing”; a false dilemma, anyways, as I don’t think we can say with any level of certainty that antimatter itself is “nothing.” I then went on to address your original (and still fallacious) assertion that the balance of positive and negative energy amounts to the universe being “nothing.” Negative energy is not “nothing”, nor does it render positive energy into such. Zero energy does not = nothingness.

 

[rossum]

We know that the remarkable success of science has demonstrated that the universe is intelligible to such an extent that we can describe, predict and control many physical events with an extremely high degree of mathematical accuracy.

Our models are accurate to a measurable degree in what they cover. Science is good at modelling some things, and not so good at modelling others. My point remains that the models are not the reality, they are models. The properties of the models may be similar to the properties of reality, but they are not reality.

You are making the unsubstantiated assumption that all our mental activity occurs in the brain.

Our sensory modelling happens in the brain. Our senses feed into our brain. If the physical nerve connecting a sensory organ to the brain is severed, then that sense stops working. For a human sense to work, all three elements of the organ, the nerve connection and the brain must be present.

The inaccuracy of our senses is corrected by our insight and understanding.

How do we know if our insight and understanding is correct without the availability of sensory information. What evidence do you have to support this contention. Can our insight see as well as an eagle? Can our understanding smell as well as a dog?

But we do have direct knowledge of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions.

Not in Buddhist analysis. We have six senses, with the sixth sense telling us what is going on inside our own brain: memories, daydreams etc.

That is the most significant factor. Mindless reality is purposeless and meaningless.

I am not mindless reality, I am me. I set my own purpose and that is sufficient for me. I have no need for an external purpose.

The remarkable success of science is sufficient evidence that there is much to explain.

Science works by discarding unsuccessful models and refining successful models. Those models may have nothing to do with reality. Newton’s model of gravity was very successful, and used a model based on instant action at a distance. That model was wrong, there is no such thing as instant action at a distance. Einstein’s model of gravity is based on the curvature of space-time. That model is also wrong since it gives incorrect results for very small very dense masses. Basically it fails to take quantum mechanics into account. Both those models fail to accurately describe the real universe. Explaining the model was nothing to do with explaining the universe, since the universe did not work in the way the model worked.

When we have developed a theory of quantum gravity Einstein’s model will be replaced by a new model. Will that model be accurate? Who knows?

Individual models vary to a minor extent whereas the consensus is constant.

The consensus is not constant. At one time the consensus was that the Earth was the centre of the solar system. There is not yet universal consensus on a heliocentric solar system, see Robert Sungenis and others.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

We know that the remarkable success of science has demonstrated that the universe is intelligible to such an extent that we can describe, predict and control many physical events with an extremely high degree of mathematical accuracy.

My point remains that our models of many aspects of physical reality have extremely high degree of mathematical accuracy which supports the view that the universe is intelligible to a considerable extent and our power of reason is confirmed by the remarkable success of science. Moreover we don’t even need a model of ourselves because we have direct knowledge of our mental activity.

You are making the unsubstantiated assumption that all our mental activity occurs in the brain.

Our sensory modelling happens in the brain. Our senses feed into our brain. If the physical nerve connecting a sensory organ to the brain is severed, then that sense stops working. For a human sense to work, all three elements of the organ, the nerve connection and the brain must be present.

Ssensory modelling does not account for insight and understanding.

The inaccuracy of our senses is corrected by our insight and understanding.

How do we know if our insight and understanding is correct without the availability of sensory information. What evidence do you have to support this contention. Can our insight see as well as an eagle? Can our understanding smell as well as a dog?

Our insight and understanding of ourselves are correct without sensory information. The superiority of particular senses is far outweighed by our power of insight and understanding.

But we do have direct knowledge of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions.
Not in Buddhist analysis. We have six senses, with the sixth sense telling us what is going on inside our own brain: memories, daydreams etc.

In this context religious views are irrelevant in a philosophical discussion about Design. Direct knowledge of our thoughts, perceptions and decisions is confirmed by the remarkable success of science.

That is the most significant factor. Mindless reality is purposeless and meaningless.

I am not mindless reality, I am me. I set my own purpose and that is sufficient for me. I have no need for an external purpose.

The origin of the ability to devise and formulate purposes requires explanation.

The remarkable success of science is sufficient evidence that there is much to explain.

Science works by discarding unsuccessful models and refining successful models. Those models may have nothing to do with reality. Newton’s model of gravity was very successful, and used a model based on instant action at a distance. That model was wrong, there is no such thing as instant action at a distance. Einstein’s model of gravity is based on the curvature of space-time. That model is also wrong since it gives incorrect results for very small very dense masses. Basically it fails to take quantum mechanics into account. Both those models fail to accurately describe the real universe. Explaining the model was nothing to do with explaining the universe, since the universe did not work in the way the model worked.

The fact remains that the remarkable success of science is compelling evidence that our models accurately describe many aspects of physical reality.

When we have developed a theory of quantum gravity Einstein’s model will be replaced by a new model. Will that model be accurate? Who knows?

Its accuracy or inaccuracy does not impinge on the remarkable accuracy and success of science.

Individual models vary to a minor extent whereas the consensus is constant.

The consensus is not constant. At one time the consensus was that the Earth was the centre of the solar system. There is not yet universal consensus on a heliocentric solar system, see Robert Sungenis and others.

There is a constant consensus on the physical constants! Otherwise the remarkable success of science is as inexplicable and as absurd as the hypothesis that insight and understanding are derived from events which lack insight and understanding…

 

[fnr]

How about this. Totally consistent with believing God created the universe and with absolutely 100% material processes since the creation of the universe.

Any geologists reading this, please correct me if I get this wrong.

The Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. For the first billion years or so of its existence, it was comprised of molten rock and continuously bombarded my meteors and other debris from the formation of the solar system. The whole surface of the planet was totally inhospitable. Continuous bombardment of high-speed meteors released an enormous amount of energy and heated the world like crazy. Also over that time, earth got its surface water from comets and/or escaping from the ground. Most of it, of course, evaporated.

The meteors kept falling until eventually, all those with unstable orbits had crashed into one large body or another. Eventually as the impacts became smaller in number, the surface of the planet began to cool. Also, with out-gassing of lighter elements and molecules, earth developed an atmosphere. The cooling led to condensation of liquid water.

[upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Geologic_Clock_with_events_and_periods.svg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Geologic_Clock_with_events_and_periods.svg])

As SOON as solid rocks were able to form, it looks like life showed up too!

Seriously, here’s the evidence. The earliest known microfossils have been found inside rocks in Australia that date to 3.4 billion years ago. They were sulfur-metabolizing organisms that lived in an atmosphere with no oxygen. This is saying that life had evolved in sufficient abundance by the time that there were the earliest rocks on earth to be found by modern scientists.
news.discovery.com/animals/2011/08/21/fossil-zoom.jpg

A little later than that, stromatolites were found in about 3.3-3.5 billion years ago. THIS is really an astonishing thing for several reasons. Stromatolites are “cyanobacteria.” This is HUGE! Cyanobacteria are blue-green algae! Which means they’re photosynthesizing! And cyanobacteria had to evolve from earlier species, because photosynethesis is a rather complex metabolism. Previous bacterias couldn’t do photosynthesis, so the stromatolites evolved as quickly as the environment occurred.

These finds are HUGE!!! These journal article suggest that exactly when the earth could support life, it did!

That, to me, makes me very happy with strictly materialist processes for the evolution of the universe, solar system, earth, and life here on earth. It tells me that it didn’t take evolution by random genetics change for millions of years, which many atheists seem to think how life occurred. It says that earth was fecund, and as soon as strict, “Godless” material processes cooled the planet down, life rose screaming from the rocks and oceans, maybe even as the meteors were still hitting down and the surface hadn’t completely cooled.

I hear this news and as both a scientist and a theist, I am so happy.

Yes, God created and designed the world. But he did it through strictly contingent materialist means: quantum mechanics, astronomical physics, geology changes, natural selection and mutation, and now, humankind.

The grand unification that physics seeks is looking for a way to see why the fundamental particles and forces are arranged the way that they are. If the force of the “strong force” was just a hair stronger, all the mass in the universe could have been just a glob. Same for gravity. If gravity was a little weaker, solar systems would have never formed because matter wouldn’t cluster together strongly enough to form stars and planets.

This is an easy just-so story, right? String theory was supposed to explain all this. But string theory is in a tangle, and PhD candidates in physics are leaving their programs because string theory just hasn’t panned out. But there’s one hypothesis that fits the data really well (note: this isn’t the scientific method). It’s based in the fact that in Hebrew and in many other languages, letters are also numbers. In the New Testament, the Gospel of John begins telling us that in the beginning was the Word (Logos), through whom and which all things came to be. A series of letters spelling a word can also represent a series of numbers, arranged in a manner just so…

The Logos that is Christ could very well be the explanation of why the fundamental forces in the universe are the way they are. And the answer is: creation.

 

[oval]

Great post fnr !

I’m one of the ones with no education in these things but enjoy the exploration in the subject and had no trouble following, Been through the idea’s in the links so didn’t check them fr now. I always wondered when exactly photosynthesis took place… due to some of my rough shaping.

I have a few idea’s which get into the statistical scheme of things and the nature of order, so this is super interesting and I’m sure there are some wonderings which you have thought about.I don’t want to expand any further for now of course plus will be busy for a bit,wanted to appreciate the good food for thought…

 

[Peter_Plato]

I am well aware of the “No Free Lunch” theorems. The NFL theorems say that averaged over all possible fitness landscapes no search algorithm can do any better than random chance. Notice, in particular that “averaged over all possible fitness landscapes”. That means that in any specific fitness landscape, there is a 50% chance of doing better than random search.

The ID side are attempting to take a result that applies to an average and trying to apply it to the specific landscape found in real life. The average human being is 50% male and 50% female. How much sense does it make to apply that to an individual human?

You would also do well to read, “William Dembski’s treatment of the No Free Lunch theorems is written in jello” by David Wolpert. Dr Wolpert is one of the authors of the NFL theorems, so he definitely knows what he is talking about.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that neo-Darwinian evolution of ecosystems does not involve a set of genomes all searching the same, fixed fitness function, the situation considered by the NFL theorems. Rather it is a co-evolutionary process. Roughly speaking, as each genome changes from one generation to the next, it modifies the surfaces that the other genomes are searching. And recent results indicate that NFL results do not hold in co-evolution.

If the one of the authors of the theorems tells you that his theorems do not apply, then you have probably made a mistake in trying to apply them.

I’ll see your Wolpert and raise you a Marks. This article by Dembski and Marks addresses your concerns about the applicability of NFL theorem and counters with the idea of “Conservation of Information” that covers what NFL theorems miss. Besides it is an interesting read that clarifies the evolution :whacky: of the idea of information.

Life’s Conservation Law by William Dembski and Robert Marks,
The quote below is taken from the article (p. 29-30)

To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural [sic] Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like “God was always there,” and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say “DNA was always there,” or “Life was always there,” and be done with it. [from Dawkins].​

Conservation of information shows that Dawkins’s primeval simplicity is not as nearly simple as he makes out. Indeed, what Dawkins regards as intelligent design’s predicament of failing to explain complexity in terms of simplicity now confronts materialist theories of evolution as well. In Climbing Mount Improbable, Dawkins argues that biological structures that at first blush seem vastly improbable with respect to a blind search become quite probable once the appropriate evolutionary mechanism is factored in to revise the probabilities. But this revision of probabilities just means that a null search has given way to an alternative search. And the information that enables the alternative search to be successful now needs itself to be explained. Moreover, by the Law of Conservation of Information, that information is no less than the information that the evolutionary mechanism exhibits in outperforming blind search. The preceding block quote, which was intended as a refutation of intelligent design, could therefore, with small modifications, be turned against natural selection as well:
To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking natural selection is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the information that natural selection requires to execute evolutionary searches. You have to say something like “the information was always there,” and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say “DNA was always there,” or “Life was always there,” and be done with it.
​

I am waiting for the ants to let me know what language their message is in. I am not that familiar with Aldebaran II antenna-twiddling semaphore, which the ants are currently using.

Serious point: “language” in this context is a specification. By choosing a language (=specification) I can render the ant’s message meaningful or meaningless. The specified information in their message is not an inherent property of the symbols, but of the language/specification chosen. This reflects my earlier point about choosing different specifications to get different values for specified information.

Scientific definitions of information, like Shannon’s, do not consider meaning for just this reason. Meaning is subjective, not objective. By attempting to include meaning, ID has set itself a very difficult problem indeed.

rossum

.

The key question, one that you keep skirting, is this: "Are we ever justified in positing an intelligent cause even though we have no evidence concerning the identity of the agent that brought about the effect in question?’

Your original point (al la Dawkins)was that Intelligent Design is a non-starter because if we posit an intelligent cause we must also identify the intelligent agent responsible otherwise a claim of intelligent cause is not credible.

I wasn’t asking anything about what science allows, I was asking for a simple commitment from YOU! Could the ants’ message, clearly spelled out in English on your sidewalk - ROSSUM WE WILL INVADE YOUR HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT! - have arisen from anything other than an intelligent cause? If so provide a reasonable hypothesis!:banghead: