Overwhelming evidence for Design?

[tonyrey]

The supposition of non-design does not form a rational basis for anything. We do not usually rely on accidents to reach our conclusions/.QUOTE]
Not on accidents alone, but on predictable cause-and-effect relationships.

If the ideas of a self-initiating universe and of undirected natural evolution are human constructs, it’s funny that they took until the Enlightenment to manifest. Leucippus and Democritus had postulated atomism two millenia previously. The Chance theory is no novelty.

Prior to the advent of modern science and the exercise of dispassionate reason, the predominant human propensity was to imbue the rest of nature with humanlike characteristics, with intention that was somehow focussed primarily on human life and human fate.

The advent of modern science and the exercise of dispassionate reason were based on the teaching of Christ preserved by the Catholic Church that the universe is orderly and intelligible because it was created by God. Please consult Stanley Jaki’s books on the subject.

… the predominant human propensity was to imbue the rest of nature with humanlike characteristics, with intention that was somehow focussed primarily on human life and human fate.

Rational characteristics are based on belief in Design which has existed since Anaxagoras and Plato - in addition to Judaism.

And you are still mistaking the absence of obligation to imaginary supernatural entities with the absence of obligation to anything, even other real living beings.

“imaginary” begs the question. Belief in moral obligations is based on belief in rational beings wherever they exist and not in inanimate objects.

The order, richness and beauty of the natural world is overwhelming evidence that it is not due to a series of fortuitous events that have occurred for no purpose whatsoever.

And is the chaos, desolation, violence and ugliness of other parts of the natural universe also evidence of your intelligent designer?It is irrational to demand the total absence of dysteleological coincidences in an immensely complex system. A perfect world is an illusion based on the false assumption that it is possible to have everything for nothing - which overlooks the fact that everything has its price. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage.

No person in his or her right mind lives as if we are valueless sparks in the dark which imagine all our knowledge and freedom to choose what to believe and how to live are derived from the dust beneath our feet. That is a sceptic’s self-destructive fantasy which doesn’t correspond in the slightest to daily reality.

But it’s quite possible, even desriable, to live as if we only matter to ourselves - transcendent importance is not required to live a fulfilling human life.To live as if we only matter to ourselves is an anthropocentric view of reality which doesn’t correspond to the facts. It is folly to assume we are the only valuable beings in existence. It is more reasonable to have a ratiocentric interpretation of the universe which reflects its order, richness and beauty. To reduce reason to an insignificant accident is a recipe for lunacy (politely described by Camus and Sartre as “absurdity”).

[/QUOTE]

 

[FurtherSuntime]

All the terms we use to describe God are analogous but “rational” implies that God knows what He is doing when He creates the universe - unlike Spinoza’s God who is equated with Nature.

The Catechism states explicitly:

Thanks but none of this has anything to do with my observation. Also…do you think that your approach can prove and thus corner a God somehow ? and if not… what is this all about exactly:thumbsup:.

 

[reggieM]

It’s a human construct that fine-tuning exists. Because what you are saying in effect that is fine tuning exists for our benefit. I read a quote by Feynman just last night where he tongue-in-cheek expressed amazement that he saw a car registration (insert random sequence of letters and numbers here) on his way to this office. Good grief, there was only one car in the whole country that had that registration and he saw it! I’m sure you follow his point.

Tony added a number of good points (and thanks to him for that!) so I don’t want to repeat or give you more than necessary … but on your example here, it really doesn’t strike the target.

We’re not looking at an individual occurrence. That’s the obvious mistake. Any individual random event is unique. But it doesn’t provoke amazement. That’s why the Feynman example is surprisingly shallow and uninsighful. When we talk about fine-tuned constants – it’s a question of symmetry, *harmony *and balance. It’s an enormous number of individual factors which work together to create a specified whole. This is why we are rightly amazed. This is why we’re not amazed at a single registration number on a car. If every car in the lot had registration numbers that formed an exact numeric sequence from 1 to 100 – that’s what we’d consider symmetric or harmonized.

I appreciate that you could counter that the laws of nature could have been designed to allow that to happen and I can’t really see a way of getting out of that. If I could show that order is entirely a natural result of chaos, it could be argued that God is behind it anyway.

Ok, but it’s not a question of merely showing that “laws produce things” – but you’d have to show that “chaos can produce consistent and predictable laws which create orderly outputs in matter”. We know that intelligence can produce laws. We see no evidence that chaos can produce laws. Therefore, it’s far more reasonable to conclude that when we see laws functioning in the universe – then they are the product of intelligence.

But it’s not more reasonable to me. You seem to want to add a further complexity – a designer, to something that we have both suggested could be a reasonable explanation in itself.

We know that intelligence works to produce similar things. We see no evidence that chaos works. So, it’s far more complex to speculate on how chaos could produce what we see. A designer is the simple solution. It’s also a very commonly understood solution through the history of humanity – and that includes among many scientists today who conclude that there was a designer.

 

[reggieM]

All knowledge is a human construct!
Fine tuning exists for the benefit of **all **life in the universe! Do you deny that life is objectively valuable?
We follow the point that individual numbers are allocated for no particular reason but they **all **serve a purpose!
There is a vast difference between a very simple state which by itself serves no purpose and an immensely complex universe which serves as an **essential **environment for living organisms and rational beings.
If! The onus is on you to demonstrate how purpose arises from that which is purposeless.
Not without a jot of evidence…
Those who suggest that it is a reasonable explanation need to recreate the process by which living, autonomous, sentient entities with hindsight, insight and foresight are derived from inanimate particles.
All knowledge is a human construct!
Even David Hume admitted there is evidence of purpose everywhere.
With far more cogency it can be said it is too difficult for some people to accept the reality of objective purpose and meaning in life because it entails the existence of Design together with moral obligations …
An assumption based on a preconceived conclusion. The only valid benchmark is the power of reason without which benchmarks wouldn’t be conceived and established.
It is assumed that smartness exists and that smartness can develop.
Then there is no reason why smartness exists! It is yet another unexplained and **unnecessary **luxury like the existence of colours, perfumes, tastes, harmonies and tactile sensations - and the richness and beauty of life itself.
There is no reason why even one simple cell need exist… Physical necessity is an illusion because nothing is necessary.

The supreme defect of the non-Design hypothesis is that it makes a futile attempt to extract everything from virtually nothing by misusing and abusing the power of reason for negative and destructive purposes. How irrational can one get?

Thanks, Tony – excellent as usual.

— and I’m very glad you stepped in because I don’t have time to give Bradski as much detail as his response deserved.

 

[reggieM]

I have to be careful not to break the rules here, so I’ll be brief.

Bradski – I appreciate your tone and demeanor. It’s refreshingly thoughtful and non-hostile. I hope my responses will be offered in the same spirit.

 

[Gaber]

1. Design implies that neither reason nor the universe is an accident.

How so? What factors point to that for you? How will you prove that the fact that you seem to reason is a “design” other than you calling it that?

1. An accidental universe is not a credible basis for order, value, purpose, meaning or a rational existence.

So you have set up an artificial duality where the opposite of an accidental universe is allegedly a purposeful one. There cannot be an accidental universe as what might make it happen would have inherent in it the potentiality of manifestation, therefor no accident. And the chaos you imply as necessary for that might very well be the order required for that imaginary thing to exist. Heck it might be this one and you are living in an accidental thought bubble within it. So your “accidental” universe is a straw man and therefor this Universe is not necessarily purposeful by contrast.

1. We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational… You mean like quantum physics, which scares the pants off rational minds? The representations you “reason” are in your own mind and do not necessarily, in fact necessarily do not have a 1/1 correspondence to Reality as such. They are, in other words, projections on to your experience as private subjective interpretation. If that wasn’t the case, your view would be so axiomatic as to never be noticed, just as is the awareness you use to fabricate you theory.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Bradski

I take it you realise that there are people who agree with you that it has been designed but don’t believe in God. How do you convince them that He did?

What I have come to believe is that people who see what appears to be design but then deny that it is design are taking that view because to concede design concedes the inevitability of a Designer. Atheism locks anybody into denying certain things if they go against atheism, just as religion makes people deny certain things if they believe these things go against religion. This is a universal trait of humans. The only time it is overcome is when the evidence is overwhelmingly on one side rather than the other.

The belief that intelligent design in the universe is an illusion is common among atheists, except when they are designing a scientific experiment or are designing an argument against God. Then, of course, they recognize that nothing much gets done unless you design and design well. What’s peculiar is that they can see themselves conducting intelligent design but cannot see it anywhere else in the universe.

 

[reggieM]

The representations you “reason” are in your own mind and do not necessarily, in fact necessarily do not have a 1/1 correspondence to Reality as such. They are, in other words, projections on to your experience as private subjective interpretation. If that wasn’t the case, your view would be so axiomatic as to never be noticed, just as is the awareness you use to fabricate you theory.

It’s summertime – Let’s get on the Gaber-Go-Round once again.
But first, it might be time for a bit more transparency, openness and full-disclosure – as in, what are you actually saying, Gaber? Can we work on that first?

You have already stated that you don’t believe that the universe has an accidental origin – remember? (If not, I will gladly provide some help with the exact quote). Ok, you are just putting out speculations for whatever reason – tweaking us to stir up discussion. That’s not a problem in itself and could be interesting.

But eventually, I would like to help you a lot more than we have so far. To do that, we’d need a lot more clarity from you. Let’s start with some common ground and build from there, OK?

You believe in some kind of God (or gods?) … I think – is that right? Could you explain that a bit more?

 

[tonyrey]

Bradski

I take it you realise that there are people who agree with you that it has been designed but don’t believe in God. How do you convince them that He did?

What I have come to believe is that people who see what appears to be design but then deny that it is design are taking that view because to concede design concedes the inevitability of a Designer. Atheism locks anybody into denying certain things if they go against atheism, just as religion makes people deny certain things if they believe these things go against religion. This is a universal trait of humans. The only time it is overcome is when the evidence is overwhelmingly on one side rather than the other.

The belief that intelligent design in the universe is an illusion is common among atheists, except when they are designing a scientific experiment or are designing an argument against God. Then, of course, they recognize that nothing much gets done unless you design and design well. What’s peculiar is that they can see themselves conducting intelligent design but cannot see it anywhere else in the universe.

The power to design certainly requires explanation but it receives no attention even though it is so fundamental. Crystals, precious stones and many other natural objects are breathtakingly beautiful and surpass anything created by man…

 

[tonyrey]

How so? What factors point to that for you? How will you prove that the fact that you seem to reason is a “design” other than you calling it that?

Is reason an illusion?

So you have set up an artificial duality where the opposite of an accidental universe is allegedly a purposeful one. There cannot be an accidental universe as what might make it happen would have inherent in it the potentiality of manifestation, therefor no accident. And the chaos you imply as necessary for that might very well be the order required for that imaginary thing to exist. Heck it might be this one and you are living in an accidental thought bubble within it. So your “accidental” universe is a straw man and therefor this Universe is not necessarily purposeful by contrast.

“the potentiality of manifestation” requires explanation. What does it mean exactly?

3. We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational…

You mean like quantum physics, which scares the pants off rational minds? The representations you “reason” are in your own mind and do not necessarily, in fact necessarily do not have a 1/1 correspondence to Reality as such. They are, in other words, projections on to your experience as private subjective interpretation. If that wasn’t the case, your view would be so axiomatic as to never be noticed, just as is the awareness you use to fabricate you theory.

It could be argued **with equal lack of cogency **that your objections to my “representations” are “in your own mind and do not necessarily, in fact necessarily do not have a 1/1 correspondence to Reality as such.” Your theory is as axiomatic and as fabricated as anyone else’s. You are not entitled to make yourself a privileged exception to the rule you have formulated… unless you can justify your implied transcendence of other mortals.

 

[reggieM]

The belief that intelligent design in the universe is an illusion is common among atheists, except when they are designing a scientific experiment or are designing an argument against God. Then, of course, they recognize that nothing much gets done unless you design and design well. What’s peculiar is that they can see themselves conducting intelligent design but cannot see it anywhere else in the universe.

True – this is something we easily observe. Design works and random chaos does not.
We know that design is not an illusion because it is used to solve problems and create things all the time.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

tonyrey

**The power to design certainly requires explanation but it receives no attention even though it is so fundamental. Crystals, precious stones and many other natural objects are breathtakingly beautiful and surpass anything created by man… **

Correct. What’s interesting about scientism is that at the heart of it is recognition of order (laws) in the universe, rather than chaos or chance. You can’t do science without designing your own sentences. Indeed, there are even laws of grammar that must be followed or nothing makes sense; all the words and punctuation will run together and seem pointless.

The correspondence between what we think and the outer world is phenomenal. Just the fact that the human mind can conceive an original moment of a Big Bang that has been ordered to expand and expand until voila!, we are here to understand that it happened, suggests the universe is not a purposeless and pointless thing that just exists for its own sake.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

How so? What factors point to that for you? How will you prove that the fact that you seem to reason is a “design” other than you calling it that?

So you have set up an artificial duality where the opposite of an accidental universe is allegedly a purposeful one. There cannot be an accidental universe as what might make it happen would have inherent in it the potentiality of manifestation, therefor no accident. And the chaos you imply as necessary for that might very well be the order required for that imaginary thing to exist. Heck it might be this one and you are living in an accidental thought bubble within it. So your “accidental” universe is a straw man and therefor this Universe is not necessarily purposeful by contrast.

We would expect an accidental universe to be chaotic, valueless, purposeless, meaningless, unpredictable, unintelligible and - above all - irrational… [You mean like quantum physics, which scares the pants off rational minds? The representations you “reason” are in your own mind and do not necessarily, in fact necessarily *do not

have a 1/1 correspondence to Reality as such. They are, in other words, projections on to your experience as private subjective interpretation. If that wasn’t the case, your view would be so axiomatic as to never be noticed, just as is the awareness you use to fabricate you theory.

Regardless of the mumble jumble man is a result of creation. In order for man to keep from obstructing what came out of creation, himself, he is obliged to co-operate with himself and the flock. That means peace, that means a specific and unique higher power identity is required as reference because man cannot govern self properly toward flourish when survival is on the table. Plain and simple…

consciousness as we are endowed requires higher power idea’s in order to keep from human annihilation. If this is argued then its not my fault its without common sense, evidence and what elementary school teachers would know in basic psychology…
I suppose arguing that man evolved himself into a corner is one possibility but.I donno how far that one will get.

No one can convince an atheist or whatever God exists and you have a soul…like everything else worth its salt, its gotta be earned. Wheres the evidence which has been compiled which supports the soul… and argued.? If there is none…its not my fault the approach is without moderation, balance and what all review including financial would properly include… Note: The belief suggests that we must become as children to enter the kingdom…Any lights coming on around here?

( nothing like getting a few thoughts down…no biggy. Were not designed to worry about something perfectly natural…thats my approach…

Why worry about something which we know is natural and therefore part…of everything there is to begin with.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Now I feel guilty for the intentional bucket of water… , I will leave a picker upper for the mumbling under the tree…

1. If I was a God…I would role the carpet out for those Vikings shewing away the wolf moon in that eclipse idea…and then cheering as though they actually scared the moon away from their important Sun God…I getta a real kick outta that…the spirit lives on.
2. The subject itself is creative so one of the common ground features in God - man relationships would be in the realm of creativity. Our creative abilities in all the many expressive ways in good form, are divine and a gift as we are united with the creative in the wholeness of the effort to begin with. The whole God idea encourages freedom from existing apart… from what is natural.

ok…thats it for myself on this one, great looking day out there:thumbsup: .youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wMVKmYuZ8Hs

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey

**The power to design certainly requires explanation but it receives no attention even though it is so fundamental. Crystals, precious stones and many other natural objects are breathtakingly beautiful and surpass anything created by man… **

Correct. What’s interesting about scientism is that at the heart of it is recognition of order (laws) in the universe, rather than chaos or chance. You can’t do science without designing your own sentences. Indeed, there are even laws of grammar that must be followed or nothing makes sense; all the words and punctuation will run together and seem pointless.

The correspondence between what we think and the outer world is phenomenal. Just the fact that the human mind can conceive an original moment of a Big Bang that has been ordered to expand and expand until voila!, we are here to understand that it happened, suggests the universe is not a purposeless and pointless thing that just exists for its own sake.

The beauty of philosophy is that it often draws to our attention the facts we tend to take for granted. We grow up without being surprised we can understand so many aspects of reality - including the universe itself. It takes an original thinker like Pascal to point out that “Pensée fait la grandeur de l’homme”. (Thought makes man great). Yet thought is unnecessary for survival. In fact it even prejudices survival. A “simple” cell like the amoeba has outlasted many far more complex animals.

 

[greylorn]

On the contrary, if it said nothing about the Creator, then we couldn’t conclude that the universe was created.

Reggie,
Thank you for your reply. This is the first of a two-part answer.

My original statement was this:
"greylorn:

Making the point that the universe is created does not say anything about the nature of the Creator.

I know you well enough to be surprised that you would have misquoted me so egregiously. Saying “nothing” about the Creator is quite different from 'not saying anything about the nature of the Creator.

As you may know, I accept the concept that the universe is created, but not quite to the extent as conventional religionists. For example, I regard energy as a non-created substance, the silly putty with which the Creator worked.

I invite you to closely re-examine my comment and your statement, because I feel that this seemingly small point of argument says a great deal about our divergent perspectives.

In this, and perhaps subsequent conversations, I hope to interest you in an alternative perspective on the issue of ID vs. atheism.

I read that book some years ago and found it to be good. The Case for a Creator has only gotten much better in the past decade since scientific evidence is even stronger now.

I agree with you that the evidence is even better— yet as that happens, the voices of the atheist movement become increasingly strident. More evidence will change nothing, because of the differently colored lenses through which the evidence is viewed.

Let me once again express this simple point: The clear evidence that the universe is the result of intelligent thought, design, or as I prefer to call it-- engineering does not define the properties of the thinker, designer, or engineer.

For example, I’ve proposed here on CAF that the properties of omniscience and omnipotence that are attributed to the Creator by conventional religions are completely illogical. Moreover, a Creator of the universe does not need these properties. They are no more than poorly-considered points of upmanship, the equivalent of ‘my dad can kick the heck out of your dad,’ applied to religious rather than personal egos.

I agree – that’s a big flaw in the book. If I remember correctly, Mr. Stroebel offered some Protestant-evangelistic preaching at the end of the book which did not follow at all from the evidence that he provided to that point.

We both have interpreted Stoebel’s closing theologies similarly. I saw them as Christian, not inherently Protestant, and consistent with the views of the Catholics I encounter here and elsewhere.

You’ll find a more objective conclusion in the final chapter of Michael Behe’s excellent (and not-for-everyone) book, The Edge of Evolution. After making it absolutely clear to anyone capable of understanding the core of microbiological reality that Darwinism does not and cannot work, and that only the guiding force of intelligence can be responsible for biological evolution, Behe makes it clear that not even his own Catholic religion explains the nature of the Intelligent Designer.

But you haven’t yet offered a point that is relevant to what “Tony and his camp followers” have said at all. We’re in a philosophical discussion and we haven’t been discussing Catholic or Protestant theology at all.

I think that we can see the same point from both of our perspectives. This is not a point with which you are likely to be comfortable with (I spent years coming to grips with its implications). It is simply that the nature of God must be redefined from the perspective of hard science.

So, maybe what you think is “missing” is actually not a part of this discussion “by design”?

What is missing from all discussions in which science and religion bump against one another is indeed missing from this one, more by implicit contrivance than by “design.”

If any theology is ever to reconcile with hard science, it will not be any of the theologies invented by men who were ignorant of science. On the other hand, the “science” with which a hypothetical logical theology connects will not be the atheist-controlled physics or biology of today.

greylorn:

The God of Christianity is omnipotent and omniscient, properties which would have allowed Him to create the universe in “six days,” or even one day or one picosecond had that been His choice. However, the evidence from the fossil record indicates that God took roughly 3 billion years to engineer life.

Interesting point on theology – again, having nothing to do directly with Tony and his camp followers’ support of the argument from design.

But more importantly, you’ve contradicted your first point on this topic: that the idea that there is a Creator says nothing about the nature of the Creator. Here you’re explaining something about the nature of the Creator “God took 3 billion years to engineer life”.

That is a wildly unsupported assertion that does not follow from the data. How does an observation of fossils tell you that God took 3 billion years to engineer life? You don’t know that God engineered anything. You don’t know that God didn’t create in an instant, or in 5 minutes.

Good points, stemming from an incomplete argument on my part. (Elsewhere, I explain in better detail and in the context of a complete theological theory.)

The fossil record tells us about the billions of years required for the development of life. It is also clear about the reality, the importance, of sequence. Life forms develop from the simple to the complex, many of them terraforming the planet along the way.

There are essentially two theories devised to model, or explain the fossil record— Darwinism and Creationism. The evidence invalidates both theories.

A trivial calculation of the probability that a single small human gene could have assembled by random chance produces the absurd result of one chance in 10[sup]-542[/sup], a number so small that any competent scientist (e.g: non-Darwinists) will regard it as ridiculous.

On the other hand, the evidence makes it pretty clear that if the universe was created by some kind of intelligent entity, that entity did not have the power to pull off the job in an instant, a day, six days, or six million years. (Or, if the Entity had such power, He did not use it.)

The fossil record tells us something else, if we care to read it. It tells us that lots of creators were involved in the engineering of life.

Art galleries generally display the works of many different artists, which are customarily grouped together. With a bit of time and study, anyone can come to recognize the style and character of each artist. Experts in the field of art can walk into any gallery and name the artist without looking at the tag.

Visit an exhibit devoted to a single artist and you will notice the same style throughout the exhibit.

Now consider the entire fossil record in the context of an art exhibit. This is a legitimate perspective, given the existence of orchids and daisies, swans and warthogs. How hard is it to make a case for the notion that a hundred thousand designers and engineers or more were involved in the creation of biological life?

Again, you speak in absolutes which only offer contradictory ideas. If the engineers “had no idea”, then what did they start with?

Imagination. That, according to my theories, is an inherent property of what religions call “soul,” and which I refer to as beon.

Imagination is the inherent ability of a conscious entity to create entirely new information.

Continued…

 

[greylorn]

Reply 2 of 2 to Post #29

Apparently, they didn’t know how to create the laws of nature which would act on matter and energy.

That would not be the case in the context of this particular discussion, which is kind of about biological evolution.

I propose that by the time our early biological engineering angels set to work, they had already been roused to consciousness and given a comprehensive study program which involves all the laws of physics and chemistry that we are still trying to figure out.

By “comprehensive,” forget things equivalent to Ph.D physics programs, and trade in those notions, the equivalent of a day or two in kindergarten. Replace them with the millenia- equivalents of grunt work within the cores of black holes, guiding the manufacturing and distribution of hydrogen atoms,

The biological engineering process is the same as what a human engineer goes through, beginning with elementary school language and arithmetic, expanding his skills through high school and college, and ultimately landing a job with some corporation that needs some machines that have yet to be invented. He puts his knowledge to work and invents new concepts, new machines, learning as he goes.

They had “no idea” at all? So, they took what was lying around in the garage and experimented.

You got it right! You must have studied the history of Steve Jobs and his buddy Stephen Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer. Or maybe you learned how Hewlett and Packard got started, or how Henry Ford annoyed his wife by firing up his first hand-made single-cylinder engine in her kitchen?

Somehow, they happened to create self-replicating cells with a near-infinite arrangement of complex specified parts and cross-dependent functionality.

Yes, you are getting the picture. It is an awesome engineering job, and the more one studies about it, the more impressive its accomplishment becomes.

Take a wider perspective. Imagine that you happened to enter a space-time portal that magically sent you 100,000 years back in time, amid a tribe of Cro-Magnon primitives. You are stuck there until you die. In order to impress them enough to survive, you pull out your Zippo lighter and Swiss Army 57-blade knife, quickly master their language, and convince them that if they take care of you you will teach them how to make these technological wonders and overpower their enemies.

After a few years they stick you with a spear for failing to deliver, because you do not have the slightest idea how to make a knife, single-flick fire starter, or anything else from scratch.

Yet, with a little time, the Cro-Magnons figured out these technological tidbits for themselves, along with cars, airplanes, computers, rocket ships, and lint removers.

Consider folding the twin powers of time and imagination into your opinions.

These then, by accident, just happened to produce the entire biosphere of 30-50 million species of plants and animals on earth.

Right here is where you and I part intellectual company. You seem to have bought into Darwinism, which suggests that you never did the probability calculations. I refuse to buy into an absurd theory, no matter how many pinheads with Ph.Ds regard it as a legitimate belief system.

There are two aspects to Darwinism. (Read Charley’s two separate books about evolution.) The first explains variations within species. This is a credible theory, and ties into my proposal that really good engineers would build self-improvement into their machines if they knew how to do so.

The other aspect of Darwinism involves the development of new species, as hypothesized in Darwin’s second book about evolution. This part is unproved, and unprovable, but accepted as a scientific belief system. You’ll expand your appreciation of the logic involved by reading both of Behe’s excellent books. (Behe is a good Catholic, BTW.)

IMO Biological evolution is indeed random at the level of species variations (different sizes of finch beaks, different moth colors, dog breeds, etc.) but is engineered at the level of new species.

Hey, it’s an idea anyway.

Is an old, well established opinion the same thing as an idea?

What also makes perfect sense is that the Creators knew exactly what they were doing and the designs that are evident in the struggle and progress and development – and stability and cooperation and harmonization of nature – were all intended for a purpose.

Reggie,
I struggled with this paragraph— trying to figure out if I wrote it or you did!

You did, as it turns out, voicing my thoughts better than I ever have. Why are we arguing? What exactly are we arguing over?

Ah, here it is, in the last sentence of your paragraph.

“***To instruct, delight, model and reveal knowledge about the Creatures and the Creator and the reason why we have a Creation and are a part of it. ***”

There must be a more cogent reason for creation than the notion that God created billions of pinheads so that He could have the pleasure of amusing them. What? Do you see God as the equivalent of a TV network?

 

[Bradski]

All knowledge is a human construct!

Some knowledge is wrong. Some things are misinterpreted. People thought the sun went around the earth because it looked like it does. Some people think that we have rain to water the plants. Some people think it’s warm in Queeensland because then we can grow sugar cane there. They don’t realise that we grow sugar cane then because it’s warm.

Some people think that nature has been set up in a particular way to enable us to live here, not realising that we are here because systems enable life.

If you think that we have been put here for a purpose, then fine tuning makes all the sense in the world. If you don’t then it’s meaningless.

An assumption based on a preconceived conclusion. The only valid benchmark is the power of reason without which benchmarks wouldn’t be conceived and established. It is assumed that smartness exists and that smartness can develop.
Then there is no **reason **why smartness exists!

No. It’s a premise based on the facts. ‘Reason’ in itself isn’t going to get you far in the natural world. It’s only if it allows you to live longer does it become useful. It would be pretty hard to deny that if you were a smarter hunter than the next hominid, then you would, on average, get more food. That would mean that you stood a better chance of surviving than the other guy and would pass on your ‘smart’ genes to the kids. And so it goes.

Rocket science it ain’t.

 

[Bradski]

We’re not looking at an individual occurrence. That’s the obvious mistake. Any individual random event is unique. But it doesn’t provoke amazement. That’s why the Feynman example is surprisingly shallow and uninsighful. When we talk about fine-tuned constants – it’s a question of symmetry, *harmony *and balance.

What the car rego example illustrates to me is that something is only fantastically lucky if we can predict it in advance. I was at a poker game a couple of years back and the first 4 cards that my son dealt were the 4 aces. The chances of that are amazing! we all said. But no more so than the hand before that or the one after.

If you could step outside creation and say that for man to exist we would need these exact conditions to be just so, then by chance they occurred, then we’d all be mightily impressed. But they have occurred naturally and we are a result of those conditions. So to be amazed at that is the same as being amazed at the car registration.

Ok, but it’s not a question of merely showing that “laws produce things” – but you’d have to show that “chaos can produce consistent and predictable laws which create orderly outputs in matter”. We know that intelligence can produce laws. We see no evidence that chaos can produce laws. Therefore, it’s far more reasonable to conclude that when we see laws functioning in the universe – then they are the product of intelligence.

Well, we’ve only got this one universe, so we can’t test each other’s theories unfortunately. And you are starting with God when you say that the laws must be a result of intelligence. I don’t believe in God, but for the sake of this argument I could say that he could exist. Is it more reasonable to me for creation to have occurred naturally or to have been designed by a possible God. I’m going the first option.

It’s also a very commonly understood solution through the history of humanity – and that includes among many scientists today who conclude that there was a designer.

I’m not sure this is something we could vote on to see who is correct.

 

[tonyrey]

Some knowledge is wrong. Some things are misinterpreted. People thought the sun went around the earth because it looked like it does. Some people think that we have rain to water the plants. Some people think it’s warm in Queeensland because then we can grow sugar cane there. They don’t realise that we grow sugar cane then because it’s warm.

Some people think that nature has been set up in a particular way to enable us to live here, not realising that we are here because systems enable life.

If you think that we have been put here for a purpose, then fine tuning makes all the sense in the world. If you don’t then it’s meaningless.

It is far more reasonable to believe persons are more fundamental than particles because persons are conscious, rational, sentient, autonomous and purposeful whereas particles don’t have any of those powers.

An assumption based on a preconceived conclusion. The only valid benchmark is the power of reason without which benchmarks wouldn’t be conceived and established. It is assumed that smartness exists and that smartness can develop.

Then there is no reason why smartness exists!

No. It’s a premise based on the facts. ‘Reason’ in itself isn’t going to get you far in the natural world. It’s only if it allows you to live longer does it become useful. It would be pretty hard to deny that if you were a smarter hunter than the next hominid, then you would, on average, get more food. That would mean that you stood a better chance of surviving than the other guy and would pass on your ‘smart’ genes to the kids. And so it goes.

Rocket science it ain’t.

Materialism does not explain the **urge **to survive or the **ability **of inanimate particles to develop into conscious, rational, sentient, autonomous and purposeful persons. Particles by themselves explain precisely nothing! In a court of law only persons are held responsible for what they do.