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Bradski
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And ID is…?
So can you tell me at what point do we concede a supernatural cause and then stop looking for a natural one? When can we sit back and relax confident in the fact that God did it?
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tonyrey
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Please don’t apologise. It’s all grist to the mill! It gives the non-Designers an opportunity to reveal how incoherent they are with their failure to recognise what they are attacking. They are implicitly undermining their own power of reasoning by rejecting the primacy of purposeful activity… Logic can’t be extracted from atoms except by the imagination.Sorry, Tony. Afraid I’ve been contributing to that digression in this thread.
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tonyrey
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tonyrey
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Welcome to the forum, Dami!
Belief in Design and belief in evolution are only incompatible in the minds of materialists who think they are restricting reality to what they can see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
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jimmy
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- Makes sense.
- Why?
- Some of those modifiers are acceptable to atheists, and they would agree with them. They would admit that in general the universe is chaotic, valueless, purposeless, and meaningless.
Second, why would I ague about the existence of God from an objective perspective when it is my subjectivity that leads me to believe that God exists? Arguing about the existence of God from an objective perspective is meaningless. An atheist can always deny your argument, and his argument will be just as rational as yours. It is a matter of perspective. If I keep my self seperate from the question, it is easy to say the universe simply exists. It is easy to say life in general, or intelligence is the product of evolution and consequently it is simply a part of the universe.
But it is hard to say I am a product of evolution. I know that I exist, and I know that others exist. Why is it that I exist, with this body? It is really a question of consciousness. I exist, and many others exist. I don’t feel what they feel, and they don’t feel what I feel. There has to be some way to explain the many individual existences.
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Bradski
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Peter_Plato
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I looked at Dembski’s universal probability bound as reported in Signature in the Cell and it is very close to the following one worked out by David Abel in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling
My apologies for not using superscript in denoting scientific notation of the numbers.
*1) The number of seconds that have elapsed since the Big Bang (1017) assumes a cosmic age of around 14 billions years. 60 sec/min × 60 min/hr × 24 hrs/day × 365 days per year × 14 billion years = 4.4 × 1017 seconds since the Big Bang.
- The number of possible quantum events/transitions per second is derived from the amount of time it takes for light to traverse the minimum unit of distance. The minimum unit of distance (a quantum of space) is Planck length (10-33 centimeters). The minimum amount of time required for light to traverse the Plank length is Plank time (10-43 seconds). Thus a maximum of 1043 quantum transitions can take place per second. Since 1017 seconds have elapsed since the Big Bang, the number of possible quantum transitions since the Big Bang would be 1043 × 1017 = 1060.
- Sir Arthur Eddington’s estimate of the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in the observable cosmos (1080) has been widely respected throughout the scientific literature for decades now.
A Universal Probability Bound could therefore be calculated by the product of these three factors: 1017 × 1043 × 1080 = 10140
If the highest estimate of the number of elementary particles in the Universe is used (e.g., 1089), the UPB would be 10149.*
Dembski uses a slightly lower time factor (13.7 billion years) but essentially the same numbers with the more conservative number of particles and arrives at 10139.4 as his UPB.
This is not, as you hold, constrained to one point in space because the calculation is based upon every elementary particle in all of space (delineated in Plank length) during each Plank moment of time. Since each particle is multiplied by the other quantities it assumes multiple interactions at each Plank moment and at every Plank point in space.
Your objection is clearly misguided.
An important point made by Meyer and Dembski is that the UPB shows that the probability of a single minimally functionally sequenced protein comprised of 150 ordered amino acids is (as calculated by Douglas Axe) 10 164, which means the probability of a single functional protein is orders of magnitude higher (1024) than the UPB allows, i.e., one chance in a trillion trillion. Keeping in mind that a single cell capable of replication would require perhaps several hundred functional proteins, the chance of these arising at the same time in the same space to allow cell origin would be unthinkable. This would seem to be a strong case for ID. No?
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Bradski
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That is patently absurd. Every single argument he makes is purely and simply to prove that there is evidence for a designer. What argument does he make that doesn’t do that? That is his life’s work – to prove that God did it. You’re probably more correct than you suggest. He doesn’t assume a designer. He is absolutely 100% rock-solid positive that a designer exists. And that designer is God.
Apart from all of his arguments being pulled apart in as much detail as you’d care to go into (and let’s not start posting links back and forth to show this – I’m sure you’re aware of all the details yourself), let me propose this: Someone is collecting evidence to show that a giant snake coughed up a cosmic egg and that was how the universe began.
Would you look at his evidence uncritically? Would you suggest that he might be biased in the way he prepares his argument? Would you suggest that the fact that he had already decided that that was how things began would give him a tendency to see things in the evidence that weren’t really there? Do you think he might have a tendency to deny evidence that would discount his argument?
And then how would someone who also believed that a snake was responsible look at the arguments. Uncritically? With an open mind? Prepared to refute the evidence on its merits? Or would that person have a tendency to accept something that appears to prove what he already believes in any case.
Science can’t prove God. It only deals with the natural. By definition, God is super natural.
ID is false because it has been proven to be false. It tries to show, using the scientific method, that things have been designed. It has been shown, using the scientific method, that it is wrong. It’s not wrong because I want it to be wrong or because people don’t want it to be right. It’s wrong. Period.
And in any case, there’s an unbridgeable gap between proving design and invoking a supernatural designer. You can’t leap from the natural realm into the supernatural one and take all the science with you. Natural science is for the natural world. Faith is for the supernatural one.
We need to keep religion out of the laboratory and science out of the church.
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Peter_Plato
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So you fall into the “… ID is false because it transgresses the tenets of atheism …” camp.
Why not just define natural as whatever finds a home in your brain and be done with it?
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Peter_Plato
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And every single argument you make is purely and simply to prove there is no evidence for a designer. So if Meyer is not credible for that reason, neither are you.
The point I am making, and clearly you have missed it, is that Meyer’s motives are irrelevant. What needs to be assessed is his argument, not his motives. Since you keep evoking the genetic fallacy, clearly you seem incapable of constructing an unbiased, philosophical critique.
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Farsight001
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Among Creationists and ID advocates, I would certainly agree with you. They cannot keep the definition straight. However, among biologists, this is not even remotely true. The definition is rather consistent. Their papers and books and textbooks have no problem remaining generally consistent with the definition of the word. You don’t get to call it vague just because the ID advocates can’t keep it straight.
ID is, specifically, the believe that animals were created as is - fish with fins, birds with wings, etc., by an “intelligent designer”. This is the official definition of the term from THEIR texts. Such a meaning specifically denies that evolution takes place by stating clearly that land dwelling animals never developed wings, or that sea dwelling animals never developed lungs, etc.
Hence, it specifically denies evolution. And since, again, evolution does not cover the subject of abiogenesis, the origins of life are thus irrelevant to the issue. How is this hard to grasp?
That is one way to place it beyond the reach of any critique.Did I place it beyond the reach of critique? No. I pointed out that it was a different subject entirely. Forum rules dictate that we stay on task. Diverting to the subject of abiogenesis does the opposite.
Did I ever say this? No. You are putting words in my mouth. I never said it is “just true”. I said it is not part of the subject at at hand. Challenge it all you want, but do it in a different thread.
Abiogenesis is hardly “vague and shifting”. It, too, has thousands of papers on the subject. It is only vague and shifting because you haven’t sought to grasp it.
Guessing is exactly your problem. You guess I am unclear. You guess that abiogenesis is vague. You guess quite a bit. How about, instead of guessing, you study the subject so you can actually produce an answer? Just a suggestion.
Not really. A bullet hole in a person means they were shot, regardless of whether you are the attorney for the prosecution or for the defense. An absence of clouds in the sky means there is no rain, regardless of whether you are a farmer or a sunbather. Observed evolution means evolution happens, whether you are a biologist or a creationist.
No one is ever entirely free of bias, but a professional certainly knows how to set it aside and let the evidence lead them where they should go, something I have never seen the ID advocates even try to do, but what I do see biologists do every day.
As I already explained, my viewpoints on the subjects (which were themselves off topic) are irrelevant. I will not let you divert the conversation down the path of what you think is wrong with my personal viewpoints because that is not the subject at hand.
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Peter_Plato
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Sure, but let’s also keep atheism out of the laboratory and science out of atheism.
It is obviously your atheism that gets you so hung up on Meyer’s work.
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Farsight001
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Because the very definition of Intelligent Design says that evolution did not occur. Can you believe that God guided evolution? Sure. Can you believe that God specifically created us? Sure. But ID and evolution directly contradict each other. You can no sooner accept both than you can be both an atheist and a deist.
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Bradski
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Have I used an argument to try to prove there is no evidence? I think that you might have possibly misinterpreted something I said. Maybe if you quoted it we could clear that up.
As I suggested, his motives are not irrelevant. But you’re correct in saying that that shouldn’t detract from the fact that his arguments do indeed have to be assessed. They have been and they have been rejected.
I’m not going to philosophically critique Meyer because Meyer is not conducting a philosophical debate. This is not theology. He is making scientific arguments that there is evidence for God’s design in nature. Those arguments have been critically examined in an unbiased manner and rejected.
And if you want to state that Meyer’s motives are irrelevant and his arguments should stand or fall on their own scientific merits, then you also have accept that any motives that you may perceive in regard to those rejecting his arguments are also irrelevant and the rejection of his arguments should also stand or fall on their own scientific merits.
You can’t have it both ways.
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Farsight001
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This all assumes that everything that happens is entirely, completely and utterly, random in every way. This is a false assumption.
I also see that the math fails to account for gravity, intermolecular forces, molecular orientations, and a gammut of other factors clearly important, yet mysteriously left out. This is part of what I was talking about when I pointed out that even if he can do the math, if he doesn’t use proper data, he’s never going to get the right answer.
In addition, I notice that your own paper that you cite openly admits that the UPB provided is higher than any other estimation by “several orders of magnitude”. One must wonder why the difference.
I also cannot find any record of David’s credentials, making me wonder how much of an expert he really is.
And no, this is not a strong case for the claim that evolution did not happen, which is what ID dictates. One might call it a strong case for the existence of God, but that was never in question here.
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Peter_Plato
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Ah! Clarity at last! ID is not specifically the claim that animals were created “as is.” That is only one aspect at issue. Homology is not inconsistent with ID. Some ID proponents insist that the evidence does not support the idea of common descent, but that is not a necessary implication of ID. It is possible that the genetic code found in primordial cells could have originated all life forms, by design, via common descent. On the other hand, purely materialistic evolution has a long way to go to definitively establish common descent, which is not even a necessary corollary of Darwinian evolution. If, for example, life originated in some form somewhere, it could have, likewise, started in several forms in different places which could have lead to multiple trees of life. Therefore, common descent is not a necessary tenet even of strictly materialistic evolution.
Abiogenesis is not irrelevant to the issue, it is one of the crucial points of the issue. Surely, understanding how life began, its very nature, is critical to getting a clear picture of how cellular evolution can continue and how external factors could affect development and change.
ID, at the most basic level, is not simply about how distinct animal morphology could arise, but with the entire process of change in the universe, including, for example whether the origin and fine tuning of the universe bears earmarks of being intelligently designed.
This thread is not about creationism in the narrow sense you assume, but ID in the widest possible definition. Does the universe or parts thereof bear evidence of being designed?
Evolution cannot, on its own, be used to discredit ID because ID has wider implications. Your attempt to reduce ID to (the strawman of) "…specifically, the believe [sic] that animals were created as is…” Is a misunderstanding of the whole point of this thread. It also explains the contentiousness in some of your posts.
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Peter_Plato
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Science is grounded in philosophy and logic. If you don’t get that, you don’t understand the scope and limits of science. Theology has nothing to do with the arguments in question.
Meyer’s field is philosophy of science. He has a background in science and in philosophy. Unfortunately, most scientists do not understand how important logic is to laying out and confirming scientific claims. Meyer is better able than most scientists to do so. Most critiques do not get the logical cogency of his argument in Signature in the Cell and therefore dismiss it unfairly. I have read many of his detractors and am not convinced they address his points. With all due respect, I don’t think you have even read his book, which is the reason you keep harping on irrelevancies.
Read post #945 and critique it scientifically, rather than just making vague references to scientific merits.
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Bradski
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I think that they’re moving the goalposts. The Discovery Institute claimed in the Dover case in 2004 and their book ‘Pandas Thumb’:
“Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc.”
Not much dispute there. But they got their butt kicked in the Dover case in 2004 so there’s been some drastic rethinking as to how to promote Creationism. Sorry, Intelligent Design
US District Judge Jones decried the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.
A six-week trial over the issue yielded “overwhelming evidence” establishing that intelligent design “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago.
The book ‘Of Pandas and Peoples’, used to promote the DI’s views was discovered to have been changed. Later versions of this book had the terms ‘creation science’ simply replaced with the term ‘Intelligent design’. No content had been changed – just the term itself.
Similarly, words such as ‘God’ were replaced by ‘Intelligent Designer’. And this happened just shortly after the Supreme Court had held that creationism could not be taught in schools – because it was a religious viewpoint.
ID is Creationism, pure and simple. Confirmed by the very people who are pushing it.
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Farsight001
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Yes it is. It’s their own words, their own definition, their own textbooks that say this. It’s the definition. You are simply wrong to say it is not and this is why you have so much trouble grasping these concepts. You are making up your own definitions to words. If you cannot use the right definition of a word, you are just going to frustrate yourself and anyone you’re discussing with by constantly talking past them.
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Jason_Firestone
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Hoyle’s Fallacy:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle%27s_fallacy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle%27s_fallacy
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