Powerful evidence for Design?

[tonyrey]

Opinion? What can be sayid about God that is an adequate description, that upon speaking it the hearer is instantly face to face with God and in a state of complete comprehension? Any name or adjective or attribute is a limiter and excludes everything not in the mind of the hearer that is yet pertinent to the Allness of God. Een to say that God IS is misleading. except as a placeholder, unless one has seen God face to face. And then, who is there to witness?
Thoroughly question yourself as to who thinks there is something objective, indeed if there is a who other than that which can see that there is a person that is not permanent and changes constantly, moment by moment. It may take a few years of eliminative work, but you will arrive at a conclusion that is inevitable. That inevitable conclusion is not an opinion

It doesn't effect it. It is what is before you think you are a person. You will notice that when you wake up, something is already there that notices that you are awaking. What is that? Such an inquiry can go far in a practic understanding of what much of religion is actually based on. It is not something I or anyooe can convince you of. It is somethingone concludes after a certain point. 

As are you. And we are also "entitled" to our experience. It is one thing to hear about Belize. It is another to go there and hear Mayan spoken, eat braized kingfish, suck seeds from cacao pods, trample plants that here would cost hundreds, and always wear big rubber boots-whichyou check for scorpions in the morning-for fear of the fer de lance, and carry a machete.  stand where the Mayan priest once stood on their stone steps. And Oh!!! The coconut milk from one you cut yourslef from a palm!

I admire your eloquence!

 

[tonyrey]

Dr. Francisco Ayala, University Professor at the University of California, Irvine, is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists. He has written the following critique of Design:

More than twenty percent of all human pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion during the first two months of pregnancy. That is because the human genome, the human reproductive system, is so poorly designed. Do I want to attribute this egregiously defective design to God, to the omnipotent and benevolent God of the Christian faith? No, I don’t. It would not do to say that God designed intelligently the human genome and that it then decayed owing to natural processes. If God would have designed the human genome, surely He would have done it so that this enormous misfortune would not happen. Think of it: twenty percent of all human pregnancies amount to twenty million abortions every year. I shudder at the thought of this calamity being attributed to God’s specific design of the human genome. To me, this attribution would amount to blasphemy.

biologos.org/blog/on-reading-the-cells-signature/

In other words Ayala believes God created the physical universe with its laws of nature and then left events to proceed without taking any further interest or playing any further part in subsequent events. According to that hypothesis** there was no guarantee that human beings would ever appear **- contradicting Christian belief that God created us in His own image. It also implies that the fullness of Creation was left to the “mercy” of Chance and Necessity, that Providence is merely an illusion and that the Creator became redundant!

The elementary and fatal flaw in Ayala’s argument (understandable from a man who abandoned theology and philosophy for biology) is his failure to recognise one simple fact:

There is an element of chance within the framework of Design.

Acute thinker though he was, David Hume made the same mistake in his Dialogues:

Why is there any misery at all in the world? Not by chance surely. From some cause then. Is it from the intention of the Deity? But he is perfectly benevolent. Is it contrary to his intention? But he is almighty. Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning, so short, so clear, so decisive…

faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Hume–Problem%20of%20Evil.htm

The cause is the factor he dismissed so readily, assuming every event has to be purposeful and fit perfectly into the grand scheme of things. That vision of Utopia doesn’t correspond to physical reality where there are bound to be misfits, misfortunes and misadventures. Disruptive and destructive coincidences are inevitable in an immensely complex universe but defects don’t prove the absence of Design. They merely demonstrate the limitations of the laws of nature which do not and cannot take into account the needs of individuals**. It is absurd to expect perfect harmony in a physical system where billions of individuals are pursuing different goals. **

Before the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the like were attributed to direct action by God, so that the tsunami that five years ago killed two hundred fifty thousand Sumatrans might have been interpreted as God’s punishment. Now we know that these catastrophes are the result of natural processes. Similarly, people of faith would do better to attribute the mishaps caused by defective genomes to the vagaries of natural selection and other processes of biological evolution, rather than to God’s design.

biologos.org/blog/on-reading-the-cells-signature/

The false dilemma again rears its ugly head! Ayala obviously cannot see the wood for the trees. If God didn’t design the universe what did He do? Create the Big Bang and hope for the best? Unwittingly his reference to “mishaps” points to the true solution.

It is not a question of Design or Chance, but Design and Chance - with the latter playing a minor but frequently sinister role. Coincidences sometimes lead to “strokes of luck” but more often than not they lead to misfortune and misery. That is why the solution to the Problem of Physical Evil is not to be found in this life but the next…

 

[Gaber]

I admire your eloquence!

From a clever a mind as yours, that is a compliment, as I’m taking it a face value. It would be interesting to have the two other components, intonation and body language, added to these exchanges. And really, the greater portion of communication happen in those areas, not in print, as evidenced by the use of emoticons. Maybe Victor Borge’s vocal punctuation might be fun, too. I appreciate the challenge you offer on here. I wonder what changes happen because of what goes on here, refering to the disproportion of views vs posts.

Anyway, back to topic.

 

[tonyrey]

From a clever a mind as yours, that is a compliment, as I’m taking it a face value. It would be interesting to have the two other components, intonation and body language, added to these exchanges.

I don’t make false statements unless they are the lesser of two evils - which is certainly not the case here.

BTW I don’t regard myself as particularly clever because if I know and understand little about a subject in which I have specialised for many years I must be extremely dim-witted!

 

[tonyrey]

Dr. Francisco Ayala, University Professor at the University of California, Irvine, is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists. He has written the following critique of Design:

Afterthoughts:

1. Ayala admits there is a semblance of design.
2. He assumes that according to Design the **sole **explanation of defects is that the human genome was designed and then “decayed”.
3. He overlooks the inability of physical mechanisms to produce perfect results in an immense variety of circumstances.
4. Instincts, for example, are superb physical mechanisms but they often lead to disaster.
5. Ayala has not offered an alternative explanation for the **origin **of genomes.
6. He assumes natural processes are never defective in any way.
7. His use of the expression “enormous misfortune” unwittingly confirms the element of chance in the outcome of events in an orderly system, i.e. within the framework of Design.
8. He fails to take into account the ultimate responsibility of God for any universe.
9. He implies that God is directly responsible for (a) every single event or (b) no events whatsoever.
10. If (a) then God is not omnipotent or not benevolent.
11. If (b) then the doctrine of Providence is false.
12. Ayala’s view amounts to deism rather than theism.

 

[Gaber]

I don’t make false statements unless they are the lesser of two evils - which is certainly not the case here.

BTW I don’t regard myself as particularly clever because if I know and understand little about a subject in which I have specialised for many years I must be extremely dim-witted!

I feel the same way. BTW, if a part of a quote is left out, it helps to include elipses (…) so it’s known there was an alteration. that way things can remain ‘wholly…’ without wondering if something went up in smoke.

Nice chatting with you.

 

[tonyrey]

]I feel the same way. BTW, if a part of a quote is left out, it helps to include elipses (…) so it’s known there was an alteration. that way things can remain ‘wholly…’ without wondering if something went up in smoke.

I don’t recall leaving one out.

Nice chatting with you.

Likewise!

 

[Gaber]

My bad. I mis-spoke. You completely and accurately quoted the first two sentences of that statement. Nothing was left out or changed in that. My reaction was about a too fine of a point which is actually minor and few use, anyway, which would have been to add the elipses at the end to indicate that there was more folowing what you quoted. But in fact that is very very rarely done, so in this case I was just blowing smoke. Sorry for the bother.

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey;9217051:

My bad. I mis-spoke. You completely and accurately quoted the first two sentences of that statement. Nothing was left out or changed in that. My reaction was about a too fine of a point which is actually minor and few use, anyway, which would have been to add the elipses at the end to indicate that there was more folowing what you quoted. But in fact that is very very rarely done, so in this case I was just blowing smoke. Sorry for the bother.

No problem. I usually quote a whole paragraph unless it is too long or the other sentences in paragraph don’t affect the meaning of the statements.

 

[tonyrey]

It seems worth listing some common illogical objections to Design:

1. “The universe is so vast it is purposeless.”
   **Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

**2.“The universe is so ancient it is purposeless.”
Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

1. “Human beings are so minute they are insignificant.”
   Size has nothing to do with significance.
2. “Life is so rare it cannot be intended to exist.”**
   Frequency **has nothing to do with significance.
3. “Life is so short it cannot be intended to exist.”
   **Longevity **has nothing to do with significance.
4. “The extinction of species is evidence they aren’t intended to exist.”
   **Mortality **has nothing to do with significance.
5. “There is so much purposeless suffering life must be an accident.”**
   Purposeless events are not evidence that all events are purposeless.**

 

[Sair]

It seems worth listing some common illogical objections to Design:

1. “The universe is so vast it is purposeless.”
   **Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

**2.“The universe is so ancient it is purposeless.”
Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

I’ll go with you here - except that human notions of human worth, as laid out in most religions, are also irrelevant to the nature of reality. We are worth something to each other, undoubtedly, but beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.

1. “Human beings are so minute they are insignificant.”
   Size has nothing to do with significance.

True, but you must admit that our relegation to an existence as an unlikely species on an unremarkable planet in an unremarkable solar system in a small corner of the universe is a significant step down from the earlier understanding, commonly accepted, that the universe revolved around the earth and the human life thereon.

1. “Life is so rare it cannot be intended to exist.”**
   Frequency **has nothing to do with significance.

Well, we don’t actually know how common life is in the universe - and it seems unlikely that we will ever have the capability to explore so far that we could know. But you must admit, that in order to conjecture that humans, as such, are significant on a cosmic scale requires considerable invention in order to justify the claim that we matter to more than ourselves.

1. “Life is so short it cannot be intended to exist.”
   **Longevity **has nothing to do with significance.

1. “The extinction of species is evidence they aren’t intended to exist.”
   **Mortality **has nothing to do with significance.

1. “There is so much purposeless suffering life must be an accident.”**
   Purposeless events are not evidence that all** events are purposeless.

These might well be true assertions, but it should also be obvious that we don’t need someone else’s ultimate intention that we exist in order to subjectively find our own lives significant. In short, we don’t need to have been designed in order to matter to ourselves. Your claims in this post seem wedded to the idea that design is essential for us to find meaning and purpose in our lives, but that is only essential if meaning and purpose somehow have to come from outside our own experience. I think it’s obvious, even just from the assertions you’re attempting to refute here, that this is not the case.

 

[tonyrey]

*It seems worth listing some common illogical objections to Design:

Thanks for the swift feedback!

I don’t believe the immense value of** life** is irrelevant to the nature of reality. You have often referred to its wonders.

3. “Human beings are so minute they are insignificant.”
Size has nothing to do with significance.

True, but you must admit that our relegation to an existence as an unlikely species on an unremarkable planet in an unremarkable solar system in a small corner of the universe is a significant step down from the earlier understanding, commonly accepted, that the universe revolved around the earth and the human life thereon.

A ratiocentric - rather than anthropocentric - view is more reasonable - and certainly more reasonable than eccentric materialism!

4. “Life is so rare it cannot be intended to exist.”**
Frequency **

**has nothing to do with significance.**Well, we don’t actually know how common life is in the universe - and it seems unlikely that we will ever have the capability to explore so far that we could know. But you must admit, that in order to conjecture that humans, as such, are significant on a cosmic scale requires considerable invention in order to justify the claim that we matter to more than ourselves.

“cosmic scale” again implies that significance is related to size.

5. “Life is so short it cannot be intended to exist.”
**Longevity **

has nothing to do with significance.

1. “The extinction of species is evidence they aren’t intended to exist.”
   **Mortality **has nothing to do with significance.
2. “There is so much purposeless suffering life must be an accident.”**
   Purposeless events are not evidence that all** events are purposeless.These might well be true assertions, but it should also be obvious that we don’t need someone else’s ultimate intention that we exist in order to subjectively find our own lives significant.

In short, we don’t need to have been designed in order to matter to ourselves. Your claims in this post seem wedded to the idea that design is essential for us to find meaning and purpose in our lives, but that is only essential if meaning and purpose somehow have to come from outside our own experience. I think it’s obvious, even just from the assertions you’re attempting to refute here, that this is not the case.

“subjectively” is the key word. If significance is only a matter of opinion it is not and cannot be a rational basis for the value of life.

 

[Gaber]

1. “The universe is so vast it is purposeless.”
   **Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

**2.“The universe is so ancient it is purposeless.”
Human notions of economy are irrelevant to the nature of reality.

Any human notion is irrelevant to the nature of reality, save in some cases as a pointer to that reality and in that they are supported by the underlying realit which supports all appearance.

1. “Human beings are so minute they are insignificant.”
   Size has nothing to do with significance.

1. “Life is so rare it cannot be intended to exist.”**
   Frequency **has nothing to do with significance.

1. “Life is so short it cannot be intended to exist.”
   **Longevity **has nothing to do with significance.

1. “The extinction of species is evidence they aren’t intended to exist.”
   **Mortality **has nothing to do with significance.

Size, frequency, longevity, and mortality have relative significance and are names of properties of what we observe as experience.

1. “There is so much purposeless suffering life must be an accident.”**
   Purposeless events are not evidence that all** events are purposeless.

Nor of purpose. Purpose is an anthropomorphization relative only to the unredeemed subject/object phase of human awareness. It is seen very differently when the underlying reality is experienced.

 

[tonyrey]

Any human notion is irrelevant to the nature of reality, save in some cases as a pointer to that reality and in that they are supported by the underlying realit which supports all appearance.

Then how do you explain the success of science?

Size, frequency, longevity, and mortality have relative significance and are names of properties of what we observe as experience.
Nor of purpose. Purpose is an anthropomorphization relative only to the unredeemed subject/object phase of human awareness. It is seen very differently when the underlying reality is experienced.

So animal activity wasn’t purposeful before man existed?

 

[tonyrey]

I think “Intelligent Design” is a misnomer and I can understand the scorn it has aroused. It seems like putting the Designer in the same category as a mouse! A more appropriate term is “Rational Design” which is still inadequate but closer to the truth because the power of reason is responsible for the amazing success of science. Even so it has failed to emulate the exquisite wonder and beauty of nature. “Suprarational Design” would be less misleading with its emphasis on the immense scope of non-human Design.

But why “Design” rather than simply “Creation” - which is generally accepted and used by theistic religions? Continuous Creation is a scientific theory which has no reference to persons or purpose whereas there is little doubt about what Design implies: consciousness, hindsight, insight, foresight, abstract reasoning and planning. Plato has been much maligned but he stressed the fundamental role of truth in our search for wisdom which takes us out of the material world and into the realm of Ideas. We don’t have to accept his theory but he foreshadowed the teaching of Jesus that His kingdom is a kingdom of truth.

Animals have intelligence but they are unaware of intangible facts, principles and values. One doesn’t have to be a Christian or belong to another religion to reject materialism and believe in the reality of truth and spiritual development. We exist in order to be positive rather than negative, to fulfil our potential and create happiness in every way we can for others and ourselves. Suffering and destruction are caused by rejecting this view of life. To deny life is purposeful and imagine we invent our own purposes is not only absurd but futile. As Lear said, nothing shall come of nothing.

If life is intrinsically purposeless it remains purposeless however much we try to gloss over it. Time becomes our enemy and death our final defeat. Every second becomes a countdown to disaster. Yet to eat, drink and be merry as if we have nothing to look forward to after death is to live in a fool’s paradise. Ignorance may be bliss for a while but as the years elapse it eventually leads to misery.

“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!” We can apply the words of Keats to ourselves - and take to heart his most famous lines:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

And they don’t exist by Chance!

 

[Gaber]

Then how do you explain the success of science?

Science is relatively successful in its methodology and applications within the scope of its ability to deal with the underlying dynamics of physics at its levels of presentation. It doesn’t do so well in understanding the physicists and scientists or anyone’s being as such. Ther nearsest thing to science in tha realm is the repeatability of an inevitable result given a particular line of inquiry as to the nature of self.

So animal activity wasn’t purposeful before man existed?

It still isn’t. What’s that got to do with anything? Animals always did and still do live in the Garden. Leave them be, and continue to seek the understanding of the implications of what is mistakenly labeled as “the fall.”

 

[rossum]

The universe is thought to be bounded. If we say it is designed then any event that happens inside it may not be ever fully random chance.

Which makes any attempt to detect design useless. Everything is designed, nothing is due to law or chance. ID’s attempt to differentiate between the designed and the non-designed is doomed to failure, because there is no non-designed thing on which to test any proposed method.

You really did not address shuffling the deck three times and getting a specified result.

If you wish me to, then I will. Though I warn you that I won’t come up with the answer you are probably expecting. I shall use the specification:

“An ordering of the three packs of cards in which at least one of the twelve Kings appears before any one of the three aces of hearts in the combined packs.”

That is a specification. It is a good specification, in that it is easy to tell if a particular ordering of the three packs meets, or does not meet, the specification. We can shuffle the packs and determine whether or not the specification has been met.

Not did you answer if it could be done in 14B years.

It can be done in less than 14 billion years.

If you caught the video it demonstrated that the universe could be entirely made up of sand and the number of grains would not exceed the UPB.

How many molecules are there in a grain of sand? How many cubic metres are there in the universe? What are the chances that all the many billions of molecules that make up a single grain of sand are present in the same cubic metre of the universe? Are you trying to say that every grain of sand is designed? See my first paragraph on the uselessness of attempting to differentiate design from non-design in a designed universe.

The only way we can study past events is after the fact. From some of those we can make predictions.

I am not talking about predictions. I am talking about Dr Dembski’s requirement for a prior specification. You cannot paint the target round the arrow after it has hit the barn.

The more times a specified event happens the greater the likelihood it is by design.

Unless the repeating of the initial event is due to regularity. Copying does not require extra CSI beyond the UPB, so copying processes are perfectly within the range of regular processes. Dr Dembski agrees that regularity does not indicate design.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

Then how do you explain the success of science?

I agree with you.

So animal activity wasn’t purposeful before man existed?

It still isn’t. What’s that got to do with anything? Animals always did and still do live in the Garden. Leave them be, and continue to seek the understanding of the implications of what is mistakenly labeled as “the fall.”

"When we look around we see wonders of purposive action unfolding before our eyes - bees flitting from flower to flower, songbirds flying from twig to twig, gannets diving into the sea at breakneck speed, dogs catching balls, horses leaping fences, babies conversing with their parents, divers performing aerobatic feats, people performing music. If we then ponder what is going on inside our bodies - how the lungs and heart are acting to fuel movement of the limbs, how immune cells are moving around seeking out invaders, and so on - the wonder of animal action increases.

The Perception Movement Action Research Consortium (PMARC) was established in 2006 by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh to celebrate the wonderful world of animal action by promoting the study of how humans and animals control their actions to purposeful ends - in particular how** P**erception prospectively guides Movement through intrinsic processes to achieve purposive Action. "pmarc.ed.ac.uk/background/index.html

 

[Gaber]

                                                 "When we look around we see wonders of purposive action unfolding  before our eyes - bees flitting from flower to flower, songbirds flying  from twig to twig, gannets diving into the sea at breakneck speed, dogs  catching balls, horses leaping fences, babies conversing with their  parents, divers performing aerobatic feats, people performing music. If  we then ponder what is going on inside our bodies - how the lungs and  heart are acting to fuel movement of the limbs, how immune cells are  moving around seeking out invaders, and so on - the wonder of animal  action increases.

No kidding. I often work on local horse properties and as well live in a rural area, and we have pets. I never cease to marvel at the abilities and antics of animals. Terriers are particularly interesting, and I’ve been a bird watcher, though not technical, all my life. Horses inspire me, and I see why Da Vinci was so taken with them. They are magnificent, and seem to have special gifts with children who have disabilities, as do many companion animals. Cetaceans are another story, a mystery. I’ve heard truly remarkable stories of encounters with them, and if I did not know the person telling the tale, I’d be very tempted to accuse them of fabrication. But no! Even a story about a python I heard from an animal care-giver was rather astounding. If someone gave me a microphone or a campfire, I could go on, literally, for hours, even about the time we met a nouuntain lion, or the day a deer looked me in the face from five inches away, or the pair of eyes, big and yellow, eight feet off the ground, at least, one dark moonless night.

The Perception Movement Action Research Consortium (PMARC) was established in 2006 by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh to celebrate the wonderful world of animal action by promoting the study of how humans and animals control their actions to purposeful ends - in particular how** P**erception prospectively guides Movement through intrinsic processes to achieve purposive Action. "pmarc.ed.ac.uk/background/index.html

Yes, and as with science, that is only relatively, very relatively, so. as I quoted before: “The only purpose is to BE,” All the rest is human overlay from this, our subject/object state of chosen awareness necessary due to the ascent we Biblically call the “fall.” And that is easily, if not tediously, overcome. And once overcome, the world changes in a instant. All is made clear. Even why we think we have purpose. Even that melts into the vastness of what IS.

 

[tonyrey]

No kidding. I often work on local horse properties and as well live in a rural area, and we have pets. I never cease to marvel at the abilities and antics of animals. Terriers are particularly interesting, and I’ve been a bird watcher, though not technical, all my life. Horses inspire me, and I see why Da Vinci was so taken with them. They are magnificent, and seem to have special gifts with children who have disabilities, as do many companion animals. Cetaceans are another story, a mystery. I’ve heard truly remarkable stories of encounters with them, and if I did not know the person telling the tale, I’d be very tempted to accuse them of fabrication. But no! Even a story about a python I heard from an animal care-giver was rather astounding. If someone gave me a microphone or a campfire, I could go on, literally, for hours, even about the time we met a nouuntain lion, or the day a deer looked me in the face from five inches away, or the pair of eyes, big and yellow, eight feet off the ground, at least, one dark moonless night.

You seemed to doubt my recognition of some one’s eloquence!

Yes, and as with science, that is only relatively, very relatively, so. as I quoted before: “The only purpose is to BE,” All the rest is human overlay from this, our subject/object state of chosen awareness necessary due to the ascent we Biblically call the “fall.” And that is easily, if not tediously, overcome. And once overcome, the world changes in a instant. All is made clear. Even why we think we have purpose. Even that melts into the vastness of what IS.

The process of overcoming presupposes purposeful activity.