Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

BA77’s observation: “many influential people in academia simply don’t want Design to be true no matter what evidence . . .”

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The inimitable BA77 observes:

I [used] to think that if ID could only get its evidence to the right people in the right places then they would change their mind about Darwinian evolution and we would have a fundamental ‘paradigm shift’ from the ‘top down’. But after a few years of banging my head on that wall to no avail, I realized that it is not a head problem with these people so much as it is a heart problem. i.e. many influential people in academia simply don’t want Design to be true no matter what evidence you present to them. Indeed, in many educational institutions, there is a systematic effort in academia to Expel anyone who does not toe the Darwinian party line . . . . Scientists are subject to the same pride and prejudices as everyone else.,,, perhaps more so when the issues relate to their preferred worldview.

He concludes: “Thus the growth in popular support for ID has been more of a ‘bottom up’ affair.”

He cites Max Planck on the rise of new paradigms one funeral at a time:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it . . .

Is this what we have come to?

Are we so stubborn as that in the face of the force of evidence such as the significance of the only known cause of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I] and the linked isolated needles in a haystack configuration-space blind search challenge:

csi_defn

DI’s Stephen Meyer addresses much the same point in speaking to what critics of his Darwin’s Doubt seem to almost uniformly miss:

Why, or why not? Kindly, explain. END

Comments
Hi KF! I believe I fully understand the concepts above, and I'm excited to calculated the information in things. We've identified the probabilistic resources available (hands / cards dealt, dice rolled) but we need to know the likeliness of the event itself to compare the two. Barry says above "I can’t tell if you are being serious. Are you really suggesting that cellular life is so simple that the information necessary for a fully functioning cell is only 34k? Do you have any evidence for that other than your obviously flawed back of the envelope calculation there?" Please help me understand what is wrong with my math. Thanks in advance, Richrich
August 11, 2014
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Rich: FSCO/I is what you see every day when you handle computer files 1,753 kBytes etc. ; a byte normally being 8 bits and a computer "kilo" being 1024, etc. Functionally specific info is measured as bits doing a job dependent on specific config, not just carrying capacity as Shannon info measures -- a material difference. DNA runs at about 2 bits per base (a bit less on avg as there is redundancy); proteins run at up to 4.32 bits per AA, as we essentially deal with 1 of 20 [not counting oddities], and protein implies folding and functioning. Also, as DWG files show, functional organisation is also measurable in bits per reasonable encoding. If you will, the minimum chain of y/n questions to specify the organisation, what in effect a DWG file tries to do, and why an ASCII coded message runs at 7 bits per character. Once something is specifically functional and is beyond 500 - 1,000 bits, it will fit the criterion above. That may be represented in a simple metric model: Chi_500 = I*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold Where, I is the bits measure [using any one of several standard approaches . . . more complex ones factor in redundancies etc], S is a dummy variable default 0, set to 1 on good reason to accept functionally specific, and 500 bits is a complexity threshold relevant to the solar system. KFkairosfocus
August 9, 2014
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Axel: ISIS is its own agent, whatever convenient temporary alliances it had, cf here on what a Caliphate is about. As at now, Iraq is a three-way geostrategic contest: Iran seeking to re-create a complete Persian arc from India to Syria, the renewed Ottomans, and the Sunni Caliphate backed by Sunni money (and likely the Muslim Brotherhood or the like). Whichever way it goes, trouble. And remember the Obama Administration was trying to align with Iran as a counter to ISIS once it pushed deep into Iraq. KFkairosfocus
August 9, 2014
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Leodp and Anthropic: Sobering developments in Iraq etc indeed -- but with the pattern of ideological blindness and denial of reality we have been seeing, don't hold your breath. An accessible source with very good information is here, and I have found this Nehls-Eric book hosted for free download in that site, very helpful, even eye-opening. The vol 2 on debate points and counterpoints here is also helpful. There is much more, I find this site the best one stop shop on the overall issues. Current geostrategic challenges are another matter, my boil-down is, do not underestimate that IslamISM in its various guises is a religiously motivated global conquest ideology, which has achieved state power in several ME states in our time, and is at nuke threshold in Iran. The documented intent is to conquer the world across this century, and that includes per the Black Flag Army Hadith, a rise of an all-conquering army from the direction of Khorasan (E Iran and beyond), a spreading to the Mesopotamia-Syria zone, conquest of Jews and Jerusalem, the Gharqad tree hadith massacre of Jews that appears in Clause 7 of the Hamas Covenant, and the domination of the world to the E and the W from there by the Mahdi figure who will be in the Black Flag army, and will be accompanied by Isa . . . an Islamic latterday figure who is their version of an eschatological Jesus (with little relevance to the one we find in the NT). KF PS: Those pondering sad and even horrific current events and perplexed by media reports will find the articles here, here, here useful. I find the Plato's Cave style gap between the dominant media and education system narratives on ever so many topics and the evident realities that come out if one takes just a little while to investigate beyond the headlined narratives, gaps that seem to be no-go zones -- other than a drumbeat of dismissive quips and talking points -- all too soberly revealing. PPS: Follow events here and contrast coverage with what is in the major news, then ask yourself about the Plato's cave shadow show game.kairosfocus
August 9, 2014
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Rich: I clearly identified the challenge that puts cells and 747s in utterly different classes (types of things), kinematic von Neumann self replication -- as has been recognised and responded to by others above. FSCO/I is present in both, and is separately an index of design for reasons easily assessed from the OP . . . which you have studiously avoided addressing. (Kindly, note: FSCO/I is a commonly observed phenomenon, in organised systems reducible to the sort of nodes and arcs framework commonly seen in say DWG files used by AutoCAD, and the sort of string, coded data structures that we use for text, program statements etc. The latter is WLOG as a 3-d arrangement such as an Abu Cardinal fishing reel is reducible to the sort of special string structure that a DWG file exemplifies. The point being, that FSCO/I is a threshold metric, an index of the point whee it is no longer plausible to argue that the haystack [= config space] is credibly searchable on accessible atomic and temporal resources by blind chance and mechanical necessity. 500 - 1,000 bits suffices. As such the side track you raised and wish to keep pulling away on, is an irrelevancy. Sufficient has been said to answer any reasonable concern, and the point now is to return focus tot he pivotal matter and the linked focus of the OP. Where, it is a well known objector tactic to engage on tangents and lead away from the focal issue. Kindly examine again the small infographic in the OP.) For "completeness" I note that a vNSR facility implicates:
(i) an underlying storable code to record the required information to create not only (a) the primary functional machine . . . but also (b) the self-replicating facility; and, that (c) can express step by step finite procedures for using the facility [--> algorithms]; (ii) a coded blueprint/tape record of such specifications and (explicit or implicit) instructions, together with (iii) a tape reader [[called “the constructor” by von Neumann] that reads and interprets the coded specifications and associated instructions; thus controlling: (iv) position-arm implementing machines with “tool tips” controlled by the tape reader and used to carry out the action-steps for the specified replication (including replication of the constructor itself); backed up by (v) either: (1) a pre-existing reservoir of required parts and energy sources, or (2) associated “metabolic” machines carrying out activities that as a part of their function, can provide required specific materials/parts and forms of energy for the replication facility, by using the generic resources in the surrounding environment. Also, parts (ii), (iii) and (iv) are each necessary for and together are jointly sufficient to implement a self-replicating machine with an integral von Neumann universal constructor. That is, we see here an irreducibly complex set of core components that must all be present in a properly organised fashion for a successful self-replicating machine to exist. [[Take just one core part out, and self-replicating functionality ceases: the self-replicating machine is irreducibly complex (IC).]. This irreducible complexity is compounded by the requirement (i) for codes, requiring organised symbols and rules to specify both steps to take and formats for storing information, and (v) for appropriate material resources and energy sources
These, we know how to analyse but to implement is an utterly different story. 747's (etc) are just not there yet. But, plainly a vNSR implicates FSCO/I, which in the case of the cell is obvious from its functionally specific organisation and the use of string info storage structures, in D/RNA. The Jumbo jet incorporates a lot of functionally specific complex organisation, and these days with heavy involvement of computers, any number of string data structures. Both exhibit copious FSCO/I and are not plausibly explicable on successful blind chance and mechanical necessity based needle in haystack searches. The only empirically known, analytically plausible causal factor that adequately accounts for such FSCO/I is design. KFkairosfocus
August 9, 2014
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While it certainly isn't a cell and it isn't life, I found the Wired article about self replicating molecules very interesting. That makes two very interesting articles that Rich linked to. Neither are threatening to ID. Thank you Rich.jerry
August 8, 2014
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“Although the tiniest living things known to science, bacterial cells, are incredibly small (10^-12 grams), each is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of elegantly designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world”. Michael Denton, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," 1986, p. 250. The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines "We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today,,, Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each which is composed of a set of large protein machines." Bruce Alberts: Former President, National Academy of Sciences; "To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must first magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is 20 kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would see then would be an object of unparalleled complexity,...we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity." Michael Denton PhD., Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, pg.328 “Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, consists of artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction and a capacity not equaled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours" Michael Denton PhD. Evolution: A Theory In Crisis pg. 329 “a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.” – R. C. Wysong 'The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica." Carl Sagan, "Life" in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894 HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY – WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION Excerpt: A number of mathematicians, familiar with the biological problems, spoke at that 1966 Wistar Institute,, For example, Murray Eden showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that,, E. coli contain(s) over a trillion (10^12) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. *Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist12.htm Moleular Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: - Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz' deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures. https://docs.google.com/document/d/18hO1bteXTPOqQtd2H12PI5wFFoTjwg8uBAU5N0nEQIE/edit 3-D Structure Of Human Genome: Fractal Globule Architecture Packs Two Meters Of DNA Into Each Cell - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: the information density in the nucleus is trillions of times higher than on a computer chip -- while avoiding the knots and tangles that might interfere with the cell's ability to read its own genome. Moreover, the DNA can easily unfold and refold during gene activation, gene repression, and cell replication. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008142957.htm "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 2012 Excerpt: "This is bad news. Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year.",,, Even with shortcuts like averaging, "any possible technological advance is overwhelmed by the relentless growth of interactions among all components of the system," Koch said. "It is not feasible to understand evolved organisms by exhaustively cataloging all interactions in a comprehensive, bottom-up manner." He described the concept of the Complexity Brake:,,, "Allen and Greaves recently introduced the metaphor of a "complexity brake" for the observation that fields as diverse as neuroscience and cancer biology have proven resistant to facile predictions about imminent practical applications. Improved technologies for observing and probing biological systems has only led to discoveries of further levels of complexity that need to be dealt with. This process has not yet run its course. We are far away from understanding cell biology, genomes, or brains, and turning this understanding into practical knowledge.",,, Why can't we use the same principles that describe technological systems? Koch explained that in an airplane or computer, the parts are "purposefully built in such a manner to limit the interactions among the parts to a small number." The limited interactome of human-designed systems avoids the complexity brake. "None of this is true for nervous systems.",,, to read more go here: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.htmlbornagain77
August 8, 2014
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Okay, here's my thoughts, As always I welcome comments. Arguing against anything but the simplest self replicator that is subject to heritable variation is a weak argument. The ID argument for me is there is a set of parts that must have come together all at once without a biological precursor to form the first life, and this event is statically impossible. I don't think evolutionists think that is 'the humble / simple cell', given their support of "The RNA" world. Is this all new to you?rich
August 8, 2014
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Barry, I'm trying to push ID forward as a scientific endeavor. Do you have a problem with that? UD Editor: liar. How was your deceptive citation to the Wired article pushing ID forward?rich
August 8, 2014
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Rich @ 100. I can't tell if you are being serious. Are you really suggesting that cellular life is so simple that the information necessary for a fully functioning cell is only 34k? Do you have any evidence for that other than your obviously flawed back of the envelope calculation there?Barry Arrington
August 8, 2014
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Hi Jerry. No, I'm not Carl Zimmer, but I've read his blog the loom from time to time. I was googling to try and find the least information required for self replication and found this article: http://www.wired.com/2009/01/replicatingrna/ A very quick skim seems to suggest only 30 bits was necessary? UD Editor: Rich, the article you cite has nothing to do with a replicating cell. It is hard to tell whether you were being intentionally deceptive or just sloppy. I lean toward the former, because one can't get past the first paragraph without learning the article is not about cells. The question is, what is your motive for deception? rich
August 8, 2014
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Rich, stop pretending to be an ID proponent. It is unseemly.Barry Arrington
August 8, 2014
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Rich, Thank you very much for your comments. Are you Carl Zimmer who wrote the National Geographic article? I was fascinated by the various microbes described. I would be interested in just what the basic proteins that are necessary actually do.jerry
August 8, 2014
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Hmmm.. having thought further the 747 comparison isn't fair because the base pairs are the plans to make the thing, not the thing itself. So 139,000 base pairs = (at 2 bits per base pair) = 278000 bits = about 34k! I don't think we could squeeze the entire plans for a 747 down into 34K? I suspect the avionics software alone is much bigger than that...rich
August 8, 2014
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KF: As for academia and media, they reject modern day persecution of Christians for a plethora of reasons—not least because they tend to be ideologically anti-Christian—but primarily because it contradicts their entire narrative, specifically the notion that, far from being persecuted, Christians themselves are the most intolerant groups, and that Muslims are 'misunderstood' others” who have been oppressed by the West. These themes are today so predominant in the West that few can believe they are almost entirely fabricated—but so they are, according to both history and current events, both of which are naturally suppressed or distorted by academia and media in the interest of keeping their ideologically-charged narrative alive . . ."
.... at this writing a 40K remnant of the formerly 1.5 million Christian population of Iraq hide, dehydrated and starving from people who brag of beheading, crucifying, forced conversion. They are fulfilling quite literally Islamic doctrine of what to do with 'infidels'. Even if begrudgingly admitted, these horrors are often excused or minimized as the revenge of the oppressed. Or lumped together with all religion... "you see where belief in God leads?". Ignoring that America was 99 percent Christian when it enshrined historically unheard of religious tolerance in the Constitution. That same tolerance is now (strangely) being used to try to erase all reminders of Christianity from the public square. The meme ignores that modern science sprang from a Christian base, and not by mere coincidence. Christianity teaches that nature is not God, but the creation of a rational God for his pleasure and our benefit. Therefore nature could be expected to be coherent and rational and study of it fruitful. The early scientific greats such as Newton, Kepler, Pascal, Galileo, Faraday, Mendel, etc. were all soundly Christian. Galileo wrote more on Christian theology than he did science. Newton remarked that if he had no more evidence than his thumb, he would know that there is a God and Creator of all. Another said that science was, "thinking God's thoughts after him". We've come far from that Christian base now. But if chance were the author of nature, there'd be no reason to expect it to be rational. Or precise. There'd be no reason to expect to find FSCO/I.leodp
August 8, 2014
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Thanks for that gen. on Islam, KF. Dreadful situation for those poor Christians holed up on that mountain, and Obama only prepared to drop food and water, rather than tackle the ISIS on their behalf, and take them out of there. Seemingly, it seems highly probable that the ISIS people are proxies for US troops, whose only purpose is to cause trouble all over the ME, to make things difficult for the BRICS countries to trade there. The video linked below gets interesting at about the 0.35 mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZHiArPVBAgAxel
August 8, 2014
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KF 92 Robert Reilly has written an excellent book about Islamic theology, The Closing of the Muslim Mind. I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks that Allah and Yahweh are just two different words for the same entity.anthropic
August 8, 2014
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Hi KF, InVivoVeritas and BA77, Thanks all for taking the time to write. I feel we’re assembling a good team to study information content. KF suggest that “complexity of a cell with self replication is qualitatively of a different order from even a 747” what is one to infer from this? It has a different type of FSCO/I? That FSCO/I isn’t a universal measure? KF, is FSCO/I mathematically calculable? BA77 points out that there may be some joy in counting genes of simple organisms. I’d suggest that base pairs may be better as they appear to be the lowest unit of measurement (and genes can vary in length)? “ In my column for the Times, I wrote about the record-holding tiny genome, belonging to a microbe called Tremblaya. Its genome is a mere 139,000 base pairs. “ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/23/and-the-genomes-keep-shrinking/ Let’s compare that to a 747: “The Everett facility is an assembly plant rather than a factory. It has its own reservoir to contain runoff and a dedicated rail spur to enable 16,000 suppliers and subcontractors to deliver their six million parts and components to the 747 assembly line” http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/747/ And I suspect some of those parts are made up of subcomponents. So in one sense, a 747 is more complicated than a humble cell (and I suspect if evolution is true the earliest cells were much more humble) InVivoVeritas did a great job of describing the complexity of the cell but wasn’t much help (to me) in measuring it. I think that’s what we need to make ID scientific. Also doing some research I don’t think we should be using “the simplistic cell” as the start of life. Some Evolutionists subscribe to the RNA world and that would I think require much less information. If we’re arguing that a cell was created de novo, we won’t be taken seriously.rich
August 8, 2014
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As they still do today, in 1000 BC skeptics mocked, "Where is your God?" David, the second king of Israel replied, "When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, what are we that a being so great would even think of us... much less, care about us?" When he looked at the heavens, he saw the same things we see today. For some it's just physics and chance. For others it is amazing that nature has been given true beauty, and that we have been given the ability to perceive and enjoy it. And we look for who to thank: (original video, taken over the town where I live. 1.5 minutes.) http://vimeo.com/100252962leodp
August 8, 2014
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KF -- Your quote from Plato is amazing. The striking similarity to today's situation leads me to suspect that this way of thinking has a common source; a, 'common ancestor', if you will.leodp
August 8, 2014
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Axel: Please read here, on Caliphate and related concerns from an Egyptian -- I see, now the Kurds are being driven back, BHO is authorising [limited?] air strikes. Note too Ayaan Hirsi Ali here. I find it hard to believe how we are acting 100 years after the catastrophe that launched WWI, led to WWII, sparked the Cold war, de facto WWIII, and has reached WWIV, the conflict with IslamISM. But then Ibrahim observes -- in an undesigned close echo of BA77 in the OP:
It’s the “elephant in the room” because few things show such remarkable continuity between the past and the present—while still being thoroughly ignored and treated as an aberration by academia, media, and government—as Muslim persecution of Christians. If you look at the true history recorded by both Muslims and Christians during the Medieval era—one Muslim historian tells of how one caliph destroyed 30,000 churches—you will see that the persecution and subjugation of Christians is an ironclad fact of history. Today, not only do we see Christians persecuted from one end of the Islamic world to the other, but we see the same exact patterns of persecution that Christians experienced centuries ago, including hostility for and restrictions on churches, hostility for the crucifix and other Christian symbols and icons, restrictions on Christian worship and freedom. (I discuss this in more depth here and here.) As for academia and media, they reject modern day persecution of Christians for a plethora of reasons—not least because they tend to be ideologically anti-Christian—but primarily because it contradicts their entire narrative, specifically the notion that, far from being persecuted, Christians themselves are the most intolerant groups, and that Muslims are “misunderstood others” who have been oppressed by the West. These themes are today so predominant in the West that few can believe they are almost entirely fabricated—but so they are, according to both history and current events, both of which are naturally suppressed or distorted by academia and media in the interest of keeping their ideologically-charged narrative alive . . . . Along with the aforementioned fallacy of projecting Christian/Western worldviews onto a distinctly different religion/civilization like Islam, secular Westerners almost always try to understand Islam through secular and materialistic paradigms—the only paradigms they themselves are familiar with. Thus the mainstream interpretation in the West is that “radical Islam” is a byproduct of various sorts of material discontent (economic, political, social) and has little to do with the religion itself. Westerners apparently think this way because the secular, Western experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the “other,” irrespective of grievances. Conceptually, then, it must be first understood that many of the problematic ideologies associated with radical Islam trace directly back to Sharia, Islamic law. Jihad as offensive warfare to subjugate “infidels” (non-Muslims); mandated social discrimination against non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim nations (the regulations governing ahl al-dhimma); the obligation to hate non-Muslims—even if a Muslim is married to one—all of these are clearly defined aspects that have historically been part of Islam’s worldview and not “open to interpretation.” For example, the obligation to wage expansionist jihad is as “open to interpretation” as the obligation to perform the Five Pillars of Islam, including praying and fasting. The same textual sources and methods of jurisprudence that have made it clear that prayer and fasting are obligatory, have also made it clear that jihad is also obligatory; the only difference is that, whereas prayer and fasting is an “individual” duty, jihad is understood to be a “communal” duty (a fard kifaya). All these intricacies must be understood before Westerners can understand Islam on its own terms.
Ideas -- especially those that shape ideologies and worldviews -- have consequences. Especially, dominant, false, blinding ideologies. KFkairosfocus
August 8, 2014
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Q & Leodp: Excellent questions. Force-backed, manipulative ideological conformism and how dare you point to cracks in foundations joined to a "we know best accept what we say -- or else" attitude is leading to the intellectual bankruptcy of the academy and civilisation alike. This is what Plato warned against when he pointed out that evo mat leads to radical relativism, might makes right thinking and domineering factions, 2350 years ago in The Laws, Bk X . . . and the below is yet another we ignore or distort don't you dare point out the inconvenient truth and the dates on it, much less the source:
Ath. . . . [[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [[In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily "scientific" view! Notice also, the trichotomy of causal factors: (a) chance/accident, (b) mechanical necessity of nature, (c) art or intelligent design and direction.] . . . . [[Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT.] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny], and not in legal subjection to them.
A good slice of the rage that is so noticeable is that by pointing out the inherent amorality of evo mat philosophy [even when it grabs and dresses up in a lab coat it is phil not sci] and its radical relativism, when it becomes influential or dominant it opens the door to nihilistic, ruthless domineering factions we are pointing out the elephant in the middle of the room that many would rather not talk about. And of course, when we see such factions at work in lab coats, on our TV Screens in the guise of "news" and smart punditry, sitting in Faculty Seminar Rooms [making decisions to lock out or expel those not toeing the Party Line, no matter how talented and promising], University Senates, Court rooms, and Parliaments or Cabinet Secretariats and Government Ministries, we are supposed to shut up and go along quietly as our betters know what's best. We better wake up before it is too late. KFkairosfocus
August 8, 2014
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SB: I ran back across your comment at 23, and I find it sums up the thread's pivotal issue . . . and highlights why there is still a refusal by objectors to address the issue of FSCO/I highlighted in the original post:
for some people, ID seems intertwined with religion. However, those who believe that way do not normally come up with this idea on their own. It certainly cannot be inferred from the ID arguments. On the contrary, it trickles down from the media, from academia, and from the government. Judge John Jones, for example, used the power of the state to discredit ID by institutionalizing the false claim that ID “depends on” (as opposed to fact that ID is “consistent with”) religion. This false claim does, indeed, trickle down into skulls full of mush who cannot distinguish motives from methods. On the UD front, I would estimate that 80 to 90% of the posts are scientifically based and the remainder are philosophically/theologically based. However. there is a good reason why philosophy and religion enter into the discussion. In fact, most of the errors of our adversaries stem from their failure to interpret evidence in a rational way and from their proclivity to inject religion into the discussion. Philosophical and theological errors cannot be addressed on the basis of scientific evidence. When a Darwinist starts arguing that “something can come from nothing,” or that “God would not have done it that way,” science has left the building. We either address their bad philosophical arguments for what they are or else we let them get by with it. Those are our two choices. It will not do to keep saying “lets look at the evidence” when, in fact, they are already misinterpreting and distorting that same evidence through a faulty reasoning process designed to camouflage unfettered ideology. Sometimes, you have to take an axe to the root of the tree.
As usual, you are spot on. KFkairosfocus
August 8, 2014
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KF: Meme pool is better LOL Q: I only wish there were more drift in this pool. I respect all of you who are academics. But I'm thankful I haven't had to endure the ideological intolerance you have had to. My career has been in fields where the only truth that counts is that which corresponds to the real world. In the academy false claims survive as long as they correspond with the metaphysical naturalist meme.leodp
August 7, 2014
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LOL, kairosfocus. What about mnemonic drift? After excluding diversity of biological theory from academia, and preventing the publication of (nearly all) dissenting papers, the power-brokers in the academic community has the temerity to claim that the scientific community is "in agreement" and that there is no "credible" opposition??? After doing everything in their power to destroy anyone with contrary views to their orthodoxy, why should their claims of consensus and credibility be considered a valid argument for anything? -QQuerius
August 7, 2014
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Leodp: Maybe, the meme pool? KFkairosfocus
August 7, 2014
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The answer to BA77's question may be in selective breeding. Any promising student in science who shows the slightest inclination to see ID behind the design of life will have a hard time getting an advanced degree. Any science professional, especially in life sciences, seriously questioning that natural forces and chance alone can explain all we see will be mocked, shunned and likely denied an living in his field. A university professor showing similar inclinations will be quickly removed from the university gene pool. (Unless they have already received tenure and/or long-time notoriety -- and even then they may not be safe) This occurred to me while listening to Stephen Meyer talk with Charles Marshall about "Darwin's Doubt". Marshall 1. Minimized the difficulty of the task of building new body types and 2. Put the development of Cambrian genetic code back into the pre-Cambrian so the Explosion occurred when with the much simpler flip of a few genetic switches. Marshall’s claim, as I understand it, was that the new body-plan code was pre-developed but not implemented to build new bodies until the Cambrian. It was either used for some other purpose or simply unexpressed. But: 1. If unexpressed (in the single-celled animals of the pre-Cambrian) how then could or would this code be selected for? (Unless you can come up with a selective advantage for the same code that produces, say, sexual reproduction and organs in single celled animals) 2. This would also put the development of the new code out of reach of any empirical evidence. (If not expressed, how would we know of its presence? This would seem an unfalsifiable claim). 3. As Meyers pointed out, it is begging the central question of the where the enormous amount of necessary FSCO/I came from. You can’t just move the problem back in time and then simply assume it was solved there. What unintelligent and unpurposeful random or natural process occurring without plan or goal can adequately or even plausibly explain this? Why couldn’t Marshall see the problems? This may be due to the selective breeding in the university gene pool. If he were in any way inclined or even able to recognize the challenge presented to naturalistic explanation, he would not be allowed to be a professor at UC Berkeley.leodp
August 7, 2014
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F/N: I continue to note want of engagement with the pivotal evidential issue, FSCO/I in the context of a 10^57 [solar system] or 10^80 [observed cosmos] atom, c. 10^17 s scope blind chance and mechanical necessity driven search of config spaces of at least 500 - 1,000 bits. It is utterly implausible that such a blind needle in haystack search will find anything but straw, given resources, blindness and config spaces which are at at least 3.27*10^150 to 1.07*10^301 possibilities. Where also, the very requisite for correctly arranged and coupled well matched components to achieve specific, relevant function confines FSCO/I to narrow, isolated zones in the config spaces. It seems fairly clear that it is an implicit lock-out of the possibility of considering design (the observed source of FSCO/I, e.g. the text of this comment etc in an IT age) imposed through question begging assumptions, methodological rules and pressure to conform to dominant views, that renders the implicit claim that such blind searches are feasible, seem acceptable. KFkairosfocus
August 7, 2014
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Peter: In many minds today, "faith" has been twisted to mean something like a mindless or even delusional adherence to groundless belief without or even in defiance of evidence. Aquinas' intent would have been shaped by his understanding of the creedal Christian Faith, its core warrant that gives confidence in its truth and trustworthiness, by confidence that we can know . . . which implies rationally ground confidence in . . . the reality of God, and his own personal experience of encounter with and transformation by God. When we read a clip like that, that background -- including a c. 4,000 pp unfinished book, Summa Theologica (described as "milk not meat" and as presented "as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow"! But Barth weighs in at c. 12,000 pp in his sys theol and a 1,000 pager such as Grudem is a brief intro . . . ) -- should be borne in mind. Beyond that, it can be easily shown that every worldview rests on first plausibles taken on trust as grounding a reasonable view, as neither infinite regress nor circularity are acceptable. An example is the self-evident first principles of right reason, which are seen as necessarily so on pain of absurdity but are not subject to proof . . . they are where reasoning (thus, proof as a facet) starts. That leads us to the need for comparative difficulties across worldviews on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power. He who has the faith in the well grounded sense the Angelic Doctor had in mind would indeed require little explanation. To one who poses on absolute skepticism or the like, the life of reason is closed off, as he cannot even take the first self-evident steps that require trust in first principles of right reason; reducing his pose to utter absurdity. KFkairosfocus
August 6, 2014
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"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." Thomas Aquinas Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_aquinas.html#GI8YDizO6ESQBYcy.99Peter
August 6, 2014
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