One of the problems that keeps on cropping up here at UD and elsewhere is as captioned. Accordingly, I just noted to JDK et al in the “complaining” thread as follows:
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KF, 66: >>I should note on the subtly toxic principle that has been injected in such a way as to seem reasonable (especially to those who have been led to be ever-suspicious towards or at minimum forever apologetic over, our civilisation’s Judaeo-Christian heritage).
Namely, so-called “methodological” naturalism.
The first key trick in this, of course is that there is a grand suggestion that “methodological” removes the philosophical agenda involved in the naturalism.
It does not.
Instead, it subtly converts the effective meaning of “Science” into: the “best” evolutionary materialist narrative of the world and its origins, from hydrogen to humans.
In short, when the NSTA Board said “The principal product of science is knowledge in the form of naturalisticconcepts and the laws and theories related to those concepts” they obviously meant it, and we should take due notice of that ideologically, institutionally imposed philosophical question-begging and associated censorship.
(Of course, those who have been led to believe that Big-S materialistic Science has effectively cornered the market on knowledge and truth, will often imagine that Truth has rights to “protect” itself from pernicious, nefarious error. Especially error propagated by those ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, right-wing, bomb-throwing fundamentalists. Besides, one does not let accounting fraud convicts teach accounting principles.
The toxic prejudice involved in such projections should be duly noted for what it is, and it should be set aside. And, one should be willing to recognise that when one has been deeply polarised against the stereotyped and scapegoated other and has been led to enable ruthless action, something is seriously wrong.
I repeat, we have here a case where, for the thought-crime of proposing a traditional, historically and epistemologically well-warranted schools level understanding of science: “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena,” the children of the state of Kansas were held hostage over the accrediting of their education, held hostage by NSTA and NAS.
Where, we can directly see that in 2000 the NAS put up an ideologically loaded re-definition of science and that — patently not coincidentally — it was in 2001 that the slightly reworded loaded definition was pushed into the Kansas education system: “Science is the human activity of seeking natural[–> notice, not, observationally grounded, empirically reliable] explanations of the world around us.” “Natural,” of course, given the context, should be translated: natural-ISTIC.
Whatever the real or imagined motives of those who argued for the 2005 corrective, that extreme response should be a warning. Where, let us note that JDK, above, has noticeably failed to inform us as to the letters of warning issued to the many states that c. 2005 had very similar schools-level definitions of science.
Recall at 57 above, I cited from Wisconsin as a capital case in point:
Scientific knowledge is developed from the activities of scientists and others who work to find the best possible explanations of the natural world. Researchers and those who are involved in science follow a generally accepted set of rules to produce scientific knowledge that others can confirm with experimental evidence. This knowledge is public, replicable, and undergoing revision and refinement based on new experiments and data… [Scientific inquiry] should include questioning, forming hypotheses, collecting and analyzing data, reaching conclusions and evaluating results, and communicating procedures and findings to others.
Notice, the studious silence on the demonstrable fact that the Kansas 2005 corrective definition was in line with the obvious general pattern of the states.
[–> Something, which I believe, was drawn to JDK’s attention over ten years ago by Eric Anderson, right here at UD; that sort of long-term background should be borne in mind as one reads on.]
And of course, the definitions we can find in good quality dictionaries of the generation before the big push to redefine Science itself in materialism- in- a- lab-coat terms.)
That direct world-view level implication — that science is being re-defined in ideologically materialistic terms by ruthless activists with questionable agendas — should be a first clue (and it is one Lewontin inadvertently let the cat out of the bag over).
The second key, is that most people [especially today] lack a good understanding of philosophical issues and the relevant history of science, including on the worldviews of many of its founders. To such (having been steeped in agenda-serving, one-sided secularist narratives from childhood), the following will sound like near-self-evident nonsense, though it is in fact a readily supported, sound summary:
Sometimes the most obvious facts are the easiest to overlook. Here is one that ought to be stunningly obvious: science as an organized, sustained enterprise arose only once in the history of Earth. Where was that? Although other civilizations have contributed technical achievements or isolated innovations, the invention of science as a cumulative, rigorous, systematic, and ongoing investigation into the laws of nature occurred only in Europe; that is, in the civilization then known as Christendom. Science arose and flourished in a civilization that, at the time, was profoundly and nearly exclusively Christian in its mental outlook.
There are deep reasons for that, and they are inherent in the Judeo-Christian view of the world which, principally in its Christian manifestation, formed the European mind. As Stark observes, the Christian view depicted God as “a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being and the universe as his personal creation, thus having a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting human comprehension.” That was not true of belief systems elsewhere. A view that the universe is uncreated, has been around forever, and is just “what happens to be” does not suggest that it has fundamental principles that are rational and discoverable. Other belief systems have considered the natural world to be an insoluble mystery, conceived of it as a realm in which multiple, arbitrary gods are at work, or thought of it in animistic terms. None of these views will, or did, give rise to a deep faith that there is a lawful order imparted by a divine creator that can and should be discovered.
[–> Clue: why do we still talk about “Laws” of nature? Doesn’t such historically rooted language not suggest: a law-giver? (And indeed, that is precisely what Newton discussed at length in his General Scholium to his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.) Of course, that will not move the deeply indoctrinated and polarised, but it is a clear marker to those who are willing to think more open-mindedly.]
Recent scholarship in the history of science reveals that this commitment to rational, empirical investigation of God’s creation is not simply a product of the “scientific revolution” of the 16th and 17th centuries, but has profound roots going back at least to the High Middle Ages . . . .
Albertus Magnus — prodigious scholar, naturalist, teacher of Thomas Aquinas, and member of the Dominican order — affirmed in his De Mineralibus that the purpose of science is “not simply to accept the statements of others, that is, what is narrated by people, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature for themselves.” Another 13th-century figure, Robert Grosseteste, who was chancellor of Oxford and Bishop of Lincoln, has been identified as “the first man ever to write down a complete set of steps for performing a scientific experiment,” according to Woods.
WHEN THE DISCOVERIES of science exploded in number and importance in the 1500s and 1600s, the connection with Christian belief was again profound. Many of the trailblazing scientists of that period when science came into full bloom were devout Christian believers, and declared that their work was inspired by a desire to explore God’s creation and discover its glories. Perhaps the greatest scientist in history, Sir Isaac Newton, was a fervent [–> though of course, unorthodox] Christian who wrote over a million words on theological subjects. Other giants of science and mathematics were similarly devout: Boyle, Descartes, Kepler, Leibniz, Pascal. To avoid relying on what might be isolated examples, Stark analyzed the religious views of the 52 leading scientists from the time of Copernicus until the end of the 17th century. Using a methodology that probably downplayed religious belief, he found that 32 were “devout”; 18 were at least “conventional” in their religious belief; and only two were “skeptics.” More than a quarter were themselves ecclesiastics: “priests, ministers, monks, canons, and the like.”
Down through the 19th century, many of the leading figures in science were thoroughgoing Christians. A partial list includes Babbage, Dalton, Faraday, Herschel, Joule, Lyell, Maxwell, Mendel, and Thompson (Lord Kelvin). A survey of the most eminent British scientists near the end of the 19th century found that nearly all were members of the established church or affiliated with some other church.
In short, scientists who were committed Christians include men often considered to be fathers of the fields of astronomy, atomic theory, calculus, chemistry, computers, electricity, genetics, geology, mathematics, and physics. In the late 1990s, a survey found that about 40 percent of American scientists believe in a personal God and an afterlife — a percentage that is basically unchanged since the early 20th century. A listing of eminent 20th-century scientists who were religious believers would be far too voluminous to include here — so let’s not bring coals to Newcastle, but simply note that the list would be large indeed, including Nobel Prize winners.
Far from being inimical to science, then, the Judeo-Christian worldview is the only belief system that actually produced it. Scientists who (in Boyle’s words) viewed nature as “the immutable workmanship of the omniscient Architect” were the pathfinders who originated the scientific enterprise. The assertion that intelligent design is automatically “not science” because it may support the concept of a creator is a statement of materialist philosophy, not of any intrinsic requirement of science itself.
The redefinition of science in materialist terms — never wholly successful, but probably now the predominant view — required the confluence of several intellectual currents. The attack on religious belief in general, and Christianity in particular, has been underway for more than two centuries . . . . IT WAS THE AWE-INSPIRING SUCCESS of science itself, nurtured for centuries in a Christian belief system, that caused many to turn to it as the comprehensive source of explanation. With the mighty technology spawned by science in his hands, man could exalt himself, it seemed, and dispense with God. Although Darwin was by no means the sole cause of the apotheosis of materialist science, his theories gave it crucial support. It is perhaps not altogether a coincidence that the year 1882, in which Darwin died, found Nietzsche proclaiming that “God is dead…and we have killed him.”
The capture of science (in considerable measure) by materialist philosophy was aided by the hasty retreat of many theists. There are those who duck any conflict by declaring that science and religion occupy non-overlapping domains or, to use a current catchphrase, separate “magisteria.” One hears this dichotomy expressed in apothegms such as, “Science asks how; religion asks why.” In this view, science is the domain of hard facts and objective truth. Religion is the realm of subjective belief and faith. Science is publicly verifiable, and is the only kind of truth that can be allowed in the public square. Religion is private, unverifiable, and cannot be permitted to intrude into public affairs, including education. The two magisteria do not conflict, because they never come into contact with each other. To achieve this peace, all the theists have to do is interpret away many of the central beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
This retreat makes some theists happy, because they can avoid a fight that they feel ill-equipped to win, and can retire to a cozy warren of warm, fuzzy irrelevancy. It also makes materialists happy, because the field has been ceded to them. As ID advocate Phillip Johnson remarks acerbically:
Politically astute scientific naturalists feel no hostility toward those religious leaders who implicitly accept the key naturalistic doctrine that supernatural powers do not actually affect the course of nature. In fact, many scientific leaders disapprove of aggressive atheists like Richard Dawkins, who seem to be asking for trouble by picking fights with religious people who only want to surrender with dignity.
But the ID theorists do not go gentle into that good night. That’s what’s different about intelligent design. ID says that the best evidence we have shows that life is the product of a real intelligent agent, actually working in space and time, and that the designer’s hand can be detected, scientifically and mathematically, by what we know about the kinds of things that are produced only by intelligence. It is making scientific claims about the real world. Because it relies on objective fact and scientific reasoning, ID seeks admission to the public square. Rather than retreating to the gaseous realm of the subjective, it challenges the materialist conception of science on its own turf. It thus threatens materialism generally, with all that that entails for morality, law, culture — and even for what it means to be human.
THOSE WHO NOW OCCUPY the public square will fight to keep possession of it. The advocates of Darwinian materialism believe that they are in possession of The Truth, and are perfectly willing to invoke the power of the state to suppress competing views [–> which should be a big warning-sign that something has gone very wrong] . . . [“What’s the Big Deal About Intelligent Design?” By Dan Peterson, American Spectator, Published 12/22/2005; also cf his earlier popular level summary on ID here. (HT: Wayback Machine.)]
If the just above sounds like nonsense to you, I am sorry to have to advise you in this way, but you have been led to make a crooked yardstick into your standard of straightness, accuracy and uprightness. The problem with that, is that if crookedness is the reference standard, what is really straight or accurate or upright will never be able to measure up to the standard.
A plumbline
This means, we need a plumb-line test. In this case, the actual history of the founding of science and of the views and approaches of its pioneers. No definition of Science that cannot accept the work and approach of the founders of scientific methods and disciplines across centuries can be correct.
So, here is Newton in Opticks, Query 31:
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses [= metaphysical speculations not backed by empirical support] are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover’d, and establish’d as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.
And yes, this is likely the root source of traditional summaries of science and its methods.
What you have likely never been told is what else Newton said in that immediate context:
Now by the help of [the laws of motion], all material Things seem to have been composed of the hard and solid Particles above-mention’d, variously associated in the first Creation by the Counsel of an intelligent Agent. For it became him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it’s unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature; though being once form’d, it may continue by those Laws for many Ages . . . .
And if natural Philosophy in all its Parts, by pursuing this Method, shall at length be perfected, the Bounds of Moral Philosophy will be also enlarged. For so far as we can know by natural Philosophy what is the first Cause, what Power he has over us, and what Benefits we receive from him, so far our Duty towards him, as well as that towards one another, will appear to us by the Light of Nature. ”
So, if we have a proffered definition c 2000 and echoed 2001 and 2007 that cannot deal with this history, it is patently wrong. Period.
In short, there is serious and broadly applicable force to Philip Johnson’s response to Lewontin’s cat-out-of-the-bag comments. Force, that a reasonable and responsible person should ponder rather than dismiss:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.” And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.
[–> notice, the power of an undisclosed, question-begging, controlling assumption . . . often put up as if it were a mere reasonable methodological constraint; emphasis added. Let us note how Rational Wiki, so-called, presents it:
“Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific “dead ends” and God of the gaps-type hypotheses.”
Of course, this ideological imposition on science that subverts it from freely seeking the empirically, observationally anchored truth about our world pivots on the deception of side-stepping the obvious fact since Plato in The Laws Bk X, that there is a second, readily empirically testable and observable alternative to “natural vs [the suspect] supernatural.” Namely, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity [= the natural] vs the ART-ificial, the latter acting by evident intelligently directed configuration. [Cf Plantinga’s reply here and here.]
And as for the god of the gaps canard, the issue is, inference to best explanation across competing live option candidates. If chance and necessity is a candidate, so is intelligence acting by art through design. And it is not an appeal to ever- diminishing- ignorance to point out that design, rooted in intelligent action, routinely configures systems exhibiting functionally specific, often fine tuned complex organisation and associated information. Nor, that it is the only observed cause of such, nor that the search challenge of our observed cosmos makes it maximally implausible that blind chance and/or mechanical necessity can account for such.]
That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
. . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
So, for “methodological” naturalism, we should simply read: naturalism. That is, evolutionary materialism.
It is time to address and correct the ideological captivity of science to evolutionary materialism.
For, science at its best should ever seek to be:
the unfettered — but ethically and intellectually responsible — progressive, observational evidence-led pursuit of the truth about our world (i.e. an accurate and reliable description and explanation of it), based on:
a: collecting, recording, indexing, collating and reporting accurate, reliable (and where feasible, repeatable) empirical — real-world, on the ground — observations and measurements,
b: inference to best current — thus, always provisional — abductive explanation of the observed facts,
c: thus producing hypotheses, laws, theories and models, using logical-mathematical analysis, intuition and creative, rational imagination [[including Einstein’s favourite gedankenexperiment, i.e thought experiments],
d: continual empirical testing through further experiments, observations and measurement; and,
e: uncensored but mutually respectful discussion on the merits of fact, alternative assumptions and logic among the informed. (And, especially in wide-ranging areas that cut across traditional dividing lines between fields of study, or on controversial subjects, “the informed” is not to be confused with the eminent members of the guild of scholars and their publicists or popularisers who dominate a particular field at any given time.)
As a result, science enables us to ever more effectively (albeit provisionally) describe, explain, understand, predict and influence or control objects, phenomena and processes in our world.
KF>>
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It is high time that so-called methodological naturalism was put out to retirement pasture. END
Comments
LarTanner:
It seems like you want to win hearts and minds before doing the hard research, when it ought to go the other way around.
If you want to harp on something harp on the fact that no one is trying to figure out how blind and mindless processes produced vision systems or any other biological system and yet they have all of the resources!
The hard research demonstrates living organisms and biological systems are the result of intelligent design.ET
January 29, 2018
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KF @60,
I understand that's one partisan view of "the situation." But again, the research is there for people to use. The tools are there. The logic is there.
Maybe it's an ideological barrier, as you say. But maybe, just maybe, it has no less to do with the quality of the research, tools, and logic.LarTanner
January 29, 2018
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LT, you have been following the situation long enough to know what has been going on for years with censorship, exclusion, slander and outright unjustified career busting. Bergman's Slaughter of the Dissidents would make some useful reading on some of what has been going on. KFkairosfocus
January 29, 2018
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KF @52,
Maybe I misunderstand. Are you saying that expert researchers worldwide are prohibited from exploring and publishing on where/how design processes have been implemented in the development of cell-based life? I would not think this is so: researchers do their work to get results and yield new information. You point out that there is already some published research available to build upon.
It seems like you want to win hearts and minds before doing the hard research, when it ought to go the other way around.
What am I missing?LarTanner
January 29, 2018
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Claiming that you've been misunderstood, or that I haven't correctly relayed your argument (after its been falsified) is nothing new for you, CR. We've all seen you do it before. Here is my response the last time you pulled this tactic:
UB: CR, your counter-argument is that the semiotic model does not scale to a “quantum storage medium”. But a quantum storage medium is part of a semiotic system (just as I told you months ago).
CR: That’s not my counter argument.
CR, congratulations, in your quest to protect your theory from valid criticism, you’ve graduated from mere dissembling and deception, to telling outright falsehoods.
”Just as the scope of Newton’s laws does not scale to very high velocities required to build GPS satellites, your “theory of information” does not scale to the level of quantum storage mediums” – critical rationalist, Nov 6, 2017
The quote above was posted to me by someone commenting under the name “critical rationalist”. Are you not that “critical rationalist”? Are you a different critical rationalist? Are you asking us to believe that there is another critical rationalist posting here?
If not, then you clearly made your claim (many many times, ad nauseam). Do you not remember harping for weeks about Newton’s law’s not scaling to general relativity, and demanding that I respond?
Or perhaps you will claim that this quote is too old?
Here is a later example:
“your “theory of information” does not scale to quantum storage mediums” — critical rationalist, Nov 8, 2017
And yet example another (weeks) later:
“UB’s theory of information is an approximation which does not scale”. — critical rationalist, Nov 29, 2017
And another example, later still:
“UB’s theory of information does not scale” – critical rationalist, Dec 6, 2017
And even another example from this very thread:
“Since your theory of information does not scale” — critical rationalist, Dec 9, 2017
Your claim has been answered CR. It is false. You’ll have to learn to accept it. Your counter example of a quantum storage medium requires semiosis to function. Just as I told you, months ago.
...
You remain unable to act with minimal integrity. There is no value in conversing with someone who simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the demonstrated flaws in their claims.Upright BiPed
January 29, 2018
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First, why I should care that your misinterpretation of my argument has been "conclusively falsified"?
A common way to attach a theory one finds objectionable is to present a false version of it, then point out how it's false.
Second, so can't subdivide a quantum physical system into firstness, secendness, etc? Or are you suggesting that whether a system is semiotic has nothing to do wither being able to subdivide that physical system into firstness, secondness, etc?
I can't tell one way or the other.critical rationalist
January 29, 2018
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CR, your #53 isn’t an acknowledgement. It appears to be little more than an invitation to re-argue your claims (which have already been conclusively falsified).Upright BiPed
January 29, 2018
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Kf @ 51,
I am not sure you understand what I am saying. (Take a look again at what I said at #6 of this thread.) The gist of my argument is that nobody can prove their worldview to be true-- not the theist, not the naturalist/materialist, not the pantheist etc. It is something we must believe, as the writer of Hebrews states (Heb. 11:3), on the basis of faith. The big difference is that the atheist/ naturalist/ materialist won’t admit this so they are either being dishonest or deluded, or they are daft (ignorant and stupid). Of course if they accept the truth that atheism must be accepted by faith that leaves them in an absurd position, because faith is something they claim to eschew.
However, even if we begin with faith we’re left with the question, is there any way to find out which world view is true?
In the text I cited @ #33 above, about the argument from ignorance, the authors Nolt, Rohatyn and Varzi suggest that there is a way we can do so.
These arguments suggest a false dichotomy either our evidence for a claim is conclusive or the claim itself is false. Quite obviously, however, a claim may be true even if our evidence for it is inconclusive. In the absence of proof, the rational approach is to weigh the available evidence, and, if the preponderance of the evidence favors one conclusion, to adopt that conclusion tentatively. Sometimes, however, the available evidence is not sufficient even to favor a tentative conclusion. In that case, it is best simply to suspend judgement.
In other words, we accept a world view because of its explanatory scope and power. That’s something that theism has and naturalism/materialism doesn’t.john_a_designer
January 29, 2018
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@JAD
Frankly, even logically valid arguments based on inductive logic aren’t going to get very far with our typical interlocutors because they have an a priori blind faith commitment to naturalism/materialism.
Arguments based on inductive logic and probability credence are not going to get far with me because they are bad explanations for the growth of knowledge.
For example, No one has formulated a “priciple of induction” that actually provides guidance that can be used, in practice. Nor is it possible to interpret observations without first putting them into some kind of explanatory theory. Nor is it clear how you can calculate the probably of a theory since that requires knowing the all possible choices. Unlike a die, in which you know how many sides it has, how can you include theories we have not conceived of yet, etc. It is theories tell us the number of options we have, not vice versa. .critical rationalist
January 29, 2018
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@UB
You’ve just pointed to a thread, not a specific criticism.
Are you referring to this?
CR, when you are able to acknowledge that storing information in a “quantum storage medium” is a semiotic system, we can continue this conversation.
Last time I checked, Semiosis refers to the ability to segment a physical system into very specific roles: firstness, secondness, etc. And it’s through this particular segmentation, as a means of explanation, that makes a system semiotic, not just the results.
So, by all means, explain how to segment a quantum storage medium, which is a physical system, into those specific semiotic roles.critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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LT, cf. 51 just above and the OP. We are highlighting a root-problem that blocks progress on doing actual science by abusing institutional influence and media power to impose a demonstrably historically false and philosophically tendentious redefinition of science. If that cannot be fixed, no progress will be possible with science held captive to ideology and so also to ideological lock-out. For instance, it is an amazing achievement that now dozens of ID-supportive articles have been published in the peer-reviewed literature linked to biological and to informational themes. Cosmological themes did not see so much of a lock-out. And, we will see that we first deal with setting up the physics of a cosmos and that of a solar system amenable to C-chem, cell-based, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet in circumstellar and galactic habitable zone life. Capability to do that then leads on to exploring how something like a similar simulation/analysis suite can look at the engineering of the living cell and of terraforming a planetary biosphere. Recall, only C is suitable as a fairly abundant connector-block element and water is the universal solvent, bring up N, close enough in abundance and we see how cosmological fine tuning sets the stage for aqueous medium, C-chem, cell-based, protein using, life. Then, ecosystem design and body-plan design with built-in robustness and adaptability. This then highlights the emerging field, exobiology i/l/o astrophysics -- and BTW gas giant roasters, inside Mercury terrestrials and the like are not credible candidates for terraforming. It also indicates the significance of computing [including quantum, analogue and neural network techniques], AI, cybernetics and mechatronics. We are already taking first steps with practical bio-systems engineering and we see the ecosystem concerns raised on genetically modified organisms. That points to the central importance of robust modelling and simulations. In this context, long ago, Dembski pointed to TRIZ as a theoretical framework for and initial guide to studying relevant technologies and their evolution by intelligent invention. The rising ICT2 wave in the global economy looks set to provide key technologies for the onward work. And maybe now you can glimpse why I have begun to highlight things like memristors and microscale information-using Maxwell Demon engines. KFkairosfocus
January 28, 2018
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JAD, the issue is that when a crooked yardstick is made the standard of straightness and accuracy and uprightness, then what is genuinely such will never pass the test of conformity to crookedness. This, BTW, is a main aim of agit-prop operators, for if they can so establish falsehood in the place of truth and soundness, then it becomes ever so hard to break out of the trap. This, BTW, is one reason why plumbline test cases become pivotal: the ordinary, un-indoctrinated man in the Clapham bus stop can see that a plumbline is naturally straight and upright, so also sorting out scale-accuracy. So, the ideologue is discredited. And, behind that is the importance of the cat-out-of-the-bag admission against interest. Here, we have an obvious ideological imposition that seeks to redefine science as evolutionary materialistic atheism in a lab coat. (Notice, the evasions of that problem?) The ordinary man knows that if Science is not about seeking the truth about our world, however imperfectly and provisionally, it becomes just another manipulation-tool for the corrupt powerful. Which is exactly what we saw when the families and children of Kansas were held hostage over their education and were further manipulated through a red herring led off to a strawman caricature soaked in ad hominems and set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the issue. No wonder that many can then be led towards a crumbling cliff's edge. (And BTW, the fact that the penumbra of atheistical animus agit-prop sites hate me for highlighting this consistent rhetorical habit on their part speaks inadvertent volumes on how close it hits to home.) KFkairosfocus
January 28, 2018
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UB, 49 (attn CR): Yup. KFkairosfocus
January 28, 2018
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CR, see here.
When you are able to acknowledge the demonstrated flaws in your argument, we can proceed. It is pointless to do so otherwise.Upright BiPed
January 28, 2018
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KF @35,
Frankly, even logically valid arguments based on inductive logic aren’t going to get very far with our typical interlocutors because they have an a priori blind faith commitment to naturalism/materialism. That is why I am not a big “ID as science” proponent. For me ID is mainly about drawing philosophical inferences from empirical scientific evidence. That is as legitimate for the theists to do as it is for the materialists to do. The difference is that the materialist interprets the evidence according to his a priori beliefs and world view is correct, which he clings to like a security blanket. If he can’t explain something he’ll either dismiss it as an anomaly-- “there are always anomalies”-- or, employ the canard that maybe someday science will be able to explain that “but there has got to be a naturalistic explanation-- there just has to be.” But why do they accept they’re world view so uncritically? Can he prove that his world view is true? If he can’t how can he justify his belief?
From what I see the atheists who show up here accept atheism-materialism completely on faith, which is totally contrary to their claim the eschew anything like faith. So they are not being honest with themselves or others. Of course, they’ll deny that. That’s what happens with self-deception. But then to top it all they show up here and try to cram their nutty beliefs down everyone’s throat.john_a_designer
January 28, 2018
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@john_a_designer
Why should we think that we've reached a point where things become inexplicable and therefore have to propose an entirely new realm of the supernatural?
I don't underhand it. What's wrong with I don't know? It's unclear why you would expect us to know when when we're reached this point and should give up on a natural explanation.
Do you think that observations or experience tells us when we should give up? Do you think it has somehow been revealed to us when we should give up in via other means?critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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“artifacts, murders, copyright penalties, arsons, thefts, etc” are not universals.
And the genetic code being an artifact is?
Also if ID isn't a scientific explanation for some or most of what we observe then it is a given that a scientific explanation for it doesn't and may never exist (because ID will never do regardless of anything).
The only problem with ID is just some people just don't want to hear it. And because of that they refuse to budge even though they don't have a viable alternative.ET
We can discover what is at the center of stars even though we've never been there. We can find out that those cold, tiny objects in the sky that we call stars are actually million-kilometer, white, hot, gaseous spheres. They don't look like that. They look like cold dots, but we know different. We know that the invisible reality is there giving rise to our visible perceptions.
That science has to be about that has been for many decades a minority and unpopular view among philosophers and, to a great extent, regrettably even among scientists. They have taken the view that science, just because it is characterized by experimental tests, has to be only about experimental tests, but that's a trap. If that were so, it would mean that science is only about humans and not even everything about humans but about human experience only. It's solipsism. It's purporting to have a rigorous objective world view that only observations count, but ending up by its own inexorable logic as saying that only human experience is real, which is solipsism.
I think it's important to regard science not as an enterprise for the purpose of making predictions, but as an enterprise for the purpose of discovering what the world is really like, what is really there, how it behaves and why. Which is tested by observation. But it is absolutely amazing that the tiny little parochial and weak and error-prone access that we have to observations is capable of testing theories and knowledge of the whole of reality that has tremendous reach far beyond our experience. And yet we know about it. That's the amazing thing about science. That's the aspect of science that I want to pursue.
critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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@KF
PS: I am thinking there is something seriously wrong in how people are addressing the inductive logic that is the basis of the epistemology of science, something connected to the distinct identity of entities which are observable such that we may infer information regarding state and even nature from exposures to observation.
We know your position, KF. We just don't agree and think that you're mistaken.
Furthermore, in most cases, people being mistaken about it doesn't really hurt. The problem comes when people try to take it seriously, as an explanation for science. ID is one of those cases.critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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"artifacts, murders, copyright penalties, arsons, thefts, etc" are not universals.critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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Even if that were true, that’s equivalent to “[arguing] that DNA is the result of intelligent design because we have not been able to figure out how it could possibly have developed naturally”
The same can be said for all artifacts, murders, copyright penalties, arsons, thefts, etc. The heck with what we know now tomorrow may or may not uncover something to the contrary so we better wait? Really?ET
January 28, 2018
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LarTanner:
Why wait until ‘full acceptance’?
Resources and training. Scientists tend to have specialties that they were trained for.
Why wouldn’t answering ‘follow-on’ (I would rather say ‘relevant’ or ‘associated’) questions be exactly the means to accomplish acceptance?
At first the how may be like asking an Amazon tribe to figure out how a cell phone was realized. And there are more important questions to answer. One follow-on question that would cement ID's status as the one and only paradigm would be the discovery of the software that runs living organisms. That would be more relevant that trying to determine how something that is way out of our league to design came to be. We have a hard enough time trying to understand how some artifacts came to be.ET
January 28, 2018
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@UB
ID doesn’t argue that the gene system was designed merely because materialists haven’t figured out how it came about without intelligence. DNA is part of a symbol system that was predicted to exist before it was discovered inside the cell. That system has a set of critical requirements that are only found elsewhere in written language and mathematics – two unambiguous correlates of intelligence.
What's so unambiguous about them?
Additionally, none of the experimental work by materialists to “figure out” the gene system actually explains (provides a non-intelligent pathway to) those material conditions.
Even if that were true, that's equivalent to "[arguing] that DNA is the result of intelligent design because we have not been able to figure out how it could possibly have developed naturally"
And by the way, positioning ID as a “gaps argument” requires one to assume conclusions against universal evidence to the contrary. In science, that’s the fool’s game.
Except, universals are not supported by experience. They are educated guesses. They are rejected due to some kind of criticism, such as they do not sufficiently explain the phenomena in question or there are examples to the contrary. Trying to justify universals via a number of singular observations is the fool's game because tomorrow could come along with criticism that contradicts them.
Despite the trillions of observations we have that gravity behaves universally in our local vicinity, that's less than a drop in the bucket compared to all the places in the universe that we haven't tested it. Not to mention all the times in the past in those places and all of the possible times in the future in those places. So, it would be accurate to say that, statically, it's astronomically unlikely that gravity behaves universally everyone in the universe.
Rather we think gravity behaves universally everywhere in the universe, because it is fundamental to a vast number of other theories. And it makes predictions about phenomena, such as gradational lensing, that we've relatively recently observed.critical rationalist
January 28, 2018
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ET @38 --
once ID is fully accepted I would expect investigative venues to open up to answer those follow-on questions
Why wait until 'full acceptance'? Why wouldn't answering 'follow-on' (I would rather say 'relevant' or 'associated') questions be exactly the means to accomplish acceptance?LarTanner
January 28, 2018
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The contrast is between natural and ARTIFICIAL and not between natural and supernatural.
And yes, Larry, once ID is fully accepted I would expect investigative venues to open up to answer those follow-on questions. At first the how may be like asking an Amazon tribe to figure out how a cell phone was realized. But we will trudge on because that is what we do.ET
January 28, 2018
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Nonlin.org @ 11
That’s your problem right there – “supernatural” is a made up word meant to represent a barrier but that’s only your mental barrier. Obviously if the universe is created, then everything is natural.
I see no barrier because I don't recognize a supernatural domain. There is what we know and what we don't yet know. The observable Universe might have been created but it isn't necessary for naturalism.Seversky
January 28, 2018
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KF @34 --
LT, that twerdun comes before whodunit, how twerdun etc.
I completely agree.
What's more...I am saying "twerdun." ID wins. FSCO/I shows us twerdun. The question is answered, the mystery is solved.
Because twerdun is affirmed, I want to move on and expand on what's been established by twerdun. So...now that tested, reliable signs have provided evidence and argument that ground the inference to design, I happen to be curious about what more we can say about how design produced cell-based life.
No big deal to me if this question is not of interest to you (or others). As I say, I happen to be curious.LarTanner
January 28, 2018
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JAD, evolutionary materialistic scientism is irretrievably self-referentially incoherent in many ways and is necessarily self-falsifying as a direct consequence. KF
PS: I am thinking there is something seriously wrong in how people are addressing the inductive logic that is the basis of the epistemology of science, something connected to the distinct identity of entities which are observable such that we may infer information regarding state and even nature from exposures to observation. In this context it seems people try to substitute the concept that analogies are weak arguments thus readily dismissible without serious thought; even, when they look at instances of a common phenomenon. Particularly, alphabetic, complex, meaningful code with associated communication and execution machinery. BTW, that's part of why I suggested using dice to effect a 6-state code above, to shock by a fresh instance.kairosfocus
January 28, 2018
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LT, that twerdun comes before whodunit, how twerdun etc. And besides we have already put on the table that we have taken first technological steps. In particular it is not appropriate to distract from the evidence and argument grounding inference to design on tested, reliable sign. When distraction is insisted upon that is often an evidence of the red herring fallacy at work. KFkairosfocus
January 28, 2018
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KF @ 25 wrote,
PS: It looks like there is urgent need for basic tutorials in the logic of inference to best current empirically grounded explanation and wider inductive logic (including the proper place of analogies).
It appears to me that most of our naturalist/materialist interlocutors seem to think that their world view (WV) somehow wins by default. But does it really? When have any of them ever been able to prove their WV to be true? (If any of them have, I apparently missed it.) It appears to me that the only argument that they have is a fallacious argument from ignorance: No has proven naturalism to be false, therefore, it must be true. However, the argument from ignorance is a two edged sword which cuts both ways.
Here is a textbook example:
Ad ignorantium arguments (appeals to ignorance) have one of the following two forms:
It has not been proved that P. [therefore] ~P.
It has not been proved that ~P. [therefore] P.
Here are two classic examples:
SOLVED PROBLEM
8.20 What is wrong with these arguments?
No one has ever proved that God exists
[Therefore] God does not exist.
No one has ever proved that God does not exist.
[Therefore] God exists.
Solution
Both are fallacious appeals to ignorance. Nothing about the existence of God follows from our inability to prove God’s existence or nonexistence (i.e., from our ignorance about the matter).
(Schaum’s Outlines of Logic, 2nd Ed., p. 203)
https://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Logic-Second-Outlines/dp/0071755462
Ironically, some nat/mats try to discredit theism by fallaciously accusing theist’s of the so-called God-of-the-gaps argument. Yes, some theist’s and ID’ist do make fallacious arguments but not every appeal to God or a designer is fallacious or "God of the gaps." Indeed, nat/mats are, more often than not, guilty of making a Nature or a "Darwin of the gaps" argument which is just as fallacious.
This raises some pertinent questions: (1) Is there any way to prove that your world view is true? (2) When it comes to competing world views A and B (such as theism and naturalism) how do we decided between them?john_a_designer
That direct world-view level implication — that science is being re-defined in ideologically materialistic terms by ruthless activists with questionable agendas — should be a first clue (and it is one Lewontin inadvertently let the cat out of the bag over).
“Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific “dead ends” and God of the gaps-type hypotheses.”
