Further to “Adam and Eve and Bryan College: BioLogos strikes”: Dusting off this piece from late 2012: “Top Five Myths Christians (and Non-Christians) Often Believe About Intelligent Design”
MYTH #1: Intelligent Design (ID) is just a fancy name for Creationism.
The true story: Intelligent Design theory is not a form of, nor is it synonymous with “creationism.” Rather, it is an over-arching scientific theory that disputes wholly naturalistic/materialistic accounts of the origin of the universe and the origin of life. As such it is an indispensable ally for those who espouse various creation models. ID makes NO CLAIM about the age of the earth.
Stuff to know:
The current theory of evolution, mandated for schools in many places (Darwin’s theory that natural selection acting on random genetic mutations, creates complex structures like the human brain) does not work no matter what age we posit for Earth or the universe unless …
… unless we posit that the universe is infinitely old. But there are reasons based on logic for believing that that cannot be true. So most likely it just isn’t.
The National Academy of Sciences recently dropped support for “evolution” as one of its tests for science literacy. Factors like these surely played a role. Many people in science are willing to feel flummoxed but wish to avoid sounding ridiculous to themselves. And it doesn’t look so good when the peoplewho know the most have the greatest doubts.
The main thing to know is, the science just isn’t working out the way people thought.
Not in cosmology, not in origin of life, not in human evolution. Any time you meet someone who tells you how you can reorganize your faith to accommodate the latest findings, be polite but move on.
And whatever we are on the verge of, BioLogos is on the verge of 1975 or something.
as to:
But without any empirical support that material processes can create non-trivial functional information, evolution theory is, in reality, the ‘faith’ position. Whereas ID has abundant evidence that Intelligence can and does routinely create non-trivial levels of functional information.
Stephen Meyer – The Scientific Basis Of Intelligent Design – video
https://vimeo.com/32148403
The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency – Dr David L. Abel – November 2010
Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.”
http://www-qa.scitopics.com/Th.....iency.html
“I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”
Frank Turek
corrected link:
The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency – Dr David L. Abel – November 2010
http://www.scitopics.com/The_L.....eness.html
In my opinion, ID is no more faith-based than even the less-goofy parts of the Theory of Evolution. While ID is more or less compatible with Creationism, the presumption of design does not mandate a belief in any specific intelligence.
This is due to the materialistic limitations of the scientific method, especially in the hard sciences.
For example, the transcultural, physiological effects of color has been studied extensively, but science cannot determine what is considered great art. (Alternatively, science can deny or deprecate the existence of great art, music, literature, dance, theater, film, the culinary arts, gardening, and so on—and what a dreary world that would be!)
In philosophy, law, and religion, one can study the results of world views on individuals and societies, but there are no instruments to study God, especially if God doesn’t want to be found that way.
Even the forensic nature of the study of biological history as discussed in other posts results in greater and lesser likelihoods, especially when the data is unfiltered by conscious or unconscious bias, and no attempt is made to force fit the results into the most current evolutionary paradigm.
Conversely, it’s a mistake to syncretize the latest scientific conclusions into one’s philosophy or religious beliefs, since scientific knowledge changes continually, and has been accelerating in modern times.
For (an admittedly silly) example, what happens when someone integrates the ten Solar planets with the theology of the ten commandments and then finds out that there are currently thirteen?
Trivia question: What is the total number of natural satellites orbiting the eight major planets? See
http://www.windows2universe.or.....table.html
-Q
Querius when you state:
It seems someone forgot to communicate the ‘materialistic limitations of the scientific method’ to the field of quantum mechanics:
bornagain77,
Actually, I think QM is an excellent example of the materialistic limitations of science.
We can fire specific numbers of photons and electrons at paired slits of a specified width and separation, and we can observe and record the effects. What we can’t do is account for the reason that the act of recording an observation changes the outcome.
We don’t even know whether a terrified Schroedinger’s cat trapped in a box can keep itself alive by staring intently at the image of a single isotope, thereby preventing its decay (Quantum Zeno Effect), nor can we directly measure consciousness.
Imagine this:
“The consciousness of college students listening to a lecture typically fluctuates between 11.2 and 11.5 ds (Descartes), however when in the lab, it rises to 14.9 ds and on a date, up to 16.1 ds. Administrators were measured at only about 8.8 ds, although these figures have been challenged for using a small sample size, and timed right after lunch.” 😉
-Q
Which is all fine and well Querius, but my point was simply that if the scientific method was indeed limited by materialism then materialism should never have been falsified by it.
Querius, you may be interested in this paper I just found:
Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: six experiments – Radin – 2012
Abstract: A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s(seconds). Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z = -4:36, p = 6·10^-6). Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z = 0:43, p = 0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified. By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem.
http://www.deanradin.com/paper.....0final.pdf
bornagain77,
Interesting point.
In my opinion, what was falsified was materialism excluding the existence of anything else. Maybe I should have worded it that science is limited to the material, observable, and measurable domain of existence.
Quantum mechanics, exposes phenomena on the edge between our material domain and the non-material. Specifically, that conscious observation can affect quantum behavior.
But, I wonder whether the reverse could also be true? Can material events affect the non-material?
I think Ansel Adams once said something like, “everything interesting happens at the edges.”
Thanks for the link to the paper. I’m going to need to spend some time studying it.
-Q
Querius if materialism cannot account for everything then it is false as a worldview, i.e. as a basis for reality.
Querius, that materialism is false is perhaps most easily demonstrated by the fact that matter and energy both reduce to a information basis:
That matter/energy both reduce to an information basis, and that information does not reduce to a material basis, is a direct falsification of a primary materialistic prediction. Thus materialism is false. This was done within the scientific method. Thus when you say that,,,
,,, it reveals that you don’t appreciate the depth to which materialism was undermined as a worldview.
Here are a few more notes on the failed predictions of materialism within the scientific method:
Bornagain77,
Again, interesting points.
Yes, and that’s true of all our worldviews. When Pilatus asked Yeshua Ha’Nazaret, “What is truth,” He could have responded with “I Am the truth.” And when Rabbi Shaul/Paulus wrote to the church in Corinth, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” he acknowledged the inadequacy of our knowledge and our need to trust God and His love for us.
The way I look at it is by predominant domain. Consider Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorums. They don’t invalidate mathematics, they just prove that no single system of mathematics can lead to all true statements.
Analogously, Chaos theory doesn’t invalidate predictable events, but demonstrates the volatility of initial conditions stemming from a fine granularity that ultimately extends into our macro domain. Hence, a butterfly in Tokyo really, truly can be responsible for a storm in Chicago. And we absolutely cannot predict which butterfly, but if I ever find it . . .
Together, these two utterly destroy materialism as a method for excluding non-material interaction, for example the existence and possible intervention of God.
Anyway, that’s my admittedly fallible and incomplete perspective.
-Q
of interest: An Interview with David Berlinski – Jonathan Witt
Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time ….
Interviewer:… Come again(?) …
Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects.
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/20.....-here.html
Yes, I completely agree. And mathematics often goes way beyond any material application. Non-Euclidean geometry comes to mind.
And then there’s everything that makes our actions significant: integrity, love, beauty, and so on. Where did they come from? How do you measure them?
-Q