From Philip Cunningham: The human eye, like the human brain, is a wonder

1. The building of the simplest molecular machine requires contaminate-free environments, with distinct internal conditions, made by applying separated, purified chemicals using highly controlled processes according to a plan (teleological goal)requiring several design iterations. This has not ever been demonstrated to be available anywhere in nature (outside of living biological systems or laboratories.) If anyone found any of the above anywhere except in biology, we would rightly assume that intelligence was involved. If we just found a pool of any uncontaminated, purified, non-degraded chemical, we'd immediately assume someone spilled that chemical just prior to our having found it. 2. The simplest living cell requires hundreds of such molecular machines that all fit and work perfectly together; this has never been demonstrated or shown to be remotely possible in nature. 3. Self-replication, a necessary quality of the simplest living organism, requires an information coding and translation process that operates the above machinery. This process has never been demonstrated or even shown possible in nature. 4. The machinery is made of proteins; the information is about constructing proteins and assembling them into functioning machinery. Proteins have never been found in nature. The only thing that we have ever found that produces a protein is a living organism. Where did the information that describes the building of a protein come from if there was no protein template in existence that could have been the source for the protein-building information? Where did the information come from about putting protein parts together and making them work together with other protein machinery, when no such protein machinery or operations existed? No one knows. The only known agency that generates such conditions, novel material fabrications, coded information, and highly complex, functional machinery is ... intelligence. Yet, according to JVL, "it's been demonstrated" that unguided natural processes are capable, and that "unintelligent natural processes" are a perfectly reasonable candidate. William J Murray

There are 2 disputes. Creationist philosophy vs materialist philosophy Intelligent design vs evolution theory Creationist philosophy wins from materialist philosophy, because creationism with it's 2 categories of creator and creation, separates matters of subjective opinion, from matters of objective fact, validating each in their own right. The categories of creator and creation, perfectly correspond with the categories of all what is subjective, and all what is objective. Materialism solely validates the concept of fact, it does not validate the concept of subjective opinion. Which then means subjective opinion becomes to be understood as fact, and then you get a big conceptual mess, where science is indistinguishable from ideology. Social darwinism and the holocaust, demonstrates the total failure of materialism. So everyone, including evolutionists, must accept creationist philosophy, because everyone must distinguish between matters of personal opinion and matters of fact. Then there is the dispute between evolution and intelligent design. It is shown that generally all evolutionists simply do not accept the reality of choice. But they are forced to accept the reality of choice, because it is required for creationist philosophy, which they are compelled to accept. So evolutionists are generally immoral. It would be interesting to see an evolutionist reasoning, who does accept choice is a reality of physics, and not some cultural fantasy. An evolutionist who has evaluated the reality of choice in the universe, but came to the conclusion that no sophisticated decisionmaking processes were involved in forming organisms, to a significant extent. But it makes no sense whatsoever that this powerful mechanism of choice would not be meaningfully used in forming organisms. Trying to beat the monster of mathematical improbability of getting viable DNA configurations, with your hands tied behind your back, not using the powerful mechanism of choice to explain it. 10 to the power of much, huge monsters of improbability. mohammadnursyamsu

. Seversky, You wrote in to show your support for JVL in his time of need. Since you wrote specifically about the OoL and design inference, you might expect me to respond. Most of your comments on UD are rather tedious assumption-filled rants about politics and religion, which are not on my diet, so I will skip those topics.

Once more, in my view, we are able to infer design on two grounds.

I bet you won’t stand by the words you write next.

The phenomenon or entity has not been observed to result from natural processes

For this criterium to be meaningful (to not assume its conclusion) it would require the observation of the phenomena arising from natural processes. An encoded memory system (as that predicted by von Neumann) has never been observed as a result of natural processes. You’ll notice that this statement does not assume any conclusion, it is merely a statement of documented fact.

and (the phenomenon) resembles what human beings design to a degree sufficient to at least raise the possibility of intelligent design.

The phenomenon in question is a measurable (exclusively identifiable) physical organization. It has never been observed arising from anything but human intelligence. This fact satisfies your “sufficiency” criterium to the highest degree that is logically possible; it is a matter of universal record. That is two for two, Seversky. You will now backtrack and obfuscate, if you choose to respond at all.

To take William Paley’s analogy of a watch found on the grass by a man walking across a heath, he would be justified in inferring that it was a human artefact, even if he had never seen a watch before […] A counter example would be something like the “data crystals” that were information storage devices in the science-fiction TV show Babylon 5 and looked like naturally-occurring crystals. Suppose a time traveler from that future had visited Victorian England and accidentally dropped one of those data-crystals, would the walker on the heath infer it was an artefact or just a naturally-occurring crystal or maybe a piece of costume jewelry? He would almost certainly have no idea of its true function or origin and no reason to even infer them.

Your example describes a false-negative, where an object was actually designed but there was no information to suggest it was so. This is a scenario that no one on either side of the debate even concerns themselves with. But if the person in your example studied the object (as we did the living cell) and found the encoded symbol system inside, which would clearly meet both the criteria you’ve given above, then you would infer design. That statement describes the only outcome that can be logically drawn from your example, Seversky. So why do you not infer design? Will you be abandoning both your criteria and your case study? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Allow me to offer you the same example I offered JVL about truthfully integrating science and history with your personal beliefs: Question: ”Seversky, is there a valid scientific inference to design in biology?” Answer: ”Yes, but I personally believe it will be falsified someday by an unknown natural process.” Upright BiPed

Sev, 444 [& attn, JVL]:

IDCists set a much lower bar for evidence of design than they do for evidence of evolution

Namecalling slander of guilt by invidious association tied to projection to evade facing your own selective hyperskepticism. You have been here for years so you know that the design inference and creationism in any meaningful sense work in different ways. Your objection boils down to if you dissent from a priori imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism you are to be ostracised. Neat way to avoid facing the trillions of cases in point of the observed causal source of FSCO/I, intelligently directed configuration. That makes FSCO/I, and especially complex codes and algorithms, highly reliable signs of design as causal process. Which, obviously is non question begging evidence that something capable of design was present at relevant place and time. That's where JVL's demand for separate evidence for a designer falls apart. Set aside the strong evidence we do have [which would be instantly accepted and even celebrated in a more convenient case, SETI], and demand more evidence. In short, selective hyperskepticism. UB is quite right in 443:

When you say “because there is no plausible designer available” you are offering up a distinction that simply doesn’t exist. Does it really not occur to you that neither scenario has a “designer available” until evidence of that designer is discovered and confirmed? You shouldn’t need me to point this out to you. It is specifically the finding of encoded symbolic content that confirms (beyond any reasonable doubt) it is the product of an intelligence. Clearly, if a signal was received from outer space that contained encoded symbolic content in it, then you, like everyone else on the surface of the planet, would immediately (and quite correctly) infer the presence of a previously unknown intelligence. That is to say, the presence of encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. Do you see how that works, JVL? Before the confirmation of a universal correlate, there is no evidence of an intelligence in either scenario. After the confirmation of a universal correlate, the evidence of a previously unknown intelligence objectively exists in both scenarios. But that logical continuity is not how you treat the evidence. You treat the evidence with a gratuitous double standard. In the SETI scenario, encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. In the ID scenario, it isn’t. And it should come as no surprise that if encoded symbolic content is not a universal correlate of intelligence in the second scenario, then it can’t be that in the first scenario either. But does this logical inconsistency bother you? No, it serves your ideological purposes, and that is why you invoke it.

The balance on merits is patent and trying to mislabel our reasoning as creationism does not shift it an inch. That's why I have drawn the conclusion for some time now that the issue is not evidence but quality of reasoning. The onward issue is of course even more unpalatable, but it is warranted: right reason. There is a crooked yardstick being used as a false standard of straight, accurate and upright, which demands conformity. What is actually these things can never conform to crookedness, which leads to locking in the crooked yardstick. So, the issue comes down to willingness to acknowledge the message of a plumb line, something no reasonable person can deny is straight and upright. Here, we are dealing with inductive logic and its principles. Such cannot deliver utter certainty but is vitally important for significant matters of real life. If we play games with it, we undermine responsibility and human thriving in our civilisation. Indeed, that is the valid part that opens the way for the error of scientism, science is a pivotal inductive exercise and should be respected even though it must always be open to correction. Where, observations are far more reliable than explanatory constructs such as theories regarding the inherently unobservable remote past of origins. (There are no time machines.) That a particular law, model, equation or framework of same gives reliable results in a domain so far is an observation, but it is not a guarantor of truth. The pessimistic induction on the track record of theories lurks. As, the ghost of Newton advises. Therefore, on this matter a responsible person would acknowledge that there are reliable signs of design; on a trillions member observational base. Those signs establish that the design inference and implied filter on lawlike necessity [plausible source of low contingency outcomes], chance [highly contingent outcomes on closely similar start points, comparable to tossing a die], design showing FSCO/I or the like is highly reliable. The problem is not with reliable inference on evidence, it is that that inference points where many do not want to go. KF PS: The same observational base that shows that FSCO/I is a good sign of design as cause shows that blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, including for OOL and for OO major body plans across the tree of life are not well warranted as causal process. That is NOT a double standard, pace the turnabout projection. kairosfocus

Upright Biped, you need to learn how to lie. Mung

Speckle Karen McMannus

Seversky

The phenomenon or entity has not been observed to result from natural processes and it resembles what human beings design to a degree sufficient to at least raise the possibility of intelligent design.

It's not simply (or even) a matter of a thing with resemblance to human design. It is that the only known means of creating such a design is through intelligence. We can describe and model a similar design through use of intelligence. No other means works.

The problem with using human design as a reference is that we did not design the life on this planet as far as we know and we did not create this Universe.

As above, ID does not require that we use human design as a reference. Instead, human intelligence is the only known mechanism that can produce similar or identical designs. Natural means do not accomplish the task.

If they are the product of some intelligent agency then it has knowledge and powers far beyond anything we can possibly imagine. So why would its designs look anything like those of human beings of the 19th-21st centuries?

It's an interesting theological question. Responding to this is what Steve Alten2 calls "taking the bait" since it has nothing to do with ID science. You observe that which can only be modeled or created by intelligence. Thus, the design inference is reasonable. However, you would reject that inference because God wouldn't do things that way? In this case, your religious views affect your ability to draw conclusions from the data.

When an aeronautical engineer designs a jetliner he intends it to work exactly as he designed for the lifespan of the design.

So God should design things in the way human engineers do, and if the design appears different than that, then it wasn't designed? This is the "flawed design" argument and as discussed elsewhere, it's a logical fallacy. The refutation of the design inference is to demonstrate that chance or nature can produce the effect.

Yet we are supposed to believe that this creator of unimaginable knowledge and power used materials and methods of design so hugely wasteful and inefficient that 99% of the designs failed and went extinct over the course of the history of this planet?

It depends on how you view the nature of God and the attributes of God in light of creation. In your case, you take a certain view of God - apply that to the data -- and come up with a conclusion. But perhaps you could take a different theological perspective in that case (although again, such is unnecessary to recognize design).

I suppose it can’t be ruled out as impossible but, given your fondness for estimates of probability, is it really probable? Would von Neumann have been satisfied with such wasteful and unpredictable design work?

What is the probability that God did things a certain way? That would be tough to calculate. From God's perspective, life on earth, our intelligence, our ability to do scientific work, our ability to create or design - all of these are gifts that can be used for the very short time we are alive on earth. You're comparing von Neumann's work with the creation of the universe, life and of the human intelligence (which allowed von Neumann to do any work at all)?

As for the argument that it is hugely improbable that complex biological structures we observe could have sprung into existence de novo, well, yes, we agree. That’s why we don’t make that claim. The hypothesis is one of small, incremental change over immense periods of time shaped by the widely varying environments through which life has passed.

I haven't seen that proposal in origin of life claims. Everything I've seen speaks of the warm pond and lightning. Incremental change adds nothing. If it took immense periods of time for chemical combinations to create life, then we should be able to do the same in a lab by combining the same chemicals. Creating even functional RNA has not been shown to be possible even in theory.

Yes, such a process could have been initiated by some alien intelligence and even given a nudge in the ‘right’ direction periodically but we don’t have any more evidence of that than we do for the early biochemical pathways that may have led from inanimate chemical precursors to organic life.

We use an Intelligent Design methodology to attempt to create organic life from chemicals, rather than search for the emergence of life from non-life in the wild. This is strong evidence that intelligence was involved at the beginning. Silver Asiatic

Seversky

What I do not accept – and neither, apparently, do many of those working in this field – is that the only possible origin for such systems is an intelligent designer.

It's the only one we've got right now. It's the inference to the best explanation. It seems you reject that in hopes that there's another candidate. I do not think there is even a plausible theoretical option. Silver Asiatic

Upright BiPed: Yes JVL, you go lay down for a while. Those mean ID proponents are only picking on you for using a double standard and refusing to address it directly. Shame on them. And >b>Silver Asiatic: You’re staring directly at a blatant contradiction. You refuse to acknowledge it or wonder why we are “badgering” you about it. I was just trying to put a positive spin on your denial of this. It’s not a matter of a disagreement. Your own view is logically inconsistent. You’re disagreeing with yourself and we just want to know about that. All that said … this is a place for serious discussion on the ID proposal also. You have to dig deep and really look at what is being said and then respond with your best arguments. If challenged, then go deeper — keep working on it. We just keep probing and seeking your response in kind. But not thinking in any way that my view is sensible or rational. And, guess what, I have asked questions about the design inference that I thought were pertinent and important. Guess what response I got. I tell you what: in the future I might offer my opinion about a topic or news items posted to the site but I won't seriously consider trying to explain my view or back it up. There's no point. We all know what the response will be. JVL

JVL

No, that’s not the whole criteria.

Well, I actually came up with that scenario to help you out - throw you a bone, so to speak. You're staring directly at a blatant contradiction. You refuse to acknowledge it or wonder why we are "badgering" you about it. I was just trying to put a positive spin on your denial of this. It's not a matter of a disagreement. Your own view is logically inconsistent. You're disagreeing with yourself and we just want to know about that.

I’d like to assume the best of my adversaries but they seem bent on misinterpreting me.

I'm not going to say it again - but nobody is attacking you personally.

Prejudice is a social killer.

I enjoy discussions on this site. It's a privilege and blessing for me. There are some great people here who know a lot and have some very deep insights to share - about the world and life itself. There's no attack on you personally (oops said it again - last time). You showed consideration for KF and the volcano in his region. You probably have gotten to know people here. All that said ... this is a place for serious discussion on the ID proposal also. You have to dig deep and really look at what is being said and then respond with your best arguments. If challenged, then go deeper -- keep working on it. We just keep probing and seeking your response in kind. Silver Asiatic

The fact that organisms exhibit functionally integrated complexity, is evidence that they came to be by sophisticated decisionmaking processes, intelligent design. The power of choice to directly deal with a zillion DNA configurations in one instance, by having them all as possible futures in a decision on them, is an attractive solution to surmounting the mathematical improbabilities of obtaining a viable organism. The DNA system likely processes information, duh. So the decisionmaking processes would likely be in the DNA system. The human mind would then be more of an extension of the DNA system, rather then a product of it. The information processing of the DNA system is extended to the information processing of the human mind. The DNA system should be mathematically ordered in efficient steps from zero. Because creatio ex nihilo. The 4 bases, the 20 amino acids, the 64 codons, etc. presumably these numbers would be logically efficient steps removed from zero. The universe would have the same mathematical ordering by zero. Which is how the DNA system can interact with the world outside, make sense of it. That gives credence to the idea that the root of the universe could communicate with the DNA system, so that the entire universe in a sense is involved in the decisionmaking processes by which the organism is formed. That is indicated to be true, if life is in only 1 place in the universe. If life is found in many places in the universe, that would indicate only local decisionmaking processes are involved. And then the response of evolutionists is, decisions aren't real. mohammadnursyamsu

Yes JVL, you go lay down for a while. Those mean ID proponents are only picking on you for using a double standard and refusing to address it directly. Shame on them. Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: And neither can address it. I think I will quit for a while at least. I'm tired. Tired of trying to be honest and straight and yet being accused and classed as something I'm not. Prejudice is a social killer. JVL

Silver Asiatic: So, it’s not a matter of independently looking at the evidence, but rather of assigning value to proposal based on what kind of support it has academically or professionally. If mainstream science rejects it, then that’s enough for the individual to reject the proposal. That view is just looking for support from authorities in the field. No, that's not the whole criteria. If all of that is correct, then it just means that JVL does not want to evaluate the evidence independently, using observation and logic. It's not correct. Why am I bothering? I am constantly called into question as regards my motives and ideology. On this forum I am never given the benefit of the doubt. It's very tiring. Very wearing. I'd like to assume the best of my adversaries but they seem bent on misinterpreting me. If you can't accept someone who honestly disagrees with you but would like to understand then . . . JVL

Seversky @444 That's an excellent response - thank you. There are subtle points that miss the target but the detailed critique is appreciated. I wonder if JVL accepts those ideas? Silver Asiatic

. One uses a gratuitous double standard to ignore the evidence, the other merely requires a logical impossibility. Birds of a feather.

Seversky: I haven’t dismissed anything in the history of science or the literature or the data. UB: So in order to start an open-ended description-based replicator (one that is physically capable of what we generally refer to as Darwinian or biological evolution) you have to be able to specify multiple objects (among alternatives) using a common transcribable medium. This requires an irreducible organization made up of rate-independent memory tokens (symbols) and a set of non-integrable constraints, operating together in a semantically-closed system. The products of this system must successfully specify and produce a very particular dissipative process. The objects in this dissipative process must use the laws of nature to cause the medium to be processed, the products to be produced, and the memory to be copied and be placed inside a separate replicant along with a complete set of constraints. And for that pathway to be successful (i.e. semantically closed) requires a simultaneous coordination between the individual segments of the medium that describe the constraints and the individual segments of the medium that describe the various constituents of the dissipative process (i.e. changing the arrangement of one segment, changes the products of all the other segments). These requirements aren’t merely a mouthful, they are an accurate (and heavily abbreviated) summary of what physics and biology have taught us through logic, prediction, and confirmation via experimental result. When you are confronted with these well-documented facts of history and observation, and are given the opportunity to research and discover them for yourself, you immediately jump to say (in your safe, detached, and dull retrospective voice) some variation of the defensive rhetoric: “Well, no one knows how life began”. In other words, you run for the tall grass. You pretend we don’t already know what is physically required of the gene system. You hide from the facts. Seversky: The fact is that no one does know how life began. That is not hiding from the facts, that is facing them. UB: The elements of this description [above] are carefully recorded in the physics and biology literature, and are based on prediction, logic, measurement, and experimental confirmation. None of the material observations involved here is even controversial. Additionally, the logic is both appropriately sparse and impeccable. You’ll also notice that this is about measurement and description, not about denying or supporting any proposed solution to the origin of the system. Are you suggesting here that you now agree with these physical requirements? Seversky: I have never disputed those requirements. I accept what von Neuman and others have determined are the basic requirements for any self-reproducing system. What I do not accept – and neither, apparently, do many of those working in this field – is that the only possible origin for such systems is an intelligent designer. UB: So the only thing that can motivate a decision away from your preferred position is if it can be proven that the origin of life is not possible by any unknown natural cause. We can talk about the posture of your answer in a moment, but first we need to point out the 600lb gorilla hiding behind the curtains. You are using a non-falsifiable condition as your standard of evidence in a scientific question. You’ve set up a situation where the hypothesis you are opposed to must prove a negative or the evidence in favor of that hypothesis is given no value because it does not meet the threshold. Only the proof of a negative is given the capacity to change your position. This is entirely illegitimate reasoning. Of course, no one can force you to use valid reasoning in your beliefs; that is generally something that comes when it is valued by the person doing the reasoning. But you clearly cannot stand firm and suggest that your conclusions were arrived at with anything even resembling sound judgement. That is simply not true. Likewise, when you say that you “accept” opposing evidence (such as Von Neumann and others) it is also simply not true. Under your reasoning, the evidence for your opposition can continue to pile up to the rafters while the evidence in favor of your preferred position remains at zero. Until that opposing evidence proves a negative (something it cannot do) then it does not have the power to affect your conclusion. Physical evidence, indeed, becomes meaningless. This is the ultimate protectionist shield against science and reason; demand something that is not logically possible as your standard for evidence. The bonus is that you get to say you are a person of science and reason, while concealing the fact that you’ve completely eviscerated both of everything they have to offer.

And neither can address it. Upright BiPed

Seversky: I think that in spite of your valiant efforts you are not going to make any further headway. IDCists set a much lower bar for evidence of design than they do for evidence of evolution. Thank you for your thoughts, I have read them all and generally I feel the same way. I would like to understand not only what ID proponents see and feel to be true but why. Not because I want to call them out, not because I I want to make them look stupid . . . just because I would like to understand. JVL

Here's a possible solution. I framed JVL's position something like this (and he agreed): "I’m not an expert and I cannot sign-on to ID without more support from the scientific community". Later (post 411) he said: "I’m not sure we’ll come to an agreement unless the experts in the field weigh in clearly on one side or the other." That restates and confirms the view. He's looking for mainstream scientific/academic support -- for ID to be a favored or even majority opinion. So, on the question of SETI ("Contact") vs ID. To the IDist, there's an equivalency. However, JVL could say: "No. SETI has support from mainstream science and ID does not." So, it's not a matter of independently looking at the evidence, but rather of assigning value to proposal based on what kind of support it has academically or professionally. If mainstream science rejects it, then that's enough for the individual to reject the proposal. That view is just looking for support from authorities in the field. If all of that is correct, then it just means that JVL does not want to evaluate the evidence independently, using observation and logic. I'm fine with that, myself. I know several intelligent and good people who do not like ID for this same reason. They don't trust their own judgements on it, and do not think they are competent to analyze the data. They don't want to go against the scientific consensus. That fine. But why then spend day after day, supposedly arguing against the evidence that is presented as if you're going to evaluate it independently without regard for what the academic community has to say? Year after year on a pro-ID site and then fall back and say "well, mainstream science doesn't support you guys so I can't buy-into your proposal". That doesn't make sense. If you want to engage seriously with the topic, you have to do your own research and draw your own conclusions and deal with your own logical problems. You can't just rely on what the experts have to say. If you want to take that path, fine. But you're just withdrawing from the active, on-going discussion where those outside of the academic consensus take the risk to come up with unpopular ideas. I think that would basically be JVL's only option. Just drop out of the discussion and wait around until or unless mainstream science accepts the ID proposal. Silver Asiatic

JVL, I think that in spite of your valiant efforts you are not going to make any further headway. IDCists set a much lower bar for evidence of design than they do for evidence of evolution. Once more, in my view, we are able to infer design on two grounds. The phenomenon or entity has not been observed to result from natural processes and it resembles what human beings design to a degree sufficient to at least raise the possibility of intelligent design. To take William Paley's analogy of a watch found on the grass by a man walking across a heath, he would be justified in inferring that it was a human artefact, even if he had never seen a watch before, because the item as a whole and the components from which its is assembled - brass case, glass lens, springs, cogs, etc - are never observed to occur naturally but are very similar to other devices made by human engineers. A counter example would be something like the "data crystals" that were information storage devices in the science-fiction TV show Babylon 5 and looked like naturally-occurring crystals. Suppose a time traveler from that future had visited Victorian England and accidentally dropped one of those data-crystals, would the walker on the heath infer it was an artefact or just a naturally-occurring crystal or maybe a piece of costume jewelry? He would almost certainly have no idea of its true function or origin and no reason to even infer them. The problem with using human design as a reference is that we did not design the life on this planet as far as we know and we did not create this Universe. If they are the product of some intelligent agency then it has knowledge and powers far beyond anything we can possibly imagine. So why would its designs look anything like those of human beings of the 19th-21st centuries? The other problem is that biological processes are wasteful and unreliable. When an aeronautical engineer designs a jetliner he intends it to work exactly as he designed for the lifespan of the design. They are not going to employ materials or software that can mutate away from its design specs at random. Lives depend on it working exactly as specified. Yet we are supposed to believe that this creator of unimaginable knowledge and power used materials and methods of design so hugely wasteful and inefficient that 99% of the designs failed and went extinct over the course of the history of this planet? I suppose it can't be ruled out as impossible but, given your fondness for estimates of probability, is it really probable? Would von Neumann have been satisfied with such wasteful and unpredictable design work? As for the argument that it is hugely improbable that complex biological structures we observe could have sprung into existence de novo, well, yes, we agree. That's why we don't make that claim. The hypothesis is one of small, incremental change over immense periods of time shaped by the widely varying environments through which life has passed. Yes, such a process could have been initiated by some alien intelligence and even given a nudge in the 'right' direction periodically but we don't have any more evidence of that than we do for the early biochemical pathways that may have led from inanimate chemical precursors to organic life. We're all in the same boat here. Whatever we might speculate, however we interpret holy texts, the reality is we just don't know and it doesn't look like anyone is coming to help us out for the foreseeable future. Seversky

. Checking back in ...

I’m being badgered to capitulate to something I do not support or agree with.

No you are not, and you know you are not. You are being asked to address the blatant and gratuitous double standard in your reasoning:

JVL: I would not be surprised at all if we find electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings in other solar systems UB: How would we know if we found “electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings”? What would that be? JVL: Something like in the movie Contact. A signal that’s very clearly NOT produced by unguided processes. A signal which, after inspection, was shown to have compressed data. UB: So you accept encoded symbolic content as a universal inference to the presence of an unknown intelligence in one domain, while immediately denying that same physical evidence in another domain. Why the double standard? JVL: Because there is no plausible designer available. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - UB: When you say “because there is no plausible designer available” you are offering up a distinction that simply doesn’t exist. Does it really not occur to you that neither scenario has a “designer available” until evidence of that designer is discovered and confirmed? You shouldn’t need me to point this out to you. It is specifically the finding of encoded symbolic content that confirms (beyond any reasonable doubt) it is the product of an intelligence. Clearly, if a signal was received from outer space that contained encoded symbolic content in it, then you, like everyone else on the surface of the planet, would immediately (and quite correctly) infer the presence of a previously unknown intelligence. That is to say, the presence of encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. Do you see how that works, JVL? Before the confirmation of a universal correlate, there is no evidence of an intelligence in either scenario. After the confirmation of a universal correlate, the evidence of a previously unknown intelligence objectively exists in both scenarios. But that logical continuity is not how you treat the evidence. You treat the evidence with a gratuitous double standard. In the SETI scenario, encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. In the ID scenario, it isn’t. And it should come as no surprise that if encoded symbolic content is not a universal correlate of intelligence in the second scenario, then it can’t be that in the first scenario either. But does this logical inconsistency bother you? No, it serves your ideological purposes, and that is why you invoke it.

Sun Tzu is sleeping peacefully in his grave, and tomorrow you’ll be back here again, saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Upright BiPed

Silver Asiatic: It’s been an on-going attempt, against the warnings of several members here, to gain clarification and acknowledgement of issues. It may seem like badgering because not one, but several of us have asked again and again and again – the same question. It’s not an attack against you. It’s an attempt to assist your reasoning — to provide useful information. I've explained why I believe the way I do. I"ve tried to be honest and straight. I've accepted that we might just have to 'agree to disagree'. But I'm being badgered to capitulate to something I do not support or agree with. Whether or not you think I'm being duplicitous surely you accept that there is a point when it's time to stop a pointless endeavour? I don't have anything to add to what I've already said. If you don't find that acceptable then I'm suggesting we just stop the interrogation. When does 'assist your reasoning' become something else? Is it possible to disagree with you and not be labelled mad, bad or insane? JVL

JLV

You’re just badgering now.

It's been an on-going attempt, against the warnings of several members here, to gain clarification and acknowledgement of issues. It may seem like badgering because not one, but several of us have asked again and again and again - the same question. It's not an attack against you. It's an attempt to assist your reasoning -- to provide useful information. Silver Asiatic

.

Or: I just might stop responding to you

But you’ll be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Isn’t that right, JVL? Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: ”Actually, I may just give up trying to have a conversation on this site. … rather than address the blatant flaws in my reasoning” Or: I just might stop responding to you. JVL

.

”Actually, I may just give up trying to have a conversation on this site. ... [rather than address the blatant flaws in my reasoning]”

But you’ll be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: You haven’t addressed it, you’ve repeatedly avoided it. You can’t even address it now, or you would do so. And thus, you will be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? Actually, I may just give up trying to have a conversation on this site. JVL

Silver Asiatic: You haven’t addressed the problem in 432. I'm going to stand by my statements that I am open to new data and evidence and to try and keep an open mind. AND, AGAIN, as I have already said: when the design evidence isn't convincing THEN I will also consider other physical evidence of designers. You're just badgering now. JVL

. You haven’t addressed it, you’ve repeatedly avoided it. You can’t even address it now, or you would do so. And thus, you will be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? Upright BiPed

JVL You haven't addressed the problem in 432. Contact - evidence of unknown designer. You accept. ID - same evidence. You say no plausible designer. Silver Asiatic

Upright BiPed: You don’t find it “lacking”. You use a double standard to avoid it. I think I have explained my position adequately. I accept that you don't agree with it. I'm happy to leave it at that. You're not. Why is that? JVL

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JVL: I would not be surprised at all if we find electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings in other solar systems UB: How would we know if we found “electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings”? What would that be? JVL: Something like in the movie Contact. A signal that’s very clearly NOT produced by unguided processes. A signal which, after inspection, was shown to have compressed data. UB: So you accept encoded symbolic content as a universal inference to the presence of an unknown intelligence in one domain, while immediately denying that same physical evidence in another domain. Why the double standard? JVL: Because there is no plausible designer available.

You don’t find it “lacking”. You use a gratuitous double standard in your reasoning in order to avoid it. It is right there in your own words. And thus, you will be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: Because you will be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? As I've explained: accepting the design hypothesis depends on a) accepting the claims for design found in nature and b) finding independent evidence of a designer. When I find evidence for a) is lacking then I look for b). I've said this already. How many times do you want me to repeat it? JVL

. Because you will be back here tomorrow saying “No evidence of a designer means no design”. Correct? Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: If you can deal with the double standard, then do so. I think I have. You don't think so. Why can't we just leave it? Why can't you just leave it? JVL

. Here are the “contrasting statements”:

JVL: I would not be surprised at all if we find electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings in other solar systems UB: How would we know if we found “electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings”? What would that be? JVL: Something like in the movie Contact. A signal that’s very clearly NOT produced by unguided processes. A signal which, after inspection, was shown to have compressed data. UB: So you accept encoded symbolic content as a universal inference to the presence of an unknown intelligence in one domain, while immediately denying that same physical evidence in another domain. Why the double standard? JVL: Because there is no plausible designer available.

If you can deal with the double standard, then do so. Upright BiPed

Silver Asiatic: That is good, but following UBP @424 above – it does require a commitment from you to pursue and seek to understand the evidence provided. I think i have already made that commitment. I stand by my previous statement to be open to new evidence and data. JVL

Upright BiPed: When you typed out the sentence “I think I have addressed that issue elsewhere”, you knew it was false. Not correct. We are not “agreeing to disagree” – that is a sentiment for disagreements about facts of matter. You are using it to avoid the double standard in your reasoning. I'm sorry you aren't happy to leave our contrasting statements as they are and letting all observers make up their own minds. If you want to continue to pursue our disagreement then you'll have to try and find something we haven't already discussed. JVL

JVL

I don’t think that statement is terribly far from what I’ve said.

That is good, but following UBP @424 above - it does require a commitment from you to pursue and seek to understand the evidence provided. Silver Asiatic

. When you typed out the sentence “I think I have addressed that issue elsewhere”, you knew it was false. We are not “agreeing to disagree” - that is a sentiment for disagreements about facts of matter. You are using it to avoid the double standard in your reasoning. Upright BiPed

Silver Asiatic: “I’m open to the ID inference and it seems promising. However, I’m not an expert and I cannot sign-on to ID without more support from the scientific community in general.” I could accept that I don't think that statement is terribly far from what I've said. I'll just stick to what I've already said. JVL

"I'm open to the ID inference and it seems promising. However, I'm not an expert and I cannot sign-on to ID without more support from the scientific community in general." I could accept that. Silver Asiatic

Upright BiPed: You failed to address the double standard in your reasoning.. I think I have addressed that issue elsewhere. You disagree. I've got nothing to add. Shall we just leave it? I'm happy to just agree to disagree. JVL

Kairosfocus: Just talked with a schoolmate and old friend in Barbados. Cloud overhead, night like in the day, maybe 1/8 inch ash precipitated from fine ash, maybe 1/2 way up B’dos. Cloud this morning and sustained so there is steady venting from the volcano. Familiar stuff, stay indoors, protect from inhaling and from getting in the eyes. Do not use wind shield wipers, abrasive. As you say: familiar stuff. Good luck! JVL, beyond a certain point when gaps are systematically absent, it reinforces the pattern we see from other things. There is a natural regularity here. Body plans are discrete not continuous, the nodes are there as observed, the arcs in the tree at top level are relational in terms of archetypes not in terms of ancestral patterns of descent. That has been force fitted, we are looking at islands without stepping stones, esp as the Cambrian fossil revolution underscores. I understand. PS, the biggest gap is the root, ool. Design is strongly indicated there and readily explains the onward pattern. Notice OO programming languages. Begin with object then branch onward. The origin of life is a big question mark. JVL

Silver Asiatic: One way to do that is to show that evolution is deterministic – the result of a regularity or natural law. I think that has been shown. We'll have to agree to disagree about that. The same for evolution. It has been claimed that the process is law-like and predictable. But that has not been demonstrated. I think it has been demonstrated. You offered a good summary @411. I think you’re still missing some significant issues within your own view, but you’re open to what ID offers, even if not convinced. That is appreciated. Good. We done good. But my view (and I think we see it presented here on UD every day in the news items) is the radical opposite. Almost everything we discover cuts against Darwin. Understood. JVL

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Question: ”JVL is there a scientifically valid inference to design in biology?” Answer: ”Yes, but I personally believe that it will someday be falsified by an unknown material process” That would be an honest answer JVL. It truthfully integrates both the recorded science and history with your personal beliefs.

Upright BiPed

. #411 is a positioning statement. You failed to address the double standard in your reasoning.. Upright BiPed

Jerry @ 397 & 399

Another point of view for which I agree. There are no certainties.

When it comes to right reasoning, and KF will agree here, I think - we have to be careful about the difference between science and the rational-logical structure that makes science possible. We can say there are no certainties from what we observe, test and categorize within nature, but philosophically that phrase is impossible and contradictory. From the Naval site linked, the author says:

And then, of course, there’s philosophy, which is a mere matter of opinion.

This is a common view. Even among the most educated academics, authors, teachers, researchers - there is a firm belief that scientific evaluation is the true test of reality. I'm reading Jordan Peterson now and he subjects almost all of his theories to scientific verification. However, philosophy is not a mere matter of opinion. Philosophy is the necessary foundation for science and math. And philosophy gives us absolute certainties within the realm of human rationality and reasoning. Science cannot do this, nor can math (as the article points out). KF does a nice job on this topic starting with the existence of the first created thing - and from that, showing that the First Principles of Reason are necessarily given to us in reality itself. From those, we attain certainty about the truth of things. Silver Asiatic

JVL, beyond a certain point when gaps are systematically absent, it reinforces the pattern we see from other things. There is a natural regularity here. Body plans are discrete not continuous, the nodes are there as observed, the arcs in the tree at top level are relational in terms of archetypes not in terms of ancestral patterns of descent. That has been force fitted, we are looking at islands without stepping stones, esp as the Cambrian fossil revolution underscores. KF PS, the biggest gap is the root, ool. Design is strongly indicated there and readily explains the onward pattern. Notice OO programming languages. Begin with object then branch onward. kairosfocus

Just talked with a schoolmate and old friend in Barbados. Cloud overhead, night like in the day, maybe 1/8 inch ash precipitated from fine ash, maybe 1/2 way up B'dos. Cloud this morning and sustained so there is steady venting from the volcano. Familiar stuff, stay indoors, protect from inhaling and from getting in the eyes. Do not use wind shield wipers, abrasive. kairosfocus

JVL You offered a good summary @411. I think you're still missing some significant issues within your own view, but you're open to what ID offers, even if not convinced. That is appreciated.

And, I think, everything we’ve discovered since [Darwin's] time has only strengthened his idea, in the general sense. Obviously there have been some major tweaks and additions.

I think that's the most widely-held view within the science community today. But my view (and I think we see it presented here on UD every day in the news items) is the radical opposite. Almost everything we discover cuts against Darwin. Silver Asiatic

JVL

So, is it really possible to show that unguided evolution is true if someone can always say: that could have been guided?

One way to do that is to show that evolution is deterministic - the result of a regularity or natural law. For example, something like snowflakes falling from clouds. Normally, we wouldn't say they were guided to the ground because there's no need for that. If however, the snow landed in a pile that gave the precise shape and details of a 6 ft tall statue of Abraham Lincoln - the idea that that was just part of the regularity of snow, gravity and climate would not be accepted. It would be hard to claim that there was an unguided process. The same for evolution. It has been claimed that the process is law-like and predictable. But that has not been demonstrated. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus: 60 k foot is bad, a 120 k foot super column blast would be a different story, Yellowstone or Indonesia being my main candidates. Not quite on that scale but . . . Mt Saint Helen's and that Icelandic volcano a few years ago were bad enough for me!! As for the photo record, no, it is a pattern of dots fitted into an inverted pyramid theoretical structure. And the gaps really count, starting with OOL. Gaps don't mean there was nothing in them! It might mean some species popped into existence (your view) or it might mean that some of the missing phenotypes didn't fossilise, it might mean some of the missing phenotypes did fossilise but we haven't found them yet. This is why I would never, ever depend on just one thread of evidence to come to the conclusion of unguided evolution. When you weave the threads together and realise they are all telling the same general story (given the nature of the evidence) then, for me, it's clear. I did hear one biologist say he thought the genomic record alone was enough to conclude no design. I wouldn't go that far myself. Nor would I agree with Dr Dawkins that the evidence is overwhelming even if you throw out the fossil record. Historical science, like archaeology or history itself, depends on drawing inferences from what data we have and making a parsimonious call. No archaeologist would draw a definite conclusion based on one site or artefact nor would a historian want to depend on only one source. I think evolutionary science is the same. Look at all the data and evidence you have, come up with some explanations for what you've seen, generally it's a good idea to pick the explanation with the fewest assumptions but some evidence or data may be more powerful than others so you take that into account as well. I think part of the impasse between me and Kairosfocus and Upright BiPed are because they finds some data overwhelmingly important but I don't. No matter what explanation you plunk your money down on you must, always consider any new data and evidence that comes to light. I find it pretty amazing that Darwin drew a conclusion without some of the major threads of evidence we now have but I guess that tells you how strong he thought the data was that he had at the time. And, I think, everything we've discovered since his time has only strengthened his idea, in the general sense. Obviously there have been some major tweaks and additions. But he realised he was going out on a limb by leaving a designer out of the picture and I see no reason (yet) to bring one back in. The parts of the design hypothesis I find the most compelling are the semiotic argument (hat tip to Upright BiPed) addressing the origin of life and the prospect of finding a truly irreducibly complex biological structure. Clearly both of those have the capacity to kill the unguided origin of life or the unguided evolutionary theory dead on the spot. Both of those issues are complicated and require a certain level of expertise to properly grasp. I will admit, that my views on the semiotic issue are greatly governed by the experts in the field whose work I have read. Upright BiPed and I have had a go-around with this which he occasionally brings up in case someone finds some of his comments confusing. My view on that area is: I didn't come across any of those dealing with symbolic systems saying they supported the design inference (and I think I found a couple of quotes indicating at least some of them clearly disagreed with the design hypothesis) so I decided that the science of semiotics was not in support of design. Upright BiPed very clearly disagrees. I'm not sure we'll come to an agreement unless the experts in the field weigh in clearly on one side or the other. But I know that Upright BiPed sincerely and honestly believes that semiotics is the smoking gun, and a very big one. As far as irreducible complexity is concerned: I respect and admire Dr Behe, he has always been willing to engage with his detractors (I even heard him on one of the Point of Inquiry podcasts put out by the Center for Skeptical Inquiry). And he generously testified in the Dover trial when others from the Discovery Institute failed to do so. I have no doubt that he sincerely and deeply feels he is right. And his arguments are very much science. For myself, again, I found the arguments contrary to his more compelling, especially some of those involving statistics which I understand fairly well. If this has been a helpful exercise on my part then I'm glad I bothered. I realise some of you will still think I'm deluded or crazy or a liar or a troll. I promise you I DO NOT go back to other sites and make fun of anyone here or their rationales. I hold my views honestly and I have thought about them. If I'm crazy or deluded well . . . that would be hard for me to discern from within my own thoughts. JVL

Kairosfocus Circular argument, tied to a distractive context. First, the focal issue is origin of life, where there was no reproduction available to foster the process [as you imagine]. The matter is a physical-chemical-informational one. This is the root level issue, and you know or should know the sum of the matter — after decades of effort, failure. The reason is, that FSCO/I — information and organisation to build a self-sustaining metabolising, kinematic von Neumann self-replicating machine, specifically — cannot empirically or analytically be bought by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. The search challenge and evvironmental hostility are just too great. It is too uphill thermodynamically [and no, open systems are MORE prone to disorder than isolated ones, esp when they are materials flow through systems]. The simplest plausible cell requires hundreds, and an embedded coded, algorithmic system to direct self replication. As I pointed out, the only empirically warranted source for such is intelligence. Indeed, observe the key stage in protein synthesis, a molecular nanotech, stepwise assembly instruction tape [mRNA] controlled machine [the ribosome] that fixes the components and forces an uphill reaction using assembled, isolated, correct monomers [Amino acids of correct type and chirality] carried on specific position-arm devices [tRNA] at their universal joint tool tips [CCA-end] coded to work with the information tape. That is a big hint on the sort of technology we are playing with. The first cell discussion implies a genome of 100 – 1,000 k bases. At 2 bits info carrying capacity per base, 100k is 200 kbits [and is strictly speaking too low]. That’s 200 TIMES the upper end of the FSCO/I threshold that wipes out the search capacity of the observed cosmos. In short, you cannot get TO your hoped for descent from first life forms by incremental descent with unlimited modification through blind chance variation and differential reproductive success. Where, secondly, note your hoped for engine of information-generation. Did you note the emphasised aspect of the claimed mechanism, unguided differential reproductive success, aka NATURAL — as opposed to the observed artificial selection of breeders — SELECTION? That is, a CULLING of already present variation? That is, further, a SUBTRACTION of information, not a creator of information? Haven’t you been curious as to why the shift of focus? The answer is, that the claimed source is incremental chance variation [in dozens of varieties but it comes back to that], which implies writing body plan origination code a few bits at a time, filtered for success all the way. That’s not how significant fresh code gets written, as we all know from programming 101, which is of course language based, algorithmic in other words, and intelligently created. Why? Because, functional organisation for the facets to all work together implies tight, tight specification without any reasonable incremental bridge. That is, complex function comes in deeply isolated islands amidst a sea of non-functional gibberish. How isolated? Novel body plans can be calculated as needing about 10 mn fresh bases at bottom, or observed from genomes at 100+ mn bases. That is vastly beyond the OOL threshold, making it an informationally far harder problem. [Each additional base quadruples the scope of the configuration space.] You are not going to get an out by appealing to redundancy and junk dna when that sort of scale is looking at you. Furthermore, the classic tree of life pattern smuggles in an unchallenged assumption: a continent of life forms with several dozen main body plans accessible “embryologically” through small increments. That fails at every level. For starters, embryos or equivalent build an organism body plan first, so body plan level variations get expressed early, and small variations within the plan later. The evidence is, late stage mutations overwhelmingly tend to be deleterious [see Behe’s breaking rule and the Tom Cods of the Hudson or sickle cell trait etc etc] and early ones, embryologically lethal. That underscores the point from complex well fitted together, properly arranged and oriented then coupled to get a machine to work. Parts that have to be there to begin with. Complex function comes in deeply isolated islands in huge, beyond astronomical, configuration spaces. In fact, the evidence of biogeography [most famously Darwin’s Finches etc] is about fairly minor variations, well within body plans, not body plan level origin. Morphology shows much the same, and a tree structure with architecturally elaborating nodes and branches testifies to DISCRETE stepwise specific structure not a smooth continent of being in various body forms [surprise]. As for the fossils, despite many angry denials and arguments to explain the gaps away, from the Cambrian on we consistently find sudden emergence of body plans and main varieties, stasis of form with variations, then disappearance. The evidence — and this is fair comment — has been force-fitted to an institutionalised framework, as over the decades Darwin’s hoped for filling in of gaps has failed to occur. We are north of 1/4 million fossil species from all eras and places, millions of specimens and billions in the ground, speaking clearly to the islands of function pattern. Indeed, that extends to the molecular scale, with thousands of isolated fold domains in AA sequence space. So, your hoped for one liner comeback meant to blow away those IDiots labouring away foolishly on a failed paradigm has backfired. FSCO/I is real, it comes in deeply isolated islands of function in vast configuration spaces, you don’t have a viable, empirically warranted OOL model, you cannot account for a continent of smoothly, incrementally varying life forms, the geographical, fossil and embryological evidence points to the same pattern of islands, and that is backed up by the molecules and nanotech. Fail. KF

You should publish an article//book(s) about this subject. Actually is the most sensitive subject for darwinist fairytale. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL, Yes, for now, Atlantic. Barbados may get some further air mailed soil, in many places that's 6 inches over fossil limestone. If we get a 60k footer, that becomes a much more serious story and it is part of a 100 year pattern of increased activity on the arc. Last time, the ash put up a global pulse of dust. 60 k foot is bad, a 120 k foot super column blast would be a different story, Yellowstone or Indonesia being my main candidates. Okay, I take it you are thinking on the conventional presentation. Pardon over reading, then. As for the photo record, no, it is a pattern of dots fitted into an inverted pyramid theoretical structure. And the gaps really count, starting with OOL. Currently, there is a suggestion that key parts of the Cambrian were 410 ky, not 10+ mn, as though even 10+ bn would be near enough. The plausible narrative works on sidelining the gaps. Nor is that novel, it is why punctuated equilibria was put on the table what some 50 y ago now, time is passing. It is gaps that tell. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: JVL, several hundred miles away to the S and the upper winds trend eastwards. Which should send the ash out into the Atlantic and away from most of the Caribbean islands. The issue up this end is refugees and Antigua will be taking in some. Some of those may move here. I hadn't thought of that. The coverage here is pretty minimal especially since HRH Prince Phillip died. With only 40 years between eruptions maybe this time the authorities will declare a no go zone and move settlement away from the foot of the mountain. I was astonished years ago to learn that people had built up settlements there after 1979. But then, that is a consistent pattern of human settlement in disaster prone areas. I've lived in several places which have areas that are prone to flooding. When buying a house it's easy to avoid those areas but, gosh darn, it's very common for people to buy or build houses on or near flood plains and then blame everything but themselves when they're knee-deep in water. So, your hoped for one liner comeback meant to blow away those IDiots labouring away foolishly on a failed paradigm has backfired. That wasn't my intent at all. I thought I would make a short statement about the big picture view of why I think unguided evolutionary theory is true. The fossil record is like a photo album: it's going to be spotty with lots of gaps and holes. Which is why I find the combination of all the threads or lines of data (which I mentioned) convincing as opposed to just one. I admit that when I was much younger I thought the fossil record alone was convincing. As I learned about ID (and spent time here reading the arguments in support of it) I started wondering . . . which is when I took the time to learn more about both the guided and unguided views. That includes not only reading material here but also listening to the Discovery Institute's ID: the Future podcast (which I still do but sadly many of them are repeats from years past), I checked out your blog and material after a discussion of Dr Dembski's metric, etc. Report that to your circle in the penumbra of attack sites. I don't do that. I know some do but not me. Not an activity I'm interested in or respect. JVL

F/N: It is time to hear the inadvertent warning in Lewontin's 1997 NYRB review again:

. . . to put a correct [--> Just who here presume to cornering the market on truth and so demand authority to impose?] view of the universe into people's heads

[==> as in, "we" the radically secularist elites have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge, making "our" "consensus" the yardstick of truth . . . where of course "view" is patently short for WORLDVIEW . . . and linked cultural agenda . . . ]

we must first get an incorrect view out [--> as in, if you disagree with "us" of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world [--> "explanations of the world" is yet another synonym for WORLDVIEWS; the despised "demon[ic]" "supernatural" being of course an index of animus towards ethical theism and particularly the Judaeo-Christian faith tradition], the demons that exist only in their imaginations,

[ --> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying "our" elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to "fix" the widespread mental disease]

and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth

[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]

. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [--> "we" are the dominant elites], it is self-evident

[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]

that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [--> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [--> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is "quote-mined" I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]

A word to the wise. KF PS: If you think that is idiosyncratic, notice Monod as already cited. Here is the US NSTA Board July 2000 (42 months later), giving an inadvertent confirmation that such ideological imposition is indeed an institutionalised reigning orthodoxy:

All those involved with science teaching and learning should have a common, accurate view of the nature of science. [--> yes but a question-begging ideological imposition is not an accurate view] Science is characterized by the systematic gathering of information through various forms of direct and indirect observations and the testing of this information by methods including, but not limited to, experimentation [--> correct so far]. The principal product of science is knowledge in the form of naturalistic concepts [--> evolutionary materialistic scientism is imposed] and the laws and theories related to those [--> i.e. ideologically loaded, evolutionary materialistic] concepts . . . . science, along with its methods, explanations and generalizations, must be the sole focus of instruction in science classes to the exclusion of all non-scientific or pseudoscientific methods, explanations, generalizations and products [--> censorship of anything that challenges the imposition; fails to appreciate that scientific methods are studied through logic, epistemology and philosophy of science, which are philosophy not science] . . . . Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science [--> a good point, but fails to see that this brings to bear many philosophical issues], a number of shared values and perspectives characterize a scientific approach to understanding nature. Among these are a demand for naturalistic explanations [--> outright ideological imposition and censorship that fetters freedom of responsible thought] supported by empirical evidence [--> the imposition controls how evidence is interpreted and that's why blind watchmaker mechanisms never seen to actually cause FSCO/I have default claim to explain it in the world of life] that are, at least in principle, testable against the natural world. Other shared elements include observations, rational argument [--> ideological imposition may hide under a cloak of rationality but is in fact anti-rational], inference, skepticism [--> critical awareness is responsible, selective hyperskepticism backed by ideological censorship is not], peer review [--> a circle of ideologues in agreement has no probative value] and replicability of work . . . . Science, by definition, is limited to naturalistic [= evolutionary materialistic scientism is imposed by definition, locking out an unfettered search for the credibly warranted truth about our world i/l/o observational evidence and linked inductive reasoning] methods and explanations and, as such [--> notice, ideological imposition by question-begging definition], is precluded from using supernatural elements [--> sets up a supernatural vs natural strawman alternative when the proper contrast since Plato in The Laws, Bk X, is natural vs artificial] in the production of scientific knowledge. [US NSTA Board, July 2000, definition of the nature of science for education purposes]

kairosfocus

Jerry, StephenB is the one who first consistently used the term. KF kairosfocus

Seversky, repeating a smear does not make the weight of evidence on source of FSCO/I go away quietly. It only signals that the design inference issue has been clouded by entanglement with an ideological war in our civilisation. The bottomline is, you don't get complex functional organisation and information for free. The only cash acceptable is intelligence and that's because FSCO/I is so thermodynamically uphill. With that on the table, playing the religion card comes out as a toxic distractor from the weakness of the case being pushed by the evolutionary materialistic scientism driven establishment. A now familiar problem that is making a hash of policy decision after policy decision. I predict, after sufficient pain is inflicted, we are going to get fatal disaffection, I only hope we don't tumble back into lawless oligarchy after the dust settles. Blind misanthropy, in short. KF kairosfocus

JVL, several hundred miles away to the S and the upper winds trend eastwards. The issue up this end is refugees and Antigua will be taking in some. Some of those may move here. It seems Ritchie Robertson [who cut his eye-teeth here and comes from St Vincent] is doing a good job on this one, so far only 30 kft vulcanian explosions. The truly dangerous ones are the 60 k footers -- plinian blasts with radial column collapse pyroclastic flows like AD 79 at Pompeii --and as of yesterday not yet. The St Vincent volcano killed 1500 people caught while evacuating in 1902 with one of those and in 1979 I think a few dozen were killed. With only 40 years between eruptions maybe this time the authorities will declare a no go zone and move settlement away from the foot of the mountain. I was astonished years ago to learn that people had built up settlements there after 1979. But then, that is a consistent pattern of human settlement in disaster prone areas. KF kairosfocus

JVL,

The genomic, biogeographic, morphological, fossil and experimental records all indicate that natural and unguided forces can produce the functional, complex and specified information you cite.

Circular argument, tied to a distractive context. First, the focal issue is origin of life, where there was no reproduction available to foster the process [as you imagine]. The matter is a physical-chemical-informational one. This is the root level issue, and you know or should know the sum of the matter -- after decades of effort, failure. The reason is, that FSCO/I -- information and organisation to build a self-sustaining metabolising, kinematic von Neumann self-replicating machine, specifically -- cannot empirically or analytically be bought by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. The search challenge and evvironmental hostility are just too great. It is too uphill thermodynamically [and no, open systems are MORE prone to disorder than isolated ones, esp when they are materials flow through systems]. This is being routinely glossed over, even as -- as WJM pointed out -- those who run molecular nanotech labs like James Tour [the molecular nanocar man] keep telling us how hard it is . . . therrmodynamically uphill, so it is a challenge to figure out the Le Chetallier principle game to make the reactions go the way we want . . . just one molecular machine. The simplest plausible cell requires hundreds, and an embedded coded, algorithmic system to direct self replication. As I pointed out, the only empirically warranted source for such is intelligence. Indeed, observe the key stage in protein synthesis, a molecular nanotech, stepwise assembly instruction tape [mRNA] controlled machine [the ribosome] that fixes the components and forces an uphill reaction using assembled, isolated, correct monomers [Amino acids of correct type and chirality] carried on specific position-arm devices [tRNA] at their universal joint tool tips [CCA-end] coded to work with the information tape. That is a big hint on the sort of technology we are playing with. The first cell discussion implies a genome of 100 - 1,000 k bases. At 2 bits info carrying capacity per base, 100k is 200 kbits [and is strictly speaking too low]. That's 200 TIMES the upper end of the FSCO/I threshold that wipes out the search capacity of the observed cosmos. In short, you cannot get TO your hoped for descent from first life forms by incremental descent with unlimited modification through blind chance variation and differential reproductive success. Where, secondly, note your hoped for engine of information-generation. Did you note the emphasised aspect of the claimed mechanism, unguided differential reproductive success, aka NATURAL -- as opposed to the observed artificial selection of breeders -- SELECTION? That is, a CULLING of already present variation? That is, further, a SUBTRACTION of information, not a creator of information? Haven't you been curious as to why the shift of focus? The answer is, that the claimed source is incremental chance variation [in dozens of varieties but it comes back to that], which implies writing body plan origination code a few bits at a time, filtered for success all the way. That's not how significant fresh code gets written, as we all know from programming 101, which is of course language based, algorithmic in other words, and intelligently created. Why? Because, functional organisation for the facets to all work together implies tight, tight specification without any reasonable incremental bridge. That is, complex function comes in deeply isolated islands amidst a sea of non-functional gibberish. How isolated? Novel body plans can be calculated as needing about 10 mn fresh bases at bottom, or observed from genomes at 100+ mn bases. That is vastly beyond the OOL threshold, making it an informationally far harder problem. [Each additional base quadruples the scope of the configuration space.] You are not going to get an out by appealing to redundancy and junk dna when that sort of scale is looking at you. Furthermore, the classic tree of life pattern smuggles in an unchallenged assumption: a continent of life forms with several dozen main body plans accessible "embryologically" through small increments. That fails at every level. For starters, embryos or equivalent build an organism body plan first, so body plan level variations get expressed early, and small variations within the plan later. The evidence is, late stage mutations overwhelmingly tend to be deleterious [see Behe's breaking rule and the Tom Cods of the Hudson or sickle cell trait etc etc] and early ones, embryologically lethal. That underscores the point from complex well fitted together, properly arranged and oriented then coupled to get a machine to work. Parts that have to be there to begin with. Complex function comes in deeply isolated islands in huge, beyond astronomical, configuration spaces. In fact, the evidence of biogeography [most famously Darwin's Finches etc] is about fairly minor variations, well within body plans, not body plan level origin. Morphology shows much the same, and a tree structure with architecturally elaborating nodes and branches testifies to DISCRETE stepwise specific structure not a smooth continent of being in various body forms [surprise]. As for the fossils, despite many angry denials and arguments to explain the gaps away, from the Cambrian on we consistently find sudden emergence of body plans and main varieties, stasis of form with variations, then disappearance. The evidence -- and this is fair comment -- has been force-fitted to an institutionalised framework, as over the decades Darwin's hoped for filling in of gaps has failed to occur. We are north of 1/4 million fossil species from all eras and places, millions of specimens and billions in the ground, speaking clearly to the islands of function pattern. Indeed, that extends to the molecular scale, with thousands of isolated fold domains in AA sequence space. So, your hoped for one liner comeback meant to blow away those IDiots labouring away foolishly on a failed paradigm has backfired. FSCO/I is real, it comes in deeply isolated islands of function in vast configuration spaces, you don't have a viable, empirically warranted OOL model, you cannot account for a continent of smoothly, incrementally varying life forms, the geographical, fossil and embryological evidence points to the same pattern of islands, and that is backed up by the molecules and nanotech. Fail. Report that to your circle in the penumbra of attack sites. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: Checking the map it seems that the recent volcanic explosion is too far away from you to affect your country but I guess that does depend on which way the ash cloud is blown. Any problems? JVL

Silver Asiatic: After all this long, long conversation I’m getting an idea about what is bothering you. You’re trying to say that “ID is not science”? You think this is a religious campaign? I think it depends on how it's held and approached by an individual. For example, if you look you will see a post by Jerry saying he thinks ID is more logic than science . . . whatever that means. Similarly, a person can 'religiously' believe in unguided evolution when they haven't got a clue about the reasons or evidence. I think some people support ID because they are convinced by the arguments based on the evidence. I think some people support ID because of their faith. But yes, everything could have been guided and we simply cannot see it. So, is it really possible to show that unguided evolution is true if someone can always say: that could have been guided? JVL

My quibble is with Christians who try to insert their creation myth into the science classroom and claim it is a scientific theory of similar standing to something like evolution.

So you must disapprove of the teaching of Darwin’s ideas in the classroom. They are no different than a creation myth. There is no basis for Darwin’s ideas in evolution. Genetics definitely but not evolution. jerry

Another point of view for which I agree. There are no certainties.

Nassim Taleb, popularized the idea of the black swan, which is that no number of white swans disproves the existence of a black swan. You can never conclusively say all swans are white. You can never establish a final truth. All you can do is work with the best explanation you have today, which is still far better than ignorance. At any time a black swan can show up and disprove your theory, and then you have to go find a better one.

https://nav.al/settled So while ID remains the best explanation for OOL and macro evolution events, there is always the possibility of a black swan event. Aside: my wife and I saw some black swans while in New Zealand. They were apparently brought there from Australia. jerry

I think ID is essentially a religious movement. Founding figures like Philip Johnson were quite open about their religious purposes and there was nothing wrong with that. That said, there are also a few such as William Dembski, Winston Ewert, Robert Marks and Michael Behe who have taken the scientific approach and good for them. My quibble is with Christians who try to insert their creation myth into the science classroom and claim it is a scientific theory of similar standing to something like evolution. Seversky

I don’t believe ID is science. I believe it is right reasoning based on scientific findings. So it uses the findings of science but it’s mainly logic. Aside: I have to thank Kf for introducing the concept of right reasoning to the site. I was quite familiar with logic and the principles of argument which make it up. But I had never heard the term before. Aside2: there is no confusion with ID being religious. Anyone who defends evolution as being unguided is someone who does not understand evolution or science. Objections to ID have nothing to do with religion. jerry

JVL

Also, ET, and perhaps Dr Behe, would say: how do you know the mutations which led to that eventuality (the emergence of a single celled organism) were unguided. What’s the response to that? How does one demonstrate that mutations are random with respect to fitness?

The point they're making is that nobody can say that they know that evolution is unguided. Evolutionists have made that claim. Biology textbooks have said it: "evolution does not have goals and is unguided". We repeat those things to use their ideas and terminology. But yes, everything could have been guided and we simply cannot see it. Silver Asiatic

JVL

So . . . we’re not talking about science at all. Are we?

After all this long, long conversation I'm getting an idea about what is bothering you. You're trying to say that "ID is not science"? You think this is a religious campaign? I'll have to agree with many others on this thread. You're taking a confused approach. If you have a critique, offer it clearly. Additionally, your contradictory view has been pointed out several times and you haven't addressed it to correct or explain. Silver Asiatic

. About the design inference, JVL asks:

Is it not possible to have a differing view on that and still be honest and true?

Of course it is, but you have to actually do that, which is the very thing you have not done. This is all very simple JVL. Your position is that there is no valid scientific inference to design in biology. Several months ago, you and I had a conversation where we carefully walked through that evidence, as well as the documented history of discovery surrounding it. You acknowledged the verity of both the evidence presented and its history. At the same time, you spoke of your enthusiastic expectation that the design inference in SETI would be successful. And when confronted with the fact that SETI and ID use the same logic to draw the same conclusion, you quickly applied a double-standard to your reasoning in order to avoid the design inference in ID. As you are keenly aware, this is all very well documented here — i.e. empirical facts that you cannot dispute; and logic that you both affirm and use yourself. The contradiction is unambiguous. So, JVL, is it “reasonable” or “rational” to insert a gratuitous logical fallacy (a double standard) in your reasoning, then ignore it and began repeatedly asking for the very evidence that you deny by way of that reasoning? Of course not. Speaking only for myself, all I’d like to see from you is an honest answer. Let me give you an example: Question: ”JVL is there a scientifically valid inference to design in biology?” Answer: ”Yes, but I personally believe that it will someday be falsified by an unknown material process” That would be an honest answer JVL. It truthfully integrates both the recorded science and history with your personal beliefs. But you are not able. Upright BiPed

JVL The genomic, biogeographic, morphological, fossil and experimental records all indicate that natural and unguided forces can produce the functional, complex and specified information you cite.

:) Some people can't be unbrainwashed. Lieutenant Commander Data

Jerry: The letter combination “JVL” is now over 300. This includes the message feed. Well done for adding to the total. Not that anyone, including me, cares. JVL

The letter combination "JVL" is now over 300. This includes the message feed. JVL has won. jerry

Silver Asiatic: Yes, make it logical and coherent. See #387 above. If you make a contradictory statement, either correct it or admit that you’re wrong. Don’t change the topic and don’t just ignore it. Those rules are the foundation of a rational discourse. Okay. “Ok, the design inference has the strongest evidential support. Unguided chance and mechanism does not explain what we observe in nature. I accept both facts. However, for reasons I cannot explain, I cannot accept the intelligent design inference. I know this is illogical, but I reject intelligent design, even though it is the best explanation. I do not like the idea that a god or gods exist out there. I’m not prepared to accept that concept.” I cannot sign onto that statement. I do not think the design inference has the strongest evidential support. I think that unguided processes have been demonstrated to be perfectly adequate for explaining the variety of life we observe. I do not think that intelligent design is the BEST explanation because it assumes and depends on a cause which has not been shown to exist. I'm happy to accept the idea of a god or gods IF someone can define what that means and establish with some amount of surety that such beings exist. Something like that, I would accept – at least temporarily, with the goal of overcoming that obstacle and finally embracing the truth about the matter. So . . . we're not talking about science at all. Are we? JVL

William J Murray: JVL, you’re either a troll or an idiot. And that’s coming from someone who cherishes the principle of charity in a debate and loathes to use ad hominem. There’s just no other possible explanation for what you have said above. Well done for conflating two responses to two different questions together. Your technique is awesome and powerful. I should just give up now. JVL

JVL

So, based on that, is there any reason or point for me defending my opposing view?

Yes, make it logical and coherent. See #387 above. If you make a contradictory statement, either correct it or admit that you're wrong. Don't change the topic and don't just ignore it. Those rules are the foundation of a rational discourse. I would accept this from you, JVL: "Ok, the design inference has the strongest evidential support. Unguided chance and mechanism does not explain what we observe in nature. I accept both facts. However, for reasons I cannot explain, I cannot accept the intelligent design inference. I know this is illogical, but I reject intelligent design, even though it is the best explanation. I do not like the idea that a god or gods exist out there. I'm not prepared to accept that concept." Something like that, I would accept - at least temporarily, with the goal of overcoming that obstacle and finally embracing the truth about the matter. Silver Asiatic

WJM asks:

How was homochirality achieved in the prebiotic world?

JVL responds:

No one knows. I don’t know.

JVL a few posts later:

I think it has been amply demonstrated that unguided processes have, in fact, done just that.

JVL, you're either a troll or an idiot. And that's coming from someone who cherishes the principle of charity in a debate and loathes to use ad hominem. There's just no other possible explanation for what you have said above. William J Murray

William J Murray: First, that’s an appeal to a consensus of authorities. That’s not part of a rational, evidence-based defense of the “natural forces” theory; that’s just saying a lot of smart people agree with your view. Fine, it was just a question. Because it’s not “biologists” that know what it takes at the chemical level to fashion a rudimentary, functional molecular machine. Who do you think would know better? If you haven’t looked into bio-molecular engineering, you haven’t even seen that evidence, much less become familiar with it, much less have the capacity to develop a rational opinion concerning the evidence. The process is staggeringly difficult requiring things that we do not see in nature outside of biological systems, like a ready supply of purified chemicals and contaminant-free isolated environments with different, highly specialized internal conditions. Are you assuming I haven't considered that perspective? The only agency we are aware that does this kind of thing is intelligence, and doing so requires multiple levels of design procedures to be successful. I think it has been amply demonstrated that unguided processes have, in fact, done just that. When you say "The only agency we are aware" you are queering the pitch to your view. Why don't we discuss the actual evidence instead of the interpretations? JVL

Kairosfocus: JVL, simply provide the evidence that blind chance and/or mechanical necessity can and does produce FSCo/I st or beyond 500 – 1,000 bits The genomic, biogeographic, morphological, fossil and experimental records all indicate that natural and unguided forces can produce the functional, complex and specified information you cite. JVL

JVL @ 358 asks:

Do you think someone can rationally and honestly disagree with the design inference?

People can honestly believe anything, regardless of how absurd it is, and believe their views are completely rational. Are those views rational? Internally, that depends on the extent of their knowledge and whether or not they can (1) defend their premise with reason and logic, (2) support their premises and reasoning via evidence (not what people say about the evidence) If they cannot do that, they do not have a rational view; they just believe their views - however absurd - are rational. For example, you found it a perfectly rational defense of your view to say:

So, how do you account for the thousands (if not millions) of working biologists who have also come to the non-design conclusion?

First, that's an appeal to a consensus of authorities. That's not part of a rational, evidence-based defense of the "natural forces" theory; that's just saying a lot of smart people agree with your view. Second, if you had investigated the issue, what "biologists" have to say on the matter is entirely irrelevant. Why is that? Because it's not "biologists" that know what it takes at the chemical level to fashion a rudimentary, functional molecular machine. The question is: how does a Bio-molecular Engineer build a single, simple, functioning molecular machine, and what does that process entail? Are "natural" elements and conditions sufficient to the task? If you haven't looked into bio-molecular engineering, you haven't even seen that evidence, much less become familiar with it, much less have the capacity to develop a rational opinion concerning the evidence. The process is staggeringly difficult requiring things that we do not see in nature outside of biological systems, like a ready supply of purified chemicals and contaminant-free isolated environments with different, highly specialized internal conditions. That's just to build a single, simple, functioning molecular machine; the simplest living organism requires at least hundreds of such machines that are finely tuned to work together via some sort of programming that has fantastically come into being with information about the proper function of each component molecular machine. The only agency we are aware that does this kind of thing is intelligence, and doing so requires multiple levels of design procedures to be successful. William J Murray

UJVL, simply provide the evidence that blind chance and/or mechanical necessity can and does produce FSCo/I st or beyond 500 - 1,000 bits: ______Meanwhile, we rest on trillions of cases in point, note the visual system and infer the manifestly empirically warranted conclusion, design, high quality, effective design. KF kairosfocus

Jerry: He’s playing a game and winning big time. He knows exactly what he is doing You're too kind. I'd love to think I had some plan that I was successfully implementing. Why is it that you're so distrustful of people? Is it because I disagree with you regarding the design inference? Is it not possible to have a differing view on that and still be honest and true? Do a search for the letters “JVL” and it appears over 250 times. He probably has a bet with some friends. ‘Watch me drive these ID loonies out of their minds.”k Completely false. But why would you think that was the case? What assumptions are you operating with? Let me state clearly and unequivocally: I only participate online here and on ET's personal blog. I do not have an agenda or desire to change anyone's mind or to 'bring down' ID. Perhaps you all have become way too sensitive to disagreement. JVL

Kairosfocus: this very thread provides abundant evidence of intelligence providing FSCO/I, in the form of code bearing informational strings well beyond the ASCII form threshold, at 7 bits per character. I have never disagreed that intelligent agents can produce complex, specified, functional information. But I also think that there is plenty of positive evidence that unguided evolutionary processes brought about life on Earth. I have chosen not to present a lengthy and extended explanation of the reasons for my views because, as I have mentioned, anything I had to say would merely mirror much of which is already available, including the material you have been quoting from Wikipedia. You have chosen to portray this as me 'running away' from a challenge or opportunity. I consider it a matter of not wanting to waste your time with arguments you are already well aware of and for which you have an answer already queued up. No doubt you will find some reason to criticise and marginalise this statement from me just as you have done will all my previous statements. So be it. If you'd rather have a specific and narrower conversation about an aspect of the places where we disagree then I'd be happy to respond. If you're just going to continue to reject things I have to say based on what you think I would say then I don't feel guilty not rising to your faux bait. JVL

I think JVL is living in a bubble

He’s playing a game and winning big time. He knows exactly what he is doing Do a search for the letters “JVL” and it appears over 250 times. He probably has a bet with some friends. ‘Watch me drive these ID loonies out of their minds.” jerry

F/N: To understand the truly destructive nature of what Wikipedia's ideologues are doing, consider global site rankings:

# Domain Monthly traffic 1 youtube.com 5,499,685,753 2 facebook.com 2,771,671,874 3 en.wikipedia.org 2,291,137,488 4 twitter.com 1,202,065,409 5 whatsapp.com 873,041,934 6 amazon.com 690,007,385 7 instagram.com 665,554,560 8 live.com 574,340,723 9 pinterest.com 541,906,846 10 ja.wikipedia.org 497,224,556 11 es.wikipedia.org 441,234,275

That should give context to the crooked yardstick metaphor. KF kairosfocus

JVL, you might find it useful to start with 293 above:

this very thread provides abundant evidence of intelligence providing FSCO/I, in the form of code bearing informational strings well beyond the ASCII form threshold, at 7 bits per character. We have an observation base of trillions of cases of such FSCO/I, just start with the Internet, and go to a hardware store and look at screws for the organisation side. In every case, the source is design, and we can readily see that search challenge in config spaces for 500 to 1,000 bits for the atoms of the sol system at the low end and for the observed cosmos at the high end for ~ 10^17 s would round down to negligible search. That’s why; essentially the reasoning behind the stat mech support to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Further to this, again, March 22, I presented an excerpt on the infinite monkeys theorem as a test, precisely as a case in point https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/education/wikipedia-presents-pseudo-knowledge-fake-knowledge-on-id-yet-again/ The result was 10^100 as a factor short of a 72 character ASCII string. Now, you have been around UD for a while so you should know about such and certainly you know about the nature of DNA as a code bearing complex string in the heart of the cell. This implies complex code, algorithms, i.e. linguistic, goal directed information, which on factors on the table is a strong sign of design as cause. So, I think we can safely conclude, bluff called.

Then, 296:

do you hear the echo in the cave, at this point you are projecting. There is no preponderance of evidence favouring blind chance and mechanical necessity as plausibly causing FSCO/I in Darwin’s pond or anywhere in the cosmos. There are trillions of observed cases of FSCO/I coming about by design. The string data structures in the living cells speak eloquently as to their empirically warranted cause — coding, we call it these days, used to be programming.

Also, 297:

The ideological bias driving the imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism is clear from Monod, yes, a Nobel Prize winner [and French Resistance fighter]: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/atheism/monods-objectivity-naturalistic-scientism-and-begging-big-questions/ [T]he basic premise of the scienti?c method, . . . [is] that nature is objective and not projective [= a project of an agent]. Hence it is through reference to our own activity, con-scious and projective, intentional and purposive-it is as | makers of artifacts-that we judge of a given object’s “naturalness” or “arti?cialness.” [pp. 3 – 4, Chance and Necessity, 1971] . . . . [T]he postulate of objectivity is consubstantial with science: it has guided the whole of its prodigious develop-ment for three centuries. There is no way to be rid of it, even tentatively or in a limited area, without departing from the domain of science itself. [p. 21] On a TV interview: [T]he scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity—that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe. Now, this is basically incompatible with virtually all the religious or metaphysical systems whatever, all of which try to show that there is some sort of harmony between man and the universe and that man is a product—predictable if not indispensable—of the evolution of the universe.— Jacques Monod [Quoted in John C. Hess, ‘French Nobel Biologist Says World Based On Chance’, New York Times (15 Mar 1971), p. 6. Cited in Herbert Marcuse, Counter-Revolution and Revolt (1972), p. 66.] Ideology, not evidence.

In 313 I added about 293 which was aleady being left behind:

I would presume this thread with strings of ascii text [7 bits/character] is physical evidence, the Internet, screws in bins at hardware stores [and onward] are such. The observation that such FSCO/I per observation on a trillion case base, consistently comes about by design is a fact. That is, every observed case of FSCO/I origin beyond the 500 – 1,000 bit [or 72 to 143 ascii character threshold] is design. Where, obviously D/RNA in the cell is a similar case of string data structures expressing coded algorithms that are cumulatively highly complex, per multiple Nobel Prize winning work. Codes, plainly, are language and algorithms are stepwise, goal directed procedures. So, why did you suggest that I failed to provide physical cases, especially when I went on to point to text creation, infinite monkeys theorem exercises as conceded by Wikipedia testifying against interest? Are you not aware that coded meaningful text strings come as isolated zones in configuration spaces dominated by gibberish? So that, until one is on the beach of an island of function, incremental performance is not relevant? Thus, the search challenge of relevance is to find such islands? Which then makes the configuration space observation that the atoms of the sol system or cosmos for 500 and 1,000 bit spaces [000 . . . 0 to 111 . . . 1] cannot credibly search more than a negligible fraction blindly, in ~10^17 s [~ 13.8 BY] a relevant physical issue? That strings can be reduced to binary code and that 3-d functional configurations can be similarly expressed in some description language [cf. AutoCAD etc], so consideration of bit strings is WLOG? Where, BTW, this is essentially the same analytical issue and case that has been on the table since Thaxton et al in the early 1980’s. And more? So, why did you set up and knock over a strawman about vagueness and sweeping generalisations? The relevant core case is string data structure, code bearing structures. Molecular nanotech in D/RNA (or onward AA sequences) or computer code or text on paper are just different forms of the string: -*-*-* – . . . -*. once we are beyond 500 – 1,000 bits worth [3.27*10^150 or 1.07*10^301 configs], relevant atomic resources acting as observers at fast chem reaction cycle times per observation, on sol system or observed cosmos scope cannot blindly sample more than a negligible fraction of the config spaces. Where, gibberish dominates over islands of function [unconstrained vs tightly constrained to achieve adequate function]. That is the analytical context for the empirical observation that FSCO/I bearing strings, as opposed to gibberish, consistently come from design. That is, FSCO/I is a strong sign of design. That in DNA we deal with codes so languale and algorithms so goals underscores this. And we pretty well knew that from 1953, as Crick acknowledged in his letter to Michael, his son. He directly compared to printed text. So, we can freely conclude that [a] you are grossly ignorant of the core FSCO/I based ID case, its context of Darwin’s pond or the like, and/or [b] you chose to set up a strawman and knock it over. Those are not the actions of someone standing on a strong case.

This is the third time I am drawing your attention to 293. Onward, I took time to go through Wiki as a stand-in, as you chose not to provide substantiation. Wikipedia confirms the pattern of problems. KF kairosfocus

Asauber: I wasn’t even thinking of personal experiences with God. I was thinking more of Pop Science/Pop Culture/Herd Manipulation kind of stuff. So, again, what do you think I'm unaware of that would change my perspective significantly? And, again again: You chose (I guess) not to answer my query back to you about whether or not you can explicitly explain “the origin of proteins and other complex biological systems and the genetic or other phenomena that lead to these systems.” Nor did you choose to answer when you thought design was implemented. JVL

“Well, clearly JVL has not had the same kind of personal experience that I have had of a supreme being” JVL, I wasn't even thinking of personal experiences with God. I was thinking more of Pop Science/Pop Culture/Herd Manipulation kind of stuff. Andrew asauber

Asauber: I think JVL is living in a bubble of untrue narratives that make him unaware of some important things. What am I unaware of? How do you know what I am unaware of? Because you think I would agree with you if I was aware of those things? If you said something like: "Well, clearly JVL has not had the same kind of personal experience that I have had of a supreme being" then I would agree with you. But I'd rather not guess as to what you meant. And again: You chose (I guess) not to answer my query back to you about whether or not you can explicitly explain “the origin of proteins and other complex biological systems and the genetic or other phenomena that lead to these systems.” Nor did you choose to answer when you thought design was implemented. JVL

"JVL is inadvertently exposing the bankruptcy of the reigning evolutionary materialistic orthodoxy." KF, Yes. I think JVL is living in a bubble of untrue narratives that make him unaware of some important things. Tough to break out of, I realize. Andrew asauber

JVL, UB documented your modus operandi. KF kairosfocus

Silver Asiatic: I appreciate your questions. That’s a good way to dialogue. Maybe we can all learn something – refine our arguments. Let's hope so! None exists as far as I can see. I have watched anti-IDists encounter the logic and seek an escape. The one view is alien life as designer. But that’s not a refutation. The other view which is the most common for design-denial among those who understand what ID is saying is “the multiverse did it”. But that’s not logical either because the multiverse is unexplained in its origin and indicates deep levels of design. So I don’t see an escape from the logic of ID. That's very clear, thank you. So, based on that, is there any reason or point for me defending my opposing view? By the way, I'm not a big fan of the multiverse hypothesis. Pure conjecture without much, if any, evidence. I set the standard very high. I wouldn’t accept some minor modifications, especially based on allele drop-outs or DNA degradation of the kind Behe has detailed. Having a high standard is fine. I'm just wondering if there is a standard that you would find convincing. Consider: The claim is extraordinary. All biological life – palm trees, flowers, birds, dolphins, insects, alligators … still unknown species discovered every year – everything came from the power of mutations in bacteria. Uh . . . I don't think that's quite the claim but I get your general point. And yes, it does sound extraordinary without due consideration of the evidence. So, what would I expect from Lenski’s experiments, now going on the equivalent of a half-million years of mammalian life on earth? If a single celled organism emerged, I’d consider that a victory for the blind watchmaker. How long would you be willing to wait to see if such a thing were possible? Given that Dr Lenski's experiment is NOT happening in the real world with widely varying conditions and environmental pressures? AND it's not exactly equivalent to a half-million years of mammalian life. Also, ET, and perhaps Dr Behe, would say: how do you know the mutations which led to that eventuality (the emergence of a single celled organism) were unguided. What's the response to that? How does one demonstrate that mutations are random with respect to fitness? Do you think Lenski has demonstrated the success of unguided evolution? Umm . . . I think the results of his long term experiment are consistent with our up-to-date unguided evolutionary theory. It's not a slam-dunk result by any means. JVL

AS, actually, JVL is inadvertently exposing the bankruptcy of the reigning evolutionary materialistic orthodoxy. KF kairosfocus

Asauber: If you want ME to take you seriously, less Woe Is Me and less I Oppose The Design Inference signalling and more commenting on the actual content of OPs. I shall try and follow that advice. The All Comment Paths Lead To Opposition To The Design Inference has been done already. Fair enough. What about when someone enters into an on-topic point I've made with something from another thread from weeks or months ago? Upright Biped does this. You chose (I guess) not to answer my query back to you about whether or not you can explicitly explain "the origin of proteins and other complex biological systems and the genetic or other phenomena that lead to these systems." Nor did you choose to answer when you thought design was implemented. I'm sure you have your reasons. JVL

JVL I appreciate your questions. That's a good way to dialogue. Maybe we can all learn something - refine our arguments.

What would be a logical basis for for disagreeing with the design inference?

None exists as far as I can see. I have watched anti-IDists encounter the logic and seek an escape. The one view is alien life as designer. But that's not a refutation. The other view which is the most common for design-denial among those who understand what ID is saying is "the multiverse did it". But that's not logical either because the multiverse is unexplained in its origin and indicates deep levels of design. So I don't see an escape from the logic of ID.

What specific discoveries by someone like Dr Lenski would you accept as a reason for doubting the design inference?

I set the standard very high. I wouldn't accept some minor modifications, especially based on allele drop-outs or DNA degradation of the kind Behe has detailed. Consider: The claim is extraordinary. All biological life - palm trees, flowers, birds, dolphins, insects, alligators ... still unknown species discovered every year - everything came from the power of mutations in bacteria. So, what would I expect from Lenski's experiments, now going on the equivalent of a half-million years of mammalian life on earth? If a single celled organism emerged, I'd consider that a victory for the blind watchmaker. Do you think Lenski has demonstrated the success of unguided evolution? Silver Asiatic

JVL, you know full well that a specific bit was put up from 293 on and you ducked. I turned to Wiki in your absence and did an overdue lawn mowing. KF kairosfocus

F/N: Let us continue to mow the Wikipedia lawn. Tellingly, they become much more expansive when attacking the idea that there may be a designer of life or cosmos: >>The contemporary intelligent design movement formulates its arguments in secular terms and intentionally avoids identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit.>> 43: No, this is a matter of what empirical evidence addresses, and that is very explicitly discussed in the relevant literature from Thaxton et al on. Notice, the subtle suggestion of deceit, an unwarranted inference when there is a valid reason on the table. Empirically observable, reliable, signs of design as process are not in themselves indicia of a particular designer or class of designer. Wikipedia's ideologues do or should know this. 44: Again, evidence of arson is the means by which we first conclude that this is not a natural fire. The fact of arson, evidence of how specifically it was carried out and identifying and proving guilt of a particular arsonist may be related but are distinct. >> Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene.>> 45: Projection, on the part of world of life. On the part of coismos, what is an extracosmic figure of intelligence able to design and effect a cosmos, but its creator with powers of a god relative to those within it? Hoyle had that figured out 40 years ago. >>Dembski, in The Design Inference (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements.>> 46: What has been pointed out is that life on earth could be produced by a sufficiently advanced molecular nanotech lab. We are taking the first steps down the road with Venter et al, this is common knowledge so the suggestion with a loaded "these" is patently disingenuous. >> Of Pandas and People proposes that SETI illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science.>> 47: What has been pointed out that scientists have been able to acquire funding to use in a grand investigation of EM signals looking for observable signs of design. Which is obviously related to the design inference. >> In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as a real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "make[s] many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists".[63]>> 48: guilt by invidious association in the context of a case of search for signs of design in EM signals. Of course, since 1953, we have known that FSCo/I-rich coded signals are present in DNA. >>The authoritative description of intelligent design,[6] however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed.>> 49: A loaded way of saying that it alludes to fine tuning. >>Acknowledging the paradox, Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life."[64]>> 50: No paradox, once one incorporates design of the physical, fine tuned cosmos as basis for onward design of C-chem, aqueous medium, cell based life, than obviously one is discussing a designer of the cosmos antecedent to its existence. Thus, beyond physicality. >> The leading proponents>> 51: Notice, ongoing studious refusal to acknowledge relevant scientific and mathematical qualifications. >> have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions.[29]>> 52: There have been design thinkers forever, going beyond theists, e.g. Plato makes the first design inference on record in his The Laws Bk X, 2360+ years ago. In recent times, Hoyle was an agnostic. Among theists we have Jews etc. And that Christians who are design thinkers on empirical evidence grounds go on to hold worldview level opinions is irrelevant to the empirical warrant for the inference. 53: We could easily highlight the sort of a priori imposed evolutionary materialistic scientism that patently drives much of the thinking on the other side of the issue, e.g. Monod:

[T]he basic premise of the scienti?c method, . . . [is] that nature is objective and not projective [= a project of an agent]. Hence it is through reference to our own activity, con-scious and projective, intentional and purposive-it is as | makers of artifacts-that we judge of a given object’s “naturalness” or “arti?cialness.” [pp. 3 – 4, Chance and Necessity, 1971] . . . . [T]he postulate of objectivity is consubstantial with science: it has guided the whole of its prodigious develop-ment for three centuries. There is no way to be rid of it, even tentatively or in a limited area, without departing from the domain of science itself. [p. 21] On a TV interview: [T]he scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity—that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe. Now, this is basically incompatible with virtually all the religious or metaphysical systems whatever, all of which try to show that there is some sort of harmony between man and the universe and that man is a product—predictable if not indispensable—of the evolution of the universe.— Jacques Monod [Quoted in John C. Hess, ‘French Nobel Biologist Says World Based On Chance’, New York Times (15 Mar 1971), p. 6. Cited in Herbert Marcuse, Counter-Revolution and Revolt (1972), p. 66.]

54: So, ideology cancels out. Let us instead address empirical evidence. >>Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science.>> 55: Trivial red herrings when the pivotal issue on the table is FSCO/I in R/DNA >> For example, Jerry Coyne asks why a designer would "give us a pathway for making vitamin C, but then destroy it by disabling one of its enzymes" (see pseudogene) and why a designer would not "stock oceanic islands with reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish, despite the suitability of such islands for these species". Coyne also points to the fact that "the flora and fauna on those islands resemble that of the nearest mainland, even when the environments are very different" as evidence that species were not placed there by a designer.[65]>> 56: Irrelevancies that even the much derided Creationists readily answer. Recall, to this point Wikipedia has not cogently addressed the source and cause of FSCO/I in R/DNA. >> Previously, in Darwin's Black Box, Behe had argued that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "...have been placed there by the designer for a reason—for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason—or they might not."[66]>> 57: Without knowing goals one cannot adequately decide their achievement. However, the general quality and astonishing cleverness and subtlety in the designs are all over the world of life. >> Coyne responds that in light of the evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved."[65]>> 58: Evasive rhetorical turnabout once one knows Dawkins' implicit concession that the world of life appears designed. >>Intelligent design proponents such as Paul Nelson avoid the problem of poor design in nature by insisting that we have simply failed to understand the perfection of the design.>> 59: Notice, onward silence on FSCO/I in R/DNA, and the implicit assumption of poor designs that have to be defended. This of course came up above and it is clear it is the wrong question. Designs seldom seek narrow optimality as that is brittle, instead robust adequacy on the range of possible circumstances and adaptability are characteristics of good design. In the case of say vit c, loss by mutation is to be considered for instance. >>Behe cites Paley as his inspiration, but he differs from Paley's expectation of a perfect Creation and proposes that designers do not necessarily produce the best design they can. Behe suggests that, like a parent not wanting to spoil a child with extravagant toys, the designer can have multiple motives for not giving priority to excellence in engineering.>> 60: More on the poor design fallacy, when even poor designs are -- designs. And, where, we have strong evidence of good design manifest to all but the purblind. >>He says that "Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer. Yet the reasons that a designer would or would not do anything are virtually impossible to know unless the designer tells you specifically what those reasons are."[66]>> 61: It is now obvious that this is a main objection as this is where we see details, and a targetting of one party on the other side. And Behe is right that unless you know the goals you cannot infer to failure to meet them. Meanwhile, the purblindness to a world of design and continuing silence on where the FSCO/I in R/DNA with language and goal- orientation of algorithms comes from, meets short shrift above and silence now. Once design is acknowledged we can address quality issues. Qualioty of design issues are irrelevant to presence of design. >>This reliance on inexplicable motives of the designer makes intelligent design scientifically untestable.>> 62: False, blatantly false. Show FSCOP/I rich string data structures coming about by blind chance and mechanical necessity without intelligent direction and you test and falsify. The inference, given the infinite monkeys article is they know or should know this. >>Retired UC Berkeley law professor, author and intelligent design advocate Phillip E. Johnson puts forward a core definition that the designer creates for a purpose,>> 63: A designer designs towards a goal, a purpose. >> giving the example that in his view AIDS was created to punish immorality and is not caused by HIV, but such motives cannot be tested by scientific methods.[67]>> 64: if that is a fair representation of his personal view, it lacks warrant. For, viruses notoriously mutate and can acquire virulence and damaging effects. HIV could credibly have bridged over from say Simians, with deadly effect on the new population. Similar to CV19 per common suggestions on bats. >>Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question "What designed the designer?"[68]>> 65: Repeating a fallacy. No, humans are far more complex than what we design but that does not render them not designed. Suppose we had visitors from the Andromeda Galaxy with a molecular nanotech lab who seeded life to terraform then fill earth with variety. They would be more complex than their design but it would be a design. The argument fails. 66: Going onward to an extra cosmic necessary being root of reality, such could be complex and sophisticated without being a complex of independent prior parts. Which is what necessity of being would rule out -- the construct from prior parts is necessarily contingent. That's logic of being, just a note. >> Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design.[n 9]>> 67: Irrelevant to inferring design for this case and beyond the scope of evidence and argument so far. Acceptance that evidence has limits shows maturity of thought, not error. >> Richard Wein counters that "...scientific explanations often create new unanswered questions. But, in assessing the value of an explanation, these questions are not irrelevant.>> 68: We hardly need to more than point out obvious advocacy, so much for vaunted neutrality. More to the point, fact A is established -- arson, before issues B and C can be addressed: means and suspect. >> They must be balanced against the improvements in our understanding which the explanation provides.>> 69: Empirical warrant towards truth is an improvement in understanding. >> Invoking an unexplained being>> 70: Again, strawman. Inference to design as process on sign is antecedent to assessing how or who or what of what ontological nature. Besides, even God would not be unexplained or inexplicable: we have good reason to seek a necessary being root of reality though that is in another discipline. Science does not gobble up all of knowledge. Such is scientism a fallacy. >> to explain the origin of other beings (ourselves) is little more than question-begging.>> 71: Projection. The issue is, are there reliable empirical signs of design, ans yes. Do we exhibit such, yes. We are designed, now let us see how and who. >> The new question raised by the explanation is as problematic as the question which the explanation purports to answer."[50]>> 72: You just advocated for opening up onward inquiry as a virtue. That is not a failure it is an achievement! >> Richard Dawkins sees the assertion that the designer does not need to be explained>> 73: No one has seriously argued that beings do not require some sense-making. Even the argument, brute given is a kind of rational explanation. Obviously, the weak, inquiry form principle of sufficient reason is relevant. If X is or may be or is not or may not be, we can inquire as to why that is the case. X can take in anything from FSCO/I in R/DNA to us to the cosmos to a square circle to God. The issue is not whether such can be explored but under what head, with what tools of inquiry. Repeat, scientism is a fallacy. >>as a thought-terminating cliché.[69][70]>> 74: He set up and knocked over a strawman, likely due to his notorious ignorance of the senior discipline, philosophy. This would not be his first blunder due to that. >>In the absence of observable, measurable evidence,>> 75: FSCO/I in life and finetuning of cosmos are massive domains of evidence being brushed aside. >> the very question "What designed the designer?" leads to an infinite regression>> 76: Ignorance of philosophy again, here, logic of being. Infinite causal temporal, finite stage succession to now cannot be traversed, but a finitely remote beginning -- as evidence we actually have points to c 14 BYA -- raises the issue of necessary being reality root. And this is Ontology, metaphysics and philosophical cosmology not Creationism in a fig leaf or cheap tuxedo. >> from which intelligent design proponents [--> loaded again . . . ] can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction.[71] >> 77: Underlying philosophical ignorance again. It is infinite causal temporal succession that cannot be traversed in finite stage steps [as we hammered out here at UD over 3 years], esp once we use R* to frame the question adequately. And if you use calculus, infinitesimals lurk in the dx, dt or Newton's h so that we see transfinite hyperreals in 1/h --> H where H exceeds any finite n in N mileposting R. 78: likewise, circular cause by which a later stage not yet being reaches back to cause itself fails. 79: That leaves finitely remote causal temporal beginning and points to necessary being reality root. This is beyond science's domain but not beyond inquiry through the senior discipline philosophy and that is not religion. _______ Wikipedia's fallacy riddled ID hit piece is duly mowed. KF kairosfocus

"So, what would you prefer I do? Say my piece and then not defend it when people ask me why?" JVL, If you want ME to take you seriously, less Woe Is Me and less I Oppose The Design Inference signalling and more commenting on the actual content of OPs. The All Comment Paths Lead To Opposition To The Design Inference has been done already. Andrew asauber

Silver Asiatic: ID is a science program. We’re open to alternative theories. Anyone who denies the design inference on no logical basis, or even out-of-hand without knowing anything about it (which many do) is wrong. The ID inference stands as correct until refuted. What would be a logical basis for for disagreeing with the design inference? A person can try to falsify ID. Lenski has been mutating bacteria for 20+ years trying to demonstrate unguided evolution. Until he (or someone) does, ID is the best inference. What specific discoveries by someone like Dr Lenski would you accept as a reason for doubting the design inference? JVL

Asauber: You are deliberately missing the point of my comments. Sorry. The fact that you assert that you don’t accept the design inference is tolerable. Good. The fact that you seem to be on UD every day commenting just to oppose the design inference and then claim to be treated unfairly is tedious and ultimately unhelpful to anyone. So, what would you prefer I do? Say my piece and then not defend it when people ask me why? UD already has its fair share of regular noisemakers. I don’t have to like the next one that rolls in. I comment accordingly when I have the inclination. Alright. It cannot explain the origin of complex entities driven by independent information based entities. Translation., it cannot explain the origin of proteins and other complex biological systems and the genetic or other phenomena that lead to these systems. Can you explain those things? Explicitly. Precisely. It’s illogical to accept something without looking for alternatives when it has never been shown to work or could even possibly work. Has ID shown that there was a designer around at the pertinent time that could do . . . .something. I do not expect to change any anti ID person’s admissions but simple replies are best to lay out the logic behind ID. Okay. Can you answer when design was implemented? JVL

JVL

can someone honestly and truly disagree with the design inference in your own personal opinion?

A person can try to falsify ID. Lenski has been mutating bacteria for 20+ years trying to demonstrate unguided evolution. Until he (or someone) does, ID is the best inference. Silver Asiatic

What is illogical about the unguided evolutionary hypothesis?

It cannot explain the origin of complex entities driven by independent information based entities. Translation., it cannot explain the origin of proteins and other complex biological systems and the genetic or other phenomena that lead to these systems. It’s illogical to accept something without looking for alternatives when it has never been shown to work or could even possibly work. I do not expect to change any anti ID person’s admissions but simple replies are best to lay out the logic behind ID. jerry

JVL

Can ID be said to be ‘science’ if it cannot accept falsification? Look at what you wrote.

Jerry @357 answers. ID is a science program. We're open to alternative theories. Anyone who denies the design inference on no logical basis, or even out-of-hand without knowing anything about it (which many do) is wrong. The ID inference stands as correct until refuted. Silver Asiatic

"What would you accept as reasonable reasons for not accepting the design inference?" JVL, You are deliberately missing the point of my comments. The fact that you assert that you don't accept the design inference is tolerable. The fact that you seem to be on UD every day commenting just to oppose the design inference and then claim to be treated unfairly is tedious and ultimately unhelpful to anyone. UD already has its fair share of regular noisemakers. I don't have to like the next one that rolls in. I comment accordingly when I have the inclination. Andrew asauber

Jerry: Not unless they can show a logical alternative. What is illogical about the unguided evolutionary hypothesis? Are there any logical alternatives to the design inference? JVL

Can someone rationally and honestly disagree with the design inference?

Not unless they can show a logical alternative. ID is just the opposite. It considers every scientific fact as true and natural mechanisms as the primary explanation until shown extremely unlikely. So far, no one has shown likely natural mechanisms for several phenomena. So one can not rationally and honestly disagree with ID as a possible explanation. jerry

William J Murray: We are now in the theater of the absurd. Let's try something else . . . Do you think someone can rationally and honestly disagree with the design inference? If 'yes' then on what basis, i.e. what would you find to be a compelling reason? JVL

JVL says:

I think we now know that unguided natural processes are capable of being the cause.

WJM asks:

How was homochirality achieved in the prebiotic world?

JVL responds:

No one knows. I don’t know.

We are now in the theater of the absurd. William J Murray

Asauber: Of course it’s an option. But your repeated theatrics are boring. What would you accept as reasonable reasons for not accepting the design inference? JVL

Jerry: People can disagree with anything. It’s why they disagree that is usually of interest. If it’s irrational, then disregard unless one wants to use the irrational response as a foil. If it’s rational, then consider it. Can someone rationally and honestly disagree with the design inference? If 'yes' then on what basis? JVL

"Again, disagreement is not an option. I must be manipulative. I must be irrational. I’m probably crazy. " JVL, Of course it's an option. But your repeated theatrics are boring. See quote. Andrew asauber

People can disagree with anything. It’s why they disagree that is usually of interest. If it’s irrational, then disregard unless one wants to use the irrational response as a foil. If it’s rational, then consider it. jerry

Jerry: Yes, he is winning. The losers are those who answer him expecting a logical response. That’s what trolls want. Another entry in the 'they must be irrational or evil' category. And this from Asauber:

No he’s not. He’s just another troll trolling. Happening all the time everywhere in the interwebs. He’s entertainment to himself and others.

Again, disagreement is not an option. I must be manipulative. I must be irrational. I'm probably crazy. Question: can someone honestly and truly disagree with the design inference in your own personal opinion? A yes or no answer is sufficient but more details would be lovely. JVL

Silver Asiatic: Most of them do not consciously engage with the design question. But in any case, we see their work on a daily basis here and critique the arguments as they come along. A significant effort has been made to show the flaws in evolutionary claims. If you want to do the same against ID, then we’re looking for a robust response. The same with atheism. If it wants to prove itself to be correct, then it needs to engage with the opposition and offer convincing arguments. Why do you think I'm trying to 'do the same against ID'? I want to know what ID is really saying. So I ask questions. I have no beef against ID. But asking questions and supporting my own view is, apparently, worthy of derision. Over and over again. Yes, yours should be respected. I was speaking of theological views, not logical or scientific. If you would deny simple math, for example, then some mockery would ensue. But for theology, nobody has all of the answers and we have to be respectful of tradition and interpretation of sacred texts, etc. I'm good with that. We've seen a lot of opponents of ID on this site over the years. Some are delusional. Some filled with hatred and contempt. Some are trolls looking for attention. Some cannot reason properly at all. Others are thoughtful and stay with the conversation for a long time. There's give and take in those cases. A jab here, a jab back in return. We all slip at times and take it personally or go too far. Both sides do this. A respectful, rational, serious response will be met with the same. Do you think that is always the case? But yes, anyone who opposes the design inference is wrong. That's what we're saying. Evolutionists and materialists say the opposite. Some people are in the middle – not sure either way. So, we try to convince them. Can ID be said to be 'science' if it cannot accept falsification? Look at what you wrote. JVL

No he’s not

Yes, he is winning. The losers are those who answer him expecting a logical response. That’s what trolls want. Of course I’m getting irrational too expecting those who answer to be rational when they are also continually irrational too. jerry

William J Murray: JVL’s defense is always, “Hey, people I think are really smart and credible agree with me!” That is false. 1. How was homochirality achieved in the prebiotic world? No one knows. I don't know. 2. How did the isolation, purification and storage of prebiotic chemicals occur? (necessary for the building of the simplest molecular machine, which are necessary for life) There are a lot of assumptions there. Why do you think all those things are necessary? It’s when you make inane statements like this that we all know you’re talking out of your *** from false confidence in what other people say about the evidence, and not from any actual understanding of the evidence. Right. And how did you come to think that those conditions are important to consider? Did you do the work yourself? Did you take the word of someone you trust and agree with? JVL

JVL

Right. So, how do you account for the thousands (if not millions) of working biologists who have also come to the non-design conclusion?

Most of them do not consciously engage with the design question. But in any case, we see their work on a daily basis here and critique the arguments as they come along. A significant effort has been made to show the flaws in evolutionary claims. If you want to do the same against ID, then we're looking for a robust response. The same with atheism. If it wants to prove itself to be correct, then it needs to engage with the opposition and offer convincing arguments.

Likewise for my view.

Yes, yours should be respected. I was speaking of theological views, not logical or scientific. If you would deny simple math, for example, then some mockery would ensue. But for theology, nobody has all of the answers and we have to be respectful of tradition and interpretation of sacred texts, etc.

To sum up: to disagree with the design inference means you are wrong. Period. You may be delusional, you may be evil, you’re probably a troll, you are attacking ID and clearly you can’t (or won’t) reason properly. Anyone disagree with that?

We've seen a lot of opponents of ID on this site over the years. Some are delusional. Some filled with hatred and contempt. Some are trolls looking for attention. Some cannot reason properly at all. Others are thoughtful and stay with the conversation for a long time. There's give and take in those cases. A jab here, a jab back in return. We all slip at times and take it personally or go too far. Both sides do this. A respectful, rational, serious response will be met with the same. But yes, anyone who opposes the design inference is wrong. That's what we're saying. Evolutionists and materialists say the opposite. Some people are in the middle - not sure either way. So, we try to convince them. Silver Asiatic

"He's winning!" No he's not. He's just another troll trolling. Happening all the time everywhere in the interwebs. He's entertainment to himself and others. Andrew asauber

Kairosfocus: JVL has a choice, provide another more credible case for her [I think?] view or else let6 that site stand as the general level case against ID put up by the sort of ideologues that seem to dominate online discussion. Why don't you ask me, personally, a particular question. No for some over-arching, general, this-explains-everything response . . . why don't we just address some particular part or piece of the whole puzzle? Wouldn't that be more productive than just slagging off everyone who disagrees with you? If you're interested in having a discussion that is. JVL

It’s boring.

He’s winning! He’s getting exactly what he wants. Why should he stop? jerry

JVL has been through little dramatizations like this several times. It's boring. Andrew asauber

JVL @336 demonstrates the problem with how he argues with this:

Right. So, how do you account for the thousands (if not millions) of working biologists who have also come to the non-design conclusion?

JVL's "arguments" are themselves never from the actual evidence, or about the actual logic; he always points at what other people say about the evidence. He did this back in the political discussion wrt the fraud accusations and evidence. His counter - "argument" was always in the form of quoting what some reporter, judge, or defendant said about the evidence. He couldn't be bothered to do the research into the laws and into the evidence; he just parroted what other people said as if that was the same as "making his case." JVL's defense is always, "Hey, people I think are really smart and credible agree with me!" - so he considers his position "perfectly rational," and so he makes inane statements like

I think we now know that unguided natural processes are capable of being the cause.

Really? Really? 1. How was homochirality achieved in the prebiotic world? 2. How did the isolation, purification and storage of prebiotic chemicals occur? (necessary for the building of the simplest molecular machine, which are necessary for life) Those are just two (well, 4) of the things necessary for the beginning of life to occur. If "we know" that "unguided natural processes are capable of being the cause," we must know how these things occurred in a prebiotic environment. It's when you make inane statements like this that we all know you're talking out of your *** from false confidence in what other people say about the evidence, and not from any actual understanding of the evidence. William J Murray

William J Murray: I don’t accept any view as “perfectly rational” – or even “rational” – until the person holding that view demonstrates it as rational. I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the debates I’ve had here. When your “argument” is entirely made by referring to or quoting what people say about the evidence, you have zero basis to consider your view “perfectly rational.” I have considered the evidence. I have read about it, I have (yes) talked to people about it, I have considered the ramifications of it. I have made up my own mind based on the evidence and, yes, the arguments proffered. Just like you have about ID. Correct? Just because other people also think its a rational view doesn’t make it so. However, I’m sure you find that others agreeing with you – especially obviously intelligent people including scientists! – is sufficient reason for considering your position “perfectly rational.” Rationality by consensus! Rationality by authority! Okay, what is your criterion for considering a view as rational or not? Is your view about ID rational? I’ sure that’s what they’re teaching in school these days anyway. Next we’ll be voting on whether or not 2+2=4. Gotta love an ad hominem attack draped in a slippery-slope argument. Are you sure you're the right judge of rationality? JVL

PS: Wiki of course keeps getting "updated" but remains toxic, so every now and then it is quite appropriate to mow the lawn. JVL has a choice, provide another more credible case for her [I think?] view or else let6 that site stand as the general level case against ID put up by the sort of ideologues that seem to dominate online discussion. kairosfocus

Kf, You are being irrational. He knows there is an answer and has for a long time. It’s those who answer that are being irrational. It’s a game being played snd he is winning big time. jerry

Jerry, there is a for record to document that there is an answer, here in light of JVL's declining, we have put Wikipedia on the table. This shows the true balance on merits and heads off at the pass, onward claims that we had no answer. KF kairosfocus

You sound like everyone else: there must be something wrong with me because ID is obviously true. You cannot accept the fact that it’s perfectly rational to hold a differing view. And because I don’t see you ever changing your opinion should I bother defending my own view? I don't accept any view as "perfectly rational" - or even "rational" - until the person holding that view demonstrates it as rational. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the debates I've had here. When your "argument" is entirely made by referring to or quoting what people say about the evidence, you have zero basis to consider your view "perfectly rational." Just because other people also think its a rational view doesn't make it so. However, I'm sure you find that others agreeing with you - especially obviously intelligent people including scientists! - is sufficient reason for considering your position "perfectly rational." Rationality by consensus! Rationality by authority! I' sure that's what they're teaching in school these days anyway. Next we'll be voting on whether or not 2+2=4. William J Murray

Silver Asiatic: WJM @316 lays out the apparent contradiction in your view. Unless you address that problem then yes, you can’t possibly be right because what you affirm based on evidence in one case, you deny based on the same evidence in another. Right. So, how do you account for the thousands (if not millions) of working biologists who have also come to the non-design conclusion? That is not our intention or interest. The idea of an intelligent designer or creator God has been universally present in human culture. You’re saying that it’s “not plausible”. That is NOT what I said. Why am I bothering? I think one’s theological journey is relevant. It should not be mocked or disrespected – a certain atmosphere of trust is required. Likewise for my view. Oh, no . . . that's not right. Here it's possible to mock and shame anyone who disagrees with ID. As happens here all the time. To sum up: to disagree with the design inference means you are wrong. Period. You may be delusional, you may be evil, you're probably a troll, you are attacking ID and clearly you can't (or won't) reason properly. Anyone disagree with that? Kairosfocus: ET is quite correct that clinging to a corrected irrational view — that it must first be shown irrational is an obvious, silent premise — is irrational. That is, it is closed mindedness in the teeth of cogent correction. One may dispute whether in a given case cogent correction is given but that is a further matter. A rational person heeds sound correction. In the case of Wikipedia as a capital example, I put it to you that adequate correction is on the table. I am just wrong, wrong, wrong. No one here wants a debate or a discussion. The matter is settled and those who disagree can be dismissed summarily as not right in the head. Jerry: I think the ones here who answer the irrational answers are also irrational. What logical purpose could these answers be but madness to expect a logical result? See, I'm not even worth talking to. JVL

I think the ones here who answer the irrational answers are also being completely irrational. What logical purpose could these answers lead to? It’s madness to expect a different result? Everyone here knows the snarky definition of insanity. The only rational person in these discussions is JVL who is playing the rest like a well tuned violin. Everyone who responds to him wants to be the one who changes him but he is getting exactly what he wants. Why should he change? Again the irrational ones are those who answer him each time. jerry

JVL, ET is quite correct that clinging to a corrected irrational view -- that it must first be shown irrational is an obvious, silent premise -- is irrational. That is, it is closed mindedness in the teeth of cogent correction. One may dispute whether in a given case cogent correction is given but that is a further matter. A rational person heeds sound correction. In the case of Wikipedia as a capital example, I put it to you that adequate correction is on the table. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: Again, a clear hit piece. Something that many working scientists would agree with. But, because it differs from your view it MUST be motivated by something other than just disagreement. Look at the language you use: you always cast aspersions on people's motives and thoughts. you project. I have put a specific empirically founded argument on the table, which you are dodging and evading. What do you want me to say? I think live arose on Earth via purely natural and unguided processes. Therefore they account for what you call functional, complex specified information in DNA. I'm not evading anything. You're not listening to my answer. On your refusal to provide substance, I have given Wikipedia as a yardstick of what is going on. Crooked yardstick. Casting aspersions, again. I just note that the crooked yardstick metaphor addresses the complex issue of ill founded ideological agendas and worldviews rising to widespread support, informed by the issues lurking in Plato’s parable of the cave. Again, those who disagree with you must be at the very least ill-informed. You cast aspersions on differing view all the time. Endlessly. In context of the above, we can see clear ideological warping at Wikipedia, tied to known ideological agendas. More broadly, I note that JVL, in recent objections, inescapably appeals to the first duties of reason, yet again. Inescapable and antecedent to reasoned argument, so true and self evident. Just, it seems, very unpalatable in a day inclined to wall off values and truths. Patently, there can be truths about values and duties, etc. — moral truths. Where first duties are part of the framework of our reasoning. Duties spectacularly violated by Wikipedia’s ideologues, with grave implications. Endlessly. Directly compare the actual demonstrated it is forbidden, to consider empirical evidence that may point to design, I've looked at the evidence and come to a different conclusion from you. Apparently that makes me delusional or evil in some way. And BTW, if you a priori decide to project that designer is a default that is just being given a pseudoscientific fig leaf, you are creating a strawman caricature on what Hoyle et al did and what Thaxton et al did, or even Orgel and Wicken. That is what the Wiki ideologues did (and have abused their official status in that sadly flawed encyclopedia to enforce), and it is wrong. That is a capital example of a pattern of thinking I first saw with Marxists 40+ years ago, then began to understand better i/l/o Plato’s parable of the cave and Jesus’ responsive remark on when eyes are bad one is filled with darkness, if one’s “light” is in reality darkness, how great is that darkness. Crooked yardsticks are a real issue and too often are all too relevant. Why don't you just ask me if I'm assuming 'no designer is permitted'? Oh, that's right, because you wouldn't believe me if I said I'm not making that assumption. My bad. JVL

JVL

Because I can’t possibly be right can I?

WJM @316 lays out the apparent contradiction in your view. Unless you address that problem then yes, you can't possibly be right because what you affirm based on evidence in one case, you deny based on the same evidence in another.

Why should I bother to try and respond honestly if I end up getting labelled as a liar or having something wrong with me because I don’t agree with you?

I didn't say that. I spoke of a problem but I'm referring to underlying thought structures, not that there is something wrong with you.

I’ll leave you and Upright BiPed and Bournagain77 and Kairosfocus to debate my shortcomings and motives.

That is not our intention or interest. The idea of an intelligent designer or creator God has been universally present in human culture. You're saying that it's "not plausible". I think one's theological journey is relevant. It should not be mocked or disrespected - a certain atmosphere of trust is required. But it's an important factor in drawing conclusions and analyzing the data. Silver Asiatic

JVL, search challenge, which has been addressed above, answering your claims to the contrary. KF kairosfocus

JVL, the inference, patently, is to design as process. Evidence of arson as cause of a fire is separate from trying to identify whodunit. Assuming arson ahead of reason to infer it, is question-begging. Similarly, it is question-begging to impose ahead of time that it is forbidden to consider arson. Directly compare the actual demonstrated it is forbidden, to consider empirical evidence that may point to design, as I documented above from Monod. There are many other cases of that ideological a priori. And BTW, if you a priori decide to project that designer is a default that is just being given a pseudoscientific fig leaf, you are creating a strawman caricature on what Hoyle et al did and what Thaxton et al did, or even Orgel and Wicken. That is what the Wiki ideologues did (and have abused their official status in that sadly flawed encyclopedia to enforce), and it is wrong. That is a capital example of a pattern of thinking I first saw with Marxists 40+ years ago, then began to understand better i/l/o Plato's parable of the cave and Jesus' responsive remark on when eyes are bad one is filled with darkness, if one's "light" is in reality darkness, how great is that darkness. Crooked yardsticks are a real issue and too often are all too relevant. KF kairosfocus

ET: Unfortunately all probability arguments are evidence against unguided evolution. That makes no sense at all. However it is irrational to hold an irrational view. Like I said: anyone who disagrees with you must be irrational. They couldn't possibly hold a different view and make sense. JVL

F/N: I lost a ps, so I just note that the crooked yardstick metaphor addresses the complex issue of ill founded ideological agendas and worldviews rising to widespread support, informed by the issues lurking in Plato's parable of the cave. The point is, we had better be aware that our thinking can be warped at core and that we need to be open to plumb line self evident truths as naturally straight and upright correctives. 2 + 3 = 5 is self evident, such truths exist, though they never amount to enough to base a worldview. In context of the above, we can see clear ideological warping at Wikipedia, tied to known ideological agendas. More broadly, I note that JVL, in recent objections, inescapably appeals to the first duties of reason, yet again. Inescapable and antecedent to reasoned argument, so true and self evident. Just, it seems, very unpalatable in a day inclined to wall off values and truths. Patently, there can be truths about values and duties, etc. -- moral truths. Where first duties are part of the framework of our reasoning. Duties spectacularly violated by Wikipedia's ideologues, with grave implications. KF kairosfocus

JVL, you project. I have put a specific empirically founded argument on the table, which you are dodging and evading. On your refusal to provide substance, I have given Wikipedia as a yardstick of what is going on. Crooked yardstick. KF kairosfocus

JVL, I continue with Wiki as stand-in, this time on fine tuning: >>Intelligent design proponents have also occasionally appealed to broader teleological arguments>> 24: This sets up a strawman context, the issue is not theology but physical cosmology. >> outside of biology, most notably an argument based on the fine-tuning of universal constants>> 25: specific parameters and laws that set up a local target zone suited to C-chem, aqueous medium cell based life, starting with the abundance of elements and tying to a rage planet circumstance for earth also. Notice, the pioneer of this, Sir Fred Hoyle, was an agnostic. >> that make matter and life possible and which are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. >> 26: Actually, again, search challenge i/l/o the plausible variability of laws and parameters, with implications of the mathematics. Cf Luke Barnes for classic case in point: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdf These include the values of fundamental physical constants, the relative strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity between fundamental particles, as well as the ratios of masses of such particles.>> 27: Many dozens of factors are on the table. >> Intelligent design proponent and Center for Science and Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez>> 28: Qualification robbing, PhD Astronomer with much research and key papers under his belt as well as a textbook, a pioneer on exoplanet research -- pivotal to the rare planet discussion. And of course the victim of a disgraceful expulsion. >>argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, making it impossible for many chemical elements and features of the Universe, such as galaxies, to form.[56]>> 29: The details are worked out, and the convergence of key parameters is particularly noted, certain parameters need to be where they are for multiple reasons. 30: Where, if one argues for oh, the cosmological laws and parameters are more or less locked where they are, that points to a fine tuned super law. 31: Further, infinite causal temporal past is not plausible and that points to necessary being at finite remove as root of reality, stepping over into a bit of math and logic of being for a moment. >> Thus, proponents argue, an intelligent designer of life>> 32: The argument is to intelligently directed configuration of the COSMOS, not to any particular designer or class of designers. Designs tend to come from designers and candidates can be evaluated, but before an arson case is investigated, arson needs to be identified as cause of the fire. >>was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome.>> 33: Conflation of several arguments leading to strawmannish caricature. Fine tuning is clear and widely conceded, we are in a narrow, locally isolated operating point or zone. local isolation is enough even if on other regions of a wall, there is a carpet of flies, when the issue is splat a bullet hits the lone fly. Marksmanship points to marksman and tackdriver rifle, so candidates can be discussed. Where, the onward issue is, fine tuning promotes C-chem, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet, cell based life. 34: Where, the two issues are separate, as empirical matters, in different disciplines. The cosmos has observable parameters and laws with fine tuned properties, even Einstein's cosmological constant and the inflationary epoch hypothesis point there. The precision, net is to 1 in dozens of orders of magnitude. Life uses what we have, and shows FSCO/I, which is a strong sign of design. 35: They then are mutually supportive, a fine tuned cosmos provides the base for cell based life and such life exploits the fine tuned cosmos to implement a brilliantly successful design. >>Scientists have generally responded that these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence.[57][58]>> 36: A dismissive evasion. >> Victor J. Stenger and other critics say both intelligent design and the weak form of the anthropic principle are essentially a tautology; in his view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life.[59][60][61]>> 37: Strawman. The fine tuning is an empirical inference not a truth by definition. >> The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible.>> 38: All that is required is local isolation of the fly that gets hit. The appeal to imagination without empirical warrant is also suspiciously weak. >> Life as we know it might not exist if things were different,>> 39: Local isolation dodged. >> but a different sort of life might exist in its place. >> 40: Show us that alternative then come back and explain the bullet hit on the locally isolated fly. >>A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected>> 41: That is not so on the whole and to whatever extent it is so -- let's grant, the over 100 are all tied and locked for argument -- it simply points to a higher level of fine tuning. >>and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable.[62] >> 42: Nope, the deep isolation is what is pivotal. _______________ Again, a clear hit piece. KF kairosfocus

It is perfectly rational to hold a differing view. However it is irrational to hold an irrational view. ET

The only predictions borne from unguided evolution are genetic diseases and deformities. No one knows how to test the claim that unguided evolution produced ATP synthase or any bacterial flagellum. Unguided evolution has never advance our knowledge, except with respect to genetic diseases and deformities. Otherwise it is a useless heuristic. ET

JVL:

I think unguided evolution is true because of the evidence and data found in the genomic, biogeographic, fossil, morphological and experimental (in which I include human breeding efforts) records.

Pure BS. The only evidence for unguided evolution is found in genetic diseases and deformities. There isn't any evidence that unguided evolution can produce eukaryotes GIVEN starting populations of prokaryotes. And GIVEN eukaryotes there isn't any evidence that unguided evolution can produce developmental biology. The paper "Waiting for TWO Mutations" was written because there isn't any evidence and they must rely of probability arguments. Unfortunately all probability arguments are evidence against unguided evolution. What I said is true. So I understand why JVL would take issue with it. ET

William J Murray: It’s entirely plausible to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people that some great, intelligent mind designed that information (and also accounts for the fine-tuning of the universal forces.) It has been entirely plausible to some of the greatest minds, including scientific minds, in history. It was entirely plausible to some of the greatest physicists in history, including current ones, that had to account for what they found via quantum theory experimentation (consciousness & information, not matter or “energy,” being fundamental to reality.) That is true. I do not share that view. It’s entirely appropriate for others here to say that your resistance to the design conclusion appears to be the artefact of a somewhat particular worldview that denies the obvious conclusion of the evidence. That evidence not only points directly at intelligent design, it also excludes any other rational explanation (an appeal to virtually impossible, statistical, miraculous “chance” is not a rational explanation) or known causative value. I disagree. My view has come after careful consideration of the evidence, data and arguments made by both 'sides'. I do not believe the evidence only leads to the conclusion of design. I think that it is rational to hold my view. Also, you have no idea of my own personal theological journey. It’s really not reasonable to deny the conclusion of ID because you personally don’t find any proposed designer “plausible.” As I've already explained, the lack of non-genetic physical evidence of a pre-historic intelligent designer is just one point in a multi-threaded argument. The lack of a “plausible” designer does not change the fact that only known, rational, demonstrable causative commodity for the thing in question is intelligent design, I don't think that is the case however. I think we now know that unguided natural processes are capable of being the cause. You sound like everyone else: there must be something wrong with me because ID is obviously true. You cannot accept the fact that it's perfectly rational to hold a differing view. And because I don't see you ever changing your opinion should I bother defending my own view? JVL

Kairosfocus: I am not motive mongering, I have faced your claims and have offered you an opportunity to back them up, declined. You motive monger all the time; you question why people don't see things the way you do and cast aspersions on their beliefs and motives and intelligence with your crooked yardstick metaphor and many other oft repeated phrases like 'agi prop big lie' (used just above). You do not trust anyone you disagree with to be honest and sincere. Many other commenters here insist that someone like me must be lying or crazy or unable to reason. Why? Because I disagree with you on the data and evidence. Apparently having an alternate point of view is not considered normal or healthy or honest. I remember when you offered your challenge a few years ago. When an explanation was offered you repeated the same things you always repeat and were uninfluenced by the counterpoints. If I know I would be repeating the same points made years ago which didn't affect your view then why would they now? I think unguided evolution is true because of the evidence and data found in the genomic, biogeographic, fossil, morphological and experimental (in which I include human breeding efforts) records. Taken all together they present what I consider an extremely strong case and show that unguided natural forces are capable of creating the genetic code and all the functional, complex, specified information contained therein. I do not believe there are biological 'islands of function' because of universal common descent. I agree that the specific origin of life on Earth is still unknown; I would love to see a plausible, unguided path for the origin of RNA and DNA . . . maybe if I'm lucky I will live to see one. If someone finds a verifiable rabbit fossil in a pre-Cambrian layer, if someone finds an irreducibly complex biological structure that is verified by biologists, if someone finds a crashed spaceship or some strong physical indication of a pre-historic intelligent being then I will revise my views as I should. New data means ideas should be modified or even thrown out. I have no animosity towards the ID community. I am not afraid to have a civilised discussion of our views. I am genuinely interested in exactly what kind of intelligent design people are supporting, i.e. when and how in particular, but I know that's pretty much a verboten subject. I am genuinely interested in hearing about a possible ID research agenda, I feel that the 'field' has run out of steam and would be happy to see some more work being done. It would be nice to not have my intelligence or motives questioned. It would be nice not to be called crazy or a 'Darwin-clown' or an 'Evotard' (as ET is fond of saying). But I won't hold my breath. I expect more stuff like this from Jerry:

Incredible amount of attention on one person who is disingenuous at best.

Or this from ET:

Compared to materialism, which only has liars, bluffers and equivocators for support, it is easy to see which has the science and which has the BS.

JVL

Incredible amount of attention on one person who is disingenuous at best. Why? This seems the norm here for when someone makes ridiculous comments. Has there been one instance over the years where a person has changed their comments based on logic and evidence? No! Why expect it to happen now? Maybe respond once or twice. But not a thousand times. When this happens, the person making the ridiculous comments is getting exactly what he/she wants. jerry

ID is evidenced in cosmology, physics, geology, chemistry and biology. How much independent evidence does one need? Compared to materialism, which only has liars, bluffers and equivocators for support, it is easy to see which has the science and which has the BS. People like JVL want proof. They don't care about science ET

JVL, I now let Wikipedia stand in for you on FSCO/I, though they use the more generic CSI, complex, specified information. Of course, in biology the specification is about biological function, the core test case is DNA, and issues of coding [so, language] and of algorithms [so, goal directed step by step procedures] come up. We can take it as given that you are familiar with how DNA, RNA and Ribosomes function in protein synthesis and with how fold-function domains are isolated in the space of possible AA chains. Let's clip-comment: >>In 1986 [--> TMLO is 1984], Charles B. Thaxton, a physical chemist and creationist,>> 1: Namecalling, he pioneered the modern design theory and did so in a book that was not tied to Biblical exegesis etc, characteristics of Creationism in any relevant sense. He made an argument, based on thermodynamics, information and complexity, that should have been summarised and answered. >>used the term "specified complexity" from information theory>> 2: Actually, he CITED the term from researchers on OOL, in a context that makes plain the core issue. >> when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell were specified by intelligence,>> 3: Strawman. He developed a detailed discussion on specified complexity, relevant thermodynamics and how such arises. At least DNA is mentioned but it is not drawn out to identify what was being discussed, this is setting up a strawman target. >>and must have originated with an intelligent agent.[25]>> 4: Kindly provide a case of such FSCO/I arising by demonstrably blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, a first step for claiming plausibility of an explanation. There are trillions of cases on the source in intelligence, so deal with the logic of warranted inference to the best explanation. >> The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William A. Dembski.[46]>> 5: Further developed i/l/o the context of configuration spaces, islands that are specified independent of listing configuration, and linked search challenge, expressed in statistical and probabilistic terms. I happen to think that direct search challenge is simpler and forces facing the issue instead of evading on oh how do you get to probability. >> Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes.>> 6: On an empirically grounded warrant. Notice, the evidence base for inferring that FSCO/I is consistently found to arise from intelligently directed configuration is ducked and the key test case, DNA and/or protein AA chains, on the table since Thaxton et al, has not been seriously addressed. 7: You tell me why I shouldn't infer for cause, that this is a strawman argument being made by Wikipedia's dominant ideologues? >> He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified."[47]>> 8: Thaxton and those he cited also give similar definitions and examples. >> He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA.>> 9: At last, very late, DNA is mentioned, of course with warning flags in the form of scare quotes. >>William A. Dembski proposed the concept of specified complexity.[48]>> 10: False, it came through Thaxton et al and is rooted in Orgel and Wicken. I now cite Orgel, 1973, as demonstrative and definitive proof:

living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity . . . . These vague idea can be made more precise by introducing the idea of information. Roughly speaking, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions needed to specify the structure.

[--> this is of course equivalent to the string of yes/no questions required to specify the relevant J S Wicken "wiring diagram" for the set of functional states, T, in the much larger space of possible clumped or scattered configurations, W, as Dembski would go on to define in NFL in 2002, also cf here, -- here and -- here -- (with here on self-moved agents as designing causes).]

One can see intuitively that many instructions are needed to specify a complex structure. [--> so if the q's to be answered are Y/N, the chain length is an information measure that indicates complexity in bits . . . ] On the other hand a simple repeating structure can be specified in rather few instructions.  [--> do once and repeat over and over in a loop . . . ] Complex but random structures, by definition, need hardly be specified at all . . . . Paley was right to emphasize the need for special explanations of the existence of objects with high information content, for they cannot be formed in nonevolutionary, inorganic processes [--> Orgel had high hopes for what Chem evo and body-plan evo could do by way of info generation beyond the FSCO/I threshold, 500 - 1,000 bits.] [The Origins of Life (John Wiley, 1973), p. 189, p. 190, p. 196.]

>>Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as anything with a less than 1 in 10[^]150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance.>> 11: No, this is a strawman. Actual definition in NFL:

CONCEPT: NFL, p. 148:“The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology. I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity [cf. p 144 as cited below], or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . . Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. . . . In virtue of their function [a living organism's subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways

[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole. Dembski cites: Wouters, p. 148: "globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms," Behe, p. 148: "minimal function of biochemical systems," Dawkins, pp. 148 - 9: "Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by ran-| dom chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality that is specified in advance is . . . the ability to propagate genes in reproduction." On p. 149, he roughly cites Orgel's famous remark on specified complexity from 1973, which exactly cited reads: " In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity . . ." And, p. 149, he highlights Paul Davis in The Fifth Miracle: "Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity."] . . .”

DEFINITION: p. 144: [Specified complexity can be more formally defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

>> Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology: complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus,>> 12: Strawman knocked over. The real challenge is to show how blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, without intelligent direction can and does give rise to FSCO/I, for which a random text generation infinite monkeys exercise as I discussed earlier and linked above, is a good case in point. 10^100 config space size too small. >>so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature.[49][n 8][50]>> 13: DNA, RNA, proteins. >>The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities.[51][52]>> 14: Naked appeal to collective authority in the face of an obvious cluster of cases in point that were put on the table by Orgel ~ 50 years ago, now. >>Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields,>> 15: Try, engineering, Computer Science, Cryptanalysis, Information theory and more. We live in a digital age, they cannot not know this. This is deception. >> as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as eliminative because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance,>> 16: Dishonest, the successive defaults have been given, the context of inference to best explanation is suppressed, the onward issue of hypothesis testing on nulls and alternatives does not come up before this bald, strawman caricature. We have low contingency on given initial conditions, lawlike regularity is the explanation. We have highly contingent but not independently, simply specified result, chance is best. >> finally defaulting to design. >> 17: Lie. The TWO -- count 'em -- defaults are eliminated in a context where FSCO/I is present, you have hit a narrow, functional target, not the barn door of gibberish, that suggests deliberate aim. >>They argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.[53]>> 18: In fact there are precisely ZERO cases of known origin, where FSCO/I has come about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, beyond the 500 - 1,000 bit threshold. Trillions of cases of such by design are readily observed. 19: Anyone who has seriously looked at the matter will know this, the manifest deceit at Wiki here is now at agit prop big lie levels. >>Richard Dawkins, another critic of intelligent design, argues in The God Delusion (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex.[54]>> 20: irrelevant, we are far more complex than the codes, texts and machines we produce. The issue is not inference to designers and debates over their complexity but the credible causal process for an entity before us, and more particularly, a relevant aspect. One needs to consider an object, event, phenomenon, process etc aspect by aspect, various features may be best explained in diverse ways. >>Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection is better able to explain the observed complexity,>> 21: The origin of R/DNA, its code and algorithms CANNOT be accounted for by biological evolution. There is a similar case for the first proteins and their correlation, given the threshold of complexity for a first cell. >>as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems>> 22: The evolution in question is of course highly fine tuned and designed by 'human "intelligent designers" ' >> that are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers".[55] >> 23: The very situation of genetic and evolutionary computing demonstrates the gross misrepresentation here. _________ Wikipedia fails -- and in so failing by way of patently dishonest strawman tactics in the face of manifest duties to truth, right reason, warrant, fairness etc -- shows that we can be confident that they do not have a cogent response to the actual design inference. KF kairosfocus

JVL:

Because I can’t possibly be right can I?

You can be as right as the people who say nature produced Stonehenge and the people who say the earth is flat. You are in good company. ET

JVL, The problem is that while you admit to the physical evidence that would in every other case clearly result in a conclusion of design, you deny the conclusion of design in this particular case with the defense: "there is no plausible designer available" to account for the design. What does "not plausible" mean? "Not plausible" to whom, under what worldview? I assume you mean "not plausible" to you. It's entirely plausible to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people that some great, intelligent mind designed that information (and also accounts for the fine-tuning of the universal forces.) It has been entirely plausible to some of the greatest minds, including scientific minds, in history. It was entirely plausible to some of the greatest physicists in history, including current ones, that had to account for what they found via quantum theory experimentation (consciousness & information, not matter or "energy," being fundamental to reality.) It's entirely appropriate for others here to say that your resistance to the design conclusion appears to be the artefact of a somewhat particular worldview that denies the obvious conclusion of the evidence. That evidence not only points directly at intelligent design, it also excludes any other rational explanation (an appeal to virtually impossible, statistical, miraculous "chance" is not a rational explanation) or known causative value. It's perfectly reasonable to say, "Yes, the best conclusion is ID, although we don't know the identity or nature of the designer." It's really not reasonable to deny the conclusion of ID because you personally don't find any proposed designer "plausible." The lack of a "plausible" designer does not change the fact that only known, rational, demonstrable causative commodity for the thing in question is intelligent design, and that no other "explanation" even comes close to being remotely reasonable. The "plausibility" of any proposed designer for a specific artefact is irrelevant to the finding of intelligent design. When a fire investigator makes a finding of arson, the lack of the ability of detectives to find a plausible suspect doesn't change the finding. William J Murray

JVL, I am not motive mongering, I have faced your claims and have offered you an opportunity to back them up, declined. I put on the table a specific case relevant to OOL and to origin of body plan level biodiversity: functional, algorithmic, coded information-bearing data structures beyond 500 - 1,000 bits of complexity. This has been put on the table in one form or another by the modern ID research programme since the early 1980's so you cannot justly plead ignorance. It also happens to be the case UB has highlighted. You evaded his challenge and you are evading mine, that's observable behaviour not motive mongering. Consider your bluff called, which is now a judgement that you put up a front but on being challenged are retreating behind a rhetorical squid ink cloud. That suggests that you have for a considerable time been unable to answer this central case, and as, doubtless, you have consulted and checked the usual sites that object to ID, they don't have an answer you are willing to put up before knowledgeable supporters of the design inference on FSCO/I as reliable, empirically tested sign. Recall, in one form or another, this is the core, world of life case put on the table by ID researchers and supporters for about 40 years now, i.e. from Thaxton et al (with support from Hoyle too) on. Whatever your motive, that points to the real balance on the merits. KF kairosfocus

Silver Asiatic: That has to be the problem. There is something blocking his decision-making process. Something needs to be resolved so that the path will open up. Because I can't possibly be right can I? Why should I bother to try and respond honestly if I end up getting labelled as a liar or having something wrong with me because I don't agree with you? Did you see what Lieutenant Commander Data said:

The Bible say about atheists that are crazy. It’s the ultimate craziness to say that life on Earth ,a masterpiece made by a Supreme Mind, appeared by chance.

I'll leave you and Upright BiPed and Bournagain77 and Kairosfocus to debate my shortcomings and motives. JVL

JVL, 299:

Why don’t you bring up a particular bit of physical evidence that you find compelling and we can, hopefully, have a productive discussion. Don’t just make sweeping generalisations overburdened with vague statements. Let’s talk about the actually evidence. Pick a case.

This is of course in the context of my remarks at 293 [with onward comments at 296 and 7), i.e.:

this very thread provides abundant evidence of intelligence providing FSCO/I [-> recall, functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information], in the form of code bearing informational strings well beyond the ASCII form threshold, at 7 bits per character. We have an observation base of trillions of cases of such FSCO/I, just start with the Internet, and go to a hardware store and look at screws for the organisation side. In every case, the source is design, and we can readily see that search challenge in config spaces for 500 to 1,000 bits for the atoms of the sol system at the low end and for the observed cosmos at the high end for ~ 10^17 s would round down to negligible search. That’s why; essentially the reasoning behind the stat mech support to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Further to this, again, March 22, I presented an excerpt on the infinite monkeys theorem as a test, precisely as a case in point https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/education/wikipedia-presents-pseudo-knowledge-fake-knowledge-on-id-yet-again/ The result was 10^100 as a factor short of a 72 character ASCII string. Now, you have been around UD for a while so you should know about such and certainly you know about the nature of DNA as a code bearing complex string in the heart of the cell. This implies complex code, algorithms, i.e. linguistic, goal directed information, which on factors on the table is a strong sign of design as cause. So, I think we can safely conclude, bluff called.

I would presume this thread with strings of ascii text [7 bits/character] is physical evidence, the Internet, screws in bins at hardware stores [and onward] are such. The observation that such FSCO/I per observation on a trillion case base, consistently comes about by design is a fact. That is, every observed case of FSCO/I origin beyond the 500 - 1,000 bit [or 72 to 143 ascii character threshold] is design. Where, obviously D/RNA in the cell is a similar case of string data structures expressing coded algorithms that are cumulatively highly complex, per multiple Nobel Prize winning work. Codes, plainly, are language and algorithms are stepwise, goal directed procedures. So, why did you suggest that I failed to provide physical cases, especially when I went on to point to text creation, infinite monkeys theorem exercises as conceded by Wikipedia testifying against interest? Are you not aware that coded meaningful text strings come as isolated zones in configuration spaces dominated by gibberish? So that, until one is on the beach of an island of function, incremental performance is not relevant? Thus, the search challenge of relevance is to find such islands? Which then makes the configuration space observation that the atoms of the sol system or cosmos for 500 and 1,000 bit spaces [000 . . . 0 to 111 . . . 1] cannot credibly search more than a negligible fraction blindly, in ~10^17 s [~ 13.8 BY] a relevant physical issue? That strings can be reduced to binary code and that 3-d functional configurations can be similarly expressed in some description language [cf. AutoCAD etc], so consideration of bit strings is WLOG? Where, BTW, this is essentially the same analytical issue and case that has been on the table since Thaxton et al in the early 1980's. And more? So, why did you set up and knock over a strawman about vagueness and sweeping generalisations? The relevant core case is string data structure, code bearing structures. Molecular nanotech in D/RNA (or onward AA sequences) or computer code or text on paper are just different forms of the string: -*-*-* - . . . -*. once we are beyond 500 - 1,000 bits worth [3.27*10^150 or 1.07*10^301 configs], relevant atomic resources acting as observers at fast chem reaction cycle times per observation, on sol system or observed cosmos scope cannot blindly sample more than a negligible fraction of the config spaces. Where, gibberish dominates over islands of function [unconstrained vs tightly constrained to achieve adequate function]. That is the analytical context for the empirical observation that FSCO/I bearing strings, as opposed to gibberish, consistently come from design. That is, FSCO/I is a strong sign of design. That in DNA we deal with codes so languale and algorithms so goals underscores this. And we pretty well knew that from 1953, as Crick acknowledged in his letter to Michael, his son. He directly compared to printed text. So, we can freely conclude that [a] you are grossly ignorant of the core FSCO/I based ID case, its context of Darwin's pond or the like, and/or [b] you chose to set up a strawman and knock it over. Those are not the actions of someone standing on a strong case. KF kairosfocus

UPB 208 & 209 I find it sad in many ways. JVL grasps the situation and is willing to accept the inference. He seems sincere in many ways, interested and open to the evidence right up to the critical point..

his personal belief system

That has to be the problem. There is something blocking his decision-making process. Something needs to be resolved so that the path will open up. Silver Asiatic

UBP - weird coincidence. The first thing I thought of posting to JVL as a response was something like: "You need to review Upright BiPed's analysis of language processing and communications networks and then engage seriously with the argument". I was thinking that he had not seen your argumentation on this. But no, as you said:

JVL stands directly in front of a design inference that is based recorded history and documented experimental results (which he not only cannot refute, but acknowledges as valid), using sound logic (that he himself uses in the same situation, drawing the same conclusion) and he cannot even speak the words.

That's an elegant summary. He's standing right in front of it. He actually leans towards it. Everything is there for him. But he backs away. Then turns and runs. Silver Asiatic

That Darwinists really have no real clue what they are talking about when they mention randomness within the cell, nor a real clue as to exactly how much randomness may actually be in the cell, was touched upon earlier in this thread at post 3 In the OP, this fact about the eye was listed:

“The rod can detect a single photon. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way”

That fact, along with many other facts, proves that the human body cannot possibly be dominated by nearly as much ‘random thermodynamic jostling’ of atoms as Darwinists, from Harvard no less, tried to falsely portray to the general public in a video they produced in 2013, which was entitled ‘Inner Life of the Cell: Protein Packing’,,,

Inner Life of a Cell | Protein Packing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHeTQLNFTgU

In the above 2013 video, as you can see, Harvard Biovisions tried to make the inner workings of the cell look as random, chaotic, and haphazard as possible in order to try to dispel any impression of design in the cell that they had inadvertently created in their first 2006 “Inner Life of a Cell” video. Yet, the inner workings of biological systems are found to be not nearly as random and haphazard, (i.e. subjected to ‘random thermodynamic jostling,), as Darwinists, (from Harvard no less), have tried to portray to the general public https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/bbc-cell-film-pays-tribute-to-design-in-nature-without-knowing-it/#comment-725955 In fact, biological systems, far from being a sea of particles that are subjected to intense ‘random thermodynamic jostling’, as was falsely portrayed in the Harvard video, are instead dominated by far more 'calm and smooth' quantum principles. And Darwinian biologists simply have not taken quantum principles into consideration at all in their understanding of biological systems. As Jim Al-Khalili, who is an atheist himself, states in the following video, “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”.

Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, “,, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can’t build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn’t really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it.” At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

And indeed, Schrodinger’s ‘speculation that ‘quantum mechanics plays a role in life’ has now been confirmed. Every important biological molecule in life is now found to be based on quantum principles, not on ‘random thermodynamic jostling’ principles as Darwinists have presupposed. As the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” stated “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

And as this follow up article stated, “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”

Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)

Even DNA itself does not belong to the 'random thermodynamic jostling' of classical mechanics, (as Darwinists have presupposed). but instead belongs to the world of quantum mechanics. In the following video, at the 22:20 minute mark, Dr Rieper shows why the high temperatures of biological systems do not prevent DNA from having quantum entanglement and then at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper goes on to remark that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.

“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176

Finding quantum entanglement and/or quantum information to be pervasive in biology, in every important biomolecule, is simple devastating to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists. Namely, quantum coherence and/or quantum entanglement is a non-local, beyond space and time, effect that requires a beyond space and time cause in order to explain its existence. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

In their materialistic framework, Darwinists simply have no beyond space and time cause to appeal to, whereas Christian Theists do, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the non-local quantum coherence and/or entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology. Whereas on the other hand, Christians readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain quantum entanglement. As Colossians 1:17 states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And here is a related video that goes over a few more details as to the fact that biological systems are not nearly as dominated by 'random thermodynamic jostling' as Darwinists, from Harvard no less, had falsely portrayed to the general public.

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg

Verse:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

. JVL’s entire post at #304 is obese with denial and obfuscation.

UB: But I would like to know the answer to a question. It is actually an old question, posed across cultures around the world. I think this is so, because it perhaps captures some core element of being a human. Now, you know that a fundamental scientific prediction was made about self-replication, and that this prediction was spectacularly confirmed by experiment. And you know (even though you would never admit it) that this prediction, its confirmation, along with the chain of understanding that followed it, including the physical description of the system and its critical requirements, are all on solid scientific footing and they form a completely sound inference to design in biology. Clearly you know all this; it is demonstrated in the way you dodge and weave to avoid it all (comment after comment after comment). My question in this: with all your clumsy defenses against science and reason, are you actually trying to convince me, or yourself? By that I mean, when you come here, knowing what you know, yet still barking out requests for evidence, are you actually trying to convince people who accept the legitimacy of the science to ignore it, or are you just trying to get by with the lowly consequences of your worldview? JVL: I am not ‘barking out requests for evidence’

Upright BiPed

. SA, you might not have been following along over the past months and weeks. Here is JVL’s protectionist double standard: (After clearly acknowledging the validity of the science and history behind the design inference, this is the his sacred cow).

JVL: I would not be surprised at all if we find electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings in other solar systems UB: How would we know if we found “electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings”? What would that be? JVL: Something like in the movie Contact. A signal that’s very clearly NOT produced by unguided processes. A signal which, after inspection, was shown to have compressed data. UB: So you accept encoded symbolic content as a universal inference to the presence of an unknown intelligence in one domain, while immediately denying that same physical evidence in another domain. Why the double standard? JVL: Because there is no plausible designer available. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – UB: When you say “because there is no plausible designer available” you are offering up a distinction that simply doesn’t exist. Does it really not occur to you that neither scenario has a “designer available” until evidence of that designer is discovered and confirmed? You shouldn’t need me to point this out to you. It is specifically the finding of encoded symbolic content that confirms (beyond any reasonable doubt) it is the product of an intelligence. Clearly, if a signal was received from outer space that contained encoded symbolic content in it, then you, like everyone else on the surface of the planet, would immediately (and quite correctly) infer the presence of a previously unknown intelligence. That is to say, the presence of encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. Do you see how that works, JVL? Before the confirmation of a universal correlate, there is no evidence of an intelligence in either scenario. After the confirmation of a universal correlate, the evidence of a previously unknown intelligence objectively exists in both scenarios. But that logical continuity is not how you treat the evidence. You treat the evidence with a gratuitous double standard. In the SETI scenario, encoded symbolic content is a universal correlate of intelligence. In the ID scenario, it isn’t. And it should come as no surprise that if encoded symbolic content is not a universal correlate of intelligence in the second scenario, then it can’t be that in the first scenario either. But does this logical inconsistency bother you? No, it serves your ideological purposes, and that is why you invoke it.

JVL uses a gratuitous double-standard when considering evidence against his personal belief system. And when he is asked to share the “compelling” evidence that supposedly undermines the recorded science and history that forms the design inference, he has nothing of substance to offer. He goes so far as to even acknowledges he has nothing of substance:

UB: I Since you obviously consider it compelling, what exactly is that evidence, and what exactly did it demonstrate? JVL: If it arose via chemical affinities … <b<UB: Stereochemistry is your answer? Some bits stick together better than other bits? How does “some bits stick together better than other bits” explain the presence of a gene? No answer. How does “some bits stick together better than other bits” explain self-reference? No answer. How does “some bits stick together better than other bits” solve the measurement problem? No answer. How does “some bits stick together better than other bits” organize semantic closure? No answer. Saying that stereochemistry is a compelling explanation for the origin of the gene system is like saying “righty tighty lefty loosely” is a compelling explanation for the origin of the space shuttle. It is a compelling explanation that explains nothing whatsoever. JVL: I didn’t say the evidence was now compelling but it seems to be a worthy area of research.

JVL stands directly in front of a design inference that is based recorded history and documented experimental results (which he not only cannot refute, but acknowledges as valid), using sound logic (that he himself uses in the same situation, drawing the same conclusion) and he cannot even speak the words. Upright BiPed

JVL, you just dodged the opportunity and tried to dismiss evidence on the table. Your response is telling us a lot. KF kairosfocus

JVL claims that "I don’t think I said any process in the human body is random except for mutations in cell reproduction. So, what’s the discussion?" Really? Perhaps you can inform James Shapiro of this fact?

"It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works. All careful studies of mutagenesis find statistically significant non-random patterns” - James Shapiro - Evolution: A View From The 21st Century - (Page 82) Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century - James A. Shapiro - 2009 Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. - 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611

Of course, if Darwin's Theory were a normal science, this would count as yet another major falsification of the theory, but alas, Darwin's Theory, (since it is really just a religion for atheists masquerading as a science), gets a free pass. To add further insult to injury, recombination of DNA during sexual reproduction is also found to be far less random than was originally presupposed by Darwinists

Duality in the human genome - November 28, 2014 Excerpt: The results also show that genetic mutations do not occur randomly in the two parental chromosome sets and that they are distributed in the same ratio in everyone.,,, The results show that most genes can occur in many different forms within a population: On average, about 250 different forms of each gene exist. The researchers found around four million different gene forms just in the 400 or so genomes they analysed. This figure is certain to increase as more human genomes are examined. More than 85 percent of all genes have no predominant form which occurs in more than half of all individuals. This enormous diversity means that over half of all genes in an individual, around 9,000 of 17,500, occur uniquely in that one person - and are therefore individual in the truest sense of the word. The gene, as we imagined it, exists only in exceptional cases. "We need to fundamentally rethink the view of genes that every schoolchild has learned since Gregor Mendel's time.,,, According to the researchers, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes. They found that 60 percent of mutations affect the same chromosome set and 40 percent both sets. Scientists refer to these as cis and trans mutations, respectively. Evidently, an organism must have more cis mutations, where the second gene form remains intact. "It's amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula," says Hoehe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html

As Jonathan Wells has stated, “It’s the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism.” Or as Denis Noble has stated, DNA is an 'organ of the cell', not its dictator.' Again, if Darwin's Theory were a normal science, this would count as yet another major falsification of the theory, but alas Darwin's Theory, (since it is really just a religion for atheists masquerading as a science), gets a free pass. bornagain77

JVL

There is no physical evidence that such a being can or does exist.

Anything that exists is evidence of a cause. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: There is no evidence that unguided nature can produce anything close. Some researchers state it is impossible. There is evidence IF there was no designer around to kick-start life on Earth. No present designer means no design. Exactly. To falsify that, we need to see the evidence that codes can be created by unguided physical elements. Show me some independent evidence that there was a designer around at the pertinent time. Until then, ID stands as the best explanation. I would disagree because you have no separate evidence of a designer present at the pertinent time. That's pure conjecture. the proposal that there exists a greater, immaterial intelligence is reasonable. I disagree. There is no physical evidence that such a being can or does exist. And I thought we were talking about evidence. Logical evidence is evidence. It’s a necessary part of reasoning. We must accept the Law of non-contradiction, otherwise we cannot reason or communicate. At some point logical evidence pointed to there being no black swans. Logic is subject to our experience. Just like all data. JVL

JVL I don’t think I said any process in the human body is random except for mutations in cell reproduction. So, what’s the discussion?

:) You don't know that. You only assert that. Give me a link where somebody prove that. PS: To make such a statement you have to know everything about cell. You don't know ,nobody know except the Engineer that produced the prototype. The Bible say about atheists that are crazy. It's the ultimate craziness to say that life on Earth ,a masterpiece made by a Supreme Mind, appeared by chance. Lieutenant Commander Data

JVL

What you have is a supposed abstract ‘code’ which has been proposed to have been an arbitrary accident or ‘choice’. You do not have independent evidence of a designer.

The presence of a coded-language within a communication circuit (sender-translation-receiver-response-function) is evidence of an intelligent source. That's how SETI works. We look for language signals - that means there's intelligence at work. The code is specified for highly-sophisticated functions. This is positive evidence. There is no evidence that unguided nature can produce anything close. Some researchers state it is impossible.

ID says: only intelligent designers can create abstract and arbitrary codes based on our experience. Since DNA is an abstract and arbitrary code the best explanation is an intelligent designer.

Exactly. To falsify that, we need to see the evidence that codes can be created by unguided physical elements.

But . . . what if it isn’t a completely abstract and arbitrary code? What if it’s based on some basic chemical affinities? As some research suggests.

Then that ID proposal is falsified. Until then, ID stands as the best explanation. We don't hold out and say "maybe there's a better one" without affirming that we have a "best one" already.

Our experience of intelligent designers is limited to human beings, anything past that is speculation. And I thought we were avoiding that.

I mentioned SETI but we are aware of design created by animal intelligence also, so not just human. Since there is a low-level intelligence in various forms of life (some say in plants) with increasing power and range up to human intelligence - the proposal that there exists a greater, immaterial intelligence is reasonable.

Assertions are not evidence. If you want to restrict the discussion to actual evidence then please do so.

Logical evidence is evidence. It's a necessary part of reasoning. We must accept the Law of non-contradiction, otherwise we cannot reason or communicate. It is a contradiction to propose that the material universe was created by a material factor. 1. For a thing to begin to exist means that "beginning" is a starting point, before which the thing did not exist. 2. "Today I baked a cake which had never existed before. But that same cake existed last week." That's a contradiction. 3. The material universe (all aspects of what is material) began to exist. Before then, it did not exist. 4. To say that something material caused all material aspects to exist is a logical contradiction. That's logical evidence. Silver Asiatic

Sandy: ? Tell us 1 single process in human body that is RANDOM. Case closed. I don't think I said any process in the human body is random except for mutations in cell reproduction. So, what's the discussion? JVL

JVL Why don’t you bring up a particular bit of physical evidence that you find compelling and we can, hopefully, have a productive discussion. Don’t just make sweeping generalisations overburdened with vague statements. Let’s talk about the actually evidence. Pick a case.

:) Tell us 1 single process in human body that is RANDOM. Case closed. Sandy

Kairosfocus: JVL, do you hear the echo in the cave, at this point you are projecting. Do you want to talk about evidence and data or just ideology? Why don't you bring up a particular bit of physical evidence that you find compelling and we can, hopefully, have a productive discussion. Don't just make sweeping generalisations overburdened with vague statements. Let's talk about the actually evidence. Pick a case. JVL

Silver Asiatic: However, we find 3 empty gasoline containers in different parts of the house. We find the hottest parts of the fire were in 3 select locations – adjacent to the cans. You do not have that kind of indicators regarding the origin of life on Earth and an intelligent designer. The truth is: no one knows. You don't have your 'cans' as evidence. You don't have any supporting physical evidence at all. What you have is a supposed abstract 'code' which has been proposed to have been an arbitrary accident or 'choice'. You do not have independent evidence of a designer. ID says: only intelligent designers can create abstract and arbitrary codes based on our experience. Since DNA is an abstract and arbitrary code the best explanation is an intelligent designer. But . . . what if it isn't a completely abstract and arbitrary code? What if it's based on some basic chemical affinities? As some research suggests. Our experience of intelligent designers is limited to human beings, anything past that is speculation. And I thought we were avoiding that. The physical-material universe cannot be created by that which is physical, but by what is immaterial and non-physical.k Assertions are not evidence. If you want to restrict the discussion to actual evidence then please do so. JVL

PS: The ideological bias driving the imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism is clear from Monod, yes, a Nobel Prize winner [and French Resistance fighter]: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/atheism/monods-objectivity-naturalistic-scientism-and-begging-big-questions/

[T]he basic premise of the scienti?c method, . . . [is] that nature is objective and not projective [= a project of an agent]. Hence it is through reference to our own activity, con-scious and projective, intentional and purposive-it is as | makers of artifacts-that we judge of a given object’s “naturalness” or “arti?cialness.” [pp. 3 – 4, Chance and Necessity, 1971] . . . . [T]he postulate of objectivity is consubstantial with science: it has guided the whole of its prodigious develop-ment for three centuries. There is no way to be rid of it, even tentatively or in a limited area, without departing from the domain of science itself. [p. 21] On a TV interview: [T]he scientific attitude implies what I call the postulate of objectivity—that is to say, the fundamental postulate that there is no plan, that there is no intention in the universe. Now, this is basically incompatible with virtually all the religious or metaphysical systems whatever, all of which try to show that there is some sort of harmony between man and the universe and that man is a product—predictable if not indispensable—of the evolution of the universe.— Jacques Monod [Quoted in John C. Hess, ‘French Nobel Biologist Says World Based On Chance’, New York Times (15 Mar 1971), p. 6. Cited in Herbert Marcuse, Counter-Revolution and Revolt (1972), p. 66.]

Ideology, not evidence. kairosfocus

JVL, do you hear the echo in the cave, at this point you are projecting. There is no preponderance of evidence favouring blind chance and mechanical necessity as plausibly causing FSCO/I in Darwin's pond or anywhere in the cosmos. There are trillions of observed cases of FSCO/I coming about by design. The string data structures in the living cells speak eloquently as to their empirically warranted cause -- coding, we call it these days, used to be programming. KF kairosfocus

JVL

Let’s suppose a cabin in the woods burns down. We know that humans can set and cause fires. That doesn’t mean that particular fire was cause by a human. It could have been lightning. I’ve never seen a fire caused by lightning so how do I know that can happen?

You're walking along the right pathway of reasoning, but then falling short when the most plausible and reasonable solution arises. Yes, a cabin burns down. Now we do some forensics work. It could have been lightning. It could have been the heat of the sun - or even some other unknown natural cause (sparks off of stones). However, we find 3 empty gasoline containers in different parts of the house. We find the hottest parts of the fire were in 3 select locations - adjacent to the cans. So the lightning struck three times, hitting all three gas cans simultaneously, knocking them over in separate parts of the house? Or the cans spontaneously tipped over and started on fire? No - we have positive evidence of intelligent design in this case. The cans are evidence of a plan and purpose - which eliminates natural causes. The same is true in Origin of Life - we have positive evidence of coded-language which is an artifact of intelligence. That points to a designer - not a natural cause. The physical-material universe cannot be created by that which is physical, but by what is immaterial and non-physical. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus: So, I think we can safely conclude, bluff called. Draw whatever conclusions you wish. I still find the preponderance of the evidence in favour of unguided evolution. If you'd like to ask me, respectfully, about certain bits of data or evidence then I'll be happy to respond. If you're just going to tell me I'm wrong then I'm much more likely to ignore you. JVL

JVL, this very thread provides abundant evidence of intelligence providing FSCO/I, in the form of code bearing informational strings well beyond the ASCII form threshold, at 7 bits per character. We have an observation base of trillions of cases of such FSCO/I, just start with the Internet, and go to a hardware store and look at screws for the organisation side. In every case, the source is design, and we can readily see that search challenge in config spaces for 500 to 1,000 bits for the atoms of the sol system at the low end and for the observed cosmos at the high end for ~ 10^17 s would round down to negligible search. That's why; essentially the reasoning behind the stat mech support to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Further to this, again, March 22, I presented an excerpt on the infinite monkeys theorem as a test, precisely as a case in point https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/education/wikipedia-presents-pseudo-knowledge-fake-knowledge-on-id-yet-again/ The result was 10^100 as a factor short of a 72 character ASCII string. Now, you have been around UD for a while so you should know about such and certainly you know about the nature of DNA as a code bearing complex string in the heart of the cell. This implies complex code, algorithms, i.e. linguistic, goal directed information, which on factors on the table is a strong sign of design as cause. So, I think we can safely conclude, bluff called. KF kairosfocus

Jerry 288 That was insightful. Mr. Krebs is expert enough in evolutionary theory to set educational standards as curriculum director and says he has "an anthropology degree, with background especially in human evolution and the evolution of behavior." Challenged several times on that thread - he came back with nothing. Zero. Allen_McNeill tried to cover for him with some rhetoric, but underneath that also they have nothing to show to defend their own theory. Instead, they turn around and attack ID or get involved in tangential disputes about attitudes and forum-behavior. I remember back then. The evolutionists were a bit more arrogant and uneducated. So, they've gained a little humility, but have added nothing towards empirical demonstrations of their claims. Silver Asiatic

Jerry: We get the same evasion today with the same disingenuous excuses. Nothing has changed. I'm not responsible for what other people have said or done. Like I said: I'm happy to answer questions about my own personal views and reasons. As I have said many times the most interesting question is not whether there is research supporting evolutionary biology or not but why is there an unwillingness to provide an honest answer? The respondents know what they are doing is evading a relevant question but pretend in all seriousness they are being forthright. I've not looked at the threads in question and I'm certainly not going to answer for anyone else. BUT, do you think it's possible that sometimes people are hesitant to respond honestly because of what they guess will be the response? Like, for instance: when I ask ID supporters when they think design was implemented do you think it's possible they think I will mock them if they answer honestly? I think many unguided evolutionary supporters have admitted that we don't really know how life got started on Earth. And that is the truth. It doesn't mean researchers are just tossing in the towel and giving up. It is a complicated and difficult problem and it's going to take a long time to finish exhausting the possible lines of experimentation. JVL

Silver Asiatic: You’ve affirmed that there is no demonstrable evidence for the origin of life from non-living matter. We know that the irreducible elements of life can be modeled by human intelligence. This is evidence that intelligence was involved in that origin. It's not evidence, it's a possible explanation. Let's suppose a cabin in the woods burns down. We know that humans can set and cause fires. That doesn't mean that particular fire was cause by a human. It could have been lightning. I've never seen a fire caused by lightning so how do I know that can happen? A designer is not being forced in. We see that which appears to be designed (as Dawkins affirms). We recognize that unguided processes do not, as yet, produce the design (origin of life). Intelligence is the most probable cause. Not if there was no designer around at the time. How do you know there was a designer around at the time with the necessary skills? This is one of the reasons I find the unguided explanation more plausible: it doesn't hypothesise any unknown causes. An alien designer does not answer the problem of fine-tuning of the universe. The universe had a beginning, thus was caused by something outside of the universe. This is the first, uncreated, immaterial, omnipotent cause – which we call God. Interestingly enough I've been hearing about some new physics data which suggests no designer was necessary. So, again, which explanation is more plausible? One which supposes an unknown and undetected cause or agent or one that doesn't? I think the acceptance of a supreme being is at the heart of the debate: you and many others have a personal and immediate reason for accepting the existence of a supreme, loving being. I don't. So it comes down to physical evidence. In my mind. JVL

On the thread linked to in the thread above, the next comment is by Dave Scot to another expert on evolutionary biology, Allen MacNeill, who taught evolutionary biology at Cornell

During the course of evolution there ostensibly appeared many novel cell types, tissue types, organs, and body plans. Any theory of evolution must account for the origin of those. If it does not then it’s only a partial theory which avoids the most difficult questions. How is it NOT a salient question to ask if any of these occurred over 70 million years on the Hawaiian islands? I understand why you’d wish to change the subject back to microevolution. But we aren’t really concerned about microevolution. We accept that species change over time due to recombination and natural selection. What we don’t accept is random mutation & natural selection building complex structures from scratch. Not in 5 million years, not in 70 million years, not in 500 million years, and not in 3 billion years. I offered a testable hypothesis based on an ID theoretic view that the clades in the Hawaiin islands can all be derived from a common ancestor by rearranging genetic information that was already present in the ancestor. That you want to change the subject instead of addressing the hypothesis speaks volumes about this whole debate. We are asking for explanations about macroevolution and you change the subject to microevolution. Answer the question or admit that you can’t.

Response was crickets. As I have said many times the most interesting question is not whether there is research supporting evolutionary biology or not but why is there an unwillingness to provide an honest answer? The respondents know what they are doing is evading a relevant question but pretend in all seriousness they are being forthright. jerry

Why is it so hard just to have a civilised, agree-to-disagree conversation?

We have had many in the past. In fact the exact same challenge was once made to an evolutionary biologist who was part of a group responsible for setting guidelines on the teaching of evolution. His name was Jack Krebs, Here is the thread and just see how Jack avoids backing anything of substance on the teaching of evolution. One would think a recognized expert could at least provide something. But he couldn't. Anyone interested in how this conversation went can go to https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/complex-speciation-of-humans-and-chimpanzees/#comment-186360 It took place 13 years ago. From the linked comment, To the expert on evolution.

Prove me or the other ID proponents here wrong. That is all we ask. There is a whole world out there that mocks and disdains those who support ID. Use them as resources. We would welcome the discussion.

What happened on this very long thread after this was evasion by Jack Krebs. As were all his comments before. We get the same evasion today with the same disingenuous excuses. Nothing has changed. jerry

JVL

For me, the most plausible explanation based on the knowledge and evidence we have now is: unguided processes. You can hypothesise an intelligent designer but where is the evidence (aside from the contested objects) that there was one about?

You've affirmed that there is no demonstrable evidence for the origin of life from non-living matter. We know that the irreducible elements of life can be modeled by human intelligence. This is evidence that intelligence was involved in that origin.

Has it ever occurred to you that trying to force a designer into the mix is not that much different from believing it was all down to unguided processes?

A designer is not being forced in. We see that which appears to be designed (as Dawkins affirms). We recognize that unguided processes do not, as yet, produce the design (origin of life). Intelligence is the most probable cause. An alien designer does not answer the problem of fine-tuning of the universe. The universe had a beginning, thus was caused by something outside of the universe. This is the first, uncreated, immaterial, omnipotent cause - which we call God. Silver Asiatic

JVL states,

While I appreciate the invitation to ‘prove ID wrong’ or to ‘prove unguided evolution true’ we all know that the arguments and reasons I would give would be the same ones you’ve all heard many, many times before.,,,

Oh come on now, don't be bashful. I certainly have not of anyone coming close to falsifying ID and collecting Perry Marshall's 10 million dollar prize in the process. If you know who did it, please tell us. And If no one has done it yet, I want to start a petition immediately to get this mad super genius every scientific prize on the planet, perhaps even get him a ticker tape parade in NYC.,, His own postage stamp even. Shoot name a small nation after the guy! :)

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution – 14 Jan, 2020, Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at http://www.evo2.org. The new international competition is intended to speed breakthroughs around the still unknown process of cell communication that organizers predict can turn off cancer, allow robots to think for themselves and even create new plant life to combat climate change. The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. “A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days,” said Marshall. “One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they’d set the NASDAQ on fire. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

bornagain77

Silver Asiatic: It is a leap of faith to think that blind, unguided nature can produce origin of life. This is an honest admission on your part. However, doesn’t this leave the strongest and most compelling evidence that only intelligence could produce the result? Agreed that the idea of an alien agent doing the work only pushes the problem back. But for what we observe, there has to be a cause. Why not a leap of faith in the idea that there was an Intelligent Designer? In all other cases when we know some artefact was created by a (human) intelligent designer we have other evidence that a human or group of humans was around at the time. We've got nothing like that for the origin of life. Plus, the nature of the 'design' seems to indicate something unplanned, in my opinion. So, I find the undesigned case stronger. Like I said: if we find a message or statement (or a crashed ship, or living quarters, or spent fuel rods, or a latrine, or . . . ) left behind by some alien race that seems to date from the right time then I'm happy to change my opinion. Our current knowledge tells us that the vast distances, the energy it would take, and the time it would take makes interstellar travel pretty daunting. IF our knowledge changes then my opinion changes. I consider the alien visitation scenario unlikely based on what we know now of how it could be done. For me, the most plausible explanation based on the knowledge and evidence we have now is: unguided processes. You can hypothesise an intelligent designer but where is the evidence (aside from the contested objects) that there was one about? I don't mean to offend but it does sound a bit like the Erich von Daniken arguments for ancient alien astronauts: we don't know how the locals could have done this and we're going to interpret some of their paintings and writings as evidence of alien visitation so, ta da, ancient alien astronauts. But if the interpretation is wrong the whole thing falls apart. No aliens means the local Egyptians built the pyramids, the local Brits build Stonehenge, etc. Has it ever occurred to you that trying to force a designer into the mix is not that much different from believing it was all down to unguided processes? Both arguments are looking at the same data, the same evidence and guessing the cause. They are just hypotheses. Which is why I look around to see if there's more evidence or data to support aliens. Trying to simulate conditions in the wild with software would mean an intelligently designed solution, but even that has not been close to having been achieved. Even a guided process has not been able to bring the elements together like that. If blind, unguided nature supposedly created life from non-life, we should be able to do the same thing in a lab with chemicals – directed specifically to that result. Yeah, possibly. But it depends on knowing what the conditions on the early Earth were. And that seems to be a moving target. So it's not clear how to 'guide' the process, not yet anyway. AND it seems to have taken thousands if not millions of years. How long are you willing to wait for the 'primordial soup' to do its thing? JVL

JVL

A bit of software . . . probably not that as the software would have to be intelligently designed.

Trying to simulate conditions in the wild with software would mean an intelligently designed solution, but even that has not been close to having been achieved. Even a guided process has not been able to bring the elements together like that. If blind, unguided nature supposedly created life from non-life, we should be able to do the same thing in a lab with chemicals - directed specifically to that result. Silver Asiatic

JVL

I do accept that hypothesising an, as of yet undemonstrated, unguided origin of life is a bit of a leap (of faith?) at this point but as I don’t see strong, compelling evidence of any being around at the time who could have started everything going.

It is a leap of faith to think that blind, unguided nature can produce origin of life. This is an honest admission on your part. However, doesn't this leave the strongest and most compelling evidence that only intelligence could produce the result? Agreed that the idea of an alien agent doing the work only pushes the problem back. But for what we observe, there has to be a cause. Why not a leap of faith in the idea that there was an Intelligent Designer? Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus: JVL, I invited and would host an up to 6,000 word presentation of your case. That's kind of you but, again, I've got nothing new to add to the debate. As a matter of fact, actual demonstration of 72 or 143 ascii characters of coherent functional information be blind chance and/or mechanical necessity would show me that FSCO/I is not a strictly reliable sign of design as cause. What kind of demonstration would that be? Just curious . . . I'm trying to think of how that could be achieved . . . a chemical experiment? A bit of software . . . probably not that as the software would have to be intelligently designed. How could one demonstrate the generation of so many bits of complex, specified functional information? Is it even possible, theoretically? JVL

JVL, I invited and would host an up to 6,000 word presentation of your case. That has nothing to do with whether or not it would persuade me. As a matter of fact, actual demonstration of 72 or 143 ascii characters of coherent functional information be blind chance and/or mechanical necessity would show me that FSCO/I is not a strictly reliable sign of design as cause. KF kairosfocus

Jerry: We just had our first admission today by an anti ID person that there isn’t any evidence. That's not what I actually said. Why is it so hard just to have a civilised, agree-to-disagree conversation? Prove me wrong: there is no evidence that there is a mechanism to build/that built proteins or complex structures in life forms. I think the evidence for unguided evolution is strong and consists of several lines of data. You might cast aspersions on one line or one step of one line but when you consider all that evidence together I find it strongly compelling. As ET might say: you can't 'prove' anything in biology. At best you can find plausible pathways that match the data and evidence. I admit that the unguided explanation for the origin of life isn't quite there yet but I think some progress is being made. But there is no way we'll ever be able to 'prove' how it happened. (I added natural to the challenge because it should have been in the original challenge. Of course an intelligence could have done it.) Noticed after I penned my response but since I assumed that's what you meant I'll keep my response as is. JVL

Prove me wrong: there is no evidence that there is a natural mechanism to build/that built proteins or complex structures in life forms. We just had our first admission today by an anti ID person that there isn’t any evidence. (I added natural to the challenge because it should have been in the original challenge. Of course an intelligence could have done it.) jerry

While I appreciate the invitation to 'prove ID wrong' or to 'prove unguided evolution true' we all know that the arguments and reasons I would give would be the same ones you've all heard many, many times before. Personally, I find the data, evidence and arguments made in favour of unguided evolution more compelling than the data, evidence and arguments made in favour of Intelligent Design. I do accept that hypothesising an, as of yet undemonstrated, unguided origin of life is a bit of a leap (of faith?) at this point but as I don't see strong, compelling evidence of any being around at the time who could have started everything going. And I do subscribe to the argument that even if some alien seeded life on Earth billions of years ago then how did that alien come to be? In other words, pan spermia or alien intervention just kick the can of the question of the origin of life down the road. Additionally, considering the vast distances and energy requirements for interstellar travel why would some being spend all that time and all that trouble to kick-start life on Earth and then skedaddle without leaving a note or message. Hey, maybe we'll find one on the Moon someday (ala 2001, a Space Odyssey) and if that's the case then I'll change my opinion based on the evidence. I'm happy to discuss my own personal beliefs or why I find some arguments compelling and others not so much. But there is no way I can present to you all an argument or evidence or data that you haven't already seen or digested. So I won't waste your time trying to come up with THAT BIG POINT that might change your minds. Mostly we all look at the same physical evidence and data but we come to different conclusions. I don't see that changing based on anything I say here. I will try and be honest and (fairly) respectful though . . . I do have my snarky moments like anyone else and you're all welcome to call me on those. JVL

Silver Asiatic: Failing a materialistic demonstration (which nobody has), you’d be rejecting the most logical inference we can make. I disagree; I find the evidence, data and arguments in favour of unguided evolution more compelling than the evidence, data and arguments in favour of Intelligent Design. Yes, but I was looking for your opinion on why that is the case. I do not know why a higher percentage of Christians in Europe support evolutionary theory compared to those in the US of A. Maybe you should ask some of them. I did hear Dr Rowan Williamson (former Archbishop of Canterbury) argue that ID was bad theology and I figured he knew more about theology than I do. JVL

JVL

That’s what evolutionary theory says has been demonstrated because of multiple threads of historical and biological evidence. Thus the impasse.

ID is found in more places than evolution. Origin of Life. Your belief is that the existence of life shows no evidence of intelligent design. ID disagrees. Failing a materialistic demonstration (which nobody has), you'd be rejecting the most logical inference we can make.

Surveys consistently suggest that evolutionary theory is more supported in Europe than in America and I know my friend agrees with the former Archbishop of Canterbury that it is correct. Make of that what you will.

Yes, but I was looking for your opinion on why that is the case. Silver Asiatic

A comment from an ex liberal

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Or my assessment (Prove me wrong)

ID proponents deal with facts and reach conclusions; anti ID proponents have conclusions and sell them as facts.

jerry

"That’s what evolutionary theory says has been demonstrated because of multiple threads of historical and biological evidence. Thus the impasse." This is an Uber-Troll. The same empty claim repeated mindlessly for the 8 billionth time with Built-In Impasse to make serious conversation impossible. Andrew asauber

JVL:

That’s what evolutionary theory says has been demonstrated because of multiple threads of historical and biological evidence.

There isn't any scientific theory of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. And peer-review is devoid of such demonstrations. You are lying. ET

If anyone believes ID has been falsified, explain why in 250 words or less. On the other side: Prove me wrong: there is no evidence that there is a mechanism to build/that built proteins or complex structures in life forms. Again: 250 words or less. If someone balks at the word limit, start with this limit and build a framework. For example, I know of research that claims how proteins were built and believes they can prove it. But I believe it is essentially bogus research. Speculations don’t count! My prediction: this challenge like all before it and there have been many will be ignored. Proof of ID is then assured by failure to accept this or any previous challenge. So either accept the challenge or admit by ignoring it that ID is valid. jerry

JVL states, "If you replace ‘Darwinists’ and ‘Darwinism’ with ‘ID supporters’ and ‘ID’ you would have a statement that many evolutionary theory supporters would agree with. Thus the impasse between the sides." It is interesting that JVL appeals merely to the opinions of 'evolutionary theory supporters' instead of presenting any actual scientific evidence that ID has been falsified, i.e. that "a digital communication system to emerge or self-evolve without "cheating", and thus collecting Perry Marshall's 10 million dollar prize in the process. (and, I might add, going down in history as the greatest scientist who has ever lived)

Artificial Intelligence + Origin of Life Prize, $10 Million USD Excerpt: What You Must Do to Win The Prize You must arrange for a digital communication system to emerge or self-evolve without "cheating." The diagram below describes the system. Without explicitly designing the system, your experiment must generate an encoder that sends digital code to a decoder. Your system needs to transmit at least five bits of information. (In other words it has to be able to represent 32 states. The genetic code supports 64.) You have to be able to draw an encoding and decoding table and determine whether or not the data has been transmitted successfully. So, for example, an RNA based origin of life experiment will be considered successful if it contains an encoder, message and decoder as described above. To our knowledge, this has never been done. https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0?_ga=2.178178989.964019425.1617878894-456264055.1617878894

Why didn't JVL present any evidence that this falsification criteria has been met? And why did he only appeal to the opinions of 'evolution theory supporters'? Is 10 million dollars not enough incentive for Darwinists to clearly demonstrate how mindless material processes can create a 'primitive' encoding/decoding system? Of course not. Besides the monetary incentive, the incentive in prestige is also immense. I remind JVL that anyone who falsified ID and collected the prize, would also go down in history as the greatest scientist to have ever lived, bar none!

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution – 14 Jan, 2020, Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at http://www.evo2.org. The new international competition is intended to speed breakthroughs around the still unknown process of cell communication that organizers predict can turn off cancer, allow robots to think for themselves and even create new plant life to combat climate change. The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. “A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days,” said Marshall. “One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they’d set the NASDAQ on fire. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

Thus, the incentive for atheists to rigorously falsify ID is definitely there and is definitely immense. The real reason why no Darwinists has collected the 10 million dollar prize, (or ever will collect the 10 million dollar prize), is simply because they have no experimental evidence whatsoever that mindless material processes can ever create what only intelligent minds have ever been observed creating. Namely, information. And there is a very good, easy to understand, reason why Darwinists will NEVER be able to demonstrate that mindless material processes can create information. Simply put, information is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence, and thus it is impossible, in principle, for mindless material processes to ever be capable of explaining its origin. As evolutionary biologist George Williams explains, “Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.’… Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes… This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.”

“Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term ‘reductionism.’… Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes… This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.” George Williams – Evolutionary Biologist – “A Package of Information”

And as Dr. Stephen Meyer further explains,

“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they possess’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” - Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8 -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.

Thus, there is a very good reason why Darwinists will never be able to falsify ID and collect the 10 million dollar prize. Darwinists, with their 'bottom up' materialistic explanations, simply are not even in the correct theoretical ballpark to even be able to play the game in the first place.

Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt: Causation: The nature of causation is highly contested territory, and I will take a pragmatic view:?Definition 1: Causal Effect If making a change in a quantity X results in a reliable demonstrable change in a quantity Y in a given context, then X has a causal effect on Y.?Example: I press the key labelled “A” on my computer keyboard; the letter “A” appears on my computer screen.,,, Definition 2: Existence If Y is a physical entity made up of ordinary matter, and X is some kind of entity that has a demonstrable causal effect on Y as per Definition 1, then we must acknowledge that X also exists (even if it is not made up of such matter). This is clearly a sensible and testable criterion; in the example above, it leads to the conclusion that both the data and the relevant software exist. If we do not adopt this definition, we will have instances of uncaused changes in the world; I presume we wish to avoid that situation.,,, Excerpt: page 5: A: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts.,,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf

Quote and Verse

“Matter does not make rules. Matter is governed by rules.” fifthmonarchyman John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

bornagain77

@JVL:

(I probably have some of the names wrong) Why was Dave Scott banned? Why was Gil banned? Why was Mapou banned? Why was JoeG banned? Why was Elizabeth banned?

A more interesting case might be the "quisling" stcordova, who "gave aid and comfort to the enemies of truth": http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/barry-arringtons-bullying/ AndyClue

That’s what evolutionary theory says has been demonstrated because of multiple threads of historical and biological evidence. Thus the impasse.

You can't "demonstrate" fairytales. You just tell a story about what happened ...bilions, and ...ons years ago. Sandy

Kairosfocus: Instantly, that rings false. One does not merely “feel” that one has a refutation, one shows that one has a refutation. In this case, a demonstration of FSCO/I coming about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity will do. That's what evolutionary theory says has been demonstrated because of multiple threads of historical and biological evidence. Thus the impasse. To my certain knowledge from over a decade here, that is false and misleading. There are people who may have been banned here and/or have been in heated exchanges who may have a legitimate concern, but on the whole those banned have been banned for cause. Manifest cause. Worse, the experience has been that far too often objectors to ID feel that abusive commentary, doxxing and the like are legitimate tactics within their right to freedom of expression. So much so that I identified a pattern, termed the trifecta fallacy. (I probably have some of the names wrong) Why was Dave Scott banned? Why was Gil banned? Why was Mapou banned? Why was JoeG banned? Why was Elizabeth banned? Further, there is another pair of patterns, selective hyperskepticism and the demand to conform to crooked yardsticks set up as gold standards of reference, authority and verity. The first, is exertion of double standards of warrant that demand arbitrarily high proof of what one is inclined to reject, that are not exerted on what one wishes to be so. If one is selectively hyperskeptical regarding X, it is because one has credulously accepted crooked yardstick Y, and is using it to discriminate against X. It is the double-standard that is diagnostic. You always say that when someone disagrees with you. I get it that many things seem crystal clear to you but they appear completely different to others. That's not 'hyperskepticism', that's having a different opinion or view. Prove me wrong, if you can. I don't think there's any possible way to get you to change your mind about certain things. JVL

Bornagain77: I would add that Darwinists simply refuse to accept falsification of their theory even though it has been falsified from numerous different angles, thus Darwinism, in all its various forms, is presently unfalsifiable and therefore ‘outside of empirical science’, If you replace 'Darwinists' and 'Darwinism' with 'ID supporters' and 'ID' you would have a statement that many evolutionary theory supporters would agree with. Thus the impasse between the sides. JVL

Silver Asiatic: Sounds like you’re saying that ID has more support in America because the religious faith of Americans causes them to accept the false notion of ID (and not reflect the science). So, American ID supporters are more gullible and less scientifically accomplished. So, European origin-of-life researchers have stronger evidence than ID researchers have presented? They have better explanations for the origin of the universe and the fine-tuning found therein? I’m interested to see them, if so. I merely related a comment made to me; I cast no aspersions on anyone. Surveys consistently suggest that evolutionary theory is more supported in Europe than in America and I know my friend agrees with the former Archbishop of Canterbury that it is correct. Make of that what you will. So, you do not see any evidence of intelligence in the design present in nature. It has the appearance of design but it was all created by blind, unintelligent forces? Correct, that is my view. JVL

JVL, I noticed this phrasing:

There are a lot of people who feel that they have falsified ID theory only to be shouted down on ID supportive sites. So . . . . my question is: how should the disagreement be moderated?

Instantly, that rings false. One does not merely "feel" that one has a refutation, one shows that one has a refutation. In this case, a demonstration of FSCO/I coming about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity will do. As someone who spent IIRC three years actively soliciting something like such a refutation here and which is still technically open, I immediately give you the challenge to produce an up to 6,000 word summary of such a refutation, It can contain links elsewhere but must present the core evidence summarised. [Recall, I recently put up yet again, a random document attempt summary, one of the most embarrassing pages at Wikipedia. For years, they have lingered at about 10^100 factor short of the lower end of the FSCO/I 500 - 1,000 bits threshold.] Next, you claim shouting down. To my certain knowledge from over a decade here, that is false and misleading. There are people who may have been banned here and/or have been in heated exchanges who may have a legitimate concern, but on the whole those banned have been banned for cause. Manifest cause. Worse, the experience has been that far too often objectors to ID feel that abusive commentary, doxxing and the like are legitimate tactics within their right to freedom of expression. So much so that I identified a pattern, termed the trifecta fallacy. Namely, red herring distractors, led away to ad hominem laced strawman caricatures set alight rhetorically to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere, frustrating discussion on actual merits. Those are agit prop tactics of contempt-laced hostility or even hate. Given the tangential, loaded nature of this sub point, that may even be a factor in your point I am responding to. Further, there is another pair of patterns, selective hyperskepticism and the demand to conform to crooked yardsticks set up as gold standards of reference, authority and verity. The first, is exertion of double standards of warrant that demand arbitrarily high proof of what one is inclined to reject, that are not exerted on what one wishes to be so. If one is selectively hyperskeptical regarding X, it is because one has credulously accepted crooked yardstick Y, and is using it to discriminate against X. It is the double-standard that is diagnostic. A Nobel Prize winner, Crick, posed a classic case in point in his self referentially incoherent projection of irrational control on thought, failing to see what it did to his own thinking, Crick:

. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

The late Philip Johnson has aptly replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.] A classic expression is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Of course, the double standard comes through in what is deemed extraordinary, tied to conformity to frankly ideologically motivated crooked yardsticks. The Lewontin demons review essay is a classic inadvertent admission on the point. Just yesterday, I came across a 2016 NEJM article, relating to how placebo trials have been turned into another gold standard fallacy, on the ongoing pandemic. I recall the hyperskeptical dismissiveness I faced last year, when I pointed out that cumulatively adequate empirical evidence can arise from any number of sources so setting up placebos as a gold standard was fallacious. It turns out, this has been on the table in the professional literature and in law or regulation all along but has been conveniently sidelined: ref: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29733448/

Real-World Evidence — What Is It and What Can It Tell Us? Rachel E. Sherman, M.D., M.P.H. [et al, long list] . . . . The term “real-world evidence” is widely used by those who develop medical products or who study, deliver, or pay for health care, but its spe- cific meaning is elusive. We believe it refers to information on health care that is derived from multiple sources outside typical clinical research settings, including electronic health records (EHRs), claims and billing data, product and dis- ease registries, and data gathered through per- sonal devices and health applications. 1,2 Key to understanding the usefulness of real-world evi- dence is an appreciation of its potential for complementing the knowledge gained from tra- ditional clinical trials, whose well-known limi- tations make it difficult to generalize findings to larger, more inclusive populations of patients, providers, and health care delivery systems or settings that reflect actual use in practice. 3 Real-world evidence can inform therapeutic development, outcomes research, patient care, research on health care systems, quality improve- ment, safety surveillance, and well-controlled effectiveness studies. Real-world evidence can also provide information on how factors such as clinical setting and provider and health-system characteristics influence treatment effects and outcomes. Importantly, the use of such evidence has the potential to allow researchers to answer these questions efficiently, saving time and money while yielding answers relevant to broader popu- lations of patients than would be possible in a specialized research environment. 4,5

Health records, of course, includes case files and is relevant to a pattern of successful off-label use as has clearly happened with HCQ and/or Ivermectin based cocktails. The former was hounded out last year and the latter is going through much the same this year though the degree of censorship has now hit 11 so things are much more quiet. Worse, it seems that experimental [quasi-]vaccines pushed forward before Phase IV long term consequences/side effects trials, on emergency approvals and widely trumpeted, depend on there being no acceptable alternative treatment to obtain such emergency approval. That smells of bureaucratic, dirty power games being played in the face of a pandemic. But then, the corruption of our power elite and media culture should be patent to any reasonably objective person. That is the intellectual climate of our benighted times. In that context, pardon my doubts on your claims as cited. You have implied a claim, now the ball is in your court to back it up. I am going to bet, your claim is a bluff. Prove me wrong, if you can. KF kairosfocus

How to falsify ID and make yourself rich in the process, (and also go down in history as the greatest scientist who has ever lived)

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution - 14 Jan, 2020, Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at www.evo2.org. The new international competition is intended to speed breakthroughs around the still unknown process of cell communication that organizers predict can turn off cancer, allow robots to think for themselves and even create new plant life to combat climate change. The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. "A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days," said Marshall. "One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they'd set the NASDAQ on fire. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

(fair warning, you winning the mega lotto has a much better chance of you succeeding than anyone ever falsifying ID).

The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel - Null Hypothesis For Information Generation - 2009 Excerpt of conclusion pg. 42: "To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662469/ Can We Falsify Any Of The Following Null Hypothesis 1) Mathematical Logic 2) Algorithmic Optimization 3) Cybernetic Programming 4) Computational Halting 5) Integrated Circuits 6) Organization (e.g. homeostatic optimization far from equilibrium) 7) Material Symbol Systems (e.g. genetics) 8) Any Goal Oriented bona fide system 9) Language 10) Formal function of any kind 11) Utilitarian work The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel - 2011 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." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. 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." https://www.academia.edu/11759341/Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_-_Scirus_Sci-Topic_Page

And here is the 'simple' reason why ID will never be falsified

"Matter does not make rules. Matter is governed by rules." fifthmonarchyman Is Life Unique? David L. Abel - January 2012? Concluding Statement: The scientific method itself cannot be reduced to mass and energy. Neither can language, translation, coding and decoding, mathematics, logic theory, programming, symbol systems, the integration of circuits, computation, categorizations, results tabulation, the drawing and discussion of conclusions. The prevailing Kuhnian paradigm rut of philosophic physicalism is obstructing scientific progress, biology in particular. There is more to life than chemistry. All known life is cybernetic. Control is choice-contingent and formal, not physicodynamic. http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2/1/106/

On the other hand, In 1967 Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich stated that the Theory of Evolution ‘cannot be refuted by any possible observations’ and is thus “outside empirical science.”

“Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus “outside empirical science” but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.” Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch (1967), “Evolutionary History and Population Biology,” Nature, 214:349-352, April 22, p. 352 https://afdave.wordpress.com/more-useful-quotes-for-creationists/

Perhaps JVL would like to specify the exact falsification criteria of Darwinism?

Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659

I would add that Darwinists simply refuse to accept falsification of their theory even though it has been falsified from numerous different angles, thus Darwinism, in all its various forms, is presently unfalsifiable and therefore 'outside of empirical science',

Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are found to be ‘directed’. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.” Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.”. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! Darwinist’s, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

JVL:

There are a lot of people who feel that they have falsified ID theory only to be shouted down on ID supportive sites.

The fact there is a paper like "Waiting for TWO Mutations" proves they are lying.

That is, is there a way to set up a structure wherein there’s a clear standard as to whether or not ID has been falsified?

An actual demonstration that is peer-reviewed. Another great example would be someone claiming the origin of in formation prize.

So, if someone doesn’t think ID deserves its status it’s okay to attack it?

As long as they have the science and evidence, yes. Flailing away doesn't cut it. The best way to falsify ID, the ONLT way to falsify ID, is to step up and demonstrate that blind and mindless processes can produce a coded information processing system that is similar to the one involved in the genetic code. So, yeah, do that of piss off. ET

JVL

faith has to reflect the science. I think that attitude is much greater in Europe.

Sounds like you're saying that ID has more support in America because the religious faith of Americans causes them to accept the false notion of ID (and not reflect the science). So, American ID supporters are more gullible and less scientifically accomplished. So, European origin-of-life researchers have stronger evidence than ID researchers have presented? They have better explanations for the origin of the universe and the fine-tuning found therein? I'm interested to see them, if so.

Seems quite reasonable. Whose up first?

ID Proposal: Intelligence can define, map and create functional code in software that models the functions of DNA in a cell. Therefore, it is proposed - the first cellular DNA was produced by intelligence. Falsification criteria: Demonstrate via lab work or in the wild non-intelligent sources (or simulation of one using the diverse elements that would be found on earth at the time of first life, along with variables randomized for environmental conditions - variations in heat, wetness, stability, radiation) creating functional DNA code. Failing that, the ID proposal stands unfalsified.

Why is that do you think?

Not only did he say and write many things that are embarrassing by today's standards - scientifically and socially, his ideas are primitive and have been significantly revised and in many cases replaced with new ideas. So, even the die-hard Darwinists do not take his falsification criteria seriously on that basis. This is one of many instances: http://www.weloennig.de/PlantGalls.pdf

Now, Darwin formulated the following falsification criterium, among others, for his theory of natural selection –fully applicable to the modern neo-Darwinian versions of the theory as well, because: “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species; “... If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory,for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Also: “Natural selection can produce nothing in one species for the exclusive good or injury of another; though it may well produce parts, organs, and excretions highly useful or even indispensable, or again highly injurious to another species, but in all cases at the same time useful to the possessor.”Inference reached on the basis of the evidence: Because in the case of the galls, in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.The galls are not ‘useful to the possessor’, the plants. There is no space for these phenomena in the world of “the selfish gene”(Dawkins). Moreover, the same conclusion appears to be true for thousands of angiosperm species producing deceptive flowers (in contrast to gall formations, now for the exclusive good of the plant species) –a topic which should be carefully treated in another paper. http://www.weloennig.de/PlantGalls.pdf

So, ID scientist, W.E. Loenning (German, by the way) uses Darwin's criterion and easily falsifies Darwin's theory. But nobody cares or pays attention (except IDists) because they don't take Darwin seriously.

Cuts both ways don’t you think?

A theme that runs through this equivalency that you offer is that "ID is false". So, you do not see any evidence of intelligence in the design present in nature. It has the appearance of design but it was all created by blind, unintelligent forces? Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: Agreed – there is not much acceptance of ID in Europe, but at the same time, there’s not much of an ID strategy in place either, so it’s difficult to measure the effect. What is your opinion on why it is different in Europe? I shall relate the case of a good Christian friend of mine who said: faith has to reflect the science. I think that attitude is much greater in Europe. If the person is truly being shouted-down and not being corrected for bad behavior, then that’s not a good thing. UD has had to ban several individuals and some of these people complain about unfair treatment or having discussion shut down. But I observe someone like Seversky who is fully atheist, materialist evolutionist, and he has been here for 10 years (I think) without having been banned. I think people who have been banned here have shown zero respect for the hosts or participants. But again, if ID supporters are not open to honest debate and exchange of ideas, then that’s a major problem. We can agree on that last bit for sure. I do think that, in the past, on this forum, sincere disagreement has been equated with an inability to accept a doctrine. I’ll borrow a note from your previous responses: Is there a way to set up a clear standard as to whether or not evolutionary theory has been falsified? But aside from that, for ID, I agree that the debate needs unbiased moderation and that is very difficult to find. Perhaps one way to do it, from the ID perspective: 1. Set up the challenge 2. Indicate the ID proposal clearly. 3. Give exact specifications on what constitutes a falsification Seems quite reasonable. Whose up first? Darwin tried that in his text, making some bold, clear statements about what would supposedly falsify his theory. But what he said is not really taken seriously (which seems strange since he originated the theory). Why is that do you think? Ok, but also – people can be convinced by something that does not work, just because other people think the idea must be preserved. Cuts both ways don't you think? JVL

JVL

I’m not sure that’s true in Europe but . . . okay.

Agreed - there is not much acceptance of ID in Europe, but at the same time, there's not much of an ID strategy in place either, so it's difficult to measure the effect. What is your opinion on why it is different in Europe?

There are a lot of people who feel that they have falsified ID theory only to be shouted down on ID supportive sites.

If the person is truly being shouted-down and not being corrected for bad behavior, then that's not a good thing. UD has had to ban several individuals and some of these people complain about unfair treatment or having discussion shut down. But I observe someone like Seversky who is fully atheist, materialist evolutionist, and he has been here for 10 years (I think) without having been banned. I think people who have been banned here have shown zero respect for the hosts or participants. But again, if ID supporters are not open to honest debate and exchange of ideas, then that's a major problem.

So . . . . my question is: how should the disagreement be moderated? That is, is there a way to set up a structure wherein there’s a clear standard as to whether or not ID has been falsified?

I'll borrow a note from your previous responses: Is there a way to set up a clear standard as to whether or not evolutionary theory has been falsified? But aside from that, for ID, I agree that the debate needs unbiased moderation and that is very difficult to find. Perhaps one way to do it, from the ID perspective: 1. Set up the challenge 2. Indicate the ID proposal clearly. 3. Give exact specifications on what constitutes a falsification Darwin tried that in his text, making some bold, clear statements about what would supposedly falsify his theory. But what he said is not really taken seriously (which seems strange since he originated the theory).

Which is what you would expect. If something has ‘worked’ then you’d expect that it would take extra effort to overthrow it.

Ok, but also - people can be convinced by something that does not work, just because other people think the idea must be preserved. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: I think the strategy is working well. Every year more and more people respond with disgust and embarrassment when they realize the lies that have been told in the name of atheism/materialism in science. I'm not sure that's true in Europe but . . . okay. The ID community promotes open-dialogue on the science. If someone (like yourself) thinks they have a refutation or falsification of ID theory, we want to hear it and engage with it. But we don’t see these refutations or even attempts at dialogue. So, what kind of strategy is required to support a theory that has not been falsified? There are a lot of people who feel that they have falsified ID theory only to be shouted down on ID supportive sites. So . . . . my question is: how should the disagreement be moderated? That is, is there a way to set up a structure wherein there's a clear standard as to whether or not ID has been falsified? Just telling the truth as it is discovered and patiently working to get more people to recognize this truth (and leave behind their false notions) seems to be the most efficient approach. Strategic thinking using politics, advertising, various manipulations, packaging – can have some effect, but don’t add to the truth that has been discovered. Paradigm changes take a long time. Which is what you would expect. If something has 'worked' then you'd expect that it would take extra effort to overthrow it. JVL

JVL

That strategy doesn’t seem to be working. What other stratagems should be considered?

I think the strategy is working well. Every year more and more people respond with disgust and embarrassment when they realize the lies that have been told in the name of atheism/materialism in science. Meyer's new book will sell well. Behe's titles are best-sellers (his first is noted as a classic). The ID community promotes open-dialogue on the science. If someone (like yourself) thinks they have a refutation or falsification of ID theory, we want to hear it and engage with it. But we don't see these refutations or even attempts at dialogue. So, what kind of strategy is required to support a theory that has not been falsified? Just telling the truth as it is discovered and patiently working to get more people to recognize this truth (and leave behind their false notions) seems to be the most efficient approach. Strategic thinking using politics, advertising, various manipulations, packaging - can have some effect, but don't add to the truth that has been discovered. Paradigm changes take a long time. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: Because there’s an enormous academic and professional enterprise built on the claim that it contributes immensely and that criticism of or opposition to the theory will hurt the human race. Okay. That strategy doesn't seem to be working. What other stratagems should be considered? JVL

ET: It is very important to attack paradigms that do not deserve their status, duh. So, if someone doesn't think ID deserves its status it's okay to attack it? JVL

SA2

Is it? Or is it just an easy way to develop designs that are functional?

It's hard to respond here - not sure if you're asking or telling, and not sure what kind of scope or range you place on the claim that "the design is poor". Is that a universal claim? And what degree do you assign to it? The counter point is that the design is of very high quality, in general. So, you're saying that nothing we have developed, in imitation of the functional designs in nature, reveals a sophisticated, high-quality design? It all just looks like the output of a random process? Even Dawkins would disagree with that, I think. He says that it does not look like what a natural process would produce but instead looks like it was designed. I look at something like Velcro. Imitated from a natural design and has been used without much modification or change for 80 years. Nature did not provide a high-quality design template here? Moving to that which is far more sophisticated: All AI systems are biomimetic - imitating what is found in "nature" (intelligence). You're saying that our intelligence is not of a high-quality and can easily be produced by unintelligent forces? The fact that our human design processes themselves make use of directed, intelligent and rational methods (creating a design, testing, improving, aiming at goals and targets) rather than Darwinian processes tells us a lot about the supposed "flaws" in the design also. That's not a good argument in favor of evolution. Silver Asiatic

JVL

If unguided evolution is not true then why attack it for what it supposedly does not contribute?

Because there's an enormous academic and professional enterprise built on the claim that it contributes immensely and that criticism of or opposition to the theory will hurt the human race. Silver Asiatic

Acartia's sock:

...to my claim that ID does not preclude poor quality design.

That is NOT "your" claim. That has been part of ID for decades, if not longer. ET

JVL:

If unguided evolution is not true then why attack it for what it supposedly does not contribute?

Because it is the reigning paradigm for no apparent scientific reason. It is very important to attack paradigms that do not deserve their status, duh. ET

Silver Asiatic: But if ID is not true, then why attack it for what it supposedly does not contribute? If unguided evolution is not true then why attack it for what it supposedly does not contribute? JVL

SA2, biomimetics is imitation, the sincerest form of flattery. Here, we are reverse engineering effective and adequately robust design. KF kairosfocus

Silver Asiatic “ Biomimetics is proof that the design really is of an extremely high quality.” Is it? Or is it just an easy way to develop designs that are functional? Steve Alten2

SA2

I think they take the bait and argue for the extremely high quality (perfection is the wrong word) of the design because most ID proponents believe in a personal God. As such, this personal God is the designer and their personal God is infallible. I think this is supported by the over-the-top, and often cognitively dissonant reaction to my claim that ID does not preclude poor quality design.

Biomimetics is proof that the design really is of an extremely high quality. This book is mentioned on another thread -- entire book about the marvels and qualities of the human hand: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Hand.html?id=7VgOAAAAQAAJ If a person can look at the beauty, diversity and symmetry of nature and never be moved by a spirit of awe and wonder, there's something wrong with the spiritual development of that person. There's something wrong in the intellect and soul - a serious deficiency. But it seems, more and more, people are dead to such wonders and they can only find flaws and evils and never the unity in diversity, the harmony amid light and dark. Silver Asiatic

RT, the design inference on evidence is in itself revolutionary and liberating; the confirmed yes that we can reliably infer from signs such as FSCO/I to design as cause is a breakthrough. It does not deliver everything but what it does deliver is epochal. Beyond, as I noted from TRIZ, there is a whole theory of inventive problem solving that explores how design works, with promising results. On the empirical side, genetic modification is intelligent design research, though many doing that may not acknowledge such. So, too, are applications in cryptanalysis, design detection on hidden patterns. That is about as grittily practical as you get, and it speaks to statistics and to communication theory. The myth that ID is a scientific dead end has long since exploded. KF kairosfocus

RT

The notion that we should stop at this statement will actually makes ID fall into the other part of the critic that “ID doesn’t contribute anything from its theory”.

That's an attempt to distract and switch focus. If they're admitting "yes, ID is true" - we'll take every criticism that comes after that about the need for follow up. But if ID is not true, then why attack it for what it supposedly does not contribute? This reveals the strength of ID. Yes, it's limited. But it's a truth which is otherwise widely denied in our culture. That's a huge contribution in itself.

The next step should be trying to infer the “mind” characteristic through the quality of its creation, which at best I can tell is very good.

That's one approach that could work. But I also think that's where the flawed design and arguments about the evils in nature come in though. I prefer moving from ID towards the origin of immaterial mind, and this to first causal arguments, etc. Silver Asiatic

Silver asiatic “ But aside from all of this, it seems you are probing for some kind of inner motive at work among ID supporters. You stated earlier that you have your idea on why this tendency (to take the bait) occurs and you do not like the ideas given – so it will be helpful to know what you think. Why do you think ID supporters do this sort of thing?” I think they take the bait and argue for the extremely high quality (perfection is the wrong word) of the design because most ID proponents believe in a personal God. As such, this personal God is the designer and their personal God is infallible. I think this is supported by the over-the-top, and often cognitively dissonant reaction to my claim that ID does not preclude poor quality design. Steve Alten2

In it the author tells one how to form good habits that will make us happy but also describes how she escaped the doom and gloom of academia. Habits of a happy brain.

Helpful recommendation - thank you. Silver Asiatic

KF, I myself convinced that the best we can tell about life is it is designed by mind. The notion that we should stop at this statement will actually makes ID fall into the other part of the critic that "ID doesn't contribute anything from its theory". The next step should be trying to infer the "mind" characteristic through the quality of its creation, which at best I can tell is very good. The critics of poor design is like (paraphrasing what someone have mentioned) "judging War and Peace is not a good literature through its grammar mistake, instead through its story" RavenT

Down this road lies the philosophy of TRIZ, seeking innovations that find robust balances

Highly recommend Matt Ridley’s book on innovation. I also have “TRIZ for Dummies” but have not started it yet. Thanks to a previous comment on TRIZ by Kf. The Ridley book goes over the evolution of innovation in various technical areas. It’s never neat or obvious but progresses to incredible improvements. My son put me on to the Ridley book. He’s an IT consultant who has witnessed the amazing changes in computer softwares over the years. To the point they are not referred to as software anymore but apps. Highly recommend Human Progress as a site. Here’s a recent article on human innovation and where we are headed. https://www.humanprogress.org/the-six-laws-of-zero-that-will-shape-our-future/ Despite all this progress the elites are telling another story to our children. We are doomed if we don’t abandon all this. Here is another book, this one on how to be happy with personal progress. In it the author tells one how to form good habits that will make us happy but also describes how she escaped the doom and gloom of academia. Habits of a happy brain. https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Happy-Brain-Serotonin-Endorphin-ebook/dp/B0178M3LNA/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1617713678&sr=8-2 We often hear of the malevolent ideas that young people are subjected to in college. Here is a book by a woman who managed to escape this nonsense after accommodating her life to it for several years. jerry

"I simply have not seen any ID proponent confront an ID opponent over this fallacy." It's been done on UD many, many times over the years. Andrew asauber

Jerry

Then the next step will be that there could not have been a designer but was natural because there wouldn’t have been flawed design with God or a massive intelligence who had billions of years as the director.

Right - this is the classic "God would not have done it that way" argument. So evolutionists rely on this theological argument to support their claims, whereas ID is just talking about the science. Silver Asiatic

SA2

Where I disagree is your claim that they are being corrected. I simply have not seen any ID proponent confront an ID opponent over this fallacy. For some reason, they prefer to take the bait and argue that the design is not flawed.

Aside from what I said before, and good reasons given by others - here's another reason: Pro-IDists see the "flawed design" argument very frequently. Not only is that argument a logical fallacy within the debate about ID, but it's confused and incorrect on its own terms. So, from the ID side, we keep working to kill off this argument just to get rid of it finally. ID opponents simply ignore the fact that the argument is a logical fallacy. So, we try to convince them that it's a bad argument on its own terms, trying to help them gain a better understanding of what they're talking about. They usually don't even know what they mean by "flawed" and they don't explain why they keep repeating this argument and why they are so fond of it. The scientific data argues against evolutionary claims. They can't win on that point. So instead, supposedly, the idea that "there are flaws", means that evolution actually created the results. I think IDists are surprised at how incredibly weak that argument is. It takes us back to 19th century science. "That organ looks useless so it must have evolved". Even having been embarrassed by the claim of Junk DNA, anti-IDists persist with this losing strategy. So, I think we're just trying to put an end to it - even though, as you rightly say, it's unnecessary even to engage in that discussion since its a non-scientific claim. Doesn't that tell us something though? ID opponents have to resort to a non-scientific claim (flawed design) to defend their theory of evolution. I think we just take advantage of that. It's yet another death-strike against the Darwinian narrative (which people swallow down unthinkingly). But aside from all of this, it seems you are probing for some kind of inner motive at work among ID supporters. You stated earlier that you have your idea on why this tendency (to take the bait) occurs and you do not like the ideas given - so it will be helpful to know what you think. Why do you think ID supporters do this sort of thing? Silver Asiatic

I simply have not seen any ID proponent confront an ID opponent over this fallacy.

Why would they and more importantly why should they? There is no evidence that there is bad or flawed design with the design of the universe or life. Why admit to the possibility of something for which there is no evidence. Who ever designed life had billions of years to get it right. Or maybe was such a massive intelligence that this intelligence got it right the first time. It’s a bait and switch technique. Say ID admits there’s a possibility of flawed design in life but it’s still design. then the next step will be that ID admits life is flawed because why admit it. Then the next step will be that there could not have been a designer but was natural because there wouldn’t have been flawed design with God or a massive intelligence who had billions of years as the director. This is another form of the theistic evolution acquisition to the anti ID people. ID will quite willingly admit that much of what humans design can be flawed. They only have limited time and resources. But even with humans with limited intelligence the designs keep getting better as they experiment. Just imagine if humans were designed with much higher intelligence that these designs might have happened sooner. But then again with their superior intelligence and maybe better and more advanced physical characteristics such as super eyes they might have destroyed all their competitors in nature and then destroyed the ecology on which their lives depended. And thus, perish. jerry

Acartia sock:

Where I disagree is your claim that they are being corrected. I simply have not seen any ID proponent confront an ID opponent over this fallacy.

Your willful ignorance is not an argument. And all you have is your willful ignorance. ET

RT, part of the correction of the perfection ratchet fallacy behind bad design arguments is to point out that designs almost always involve tradeoffs. Indeed, for the more cynical critics, it is that knowledge that gives them confidence that they can always find some real or imagined defect or limitation of performance to focus distractively on. Instead, above, it has been highlighted that good designs very rarely seek optimal performance on any one dimension, as that is liable to result in brittle, inflexible designs. Instead, the target is to find robust, adequate or good performance, preferably with graceful degradation rather than catastrophic collapse. This often reflects the Pareto principle, the first 80% of effect comes from the first 20% of effort and after that one is fighting diminishing returns tradeoffs. Down this road lies the philosophy of TRIZ, seeking innovations that find robust balances. KF PS: Do you notice, an outline analysis of what design involves, which also addresses the notion that ID is a one-trick pony? kairosfocus

UB, 223, you have highlighted a pivotal issue. First duties of reason (which are actually inescapable, true, self-evident) lie at the crux of the divergence in approach seen above. Or rather, refusal to heed duties to truth, right reason, warrant and broader prudence, fairness and more. Such patterns of evasion of the merits and duties to think, communicate and act aright have sobering consequences. Notwithstanding, above, there is abundant laying out of relevant facts, especially on how the eye is actually a marvel of sophisticated, effective, highly efficient design -- contrast energy usage and compactness with a comparably advanced camera. As I look at the LMS cones and how exotic, heavy/rare earth metal chemistry is avoided, just that speaks volumes. The evident use of weighted sum, subtractive techniques to isolate channels and generate a stereo, 3-d, real time world imaging is astonishing, especially when we note how roboticists struggle with a similar challenge.The ability to detect down to the single photon level without need for exotic, toxic chemistry and supercooling, etc, is yet another striking achievement. These and many other marvels point to how we are visual-dominant creatures and how the eye and the hand, with the responsible, rational mind, have led us to become the globally dominant species, through the creation of civilisation. KF kairosfocus

Perhaps rather than arguing ad infinitum about "bad design fallacy", it will be more beneficial for everyone to provide an example where the proponent of ID engaging their critics on this fallacy without mentioning that "bad design is not equivalent to no design". Just my 2c RavenT

SA2, you unfortunately continue on a side track, led away to strawmen soaked in ad homs and sparked to trigger choking, confusing toxic clouds that frustrate finding our way back to sound, balanced thinking. . That side tracking has significant danger in an era where progress is technologically driven. Profound, widespread misunderstanding of the nature and workings of design leads to bad policy in a democratic age where technology is pivotal. That in turn points to further flaws, the fallacies of relativism and rejection of self-evident first duties of reason. Unresponsiveness to truth, right reason, prudence, fairness etc are bad signs for our civilisation. Signs, we unfortunately see all about us. Speaking of seeing, it tells us something that many can look at a marvel of highly effective, powerfully successful design, the eye and spend huge effort in trying to distract from and taint its appreciation, to discredit the significance of such a marvel; too often because they are obviously deeply resentful and rebellious towards their Creator. The bitter sourness of heart behind that, driving education, opinion, key institutions and policy is a further bad sign for our civilisation. Indeed, it is an obvious material contribution to the US theatre of operations in the 4th generation civilisational civil war that warps our ability to stand soundly in the face of mounting geostrategic threats at both ends of Asia. Strategic misjudgement, quite evident, is a consequence and such misjudgement is often fatal. The price we as a civilisation are liable to pay for our willful mutiny and voyage of folly on the ship of state is horrific. KF kairosfocus

Silver Asiatic “ It seems that you accepted my explanation for why anti-IDists use (and reuse again and again) this logical fallacy even after being corrected about the nature of ID. ” I agree that ID opponents repeatedly use this logical fallacy. Where I disagree is your claim that they are being corrected. I simply have not seen any ID proponent confront an ID opponent over this fallacy. For some reason, they prefer to take the bait and argue that the design is not flawed. Just read many of the comments above in this thread. Steve Alten2

UPB 223 I hope one or more ID-critics will take up your gracious invitation and set aside biases - and engage the topic from that starting point. Silver Asiatic

SA2

But that still doesn’t address why ID proponents respond to an obvious fallacy with trying to counter the points made rather than stating that ID does not infer perfect design.

It seems that you accepted my explanation for why anti-IDists use (and reuse again and again) this logical fallacy even after being corrected about the nature of ID. They are not only trying to switch the topic away from ID-as-science, but there's an underlying motive of opposition to God and religion, that comes out in a (not that) subtle ridicule and insult. It shouldn't be surprising that an attempt to ridicule religion and insult God will be met with a defense of the same, even if it's taking the bait of a non-sequitur. For most Christians, for example (among other religious believers, but I'll just refer to them), God is highly beloved in a personal way, is honored and held to be the most sacred aspect of life. So, because of that, the theological aspect carries a very high sensitivity and meaning. A person saying that God's design is flawed is using an emotional argument in the hopes of offending people. It's stirring the pot with contemptuous ideas. It's disrespectful towards those who believe in God at the very least. Many theists believe that God has rights also and that He deserves to be defended for the gift of life He has given and for the magnificence of His Design. Defending God in this way, by opposing the "flawed design" argument, says nothing about ID (as you know and have affirmed, I'm just repeating). Silver Asiatic

Umm, we respond to it because losers keep bringing it up. It is still a common argument. We don't mind continually proving that our opponents are mindless drones. :razz: ET

Jerry “ There has been a long history of people trying to disprove ID by invoking flawed design in life. Implying that what appears as design is really not design. This so called flawed design is then used as proof that life was not designed. Richard Dawkins is one such person.” I realize this. But I still don’t understand why ID proponents rise to the bait of such an obvious fallacy. It only plays into the hands of the ID opponents. “I’m not sure what you are trying to show.” It’s really quite simple. I will use Kairosfocusspeak to explain it. 1) The argument of flawed design is irrelevant with regard to the ID inference in biology. It’s a fallacy. 2) Why do ID proponents persistently argue against an irrelevant fallacious argument? Kairosfocus “ Jerry, the point is to distract, caricature and taint.” I guess pointing out what others see as painfully obvious can be interpreted as a type of caricature. Steve Alten2

Sev @ 197, > If you’re God then make us understand. You must have that power. Can you make the case that God could, and then should, make us understand? How do you figure he could fully explain himself without giving us his full mental capabilities in the process? Why would he be required to do that? Can you make the case that those capabilities would fit into our minds? This was already addressed by someone else above here; not sure the point of repeating the question. But in any case, we're not tired of responding. In fact, this thread has been excellent practice for debating people face-to-face! Thanks everybody! 8-) EDTA

Jerry, the point is to distract, caricature and taint. It is clear that design seeks robust performance, and that attempted perfection too often runs into embrittlement. It is also obvious that Pareto often rules the roost, first 20% of effort gains 80% of performance, and then one fights a diminishing returns battle to get the last 20%. That is yet another tradeoff right there. Having noted that, we can point out that codes, language, algorithms have just one reliably known source, and such are in the heart of the cell. Beyond, on the eye, I cannot but notice the ongoing studious side-stepping. KF kairosfocus

ID is just the inference that what is observed is best explained by design. But nowhere does it say anything about the quality of the design.

There has been a long history of people trying to disprove ID by invoking flawed design in life. Implying that what appears as design is really not design. This so called flawed design is then used as proof that life was not designed. Richard Dawkins is one such person. Two examples are junk DNA and the appendix. There are others. I’m not sure what you are trying to show. Yes, designs by humans does not have to be perfect to be deigned. There are enough designs that have failed to meet objectives but rarely does anyone design anything that will knowingly fail. jerry

SA@222, thank you for the response. But that still doesn’t address why ID proponents respond to an obvious fallacy with trying to counter the points made rather than stating that ID does not infer perfect design. ID is just the inference that what is observed is best explained by design. But nowhere does it say anything about the quality of the design. A Lada is best explained by design. Do you want to spend good money for one? Steve Alten2

. SA, check. EDIT: If there is an ID critic on this board who wants to set aside their ideological bias and debate the actual scientific merits of the design inference in earnest, I am happy to oblige, as are others. Upright BiPed

SA2

How is the fact that ID opponents are using logical fallacies irrelevant?

It's simple enough to say that ID opponents don't hesitate to use logical fallacies in the hopes that nobody will notice and in order to score whatever points they think they can. So, they like to deliberately confuse the concepts of ID-science with theology in the hopes of humiliating and embarrassing ID-promoters for their religious beliefs. Mockery of religion is pretty much a standard template from which many anti-ID positions (logical or not) emerge. So, observing yet another logical fallacy in the name of anti-IDism is irrelevant to the deeper issues. Does the Design-denier really want to explore the truth about these matters - and then go even to arguments on the existence of God? Or is the whole opposition just some game of oppositional rhetoric used to try to humiliate one's enemies? When IDists repeatedly prove that ID is a scientific paradigm that cannot evaluate the nature of the Designer, the anti-IDists ignore this and ask irrelevant questions about the Designer. By this, they think they've refuted ID. But this is absurd and illogical, even if the IDist "takes the bait" and begins defending Theism, for example. ID remains unscathed in that exchange. Actually, the very fact that the anti-IDist attacks religion instead of trying to refute ID is strong evidence that the ID proposal is quite strong on its own merits. Silver Asiatic

Kairosfocus, "SA2, there you go again on an irrelevancy. KF" How is the fact that ID opponents are using logical fallacies irrelevant? And how is the fact that ID proponents are taking the bait irrelevant? Why is it so important to you that the designs in biology be un-flawed? I think I know but I don't want to put words in your mouth. I will leave that tactic to you. Steve Alten2

SA2, there you go again on an irrelevancy. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus, what about, “people who argue against ID claiming flawed design is a fallacious argument”, don’t you get? Steve Alten2

SA2, and the projection of an argument from perfection, like its twin, argument from claimed imperfection (made by Dawkins et al) is a fallacy. The relevant argument is first that there are empirically reliable signs of design which can be shown to exist in the living cell etc. Second, that good designs seldom seek optimality as that tends to make for brittle, non robust designs. Instead, good designs seek adequate, flexible performance i/l/o tradeoffs, with an eye to robustness. Given that point which you again studiously ignore in haste to use another ad hom, we can safely conclude that your gambits have failed. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus “ SA2, again, the perfection ratchet is a flawed yardstick.“ As ET would say “Do you have a reading comprehension problem?” I am not arguing for or against perfection in biological design. I am pointing out that doing so is a fallacy with regard to the design inference. Why is it that you are having such a hard time comprehending this? Steve Alten2

F/N: The Mosquito. KF kairosfocus

PS: Strawman fallacy, AmHD:

straw man n. 1. An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated. 2. Law See dummy. [From the making of sham human figures out of bundles of straw, as for use as scarecrows or practice targets .] American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

As in, I did fetch a dictionary, and you made an ad hom, failed. The perfection ratchet stunt is a clear strawman fallacy. You have been pointed to a sounder heuristic yardstick for good design several times, with explanation, but have side stepped it in classic Wilsonian style. Then you have come back to strawman after strawman. The agenda by repetition shows something is amiss. kairosfocus

SA2, again, the perfection ratchet is a flawed yardstick. Methinks, you are projecting the problem, especially given that above I specifically discussed the eye in context of a sounder criterion, robust effectiveness i/l/o relevant tradeoffs. Notice, chemistry, light quanta vs noise or actinic effects, signal processing, brain use and potential birth issues [notice, earlier responses here], even nucleosynthesis. Notice the Mosquito as a strong example, and more; all not addressed in haste to go on to projections of fault. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus “Strawman. “ You really should invest in a dictionary. “ The focus of the design inference on sign is that certain features point to designs, not to quality of designs.“ I am fully aware that this is what the design inference is purported to be about. But if this is the case, and it is not fundamentally an ideological exercise, why do ID proponents never respond to arguments for flawed design in biology by pointing this out. They always argue that the designs are not flawed. This reaction by ID proponents gives every interested reader the impression that ID is ideological, not scientific. Steve Alten2

SA2, strawman again. No one has objected that flawed designs (esp. human designs) are not designs. What has been pointed out is that optimisation is not a good design goal save in rather special circumstances as it leads to brittle designs. The focus of the design inference on sign is that certain features point to designs, not to quality of designs. Further to this, a perfection ratchet fallacy implies acknowledgement of possibility of greatness to a maximum, i.e. perferction. That is itself interesting. KF kairosfocus

Rather than accept the fact that ID does not preclude flawed design.

Is there any evidence of flawed design? In the design of the universe, life or the earth? I don’t see any evidence for it. Why keep bringing up something for which there is no evidence? I agree that there has been tons of flawed design by humans but most did not do so intentionally. Maybe we should define the term, “flawed.” jerry

Kairosfocus and Bornagain77, you guys simply can’t take yes for an answer. Rather than accept the fact that ID does not preclude flawed design, as the Discover Institute states, and that arguments against ID using supposed flawed design are fallacious, you continue to attack me for saying this. Maybe your argument should be with the DI. Steve Alten2

In my honest opinion, he still has quite a bit of work to do on his theory in order to make it more acceptable to others as a scientific theory.

I leave that effort in the hands of those far more qualified than I. There are a handful of such people pursuing that effort. I'm just exploring the logic and practical uses of the theory. William J Murray

SA2 [attn BA77], With all reasonable fair view allowance, you have so often, so incorrigibly misrepresented the design inference at the core of ID that it is clear that you are using a crooked ideologically driven yardstick to judge a plumb line and reject it. I suggest, you reassess how you are reasoning on the matter. Further to this, specification one: you have misrepresented the framework of design by arguing as though optimality is a primary goal/criterion, even in the face of being counselled that adequate [= good enough] performance with flexibility and robustness is a better frame, given the brittleness of optimisation. That is a very important issue for design, and for design for sustainability/robustness. For historical instance, the De Havillands saw that wood was a common material, wood workers were not going to be a scarce resource, and that the Merlin Engine was going to be there as a key power platform. Engine power was a major constraint c 1930-45 for vehicle designs without excessive weight penalty. This included octane rating issues for fuels and led to v-12, supercharged designs for aircraft. The radial was another solution, but remained troubled as the case of the engine fire prone B29 showed. They designed an apparent throwback, a wooden aircraft (in many ways similar to wooden fast patrol boats that also emerged) powered by two Merlins, the Mosquito. It was a struggle to get the UK air ministry to support it, but it turned out to be an outstanding, fast, highly flexible design; arguably the best solution to the destroyer-type fighter-bomber/ ground attack aircraft also suitable as a night fighter and reconnaissance aircraft of WW2. Some credit it as a key war winner. Similarly, right now I ponder how the eye detects single photon events without supercooling and without exotic chemistry. Heavy metals, rare earths etc do not strike me as a good zone for biochemistry, and that in turn points to stellar nucleosynthesis and fine tuning of the cosmos. Ponder here the false start of arsenic bronzes that seem to have been prior to tin bronzes and how much technological advance was needed to go to Al bronzes. [Contrast how our technologies for ICs are looking to rare earths and how the Sidewinder sensors went for supercooling by the turn of the 80's . . . the secret to winning the air fight over the Falklands with a marginal performance aircraft, the Harrier.] The use of algebra on signals from the LMS cone channels to construct RGB and luminance channels is likely a key factor, and notice, the constraint of brain size and birth process. Likewise, avoiding the IR and UV bands looks a lot like getting out of heat-noise problems and actinic radiation problems [damaging chemically and eventually nuclear], which ties in with atmosphere issues. A pretty good octave in the EM spectrum was used here, one fitted to chemistry and to other constraints. One that has been highly successful, as we are the dominant creature on a global basis, and we are visual-dominant creatures. Moreover, we have obviously been able to create sensors to access the broader spectrum using other abilities, once that becomes necessary. Telescopes, microscopes and cameras then photographs, printed illustrations [with underlying CMYK and halftone screen techniques] and display technologies come to mind. The overall system seems to give robustly good flexible performance to me. In that context, I again highlight that BA77 has correctly identified the perfection ratchet fallacy. No reasonably limited, tradeoff based design will be satisfactory in the face of such an inquisition, only a ratchet to imagined perfection. This strikes me as highly similar to the destructive ideological game currently being played by the red guards. But more relevantly, it highlights the point that maximal greatness is conceivable and plausibly possible. Stir in, possible worlds speak and logic of being informed by this. We then look at serious candidate, finitely remote necessary being as root of reality. Recall, infinite past, causal temporal succession of causally cumulative finite stages becomes manifestly infeasible once we open up our structure-quantity vision enough to see R* embracing R and the infinitesimals. That is, we can readily see why traversal of the implicitly transfinite claimed actual past is not feasible due to what happens with successions of finite stage steps. So, we need a different order of being from contingency, to account for any actual world. Necessary being as root of reality. Surely, you recall, that nothing -- properly understood, pace Krauss, Dawkins and co -- is non-being. Utter non being has no causal powers and were there ever utter non being such would forever obtain. As a world is, something always was, root of reality, of necessary being character. Which of course includes eternality. At the root of reality we need necessary, eternal being capable of creating contingent worlds. Where, with moral government of responsibly rational, significantly free creatures being on the table for this contingent world, we also need such to be ground of the good. That points to inherent goodness and utter wisdom, i.e. maximal greatness. We have here a vision, yes in vague philosophical form [it is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong], of God as core being of ethical theism. Such is obviously tied to design thinking but is not an empirical, scientific hypothesis, it is a worldview inference. Further to this, logic of being puts on the table that a serious candidate necessary being either is impossible of being [as a square circle is] or is possible thus actual in any instantiated world. Necessary beings are present in all worlds as they are part of the fabric for a world to be feasible of existence. Core mathematical structures are for example part of the logic of a distinct world. Root reality is constrained to be there by need for adequate causal root; once we are willing to see the challenge of infinite stepwise traverse of causally successive stages. Namely, infinite traverse cannot be compassed so we cannot responsibly posit that at any particular past point p finitely removed from now n, the transfinite onward past t was already traversed: t --> p --> n is infeasible as t is infeasible. instead we need the eternal: e --> p --> n is feasible. Ground of goodness then becomes an issue once we have morally governed creatures. This leads to maximal greatness. So, BA77 is in fact right to raise the perfection issue. Coming back, it should be plain that design is not about brittle optimality but robust good enough performance i/l/o a world of tradeoffs. Where, BTW, when we see the radical secularisation eating away at the moral fabric of our civilisation, we should take pause to ponder what is the opportunity cost of a rising tide of amorality, perversity, egotism and nihilism. KF kairosfocus

Seversky, I honestly admitted that the researchers were biased against NDEs being real. I merely reported that their very own findings directly contradicted what they had expected to find in their study. If anything, his denial of his own scientific findings, rather than casting any doubt on his findings, shows how adept people are at 'explaining away', with 25 cent words I might add, scientific findings that they themselves personally don't want to believe. I deal with such unreasonable bias all the time with Darwinists such as yourself. And again, there is plenty of evidence of people having a conscious experience away from their brain. as Dr. Egnor reported, "about 20 percent of NDE’s are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception — such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc." And yet, there in no evidence of mindless Darwinian processes creating even a single protein

Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA

So tell me who is being scientific and who is being dogmatic Seversky?

The most “parsimonious” explanation — the simplest scientific explanation — is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE’s show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it’s earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it’s all a big yawn. - Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

bornagain77

Bornagain77/201

In further rebuttal to Seversky’s claim that Near Death Experiences are hallucinatory, I refer to the following study. In the following study, materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were merely ‘false memories’ by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary. Simply put, they did not expect the results they got: To quote the headline ‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real”

Thank you for directing our attention to that report but you should have read further as it also goes on to say,

NDEs feel “even more real than real,” Laureys said. It’s this sparkling clarity and living color of the experience, which many have when they lose consciousness, that he and his team have researched. But he doesn’t think it comes from a spirit world. Laureys is a scientist, he emphasizes. He prefers not to mix that with religion. His hypothesis is that near-death experiences originate in human physiology. “It is this dysfunctional brain that produces these phenomena,” he said. Laureys and his staff are interested in how the brain creates the mind and its perception of reality. “Our main focus is consciousness research in comatose patients,” he said. His team hopes to raise the quality of their comfort and care. […] Scientific research on people having NDEs is tough, because the exact instant that they occur is unknown, making them nearly impossible to observe, Laureys said. It would also be cruel to run brain scans on someone who was possibly facing the moment of death. […] Nevertheless, an NDE can make a convert of a skeptic. Dr. Eben Alexander is a well-known case of an agnostic scientist who became convinced of the existence of the spiritual. He has often shared his story in television interviews with journalists and expressed his views in lectures and in books and video presentations, which he sells on his website. Alexander, a neurosurgeon, according to his autobiography, has described his experience in the same terms as the Belgian researchers: “hyper-reality,” “too real to be real.” In the beginning, he tried to interpret his experience as a brain function, he wrote on his website, but he became increasingly spiritual. He has come to the conclusion that people are reincarnated. Alexander says his experience could not have been a hallucination, because the parts of the brain necessary to produce his experiences were basically dead when he had them. […] Laureys strongly disagrees. “There is no evidence there can be conscious experience without brain activity,” he said. Lying in your hospital bed, you have become a true believer, and you are happier for it. But your brain never died, the doctor tells you. You were in a coma. Perhaps your heart stopped for a while; maybe it didn’t. But that’s not even necessary to have an out-of-body experience. “Many individuals having had NDEs were not physically in danger of death suggesting that the perception, on its own, of the risk of death seems to be important in eliciting NDEs,” the study said. It’s enough just to think you’re dying to have one.

So, no, this report does not say what you seem to think it says. NDE's are a fascinating topic for study but, for the present, they are far from being observational evidence for an afterlife.

My question to atheistic materialists is this, how in blue blazes is it possible for something to become even ‘more real than real’ for us unless first, as Planck himself pointed out, ‘consciousness is fundamental’, and secondly, as Planck himself also pointed out, the Mind of God is the ‘matrix of all matter’

Planck was an eminent theoretical physicist not a psychologist or neurophysiologist. His authority in the former field does not necessarily transfer to a similar authority in the latter fields. Seversky

CC, and how do you get from the fact that "Atheists have been attacking Christianity with this line of argument for a very long time. And it never turns out well for the atheist", to "you’ve ever met Jesus face to face, or anything, right?". When I stated that "Atheists have been attacking Christianity with this line of argument for a very long time. And it never turns out well for the atheist", I am not appealing to some mystical knowledge that requires meeting God face to face, I am appealing to historical knowledge that is already known to be true by many other humans other than myself. It simply makes no sense for you to go from what I actually said, to your insinuation that I was claiming only knowledge that can be attained via personal revelation from Christ. Moreover, in regards to you saying WJM and I are, basically, on the same page, I quoted Max Planck in my post in regards to consciousness being fundamental to reality. Planck was a devout Christian and one of the greatest empirical scientists of the early 20th century. Indeed, many fundamental constants are named after him. Therefore, I quoted him with pride. And while I am sympathetic to WJM's MRT, I have deep reservations as to how far afield he has taken it away from empirical science. In my few discussions with him about his theory, empirical evidence, as far as I can tell, is simply not given nearly as much weight in his theory as should be given for any theory that hopes to be considered rigorously scientific. In my honest opinion, he still has quite a bit of work to do on his theory in order to make it more acceptable to others as a scientific theory. bornagain77

BA77: Atheists have been attacking Christianity with this line of argument for a very long time. And it never turns out well for the atheist. I have no dog in the fight but, it's not like you've ever met Jesus face to face, or anything, right? You and the Creator are on face to face terms? (Coff coff.) I'll bet not. You are operating on theory. Everyone's brain is different. So, cool it. You're not that smart. Really. Maybe some humility is in order. Concealed Citizen

SA2 keeps imploring us to just accept that things are sub-optimally designed, and that they are, therefore, the work of a 'flawed' designer, and not the work of the Judeo-Christian God. He says that we can still say that they are designed and that it would be no skin off our nose. Funny how SA2 usually defends evolution tooth and nail, but now that he thinks that he has a avenue in which he can attack Christianity, he is, for the moment at least, all in for design so long as he can attack Christianity in the process. Call me skeptical of his motives for, seemingly, embracing design (for the moment at least). As they say, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark". Somewhere in this thread, SA2 claimed that there were numerous examples of sub-optimal design. Yet he provided no examples. The eye certainly is not an example. Atheists have been attacking Christianity with this line of argument for a very long time. And it never turns out well for the atheist. For example, atheists use to claim there were 180 vestigial organs in the human body. But alas for atheists, that list of 180, as our knowledge has grown, has dwindled significantly, practically to zero.

Darwin explained in On the Origin of Species. “It would be impossible to name one of the higher animals in which some part or other is not in a rudimentary condition.” His prime examples: the appendix and the coccyx (tailbone). Subsequent specialists greatly expanded Darwin’s original list of useless organs. In 1895, German anatomist Robert Wiedersheim compiled a list of human structures he considered vestigial, which came to be regarded as the official one. How many human body parts were on it? More than 180. https://www.thetrumpet.com/10213-evolutions-unnecessary-organs Evolution’s “vestigial organ” argument debunked Excerpt: “The appendix, like the once ‘vestigial’ tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body’s immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary ‘left over,’ many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice” (David Menton, Ph.D., “The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution,” St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). “Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery” (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/

And let's not forget the false claim from Darwinists that the vast majority of our genome is junk:

Why Are Biologists Lashing Out Against Empirically Verified Research Results? – Casey Luskin – July 13, 2015 Excerpt: no publication shook this (ID vs Darwin) debate so much as a 2012 Nature paper that finally put junk DNA to rest–or so it seemed. This bombshell paper presented the results of the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Project, a years-long research consortium involving over 400 international scientists studying noncoding DNA in the human genome. Along with 30 other groundbreaking papers, the lead ENCODE article found that the “vast majority” of the human genome shows biochemical function: “These data enabled us to assign biochemical functions for 80 percent of the genome, in particular outside of the well-studied protein-coding regions.”3 Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analyst, explained in Discover Magazine that since ENCODE studied 147 types of cells, and the human body has a few thousand cell types, “it’s likely that 80 percent will go to 100 percent.”4 Another senior ENCODE researcher noted that “almost every nucleotide is associated with a function.”5 A headline in Science declared, “ENCODE project writes eulogy for junk DNA.”6,,, Evolutionists Strike Back Darwin defenders weren’t going to take ENCODE’s data sitting down.,,, How could they possibly oppose such empirically based conclusions? The same way they always defend their theory: by assuming an evolutionary viewpoint is correct and reinterpreting the data in light of their paradigm–and by personally attacking, (i.e. ad hominem), those who challenge their position.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/the_encode_embr097561.html

Shoot, Seversky, in the face of a vast amount of empirical evidence to the contrary, still claims that the vast majority of DNA is junk,

“Discovery Of Useful “Junk DNA” “Has Outstripped The Discovery Of Protein-Coding Genes By A Factor Of Five” – Excerpt: “With the HGP (Human Genome Project) draft in hand, the discovery of non-protein-coding elements exploded. So far, that growth has outstripped the discovery of protein-coding genes by a factor of five, and shows no signs of slowing. Likewise, the number of publications about such elements also grew in the period covered by our data set. For example, there are thousands of papers on non-coding RNAs, which regulate gene expression.” – Nature – “A wealth of discovery built on the Human Genome Project — by the numbers” – Feb. 2021 – Alexander J. Gates, Deisy Morselli Gysi, Manolis Kellis & Albert-László Barabási, https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/discovery-of-useful-junk-dna-has-outstripped-the-discovery-of-protein-coding-genes-by-a-factor-of-five/

Interestingly, the Darwinian website "Panda's Thumb" is itself named after the supposed sub-optimal design of the Panda's Thumb. I imagine that it was more than a little embarrassing for them when this following study came out showing that the Panda's thumb is not nearly has badly designed as they had falsely portrayed it as being:

:It turns out that the panda’s thumb is not a clumsy design. A study published in Nature used MRI and computer tomography to analyze the thumb and concluded that the bones "form a double pincer-like apparatus" thus "enabling the panda to manipulate objects with great dexterity." https://evolutionnews.org/2013/05/from_discoverin_4/

Also of interest, PZ Myers website in named "Pharyngula", yet the "Pharyngula" embryonic stage also failed to live up to its evolutionary billing:

Three Flawed Evolutionary Models of Embryological Development and One Correct One - Casey Luskin - 2011 Excerpt: When biologists carefully compare embryological data, they find that there is considerable variability at the purported phylotypic stage, leading increasing numbers of biologists to question whether this pharyngular stage exists. As a paper in Nature said last year: "both the model and the concept of the phylotypic period remain controversial subjects in the literature." PZ generally refuses to address this literature, but it nonetheless calls into question the very concept that defines this model and gives PZ's Pharyngula blog its name. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/07/three_flawed_evolutionary_mode048541.html?? Heads or Tales by Casey Luskin - Fall 2014 Excerpt: Some evolutionary biologists acknowledge that vertebrate embryos begin development very differently, but still claim that embryos pass through a highly similar stage midway through development, called the "pharyngula" (or also the "phylotypic" or "tailbud") stage. These theorists propose an "hourglass model" of development, where it is claimed that similarities between embryos during this convergent midpoint stage provide evidence for common ancestry (see below).,,, But is it a fact that this pharyngula (or phylotypic, or tailbud) stage exists? In 1997, a team of embryologists decided to investigate this question.,,, The researchers reported: "Contrary to recent claims that all vertebrate embryos pass through a stage when they are the same size, we find a greater than 10-fold variation in greatest length at the tailbud stage." They concluded that the evidence is "contrary to the evolutionary hourglass model," and that it shows "considerable variability—and evolutionary lability—of the tailbud stage, the purported phylotypic stage of vertebrates." In their view, this "wide variation in morphology among vertebrate embryos is difficult to reconcile with the idea of a phylogenetically-conserved tailbud stage."3 These patterns hold true not just for physical characteristics of development, but also for important properties of the genome. A 2013 article in PLoS Genetics found that genomic properties related to DNA sequence, gene age, gene family size, and gene expression did not match the convergent patterns predicted by the phylotypic stage. http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo30/heads-or-tails.php

And so it is with atheists, they keep making false claims by mere assertion. And after evidence comes in refuting their position, they never really honestly admit that they were wrong, but they just move on to some other area where they think they can still be deceptive.. It truly is sad! bornagain77

BA77 and WJM are essentially on the same side. Cool. Hehehe. Hehehehehe. Concealed Citizen

In further rebuttal to Seversky's claim that Near Death Experiences are hallucinatory, I refer to the following study. In the following study, materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were merely ‘false memories’ by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary. Simply put, they did not expect the results they got: To quote the headline 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real”

'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/ Memories of Near Death Experiences (NDEs): More Real Than Reality? - Mar. 27, 2013 Excerpt: University of Liège ,,,researchers,, have looked into the memories of NDE with the hypothesis that if the memories of NDE were pure products of the imagination, their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., sensorial, self referential, emotional, etc. details) should be closer to those of imagined memories. Conversely, if the NDE are experienced in a way similar to that of reality, their characteristics would be closer to the memories of real events. The researchers compared the responses provided by three groups of patients, each of which had survived (in a different manner) a coma, and a group of healthy volunteers. They studied the memories of NDE and the memories of real events and imagined events with the help of a questionnaire which evaluated the phenomenological characteristics of the memories. The results were surprising. From the perspective being studied, not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130327190359.htm

My question to atheistic materialists is this, how in blue blazes is it possible for something to become even 'more real than real' for us unless first, as Planck himself pointed out, 'consciousness is fundamental', and secondly, as Planck himself also pointed out, the Mind of God is the 'matrix of all matter'

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” - Max Planck “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” - Max Planck

Seeing as how atheists, via the 'hard problem of consciousness', cannot even account for qualia, i.e. the subjective experience of conscious, in the first place, I simply don't see how atheists can hope to ever possibly explain how something could become even 'more real than real' for us during Near Death Experiences. Also of related interest,

January 2021 Whereas atheists have no observational evidence that the Multiverses that they postulated to ‘explain. away’ the fine tuning of the universe are real, nor do Atheists have any evidence that the ‘parallel universes’ that they postulated to ‘explain away’ quantum wave collapse are real, Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics, (i.e. our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science), to support their belief that God really does uphold this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in the reality of a heavenly dimension and in a hellish dimension.” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/closer-to-truth-are-there-really-extra-dimensions/#comment-722947

bornagain77

Kairosfocus “ SA2, your picking up the muddied strawman you knocked over before...” I really have no idea what you are referring to. A strawman is setting up a misrepresented idea so that it can be refuted. How am I misrepresenting ID? And, more importantly, how am I knocking it down? I have repeatedly said that the argument of flawed design is not an argument against ID, which even the DI agrees with. I am getting the feeling that because you and I disagree on a few things that you find it impossible to agree with me even when I am defending ID. Steve Alten2

Jerry, the principle of measurement or scale of comparison [recall here the NOIR framework], is, first, to identify yardstick cases that allow us to then compare. There is no reasonable doubt that what I identified are living memory cases of evil, and I here pivot on the Reidian common sense principle, that our basic senses and perceptual systems may err in detail but not on the whole on pain of collapse into grand delusion. That is, I take sound conscience and duty to it seriously. We can then proceed much as Munsell did with colour, we establish a light/darkness axis and hue-saturation axes as necessary to fill in a world of colours. If one cannot acknowledge the yardstick cases as evils that give near to moral dark point, then allow contrast as free of such, then that does not imply that such hyperskeptical dismissal seizes the default. It only, pardon, points to a breakdown likely conditioned by a civilisation in mutiny and heading for noreaster trouble. With the darkness/light axis -- actually a common metaphor -- we can address degree of tainting, variety of colours [we identify ever so many things with theme colours] and degree to which there is presence of what defines the yardstick cases. Where, I find the concept of perversion out of alignment with proper end and/or willful frustration of the same is a pretty effective core concept. A child on the way home from school is not a sexual toy to be played with then broken and discarded. A Jew from Hungary or Cracow or Minsk is not a guinea pig writ large for destructive medical experiments. Aborting and selling baby parts to make shampoos is dubious. I have said we are all nazis now locally, when I contemplate some of the issues around certain medical treatments and associated debates, and the like. From these, I think we may be able to reawaken consciences and see what is going on behind things being glamourised with pastel tinting. And yes, Hollywood, I am looking straight at you. KF PS: An advantage of a colour spindle/tree approach is we can see how when sufficiently tainted by evil allegedly opposite theme colour systems all approach the same basic lawless, destructive, demonic oligarchy. kairosfocus

Seversky tries to insinuate that Dr. Mary Neal's NDE was some type drug induced hallucination,

It sounds as if her critical faculties were suspended as they might be in a drug-induced hallucination

I've seen Dr. Mary Neal debate other medical doctors, who were atheists, and who tried to insinuate the same thing. Yet, IMHO, she tore them apart in the debate. She is a very knowledgable Doctor and she easily shot down all their medical opinions as to how the experience could have happened 'naturalistically'. As well, Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, of Harvard, comments here on the atheistic claim that NDEs are just hallucinations.

Dr. Eben Alexander Says It's Time for Brain Science to Graduate From Kindergarten - 10/24/2013 Excerpt: To take the approach of, "Oh it had to be a hallucination of the brain" is just crazy. The simplistic idea that NDEs (Near Death Experiences) are a trick of a dying brain is similar to taking a piece of cardboard out of a pizza delivery box, rolling it down a hill and then claiming that it's an identical event as rolling a beautiful Ferrari down a hill. They are not the same at all. The problem is the pure materialist scientists can be so closed-minded about it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ingrid-peschke/near-death-experiences_b_4151093.html

Along that same line of thought, here is an article that deconstructs the atheistic claim that NDEs are merely drug induced hallucinations

Near-Death Experiences and DMT - Steve Taylor Ph.D. - Oct 12, 2018 A neurological explanation of NDEs remains elusive. Excerpt: Another theory is that NDEs are related to psychedelic chemicals that are naturally produced by the brain. This theory was apparently boosted recently with the release of a paper called "DMT Models the Near-Death Experience" by a team of UK researchers associated with the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London. (In case you don't know, DMT - short for dimethyltryptamine - is a hallucinogenic, similar to LSD and magic mushrooms.) Aiming to study the apparent similarities between the psychedelic substance and NDEs, the researchers gave both DMT and a placebo to 13 participants, then asked them to complete a scale of the characteristics of NDEs. The results were reported as showing significant overlap between the two types of experience. As the researchers concluded, "Results revealed significant increases in phenomenological features associated with the NDE, following DMT administration compared to placebo." This appears to be true, but on closer inspection, the findings of the paper still fall far short of establishing any strong connection between DMT and NDEs. Of the 16 items in the NDE scale used in the study, nine items showed a high degree of crossover. These included an ‘unearthly environment,’ a sense of peace, heightened senses, harmony/unity, altered time perception, feelings of joy, bright light, and so on. However, all nine of these characteristics are generally associated with spiritual or mystical experiences, rather than just NDEs. It is well known that NDEs have a strong spiritual or mystical element to them, which is partly why they have such a powerful life-changing effect. But NDEs are not just spiritual experiences. And significantly, the seven items in this study with the least crossover between NDEs and DMT were those which differentiate NDEs from standard spiritual experiences. For example, three of the most salient characteristics of NDEs are a feeling of reaching a ‘border/point of no return,’ ‘encountering deceased/religious spirits,’ and a life review. In this study, these were amongst the least reported in DMT experiences. In other words, what this study seems to indicate is a relationship between DMT experiences and spiritual or mystical experiences. Since we already know that NDEs contain some of the same elements of spiritual experiences, it is not surprising that there is some relationship between NDEs and DMT experiences. In view of this, there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that NDEs are associated with DMT. Other researchers—such as Rick Strassman—have suggested that NDEs may be caused by the release of DMT when a person is close to death or in the process of dying. However, there is no evidence that large amounts of DMT are released close to death. It is not even certain that DMT is produced in the human body (although it has been found in the pineal gland of rats). The After-Effects of NDEs But perhaps one of the strongest arguments against any connection between NDEs and DMT is their after-effects. As I describe in my new book, Spiritual Science, in the great majority of cases, NDEs are powerfully transformative experiences. After them, a person's values and attitude toward life are completely transformed. People often become less materialistic and more altruistic, less self-oriented and more compassionate. They often feel a new sense of purpose, and their relationships become more authentic and intimate. They report becoming more sensitive to beauty and more appreciative of everyday things. They also typically report a loss of the fear of death. It’s remarkable that one single experience can have such a profound, long-lasting, transformational effect. This is illustrated by research showing that people who have near-death experiences following suicide attempts very rarely attempt suicide again. This is in stark contrast to the normal pattern—in fact, a previous suicide attempt is usually the strongest predictor of actual suicide. This is one of the strongest arguments against the idea that NDEs are a brain-generated hallucination. Dreams and hallucinations do not generally have transformational after-effects. They are usually quickly forgotten, with a clear sense that they were delusional experiences, less authentic and reliable than ordinary consciousness. (In contrast, with NDEs there is a clear sense that the experience is more real and authentic than normal consciousness.) And this applies to DMT experiences, too. There is no doubt that psychedelic experiences such as DMT can sometimes be transformative to some degree. For some, they provide a glimpse of a more expansive and intense reality which makes them realize that their normal view of the world is limited. They may lead to a new interest in spirituality. However, DMT experiences are certainly not transformational to anything like the same degree as NDEs. In a 2012 paper in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Dr. Michael Potts examined the similarities between NDEs and DMT and also concluded that salient features of NDEs are absent (such as traveling through a tunnel into a transcendent realm or the subsequent reporting of events witnessed during the experience). But most notably, in Potts’ view, DMT lacked the powerful transformative after-effects of NDEs. He concluded that in NDEs permanent change is the rule rather than the exception, whereas it is the exception rather than the rule with DMT. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201810/near-death-experiences-and-dmt Steve Taylor, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK.

And again, I remind Seversky that we have far more observational evidence testifying to validity of Near Death Experiences, than we have observational evidence corroborating the grandiose claims of Neo-Darwinists, who hold that all life, in all its unfathomable complexity, is the result of completely mindless processes.

Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html

Moreover, the transcendent nature of 'immaterial' information, (specifically 'non-local' quantum information), which is the one thing that, (as every ID advocate intimately knows), unguided material processes cannot possibly explain the origin of, directly supports the transcendent nature, as well as the physical reality, of the soul:

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg

As Dr. Stuart Hameroff states: “ the quantum information, ,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this (conserved) quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/life-after-death-soul-science-morgan-freeman/

Verse:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

Bornagain77/190

At around the 15:00 – 17:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Mary Neal spoke about how she, when in the presence of God, and from being able to see things from that much higher “omniscient’ perspective of God, finally understood why God allows evil in the world (i.e. she finally ‘got it’) and understood how our limited perspective on ‘evil’ severely clouds our judgments and our reactions to tragedies in our lives. (The take home message from her talk is to trust in God no matter what happens)

I accept that Dr Neal is giving as accurate an account as she can of what she experienced but it is what she doesn't say that is so frustrating. Why didn't she ask the questions that you would have thought anyone would have wanted to ask under those circumstances? What is happening? Where am I? Who are you? It sounds as if her critical faculties were suspended as they might be in a drug-induced hallucination. She just went with the flow and enjoyed the cool ride. She felt she was in the presence of God. Why didn't she at least try to ask Him what was happening? Okay, she was able to see things from a higher "omniscient" perspective. Is it too much to ask that it be explained to us lesser mortals rather than being brushed off with vague generalizations that imply we're too stupid to understand? If you're God then make us understand. You must have that power.

And as neurosurgeon Eben Alexander stated following his Near Death Experience, “,,He (God) is right here with each of us right now, seeing what we see, suffering what we suffer… and hoping desperately that we will keep our hope and faith in Him. Because that hope and faith will be triumphant.”

Exactly. This is the appeal of religion and why it will be with us for the foreseeable future. It is not that it is necessarily true but it offers comfort, support and hope in a way that nothing else can in the face of what is otherwise a very bleak prospect. Seversky

Kf, All you are doing is listing some extremely distasteful examples which would be classified as moral evil if that concept was used. The issue with the existence of the Judeo/Christian God is with natural evil not moral evil. I purposefully defined evil as very unwanted unpleasant situations. Defining evil as the frustration of true ends or something similar like the absence of good ends up in a morass that is not necessary. The modifier “unwanted” is probably not necessary but added because someone in the past thought unwanted made it worse. Nobody wants to die suddenly in great pain so using the modifier “unwanted” may be superfluous. I want to set up a continuum of unpleasant situations because it helps understand the relative nature of such unpleasant situations. Some are more unpleasant than others. Stubbing one’s toe is a very minor unpleasant event while a very prolonged dying from a cancerous tumor that is extremely painful is a major unpleasant event. Once one understands there is a continuum of these unpleasant events it’s easier to understand that the most horrific one a person could think of is relatively small in comparison to what is being offered by the Christian God. Somebody above brought up the beatific vision. This is eternal. Also the eternal separation from God makes all your examples trivial no matter how horrific they are even when God is not the instigator. Thus, natural evil in all the horrors one can dream up becomes trivial in comparison to the rewards being offered. This argument will not appeal to an atheist but then the atheist in turn can not use this argument against the existence of the Christian God. Nor should any Christian use this argument as justification for naturalized evolution to exempt the Christian God from the so called evil released by the forces of the natural world. This is all about making the argument from evil disappear as a consideration. I believe it is a meaningless argument. jerry

JVL:

You mean like letting same-sex couples marry?

No one said it was an intelligent and reasonable society. ET

Jerry, if the definition of philosophy itself is a difficult problem -- the best I have found is to define in those terms as the discipline of posing and discussing hard, core problems -- it is unsurprising that there will be views all over the map on what evil is. The challenge then is comparative difficulties and key cases are often instructive. Hence, my reference to moral yardstick 1, the case of an unfortunate child pounced on by a murderous predator. From this we can make a lot of sense through seeing evil as a destructive parasite on the good, often via perverse use of freedom that frustrates or wrenches things away from their proper ends. Ends that are often sufficiently manifest. A child is not properly a target for sexual gratification, especially at expense of life. Similarly, people unjustly kidnapped by Nazis in countries seized by force or fraud were not properly reduced to guinea pigs for murderous medical experiments; that is a sort of gruesome cannibalism of dark science, itself being perverted. Perversion, being a key concept, twisting out of the due course to naturally evident ends . . . something those busily trying to redefine and restructure human society to suit their proclivities would do well to heed. Never mind, that doctors were right to then use the knowledge bought so horrifically to save lives of others, more than were lost to the holocaust. Then, they took efforts to rebuild the knowledge on an ethically clean basis, over decades and costing many millions, but their judgement was they had to set a fresh precedent to stop the progressive taint. We can go on and on. KF kairosfocus

Bornagain77: According to Feser, there is no reason to believe that the Christian God, being all-good and all-powerful, would prevent suffering on this earth if out of suffering he could bring about a good that is far greater than any that would have existed otherwise. Great. Perhaps that scheme could be explained to us so that we would understand and stay fast. JVL

ET: And, as far as I can tell, society has been treating most everyone equally for quite some time. You mean like letting same-sex couples marry? JVL

SA2, your picking up the muddied strawman you knocked over before and repeating the stunt does not answer the issue and continues the same problem of perpetuating a fundamental and dangerous misunderstanding of design. FYI, overly specialised -- narrowly "optimal" -- designs give up adapatability or robustness and become brittle. The art of design is to find adequate or good performance that is sufficiently robust through judicious tradeoffs. I have already highlighted for you that our vision system already takes up a good chunk of our brains [we are strongly visual creatures], and that this ties to things like the birth process. What we have is a highly successful design for a highly adaptive creature with other individual and collective systems that then augment as required, e.g. telescopes, microscopes. We have corrective instruments [including now for many types of colour blindness]. The posing of a perfection ratchet with no limit but the all-seeing eye of God, fails. And BA77 is right that in failing it points to the possibility of maximally great being, which further sets up a solid answer to the understanding of evil and to the late, unlamented problem of evil that fell to Plantinga's free will defence 50 years ago. KF PS: Meanwhile, a happy Resurrection Day, where

Eph 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee[d] of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,[e] to the praise of his glory. Thanksgiving and Prayer 15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love[f] toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead[--> with 500+ unshakeable witnesses!] and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

kairosfocus

As to the comment on earthquakes, etc.., and people losing their faith because of seemingly senseless suffering in this world,,, The best philosophical response I've seen thus far has been this one, i.e. "the Beatific Vision"

This Theologian Has An Answer To Atheists’ Claims That Evil Disproves God - Jan, 2018 Excerpt: In “The Last Superstition: A Refutation Of The New Atheism,” Feser, echoing Thomas Aquinas, notes that the first premise of the problem of evil is “simply false, or at least unjustifiable.” According to Feser, there is no reason to believe that the Christian God, being all-good and all-powerful, would prevent suffering on this earth if out of suffering he could bring about a good that is far greater than any that would have existed otherwise. If God is infinite in power, knowledge, goodness, etc., then of course he could bring about such a good. Feser demonstrates his reasoning with an analogy. A parent may allow his child a small amount of suffering in frustration, sacrifice of time, and minor pain when learning to play the violin, in order to bring about the good of establishing proficiency. This is not to say that such minimal suffering is in any way comparable to the horrors that have gone on in this world. But the joy of establishing proficiency with a violin is not in any way comparable to the good that God promises to bring to the world. In Christian theology, this good is referred to as the Beatific Vision: the ultimate, direct self-communication of God to the individual. In other words, perfect salvation or Heaven. Feser describes the Beatific Vision as a joy so great that even the most terrible horror imaginable “pales in insignificance before the beatific vision.” As Saint Paul once said, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Your Argument Assumes Its Conclusion I can already see the disciples of the Four Horsemen readying their keyboards, opening a copy of Dawkins’ “The God Delusion,” and preparing their response. An atheist may claim that he cannot possibly imagine anything in the next life that could possibly outweigh the Holocaust, children’s suffering, or any other instance of significant suffering in this world. According to Feser, this response is precisely the reason he states that the problem of evil is “worthless” as an objection to arguments in favor of the existence of the Christian God. The problem is that the only way the atheist can claim that nothing could outweigh the most significant suffering on earth is if he supposes that God does not exist and therefore there is no Beatific Vision. But he cannot presume that God does not exist in the premise of an argument that aims to prove the conclusion that God does not exist. By doing so, he is begging the question, or arguing in a circle, and therefore does not prove anything at all. As Feser goes on to demonstrate, the atheist is essentially stating: “There is no God, because look at all this suffering that no good could possibly outweigh. How do I know there’s no good that could outweigh it? Oh, because there is no God.” http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/03/theologian-answer-new-atheists-claims-existence-evil-disproves-gods/

And the best testimony that I've seen from a Near Death Experiencer, in regards to this issue of why God allows evil in the world, has been this one,, The problem of pain/evil, and how we react to tragedy in our lives, was almost central to Dr. Mary Neal's following talk on her near death experience. At around the 15:00 - 17:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Mary Neal spoke about how she, when in the presence of God, and from being able to see things from that much higher “omniscient' perspective of God, finally understood why God allows evil in the world (i.e. she finally ‘got it’) and understood how our limited perspective on 'evil' severely clouds our judgments and our reactions to tragedies in our lives. (The take home message from her talk is to trust in God no matter what happens)

Dr. Mary Neal's Near-Death Experience - (Life review portion starts at the 13:00 minute mark) - video https://youtu.be/63wY2fylJD0?t=899

And as neurosurgeon Eben Alexander stated following his Near Death Experience, ",,He (God) is right here with each of us right now, seeing what we see, suffering what we suffer... and hoping desperately that we will keep our hope and faith in Him. Because that hope and faith will be triumphant."

The Easter Question - Eben Alexander, M.D. - Harvard - March 2013 Excerpt: More than ever since my near death experience, I consider myself a Christian -,,, Now, I can tell you that if someone had asked me, in the days before my NDE, what I thought of this (Easter) story, I would have said that it was lovely. But it remained just that -- a story. To say that the physical body of a man who had been brutally tortured and killed could simply get up and return to the world a few days later is to contradict every fact we know about the universe. It wasn't simply an unscientific idea. It was a downright anti-scientific one. But it is an idea that I now believe. Not in a lip-service way. Not in a dress-up-it's-Easter kind of way. I believe it with all my heart, and all my soul., We are, really and truly, made in God's image. But most of the time we are sadly unaware of this fact. We are unconscious both of our intimate kinship with God, and of His constant presence with us. On the level of our everyday consciousness, this is a world of separation -- one where people and objects move about, occasionally interacting with each other, but where essentially we are always alone.?But this cold dead world of separate objects is an illusion. It's not the world we actually live in.,,, ,,He (God) is right here with each of us right now, seeing what we see, suffering what we suffer, and hoping desperately that we will keep our hope and faith in Him. Because that hope and faith will be triumphant. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eben-alexander-md/the-easter-question_b_2979741.html

Verse:

Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

bornagain77

Is it evil not to accept homosexuals as equal members of society?

That's up to society, as you keep telling us. :razz: And, as far as I can tell, society has been treating most everyone equally for quite some time. ET

Jerry “ Few would see the difference between being callous and letting people suffer and die unnecessarily. I for one fail to see any difference.“ I think an example would explain how I see the difference. At one time many ports would have a quarantine island where the people on any ship were forced to be quarantined if there was some illness on board such as TB. Given the medical knowledge of the day, this was the most appropriate course of action. It would be callous if you didn’t think about the possibility that those who were not infected when they arrived may become infected as the result of the quarantine. But it would not be evil. count of crisco

I don't understand seversky's objection in 172. Every rational person should have an anti-Darwinian agenda. :razz: ET

The "bad/ inferior design" argument was dispensed with back in 1992: Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design. It is just another in a long list of PRATTs. ID's opponents aren't very bright. Earthquakes are a necessary part of the design of the planets. They not only give us a means of understanding the earth's interior, they are also part of the necessary carbon recycling process. It's up to us to understand earthquakes and respond accordingly. All of these alleged imperfections give us an impetus to figure out what is going on and understand it. Which is what you want from a universe that was intelligently designed for scientific discovery (that is the point of "The Privileged Planet") ET

The charge of being callous might apply, but not evil.

Few would see the difference between being callous and letting people suffer and die unnecessarily. I for one fail to see any difference. Of course I don’t see any problem.

it could simply be that he knows that preventing these might actually to more harm to humanity in the long term

This I agree with and gets at what might explain it all. I believe this is the best of all possible worlds. But what must be necessary for it to be best? jerry

Jerry@182, I understand the arguments that God not preventing disasters or disease is an act of evil but I don’t accept those arguments. Given that he is supposed to be all-knowing, it could simply be that he knows that preventing these might actually to more harm to humanity in the long term. The charge of being callous might apply, but not evil. Steve Alten2

EDTA “ That depends entirely on whether homosexual behaviors are acceptable to God, which we have already debated endlessly. (Christians are frustratingly consistent, aren’t they?)“ Actually Christians are not very consistent. But that is a subject for another day. I agree, harm is very difficult to define. And it definitely lives on a sliding scale. But I qualified evil as something that causes harm and is caused with intent and selfish motivation. However, I realized that I should have added another qualifier, knowledge that it would cause harm. An earthquake could collapse a dam that kills thousands of people. But nobody would call the earthquake evil. However, a contractor who cuts corners to maximize profit in the construction of the dam that collapsed during the earthquake might be considered evil. But he would probably be considered to be less evil than someone who intentionally sabotages the dam. Steve Alten2

And with regard to evil, I would have to disagree with Jerry. The way I have always looked at evil is that it requires two things. It must cause harm and it must be through the intentional act of a human with a selfish motive, knowing that it would cause harm.

But that is not how the arguments go. The ones trying to distance the Judeo/Christian God from the senseless death or disease by natural causes have their sights on those who accuse God for allowing these things to happen. These accusers say the Judeo/Christian God is the author of this harm so is therefore responsible. Their target is not a god per se but the Judeo/Christian God. This has a long history but mainly goes back to November 1, 1755 or the Lisbon earthquake. Or the day that changed the world. Why did so many innocent people die that day. Especially the ones in church? http://befreeandtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/3O2A1912sml.jpg To get around this, these religious people say that God is not involved in any natural events so as to distance God from these type of events. They are called theistic evolutionists and espouse natural mechanisms for evolution so support Darwin’s methods. They also support Darwin’s ideas since they want personal acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. This has been cover numerous times on this site so this not something new here. jerry

He is risen indeed! Now, on to less important matters. SA2, >Is it evil not to accept homosexuals as equal members of society? That depends entirely on whether homosexual behaviors are acceptable to God, which we have already debated endlessly. (Christians are frustratingly consistent, aren't they?) But I think you are correct that evil is properly defined as harm. That leads immediately to the problem of what harm is. Which, tellingly, leads right back to the same type of philosophical problem we have been discussing: How do we recognize harm? Is it defined by nature /evolution, and what it does or does not do? If so, then death is not harm, because death is a purely "natural" thing; evolution "intends" it (i.e., operates by it), so that other more fit organisms can come along and take their place. This doesn't prove such a definition is wrong, but damn, it must be depressing to live in that realm of pitiless indifference and harm and evil with no end! Is it just the presence of pain, or by extension, displeasure? Whose? We are constantly putting ourselves in situations where our gain is someone else's harm. We need some rational way to decide whether harm is happening, who is being harmed, and thus what constitutes harm. A human-centric definition leaves us with the same relativistic problem we had before. Again, this doesn't mean it is wrong, but it isn't very workable. Harm needs a transcendent definition, so that's not relative to the whims of one person or group. Otherwise there can be no getting along. And this brings the debate right back to where it belongs: God, the standard-setter. EDTA

"Do you have a response that doesn’t make you look like a petulant child?" Huh? I lifted the term “Who cares” from you in your own non-response to my arguments against your position. In fact you assiduously avoid and ignore my posts, on my own thread I might add, to go off on you own tangents. I consider that to be blatantly trollish behavior. And, unlike KF, I have my limits for tolerating trollish behavior. Moreover, 'who cares' is exactly what is to be expected on Darwinian morality. Only on the altruism of Christian Morality does it even make sense for someone to ask 'who cares' if homosexuals are treated fairly or not. As Jordan Peterson noted,

Insisting on the truth in times of chaos — Jordan Peterson – David Fuller – May 19, 2017 Excerpt: “Why the hell not every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost? It’s a perfectly coherent philosophy and it’s actually one that you can institute in the world with a fair bit of material success if you want to do it. To me I think that the universe that people like Dawkins and Harris inhabit is so intensely conditioned by mythological (Theistic) presuppositions that they take for granted the ethic that emerges out of that as if it’s just a rational given. And this of course was precisely Nietzsche’s observation as well as Dostoyevsky’s observation. I’m not arguing for the existence of God. I’m arguing that the ethic that drives our culture is predicated on the idea of God and that you can’t just take that idea away and expect the thing to remain intact midair without any foundational support.” – Jordan Peterson – clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto. https://medium.com/perspectiva-institute/the-man-for-the-times-of-chaos-jordan-peterson-2df43c24672f Of note: If Theism is truly a ‘mythological presupposition’, as Jordan Peterson holds in the preceding quote, then morality itself must necessarily also be subjective and illusory, not objective and real. That is to say, in order for Peterson to not contradict himself in the preceding quote, he himself must necessarily hold Theism to be true and not merely mythological.)

Atheism, as a worldview, is simply completely incoherent through and through, and certainly cannot serve as a basis for deriving any sort of coherent moral code. Of supplemental note to Seversky's claim that Christian morality is not superior to other systems of morality. Ancient historian, Tom Holland, finds that the narrative that the 'enlightenment' reasoning saved western civilization from the 'dark ages' of Medieval Christianity to be a false revisionist whig history. The truth is that Christianity saved western civilization from the 'dark ages' of Greek and the Roman morality.

Tom Holland: Why I was wrong about Christianity - 2016 It took me a long time to realise my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian. Excerpt: The longer I spent immersed in the study of classical antiquity, the more alien and unsettling I came to find it. The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics, and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more. It was not just the extremes of callousness that I came to find shocking, but the lack of a sense that the poor or the weak might have any intrinsic value. As such, the founding conviction of the Enlightenment – that it owed nothing to the faith into which most of its greatest figures had been born – increasingly came to seem to me unsustainable. “Every sensible man,” Voltaire wrote, “every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.” Rather than acknowledge that his ethical principles might owe anything to Christianity, he preferred to derive them from a range of other sources – not just classical literature, but Chinese philosophy and his own powers of reason. Yet Voltaire, in his concern for the weak and ­oppressed, was marked more enduringly by the stamp of biblical ethics than he cared to admit. His defiance of the Christian God, in a paradox that was certainly not unique to him, drew on motivations that were, in part at least, recognisably Christian. “We preach Christ crucified,” St Paul declared, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” He was right. Nothing could have run more counter to the most profoundly held assumptions of Paul’s contemporaries – Jews, or Greeks, or Romans. The notion that a god might have suffered torture and death on a cross was so shocking as to appear repulsive. Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the Crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was. In the ancient world, it was the role of gods who laid claim to ruling the universe to uphold its order by inflicting punishment – not to suffer it themselves. Today, even as belief in God fades across the West, the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/religion/2016/09/tom-holland-why-i-was-wrong-about-christianity If Western civilization is the fishbowl then the water is Christianity." Atheists in Praise of Christianity? - May 19, 2020 Excerpt: Historian Tom Holland is known primarily as a storyteller of the ancient world. Thus, his newest book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, came as something of a surprise for several reasons. First, Tom Holland is not a Christian. Second, Holland’s book is one of the most ambitious historical defenses of Christianity in a very long time. Attracting Criticism Holland’s book-length defense of the belief system the elites love to despise has unsurprisingly attracted some criticism. He faced off with militant atheist and prominent philosopher A.C. Grayling on the question “Did Christianity give us our human values?” Grayling struggled to rebut Holland, sounding more petty than philosophical. Holland, on the other hand, became positively passionate in his defense of Christianity. If Western civilization is the fishbowl, he stated, then the water is Christianity. https://stream.org/atheists-in-praise-of-christianity/

bornagain77

Bornagain77 “ “Who cares”“ Do you have a response that doesn’t make you look like a petulant child? Steve Alten2

“Who cares” bornagain77

Is it evil not to accept homosexuals as equal members of society? Steve Alten2

"they should be responding with “who cares?" Okie Dokie "Who cares" what SA2 thinks? :) There all better. bornagain77

I see that ID proponents are still trying to argue against flawed design when they should be responding with “who cares? ID is about the detection of design, not the detection of perfect design.” And with regard to evil, I would have to disagree with Jerry. The way I have always looked at evil is that it requires two things. It must cause harm and it must be through the intentional act of a human with a selfish motive, knowing that it would cause harm. I don’t think that earthquakes or floods are evil, but they undoubtedly cause harm. A pilot who crashed his plane through pilot error is not evil. However, a pilot who crashes his plane for ideological reasons is evil. Steve Alten2

Seversky claims the links of Darwinian Ideology and Hitler are 'tenuous'. The 'neuronal illusion' that we call Seversky lives in a fantasy world of his own making! :) From both horses mouths

"A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form, will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.” – Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf - pg 248 https://books.google.com/books?id=rVl_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT246 “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

bornagain77

Seversky states, "As so often, Egnor has it backwards. The very existence of theodicy as a thriving discipline in Christian theology is a standing admission that the faith has a profound problem reconciling the existence of evil with the attributes assigned to its God." :) LOL, and defeating sin and death on the cross is supposedly not reconciling an infinitely holy and just God with finite sinful man in your book? If not that, one wonders what could possibly ever bridge that infinite moral gap in Seversky's mind. Despite what is commonly believed, of someone being 'good enough' to go to heaven, in reality both Mother Teresa and Hitler fall inherently short of the moral perfection required to meet the perfection of God’s infinitely just and holy moral code

Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament is True – Frank Turek – video – November 2011 (41:00 minute mark – (Despite what is commonly believed, of someone being 'good enough' to go to heaven, in reality both Mother Teresa and Hitler fall short of the moral perfection required to meet the perfection of God’s objective moral code) http://saddleback.com/mc/m/5e22f/

Thus, humans find themselves in quite a moral dilemma. People intuitively know that objective morality exists, (as atheists on this very thread give witness to by the way they live their own lives, and even when they try to make moral arguments against the existence of God), and yet we have no way, by our own finite efforts, of reaching the infinite moral perfection that is required to meet God's infinite standard of moral perfection. The only way we can possibly be morally perfect in God’s eyes is if God himself somehow imparts that moral perfection onto, and into, us. And that is exactly what God has done through Jesus Christ:

Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words “The Lamb” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ G.O.S.P.E.L. (God Our Sins Paying Everyone Life) – (the grace of propitiation) poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385?? Falling Plates (the grace of propitiation) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24? The Good-O-Meter - The Christian Message in a nutshell - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrLzYw6ULYw

Verse:

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

bornagain77

Bornagain77/170

Seversky, you do realize that the holocaust was the fruit of Darwinian ideology do you not?

Darwin to Hitler | Richard Weikart https://mindswithmedved.com/2018/02/ep02/

You do realize that Weikart's work is the product of an anti-Darwinian agenda based in his religious views? You do realize that, by emphasizing the tenuous links between Darwin's work and the Nazi project while failing to give due weight to the long history of anti-Semitism in Christian Europe, as exemplified by Martin Luther's On The Jews And Their Lies, the quality of his scholarship in this issue is called into question? Seversky

Bornagain77/167

As Dr. Michael Egnor noted, “Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,,”

As so often, Egnor has it backwards. The very existence of theodicy as a thriving discipline in Christian theology is a standing admission that the faith has a profound problem reconciling the existence of evil with the attributes assigned to its God. As for transcendent moral standards, Egnor is not arguing that they could be Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist which makes this claim a blatantly Christian bid to annex the moral high ground. And besides being a tacit acknowledgement that he would not know good from evil unless his God told him which was which, they appear to be most notable by their absence. Throughout recorded history, human beings have apparently had no trouble blithely ignoring these alleged transcendent moral standards whenever it suited them and that includes Christians. Seversky

Seversky, you do realize that the holocaust was the fruit of Darwinian ideology do you not?

Darwin to Hitler | Richard Weikart https://mindswithmedved.com/2018/02/ep02/

Indeed, the entire edifice of Marxism rests on Darwinian ideology:

Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – quotes - Foundational Darwinian influence in their ideology July 2020 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-on-the-relationship-between-darwinism-and-totalitarianism/#comment-707831

also of note: The unmitigated horror visited upon man, by state sponsored atheism, would be hard to exaggerate,,, Here's what happens when these Godless atheists took control of their Governments:

Atheism’s Body Count * It is obvious that Atheism cannot be true; for if it were, it would produce a more humane world, since it values only this life and is not swayed by the foolish beliefs of primitive superstitions and religions. However, the opposite proves to be true. Rather than providing the utopia of idealism, it has produced a body count second to none. With recent documents uncovered for the Maoist and Stalinist regimes, it now seems the high end of estimates of 250 million dead (between 1900-1987) are closer to the mark. The Stalinist Purges produced 61 million dead and Mao’s Cultural Revolution produced 70 million casualties. These murders are all upon their own people! This number does not include the countless dead in their wars of outward aggression waged in the name of the purity of atheism’s world view. China invades its peaceful, but religious neighbor, Tibet; supports N. Korea in its war against its southern neighbor and in its merciless oppression of its own people; and Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge kill up to 6 million with Chinese support. All of these actions done “in the name of the people” to create a better world. - Atheism’s Tendency Towards Totalitarianism Rather Than Freedom What is so strange and odd that in spite of their outward rejection of religion and all its superstitions, they feel compelled to set up cults of personality and worship of the State and its leaders that is so totalitarian that the leaders are not satisfied with mere outward obedience; rather they insist on total mind control and control of thoughts, ideas and beliefs. They institute Gulags and “re-education” centers to indoctrinate anyone who even would dare question any action or declaration of the “Dear Leader.” Even the Spanish Inquisition cannot compare to the ruthlessness and methodical efficiency of these programs conducted on so massive a scale. While proclaiming freedom to the masses, they institute the most methodical efforts to completely eliminate freedom from the people, and they do so all “on behalf” of the proletariat. A completely ordered and totally unfree totalitarian State is routinely set up in place of religion, because it is obviously so profoundly better society. It is also strange that Stalin was a seminarian who rejected Christianity and went on to set up himself as an object of worship. It seems that impulse to religious devotion is present in all, whether that be in traditional forms or secular inventions. https://www.scholarscorner.com/atheisms-body-count-ideology-and-human-suffering/

This is, in reality, probably just a drop in the bucket. Who knows how many undocumented murders there were. It also doesn’t count all the untold millions of abortions from around the world.

Matthew 7:15-20 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

bornagain77

It's useless to discuss in contradictory terms with atheists. Mind have a lot of mental viruses ,logic and discussion not help. it's about atheists free choice to keep vanity or return to humility. Just respect their free choice(God does) and hope for the best. :) Lieutenant Commander Data

Evil, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. To most people, the Holocaust was unmitigated evil on an unprecedented scale. To dedicated Nazis, who attributed the perceived ills of their society to the influence of Jews, it was purging society of that evil and was, therefore, a good thing. Either way, the Universe did not recoil in horror at such an act, there was just Dawkins's blind, pitiless indifference. Neither did the Christian God rain down fire and brimstone to obliterate Nazi Germany for displeasing him as He is supposed to have done with Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently, homosexuality offends Him much more than genocide. Seversky

The atheists here on UD, without knowing God’s exact intentions for creating the eye as he did, are arguing that the eye’s design is flawed and/or sub-optimal and, in SA2’s case, could therefore be the work of a ‘mediocre, 'flawed', designer’, and not the work of the 'flawless' Judeo-Christian God, and in JVL’s case, since he does not “believe in a god or gods”, I’m assuming, JVL is holding that ‘sub-optimal’ design must be the result of the mindless processes of Darwinian evolution. And please note that JVL does not have any scientific evidence that mindless Darwinian processes can create even a single functional protein,

Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA

Thus, JVL does not have ANY scientific evidence that mindless processes can create anything, much less create the supposed 'sub-optimal' eye. Thus JVL’s argument is, first off, an argument from ignorance, in that he is ignorant of God’s exact intentions for creating the eye as he did, and, secondly, his argument is a non sequitur in that it does not automatically follow, (just because something may be sub-optimal in JVL’s subjective opinion), that that perceived sub-optimal design must be the result of mindless Darwinian processes. It is a huge unwarranted leap to go from JVL’s subjectively perceived sub-optimal design to mindless Darwinian processes which have never been observed to create even a single functional protein. It would be far more rational for JVL to admit, as SA2 has apparently done, that his subjectively perceived sub-optimal design, is still evidence of design, not for mindless Darwinian processes. Now in regards to SA2’s claim, (because of such a poor design as he claims the eye is), that the designer must be a ‘flawed’ and/or ‘mediocre’ designer and therefore can not possibly be the Judeo-Christian God. First off, and to repeat, SA2 is simply wrong in his claim that the eye is poorly designed and is therefore the work of a ‘mediocre designer’. In fact, as far a physics itself can tell us, and to repeat, the eye is to be considered a ‘perfect design’. As physic professor of Princeton, William Bialek, commented, “the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.”

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark,,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

Therefore, as far as science itself can tell us, and regardless of anyone’s personal subjective opinion as to what would constitute perfect design for the eye, the eye is to be considered a perfect design. Period! And unlike JVL and SA2, this is not my subjective opinion as to what constitutes perfect design, this ‘perfect design’ of the eye is what the science itself is telling us. And I will choose science over subjective opinions any day. And since it is Easter, and since the argument from imperfection is a subset of the atheist’s argument from evil, I will now look at the atheist’s argument from evil. The atheist’s argument from evil goes like this,

The Problem of Evil: Still A Strong Argument for Atheism – 2015 Excerpt:,,, the problem of evil, one of the main arguments against the existence of an all-good and all-knowing God.,,, P1. There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good. P2. If an all-powerful, all-good God existed, then such horrific, apparently purposeless evils would not exist. C. Therefore, an all-powerful, all-good God does not exist. https://thegodlesstheist.com/2015/10/13/the-problem-of-evil-still-a-strong-argument-for-atheism/

And yet this is, once again, a self defeating position for the atheist to be in. Specifically on the one hand, Atheistic materialists hold that morality is subjective and illusory.

“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” – Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life “[as an atheist] you give up hope that there is an imminent morality … you can’t hope for there being any free will [and there is] … no ultimate foundation for ethics.” – William Provine

And yet on the other hand, as David Wood puts it in the following article, “By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil.”

Responding to the Argument From Evil: Three Approaches for the Theist – By David Wood Excerpt: Interestingly enough, proponents of AE grant this premise in the course of their argument. By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil. Amazingly, then, even as atheists make their case against the existence of God, they actually help us prove that God exists!,,, https://www.namb.net/apologetics/responding-to-the-argument-from-evil-three-approaches-for-the-theist

In fact, as I pointed out in 152, “although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist, he does actually live his life as if good and evil did not objectively exist.” (but lives and acts as if morality is objectively real)

"although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist, he does actually live his life as if good and evil did not objectively exist." https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/from-philip-cunningham-the-human-eye-like-the-human-brain-is-a-wonder/#comment-727484

Thus, the argument from evil, regardless of whatever emotional baggage that may be associated with it, is simply a self-defeating argument for the atheist to make since the atheist, whether he wants to or not, is forced, (via the way he himself lives his life), to admit to the objective existence of a moral standard to judge by. As Dr. Michael Egnor noted, “Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,,”

The Universe Reflects a Mind – Michael Egnor – February 28, 2018 Excerpt: Goff argues that a Mind is manifest in the natural world, but he discounts the existence of God because of the problem of evil. Goff seriously misunderstands the problem of evil. Evil is an insoluble problem for atheists, because if there is no God, there is no objective standard by which evil and good can exist or can even be defined. If God does not exist, “good” and “evil” are merely human opinions. Yet we all know, as Kant observed, that some things are evil in themselves, and not merely as a matter of opinion. Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/the-universe-reflects-a-mind/

also see: "Evil as it exists in the world is exactly what theism, understood classically, predicts. Atheism has a problem of evil, and the existence of genuine evil is fatal to atheism."

Cosmic Fine-Tuning and the Problem of Evil Michael Egnor – February 12, 2018 Excerpt: Goff is wrong about theism and the problem of evil. Evil as it exists in the world is exactly what theism, understood classically, predicts. Atheism has a problem of evil, and the existence of genuine evil is fatal to atheism. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/cosmic-fine-tuning-and-the-problem-of-evil/

Specifically, The moral argument for God is summed up at the 4:36 minute mark of the video and can be stated as such:

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. The Moral Argument – drcraigvideos – video https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU?t=276

And in regards to theodicy, i.e. reconciling an all good God with the existence of evil, that is indeed what the cross is all about. Christian theodicy in particular, out of all the mono-Theistic religions, takes the problem of evil head on, and certainly does not shy away from the problem of reconciling an all good God with the existence of evil! As the following article states, “given the drastic nature of this solution, (i.e. the Cross), we begin to recognize that God takes the problem of evil more seriously than we could ever have taken it ourselves. ,,,”

The Problem of Evil by Benjamin D. Wiker – April 2009 Excerpt: We still want to cry, Job-like, to those inscrutable depths, “Who are you to orchestrate everything around us puny and pitiable creatures, leaving us shuddering in the darkness, ignorant, blasted, and buffeted? It‘s all well and good to say, ‘Trust me! It‘ll all be made right in the end,‘ while you float unscathed above it all. Grinding poverty, hunger, thirst, frustration, rejection, toil, death of our loved ones, blood-sweating anxiety, excruciating pain, humiliation, torture, and finally a twisted and miserable annihilation — that‘s the meal we‘re served! You‘d sing a different tune if you were one of us and got a taste of your own medicine.” What could we say against these depths if the answer we received was not an argument but an incarnation, a full and free submission by God to the very evils about which we complain? This submission would be a kind of token, a sign that evil is very real indeed, bringing the incarnate God blood-sweating anxiety, excruciating pain, humiliation, torture, and finally a twisted and miserable annihilation on the cross. As real as such evil is, however, the resurrection reveals that it is somehow mysteriously comprehended within the divine plan.?With the Incarnation, the reality of evil is absorbed into the deity, not dissolved into thin air, because God freely tastes the bitterness of the medicine as wounded healer, not distant doctor. Further, given the drastic nature of this solution, we begin to recognize that God takes the problem of evil more seriously than we could ever have taken it ourselves. ,,, per crisis magazine

Happy Easter everyone. He is Risen!

Luke 24:1-7 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, suddenly two men in radiant apparel stood beside them. As the women bowed their faces to the ground in terror, the two men asked them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’” Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Hologram – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis

bornagain77

WJM, you are still completely missing Lewis's point. I could care less what atheists say. I care about what is actually true. And as the atheist's own life testifies, the existence of morality is, pretty much, just as objectively real for them as it is for anyone else. This is my last response to you on this matter since I know that empirical evidence counts for nought in your mental model of reality. bornagain77

Subjective words like evil, beauty, goodness are only understood by feeling them. Subjective words can only be used by choice, so there is always an alternative subjective word available. It provides an invalid opinion if a subjective word is not chosen, like to be forced to say a painting is beautiful, provides an invalid opinion. Subjective words are in reference to the spirit that decides. So it means when you choose the opinion someone is evil, then because you arrived at the opinion by choice, then in turn someone can express the opinion you are evil for saying that person is evil. Things like objective goodness are a total lie. mohammadnursyamsu

Happy Easter everyone! For most of you this is the most important day of the year and I hope you get some time for reflection and gain some inspiration. JVL

The atheists here on UD, without knowing God's exact intentions for creating the eye as he did, are arguing that the eye's design is flawed and/or sub-optimal and, in SA2's case, could therefore be the work of a 'mediocre designer', and not the work of the Judeo-Christian God, and in JVL's case, since he does not "believe in a god or gods", I'm assuming, JVL is holding that 'sub-optimal' design must be the result of the mindless processes of Darwinian evolution. And please note that JVL does not have any scientific evidence that mindless Darwinian processes can create even a single functional protein,

Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA

Thus JVL's argument is, first off, an argument from ignorance, in that he is ignorant of God's exact intentions for creating the eye as he did, and, secondly, his argument is a non sequitur in that it does not automatically follow, (just because something may be sub-optimal in JVL's subjective opinion), that that perceived sub-optimal design must be the result of mindless Darwinian processes. It is a huge unwarranted leap to go from JVL's subjectively perceived sub-optimal design to mindless Darwinian processes which have never been observed to create even a single functional protein. It would be far more rational for JVL to admit, as SA2 has apparently done, that his subjectively perceived sub-optimal design, is still evidence of design. Now in regards to SA2's claim, (because of such a poor design as he claims the eye is), that the designer must be a 'flawed' and/or 'mediocre' designer and therefore can not possibly be the Judeo-Christian God. First off, and to repeat, SA2 is simply wrong in his claim that the eye is poorly designed and is therefore the work of a 'mediocre designer'. In fact, as far a physics itself can tell us, and to repeat, the eye is to be considered a 'perfect design'. As physic professor of Princeton, William Bialek, commented, "the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants."

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark,,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

Therefore, as far as science itself can tell us, and regardless of anyone's personal subjective opinion as to what would constitute perfect design for the eye, the eye is to be considered a perfect design. Period! And unlike JVL and SA2, this is not my subjective opinion as to what constitutes perfect design, this 'perfect design' of the eye is what the science itself is telling us. And I will choose science over subjective opinions any day. And since it is Easter, and since the argument from imperfection is a subset of the atheist's argument from evil, I will now look at the atheist's argument from evil. The atheist's argument from evil goes like this,

The Problem of Evil: Still A Strong Argument for Atheism - 2015 Excerpt:,,, the problem of evil, one of the main arguments against the existence of an all-good and all-knowing God.,,, P1. There exist a large number of horrible forms of evil and suffering for which we can see no greater purpose or compensating good. P2. If an all-powerful, all-good God existed, then such horrific, apparently purposeless evils would not exist. C. Therefore, an all-powerful, all-good God does not exist. https://thegodlesstheist.com/2015/10/13/the-problem-of-evil-still-a-strong-argument-for-atheism/

And yet this is, once again, a self defeating position for the atheist to be in. Specifically on the one hand, Atheistic materialists hold that morality is subjective and illusory.

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life “[as an atheist] you give up hope that there is an imminent morality ... you can’t hope for there being any free will [and there is] ... no ultimate foundation for ethics.” - William Provine

And yet on the other hand, as David Wood puts it in the following article, "By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil."

Responding to the Argument From Evil: Three Approaches for the Theist - By David Wood Excerpt: Interestingly enough, proponents of AE grant this premise in the course of their argument. By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil. Amazingly, then, even as atheists make their case against the existence of God, they actually help us prove that God exists!,,, https://www.namb.net/apologetics/responding-to-the-argument-from-evil-three-approaches-for-the-theist

In fact, as I pointed out in 152, "although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist, he does actually live his life as if good and evil did not objectively exist."

although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist, he does actually live his life as if good and evil did not objectively exist. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/from-philip-cunningham-the-human-eye-like-the-human-brain-is-a-wonder/#comment-727484

Thus, the argument from evil, regardless of whatever emotional baggage that may be associated with it, is simply a self-defeating argument for the atheist to make since the atheist, whether he wants to or not, is forced to admit the existence of an objective moral standard to judge by. As Dr. Michael Egnor noted, "Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,,"

The Universe Reflects a Mind – Michael Egnor – February 28, 2018 Excerpt: Goff argues that a Mind is manifest in the natural world, but he discounts the existence of God because of the problem of evil. Goff seriously misunderstands the problem of evil. Evil is an insoluble problem for atheists, because if there is no God, there is no objective standard by which evil and good can exist or can even be defined. If God does not exist, “good” and “evil” are merely human opinions. Yet we all know, as Kant observed, that some things are evil in themselves, and not merely as a matter of opinion. Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/the-universe-reflects-a-mind/ also see: Cosmic Fine-Tuning and the Problem of Evil Michael Egnor - February 12, 2018 Excerpt: Goff is wrong about theism and the problem of evil. Evil as it exists in the world is exactly what theism, understood classically, predicts. Atheism has a problem of evil, and the existence of genuine evil is fatal to atheism. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/cosmic-fine-tuning-and-the-problem-of-evil/

Specifically, The moral argument for God is summed up at the 4:36 minute mark of the video and can be stated as such:

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. The Moral Argument – drcraigvideos - video https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU?t=276

And in regards to theodicy, i.e. reconciling an all good God with the existence of evil, that is indeed what the cross is all about. Christian theodicy in particular, out of all the mono-Theistic religions, takes the problem of evil head on, and certainly does not shy away from the problem of reconciling an all good God with the existence of evil! As the following article states, "given the drastic nature of this solution, (i.e. the Cross), we begin to recognize that God takes the problem of evil more seriously than we could ever have taken it ourselves. ,,,"

The Problem of Evil by Benjamin D. Wiker - April 2009 Excerpt: We still want to cry, Job-like, to those inscrutable depths, "Who are you to orchestrate everything around us puny and pitiable creatures, leaving us shuddering in the darkness, ignorant, blasted, and buffeted? It‘s all well and good to say, ‘Trust me! It‘ll all be made right in the end,‘ while you float unscathed above it all. Grinding poverty, hunger, thirst, frustration, rejection, toil, death of our loved ones, blood-sweating anxiety, excruciating pain, humiliation, torture, and finally a twisted and miserable annihilation — that‘s the meal we‘re served! You‘d sing a different tune if you were one of us and got a taste of your own medicine." What could we say against these depths if the answer we received was not an argument but an incarnation, a full and free submission by God to the very evils about which we complain? This submission would be a kind of token, a sign that evil is very real indeed, bringing the incarnate God blood-sweating anxiety, excruciating pain, humiliation, torture, and finally a twisted and miserable annihilation on the cross. As real as such evil is, however, the resurrection reveals that it is somehow mysteriously comprehended within the divine plan.?With the Incarnation, the reality of evil is absorbed into the deity, not dissolved into thin air, because God freely tastes the bitterness of the medicine as wounded healer, not distant doctor. Further, given the drastic nature of this solution, we begin to recognize that God takes the problem of evil more seriously than we could ever have taken it ourselves. ,,, http://www.crisismagazine.com/2009/the-problem-of-evil

Happy Easter everyone. He is Risen!

Luke 24:1-7 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, suddenly two men in radiant apparel stood beside them. As the women bowed their faces to the ground in terror, the two men asked them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’” Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Hologram - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis

bornagain77

So let me redefine evil from my comment above.

Evil in our world just means very unpleasant unwanted things that happen to people either through nature or through the intentional acts of other people

To some stubbing the toe would fit the “very,” to others it wouldn’t. The interesting thing is I have found no one wants to discuss the meaning of this word which shall not be named but which they use all the time. Why? jerry

what is to them a subjective evil

Define “evil.” If you are going to use the term, then define it. I maintain there is no definition for the word that people commonly use. The most common usage can best be explained by calling “evil,” unwanted unpleasant events. Stubbing your toe then becomes evil under this most frequently used understanding of the word. The “lack of the good” definition is essentially a useless definition. Everything in the universe fits that description. I used the word “bad” in the first sense above and Kf immediately took “bad” to mean the second sense. All this is are word games. Most definitely not an aside: why would nearly everyone object to calling stubbing your toe evil? It fits the definition most people have. So why is it absurd? jerry

BA77, I agree that atheists are bad at making their argument. That doesn't change the fact that you and Lewis are taking advantage of switching concepts in making your rebuttals. That atheists and theists have a "common bond" in what they identify as evil, or in how they feel about things they agree on are evil, is irrelevant; you're talking about two entirely different things. Saying that the atheist is necessarily referring to an objective good when they point out what is to them a subjective evil (at its conceptual root) is a failure of logic. It doesn't matter if atheists fail to point that out or fail to recognize it; that is what is going on. William J Murray

Jerry, bad is a synonym for evil. There are reasons for the understanding that evils are privations of what is good in itself out of line with purpose or ends; which may be naturally evident to the eye of reason. KF kairosfocus

PS: Note, Wiki testifying against interest:

Visual cortex Main article: Visual cortex Visual cortex: V1; V2; V3; V4; V5 (also called MT) The visual cortex is the largest system in the human brain and is responsible for processing the visual image. It lies at the rear of the brain (highlighted in the image), above the cerebellum. The region that receives information directly from the LGN is called the primary visual cortex, (also called V1 and striate cortex). It creates a bottom-up saliency map of the visual field to guide attention or eye gaze to salient visual locations,[34] hence selection of visual input information by attention starts at V1[35] along the visual pathway. Visual information then flows through a cortical hierarchy. These areas include V2, V3, V4 and area V5/MT (the exact connectivity depends on the species of the animal). These secondary visual areas (collectively termed the extrastriate visual cortex) process a wide variety of visual primitives. Neurons in V1 and V2 respond selectively to bars of specific orientations, or combinations of bars. These are believed to support edge and corner detection. Similarly, basic information about color and motion is processed here.[36] Heider, et al. (2002) have found that neurons involving V1, V2, and V3 can detect stereoscopic illusory contours; they found that stereoscopic stimuli subtending up to 8° can activate these neurons.[37] Visual cortex is active even during resting state fMRI. Visual association cortex Main article: Two Streams hypothesis As visual information passes forward through the visual hierarchy, the complexity of the neural representations increases. [--> neural network processing] Whereas a V1 neuron may respond selectively to a line segment of a particular orientation in a particular retinotopic location, neurons in the lateral occipital complex respond selectively to complete object (e.g., a figure drawing), and neurons in visual association cortex may respond selectively to human faces, or to a particular object. [--> memory and learning are implicated, I can remember cases of seeing persons A as persons B because of expectations] Along with this increasing complexity of neural representation may come a level of specialization of processing into two distinct pathways: the dorsal stream and the ventral stream (the Two Streams hypothesis,[38] first proposed by Ungerleider and Mishkin in 1982). The dorsal stream, commonly referred to as the "where" stream, is involved in spatial attention (covert and overt), and communicates with regions that control eye movements and hand movements. More recently, this area has been called the "how" stream to emphasize its role in guiding behaviors to spatial locations. The ventral stream, commonly referred as the "what" stream, is involved in the recognition, identification and categorization of visual stimuli. Intraparietal sulcus (red) However, there is still much debate about the degree of specialization within these two pathways, since they are in fact heavily interconnected.[39] Horace Barlow proposed the efficient coding hypothesis in 1961 as a theoretical model of sensory coding in the brain.[40] Limitations in the applicability of this theory in the primary visual cortex (V1) motivated the V1 Saliency Hypothesis (V1SH) that V1 creates a bottom-up saliency map to guide attention exogenously.[34] With attentional selection as a center stage, vision is seem as composed of encoding, selection, and decoding stages.[41] The default mode network is a network of brain regions that are active when an individual is awake and at rest. The visual system's default mode can be monitored during resting state fMRI: Fox, et al. (2005) have found that "The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks'",[42] in which the visual system switches from resting state to attention. In the parietal lobe, the lateral and ventral intraparietal cortex are involved in visual attention and saccadic eye movements. These regions are in the Intraparietal sulcus (marked in red in the adjacent image).

There are obvious trade-offs here within and beyond the brain and across the lifespan including issues of reproduction and birth. As a sci fi scenario we could see a tech society that uses uterine replicators and removes constraints as noted to create higher performance levels, in effect using our other capabilities to re-engineer vision. But that would beg the question, why not patch in a camera system instead, which would be more flexible? KF kairosfocus

JVL, The Munsell/Ostwald type colour spindle or similar colour cylinder models allow us to identify and create reference frameworks for hue, saturation, value [~ luminance or brightness/darkness]. These are related to the CIE tongue of colour, pantone and now de facto Adobe models. The practical import of such is in the ubiquitous presence of colour screens and sensor array based cameras [e.g. in the smart phone that has now taken over from pocket cameras and home movie cameras alike]. These are in turn tied to experimental investigations of human vision. It turns out that practical colour gamuts based on pigments or lights are unable to capture the full gamut of what we can see, indeed, there are models that use artificial colours to span the gamut. As a glance at discussions of say the Enchroma system will tell us, part of the reason is the eye exploits the differences in responses of its various cones to detect colours. When certain cones have response curves that are too close or are missing, various colour deficiencies emerge. In that context, we can obviously see that our colour vision system is on the whole adequate, functionally and aesthetically. Indeed, it even enables us to turn eyes into ears via the invention of text and of reading. Robust adequacy is what we should recognise as the pivot of design. (For top-of-the-head example, the visual system uses a good part of our brains, and there is a trade-off of brain/head size and feasibility of birth. Systems are subject to the facet phenomenon: each part depends on the others and contributes to the others, to attain overall function.) BA77 has a valid point on the import of the complaint against mere adequacy. For, a perfection ratchet applied in the face of obvious adequacy points to a demand for ultimate perfection and the implicit issue, why aren't we just like God in powers. Where, one does not have to explicitly demand ultimate perfection to imply a ratchet, it is present in the implied demand for more, more, more, regardless of manifest adequacy. The mere fact of human dominance speaks to adequacy, and the further fact that we are makers able to collectively use culture to augment our capabilities as needed through invention and manufacture rooted in sci-tech, points to a broader capability than is directly present in our eyes. Overall balance counts, per the facet phenomenon. KF kairosfocus

Let's try this again: Bornagain77: Whatever, JVL, I am more than satisfied that I have made my case. It is clear that you have no argument, (much less do you have ANY scientific evidence that evolution can create ANYTHING), to support your position, and that you are now just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Let’s just clear up one thing: I did not use the terms ‘perfect’ or ‘perfection’ in my arguments/questions about eyes except when responding to your use of those terms. Agreed? JVL

A different tack on all this. The supposed non-optimality of the human eye design is really all about the inevitable tradeoffs necessitated by the scientific principles of optics and detectors that result from the laws of physics, combined with the design functional performance requirements. Just a little on these tradeoffs the designer, any designer, is faced with. These have resulted in what I think is probably an optimal eye design for human beings considering that they are semi-nocturnal in addition to being active in the daytime under high light conditions, additionally need very high visual acuity, and probably don't need ultraviolet or other color detection outside the bandwidth of the present design. The following is an analysis of some of these tradeoffs in the example case of the design of the hawkmoth's eye and associated neural visual processing. Of course the researchers assumed that undirected RM + NS (a semi-random walk) designed the hawkmoth's eye system, but the tradeoffs still had to be made whatever the process. From the research paper, "Resolving the Trade-off Between Visual Sensitivity and Spatial Acuity—Lessons from Hawkmoths" at https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/57/5/1093/4004722 :

"Synopsis: The visual systems of many animals, particularly those active during the day, are optimized for high spatial acuity. However, at night, when photons are sparse and the visual signal competes with increased noise levels, fine spatial resolution cannot be sustained and is traded-off for the greater sensitivity required to see in dim light. High spatial acuity demands detectors and successive visual processing units whose receptive fields each cover only a small area of visual space, in order to reassemble a finely sampled and well resolved image. However, the smaller the sampled area, the fewer the photons that can be collected, and thus the worse the visual sensitivity becomes—leading to the classical trade-off between sensitivity and resolution. Nocturnal animals usually resolve this trade-off in favour of sensitivity, and thus have lower spatial acuity than their diurnal counterparts. Here we review results highlighting how hawkmoths, a highly visual group of insects with species active at different light intensities, resolve the trade-off between sensitivity and spatial resolution. We compare adaptations both in the optics and retina, as well as at higher levels of neural processing in a nocturnal and a diurnal hawkmoth species, and also give a perspective on the behavioral consequences. We broaden the scope of our review by drawing comparisons with the adaptive strategies used by other nocturnal and diurnal insects. Introduction: A little hawkmoth zooming through the undergrowth on the lookout for flowers on a starlit night might not seem extraordinary, but in order to fly safely and find her favorite flowers, the hawkmoth’s visual system needs to overcome considerable challenges. First, the number of photons its visual system has to operate with is very low: the light intensity on a starlit night can be a hundred million times dimmer than on a sunny day (Warrant 2008). As a consequence, several sources of visual noise impose restrictions on the detection and processing of these sparse visual signals. The most fundamental source of noise is photon shot noise, which is the stochastic uncertainty inherent in the random arrivals and absorptions of photons (Rose 1942; De Vries 1943). It sets the absolute limit to sensitivity and the ability of the eye to reconstruct spatial details (Fig. 1A,B). Photon shot noise scales inversely with the squared average light intensity, so that its relative contribution is higher in dim light than in bright light. The lower signal in dim light and higher (relative) noise results in a reduced bandwidth for vision (Snyder et al. 1977), both in the spatial and the temporal domain..."

doubter

Jerry, well said. Steve Alten2

Evil in our world just means very bad things that happen to people either through nature or through the intentional acts of other people. There are all sorts of permutations of this. For example, how wide speed the bad things are, the context surrounding the bad things such as war, people doing bad things to animals or animals doing horrific things to other animals. It might be worthwhile to look at past OP’s to see what has been discussed. What is very bad also varies by person. Often depending on how squeamish they are. I doubt you will find any atheist that doesn’t use the term “evil.” And if you asked them what was evil, the specific events would not differ much from a theist. I’m sure some of them are aware of the theological implications of the term and will use or not use it accordingly. It has been used by atheists to argue against ID but more specifically to argue against the Judeo/Christian God whom they assume ID supporters believe is the intelligence in ID. jerry

WJM keeps claiming, "When a theist says “evil exists,” it is an entirely different thing than when an atheist says “evil exists.”" First off, to the extent that evil can even be said to objectively exist, it is merely a departure from some objectively good thing that ought to be. Although this is a fictitious account of Einstein as a boy, it still gets this point across very clearly:

Albert Einstein vs. professor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxWXvh6OVB8

Secondly, although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist,

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” – Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

although an atheist may deny that good and evil objectively exist, he does actually live his life as if good and evil did not objectively exist.

The Heretic – Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? – March 25, 2013 Excerpt: ,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be ‘intolerable’ for him to live his life as if he had no moral agency

Who wrote Richard Dawkins’s new book? – October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html

In what should be needless to say, if it is impossible for you to live as if your worldview were actually true then your worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.

Existential Argument against Atheism – November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/

Thus although an atheist may say one thing, his actions betray him and testify to an objective morality that he himself intuitively knows to objectively exists. So WJM contrary to whatever an atheist may have told you in the past about him just using the Theist's position on evil to try to argue against him, when we are talking about good and evil, there is in fact a very strong common bond in what we, (atheists and theists), are talking about. They may deny it, but they are in fact referring to things that we all intuitively know to objectively exist i.e. to things we all intuitively know to be be a departure from a good thing that ought to be. The way they live their very own lives testify to this fact. And indeed, if we did not share this very deep, intuitive, grasp of what good and evil is, then I can guarantee you the argument from evil would not be one of the.most powerful, emotionally charged, arguments that atheists have constantly tried to use against Theists. It would certainly lose a lot of its 'emotional' punch if morality really were merely illusory as the atheist holds.

Romans 2:14-15 Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

bornagain77

William J Murray: What does “fair” mean? Do you mean relevant? It’s not relevant wrt determining design. Clearly it doesn't mean relevant. Can you think of a good reason I should help you with a concept I think is very easy to grasp? And why should I be subject to what you 'think'? And, while we're at it: does what you think have any meaning at all? Does it matter at all? Why should I answer you? JVL

JVL, you keep asking if it's "fair to ask" these questions, or asserting that it is. What does "fair" mean? Do you mean relevant? It's not relevant wrt determining design. William J Murray

EDTA @140, said:

They use the existence of evil as a premise, implying that they take it to be the case for their side.

Stringer is either deliberately (arguendo) or unwittingly accepting the theistic concept of objective good and evil in making his argument. When a theist says "evil exists," it is an entirely different thing than when an atheist says "evil exists." Lewis' and BA77's rebuttal to the argument fallaciously capitalizes on this. William J Murray

Jerry: A completely disingenuous comment since it has been given an extremely plausible answer. I shall look back over the thread and try and find the answer you are referring to. Did you mean this: And it is a flawed argument because no one can show flawed or sub optimal design. People show things they personally don’t like and then claim flawed or sub optimal design but not something actually wrong with the design. We have no idea what the specifics of the design are about from an obviously extremely intelligent designer. Not having an idea of what the design specifications are/were . . . does that mean it's not fair to ask? Look, if your view is: we can't know that, we can never know that . . . well, that's your view. But I thought a science should be open to all questions. JVL

Clearly it’s possible so why weren’t humans granted that same level of function?

A completely disingenuous comment since it has been given an extremely plausible answer. But what else is new. jerry

Jerry: And it is a flawed argument because no one can show flawed or sub optimal design. People show things they personally don’t like and then claim flawed or sub optimal design but not something actually wrong with the design. We have no idea what the specifics of the design are about from an obviously extremely intelligent designer. Okay. But do you think it's fair to ask why certain design decisions were made? For example: since other animals have much greater visual acuity can we ask why humans were not chosen to have the same? Clearly it's possible so why weren't humans granted that same level of function? JVL

EDTA: Why would/should we know this? ID is science, science asks questions. Maybe we'll never know (from the ID perspective) but it's okay to ask surely. To extend BA77’s line of reasoning, would you have a problem if some _other_ creature only had 3-color vision while we had four? Would you say that was unfair, or evidence against design? We’re concerned that your argument can never be satisfied, even when design is still obvious. If you think life was designed then it's fair to ask why certain creatures were given certain abilities and others were not. I'm not saying it's evidence against design; I'm wondering why certain design decisions were made. And I figured that it's fair to ask. It's not a question of me being 'satisfied'; it's a matter of trying to answer questions. Do you think some questions are 'unfair' or inappropriate? Why would that be? JVL

BA77 @ 109, Very well articulated! :-) EDTA

SA @ 129, >Why do ID proponents respond the way they do when people argue about poor design... Rather than argue with people who say that the eye or any other biological structure is poorly designed why don’t you just accept the fact that they are acknowledging that it is designed? If I may be allowed to attempt to being some clarity to the discussion...it seems there are two things going on here: 1) The argument over whether biological structures are perfect or not. Some are arguing that the eye is physically perfect in some regards. So there's this disagreement over physical facts. 2) The second argument is whether we can even know whether something is flawed or perfect, if we don't know what the designer was intending in the first place. It's always possible to find a way in which any physical thing could be better. Just pick an aspect that another creature/object has in greater abundance. I think we are agreeing that such creative thinking on our part does not mean the thing was not designed. Settled? We're just trying to put these two points forth. Maybe they get mixed up sometimes. I'm agreeing that in general, imperfect design (by whatever type of lacking we decide to cherry-pick) is still evidence of design. Cool? EDTA

JVL @ 131, >...ultraviolet and four colour cones then CLEARLY such things could have been granted to human beings. Why weren’t they? Why would/should we know this? To extend BA77's line of reasoning, would you have a problem if some _other_ creature only had 3-color vision while we had four? Would you say that was unfair, or evidence against design? We're concerned that your argument can never be satisfied, even when design is still obvious. EDTA

Why would they care if there were some flaws in the design?

In a sense they don’t. But the flawed/sub optimal argument has been used against ID hundreds of times if not thousands. My guess is that the real target is the Judeo/Christian God and undermining ID is a way to do this. But in reality ID says nothing about the creator of the universe except that the creator of the universe has a massive intelligence. And it is a flawed argument because no one can show flawed or sub optimal design. People show things they personally don’t like and then claim flawed or sub optimal design but not something actually wrong with the design. We have no idea what the specifics of the design are about from an obviously extremely intelligent designer. jerry

WJM @ 130, Look at atheists' arguments against God and/or his goodness from the existence of evil, here, for instance: https://infidels.org/library/modern/ryan_stringer/logical-evil.html They use the existence of evil as a premise, implying that they take it to be the case for their side. They consider it so obvious to both sides that they don't even bother defending it, presuming it's the same for both sides. He's not just taking the theist's side and showing a problem with theistic thinking. He's saying a good God doesn't exist from _his_ perspective. EDTA

Jerry “ You seem to be looking for a weakness in ID.” No. I am just trying to rationalize the behaviour of ID supporters. I simply don’t understand why they get so defensive whenever anyone says that the design is flawed. Why would they care if there were some flaws in the design? Steve Alten2

even if the design is shoddy

Who says they are shoddy? You? I don’t see any shoddy design with the universe, life, or evolution.

The fact that they are not raises some serious questions about what the ID movement is really all about.

ID is about showing that the universe, life, and most if not all of evolution is intelligence driven. Either directly or indirectly. Your comment is full of non-sequiturs. You seem to be looking for a weakness in ID. There have been thousands before you trying the same. All failed. jerry

Bornagain77 “ Whatever SA2, you claim the eye is poorly designed, I say it is exquisitely designed.“ But I am wondering why you, as an ID proponent, care one way or the other. They both involve design. ID wins. End of story. But your response is not unique. ID proponents are never happy with the idea that poor design is still proof of design. A true ID scientist would be ecstatic over the demonstration of design, even if the design is shoddy. The fact that they are not raises some serious questions about what the ID movement is really all about. We are repeatedly told that ID is not just a repackaging of scientific creationism. Yet ID proponents get all defensive when it is suggested that the design is less than perfect. Why would ID proponents be concerned one way or the other about the competence of the designer? Steve Alten2

Bornagain77: Whatever, JVL, I am more than satisfied that I have made my case. It is clear that you have no argument, (much less do you have ANY scientific evidence that evolution can create ANYTHING), to support your position, and that you are now just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Let's just clear up one thing: I did not use the terms 'perfect' or 'perfection' in my arguments/questions about eyes except when responding to your use of those terms. Agreed? JVL

Again WJM, you are missing Lewis's entire point. bornagain77

Theist’s concept of evil exists

Does evil exist? A word for which there is no definition. Probably should be forgotten on this OP. But it has been discussed in detail elsewhere. Maybe comment here https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/the-argument-from-evil-is-absurd/#comment-725262 jerry

Whatever, JVL, I am more than satisfied that I have made my case. It is clear that you have no argument, (much less do you have ANY scientific evidence that evolution can create ANYTHING), to support your position, and that you are now just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. I will gladly let unbiased readers judge for themselves who has the better argument. Have a nice day. bornagain77

Whatever SA2, you claim the eye is poorly designed, I say it is exquisitely designed. We disagree. Fine. Go build a better eye and prove me, (and physics), wrong. to repeat,

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark,,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

bornagain77

Bornagain77: So only known existing vision systems here on earth count in your argument? How convenient, you can speculate about why we con’t have the vision of other animals here on earth, but it unfair to further speculate as having even greater vision than the animals on earth? It's not a matter of convenience; it's a matter of being sensible. Sure we could all speculate about things that MIGHT be possible but I was NOT doing that. My whole point was: if eyes are designed and the designer created eyes that have greater acuity than ours and detection into the ultraviolet and four colour cones then CLEARLY such things could have been granted to human beings. Why weren't they? This clearly seems to be an entirely arbitrary stopping point that you are just making up. If I argue for something that we don't know is possible in our physical system then it's not really a sensible argument is it? But anyways, playing by your rules, why are not all the best attributes of all the creatures on earth not combined in just one creature, and why is that speculative creature not us? My answer: because evolution makes do with good enough a lot of the time. What's your answer from a design point of view? Are you going to say: we don't know the purpose of our design so we can't say? 'Cause that just shuts down asking those kinds of questions. And science is about asking questions. Again, you (sic) argument from imperfection fails for it demands an unreasonable threshold of perfection to be met in order for us to say that anything not meeting that threshold is perfectly designed. But I didn't argue or ask for something perfect. You seem to have a false version of my line of reasoning stuck in your head and you are going to insist that's what I meant when I clearly did not intend to go down that road. You can't argue against something I didn't say!! Well, you can but it's misguided. Using physics, I can easily find perfectly designed attributes in molecular machines of bacteria, but under your philosophical definition of perfection, you can never say anything is perfectly designed unless is possessed (sic) all attributes of all creatures on earth. I never used the word 'perfect' or 'perfection'. I don't think such a notion makes sense in the real world of biology. This is clearly a VERY unreasonable threshold for perfection that has to met (sic) under your arbitrarily chosen definition of perfection. I never used the term 'perfection' so how can you suppose to know what my definition of it is? JVL

If I am to take up the position of the atheist, my rebuttal is this; "I'm not the one claiming evil exists, you are. I'm not the one claiming God is all good; you are. I'm not the one saying that your all-good God is reconcilable with what you assert as "evil," you are. So, make that case." You don't get to throw it back on the atheist as if they are implicitly agreeing that what you define as straight-line good and crooked-line evil exist. William J Murray

Bornagain77 “ It is interesting to note how JVL’s and SA2’s argument from imperfection...” As I am not arguing from imperfection I will simply assume that the rest of your comment is not relevant to my question. In case you are serious about responding to questions instead of blindly repeating the same word salad, here is my question, for the third (or fourth) time. Why do ID proponents respond the way they do when people argue about poor design. A Lada is inarguably a poorly designed car. But I never hear anyone arguing that this means that it is not designed. Rather than argue with people who say that the eye or any other biological structure is poorly designed why don’t you just accept the fact that they are acknowledging that it is designed? As far as I know, ID does not make any claim about the quality of the design. Steve Alten2

So only known existing vision systems here on earth count in your argument? How convenient, you can freely speculate about why we can't have the vision of other animals here on earth, but it is, according to you, unfair to further freely speculate as to having even greater vision than the animals on earth? This clearly seems to be an entirely arbitrary stopping point that you are just making up in order for you to avoid having to deal with the clear Theistic implications that follow from your argument. But anyways, playing by your rules, why are not all the best attributes of all the creatures on earth not combined in just one creature, and why is that speculative creature not us? Again, your argument from imperfection fails for it demands an unreasonable threshold of perfection to be met in order for us to say that anything not meeting that threshold is perfectly designed. Using physics, I can easily find perfectly designed attributes in molecular machines of bacteria, but under your philosophical definition of perfection, you can never say anything is perfectly designed unless it possessed all attributes of all creatures on earth in a, apparently arbitrarily chosen, perfect degree. This is clearly a VERY unreasonable threshold for perfection that has to met under your arbitrarily chosen definition of perfection. bornagain77

BA said:

Where exactly is the idea of a straight line, that atheists themselves are using to judge the world as less than perfect, coming from? And that is precisely Lewis’s point!

You and Lewis err in the same way I pointed out. You're transferring your perspective onto the atheist. The atheist argument "it's not a perfect world" doesn't relate to their views; it's an argument from the internal logic of the theist. To the atheist, the world isn't perfect or imperfect; it is what it is and they try to make it more like how they want it. It's not matter of comparing it to a "straight line" or a "perfect world." So, the atheist is not referring to their own concept of a straight line or a perfect world when they make their challenge; they are referring to the theist's perspective of "perfect world" or "straight line." That is why that particular rebuttal fails. William J Murray

Bornagain77: JVL, as I noted, and as you ignored, in your argument, and even if we had all the attributes of vision that you listed, there is nothing within your argument that prevents you from then asking, ‘Why is our vision not even greater, i.e. more perfect’, yet?” But I'm not asking that because it doesn't make sense to ask for something I don't know is possible. That's exactly why I limited my questions to known eyes not speculative ones. You can't 'defeat' my argument by attacking a position I MIGHT take. Especially when I have explicitly said I'm not going there. JVL

JVL, as I noted, and as you ignored, in your argument, and even if we had all the attributes of vision that you listed, there is nothing within your argument that prevents you from then asking, 'Why is our vision not even greater, i.e. more perfect', yet?" The only 'natural' stopping point for your argument from imperfection is once we have reached the infinitely perfect, i.e. all seeing, vision of God. And, as I further pointed out, it is precisely that unreasonable threshold, that needs to be met for perfection in your argument, that defeats your entire argument and, to boot, it is precisely that unreasonable threshold that concedes the necessary premise to the Ontological argument in order for the Ontological argument to be successful.

Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

bornagain77

ET: “Waiting for TWO Mutations” pertains to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. It has nothing to do with evolution by means of intelligent design. But it's based on observed mutation rates. So, from your perspective, that things were designed to evolve, aren't the observed mutation rates part of your system? JVL

"Waiting for TWO Mutations" pertains to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. It has nothing to do with evolution by means of intelligent design. ET

We have the technology to enhance our vision to be similar to other organisms who have different vision systems. I don't understand why that is so difficult to understand. ET

ET: JVL, I don’t care who disagrees with me. I care about what they can demonstrate. Fair enough. Not trying to get at you or your opinion/view but how does the paper you frequently cite (Waiting for two . . . mutations? You know the one.) match up with your front-loaded hypothesis? If you've got a link to a previous discussion or explanation (on your own blog perhaps) that's fine; no need to reiterate something you've already said. JVL

Bornagain77: Essentially, JVL’s and SA2’s argument from imperfection actually assumes the ‘maximally great’, all-seeing, perfection of God’s vision as the threshold of perfection that needs to be met in order for the argument to ever have a chance to be realistically satisfied. No, I compared human eyes and their capacities with other existing eyes in the animal kingdom. I did NOT assume or allude to a threshold of perfection. It seems to me that you are the one considering ultimate and perfect vision, not me. Since you believe in God that makes sense that you would have that kind of least upper bound to visual performance. I don't believe in a god or gods and so I do not have some standard of perfection to compare with. Which is why it's not part of my questions. Which is why I only ask why human eyes don't have the same 'abilities' as eyes we know to exist. I only compare and contrast things known to be able to be within the capacity of the creating process. JVL

JVL, I don't care who disagrees with me. I care about what they can demonstrate. ET

Martin_r: Obviously, human brain is using RGB color space, and obviously, our brain interprets the color pretty accurate. How do you know it's interpretation is accurate? What's your standard? JVL

ET: There isn’t any evidence for a designer that keeps intervening to keep things on track. That would defeat the purpose of an impetus to research I'm not sure Dr Behe or some of the other ID proponents on this forum would agree with you but I'll let them make their own case. Anyway, I guess I understand your view, at least partially. JVL

So WJM, there are two concepts of evil? One for atheists, and another one for Christians? If you believe that this is rigidly true across the board, with absolutely no cross over between the two concepts, then you are missing Lewis's entire point. For us to even be able to grasp the concept of evil in the first place, we ALL, atheists and Christians alike, must first have, at the very least, some idea what good might be like. As C.S. Lewis stated, "A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.” Where exactly is the idea of a straight line, that atheists themselves are using to judge the world as less than perfect, coming from? And that is precisely Lewis's point! And please note that C.S. Lewis was an atheist himself before he converted to Christianity!

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist – in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless – I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality – namely my idea of justice – was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” – C.S. Lewis

bornagain77

BA77, the unresponsiveness to facts about the success and capability of the eye speaks volumes on what is really going on. KF kairosfocus

SA2, why do I react correctively to poor design rhetorical appeals as have been championed in recent years by the New Atheists? Because, first, they fundamentally misrepresent design, where design is critical to the progress of civilisation. You should see how I react to distorted understandings of economics, for much the same reason. Specifically, designs do not usually pivot on optimisation, because balanced trade-off to give robustly satisfactory performance is at the pivot of successful design. There is a reason why the Swiss Army Knife, the Multitool, the smart phone, the hex head screwdriver, the socket wrench set and the pc have triumphed as flexible technologies, and why a species not particularly strong or fast or well armed with teeth and claws has become the dominant species on our planet. For the success of our civilisation we need to get our understanding of design right, a valuable result in and of itself never mind what hyperskeptical, ideologically poisoned, suspicious and hostile minds trying to resolve cognitive dissonance by projecting blame to strawman caricatures of the despised other may want to think and say. Get design right. Then we can talk about other things. KF kairosfocus

seversky:

I would suggest that it is being just a touch disingenuous to pretend that ID proponents are not looking towards the Christian God as the original designer.

So what? ID does not require God. ID does not require the supernatural. And science doesn't care if the Designer was God or supernatural. The infinite regress gambit is that of a weak mind. We have to focus on what we have to observe and study. And AGAIN, thanks to Newton's four rules of scientific reasoning, the anti-ID mob has all of the power to falsify ID just by demonstrating the mechanisms they posit can produce what ID says they cannot. Yet instead they choose to flail away at ID with their desperate and willful ignorance. And that is very telling. ET

JVL:

So, your version of ID is a front-loaded type where the designer is no longer intervening to keep things on track?

There isn't any evidence for a designer that keeps intervening to keep things on track. That would defeat the purpose of an impetus to research ET

Acartia sock:

But, again, why does the designer have to be flawless?

ID doesn't say anything about the Designer. ID is about the DESIGN. ET

As C.S. Lewis once asked, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

This particular defense against the argument from evil is rooted a unintentional switch of perspective. The argument is not that the atheist's concept of evil exists, so God is not good; the argument is that the Theist's concept of evil exists, which internally undermines the premise of a good God. The atheist's concept of evil is subjective/relative. It's not the "evil" that is being pointed at when they make their argument. To say that the atheist is being irrational in identifying a thing and also denying that which is necessary for the thing is to not understand what the atheist is pointing at when he uses the term "evil." IOW, he's not pointing at his evil; he's pointing at the theist's evil. I have yet to see a logically sound defense of the argument from evil, and that includes KF's "privation of the good" theory, which makes zero sense. The "greater good" and the "free will" arguments are more like Rube Goldberg contraptions than sound structures of logic. William J Murray

It is interesting to note how JVL's and SA2's argument from imperfection plays out in regards to the Ontological argument. In post 36, in response to JVL's argument that the eye was an imperfect design, I pointed out that, in so far as we can tell from physics, the eye is to be considered a perfect design. As William Bialek, (a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University), stated in an article entitled "More Perfect Than We Imagined", "photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,”,,, “This is as far as it goes.”,,, Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark,,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark,,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html

And indeed, in regards to the the human eye being able to detect a single photon, it borders on being science fiction for us, as the following article states, "Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”

Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light – July 21, 2016 Excerpt: Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light. Previous studies had established that human subjects acclimated to the dark were capable only of reporting flashes of five to seven photons… it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,” says Vaziri. “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”… The gathered data from more than 30,000 trials demonstrated that humans can indeed detect a single photon incident on their eye with a probability significantly above chance. “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise? https://phys.org/news/2016-07-humans-smallest.html

In regards to the amazing fact that, as far as we can tell from physics, the eye is to be considered a 'perfect' design, the response from the atheists here on UD has been to, basically, ask, as JVL asked in post 40, 'WHY do humans have eyes that are functionally sub-par to other animal eyes?"

'WHY do humans have eyes that are functionally sub-par to other animal eyes? What reason is there that our eyes don’t have greater acuity? What reason is there that our eyes don’t have four colour detectors? What reason is there that our eyes can’t see into the ultraviolet range? I notice that NO ONE has even tried to answer those questions. Why is that? Does ID not have an answer to that question?" - JVL post 40

But notice how JVL's and SA2's argument plays into the Ontological argument for a 'maximally great Being', i.e. for God. Even if our eyes had greater acuity, four colour detectors and could see into the ultraviolet range, there is nothing to prevent JVL and SA2 from then asking, "but why is our vision not even better than that?" Essentially, JVL's and SA2's argument from imperfection actually assumes the 'maximally great', all-seeing, perfection of God's vision as the threshold of perfection that needs to be met in order for the argument to ever have a chance to be realistically satisfied. In short, JVL's and SA2's argument from imperfection fails, in a rather dramatic fashion, since their argument, (besides inadvertently assuming the reality of God in its premises), assumes the perfection that only God can possess to be present in every being that God has created. That is to say, JVL's and SA2's argument will never be satisfied unless every finite being that God has created has the infinite and perfect abilities that only God himself can possess. As should be needless to say, that is an extremely unreasonable threshold of perfection that needs to be met in order for their argument from imperfection to ever be realistically satisfied. And again, their argument does play into the ontological argument in that they are presupposing the perfection of a 'maximally great being', i.e. of God, as the threshold that needs to be met in order for their argument to ever be realistically satisfied. In short, JVL and SA2 have, unwittingly, conceded the validity of the Ontological argument as being a robust argument for the reality of God since they have, inadvertently conceded the necessary premise to the Ontological argument in order for the Ontological argument to be considered successful. As William Lane Craig explains, in order for the atheist to defeat the ontological argument, "The atheist has to maintain that it’s impossible that God exists. He has to say that the concept of God is incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor or a round square."

God Is Not Dead Yet – William Lane Craig – Page 4 The ontological argument. Anselm’s famous argument has been reformulated and defended by Alvin Plantinga, Robert Maydole, Brian Leftow, and others. God, Anselm observes, is by definition the greatest being conceivable. If you could conceive of anything greater than God, then that would be God. Thus, God is the greatest conceivable being, a maximally great being. So what would such a being be like? He would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and he would exist in every logically possible world. But then we can argue: 1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists. 2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world. 6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists. 7. Therefore, God exists. Now it might be a surprise to learn that steps 2–7 of this argument are relatively uncontroversial. Most philosophers would agree that if God’s existence is even possible, then he must exist. So the whole question is: Is God’s existence possible? The atheist has to maintain that it’s impossible that God exists. He has to say that the concept of God is incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor or a round square. But the problem is that the concept of God just doesn’t appear to be incoherent in that way. The idea of a being which is all-powerful, all knowing, and all-good in every possible world seems perfectly coherent. And so long as God’s existence is even possible, it follows that God must exist. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/13.22.html?start=4

But as JVL and SA2 themselves have proven, the concept of God is simply not incoherent to them. In fact, they themselves have presupposed the existence of God. Specifically they have presupposed the perfection of God, in their argument from imperfection. As C.S. Lewis once asked, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” - C.S. Lewis

And as Van Til noted, atheists need the Christian God to even have the ability to argue against Him in the first place.

“The ultimate source of truth in any field rests in him. The world may discover much truth without owning Christ as Truth. Christ upholds even those who ignore, deny, and oppose him. A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the father holds it on his knee. So modern science, modern philosophy, and modern theology may discover much truth. Nevertheless, if the universe were not created and redeemed by Christ no man could give himself an intelligible account of anything. It follows that in order to perform their task aright the scientist and the philosopher as well as the theologian need Christ.” – Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism p.147-148 “In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).

Verse:

Proverbs 21:30 There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD.

bornagain77

Sub-optimal design is still design

Yes, but how does one know what’s sub optimal? jerry

Sub-optimal design is still design. William J Murray

Design is so obvious that there is no need to defend it. My point is that what appears to some as flawed design or sub optimal design is not necessarily either flawed or sub optimal. Flawed design or sub optimal design is always brought up for a reason. Namely, to question the intelligence or ability of the designer. I’m just pointing out that it is an invalid argument. Since we have no idea if anything is an instance of flawed or sub optimal design. ~ jerry

Seversky @102, That what we are experiencing requires design is about as obvious as it gets. What is not so obvious is what is doing the designing. I don't think the Christian God concept can hold up to scrutiny in any argument defending it. I think the best argument for "God" is the ontological argument for "God" as the necessary ground of being/existence. However, to make that the Christian God, you have to include in that some formation of intrinsic "good" (objective morality) and "conscience" as being necessary aspects of sentient existence. Cue KF's "First Duties" argument. However, IMO that argument has been thoroughly dismantled. That isn't to say that the Christian "God" doesn't exist; it just can't be the "ontologically necessary God." It carries too much unnecessary ontological baggage, so to speak. But, the ontologically necessary God cannot be the one doing the "designing," for various reasons. The fundamental question is, what is actually being designed? Science is still in the process of figuring that out. You can't really go any farther until you can answer that question. William J Murray

Seversky, if you have a comparable list of arguments for atheism, please list it. In the following recent post, I addressed the only philosophical arguments for atheism that I have ever seen presented by atheists here on UD.

March 2021 Since Atheists have no real scientific evidence to support their belief in Darwinian evolution, or to support their belief that the universe spontaneously arose, ‘elite’ atheistic scientists are stuck with fallacious philosophical arguments against God that, upon close inspection, fall apart. Two of the (main) fallacious philosophical arguments against God, that Atheists are dependent on, are the ‘God of the gaps argument’, and the ‘argument from evil’. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/free-excerpt-from-steve-meyers-new-book-return-of-the-god-hypothesis/#comment-726833

As to which theistic argument is my favorite, I like Aquinas's arguments, as laid out by Dr. Egnor, but in response to SA2's claim that the designer of life, (and apparently the universe?) was less than perfect, I mentioned the Ontological argument here in post 94 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/from-philip-cunningham-the-human-eye-like-the-human-brain-is-a-wonder/#comment-727374 bornagain77

Bornagain77/96

SA2, since you are apparently into philosophical/theological arguments for and against God, (instead of actual scientific evidence), I think you might like a run down of the philosophical arguments for each position.

I see a list of arguments for God. I don't see a similar list of arguments against God. Is there one particular argument for God that strikes you as the strongest case? Perhaps you could set it out in more detail and we could then see how it stands up to close scrutiny. Seversky

I would suggest that it is being just a touch disingenuous to pretend that ID proponents are not looking towards the Christian God as the original designer. Of course, there is no inherent problem with the proposal that some form of highly-advanced extraterrestrial intelligence either created or just shaped the course of life on Earth. In fact, if we were ever to find compelling evidence of such alien handiwork it would undoubtedly be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. But I somehow doubt it would satisfy the theistic crowd as I suspect they are looking for rather more than the mysterious monolith-makers of 2001 Neither would it help with the ultimate origins question. All it would do would be to set it back a stage since the next question would be who designed the designers? This leads, as it always does, to the equally unsatisfactory infinite regress of designers or, at some point, an entirely arbitrary un-designed designer. You take your pick. Seversky

We would be happy to all just conclude design, and go home. With you on our side too, by the way. Yes, poor design is still design. But our points above are that we cannot logically conclude poor design. Why should we concede something that cannot be rigorously argued for? But if it makes us all feel better, let's agree on _design_ of any sort, and move on to the next thread. EDTA

EDTA and KairosFocus, but that doesn’t explain why ID proponents respond to the poor design argument in the way that they do. If ID was truly science driven and not fundamentally a religious stance, the most logical response would be that poor design is still design. However, the response always tends to be that you can’t prove that it is poor design. Surely ID as a science doesn’t care about how effective a design is, just that there is design. Steve Alten2

SA2 & Jerry, optimality is a matter of attaining goals under constraint to achieve a maximal benefit or a least cost. It is easy to identify some feature or parameter that, taken out of context, seems to be a poor choice. But then, when robustness and adaptability against a wider context of possibilities emerges, we find a different picture. God design is a matter of striking tradeoffs, and it is highly relevant that the suggested, cobbled together human being is the dominant species all across this planet, now at threshold of solar system colonisation. That makes a very different context. And meanwhile, SA2, the context in which we ponder God as root of reality is one in which we plausibly need a finitely remote necessary being root able to account for rational, responsible, morally governed freedom. Were there ever utter non being, such would forever obtain, so as a world is, something always was. This extends, as traversal of an infinite succession of actual past finite, causal-temporal stages to now is infeasible on logic of the transfinite. Where, root of moral being capable of love and virtue, reason, warrant and credible knowledge [thus requiring freedom] points to a serious candidate necessary being, the inherently good, utterly wise creator God. Such is either impossible of being [as a square circle is] or else is actual; your studious side stepping and rhetoric of projective tainting in other threads is unable to distract from inability to resolve this from the usual evolutionary materialistic or fellow traveler viewpoint. In this context, a cosmos fine tuned for cell based, C chem, aqueous medium, privileged planet life, use of language and algorithms in that coded DNA language in cells simply further points. KF kairosfocus

I'm always late, but here goes: >Why do you think the designer has lost interest in humans? Just leaving somethings in a less-than-ideal-from-our-perspective state does not imply that the designer has lost interest in humans. Because we are not privy to his/its full plan, we have no way of concluding that he/it has lost interest in us. The plan may be unfolding as intended for all we know. Can anyone make the case that the creator should have given us UV vision for instance? (Fun? Yes...wish I had it myself. If you find vision boring, check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush) >Sub-optimal design isn’t an argument against design. It is only an argument against the claim of perfect design....But the arguments I repeatedly see,...is that the biological “designs” we see are perfect. Maybe perfect is not the proper word. Perhaps “flawless” is more appropriate. I know some argue that our design is perfect, but I would caution everyone that we have no rigorous definition of "perfect". Anyone who works with physical systems of any sort knows that they are all limited. A machine can be strong to resist breakage, but then weighs more and takes more energy to run. Make it very light, and it breaks more easily. Software can be compact, elegant, easy-to-understand, or fast--but never all at the same time. And so on. No matter how a physical system is designed, a critic can always find some axis along which a "better" state can be imagined, by simply choosing how to define "perfect" (or "flawless") at that moment. If we agree that we cannot know all the intentions of a superior intellect (the designer), then we have to admit that we cannot know all the design parameters, and hence whether we do or do not meet them. Thus all the arguments against a designer or his capabilities from less-than-ideal designs fail. They just can't drive home their conclusion because a key premise cannot be fulfilled. SA2 @ 97, > isn’t it a reasonable explanation that the designer is just passable as a designer? That is possible, but again, without knowing the design goals (which we cannot possibly have full access to), we cannot conclude that the designer is just passable either. We would have to know what the goals were in order to know that they were missed. EDTA

Jerry “ Maybe the designer is extremely intelligent and knows this and what we think is sub-optimal is actually flawless design.” But that is not what I am asking. What I am asking is, does ID preclude the possibility of a mediocre designer? Given the massive number of sub-optimal designs that we see in nature, isn’t it a reasonable explanation that the designer is just passable as a designer? As I mentioned previously, the presence of sub-optimal/flawed design is not an argument against design. Why do ID proponents never raise this when opponents point out flawed design? It’s almost as if they take it personally whenever someone points out the limitations of the designer. Steve Alten2

SA2, since you are apparently into philosophical/theological arguments for and against God, (instead of actual scientific evidence), I think you might like a run down of the philosophical arguments for each position. Interestingly, when 50 elite scientists were asked their reasons for not believing in God, rather than mentioning any scientific evidence they might have had against God, they instead listed two, fairly flimsy, philosophical arguments. i.e. the ‘God of the gaps argument’, and the ‘argument from evil’.

Elite Scientists Don’t Have Elite Reasons for Being Atheists - November 8, 2016 Excerpt: Dr. Jonathan Pararejasingham has compiled video of elite scientists and scholars to make the connection between atheism and science. Unfortunately for Pararejasingham, once you get past the self-identification of these scholars as non-believers, there is simply very little there to justify the belief in atheism.,,, What I found was 50 elite scientists expressing their personal opinions, but none had some powerful argument or evidence to justify their opinions. In fact, most did not even cite a reason for thinking atheism was true.,,, The few that did try to justify their atheism commonly appealed to God of the Gaps arguments (there is no need for God, therefore God does not exist) and the Argument from Evil (our bad world could not have come from an All Loving, All Powerful God). In other words, it is just as I thought it would be. Yes, most elite scientists and scholars are atheists. But their reasons for being atheists and agnostics are varied and often personal. And their typical arguments are rather common and shallow – god of the gaps and the existence of evil. It would seem clear that their expertise and elite status is simply not a causal factor behind their atheism. Finally, it is also clear the militant atheism of Dawkins is a distinct minority view among these scholars. https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/elite-scientists-dont-have-elite-reasons-for-being-atheists/ In the following post, those two philosophical arguments are scrutinized and, as usual for atheistic arguments, their philosophical arguments fall apart under scrutiny. March 2021 Since Atheists have no real scientific evidence to support their belief in Darwinian evolution, or to support their belief that the universe spontaneously arose, ‘elite’ atheistic scientists are stuck with fallacious philosophical arguments against God that, upon close inspection, fall apart. Two of the (main) fallacious philosophical arguments against God, that Atheists are dependent on, are the ‘God of the gaps argument’, and the ‘argument from evil’. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/free-excerpt-from-steve-meyers-new-book-return-of-the-god-hypothesis/#comment-726833

Whereas, on the other hand, Christianity has a very rich, and robust, list of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, many of which have stood the test of time..

Table Of Contents for TWO DOZEN (OR SO) ARGUMENTS FOR GOD: THE PLANTINGA PROJECT I. Half a Dozen (or so) ontological (or metaphysical) arguments (A) The Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness) • Lorraine Keller, Niagara University • "Propositions Supernaturalized" (B) The Argument from Collections • Chris Menzel, Texas A&M • "The Argument from Collections" (C) The Argument from (Natural) Numbers • Tyron Goldshmidt, Wake Forest • "The Argument from (Natural) Numbers" (D) The Argument From Counterfactuals • Alex Pruss, Baylor University • "Counterfactuals, Vagueness and God" (E) The Argument from Physical Constants • Robin Collins, Messiah College • "The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability" (F) The Naive Teleological Argument • C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University • "An Argument from Design for Ordinary People" (H) The Ontological Argument • Elizabeth Burns, Heythrop College • "Patching Planting’s Ontological Argument by Making the Murdoch Move" (I) Why is there anything at all? • Josh Rasmussen, Azusa Pacific; and Christopher Gregory Weaver, Rutgers University • "Why is There Anything?" II. Half a dozen Epistemological Arguments (J) The argument from positive epistemic status • Justin Barrett, Fuller Seminary • "Evolutionary Psychology and the Argument from Positive Epistemic Status" (K) The Argument from the confluence of proper function and reliability • Alex Arnold, The John Templeton Foundation • "Is God the Designer of our Cognitive Faculties? Evaluating Plantinga’s Argument" (L) The Argument from Simplicity and (M) The Argument from Induction • Bradly Monton, Independent Scholar • "Atheistic Induction by Boltzmann Brains" (N) The Putnamian Argument (the Argument from the Rejection of Global Skepticism)[also, (O) The Argument from Reference and (K) The Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability] • Even Fales, University of Iowa • "Putnam's Semantic Skepticism and the Epistemic Melt-Down of Naturalism: How Defeat of Putnam's Puzzle Provides a Defeater for Plantinga's Self-Defeat Argument Against Naturalism" (N) The Putnamian Argument, (O) The Argument from Reference, and (P) The Kripke-Wittgenstein Argument from Plus and Quus • Dan Bonevac, University of Texas • "Arguments from Knowledge, Reference, and Content" (Q) The General Argument from Intuition. • Rob Koons, University of Texas at Austin • "The General Argument from Intuition" III. Moral arguments (R) Moral Arguments (actually R1 to Rn) • David Baggett, Liberty University • "An Abductive Moral Argument for God" (R*) The argument from evil. • Hud Hudson, Western Washington University • "Felix Culpa!" IV. Other Arguments (S) The Argument from Colors and Flavors • Richard Swinburne, Oxford University • "The Argument from Consciousness" (T) The Argument from Love and (Y) The Argument from the Meaning of Life • Jerry Walls, Houston Baptist University • "The God of Love and the Meaning of Life" (U) The Mozart Argument and (V) The Argument from Play and Enjoyment • Philip Tallon, Houston Baptist University • "The Theistic Argument from Beauty and Play" (W) Arguments from providence and from miracles • Tim McGrew, Western Michigan University • "Of Miracles: The State of the Art and the Uses of History" (X) C.S. Lewis's Argument from Nostalgia • Todd Buras, Baylor University and Mike Cantrell • "A New Argument from Desire" (Z) The Argument from (A) to (Y) • Ted Poston, University of South Alabama • "The Argument from So Many Arguments" V. "Or so": Three More Arguments The Kalam Cosmological Argument • William Lane Craig, Houston Baptist University • "The Kalam Cosmological Argument" The Argument from Possibility • Brian Leftow, Oxford University • "The Argument from Possibility" The Argument from the Incompleteness of Nature • Bruce Gordon, Houston Baptist University • "The Necessity of Sufficiency: The Argument from the Incompleteness of Nature" Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project - Paperback https://www.amazon.com/Two-Dozen-Arguments-God-Plantinga/dp/0190842229 20 Arguments For God’s Existence - Dr. Peter Kreeft 1. The Argument from Change 2. The Argument from Efficient Causality 3. The Argument from Time and Contingency 4. The Argument from Degrees of Perfection 5. The Design Argument 6. The Kalam Argument 7. The Argument from Contingency 8. The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole 9. The Argument from Miracles 10. The Argument from Consciousness 11. The Argument from Truth 12. The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God 13. The Ontological Argument 14. The Moral Argument 15. The Argument from Conscience 16. The Argument from Desire 17. The Argument from Aesthetic Experience 18. The Argument from Religious Experience 19. The Common Consent Argument 20. Pascal's Wager http://www.strangenotions.com/god-exists/

And here is a 4 hour lecture on over 100 arguments for the existence of God:

Over 100 Arguments for the Existence of God - (Lecture starts around the 12 minute mark) https://youtu.be/Qi7ANgO2ZBU?t=723 In this video, Dr. Chad McIntosh presents over 100 arguments for the existence of God. Each argument is presented in visual form followed by recommended sources for further research. At the end, we discuss what a similar list of arguments for atheism would look like (and what it would imply for the theistic list of arguments).

bornagain77

But, again, why does the designer have to be flawless?

Leibniz said this is the best of all possible worlds. The Christian God could do no less. But this fails to specify what it means to be best? Why all the apparent chaos as things get exponentially better? We can look at a million things and say why isn’t this or that better. The world has become better in innumerable ways over the centuries and will get still better. But why wasn’t it this way always? We never ask this question. A less than “perfect” eye may actually be the perfect eye for the best of all worlds. But why? And yet someone wishes we had better vision. If we could get that vision by a genetic change or an operation or an app, would we be satisfied and or would we just want even better vision. After all some animals have better vision. Or maybe we could have eyes that pick up even more of the spectrum. But if this in fact was possible would we have a better world? If not why not? Maybe trade offs and limitations are necessary for the best world? Maybe the perfect world would be sub-optimal? Maybe the designer is extremely intelligent and knows this and what we think is sub-optimal is actually flawless design. jerry

So SA2, you are not against Intelligent Design per se, (which is a good thing since you have ZERO scientific evidence that mindless Darwinian processes can create even a single functional protein), but you are just against a designer who is flawless? So, if not the Judeo-Christian God, then who is you preferred 'flawed' candidate to be the designer of the universe and all life in it?

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

And, since we have completely left the realm of science, and are now into the deep end of philosophy/theology, what do you say about Anlelm's and Godel's ontological argument and proof for God?

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists. 2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists. 6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists. - The Ontological Argument - Dr Craig videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBmAKCvWl74 Godel's ontological proof: Computer Scientists 'Prove' God Exists - Oct. 23, 2013 Excerpt: Two scientists have formalized a theorem regarding the existence of God penned by mathematician Kurt Gödel.,,,?researchers,, say they have actually proven is a theorem put forward by renowned Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel,,,?Using an ordinary MacBook computer, they have shown that Gödel's proof was correct,, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/scientists-use-computer-to-mathematically-prove-goedel-god-theorem-a-928668.html A Mono-Theism Theorem: Gödelian Consistency in the Hierarchy of Inference - Winston Ewert and Robert J. Marks II - June 2014 Abstract: Logic is foundational in the assessment of philosophy and the validation of theology. In 1931 Kurt Gödel derailed Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica by showing logically that any set of consistent axioms will eventually yield unknowable propositions. Gödel did so by showing that, otherwise, the formal system would be inconsistent. Turing, in the first celebrated application of Gödelian ideas, demonstrated the impossibility of writing a computer program capable of examining another arbitrary program and announcing whether or not that program would halt or run forever. He did so by showing that the existence of a halting program can lead to self-refuting propositions. We propose that, through application of Gödelian reasoning, there can be, at most, one being in the universe omniscient over all other beings. This Supreme Being must by necessity exist or have existed outside of time and space. The conclusion results simply from the requirement of a logical consistency of one being having the ability to answer questions about another. The existence of any question that generates a self refuting response is assumed to invalidate the ability of a being to be all-knowing about the being who was the subject of the question. http://robertmarks.org/REPRINTS/2014_AMonoTheismTheorem.pdf

Interestingly, in this following video, entitled “The Ontological Argument for the Triune God”, refines the Ontological argument for a maximally great Being into a proof that, because of the characteristic of ‘maximally great love’, God must exist in more than one person:

The Ontological Argument for the Triune God - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQRtUfS17PE

i.e. without this distinction we are stuck with the logical contradiction of maximally great love being grounded in ones own self which is the very antithesis of maximally great love. Of note to God being the source of love and per the testimony of a Near Death Experience:

"The only human emotion I could feel was pure, unrelenting, unconditional love. Take the unconditional love a mother has for a child and amplify it a thousand fold, then multiply exponentially. The result of your equation would be as a grain of sand is to all the beaches in the world. So, too, is the comparison between the love we experience on earth to what I felt during my experience. This love is so strong, that words like "love" make the description seem obscene. It was the most powerful and compelling feeling. But, it was so much more. I felt the presence of angels. I felt the presence of joyous souls, and they described to me a hundred lifetimes worth of knowledge about our divinity. Simultaneous to the deliverance of this knowledge, I knew I was in the presence of God. I never wanted to leave, never." - Judeo-Christian Near Death Experience Testimony

Verse:

1 John 4:7-12 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

bornagain77

Andrew “ I imagine this will be difficult to scientifically isolate.” I don’t doubt it. “You would have to know the intention of the designer, and whether or not the conception of the design was flawed or the execution or both or none of the above.” True. Someone who intends to design a piece of machinery that will only operate for a few hours has met his design goals if, once built, it only lasts a couple hours. But the arguments I repeatedly see, here and elsewhere, is that the biological “designs” we see are perfect. Maybe perfect is not the proper word. Perhaps “flawless” is more appropriate. But, again, why does the designer have to be flawless? Steve Alten2

Martin_r “ Steve, i will answer tomorrow” Fair enough. Steve Alten2

"mediocre designer?" I imagine this will be difficult to scientifically isolate. You would have to know the intention of the designer, and whether or not the conception of the design was flawed or the execution or both or none of the above. Andrew asauber

Steve, i will answer tomorrow martin_r

Martin_r “ So are you saying, we have only 2 options: a perfect design, or a bad design, right?” No. I would characterize it as a choice between a perfect design and an imperfect design. Keeping in mind that an imperfect design can still be quite functional. “ Most of you layman-Darwinists don’t realize how perfect and advanced the design is.” I will ask you the same thing that Bornagain77 chose to avoid by misrepresenting what I said. Does ID preclude the possibility that the designer was a mediocre designer? Again, keep in mind that mediocre design can still be quite functional. If ID persists in asserting that the design is perfect, the more difficult it will be for it to shed itself of the “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” meme. After all, only God is perfect. Archaeologists studying what they think might be a human made artifact never claim that the design of the artifact is perfect. Designs almost never are. Steve Alten2

JVL, Obviously, human brain is using RGB color space, and obviously, our brain interprets the color pretty accurate. So please try to explain to me, how do you imagine, how the brain is doing it, does it have some RGB table ? (don't matter the source of ambient light) martin_r

Steve Alten2: "Sub-optimal design isn’t an argument against design. It is only an argument against the claim of perfect design." So are you saying, we have only 2 options: a perfect design, or a bad design, right? Most of you layman-Darwinists don't realize how perfect and advanced the design is. When will human engineers design a flying system which will self-replicate ? When will human engineers design a miniature fully autonomous self-navigating flying system in a size of a fruit fly? This is even in 21st century an engineering SCI-FI Or have a look at this octopus's active camouflage ... this is engineering SCI-FI as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8xJ13pAZNw PS: of course, no Darwinist will show you (using scientific evidence) how insects wings / powered flight evolved... after 150 years, Darwinists have no clue... and of course, no Darwinist will ever show you how octopus evolved its high advanced active camouflage martin_r

I asked, “So your philosophical/theological argument is that you personally would have designed your testicles better, and therefore God does not exist?” And then SA2 proceeds to deny he was making a philosophical/theological argument against God, i.e. "Who said anything about God existing or not?" And then SA2 proceeds to claim he was merely making philosophical/theological argument against a 'perfect designer'. Welcome to the completely insane and incoherent world of Darwinian apologetics. Someone needs to step away from the beer keg and sober up. :)

“atheists have their theology, which is basically: "God, if he existed, wouldn't do it this way (because) if I were God, I wouldn't (do it that way)." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/05/creationists_th085691.html A Heretical Bioengineer Asks: What Do the Darwinists Have to Hide? - Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt - February 14, 2018, Excerpt: But there’s a more basic problem with these bad-design arguments. They rest on a bogus assumption. The assumption? If there is a God, he would design every organism to be maximally fit and free of pain or weakness — every creature a little god. That reasoning collapses when you tap it. There are well-established theological reasons why a good and wise God would not create such a world — particularly a world he knew would be peopled by fallen and sinful humans. Anti-design evolutionists ignore this rich body of theological reflection. Then they invoke a superficial theology of creation. Then they trash the strawman as incompatible with evidence from biology. And if you call them on it, you get accused of talking theology in a science discussion. They deserve credit for brazenness, at least, since they introduced theology into the discussion. And badly at that. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/bioengineer-asks-what-do-darwinists-hide/ The role of theology in current evolutionary reasoning - Paul A. Nelson - Biology and Philosophy, 1996, Volume 11, Number 4, Pages 493-517 Excerpt: Evolutionists have long contended that the organic world falls short of what one might expect from an omnipotent and benevolent creator. Yet many of the same scientists who argue theologically for evolution are committed to the philosophical doctrine of methodological naturalism, which maintains that theology has no place in science. Furthermore, the arguments themselves are problematical, employing concepts that cannot perform the work required of them, or resting on unsupported conjectures about suboptimality. Evolutionary theorists should reconsider both the arguments and the influence of Darwinian theological metaphysics on their understanding of evolution. http://www.springerlink.com/content/n3n5415037038134/?MUD=MP Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): ?1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don't - Steve Dilley- 2019-06-02 The Problem of God-talk in Biology Textbooks Abstract: We argue that a number of biology (and evolution) textbooks face a crippling dilemma. On the one hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks include theological claims in their case for evolution. (Such claims include, for example, ‘God would never design a suboptimal panda’s thumb, but an imperfect structure is just what we’d expect on natural selection.’) On the other hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks exclude theological claims in their case for evolution. So, whether textbooks include or exclude theological claims, they face debilitating problems. We attempt to establish this thesis by examining 32 biology (and evolution) textbooks, including the Big 12—that is, the top four in each of the key undergraduate categories (biology majors, non-majors, and evolution courses). In Section 2 of our article, we analyze three specific types of theology these texts use to justify evolutionary theory. We argue that all face significant difficulties. In Section 3, we step back from concrete cases and, instead, explore broader problems created by having theology in general in biology textbooks. We argue that the presence of theology—of whatever kind—comes at a significant cost, one that some textbook authors are likely unwilling to pay. In Section 4, we consider the alternative: Why not simply get rid of theology? Why not just ignore it? In reply, we marshal a range of arguments why avoiding God-talk raises troubles of its own. Finally, in Section 5, we bring together the collective arguments in Sections 2-4 to argue that biology textbooks face an intractable dilemma. We underscore this difficulty by examining a common approach that some textbooks use to solve this predicament. We argue that this approach turns out to be incoherent and self-serving. The poor performance of textbooks on this point highlights just how deep the difficulty is. In the end, the overall dilemma remains. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/44

Darwinists, with their vital dependence on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of on any real and compelling scientific evidence, in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution are, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.

“The ultimate source of truth in any field rests in him. The world may discover much truth without owning Christ as Truth. Christ upholds even those who ignore, deny, and oppose him. A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the father holds it on his knee. So modern science, modern philosophy, and modern theology may discover much truth. Nevertheless, if the universe were not created and redeemed by Christ no man could give himself an intelligible account of anything. It follows that in order to perform their task aright the scientist and the philosopher as well as the theologian need Christ.” – Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism p.147-148 “In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).

bornagain77

Bornagain1977 “ So your philosophical/theological argument is that you personally would have designed your testicles better, and therefore God does not exist?” Who said anything about God existing or not? All we are talking about is whether the designer was particularly good at design. Surely ID does not exclude the possibility that the designer was a mediocre designer. Why does the designer have to be perfect? Sub-optimal design isn’t an argument against design. It is only an argument against the claim of perfect design. Steve Alten2

So your philosophical/theological argument is that you personally would have designed your testicles better, and therefore God does not exist? Something tells me that the philosophical/theological arguments of college freshmen, that are floated at a keg party, may very well be more logically coherent than that argument is. Definitely could not be any worse than that argument is. And something also tells me that young women at college probably very much like the fact that young, drunk, college men have a crippling weak point in their testicles. And consider such a feature to be a design feature, not a design constraint. :) LOL, come to think of it, I think I'm beginning to like this philosophical posturing that atheists expect us to take seriously. bornagain77

Wouldn’t we all? Steve Alten2

Steve Alten2: "Personally, I think once is too many." i knew you would say something like that... martin_r

On another note, I hate it when the UD list of comments stops updating. It forces me and others to do a lot of scrolling to get past the overly-long serial posts that we have no interest in. Steve Alten2

Martin_r “ lets talk numbers… so what is the frequency you testicles get hit at?“ Personally, I think once is too many. But I am sure that any male here remembers numerous times when this happened, usually when we were younger. Given the incapacitation that occurs after we get hit in the testicles, I think a much better design would have been to retain them in the abdomen, where they started. It seems to work fine for other animals. Steve Alten2

Steve Alten2: "And who’s bright idea was it to hang the testicles outside the body where they tend to get hit at a frequency that is much higher than I would like?" lets talk numbers... so what is the frequency you testicles get hit at? martin_r

JVL, (i apologize for any grammar errors, English is not my first language) ok, you did not say 'bad design'. Could you comment on how are biologists qualified to review any design and call it 'bad design' ? Blind spot - JVL, you see? the same with you... do you remember what i said about cowards? Scroll this page up... Why you guys can't never give a straight answer ? SO ONCE AGAIN: IS THERE ANY BLIND SPOT IN YOUR EYES THAT HINDER YOUR VISION IN ANY WAY DURING YOUR USUAL DAY, WHEN YOU ARE RELAXING, READING, PLAYING, SPORTING, HUNTING? or DEBATING ID-FOLKS ? (that means you don't do any tricks / experiments / exercises with your eyes to find the blind spot) YOU JUST USE YOUR EYES LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE ... LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE.... Please give me a straight answer: YES/NO martin_r

And the final nail in the coffin for proving that the Darwinian worldview is a severely impoverished worldview for the atheist to have to hold on to, is the Darwinian belief that beauty itself is not real but is only illusory. Charles Darwin himself denied the objective reality of beauty and even said that, “This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.”

“The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists, against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.” (Charles Darwin - 1859, p. 199)

And although the Darwinian materialist is, apparently, forced to believe that beauty itself is illusory, lest it be "absolutely fatal" to Darwin’s theory, the Darwinist himself, in his arguments, is forced to believe that beauty is objectively real. You see, the Darwinist, in many of his arguments against God, will often point to some ‘ugly’ facet of this world and then argue that God would never allow such an ugly facet to exist, and therefore, in his simplistic reasoning, the atheist concludes that God must not exist. Yet, like a lie is a departure from truth, and like evil is a departure from good, ugly itself is a departure from beauty. That is to say, like lies could not exist unless truth was objectively real, and like evil could not exist unless good was objectively real, likewise ugly could not exist unless beauty was also itself objectively real. Thus, in his ‘argument from imperfections’, the atheist is unwittingly conceding the objective existence of beauty, i.e. of the very thing his worldview denies the existence of, (lest it be "absolutely fatal" to Darwin’s theory). And although the atheist may be overly focused on pointing out the ugliness of this world, might I suggest that we live in a world of overwhelming beauty and that the world as not nearly as ugly as the atheist seems predisposed to believe.

BEAUTY, DARWIN & DESIGN – video - 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ax-lkRoES8 The Biology of the Baroque – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FothcJW-Quo

And indeed, the objective existence of beauty is a very powerful argument for the existence of God

Beauty and the Imagination (The Argument From Beauty) - Aaron Ames - July 16th, 2017 Excerpt: Beauty… can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this ‘idea’ of beauty were not found in the Mind in a more perfect form…. This consideration has readily persuaded men of ability and learning… that the original “idea” is not to be found in this sphere (Augustine, City of God). https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2017/07/beauty-imagination-aaron-ames.html The Reason Why God Is the Beauty We All Seek - Sept. 4, 2019 Excerpt: God loves beauty. As Thomas Aquinas asserts, God “is beauty itself”[1] St. Anselm argues that “God must be the supreme beauty for the same reasons that He must be justice and other such qualities.”[2] As the contemporary theologian Michael Horton so aptly states in his book The Christian Faith, “God would not be God if he did not possess all his attributes in the simplicity and perfection of his essence.”[3] The reason why we gravitate toward beauty is because God created us in his image.,,, In a chapel sermon titled, “Can Beauty Save the World,” Albert Mohler explains, "The Christian worldview posits that anything pure and good finds its ultimate source in the self-existent, omnipotent God who is infinite in all his perfections. Thus the Christian worldview reminds us that the “transcendentals”—the good, the true, and the beautiful—are inseparable. Thus when Psalm 27 speaks of the beauty of the Lord, the Psalmist is also making a claim about the goodness of the Lord and the truthfulness of the Lord. While we distinguish God’s attributes from one another in order to understand them better, we must also recognize that these attributes are inseparable from one another.[19]" Mohler goes on to state, “Our job as Christians is to remember the difference between the beautiful and the pretty,” because pure beauty is found in goodness and truth.[20] When we gaze upon ascetically pleasing objects or witness kind deeds in this world, we are at best seeing imperfect versions of the pure beauty that can only be found in God. https://www.beautifulchristianlife.com/blog/reason-why-god-is-the-beauty-we-all-seek

Bottom line, without God nothing turns out to be truly real in the atheist’s worldview. Not even the atheist himself turns out to be real in his materialistic worldview. Much less are beauty, meaning, and purposes for his life to be considered real in his naturalistic worldview. In what should be needless to say, any worldview that is devoid of any real meaning, beauty or purpose, for life is a severely impoverished, even severely depressing, worldview for anyone to have to hold. How anyone can personally stand to be an atheist I have no idea. It is as if someone had the keys to a luxurious mansion with plenty of gourmet food to eat, but instead choose to live their life in the squalors of a garbage dump, eating nothing but whatever rotting food they could scavenge from the garbage. Such an impoverished worldview, as the atheist is forced to hold onto, where everything that gives life any real meaning and purpose is illusory, goes a very long way towards explaining why Christians report being much happier than atheists are,

'Believers are happier than atheists' - Jonathan Petre - 18 Mar 2008 People who believe in God are happier than agnostics or atheists, A report found that religious people were better able to cope with disappointments such as unemployment or divorce than non-believers. Moreover, they become even happier the more they pray and go to church, claims the study by Prof Andrew Clark and Dr Orsolya Lelkes. - per the telegraph UK

and also explains why Christians report having greater life satisfaction than atheists do,

Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis Ying Chen, Tyler J VanderWeele - Sept. 10, 2018 Excerpt: Compared with no attendance, at least weekly attendance of religious services was associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, a number of character strengths, lower probabilities of marijuana use and early sexual initiation, and fewer lifetime sexual partners. Analyses of prayer or meditation yielded similar results. Although decisions about religion are not shaped principally by health, encouraging service attendance and private practices in adolescents who already hold religious beliefs may be meaningful avenues of development and support, possibly leading to better health and well-being. https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwy142/5094534

and also explains why Christians having less mental and physical health issues than atheists do,

“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100

and also explains why Christians have significantly fewer suicide attempts than atheists do,

Of snakebites and suicide - February 18, 2014 RESULTS: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. - per uncommon descent

and also explains why Christians live significantly longer than atheists do.

Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes - June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the "Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults" study May 16. "For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year," Bruce said. - per USA Today Study: Religiously affiliated people live “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. - per uncommon descent Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092

Again, I simply can’t understand how anyone would willingly choose to live their life as an atheist. It is a severely impoverished, and depressing, worldview for anyone to willingly hold on to. The good news is that you, as an atheist, don’t have to live your life in such squalor, but you can choose to accept God into your life anytime you wish. Verse and Music:

Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Chris Tomlin - Good Good Father ft. Pat Barrett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlsQrycKKsY&t

bornagain77

Moreover, besides the Darwinian worldview leading to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself, the atheist’s own personal life also suffers dramatically with his adoption of the Darwinian worldview. For example, the Darwinian materialist, since he believes his life has no real meaning or purpose, is forced make up illusory meaning and purposes for his life since it is simply impossible for anyone to live as if their life truly had no meaning and purpose.

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion Study: Atheists Find Meaning In Life By Inventing Fairy Tales - Richard Weikart MARCH 29, 2018 Excerpt: However, there is a problem with this finding. The survey admitted the meaning that atheists and non-religious people found in their lives is entirely self-invented. According to the survey, they embraced the position: “Life is only meaningful if you provide the meaning yourself.” Thus, when religious people say non-religious people have no basis for finding meaning in life, and when non-religious people object, saying they do indeed find meaning in life, they are not talking about the same thing. If one can find meaning in life by creating one’s own meaning, then one is only “finding” the product of one’s own imagination. One has complete freedom to invent whatever meaning one wants. This makes “meaning” on par with myths and fairy tales. It may make the non-religious person feel good, but it has no objective existence. http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/29/study-atheists-find-meaning-life-inventing-fairy-tales/ How I’m Planning to Celebrate Darwin Day - TOM GILSON - February 11, 2020 Excerpt: Tomorrow, February 12, is Darwin Day.,, ,,, Darwin’s theory “showed” that the human species was the product of unintended accidents (random variation) and natural selection. Natural selection means “survival of the fittest,” where “fittest” is known only by “that which survives.” Every species that’s ever appeared on earth was the product of accidents and the survival of, well, the survivors. Making Humanity Meaningless If that looks meaningless at first glance, it remains so under full-length analysis. To be human (under naturalistic or undirected evolution) is to have meaningless origins, and those meaningless origins mean we live in a meaningless world. Many staunch Darwinists will grant there’s no meaning behind human existence, but still insist, “I create meaning for myself.” But that hardly makes sense. More likely, it’s meaninglessness creating the illusion of meaning.,,, https://stream.org/how-planning-celebrate-darwin-day/ 

The Darwinian materialist is also forced to hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God Who is the source for all real and objective moral truths,

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” -  Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life Insisting on the truth in times of chaos — Jordan Peterson - David Fuller - May 19, 2017  Excerpt: "Why the hell not every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost? It’s a perfectly coherent philosophy and it’s actually one that you can institute in the world with a fair bit of material success if you want to do it. To me I think that the universe that people like Dawkins and Harris inhabit is so intensely conditioned by mythological (Theistic) presuppositions that they take for granted the ethic that emerges out of that as if it’s just a rational given. And this of course was precisely Nietzsche’s observation as well as Dostoyevsky’s observation. I’m not arguing for the existence of God. I’m arguing that the ethic that drives our culture is predicated on the idea of God and that you can’t just take that idea away and expect the thing to remain intact midair without any foundational support.” - Jordan Peterson - clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto. https://medium.com/perspectiva-institute/the-man-for-the-times-of-chaos-jordan-peterson-2df43c24672f  Of note: If Theism is truly a 'mythological presupposition', as Jordan Peterson holds in the preceding quote, then morality itself must necessarily also be subjective and illusory, not objective and real. That is to say, in order for Peterson to not contradict himself in the preceding quote, he himself must necessarily hold Theism to be true and not merely mythological.)

In short, if God does not exist, then morality does not exist,

If Good and Evil Exist, God Exists: - Peter Kreeft - Prager University - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xliyujhwhNM The Moral Argument (for God) - Dr. Craig - animated video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU

Yet, just like no one ever lives their life as if it had no real meaning and purpose, no one ever lives their life as if morality really did not exist.

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt: ,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be 'intolerable' for him to live his life as if he had no moral agency

Who wrote Richard Dawkins’s new book? – October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html

In what should be needless to say, if it is impossible for you to live as if your worldview were actually true then your worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.

Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/

bornagain77

As if the denial of our sense of self and free will were not bad enough for Darwinists, the Darwinian materialist is also forced to believe that his beliefs about reality are unreliable, that is to say he is forced to believe that any beliefs that he may have about reality may be illusory and not true, and that he has no way to differentiate between the two contradictory beliefs.

"Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life."?Richard Dawkins - quoted from "The God Delusion" “the illusion that our brains evolved to have, a very compelling and persistent illusion – namely that the reality we perceive is real, rather than a constructed representation.” – Steven Novella – academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine "Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not." - Steven Pinker "If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth." - John Gray "Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive." - Francis Crick "Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth." - Eric Baum

The belief that any beliefs we may have about reality may be illusory, and that we have no way to differentiate between the two beliefs, simply undercuts the entire scientific enterprise itself. As Nancy Pearcey explains, “Applied consistently, Darwinism undercuts not only itself but also the entire scientific enterprise. Kenan Malik, a writer trained in neurobiology, writes, “If our cognitive capacities were simply evolved dispositions, there would be no way of knowing which of these capacities lead to true beliefs and which to false ones.” Thus “to view humans as little more than sophisticated animals …undermines confidence in the scientific method.”,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality.”

Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself Nancy Pearcey – March 8, 2015 Excerpt: An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide.,,, Applied consistently, Darwinism undercuts not only itself but also the entire scientific enterprise. Kenan Malik, a writer trained in neurobiology, writes, “If our cognitive capacities were simply evolved dispositions, there would be no way of knowing which of these capacities lead to true beliefs and which to false ones.” Thus “to view humans as little more than sophisticated animals …undermines confidence in the scientific method.”,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar/

And as if that was not bad enough for Darwinian materialists, the Darwinist, because of his materialistic presuppositions, is forced to believe that ALL the perceptions that he is having of reality are illusory Specifically, Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, via extensive analysis of the mathematics of population genetics, has proven that, if Darwinian evolution is assumed as being true, then ALL of our perceptions of reality would be illusory

Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? - Video - 9:59 minute mark Quote: “fitness does depend on reality as it is, yes.,,, Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it is fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution. So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness. Who wins? Well I hate to break it to you but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality, but are just tuned to fitness, drive to extinction (those organisms) that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those (accurate) perceptions of reality go extinct. Now this is a bit stunning. How can it be that not seeing the world accurately gives us a survival advantage?” https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY?t=601 The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality - April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/

Since reliable observation is an indispensable part of the scientific method itself, in fact it is the first step in the scientific method,

The scientific method At the core of biology and other sciences lies a problem-solving approach called the scientific method. The scientific method has five basic steps, plus one feedback step: 1. Make an observation. 2. Ask a question. 3, Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation. 4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis. 5. Test the prediction. 6. Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions. The scientific method is used in all sciences—including chemistry, physics, geology, and psychology. The scientists in these fields ask different questions and perform different tests. However, they use the same core approach to find answers that are logical and supported by evidence. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-biology-foundations/hs-biology-and-the-scientific-method/a/the-science-of-biology

Since reliable observation is an indispensable part of the scientific method itself, then the Darwinian claim that ALL our perceptions of reality are illusory undermines the scientific method itself. Fortunately for us, science itself could care less if Darwinists are forced to believe that ALL their perceptions of reality are illusory. Specifically, advances in Quantum Mechanics have now experimentally proven that our observations of reality far more integral to reality, and therefore reliable of reality, than Darwinists are forced to claim via the mathematics of population genetics. As the following Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment that was conducted with atoms found, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”

New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

And as the following violation of Leggett’s inequality found, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell’s inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell’s inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics. Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

Thus, fortunately for us, science itself could care less if Darwinists are forced to believe that ALL their perceptions of reality are illusory. As far as experimental science itself is concerned, the Darwinist’s materialistic belief that ALL our perceptions of reality must be illusory is experimentally falsified. As if all that was not bad enough for the Darwinist, the Darwinian materialist, (since he has no real time experimental evidence substantiating any of his grandiose claims for Darwinian evolution), is also forced to make up illusory ‘just-so stories’ with the impotent ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection.

“... another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness... Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling... it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…” — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism - The New Atlantis, Fall 2012 Sociobiology: The Art of Story Telling – Stephen Jay Gould – 1978 – New Scientist Excerpt: Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. https://books.google.com/books?id=tRj7EyRFVqYC&pg=PA530 EVOLUTIONARY JUST-SO STORIES Excerpt: ,,,The term “just-so story” was popularized by Rudyard Kipling’s 1902 book by that title which contained fictional stories for children. Kipling says the camel got his hump as a punishment for refusing to work, the leopard’s spots were painted on him by an Ethiopian, and the kangaroo got its powerful hind legs after being chased all day by a dingo. Kipling’s just-so stories are as scientific as the Darwinian accounts of how the amoeba became a man. Lacking real scientific evidence for their theory, evolutionists have used the just-so story to great effect. Backed by impressive scientific credentials, the Darwinian just-so story has the aura of respectability. Biologist Michael Behe observes: “Some evolutionary biologists--like Richard Dawkins--have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish” (Michael Behe - Darwin’s Black Box).,,, http://www.wayoflife.org/database/evolutionary_just_so_stories.html

Moreover, the Darwinian materialist is forced to make up these illusory “just so stories” so as to ‘explain away’ the overwhelming appearance of design, which is to say, they are forced to make up these illusory ‘just so stories’ so as to ‘explain away’ the overwhelming illusion of design,

"Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning." - Richard Dawkins - "The Blind Watchmaker" - 1986 - page 21 "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." - Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit "Organisms appear as if they had been designed to perform in an astonishingly efficient way, and the human mind therefore finds it hard to accept that there need be no Designer to achieve this" - Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit - p. 30 living organisms "appear to have been carefully and artfully designed" Richard C. Lewontin - Adaptation,” Scientific American, and Scientific American book 'Evolution' (September 1978) “This appearance of purposefulness is pervasive in nature.... Accounting for this apparent purposefulness is a basic problem for any system of philosophy or of science.” George Gaylord Simpson - “The Problem of Plan and Purpose in Nature” - 1947

It would be hard to fathom a worldview that turns out to be more antagonistic towards modern science, indeed more antagonistic towards reality itself, than the presumption of Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism has turned out to be for the atheist.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Thus, directly contrary to the Darwinian, and JVL’s, claim of being able to ‘do science’ while ‘just supposing’ that God does not exist, the fact of the matter is that ‘just supposing’ that God does not exist leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself, and therefore for the Darwinian atheist to even ‘do science’ in the first place he is forced to, whether he honestly admits it or not, hold on to Theistic presuppositions about the rationality of the world and about the ability of our ‘made in the image of God’ mind to dare comprehend that rationality that God has imposed on the world. bornagain77

As well, the Darwinian materialist, in his denial of his immaterial mind, (and besides being forced to claim that he himself is merely a neuronal illusion), is also forced to claim that he, (as a neuronal illusion), is also having an illusion of free will. As neuroscientist Matthew D. Lieberman stated, “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.

Free Will: Weighing Truth and Experience - Do our beliefs matter? - Mar 22, 2012 Excerpt: If we acknowledge just how much we don’t know about the conscious mind, perhaps we would be a bit more humble. We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-brain-social-mind/201203/free-will-weighing-truth-and-experience Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor “Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our “choices”—are dictated by those laws.” - Jerry Coyne - Professor and militant Darwinist Free Will is a Necessary Fiction (They Claim) Covers writers who suppose that free will is a necessary fiction: that although we don’t have such free will, we should still encourage a belief in it. Saul Smilansky,,, John Horgan,,, Matt Ridley, Genome,,, Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works,,, https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/writers-on-the-self-and-free-will/free-will-is-a-necessary-fiction

Yet, although the Darwinists is forced to deny the reality of free will because of his materialistic presuppositions, the denial of free will is blatantly self-refuting nonsense. And here is a shining example of just how blatantly self-refuting the denial of free will is. The following statement by Jerry Coyne should literally be the number one example of a self-refuting argument that is given in philosophy 101 classes, "Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it."

THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL - Sam Harris - 2012 Excerpt: "Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it." - Jerry Coyne https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/

As the preceding statement by Coyne makes abundantly clear, the denial of the reality of free will by Darwinists undermines any ability that we have to make logically coherent arguments in the first place. As Martin Cothran explains, “By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true.”

Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

Besides undermining any ability we have to make logically coherent arguments in the first place, the denial of free will also denies what we know to be absolutely true from first hand experience, and is therefore completely insane. As Paul Nelson explains, the denial of free will entails that "You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed (the illusion of) you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email."

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Assessing the Damage MN (Methodological Naturalism) Does to Freedom of Inquiry Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/

And as George Ellis explained, "if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options."

Physicist George Ellis on the importance of philosophy and free will - July 27, 2014 Excerpt: And free will?: Horgan: Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: “If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” Do you believe in free will? Ellis: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options. I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/physicist-george-ellis-on-the-importance-of-philosophy-and-free-will/

In other words, Einstein didn't discover the theory of Relativity, the laws of physics did and informed (the illusion of) Einstein of the event after the fact. Again, the denial that we have free will in some real and meaningful sense is simply crazy. It denies what we know to be true from first hand experience. As Michael Egnor noted, "Someday, I predict, there will be a considerable psychiatric literature on the denial of free will. It’s essentially a delusion dressed up as science. To insist that your neurotransmitters completely control your choices is no different than insisting that your television or your iphone control your thoughts. It’s crazy."

Michael Egnor: Jerry Coyne Just Can’t Give Up Denying Free Will – April 27, 2020 Excerpt: Someday, I predict, there will be a considerable psychiatric literature on the denial of free will. It’s essentially a delusion dressed up as science. To insist that your neurotransmitters completely control your choices is no different than insisting that your television or your iphone control your thoughts. It’s crazy. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-jerry-coyne-just-cant-give-up-denying-free-will/

bornagain77

In response to the fact that all of modern science itself is based upon, (indeed all modern science is vitally dependent upon), Judeo-Christian presuppositions, JVL asks, "So, if God doesn’t exist (just supposing) could we not still think ‘he’ does and with that assumption still do science?" No we could not still 'do science'. Darwinian atheists have already worked out the consequences of 'just supposing' that God doesn't exist for us. And the consequences of that erroneous presupposition of Darwinists is the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself. It does not surprise me to see JVL claim that we could get along just as well in science if we ‘just supposed’ God to be an illusion. Without God being real, everything in the atheist’s materialistic worldview, (save for the atheist’s claim that material particles themselves are ‘real’), turns out to be illusory. First off, if God does not really exist, but is merely an illusion, then we ourselves do not really exist, but are also merely 'neuronal illusions’.

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?mcubz=3 Ross Douthat Is On Another Erroneous Rampage Against Secularism – Jerry Coyne – December 26, 2013 Excerpt: “many (but not all) of us accept the notion that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” Jerry Coyne – Professor of Evolutionary Biology – Atheist https://newrepublic.com/article/116047/ross-douthat-wrong-about-secularism-and-ethics "What you’re doing is simply instantiating a self: the program run by your neurons which you feel is “you.”" Jerry Coyne At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994 “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness - STEVEN PINKER - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness "There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again.,,, - A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10

The reason why atheists are forced to, embarrassingly, claim that they do not really exist as real people, but that they are merely neuronal illusions, is because the entire concept of personhood is an abstract and immaterial concept that is simply not reducible to the 'bottom up' materialistic explanations of Darwinists.

Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? Dr. Dennis Bonnette – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: “It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren’t in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn’t undergone what metaphysicians call a ‘substantial change’. So you aren’t Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren’t any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That’s why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, “You know, I’m not really here”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html

The claim that our sense of self, that is to say, our subjective conscious experience, is just a neuronal illusion is simply insane. As David Bentley Hart states in the following article, “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.”

The Illusionist – Daniel Dennett’s latest book marks five decades of majestic failure to explain consciousness. – 2017 Excerpt: “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.” – David Bentley Hart https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-illusionist

By definition, illusions are NOT reality but are a distortions that pervert our perception of reality. So why in blue blazes should anyone care what neuronal illusions have to say about reality, much less what these supposed neuronal illusions have to say about science? bornagain77

ET: Today’s humans are not the designed humans. Today’s humans are the result of many generations of genetic accidents, errors and mistakes. So, your version of ID is a front-loaded type where the designer is no longer intervening to keep things on track? Why do you think the designer has lost interest in humans? JVL

Martin_r: JVL, you did not say ‘bad design’…. Dawkins & co. did… Dawkins never made anything… there is even a book on human ‘errors’…. you see?now you deny that these guys used the term ‘bad design’… I didn't deny they said 'bad design'; I only said I didn't. so, the same question for you, have you ever noticed a blind spot in your vision – u nless (sic) you do that Dawkin’s stupid trick? Even when I was young, way before Dr Dawkins became famous, there were ways to show you where your blind spot is. I don't know what 'Dawkin's stupid trick' you are referring to but the existence of a blind/dead spot is well known and well documented. JVL, regarding your other question, what eye functionality did you mean in particulary (sic)? I'd love to have greater acuity. I'd love to be able to see into the ultraviolet. I'd love to have four colour cones instead of three. I'd love to be able to see underwater better. I'd love to have faster adjustment at night for better night vision. Can someone explain to me, how brain figured out the correct RGB ratio, in other words, how to mix the colors? But please don't (sic) say, that to correcly (sic) mix 10,000,000 colors based on RGB input was a lucky accident What is 'the correct RGB ratio'? What's the standard? Human vision? Have you ever tried taking photographs under fluorescent lighting fixtures and noticed how the colour comes out different? The camera is using a different 'ratio'; which one is correct? JVL

ET ” Today’s humans are the result of many generations of genetic accidents, errors and mistakes.” Yes, you are. :) Steve Alten2

And another clueless post from Acartia's sock- Today's humans are not the designed humans. Today's humans are the result of many generations of genetic accidents, errors and mistakes. And I doubt that you have to worry about testicles... ET

It may not be poor design, but for between 30 and 70% of people, depending on the stats you look at, it is not a particularly good application of the design. And who’s bright idea was it to hang the testicles outside the body where they tend to get hit at a frequency that is much higher than I would like? I would like to lodge a complaint. Or appeal the decision to a higher court. Steve Alten2

Lots of experts here.... Can someone explain to me, how brain figured out the correct RGB ratio, in other words, how to mix the colors? But please dont say, that to correcly mix 10,000,000 colors based on RGB input was a lucky accident martin_r

Easily answering JVL: Humans have the capability for technology. We can compensate for just about anything using technology. ET

Have you got an answer to that specific question?

You have been given an answer that makes perfect sense. jerry

JVL, regarding your other question, what eye functionality did you mean in particulary? martin_r

JVL, you did not say ‘bad design’.... Dawkins & co. did... Dawkins never made anything... there is even a book on human ‘errors’.... you see?now you deny that these guys used the term ‘bad design’... so, the same question for you, have you ever noticed a blind spot in your vision - u nless you do that Dawkin’s stupid trick? martin_r

Martin_r: Then, it is always the same… these cowards are unwilling to admit, THAT THEY ACTUALLY CAN’T SEE ANY BLIND SPOT IN THEIR VISION… (unless they do that stupid R Dawkins trick) It's not a stupid trick, and it's not due to Dr Dawkins either. Our minds fill in the 'blind' spot by smearing the surrounding colours into that spot so we're not aware of it unless a specific object of the right size is in that exact spot. This is crazy… biologists, archeologists, paleontologists, and other ‘-logists’ talk about bad design :))))) These guys never made anything… so please shut your mouths and listen carefully what engineers say … I didn't say bad design; I did say I'd love to have eyes with some of the functionality that other animals have and I can't see why a designer wouldn't have given us that functionality. Have you got an answer to that specific question? JVL

This is crazy... biologists, archeologists, paleontologists, and other '-logists' talk about bad design :))))) These guys never made anything... so please shut your mouths and listen carefully what engineers say ... martin_r

one remark in regards to human eye's blind spot: i debated lots of atheists... in my debates, sooner or later, they always come up with this blind-spot thing.... Then, it is always the same... these cowards are unwilling to admit, THAT THEY ACTUALLY CAN'T SEE ANY BLIND SPOT IN THEIR VISION... (unless they do that stupid R Dawkins trick) So what is the matter? What is wrong? Of course, as always, nothing is wrong.... Apparently, only evolutionary biologists including R Dawkins think that there is something wrong ... most laymen don't even know that there is some blind spot in our vision. martin_r

JVL, the design inference, the core of ID is not about inferring designers much less grand ones. It is adequate, to identify on implication logic inductively applied to inference to best explanation, that design as causal process [another application of implication logic] often leaves highly reliable signs such as FSCO/I in the various forms, up to and including not only sophisticated, complex functional organisation but actual coded instructions in the cells involved. Language and goal directed stepwise process. It is ideologically stamped crooked yardsticks that give the purblindness that so consistently rejects such a powerful inference. KF kairosfocus

F/N: I find it hard to take seriously the arguments by those who wish to find fault with our visual systems, which we all [save the regrettably blind or colour blind] experience as an awesomely effective and powerful system. Perhaps, we are unaware for example that, with suitable dark adaptation we can sense single photon flashes. I recall, long ago, going into a specially dark room and waiting with an instrument I was working on, to be able to do just that. And if you take for cynical granted the powerful beauty we access through colour vision, pause to see how colour blind people react to glasses that at last give them access to some colour distinctions we commonly take for granted. Where, any half decent instrument designer can tell you, there are always complex, subtle design trade-offs so the issue is not optimum on some arbitrary criterion of perfection but robust adequacy of instrument and system performance with hopefully graceful degradation and a limp home mode. KF PS: Ask yourself why people putting on colour corrective glasses for the first time are often reduced to tears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5vvuToj74 . . . another eye functionality. Oh, yes, how can I leave off Ms Foxy and how she uses her eyes to express what she as a dog cannot say in words? Eyes as windows on the soul . . . and think about the aesthetics involved. kairosfocus

Bornagain77: You see JVL, all of modern science itself is based on the presupposition that we live in a rational universe that was created by God, and that we do not live in a universe that has no real rhyme, or reason, for its existence as atheists presuppose in their worldview. So, if God doesn't exist (just supposing) could we not still think 'he' does and with that assumption still do science? I think the universe has some structure and predictable forms because it's built up by a finite number of basic building blocks. Kind of like using Lego. Also I think humans have very good pattern recognition abilities and it seems to me that if a human being sees B always following after A that they might get curious about a cause and effect relationship without having to resort to the notion of a grand designer. JVL

JVL:

why did the designer choose to give humans less than optimal eyes?

That is your opinion that humans have less than optimal eyes. Major league baseball players are evidence against that. Humans have the capability for technology. We can compensate for just about anything using technology. ET

Earth to JVL- The issue is allowing SCIENTIFIC research to reach a design inference when warranted. No one is doing any research guided by blind watchmaker evolution. ET

JVL, To reword what's going on above: If you are assuming an epistimically superior position when we don't actually occupy an epistemically superior position, then you can infer your way to an incorrect conclusion. For instance, if you use the fact that we don't know why we don't have 4-color sense ability instead of three to conclude that we don't fulfill unknown design goals, that would be inferring too much. EDTA

This has been hashed out above, but I figure I will throw in my 2 cents' worth: >If humans were the goal of biological evolution on Earth then we must have the less-than-optimal eyes we have for some reason. I wonder what that reason is? That may or may not be accessible to us. We can ask and seek, but it may be beyond us, or just not available to us. >I’d love to have greater acuity or to be able to see into the ultraviolet range. Me too. But as a finite creature, I will always be able to find things I lack. Not much can be concluded from that I don't think. >Is it possible to know what the design goals are? We don't know that either. Wouldn't that be a metaphysical question though? >Do you think ID should be asking questions like these? Ask all the questions you want. But if we are less intelligent/capable than the designer, please don't reject the hypothesis just because we don't have the answers today. >Because we’re talking about science aren’t we? ID'ers aren't limiting the discussion to only material causes, so it may not be a purely scientific question. EDTA

JVL keeps asking,

Will you now consider having a conversation about where ID research should be heading?

I'm charitably supposing, (since JVL has only engaged in fallacious philosophical/theological arguments so far), that JVL is finally interested in talking about actual scientific research, and not just philosophical posturing, as he is now engaged in. If so, It might surprise JVL to know all real scientific research is research into Intelligent Design. You see JVL, you cannot even 'do science' in the first place unless you first presuppose Intelligent Design on some level. As Paul Davies explained,

Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24

And as Paul Davies explained elsewhere

Taking Science on Faith – By PAUL DAVIES – NOV. 24, 2007 Excerpt: All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. ,,, the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, ,,, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html

You see JVL, all of modern science itself is based on the presupposition that we live in a rational universe that was created by God, and that we do not live in a universe that has no real rhyme, or reason, for its existence as atheists presuppose in their worldview. Atheists simply have no basis in their worldview for 'doing science' in the first place. As the following quote makes clear, ""Atheists may do science, but they cannot justify what they do.",,,

"Atheists may do science, but they cannot justify what they do. When they assume the world is rational, approachable, and understandable, they plagiarize Judeo-Christian presuppositions about the nature of reality and the moral need to seek the truth. As an exercise, try generating a philosophy of science from hydrogen coming out of the big bang. It cannot be done. It’s impossible even in principle, because philosophy and science presuppose concepts that are not composed of particles and forces. They refer to ideas that must be true, universal, necessary and certain." - Creation-Evolution Headlines

A crucial linchpin in the founding of modern science was the Christian belief that any mathematics that might describe this universe were the 'thoughts of God', As Paul Davies further explained,

"All the early scientists, like Newton, were religious in one way or another. They saw their science as a means of uncovering traces of God's handiwork in the universe. What we now call the laws of physics they regarded as God's abstract creation: thoughts, so to speak, in the mind of God. So in doing science, they supposed, one might be able to glimpse the mind of God - an exhilarating and audacious claim." - Paul Davies - quoted from an address following his award of the $1 million Templeton Prize in 1995 for progress in science and religion. http://ldolphin.org/bumbulis/

And as Dr. Edward Feser explained,

KEEP IT SIMPLE – by Edward Feser – April 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple

In the minds of the Christian founders of modern science, mathematics, especially any mathematics that might describe the universe, were held to be contingent upon God’s thoughts. Perhaps the best example that I can give for the fact that the Christian founders of modern science held mathematics, especially any mathematics that might describe the universe, to be God’s thoughts is the following quote by Kepler, (which he made shortly after discovering the laws of planetary motion),,

“O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!” – Johannes Kepler, 1619, The Harmonies of the World.

And this not just some relic of superstition that is left over from Medieval Christian Europe, but the belief that any mathematics that might describe this universe is 'miraculous' is still with us today. In fact, both Albert Einstein and Eugene Wigner are on record as to regarding it as a 'miracle' that we can even describe the universe with mathematics in the first place. Einstein even went so far as to castigate 'professional atheists' in the process of calling it a miracle.

On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein – Letter to Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Atheists simply have no clue why mathematics should be applicable to the universe in the first place, and therefore atheists have no basis in their worldview for grounding modern science. Whereas Christians do have a basis for grounding modern science. (Indeed, it is the basis that gave rise to modern science in the first place), Christians hold that there is a rational basis behind the universe since God created it. And that we, being made in the 'image of God', can dare understand that rationality.

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons?IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics.?http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf

Thus in conclusion, and to answer JVL's question about the status of ID research. Since all scientific research necessarily presupposes Intelligent Design, and since scientific research in doing fairly well, (in spite some heavy interference from atheistic presuppositions, i.e. Darwinian evolution, multiverses etc.. etc..), then I hold that ID research is getting along quite nicely. Thank you for asking. :) Verse and quote:

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” of note: ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos also happens to be the root word from which we derive our modern word logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html

bornagain77

“Desperate and kind of pathetic,” is how Eric Metaxas delicately characterizes materialist attempts to explain away the three scientific discoveries that together call for an inference to a personal God. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/03/metaxas-meyer-materialists-moves-are-desperate-and-kind-of-pathetic/ Dr. Stephen C. Meyer With His New Book: RETURN OF THE GOD HYPOTHESIS - Eric Metaxas radio show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLHM_baV_sE&t=6s bornagain77

JVL The human eye is fine. It works pretty well. BUT there are animal eyes that work even better. So WHY do humans have eyes that are functionally sub-par to other animal eyes? What reason is there that our eyes don’t have greater acuity? What reason is there that our eyes don’t have four colour detectors? What reason is there that our eyes can’t see into the ultraviolet range? I notice that NO ONE has even tried to answer those questions. Why is that? Does ID not have an answer to that question? I’m not going to mock anyone for believing in God but I do think it’s fair to ask: why would God do it that way? Because we’re talking about science aren’t we?

Ma Fren the most valuable thing you are producing is when you go to toilet. Have you created at least a flea? Then why you talk about human eye? If you are not in the field of creation of complicated biological things why you open your mouth ? All amateurs commenting about things they have no idea just because they have internet .And a half neuron. Lieutenant Commander Data

Asauber: And I think you should be honest and admit your trolling problem. Then get some help. How does answering a question about ID's research agenda undermine your position? Why is that such a verboten question? I really don't understand how people who want to be taken seriously as science supporters would not be able to come up with outstanding questions in their area they'd like to see addressed. If you've really got nothing to say then that's fine. I'll just leave it. JVL

"I just thought that someone who clearly has an analytic mind and cares a lot would have some idea of where ID research should head. But thanks for being honest." JVL, And I think you should be honest and admit your trolling problem. Then get some help. Andrew asauber

Bornagain77: You can’t make this stuff up. You spell out a trolls argument for him, and he denies that he making that argument, and then precedes to reiterate the argument again. I'm sorry I have disappointed you. But . . . Will you now consider having a conversation about where ID research should be heading? JVL

Asauber: I’m not a researcher. I don’t have inside access to other people’s research and/or agendas. I’m a commenter. I suggest you read the stuff on this blog and other ID sites that are available. I just thought that someone who clearly has an analytic mind and cares a lot would have some idea of where ID research should head. But thanks for being honest. JVL

"still nothing to contribute towards an ID research agenda?" JVL, I'm not a researcher. I don't have inside access to other people's research and/or agendas. I'm a commenter. I suggest you read the stuff on this blog and other ID sites that are available. Andrew asauber

You can't make this stuff up. You spell out a trolls argument for him, and he denies that he making that argument, and then precedes to reiterate the argument again. A fitting quote for this thread,

"There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See" • According to the ‘Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings’ this proverb has been traced back to 1546 (John Heywood), and resembles the Biblical verse Jeremiah 5:21 (‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’).

bornagain77

Asauber: I already gave you my answer. You are just trolling. Okay! Still nothing to contribute towards an ID research agenda? Pity. No one seems to have any idea. JVL

"What’s your ‘why’ answer then?" JVL, I already gave you my answer. You are just trolling. Andrew asauber

Asauber: All you’ve done here is kick the can backwards towards the past. This is an evasion. There is no answer to “why” with this. What's your 'why' answer then? AND . . . What's a good, plausible ID research agenda? What questions should ID researchers be working on? JVL

Bornagain77: His theological argument boils down to this 1. “IF” I were God I imagine I could design an eye better than God did. 2. Therefore I imagine that God did not design the eye. 3. Therefore I imagine that God does not exist. That is just BS, pardon my French. I am trying to understand the ID position while at the same time admitting my own position and trying to explain it when asked. I, personally, don't see any compelling evidence for God but, forgive me if I am wrong, I thought ID DID NOT propose God as the intelligent designer. Nowhere in his theological argument does JVL assume that mindless processes are capable of designing anything. He imagines that he could have designed an eye better than God did. PERIOD! That wasn't my question at all! I asked: IF the eye was designed then why were certain capacities not granted to the human eye. JVL, as smart as he may fancy himself to be, simply has no clue what he is talking about. The eye is exquisitely designed. The human eye is fine. It works pretty well. BUT there are animal eyes that work even better. So WHY do humans have eyes that are functionally sub-par to other animal eyes? What reason is there that our eyes don't have greater acuity? What reason is there that our eyes don't have four colour detectors? What reason is there that our eyes can't see into the ultraviolet range? I notice that NO ONE has even tried to answer those questions. Why is that? Does ID not have an answer to that question? I'm not going to mock anyone for believing in God but I do think it's fair to ask: why would God do it that way? Because we're talking about science aren't we? JVL

"using what your predecessors already have" JVL, All you've done here is kick the can backwards towards the past. This is an evasion. There is no answer to "why" with this. Andrew asauber

Asauber: Because I think you already know there is nothing available you would consider a scientific answer, and you are just trolling. I have no idea what is available, that's why I ask. What's the harm in spelling out a tentative ID research agenda? Even if I make fun of it, what's the harm? And I'm not going to make fun of it because I'd like to see ID move forward and progress. So do I. A long-winded non-answer. But I suspect you don’t troll them with irrelevant questions. Because I know what evolutionary theory says and because I (mostly) feel that case is sound I don't feel the need to troll them. And I'm not trying to troll ID, I'm trying to understand and solidify, in my mind, what it is really saying. I'm trying to understand what ramifications it has. I'm trying to test my own beliefs against the best that ID has to offer to see if my own beliefs can stand up. There is ID stuff linked all over this blog. Are you really reading any of it? Yup. Where is the research agenda? Tell me what questions ID researcher are or should be working on. Why is that so hard? JVL

"I think I qualified the evolutionary answer. Any such response is always tentative. But you didn’t give any kind of answer. Why is that?" JVL, Because I think you already know there is nothing available you would consider a scientific answer, and you are just trolling. "I know what unguided evolution supporters will say." So do I. A long-winded non-answer. But I suspect you don't troll them with irrelevant questions. "No guess on the ID research agenda? Any one? Hello?" There is ID stuff linked all over this blog. Are you really reading any of it? Andrew asauber

I guess I was hoping for a more 'scientific' reply from JVL rather that just philosophical posturing on his part as to "IF" he were God he imagines that he could design a better eye than God did. And note that JVL, in his theological argument, is assuming himself as a designer. He is not assuming mindless processes could design an eye. His theological argument boils down to this

1. "IF" I were God I imagine I could design an eye better than God did. 2. Therefore I imagine that God did not design the eye. 3. Therefore I imagine that God does not exist.

Nowhere in his theological argument does JVL assume that mindless processes are capable of designing anything. He imagines that he could have designed an eye better than God did. PERIOD! I guess he just expects us to assume that mindless Darwinian processes can design an eye better than both he and God can design one without explicitly saying so? (much less does JVL ever provide any explicit empirical evidence for either he, or mindless processes, creating anything) But, since JVL is into playing God, (instead of concentrating on the science at hand), and arrogantly imagines he can do a better job than God did at designing the eye, I have an old joke for him, "You go find your own dirt JVL!"

There’s an old joke about human arrogance. One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point where we can clone people, manipulate atoms, build molecules, fly through space, and do many other miraculous things. So why don’t you just go away and mind your own business from now on?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well. How about this? Before I go, let’s say we have a human-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist nodded, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. God wagged a finger at him and said, “Uh, uh, uh. Put that down. You go find your own dirt.”

JVL, as smart as he may fancy himself to be, simply has no clue what he is talking about. The eye is exquisitely designed. To quote Princeton physics professor William Bialek, "photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,”... “This is as far as it goes.” … In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined - March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html

And along that line of thought, here are a few notes strongly suggesting that JVL, besides getting his own dirt, should also 'go find his own light' as well.

"For visible light the energy carried by a single photon is around a tiny 4×10–19 joules; this energy is just sufficient to excite a single molecule in a photoreceptor cell of an eye, thus contributing to vision." https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Photon.html Creation of the Cosmos - Dr. Walter Bradley - Walter Bradley - (35:49 minute mark) video https://youtu.be/T4_SQzM-1AY?t=2149 Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe - Dr. Walter L. Bradley Excerpt: Furthermore, the frequency distribution of electromagnetic radiation produced by the sun must be precisely tuned to the energies of the various chemical bonds on Earth. Excessively energetic photons of radiation (i.e., the ultraviolet radiation emitted from a blue giant star) destroy chemical bonds and destabilize organic molecules. Insufficiently energetic photons (e.g., infrared and longer wavelength radiation from a red dwarf star) would result in chemical reactions that are either too sluggish or would not occur at all. All life on Earth depends upon fine-tuned solar radiation, which requires, in turn, a very precise balancing of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces. As previously noted, the chemical bonding energy relies upon quantum mechanical calculations that include the electromagnetic force, the mass of the electron, the speed of light (c), and Planck's constant (h). Matching the radiation from the sun to the chemical bonding energy requires that the magnitude of six constants be selected to satisfy the following inequality, with the caveat that the two sides of the inequality are of the same order of magnitude, guaranteeing that the photons are sufficiently energetic, but not too energetic.{22},,, Substituting the values in Table 2 for h, c, G, me, mp, and e (with units adjusted as required) allows Equation 3 to be evaluated to give:,,, In what is either an amazing coincidence or careful design by an intelligent Creator, these constants have the very precise values relative to each other that are necessary to give a universe in which radiation from the sun is tuned to the necessary chemical reactions that are essential for life. This result is illustrated in Figure 3, where the intensity of radiation from the sun and the biological utility of radiation are shown as a function of the wavelength of radiation. The greatest intensity of radiation from the sun occurs at the place of greatest biological utility.,,, http://www.leaderu.com/offices/bradley/docs/scievidence.html

In the preceding paper Dr. Bradley also lists four graphs. At the bottom of the four graphs he states: “The visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (~1 micron) is the most intense radiation from the sun (Figure 3.1); has the greatest biological utility (Figure 3.2); and passes through atmosphere of Earth (Figure 3.3) and water (Figure 3.4) with almost no absorption. It is uniquely this same wavelength of radiation that is idea to foster the chemistry of life. This is either a truly amazing series of coincidences or else the result of careful design.”,,, It is remarkable that both the Earth's atmosphere and water have "optical windows" that allow visible light (just the radiation necessary for life) to pass through with very little absorption, whereas shorter wavelength (destructive ultraviolet radiation) and longer wavelength (infrared) radiation are both highly absorbed, as seen in Figure 3.{23} Also of note: the light coming from the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) is such that "the value of the photon to baryon ratio is such that it maximizes the CMB (as observed by typical observers)"

The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability - Robin Collins - March 22, 2014 Excerpt: Examples of fine-tuning for discoverability. The most dramatic confirmation of the discoverability/livability optimality thesis (DLO) is the dependence of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) on the baryon to photon ratio.,,, ...the intensity of CMB depends on the photon to baryon ratio, (b), which is the ratio of the average number of photons per unit volume of space to the average number of baryons (protons plus neutrons) per unit volume. At present this ratio is approximately a billion to one (10^9) , but it could be anywhere from one to infinity; it traces back to the degree of asymmetry in matter and anti - matter right after the beginning of the universe – for approximately every billion particles of antimatter, there was a billion and one particles of matter.,,, The only livability effect this ratio has is on whether or not galaxies can form that have near - optimally livability zones. As long as this condition is met, the value of this ratio has no further effects on livability. Hence, the DLO predicts that within this range, the value of this ratio will be such as to maximize the intensity of the CMB as observed by typical observers. According to my calculations – which have been verified by three other physicists -- to within the margin of error of the experimentally determined parameters (~20%), the value of the photon to baryon ratio is such that it maximizes the CMB (as observed by typical observers). This is shown in Figure 1 below. (pg. 13) It is easy to see that this prediction could have been disconfirmed. In fact, when I first made the calculations in the fall of 2011, I made a mistake and thought I had refuted this thesis since those calculations showed the intensity of the CMB maximizes at a value different than the photon - baryon ratio in our universe. So, not only does the DLO lead us to expect this ratio, but it provides an ultimate explanation for why it has this value,,, This is a case of a teleological thesis serving both a predictive and an ultimate explanatory role.,,, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/Greer-Heard%20Forum%20paper%20draft%20for%20posting.pdf

bornagain77

Asauber: The above was your initial question to me. Your subsequent appeal to Evolution didn’t answer it either. I think I qualified the evolutionary answer. Any such response is always tentative. But you didn't give any kind of answer. Why is that? According to all the evidence, you could just as well be on your favorite Evolution blog asking these kind of questions. But I guess you just like UD better. ? I know what unguided evolution supporters will say. I'm trying to figure out what ID's view on such issues are so I ask here. No guess on the ID research agenda? Any one? Hello? JVL

"I’d love to have a greater visual range, greater acuity, no blind spot, etc. So, why don’t I?" JVL, The above was your initial question to me. Your subsequent appeal to Evolution didn't answer it either. According to all the evidence, you could just as well be on your favorite Evolution blog asking these kind of questions. But I guess you just like UD better. ;) Andrew asauber

Asauber: That’s for sure. Welcome to science! Do we know what 'causes' gravity? Not really. Can we model it? Yes! Pretty well now. With better measuring tools and data we may have to refine our model, again. Anyway, this is what we expect: as our knowledge and experience and data get more and more comprehensive our models of the real world should get better and better. Will they every be 'true'? I think we're getting closer and closer. The laws of thermodynamics seem pretty rock solid. But, who knows . . . maybe next year, next month or tomorrow we'll have to revise those as well. That's the way it goes with science. We're running really fast just to keep up!! So is three better than four to Evolution? Or Is four better than three and we’ll switch someday? Who knows? IF I remember correctly: four cones arose and got fixed in one population but we're not sure why. Sometimes you just have to say: we don't know. That's honest, that's true. The thing about saying it all was designed is that that implies, to me at least, that there was a reason for all such decisions. Okay, maybe you can say the designer just figured they'd role the dice and not care that much. But that seems kind of callous. Not what most ID proponents want to believe. Anyway, why aren't ID proponents working on answering questions like that? What is the ID research agenda? What questions are first up for ID? All sciences have unanswered questions and issues that are prime for research. What are they for ID? IF I could grant y'all a few million dollars what research would you engage in? JVL

"good enough OR better." JVL, So is three better than four to Evolution? Or Is four better than three and we'll switch someday? Andrew asauber

"Unguided evolution explanations are not ‘answers’ in the usual sense" JVL, That's for sure. Andrew asauber

Asauber: So what’s the answer? Unguided evolution depends on using what your predecessors already have and passing on that which is good enough OR better. So, it seems, that the line leading to humans made do with three colour detecting cones and sometimes good enough wins the day. Perhaps, if there had been some environment pressure or clear advantage to having four cones instead of three the human line might have kept such a modification IF it ever occurred. If I'm remembering correctly, at least one line of new world monkeys got the four cones, lucky them! Was it an advantage or did it get fixed for another reason? You can find discussions of this particular topic if you're really interested. Unguided evolution explanations are not 'answers' in the usual sense; they are models that seem to address most of the data we have. JVL

William J Murray: Short of asking the designer, this is more of a philosophical exercise. It doesn’t really have anything to do with science. It is a scientific question if one answer is: it's down to blind, dumb science. Why do you think it comes down to philosophy? Even if the human eye was designed it could be a purely engineering decision. You're showing your bias. If we find a piece of alien technology, the proper question isn’t “what are the design goals.” The scientific question is: what does it actually do? Can we reverse-engineer it? Can we apply that technology? Is there entirely new technology, even new technological concepts we can learn from it? Those are all good questions and I think it's fair to ask all of them. Remember: ID is contrasting itself with another paradigm which attempts to answer some of those questions. IF ID wants to be a 'better' answer then it must answer those questions more parsimoniously and, I think, answer some more questions. Design means a designer, means intent, means a goal or target, means there should be a reason why some animals got some features and others didn't. Yes? JVL

Bornagain77: JVL, so what you are really trying to say is that “IF” you were God then you would have designed a human eye better than God did? I'm just wondering why we don't have four colour detecting cones? I can't see why not if we were intelligently designed. Maybe the designer had a reason . . . what could it be? Ours is not to reason why? But that assumes that you know all God’s reasons for designing the human eye as amazingly as He did and that you could improve on it (Basically you are assuming you are omniscient)) I'd love to know the reason, if there was one. And your argument also assumes that you have some basic knowledge on how to build eyeballs in the first place. I know some of the other ones that exist. Shoot, design a better photosynthesis system for plants while you are at it. ? I think someone has actually tried to look at that! I don't know as much about photosynthesis unfortunately. Without that empirical demonstration., your argument boils down to, basically, a philosophical, even a theological, argument and it has left the realm of empirical science. I'd just like to know why, according to ID, we don't have eyes with greater capacities since other animals do have 'em. It's not a philosophical or theological argument unless you want it to be. For me it's just blind, dumb evolution or an engineering choice. JVL

JVL @22 asks:

Okay. Is it possible to know what the design goals are? Do you think ID should be asking questions like these? Can the answers be discovered?

Short of asking the designer, this is more of a philosophical exercise. It doesn't really have anything to do with science. If we find a piece of alien technology, the proper question isn't "what are the design goals." The scientific question is: what does it actually do? Can we reverse-engineer it? Can we apply that technology? Is there entirely new technology, even new technological concepts we can learn from it? William J Murray

JVL, so what you are really trying to say is that "IF" you were God then you would have designed a human eye better than God did? But that assumes that you know all God's reasons for designing the human eye as amazingly as He did and that you could improve on it (Basically you are assuming you are omniscient)) And your argument also assumes that you have some basic knowledge on how to build eyeballs in the first place. OK, I'll wait, in your presupposed omniscient ability to build better eyeballs, whip us up a human eyeball that is better than the one God created. :) Shoot, design a better photosynthesis system for plants while you are at it. :) Without that empirical demonstration., your argument boils down to, basically, a philosophical, even a theological, argument and it has left the realm of empirical science. Which is no surprise, Darwinists have been crucially dependent on faulty theological argumentation, (not empirical demonstration), ever since Darwin first published his book 'Origin of Species", since there simply is no evidence that mindless processes can create anything, much less the amazing human eye.

"How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art…. Was the Eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds?" - Sir Isaac Newton

bornagain77

"I think it does, partially at any rate." JVL, So what's the answer? Andrew asauber

Asauber: Doesn’t Evolution answer this question adequately? I think it does, partially at any rate. But does ID answer that question? What do you think? JVL

"Again, aren’t you curious why we only have three colour detectors instead of four?" JVL, Doesn't Evolution answer this question adequately? Evolution claims to make sense of biology, doesn't it? Please go to your favorite Evolution Blog and get the answer for us, JVL. Thanks. Andrew asauber

William J Murray: How would I know? I’m just admitting I don’t know the entirety of the design goals, so the argument about whether or not the design of the eye is “optimal” is a groundless argument because what it refers to (all the design goals) are unknown. Okay. Is it possible to know what the design goals are? Do you think ID should be asking questions like these? Can the answers be discovered? JVL

JVL asks:

Okay, why do you think humans don’t have the same visual acuity as other animals? Why can’t we see into the ultraviolet range like other animals? Why don’t we have four colour cones like other animals? Why do we have a blind spot where other animals do not?

How would I know? I'm just admitting I don't know the entirety of the design goals, so the argument about whether or not the design of the eye is "optimal" is a groundless argument because what it refers to (all the design goals) are unknown. William J Murray

Jerry: Optimal design is almost impossible to discern. Every species including humans live in an ecology. If one species was dominant in every possible way it would eliminate itself since it would probably destroy the ecology and thus, its ability to survive. Oooo, is that an ecological and evolutionary argument I see before me? So when someone points to a so called sub-optimal design, they may be looking at exquisite design. No idea what exquisite design means. But I do know some animals have better acuity that we do, some animals can see into the ultraviolet range, some animals have four colour detectors instead of three. I'd love to have those enhancements. This has been discussed probably a hundred times before. The same irrelevant questions always seem to come up. Again, aren't you curious why we only have three colour detectors instead of four? Would that really give us such an advance that we would have destroyed our environment eons ago? I find all such questions really fascinating. So I'm prone to wonder why things are the way they are. Those may be irrelevant questions but science is about asking questions and looking for answers. What questions do you think ID should be looking at and working on? JVL

Asauber: ID doesn’t exclude any question-asking as far as I know. That's good! But I can tell you that some questions are worth spending more time on than others. Personally, I think the “why” questions you ask aren’t worth spending much time on. I don’t feel inadequate because I don’t have enhanced vision the way you seem to feel. Okay! JVL

"The same irrelevant questions" Precisely, Jerry. Andrew asauber

Optimal design is almost impossible to discern. Every species including humans live in an ecology. If one species was dominant in every possible way it would eliminate itself since it would probably destroy the ecology and thus, its ability to survive. So when someone points to a so called sub-optimal design, they may be looking at exquisite design. This has been discussed probably a hundred times before. The same irrelevant questions always seem to come up. jerry

"ID should ask such questions?" JVL, ID doesn't exclude any question-asking as far as I know. But I can tell you that some questions are worth spending more time on than others. Personally, I think the "why" questions you ask aren't worth spending much time on. I don't feel inadequate because I don't have enhanced vision the way you seem to feel. Andrew PS In fact my vision is deteriorating with age. I don't feel bad about it. I "see" it as a stage in the journey. I just put on some readers. asauber

Asauber: No. I don’t ever ask myself such questions. Okay! PS: do you think ID should ask such questions? JVL

"Don’t you ever ask yourself such questions?" No. I don't ever ask myself such questions. As for curiosity about how our vision developed, you probably love this OP because you have to know what the eye is and does first, before you back track. But I'm glad you have more an appreciation for the eye than your buddy Sev does. Andrew asauber

Asauber: Yes it is. I guess I'm just more curious than you are about how our vision developed. I'm very happy to have eyes that work pretty well but . . . I'd love to have a greater visual range, greater acuity, no blind spot, etc. So, why don't I? Don't you ever ask yourself such questions? JVL

William J Murray: “Optimal” can only be assessed by knowing the full purpose of the design. Okay, why do you think humans don't have the same visual acuity as other animals? Why can't we see into the ultraviolet range like other animals? Why don't we have four colour cones like other animals? Why do we have a blind spot where other animals do not? Science, it's about asking questions. What are your answers? JVL

JVL said:

Since the human eye is superseded on any standard by other eyes found in the animal kingdom the question is: why did the designer choose to give humans less than optimal eyes?

"Optimal" can only be assessed by knowing the full purpose of the design. For example, some furniture is not designed to be functionally optimal because the design is more artistic or aesthetic in nature. Or, the designer has built in functional failure to continuously sell more of the product to the consumer. Or, the design of a thing is meant to limit a capacity instead of providing as much capacity as possible. Etc. William J Murray

"That’s not really the point though is it?" JVL, Yes it is. Andrew asauber

Asauber: I think this appears ungrateful. If you understood what your eye does for you, and what a wonderful gift it is, maybe you wouldn’t be so dismissive of it. That's not really the point though is it? Since the human eye is superseded on any standard by other eyes found in the animal kingdom the question is: why did the designer choose to give humans less than optimal eyes? Perhaps that says something about when design was implemented? Perhaps it was all front loaded and then allowed to spin out as it would. But that tends to point to humans NOT being the ultimate goal of biological evolution and I don't think that sits well with most ID proponents. So . . . IF humans were the goal of biological evolution on Earth then we must have the less-than-optimal eyes we have for some reason. I wonder what that reason is? I'd love to have greater acuity or to be able to see into the ultraviolet range. Just being able to see better while swimming would be cool. JVL

"Good, we haven’t had a discussion about the wonders of the human eye for a while." Sev, I think this appears ungrateful. If you understood what your eye does for you, and what a wonderful gift it is, maybe you wouldn't be so dismissive of it. But you are just a meat bag, right? Andrew asauber

Evolution by means of blind and mindless processes can't account for developmental biology, so forget about vision systems. ET

HIts all the points, especially the filtering done by the 'reverse' lenses, which is usually missed. Two little quibbles: (1) The rods and cones don't produce binary signals. Unlike many neurons, they're purely analog. So the rest of the system has an even harder job than it would if they were binary. (2) I doubt that the ocular muscle control is *more* complex than the muscles for legs or arms. For one thing, the limbs have an extra layer of feedback loops via the spine that never reaches the brain. polistra

The question becomes, "what is entanglement, how does it occur?" What does it mean to say something outside of space-time is causing this phenomenal simultaneously regardless of space time "locations" or apparent separation? Things in "this world" occur not because of the way this world is, but because this world is entirely the effect of an immaterial world not regulated by space-time. Thus, it is the effect of something "beyond" space-time. Every physical world event is an effect and NOT a cause. Gravity, electromagnetisim, strong and weak nuclear forces, entropy - these are models describing effects; they are not themselves the causes of these behaviors. We are describing immaterial rule-sets that cause the behavior of phenomena we mutually experience; those rule-set causes are not limited by space-time; they cause the very experience of space-time. What good does it do to say those rule-sets are "instantiated" in a non-immaterial world, when we cannot even locate a non-immaterial world? Where is the "material" world? We can't find it. All we find are abstract probabilities, rule sets, information, algorithms, etc. Yes, we experience "physicality," but what is generating that experience? Where does that experience occur? I don't know how much more obvious all this can get. We are immaterial, eternal beings (information cannot be created or destroyed) in an immaterial situation having comprehensible, trans-personally coordinated and verifiable physical experiences generated by common (shared) immaterial rule sets and protocols acting on a set of common (shared) information. William J Murray

Finding quantum entanglement and/or quantum information to be pervasive in biology, in every important biomolecule, is simple devastating to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists. Namely, quantum coherence and/or quantum entanglement is a non-local, beyond space and time, effect that requires a beyond space and time cause in order to explain its existence. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Moreover, as the following study found, the greater the number of particles in a quantum hypergraph state, (which is exactly the type of quantum coherence that we have with protein and DNA molecules), the more strongly it violates local realism, with the strength increasing exponentially with the number of particles.

Physicists find extreme violation of local realism in quantum hypergraph states - Lisa Zyga - March 4, 2016 Excerpt: Many quantum technologies rely on quantum states that violate local realism, which means that they either violate locality (such as when entangled particles influence each other from far away) or realism (the assumption that quantum states have well-defined properties, independent of measurement), or possibly both. Violation of local realism is one of the many counterintuitive, yet experimentally supported, characteristics of the quantum world. Determining whether or not multiparticle quantum states violate local realism can be challenging. Now in a new paper, physicists have shown that a large family of multiparticle quantum states called hypergraph states violates local realism in many ways. The results suggest that these states may serve as useful resources for quantum technologies, such as quantum computers and detecting gravitational waves.,,, The physicists also showed that the greater the number of particles in a quantum hypergraph state, the more strongly it violates local realism, with the strength increasing exponentially with the number of particles. In addition, even if a quantum hypergraph state loses one of its particles, it continues to violate local realism. This robustness to particle loss is in stark contrast to other types of quantum states, which no longer violate local realism if they lose a particle. This property is particularly appealing for applications, since it might allow for more noise in experiments. http://phys.org/news/2016-03-physicists-extreme-violation-local-realism.html

Thus the problem of quantum 'non-locality' is actually 'exponentially' worse for Darwinists than it originally was for physicists who were just trying to understand how single particles could possibly be instantaneously entangled. Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the non-local quantum coherence and/or entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology. Whereas Christians readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain quantum entanglement. As Colossians 1:17 states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

it is also important to realize that quantum information is conserved. As the following article states, In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

The implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/life-after-death-soul-science-morgan-freeman/

Verse:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

Of supplemental note, although all the trivia facts listed in the OP are certainly very interesting as to telling us how the eye converts photons into visual information for the brain, none of those facts tell us exactly what is actually doing the 'seeing' in the brain. That is to say, the 'hard problem of consciousness', (i.e. qualia, i.e. the subjective experience of consciousness), is still just as mysterious for us as it was when it was first elucidated. As Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience, i.e. qualia, of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself.

11.2.1 Qualia - Perception (“The Hard Problem” ) Philosopher of the mind Frank Jackson imagined a thought experiment —Mary’s Room— to explain qualia and why it is such an intractable problem for science. The problem identified is referred to as the knowledge argument. Here is the description of the thought experiment: “Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'. (...) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?" Jackson believed that Mary did learn something new: she learned what it was like to experience color. "It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism [materialism] is false.” https://www.urantia.org/study/seminar-presentations/is-there-design-in-nature#Emergence

And although consciousness is, apparently, forever beyond any possible materialistic explanation, it is also very interesting to note that consciousness, (or more particularly, the conscious mind's attributes of free will and 'the experience of the now'), finds an extremely strong correlation with our 'spooky' experiments in quantum mechanics,

How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0hL3Nrdas

Thus in conclusion, Darwinists have no clue how even a single 'quantum' protein of the wondrous human eye can possible come about, nor do they have a clue what is actually doing the seeing in the brain, i.e. the hard problem of consciousness, but Christians, on the other hand, find a ready explanation for both.

Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

bornagain77

The OP reminds me of this verse:

Proverbs 20:12 The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.

Moreover, besides allowing us to see "a match struck 50 miles away" from a mountaintop, our eyes also allow us to catch a glimpse of our soul. As to this fact in particular: "The rod can detect a single photon. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way" That fact, along with many other facts, proves that the human body can not possibly be dominated by the 'random thermodynamic jostling' of atoms as Darwinists, from Harvard no less, tried to falsely portray to the public in a video they produced in 2013 entitled ‘Inner Life of the Cell: Protein Packing’,,,

Inner Life of a Cell | Protein Packing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHeTQLNFTgU In the above 2013 video, as you can see, Harvard Biovisions tried to make the inner workings of the cell look as random, chaotic, and haphazard as possible in order to try to dispel any impression of design in the cell that they had inadvertently created in their first 2006 "Inner Life of a Cell" video. March 2021 - The inner workings of biological systems are not nearly as random and haphazard, (i.e. subjected to 'random thermodynamic jostling,), as Darwinists have presupposed https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/bbc-cell-film-pays-tribute-to-design-in-nature-without-knowing-it/#comment-725955

,,, But instead that fact, along with many other facts, proves that biological systems must instead be based on quantum principles not 'random thermodynamic jostling' principles. Darwinian biologists simply have not taken quantum principles into consideration at all in their understanding of biological systems. As Jim Al-Khalili, who is an atheist himself, states in the following video, “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”.

Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it." At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

And indeed, Schrodinger's 'speculation that 'quantum mechanics plays a role in life' has now been confirmed. Every important biological molecule in life is now found to be based on quantum principles, not on 'random thermodynamic jostling' principles as Darwinists have presupposed. As the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” stated “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

And as this follow up article stated, "There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,"

Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)

DNA itself does not belong to the world of classical mechanics, (as Darwinists have presupposed). but instead belongs to the world of quantum mechanics. In the following video, at the 22:20 minute mark, Dr Rieper shows why the high temperatures of biological systems do not prevent DNA from having quantum entanglement and then at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper goes on to remark that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.

"What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state." Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176

bornagain77

No, we haven’t heard from scoffers like you riffing on the theme that the eye is poorly designed; that is what we haven’t had. BTW - Shakespeare noticed, “How far that little candle throws his beams!” Belfast

Good, we haven't had a discussion about the wonders of the human eye for a while. Seversky