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In recent museum exhibit of dinosaurs, plate tectonics dominates, not Darwinism

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Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from GondwanaDid we mention that scientists seem to be starting to forget Darwin, and move on to more fruitful areas” Yesterday, I was at a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit “ Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana” (presented by Raymond James). The exhibit was blessedly free of inappropriate homage to Darwin, who was identified only as the developer of natural selection theory. Pride of place went to Wegener and plate tectonics – the breakup and gradual movement of the continents to their present places around the globe.

The focus was on how the breakup of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana (and related developments) separated groups of dinosaurs, who thereafter went their own way developmentally, while remaining quite obviously dinosaurs.

I was impressed by the (mostly) absence of just-so stories. They would only have been in the way. The exhibit of these long lost life forms was quite absorbing enough without ideologically motivated tales. We see some evolution but we don’t necessarily know the exact cause – other than separation from others of the same species – which is the message of plate tectonics.

Some dinos you maybe didn’t meet recently.

See also “Scientists are beginning to forget Darwin, whether they admit it or not.”

Comments
"do you have lab evidence that any agent known to exist at the time in queston was capable of producing the specific complex specified information?"
Yes!
What Properties Must the Cause of the Universe Have? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SZWInkDIVI
because God is timeless and is not constrained by time and space in any way, shape, or form, indeed it is shown that He created time and space at the big bang, therefore we have, in our ample 'laboratory' evidence for the Big Bang, evidence of a unfathomable powerful agent operating outside the confines of time and space, who is not constrained by time and space, who was more than capable of producing the functional information at the time in question, or at any other time in question including this present moment!. notes:
The First Cause Must Be A Personal Being - William Lane Craig - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4813914 Psalm 115:2-3 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. Steven Curtis Chapman - God is God (Original Version) - music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz94NQ5HRyk
bornagain77
July 15, 2012
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BA77,
That is just the point Jerad! Actually we do have repeatable evidence that Intelligence can and does produce functional information.
Mmmmmmm, but do you have lab evidence that any agent known to exist at the time in queston was capable of producing the specific complex specified information? Something we can't do so there's no evidence, yet (I admit), that we could even do it. I'm not saying your supposition is irrational but it is just a supposition at this point. Sarah McLacklan is lovely for sure.Jerad
July 15, 2012
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footnotes: Example of intelligence generating functional proteins: Book Review: Creating Life in the Lab: How New discoveries in Synthetic Biology Make a Case for the Creator - Rich Deem - January 2011 Excerpt: Despite all this "intelligent design," the artificial enzymes were 10,000 to 1,000,000,000 times less efficient than their biological counterparts. Dr. Rana asks the question, "is it reasonable to think that undirected evolutionary processes routinely accomplished this task?" http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/creating_life_in_the_lab.html Research group develops more efficient artificial enzyme - November 2011 Excerpt: Though the artificial enzyme is still many orders of magnitude less efficient than nature’s way of doing things, it is far more efficient than any other artificial process to date, a milestone that gives researchers hope that they will one day equal nature’s abilities. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-group-efficient-artificial-enzyme.html Example of ntelligence producing a molecular machine: Researchers in the UK and Belgium have measured the work performed by a single manmade molecule. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/August/22081101.asp Example of intelligence producing a Protein-Protein binding site: Computer-designed proteins programmed to disarm variety of flu viruses - June 1, 2012 Excerpt: The research efforts, akin to docking a space station but on a molecular level, are made possible by computers that can describe the landscapes of forces involved on the submicroscopic scale.,, These maps were used to reprogram the design to achieve a more precise interaction between the inhibitor protein and the virus molecule. It also enabled the scientists, they said, "to leapfrog over bottlenecks" to improve the activity of the binder. http://phys.org/news/2012-06-computer-designed-proteins-variety-flu-viruses.html Viral-Binding Protein Design Makes the Case for Intelligent Design Sick! (as in cool) - Fazale Rana - June 2011 Excerpt: When considering this study, it is remarkable to note how much effort it took to design a protein that binds to a specific location on the hemagglutinin molecule. As biochemists Bryan Der and Brian Kuhlman point out while commenting on this work, the design of these proteins required: "...cutting-edge software developed by ~20 groups worldwide and 100,000 hours of highly parallel computing time. It also involved using a technique known as yeast display to screen candidate proteins and select those with high binding affinities, as well as x-ray crystallography to validate designs.2" If it takes this much work and intellectual input to create a single protein from scratch, is it really reasonable to think that undirected evolutionary processes could accomplish this task routinely? In other words, the researchers from the University of Washington and The Scripps Institute have unwittingly provided empirical evidence that the high-precision interactions required for PPIs requires intelligent agency to arise. Sick! http://www.reasons.org/viral-binding-protein-design-makes-case-intelligent-design-sick-coolbornagain77
July 15, 2012
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Jerad states:
I don’t think you have exact lab work that can demonstrate the particular thing you believe either but I’ll let it go.
That is just the point Jerad! Actually we do have repeatable evidence that Intelligence can and does produce functional information. The sentence that you yourself just wrote exceeds the amount of functional information that we can reasonably expect the entire material processes of the universe to generate over the entire history of the universe. Whereas you have ZERO examples of purely material processes generating that amount of functional information. Thus in reality you have, on pain of irrationality, just denied that you have a mind and that you are intelligent and that you 'caused' the 'effect' of that sentence by means of your intelligence??? i.e. Thanks for providing proof that you have no evidence nor intention of being honest with the evidence! notes:
Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome. So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html
To clarify as to how the 500 bit universal limit is found for 'structured, functional information': Dembski's original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, 10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. 10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur. 10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds. Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang. How many bits would that be: Pu = 10-150, so, -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits Call it 500 bits (The 500 bits is further specified as a specific type of information. It is specified as Complex Specified Information by Dembski or as Functional Information by Abel to separate it from merely Ordered Sequence Complexity or Random Sequence Complexity; See Three subsets of sequence complexity) Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - Abel, Trevors http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/29
How to calculate Chi_500, a log-reduced, simplified form of the Dembski Chi-metric for CSI Excerpt: Item 6 So, the idea of the Dembski metric in the end — debates about peculiarities in derivation notwithstanding — is that if the Hartley-Shannon- derived information measure for items from a hot or target zone in a field of possibilities is beyond 398 – 500 or so bits, it is so deeply isolated that a chance dominated process is maximally unlikely to find it, but of course intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/how-to-calculate-chi_500-a-log-reduced-simplified-form-of-the-dembski-chi-metric-for-csi/
This short sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is calculated by Winston Ewert, in this following video at the 10 minute mark, to contain 1000 bits of algorithmic specified complexity, and thus to exceed the Universal Probability Bound (UPB) of 500 bits set by Dr. Dembski Proposed Information Metric: Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity - Winston Ewert - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3mm3ofAYU
"Monkeys Typing Shakespeare" Simulation Illustrates Combinatorial Inflation Problem - October 2011 Excerpt: In other words, Darwinian evolution isn't going to be able to produce fundamentally new protein folds. In fact, it probably wouldn't even be able to produce a single 9-character string of nucleotides in DNA, if that string would not be retained by selection until all 9 nucleotides were in place. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/monkeys_typing_shakespeare_sim051561.html
Music Sarah McLachlan - Ordinary Miracle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqZE4ZDnAkQbornagain77
July 15, 2012
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BA77, Sorry I disappoint. I don't think you have exact lab work that can demonstrate the particular thing you believe either but I'll let it go.Jerad
July 15, 2012
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,,,I trust in repeated to the point of being observer independent data,,, I take that as empirical evidence Thus once again, we are back to square one of what made you stick your nose in this conversation:
And since you have no empirical evidence that said systems and machines can be had, why do you consider it true? Is it true for you just because IT MUST BE TRUE for you? Sorry that just doesn’t fly in science! You must actually demonstrate what you claim to be true actually is true. If you do not cite the exact lab work showing a molecular machine coming into being by neo-Darwinian processes in your next response I will take it that you have no evidence nor intention of being honest with the evidence!
bornagain77
July 14, 2012
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BA77,
questionable??? And how could I make you scientifically “certain” of Theism?
I don't know. I thought faith was a matter of . . . faith.
Thus Jerad, though you might rightly find some of my scientific arguments ‘questionable’, I would rightly ask you in reply, “and exactly how do you personally, Jerad, establish ‘certainty’ for any scientific argument in the first place?!?”
I trust in repeated to the point of being observer independent data. Including my own. And I try very hard to critically examine events and coicidence in my own life. And, after many years of looking I find insufficient evidence for anything supernatural. Nothing that is defineable or repeatable or can be measured. And once I gave up on the concept of anything other than material causes and processes the world seems much clearer and, frankly, more serene and beautiful. But your mileage may vary. Obviously. I don't lable myself a materialist or an anthiest. I just go with what works based on the minimal assumptions.Jerad
July 14, 2012
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Materialism's complete epistemological failure is noted here: Materialism simply dissolves into absurdity when pushed to extremes and certainly offers no guarantee to us for believing our perceptions and reasoning within science are trustworthy in the first place:
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: What is worse, multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen in the context of a multiverse - where it is alleged that anything can spontaneously jump into existence without cause - produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale. For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the "Boltzmann Brain" problem: In the most "reasonable" models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/ The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory & The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video http://vimeo.com/34468027
This 'lack of a guarantee', for trusting our perceptions and reasoning in science to be trustworthy in the first place, even extends into evolutionary naturalism itself;
Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe Carter Excerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind What is the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism? ('inconsistent identity' of cause leads to failure of absolute truth claims for materialists) (Alvin Plantinga) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNg4MJgTFw
The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth that he is purporting to give in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);
Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think - October 2011 Interviewer: You could be deceiving yourself about that.(?) Evolutionary Psychologist: Absolutely. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128335.300-evolutionary-guru-dont-believe-everything-you-think.html
Even Darwin smelled a whiff of the epistemological failure that his theory entailed;
"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin - Letter To William Graham - July 3, 1881
Moreover, if epistemological failure was not bad enough, you 'certainly' cannot establish 'scientific certainty' for Darwinism
"nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin(ism) can be described as scientific" - Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote was as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Science and Pseudoscience - Imre Lakatos - exposing Darwinism as a ‘degenerating science program’, as a pseudoscience, using Lakatos's method https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LpGd3smTV1RwmEXC25IAEKMjiypBl5VJq9ssfv4JgeM/edit
Thus Jerad, though you might rightly find some of my scientific arguments 'questionable', I would rightly ask you in reply, "and exactly how do you personally, Jerad, establish 'certainty' for any scientific argument in the first place?!?" Music and Verse:
Be Still And Know - Steven Curtis Chapman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C01lLxEo3xM Psalm 46:10 "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
bornagain77
July 14, 2012
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Jerad you state:
'while I find some of your ‘scientific’ arguments questionable'
questionable??? And how could I make you scientifically "certain" of Theism? Speaking of 'certainty',,, I was thinking of this earlier today,,, Dawkins in this following video at the 1:50 minute mark, puts a 'probability' of God not existing at 99% to which Stein asks, How do you know its 99% and not 97%? To which Dawkins said, I just think it is very unlikely. Stein replies 'but you couldn't put a number on it'? Dawkins: "No", Stein: 'could it be 49%'?. Dawkins: "No', I think it is unlikely but it is quite far from 50%: Stein, How do you know?, Dawkins: "I don't know."
Ben Stein vs. Richard Dawkins Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc
But this 'questionable' doubt is all very humorous for Dawkins to do since epistemology shows us that it is impossible for us to have '100% certainty', to know for a fact that something, anything, is absolutely true, in the first place, unless God we hold God as 100% true. Thus Dawkins will forever be muddled in a probability of questionable uncertainty!
Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998 The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - Justin Holcomb - audio of the 1985 debate available on the site Excerpt: The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,, http://theresurgence.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-exist
This following site is a easy to use, and understand, interactive website that takes the user through what is termed 'Presuppositional apologetics'. The website clearly shows that our use of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality cannot be accounted for unless we believe in God who guarantees our perceptions and reasoning are trustworthy in the first place.
Presuppositional Apologetics - easy to use interactive website http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/index.php Random Chaos vs. Uniformity Of Nature - Presuppositional Apologetics - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6853139 “Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...” CS Lewis – Mere Christianity
Related notes:
Taking God Out of the Equation - Biblical Worldview - by Ron Tagliapietra - January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity . . . all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency . . . no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness . . . all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation#
This following video is very interesting for showing that we cannot even hold 1+1=2 as 'certainly' true unless we assume God to be true:
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821
Interesting outcome of the incompleteness theorem is noted here:
Alan Turing & Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video (notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/
bornagain77
July 14, 2012
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BA77,
But the argument is not that humans created what we see in life. The argument is that ‘intelligence’, a type of conscious intelligence such as what humans uniquely possess, is required to explain what we see in life. Indeed a ‘genius beyond genius’ type of intelligence is required to explain what we see in life!!!
I hear what you are saying but most ID proponents will not discuss what 'agent' has the intelligence they are inferring. You seem much more willing to 'nail your colors to the mast' as it were and I appreciate that. I think you are a person of faith and while I find some of your 'scientific' arguments questionable I will never, ever question that which you feel to be true deep in your heart and soul. I realise this still leaves the issue of what gets taught in the high school science classroom unresovled but at least we should be working at understanding each other!Jerad
July 14, 2012
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Related note as to the 'information basis' of reality:
Zeilinger's principle Zeilinger's principle states that any elementary system carries just one bit of information. This principle was put forward by Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger in 1999 and subsequently developed by him to derive several aspects of quantum mechanics. Some have reasoned that this principle, in certain ways, links thermodynamics with information theory. [1] http://www.eoht.info/page/Zeilinger%27s+principle
bornagain77
July 14, 2012
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Jerad you state:
Yes, we certainly have a lot of evidence that human intelligence can produce complex specified information. But humans weren’t around way back when!!
But the argument is not that humans created what we see in life. The argument is that 'intelligence', a type of conscious intelligence such as what humans uniquely possess, is required to explain what we see in life. Indeed a 'genius beyond genius' type of intelligence is required to explain what we see in life!!! To build on the argument from consciousness: Materialism had postulated for centuries that everything reduced to, or emerged from material atoms, yet the correct structure of reality is now found, by science, to be as follows:
1. material particles (mass) reduces to energy (e=mc^2) 2. energy and mass both reduce to information (quantum teleportation) 3. information reduces to consciousness (geometric centrality of conscious observation in universe dictates that consciousness must precede quantum wave collapse)
Moreover it takes a infinite amount of information to create a single 'material' photon:
Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (photon) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1 Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf
Thus every time we see a single photon of 'material' reality we are actually seeing a single bit of information that was originally created from a very specific set of infinite information that was known by the consciousness that preceded material reality. i.e. information known only by infinite omniscient God!
Job 38:19-20 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?"
As to the fact that this consciousness that precedes material reality, (i.e. God) directly created life (instead of space aliens as Dawkins infamously tried to hold) we can now point to non-local, beyond space and time, quantum information in life;
Falsification Of Neo-Darwinism by Quantum Entanglement/Information https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8AQgqFqiRQwyaF8t1_CKTPQ9duN8FHU9-pV4oBDOVs/edit?hl=en_US
Quantum information Of which classical information is now found to be a subset of: ,,,This following research provides solid falsification for the late Rolf Landauer’s decades old contention that the information encoded in a computer is merely physical (merely ‘emergent’ from a material basis) since he believed it always required energy to erase it;
Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011 Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm
Moreover, finding non-local quantum information/entanglement in life, indeed finding it to be 'holding life together' so as to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium, has very deep theological implications:
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068 Quantum Entangled Consciousness (Permanence of Quantum Information)- Life After Death - Stuart Hameroff - video https://vimeo.com/39982578
etc.. etc.. Music:
ROYAL TAILOR – HOLD ME TOGETHER – music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbpJ2FeeJgw
bornagain77
July 14, 2012
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BA77, Thanks for replying!
That is just it Jerad, I get that criticism fairly often, and ID still comes out on top! i.e. from a purely scientific point of view, reasoning solely from ‘presently acting cause known to produce the effect in question’,,,
Yes, we certainly have a lot of evidence that human intelligence can produce complex specified information. But humans weren't around way back when!!
Now, as to evidence for the actual existence of God, well, there are many lines of evidence, in fact, I don’t know of any part of reality that can’t be argued fairly strongly for Theism, from the existence of the smallest sub-atomic particle/wave to the existence of the entire universe itself, but currently my favorite evidence for the existence of God is the argument from consciousness:
Thank you for this. I THINK I understand your position much better now.Jerad
July 13, 2012
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Really, the exhibit was just so much more informative than most, and Darwinism was largely absent. That must mean something. So little speculation, so much fact.News
July 13, 2012
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That is just it Jerad, I get that criticism fairly often, and ID still comes out on top! i.e. from a purely scientific point of view, reasoning solely from 'presently acting cause known to produce the effect in question',,,
Stephen Meyer - The Scientific Basis Of Intelligent Design https://vimeo.com/32148403
,,the same method of science that Darwin himself used to try to establish the scientific validity of materialistic evolution, we know for 100% certainty that intelligence can and does routinely produce functional information as well as highly sophisticated machines and systems, whereas undirected material processes have never been shown to produce as such! It is simply a matter of inference to best explanation! Now, as to evidence for the actual existence of God, well, there are many lines of evidence, in fact, I don't know of any part of reality that can't be argued fairly strongly for Theism, from the existence of the smallest sub-atomic particle/wave to the existence of the entire universe itself, but currently my favorite evidence for the existence of God is the argument from consciousness: the argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this:
1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a 'epi-phenomena' of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Three intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit Twenty-one more famous Nobel Prize winners who rejected Darwinism as an account of consciousness - Dr. VJ Torley - April 2012 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/twenty-one-more-famous-nobel-prize-winners-who-rejected-darwinism-as-an-account-of-consciousness/ Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel - November 2012 (projected publication date) Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science's "Hardest Problem" Excerpt: 'But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can't even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don't even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.' David Barash - Materialist/Atheist Darwinian Psychologist http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/post_33052491.html Neuroscientist: “The Most Seamless Illusions Ever Created” - April 2012 Excerpt: 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. Matthew D. Lieberman - neuroscientist - materialist - UCLA professor http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/neuroscientist-most-seamless-illusions.html “No, 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, as cited in de Purucker, Gottfried. 1940. The Esoteric Tradition. California: Theosophical University Press, ch. 13). “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” (Schroedinger, Erwin. 1984. “General Scientific and Popular Papers,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden. p. 334.) "It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries') http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/wigner/
bornagain77
July 13, 2012
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BA77,
And since you have no empirical evidence that said systems and machines can be had, why do you consider it true? Is it true for you just because IT MUST BE TRUE for you? Sorry that just doesn’t fly in science! You must actually demonstrate what you claim to be true actually is true. If you do not cite the exact lab work showing a molecular machine coming into being by neo-Darwinian processes in your next response I will take it that you have no evidence no intention of being honest with the evidence!
Just curious . . . if someone directed the same kind of criticism against your support of Intelligent Design what would you? That is, someone said: you've got no observed evidence for an intelligent desinger either now or in the distance past.Jerad
July 13, 2012
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No Diogenes, I quoted Gee as to how much importance 'scientifically' we can place on fossils as to making the case that Darwinian evolution is true. I have no doubt that he believes evolution is true and that fossils can be used as secondary evidence on top of empirical evidence. I just want to know why he, and you, believes Darwinism to be true. Where is the exact laboratory work that shows sophisticated molecular machines, and or systems can be had by purely materialistic processes??? And since you have no empirical evidence that said systems and machines can be had, why do you consider it true? Is it true for you just because IT MUST BE TRUE for you? Sorry that just doesn't fly in science! You must actually demonstrate what you claim to be true actually is true. If you do not cite the exact lab work showing a molecular machine coming into being by neo-Darwinian processes in your next response I will take it that you have no evidence no intention of being honest with the evidence!bornagain77
July 13, 2012
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BA77- I got your logic re: Henry Gee. First you portray him as denying there's fossil evidence for evolution. Then when shown to be wrong, you portray him as in on the grand conspiracy. This is the same thing Jonathan Wells did to Michael Majerus. Well cited Majerus as his source for Wells' false claim that peppered moths don't rest on trees, and all the photos were faked. When Majerus said that was not true, Wells did not apologize, not thank him for the correction; Well just accused Majerus of being in on the grand conspiracy.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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Thanks nullasus! I to would like to here his take on LNC! Funny as to which parts of Henry Gee's quote you, Diogenes, are willing to pay attention to. For instance this part that you failed to highlight:
I am a religious person and I believe in God. I find the militant atheism of some evolutionary biologists ill-reasoned and childish, and most importantly unscientific
HMMM well that is telling!!!, or perhaps this part of the quote that you yourself had highlighted:
this is a logical constraint that must apply even if evolution were true — which is not in doubt, because if we didn’t have ancestors, then we wouldn’t be here. Neither does this mean that fossils exhibiting transitional structures do not exist, nor that it is impossible to reconstruct what happened in evolution.
Exactly why is evolution not in doubt so that atheistic Darwinists, and Gee, are justified in calling whatever they find a transitional fossil??? Just because we wouldn't be here??? Excuse me but that is exactly the question under investigation!!! How did we get here in the first place!!! And this is precisely the point ID has been making for years, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, not historical science as with Darwinists imagining whatever they want with fossils, the bilnd undirected processes of neo-Darwinian evolution are severely in doubt if not completely falsified. In the laboratory, where 'real science' is done, Darwinists are nowhere near making their case that 'bottom up' materialistic evolution is true from what we know of 'real-time empirical evidence'! In fact everything, and I mean everything, that we find in modern 'real-time' experiments tells us that evolution, as in unlimited plasticity of organisms, DID NOT and COULD NOT happen in a bottom up materialistic manner! If you disagree that evolution is not supported by any empirical evidence in the laboratory, please feel free to cite the exact lab work that brought ANY sophisticated molecular machine, and/or molecular system, into being using purely Darwinian processes. Notes: The following study surveys four decades of experimental work, and solidly backs up the preceding:
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast:
Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00
Several more 'real-time' studies here:
Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit
further notes: In spite of the fact of finding molecular machines permeating the simplest of bacterial life, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of even one such molecular machine or system.
"There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro - Molecular Biologist
The following expert doesn't even hide his very unscientific preconceived philosophical bias against intelligent design,,,
‘We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity,,,
Yet at the same time the same expert readily admits that neo-Darwinism has ZERO evidence for the chance and necessity of material processes producing any cellular system whatsoever,,,
,,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.’ Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. *Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA Michael Behe - No Scientific Literature For Evolution of Any Irreducibly Complex Molecular Machines http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5302950/ “The response I have received from repeating Behe's claim about the evolutionary literature, which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Chris Dutton and so on, is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am sure, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.” And he continues, “When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not, in fact, contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.” David Ray Griffin - retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology Various Articles and Videos on Molecular Machines http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMzlkNjYydmRkZw&hl=en Michael Behe - Life Reeks Of Design - 2010 - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5066181
Music and Verse: Steven Curtis Chapman - Lord of the Dance (Live) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDXbvMcMbU0 John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.bornagain77
July 13, 2012
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As for the law of non-contradiction: Oh you want to ban me.
No, you were banned already I'm pretty sure. I'd guess champignon. I just bring this up just because I know it gets your goat, if you're who I think you are. ;) So, there you go. You deny the LCD. At least you're consistent.nullasalus
July 13, 2012
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Arrgh! Damn formatting problems!!! Try again: As for the law of non-contradiction: Oh you want to ban me. A statement S does not necessarily have to be true or false. A statement S can be neither true nor false, in which case not-S is neither false nor true. If a quantum system is in an eigenstate of observable Q (with eigenvalues Q0, Q1, etc.), then the statement <Q>=Q0 implies <Q>!=Q0 is false. (Here <Q> is expectation value.) If a quantum system is not in an eigenstate of observable Q, then the statement <Q>=Q0 is neither true nor false, and <Q>!=Q0 is neither false nor true, but events of probability between 0 and 1. If the observable Q= existence of the Moon, then in principle the moon might not be in an eigenstate of Q. However, the de Broglie wavelength gets tinier the more energy a particle has (here the moon is a particle), and for the moon, the de Broglie wavelength would be so fantastically sub-atomic that quantum interference effects would be practically impossible to detect. Thus, to the limit of our instruments, the moon can be treated as being in an eigenstate of Q, and <Q>=Q0 can be treated as either true or false to the limits of our instruments.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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Dawkins went up against Craig in the free-for-all in Mexico. I would debate Craig anywhere, anytime. Come get me.
Funny - apparently Dawkins didn't consider it a debate, and given that it was a 3v3 panel discussion, not a "free for all", one would surmise that the reason Dawkins cut and run from an actual debate with Craig would be what everyone knows it to be: pants-wetting fear. As for debating you: you're an anonymous person on the internet, and even if you gave your name, chances are you'd be an effectively anonymous person on the internet. But you'd still have a chance! Craig does debate relative nobodies and even out and out hacks, like Richard Carrier.
Oh, I forgot the biggest fallacy of all, Neighbors-A-Witch. Why is the default hypothesis that an invisible, supernatural intelligence did it, when you get a very low, very badly computed probability? Who made that the default hypothesis?
The fine-tuning argument isn't advanced as something that, on its own, gets one to a "invisible, supernatural intelligence" without added qualifications. It gets one to an inference of intelligence - 'natural' or 'supernatural' doesn't fall out of fine-tuning inferences. Nor is it a "default" hypothesis - it's argued for. Against, might I add, the default "somehow random purposeless unguided invisible nature did it!" explanation. I suppose, since we're making up fallacies here, we can call that one that Anything-But-Intelligence! fallacy.
This is an even lousier analogy. I hate analogies in general, but this stinks. If all the automatons were made in a factory, they were made by an intelligence and you still know an intelligence exists that sets the parameters. You’re still assuming the antecedent.
Uh, who said anything about 'made in a factory'? And now any automaton must be created by an intelligent agent? Two more fallacies for you. The old-fashioned Strawman fallacy, and the Automatons-Means-Intelligent-Agent fallacy.
No, you can’t. What is the probability that Planck’s constant should have 10% higher value? Or 10% lower value? How would you compute such probabilities
Yes, you can - you mark your assumptions as assumptions ('the constant can vary by these degrees'), and you continue. Absolutely, you can question these premises - I outright said you could, just as I said future research could overturn your reasonable assumptions. Anyway, I'll take your glaring silence as admitting that, yes, all this "fine-tuning" talk wasn't cooked up by eeeevilll, scaaaarrry William Lane Craig. It's actually a widely accepted view, even by Grand, Glorious Atheists - hence the use with regards to multiverse reasoning. No one pretends that this speculation can't be overturned by future discoveries or insights, but the facts as we have them are the facts as we have them. Likewise, the inference to intelligent is not "default" - it's separately argued for. Now, you can reject the reasoning there as well - really, you can go the naturalist eliminative materialist route and deny mind altogether if you wish - but it's certainly not the "default" in the way you're suggesting. You should brush up on this sort of thing before you try to get in a debate with WLC. Or, really, Ken Ham - I think he's more your speed.nullasalus
July 13, 2012
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As for the law of non-contradiction: Oh you want to ban me. A statement S does not necessarily have to be true or false. A statement S can be neither true nor false, in which case not-S is neither false nor true. If a quantum system is in an eigenstate of observable Q (with eigenvalues Q0, Q1, etc.), then the statement =Q0 implies !=Q0 is false. (Here is expectation value.) If a quantum system is not in an eigenstate of observable Q, then the statement =Q0 is neither true nor false, and !=Q0 is neither false nor true, but events of probability between 0 and 1. If the observable Q= existence of the Moon, then in principle the moon might not be in an eigenstate of Q. However, the de Broglie wavelength gets tinier the more energy a particle has (here the moon is a particle), and for the moon, the de Broglie wavelength would be so fantastically sub-atomic then quantum interference effects would be practically impossible to detect. Thus, to the limit of our instruments, the moon can be treated as being in an eigenstate of Q, and =Q0 can be treated as either true or false to the limits of our instruments.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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Dawkins went up against Craig in the free-for-all in Mexico. I would debate Craig anywhere, anytime. Come get me. Oh, I forgot the biggest fallacy of all, Neighbors-A-Witch. Why is the default hypothesis that an invisible, supernatural intelligence did it, when you get a very low, very badly computed probability? Who made that the default hypothesis? Consider the following default hypotheses: 1. A supernatural intelligent cause did it. 2. A supernatural animal acting on instinct did it. 3. An unspecified supernatural cause did it. 4. An unspecified natural cause did it. Why is #1 the default that "wins", when you succeed at computing astronomically incorrect probabilities? Who decided that was the default? From a scientific point of view, all four hypotheses above stink equally: they all make the same number of testable predictions about observable quantities: zero. There is no reason why any one should be preferred over any other, if they don't make testable predictions about observable quantities.
The relevant aspect of the firing squad example has nothing to do with the intelligence of the guys holding the guns directly. Replace them with automatons if you want
This is an even lousier analogy. I hate analogies in general, but this stinks. If all the automatons were made in a factory, they were made by an intelligence and you still know an intelligence exists that sets the parameters. You're still assuming the antecedent.
What you can attempt to compute, however, is the space of possibilities these constants can occupy in principle, what space of possibilities ‘life-giving universes’ occupy
No, you can't. What is the probability that Planck's constant should have 10% higher value? Or 10% lower value? How would you compute such probabilities? The only way to compute such probabilities is to get a physics Theory of Everything (TOE) that unifies fundamental forces. Now it's important to be clear about what it means, in physics, when fundamental forces are "unified." It means a reduction in the number of basic free parameters in the laws of physics. Free parameters which used to be considered independent, are no longer independent. Think about that. Your badly computed probabilities are astronomically wrong because they were multiplied together from many individual parameters, and treated as if they were independent. Now there are only two possibilities: either we have a TOE or we don't. 1. If we don't have a TOE, we can't compute the probabilities of, say, Planck's constant be 10% higher or lower (or whatever) so all probabilities are made up and then you're just multiplying together a bunch of made up numbers. 2. If we do have a TOE, we can compute the probabilities of, say, Planck's constant be 10% higher or lower. However, the former free parameter set (of the old theory) is not independent, so the fallacy of independent probability was wrong. The new free parameter set (of the TOE) has fewer parameters and the probability would not be as small. But how much different? Beats me. Either way: 1. You have to derive a TOE. This is what theoretical physicists do. They try to unify physical forces. ID does not help nor hinder what theoretical physicists have been doing for 90 years now: trying to unify physical forces. You can blather all you like about fine-tuning, but it doesn't change the project of unifying physical forces. 2. Neighbors-A-Witch is invalid. There is no reason why the default hypothesis should be an invisible intelligent cause-- not unless it makes specific testable predictions.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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I will respond to the low grade intellect, William Lane Craig.
I love it when people call Craig things like this. Since his wall to wall stomping of everyone from mental midget Sam Harris to the delusional Victor Stenger just makes them seem worse given the claim. Not to mention Dawkins' pants-wetting fear of actually confronting him. That said, I find a lot to disagree with when it comes to Craig. So, let's look at these objections.
1. Assuming the antecedent. In the firing squad, you know there are intelligent beings that do the shooting. Where the laws of physics are concerned, you don’t know there are intelligences setting the physical constants. That’s what you’re trying to prove. If you assume such intelligences exist and made the physical constants, you’re assuming what you need to prove.
The relevant aspect of the firing squad example has nothing to do with the intelligence of the guys holding the guns directly. Replace them with automatons if you want (assuming you, unlike Dawkins and Coyne, think there's a difference between those two things.)
Where the laws of physics are concerned, you cannot compute the probability of ANY physical constant having, say, 10% higher or lower a value. So you are just making up your probabilities. The more incorrect probabilities you multiply together, the more astronomically wrong your probability is.
What you can attempt to compute, however, is the space of possibilities these constants can occupy in principle, what space of possibilities 'life-giving universes' occupy, and compare from there. Now, I say attempt - you work with limited information, and in the future you may learn something new which upends your estimates. But it's not as if this is some crazy idea Craig himself came up with - you can find multiverse proponents appealing to apparent fine tuning to support multiverse speculation.
3. Fallacy of independent probability. In the firing squad, when you compute the supposed low probability of all the shooters missing, you multiply them together. This assumes that they are acting independently. You don’t know they’re acting independently. Where the laws of physics are concerned, you cannot assume the physical constants are independent. Thus, when you multiply together the probabilities which you simply made up in step #1, you are making the fallacy of independent probability.
Except this isn't an accurate portrayal of the reasoning going into the fine-tuning argument. Granted, the argument does operate on some reasonable assumptions, and in principle it's possible for those assumptions to be incorrect. Likewise, you can't assume that the constants aren't independent - so any claim that the probabilities are wrong that rests on the possibility that the constants aren't independent is itself unfounded. By the way - the Law of Non-Contradiction. You accept it? Reject it? Really curious of that one, given your obvious commitment to logic, science and reason.nullasalus
July 13, 2012
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BA 77 - I notice you are untroubled by your dishonest use of a quote mine that misrepresented Henry Gee. Henry Gee accused the Discovery Institute and Intelligent Design promoters of dishonesty for quote mining him. You have no comment on that? Lying for the sake of promoting the faith, eh. Instead, you again upend your shopping cart of incoherent detritus and hyperlinks. I will respond to the low grade intellect, William Lane Craig.
William Lane Craig has effectively countered this argument: ‘[S]uppose you are dragged before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all of them with rifles aimed at your heart, to be executed. The command is given; you hear the deafening sound of the guns. And you observe that you are still alive, that all of the 100 marksmen missed! Now while it is true that, “You should not be surprised that you do not observe that you are dead,” nonetheless it is equally true that, “You should be surprised that you do observe that you are alive.” Since the firing squad’s missing you altogether is extremely improbable, the surprise expressed is wholly appropriate, though you are not surprised that you do not observe that you are dead, since if you were dead you could not observe it. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....53711.html
There is no analogy between the so-called "fine tuning problem" and the firing squad fallacy. The analogy is invalid because: 1. Assuming the antecedent. In the firing squad, you know there are intelligent beings that do the shooting. Where the laws of physics are concerned, you don't know there are intelligences setting the physical constants. That's what you're trying to prove. If you assume such intelligences exist and made the physical constants, you're assuming what you need to prove. 2. Making up probabilities. In the firing squad, you might be able to compute the probability of a shooter missing. Where the laws of physics are concerned, you cannot compute the probability of ANY physical constant having, say, 10% higher or lower a value. So you are just making up your probabilities. The more incorrect probabilities you multiply together, the more astronomically wrong your probability is. 3. Fallacy of independent probability. In the firing squad, when you compute the supposed low probability of all the shooters missing, you multiply them together. This assumes that they are acting independently. You don't know they're acting independently. Where the laws of physics are concerned, you cannot assume the physical constants are independent. Thus, when you multiply together the probabilities which you simply made up in step #1, you are making the fallacy of independent probability. The fact that you get probabilities like 10^-1000 doesn't impress anybody because you got them by multiplying together hundreds of numbers that were wrong. The more incorrect numbers you multiply together, the more astronomically incorrect your final probability is.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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Joe-
Evolutionary theory doesn’t make any predictions based on its proposed mechanisms. It is a useless heuristic.
Evolution makes no predictions? That's funny-- then why did creationists for decades promote dozens of fraudulent fossils, asserting that each one falsified evolution, because it contradicted the predictions of evolution? There was the Paluxy River human fraudprints amid dinosaur tracks, which Carl Baugh named "Humanus Bauanthropus", after himself; the "black skull" of Freiberg, actually made out of coal; the Calaveras skeleton fraud; Carl Baugh's "Humanus Davidii", which was actually a prehistoric fish's tooth; Clifford Burdick's "Moab Man" of the Cretaceous; Wilder-Smith's "Phenanthropus mirabilis" of the Carboniferous ("footprints" outlined with chalk); Kent Hovind's and Jack Chick's "New Guineau Man", wholly invented; "Meganthropus", photoshopped pictures of Biblical giants; the Castanedolo and Olmo fossils, real enough, though their geological strata were dishonestly identified by creationists; Burdick's pre-Cambrian pollen; and the Ica Stones from Peru, to name a few. These were all fakes, and in every single case creationist asserted: 1. They falsified evolution. 2. They contradicted the specific predictions of evolution. 3. The fact that most scientists ignored creationists' fraudulent concoctions was proof scientists are biased against creationism, 4. Which proves scientists are incompetent and untrustworthy due to unreasonable bigotry against fraudulent data. Consider the creationist and Intelligent Design theories, A.E. Wilder-Smith. He spent much of his career aggressively promoting creationist fraudulent fossils, including the Paluxy fraudprints, Phenanthropus mirabilis, and Burdick's trilobite/footprint. In one of his books, "Man's Origin, Man's Destiny", he first tells us that evolution can never be falsified.
"One of the strongest aspects of the index-fossil theory lies in the impossibility of disproving it. Even in the cases where the sequence of formations does not correspond to evolutionary theory, there is in the method a built-in possibility which allows corrections of any kind deemed necessary." [A.E. Wilder-Smith, "Man's Origin, Man's Destiny", p.130]
But 160 pages later, he needs to promote the Paluxy River fraudprints. So now evolution is falsifiable.
"If it could be conclusively proved that modern man had lived at the same time as the giant saurians, scientists would be forced to rethink the whole presently accepted evolutionary Darwinistic concept. One well-documented factual observation of this sort would rob the theory of the huge time spans regarded as a conditio sine qua non for evolution to have occurred. It is conceded that modern man...arose not more than one to ten million years ago... According to modern evolutionary theory, therefore, man could not possibly have lived as long ago as fifty million years, let alone 100 to 120 million years... It is postulated by evolutionists that... at the time of the giant reptiles, many millions of years were needed before the animal kingdom could have evolved modern man. On this basis it would be simply incompatible and impossible for an evolutionist to imagine a modern man living contemporaneously with the giant lizards. [Diogenes notes: Dinosaurs are not lizards.] One London biologist, when this possibility was discussed in his presence (of man tracks and brontosaurus tracks having been found in the same formation) remarked that a single such find would provide sound reason for renouncing all evolutionary theory." [Ibid., p.293-4]
He then follows this up, as all creationists do, with some Fraudian psychoanalysis, pulling his chin and analyzing how their must be something mentally and morally deficient about scientists because they are bigoted against creationists' fraudulent carvings, stainings, statues, chalk marks, etc. etc. So evolution is not falsifiable, and this evidence falsifies it.Diogenes
July 13, 2012
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Diogenes, Evolutionary theory doesn't make any predictions based on its proposed mechanisms. It is a useless heuristic.Joe
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I saw that you objected that I was using "God of the gaps' to explain fine-tuning, yet, it has been known for centuries that one must ultimately appeal to a 'first cause' not only for the material universe but one must even appeal to 'first mover' for motion in the universe.
Not Understanding Nothing - A review of A Universe from Nothing - Edward Feser Excerpt: A critic might reasonably question the arguments for a divine first cause of the cosmos. But to ask “What caused God?” misses the whole reason classical philosophers thought his existence necessary in the first place. So when physicist Lawrence Krauss begins his new book by suggesting that to ask “Who created the creator?” suffices to dispatch traditional philosophical theology, we know it isn’t going to end well. ,,, But Krauss simply can’t see the “difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one.” The difference, as the reader of Aristotle or Aquinas knows, is that the universe changes while the unmoved mover does not, or, as the Neoplatonist can tell you, that the universe is made up of parts while its source is absolutely one; or, as Leibniz could tell you, that the universe is contingent and God absolutely necessary. There is thus a principled reason for regarding God rather than the universe as the terminus of explanation. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/05/not-understanding-nothing
As to first cause:
"Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” - Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston - paper delivered at Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday party https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/vilenkins-verdict-all-the-evidence-we-have-says-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning/
and as to 'unmoved mover' accounting for change in the universe (free will arguments aside for a moment):
‘Quantum Magic’ Without Any ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ – June 2011 Excerpt: A team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences used a system which does not allow for entanglement, and still found results which cannot be interpreted classically. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624111942.htm Falsification of Local Realism without using Quantum Entanglement - Anton Zeilinger - video http://vimeo.com/34168474
Interesting sidenote:
Persistent dynamic entanglement from classical motion: How bio-molecular machines can generate non-trivial quantum states – November 2011 Excerpt: We also show how conformational changes can be used by an elementary machine to generate entanglement even in unfavorable conditions. In biological systems, similar mechanisms could be exploited by more complex molecular machines or motors. http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2126
Of related interest:
"A Bit Unprepossessing": Plantinga on the Logic of Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker - Jay W. Richards February 9, 2012 Excerpt: what Dawkins has in mind is something like this: If it's unlikely that a bacterial flagellum could have arisen by chance or the Darwinian mechanism, then any agent that designed the flagellum would be even less likely. Plantinga finds a fatal problem here. Dawkins defines complexity as the property of something that has parts "arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone." But God is immaterial and so doesn't have parts in this sense. According to Dawkins's own definition of complexity, therefore, God is not complex. One can make a similar point without invoking God. It doesn't follow that because an agent can produce organized complexity, that the agent is complex. (Frankly, I don't think it makes sense to refer to any agent as "complex.") Organized complexity might very well be a reliable sign of an intelligent agent. So Dawkins's argument against the improbability of God's existence, and, a fortiori, the improbability of intelligent design, fails. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/a_bit_unpreposs056161.html
bornagain77
July 13, 2012
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Well, regardless of your shallow dismissals of probability, extreme fine-tuning is a fact that refuses to go away for the materialist:
Infinitely wrong - Sheldon - November 2010 Excerpt: So you see, they gleefully cry, even [1 / 10^(10^123)] x ? = 1! Even the most improbable events can be certain if you have an infinite number of tries.,,,Ahh, but does it? I mean, zero divided by zero is not one, nor is 1/? x ? = 1. Why? Well for starters, it assumes that the two infinities have the same cardinality. http://procrustes.blogtownhall.com/2010/11/05/infinitely_wrong.thtml On Signature in the Cell, Robert Saunders Still Doesn't Get It - Jonathan M. - December 2011 Excerpt: On the issue of fine tuning, Saunders appeals to the famous anthropic argument, noting, 'The fine-tuning argument has always seemed to me to be somewhat tautologous. Had the constants been different, we would not be here to look at the Universe and its physical constants. We have a sample size of 1. Exactly 1.' William Lane Craig has effectively countered this argument: '[S]uppose you are dragged before a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all of them with rifles aimed at your heart, to be executed. The command is given; you hear the deafening sound of the guns. And you observe that you are still alive, that all of the 100 marksmen missed! Now while it is true that, "You should not be surprised that you do not observe that you are dead," nonetheless it is equally true that, "You should be surprised that you do observe that you are alive." Since the firing squad's missing you altogether is extremely improbable, the surprise expressed is wholly appropriate, though you are not surprised that you do not observe that you are dead, since if you were dead you could not observe it. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/robert_saunders053711.html
For the more technically minded, Here is a defense against Victor Stenger's “no fine-tuning” claims:
Many of Victor Stenger’s “no fine-tuning” claims dubbed “highly problematic” (in new peer reviewed paper) - January 2012 Excerpt: We will touch on such issues as the logical necessity of the laws of nature; objectivity, invariance and symmetry; theoretical physics and possible universes; entropy in cosmology; cosmic inflation and initial conditions; galaxy formation; the cosmological constant; stars and their formation; the properties of elementary particles and their effect on chemistry and the macroscopic world; the origin of mass; grand unified theories; and the dimensionality of space and time. I also provide an assessment of the multiverse, noting the significant challenges that it must face. https://uncommondescent.com/fine-tuning/many-of-victor-stengers-no-fine-tuning-claims-dubbed-highly-problematic/
Here is a layman friendly review of the preceding paper:
Is fine-tuning a fallacy? - January 2012 Excerpt: Well, it seems that the great Stenger has finally met his match. Dr. Luke A. Barnes, a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, has written a scathing critique of Stenger’s book. I’ve read refutations in my time, but I have to say, this one is devastating. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-fine-tuning-a-fallacy/
Moreover:
Baron Münchhausen and the Self-Creating Universe: Roger Penrose has calculated that the entropy of the big bang itself, in order to give rise to the life-permitting universe we observe, must be fine-tuned to one part in e10exp(123)?10^10exp(123). Such complex specified conditions do not arise by chance, even in a string-theoretic multiverse with 10^500 different configurations of laws and constants, so an intelligent cause may be inferred. What is more, since it is the big bang itself that is fine-tuned to this degree, the intelligence that explains it as an effect must be logically prior to it and independent of it – in short, an immaterial intelligence that transcends matter, energy and space-time. (of note: 10^10^123 minus 10^500 is still, for all practical purposes, 10^10^123) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/baron_munchausen_and_the_selfc.html
As well, I stand by the Gee quote on the 'unscientific' nature of the fossil record regardless of his opinion of the morality of the Discovery Institute, especially since objective morality cannot be grounded in a materialistic neo-Darwinian worldview in the first place! Music and verse:
Creed - My Sacrifice http://www.youtube.com/v/O-fyNgHdmLI&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1 Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
bornagain77
July 13, 2012
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