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“God-of-the-Gaps” Rolled Into “Chance-of-the-Gaps

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As I pointed out in my earlier post, Stephen Barr believes God plays dice with the universe, but he’s OK with that because the dice are loaded.  Barr affirms the standard Darwinian line that life came about through a random undirected process, and at the same time Barr says God directed the process at a deeper level of reality so that a process that appears random to us is in reality directed by God.

To be consistent Barr would have to disagree with Stephen Jay Gould.  Gould asserted that if one were to rewind the tape of life and play it over, things would almost certainly turn out very differently.  If Gould was right, the randomness of Darwinism would be “ontological” in nature. If Barr is right, the randomness of Darwinism would be only “epistemological” in nature.  Another way of putting it is, on Gould’s view, the outcome of Darwinian evolution is “contingent” (or, as some would put it, “radically contingent”), and on Barr’s view, the outcome of Darwinian evolution is deterministic.  

Gould’s view cannot be reconciled with God’s providence.  By definition, if evolution were ontologically random – i.e., if God allowed secondary causes to have complete freedom to create any kind of life (or no life) – then he could not have ordained a process that necessarily resulted in man’s appearance.  We are not the result of God’s will.  We are a lucky side effect of a process God did not control.

Barr’s view, on the other hand, can be reconciled with God’s providence.  It is not logically impossible for an omniscient and omnipotent God to create life through a process that appears to us to be random and undirected but which — at a deeper level of reality we cannot detect empirically — is really directed by Him.  Therefore, we must concede that God “could have” done it that way.  

Of course, the important question is not what God “could have” done, but what did he actually do.  And to accept Barr’s position we must pay a very heavy price with respect to our ideas about God’s nature and the intelligibility of reality.  

1.  Barr’s God is Lawless.  

We know that God can and sometimes does break the laws of physics (e.g., turning water into wine, feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes, etc.).  Nevertheless, we go about our day to day lives expecting the laws of physics to hold inviolate.  In other words, we know that while it is possible for God to break his physical laws, he does not usually do so.  That is why we call it a “miracle” when he does.  Miracles are, by definition, not what one ordinarily expects.  Yes, God breaks his own laws of physics on rare occasions, but in the overwhelming majority of cases we can count on those laws holding.  God is orderly.  He is not the author of confusion the Bible says.  Just imagine the confusion that would result if we did not know from moment to moment whether water would stay water or spontaneously convert to wine. 

Let me posit another law, which I will call the “law” of randomness.  That law states that an event that has a probability less than the universal probability bound (1 in 10^-150) almost certainly will never happen.  Barr’s position turns the “law” of probability on its head.  That is the problem with the “random arrow that got Ahab” analogy.  Yes, in that discrete instance God used an improbable random event to accomplish his purpose.  But just as we count on the fact that God does not routinely suspend the laws of physics, we also count on God not routinely breaking the law of probability.  In other words, we count on improbable events rarely happening.  But Barr’s theory counts on highly improbable events happening routinely.  His theory is the probablistic equivalent of water turning into wine not just once in history, but every single day. 

Let me explain.  There are dozens if not hundreds of examples of specified complexity in every living things.  Things such as the irreducible complexity of the nano-machinery inside every cell, the low number of functional protein folds compared to the vast configuration space of possible protein folds, the staggering amount of complex specified information imbedded in the DNA code (I could go on and on).  If Barr is correct, all of these examples of specified complexity arose though a random process.  The probability of any one of these processes coming about randomly is below the universal probability bound.  Thus, according to Barr, life as we know it is the result of countless trillions of events happening, EACH of which was beyond the universal probability bound. 

The price of asserting that God created in the way Barr asserts is that we must posit a God who is totally lawless.  For surely that is a corollary to the proposition that God ignores the “law” of probability to such an extent that the exceptions to the law perhaps outnumber the events that conform to it.  I am certain Barr would not tolerate the idea of a God who routinely breaks the laws of physics.  One is left to wonder why he promotes the idea of a God who routinely breaks the law of probability.   

2.  Barr’s Position Makes the Universe Unintelligible.   

            In his paper “The Chance of the Gaps,” Dembski writes:   

Statistical reasoning must be capable of eliminating chance when the probability of events gets too small. If not, chance can be invoked to explain anything. Scientists rightly resist invoking the supernatural in scientific explanations for fear of committing a god-of-the-gaps fallacy (the fallacy of using God as a stop-gap for ignorance). Yet without some restriction on the use of chance, scientists are in danger of committing a logically equivalent fallacy — one we may call the chance-of-the-gaps fallacy.

 

            Darwinists know their theory relies on the instantiation of countless events that have a probability far below the universal probability bound.  Since the universe we have does not have enough probablistic resources to accomplish the task Darwin set for it, Darwinists are becoming more and more enamored with multiverse theory.  Of course, invoking the multiverse has its own problems, because it means the end of “explanation” if everything can be explained by resort to pure blind chance.  “Guys!  We just happen to live in the universe where my getting six royal flushes in a row is instantiated.  It was bound to happen somewhere.  Why not here.” 

If there are infinite probablistic resources there is no universal probability bound and anything can happen and does.  But this makes the whole concept of probability incoherent and the world becomes all but unintelligible. 

 Barr is not invoking a multiverse, but he is invoking yet another concept that makes it impossible for statistical reasoning to eliminate chance when the probability of events gets too small.  No matter how wildly improbable a Darwinist explanation may be, Barr is undeterred, because God is directing things behind the scenes.  Barr’s position is a kind of God-of-the-gaps and chance-of-the-gaps fallacy rolled into one:  Anything is possible through sheer blind random chance if by “random” we mean “directed by God.”  And just as with the multiverse, if we can explain everything by resort to chance, then the very concept of “explanation” loses all meaning.  

Comments
Sigh. I guess I could pull up Miller's testimony and try to figure out which 8 papers he used. But surely Nick knows. Give us one paper Nick. One paper only. The origin of the immune system. Surely by now it is well understood and documented.Mung
November 18, 2012
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Nick?Mung
November 17, 2012
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Nick, The equivocation, it burns. Michael Behe claimed the scientific literature had “no answers” on the evolution of the immune system via blind and undirected processes, such as natural selection along with genetic drift. Heck we can't even explain the existence of metazoans via drift and natural selection. All you have is to say, "well it must have all "evolved" because we know there wasn't any and now there is, and unguided evolution is the only answer"- and for that you get a PhD...Joe
November 16, 2012
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Nick @ 29 From what I've seen, the problem with papers that purport to explain away irreducible complexity is that they use an incorrect method. The most direct test of the irreducible complexity of a mechanical system is to remove its constituent parts one at a time and then look to see if the system continues to function. I believe Scott Minnich did this in regards to the bacterial flagellum using gene-knockout experiments. In contrast, it seems like most attempts to defeat the concept of IC rely on questionable comparisons. The resemblance between a type-3 secretory system and a bacterial flagellum doesn't actually address whether or not the flagellum has IC. It's rather a bit of sophistry to simply juxtapose similar systems and then claim a clear Darwinian pathway simply based on appearances. Really, whenever someone makes the claim that a biological system (micro or macro) is accessible to the step-by-step Darwinian pathway, the onus is on that person to show how this could happen (e.g. what mutations would be necessary, assessments of fitness for intermediate systems, etc.). The uncritical reliance on similarity is a perpetual blindspot for advocates of Neo-Darwinism.Optimus
November 16, 2012
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Please Nick,Andre
November 16, 2012
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Just one, Nick, if you can. Give it your best shot.Mung
November 16, 2012
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Cheap, and lazy. There is no field in science in which all relevant information of interest is found in one single article. I presented you with a detailed nontechnical summary, referencing the primary literature for those who want more information on specific points. That's as good as it can ever get for nonexperts. Michael Behe claimed the scientific literature had "no answers" on the evolution of the immune system, now we have you complaining that there are too many articles. The irony, it burns.NickMatzke_UD
November 16, 2012
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During his direct testimony, Plaintiffs' expert Kenneth Miller highlighted eight articles on the development and confirmation of the transposon hypothesis for the evolutionary origin of the adaptive immune system.
Not even a theory. ok, we've narrowed it down to 8. Now Nick, of those 8, please direct us to a specific one. Just one. Preferably one that is freely available, you know how cheap we ID'ers are.Mung
November 16, 2012
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Then I'm still waiting for any evidence that sexual reproductive systems evolved in a Darwinian step wise process..... anything Nick?Andre
November 16, 2012
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Nick all that paper is, is anti creationist and anti ID drivel, its not science, its not facts based on evidence, its hogwash but believe it if you must. Speculation abound, may e's plenty but any real facts? Nothing.... I'm disappointed that you chose to blow your own trumpet...Andre
November 16, 2012
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If you want to give us a cite to a specific article and lay out why you think it explains the evolution of the immune system I’m sure we’ll be happy to take a look at it (subject to the next paragraph).
Done: http://ncse.com/book/export/html/2520NickMatzke_UD
November 16, 2012
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Nick @29:
So you guys are actually just repeating the same ol’ irreducible complexity argument. Yawn. Go read the Kitzmiller testimony. Go read the literature cited therein. Go read the hundreds of articles on the evolution of the immune system. The IC argument depends on the intermediate “partial” systems not being functional, but in case after case such systems have been found. Game over.
Boy, there are more misconceptions in this one paragraph than we can shake a stick at. 1. IC is a real issue. And no-one who is a prominent ID proponent -- certainly not Behe -- has disputed that *IF* there is an unbroken chain of intermediate steps from A to Z, and *IF* each step can readily be found in the population by chance, and *IF* each step confers a significant survival advantage, and *IF* there is a large enough population, and *IF* there is and a long enough time involved, then we can get from A to Z through a Darwinian process. The question, Nick, as you well know, is not this hypothetical evolutionary chain. The question is whether such a chain exists in the real world under real-world conditions. There is every reason to believe that in many cases it does not. 2. Kitzmiller. LOL! 3. Hundreds of articles on the immune system. This is a literature bluff and you know it. I'm tired of tracking down articles you claim demonstrate this or that evolution (like, no offense, your purely hypothetical article about how the bacterial flagellum evolved) only to find that it is full of "could have's" "maybe's" "might have's" "we speculate that's" and so on. No-one has demonstrated how the immune system actually evolved and you know it. If you want to give us a cite to a specific article and lay out why you think it explains the evolution of the immune system I'm sure we'll be happy to take a look at it (subject to the next paragraph). Finally, and this is key, it may well be that a handful of systems have arisen through some chance process plus natural selection. Again, no-one is disputing that if all the right conditions are there it can happen. ID doesn't have an issue with this. ID does, however, claim that some systems require design; and further, that the Darwinian unbroken chain isn't there in some cases. ID can accommodate both design and some level of purely natural chance. The problem with your materialistic creation myth is it that it is an absolute theory. Under your theory no part of biology can have been designed. And there is every evidence and every reason to think that there are many systems that are not amenable to the Darwinian storyline. And having just one such system is a big problem for the materialist creation myth.Eric Anderson
November 16, 2012
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as to: "Go read the hundreds of articles on the evolution of the immune system." In this following podcast, Casey Luskin interviews microbiologist and immunologist Donald Ewert about his previous work as associate editor for the journal Development and Comparitive Immunology, where he realized that the papers published were comparative studies that had nothing to do with evolution at all. What Does Evolution Have to Do With Immunology? Not Much - April 2011 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-04-06T11_39_03-07_00 "A Masterful Feat of Courtroom Deception": Immunologist Donald Ewert on Dover Trial - audio http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-20T15_01_03-08_00 The deception (literature bluff) from neo-Darwinists at Dover did not stop with immunology; The NCSE, Judge Jones, and Bluffs About the Origin of New Functional Genetic Information – Casey Luskin – March 2010 http://www.discovery.org/a/14251bornagain77
November 16, 2012
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Nick:
Go read the hundreds of articles on the evolution of the immune system.
For the immune system to evolve, it must first exist. I recall asking for evidence for the evolutionary origin of recombination. Jerad sent me to a paper titled, appropriately enough "The Evolution of Recombination." Guess what. It wasn't about the origin of recombination at all. So, Nick, please shuffle through all those articles for us and single out just one that explains the origin of the immune system. Joe:
You are obviously just ignorant of what IC and ID actually claims.
He knows, he just doesn't care. He argues as if facts matter, but in a way that clearly indicates only some facts matter.Mung
November 16, 2012
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Nick Matzke:
So you guys are actually just repeating the same ol’ irreducible complexity argument. Yawn. Go read the Kitzmiller testimony. Go read the literature cited therein. Go read the hundreds of articles on the evolution of the immune system. The IC argument depends on the intermediate “partial” systems not being functional, but in case after case such systems have been found. Game over.
Keep telling yourself that, Nick. Some day it may come true. I have read the Kitzmiller testimiony. There isn;t anything in it that demonstrates any multi-part system can evolve via blind and undirected processes. The entire peer-review system is void of such evidence. And no Nick, the IC argument DOES NOT depend on the intermediate “partial” systems not being functional. You are obvioulsy just ignorant of what IC and ID actually claims.Joe
November 16, 2012
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tjguy: Are you any relation to aiguy? I think you have misread my intention. My assumptions were made in line with neo-Darwinism -- a theory I don't agree with. I was trying to show in what sense I understood evolutionary outcomes in neo-Darwinism to be contingent, since previously nullasalus and StephenB had been discussing the meaning of "contingent." So I had to describe a neo-Darwinian evolutionary scenario as if things could have actually happened in that way, not because I think things did happen in that way. Based on that scenario, I was arguing, God would have to do something more than let things run by general laws, if he wanted evolution to go anywhere in particular, because the existence of any important goal (e.g., man) would depend on a whole chain of contingent previous events, any one of which could be thwarted by any number of means. So if some little shrew that has already started evolving toward man gets picked off by a predator, and he is the only one with the key genes, then either man doesn't come into being, or another shrew has to luckily acquire those genes again, and that may not be for another 5 million years, and that might be too late to get man here on time (where "on time" is determined by our fossil record). So God has to make darned sure that eagle doesn't eat that shrew. And no natural law can do that, only an intervention (or a rigid determinism of literally every event that makes Denton's front-loading look like wild libertarianism). So if a TE opts for neo-Darwinism, he's got to believe that God intervenes, and intervenes many times, to keep evolution on track. But only a very few TEs will endorse or even show any warmth toward intervention. That's the first problem. And those who *do* acknowledge the reality or even possibility of intervention are allowing for a "God of the gaps" -- exactly what they criticize ID for. That's the second problem. TEs are thus in a theoretical pickle. They can keep pure naturalism, but, because Darwinian evolution is contingent and can't guarantee results, they can't adopt neo-Darwinian naturalism and hang onto a guaranteed emergence of man (which the Christian tradition requires). So they would have to opt for a strong, necessitarian form of naturalism, in which God rigidly determines outcomes from impulses set up in the beginning. But that would be just the sort of "anti-freedom" conception of God that most of the TEs hate, a "Calvinist" rather than a "Wesleyan" God, as the BioLogos folks put it, or a "tyrant" rather than a "loving parent" as Ken Miller would put it. So it seems that pure naturalism has to be abandoned by the TEs. That forces the TEs to interventionism. And the only way they can "save face" with their secular scientific colleagues, and still retain belief in interventionism, is to say that the interventions occur "under cover" (of quantum indeterminacy or the like), so that everything that happens in evolution *looks* natural (even though many of the events are secretly cause by special divine action); in this way, an atheist like Coyne and a believer like Russell can give the same "scientific" account -- random mutations plus natural selection -- with Russell crossing his fingers behind his back, because he believes the mutations aren't really random, but guided. Thus, a TE account need not overtly contradict any statement of neo-Darwinian biology on the descriptive level, even though a person like Russell doesn't think evolution happened in the way that the atheists assert. But the fact is that Darwin and his heirs would have spit upon such a notion of intervention, as cheating on the basic commitment of science, which is to find natural causes (not special divine actions that merely look like natural causes) for the phenomena. As for your point about the Bible, I agree with the way you read Romans 1. I think the TEs acknowledge a truth in Romans 1, but Russell would probably say, and I'm guessing that Barr would say, that the knowledge of an ordering mind which is shown to us in nature is not *scientific* knowledge, but more like philosophical or just plain intuitive knowledge. So they aren't contradicting the Bible there, but giving it an interpretation quite different from the one many ID people would give it.Timaeus
November 16, 2012
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OK, I'll stick in my two cents worth here. This is for Timaeus and everyone else who blindly takes all these assumptions as fact. Timaeus, you sure do have a lot of assumptions in your first post. Are we just to take these all by faith? How do we know that are true? First assumption: So, assume a population of small, primitive mammals, at the time when there is still only one species of mammals. Second assumption: Now let’s say that a “random mutation” occurs, and eventually becomes “fixed” in the population. Third assumption: Now, suppose the next random mutation, called B, occurs in the population. Suppose that there are a million possible B mutations, B1, B2, etc., corresponding perhaps to different locations on the genome. Fourth assumption: Suppose that of these, only eight, say, B17, B102, B2001, B39762, — you get the picture — could lead to human beings. Fifth assumption: “…suppose that B17 gets fixed in the population. That makes human beings possible.” Wow! That's a whopper of an assumption! Sixth assumption: “For, of all the independent mutations that occur after B17, it may be that only six, call them C3, C12, C101, etc., could lead to human beings.” (Then again, maybe there are none that could lead to humans) Seventh and biggest assumption: There exists such a step by step mutational pathway whereby humans could have evolved over time through this type of Darwinian process. This is what the evolutionist takes by faith, but these are HUGE assumptions and cannot be verified! Plus, it doesn’t seem to jive very well with what the Creator Himself has told us about creation in His Word, so I can’t see why any Christian would want to switch their faith from God’s Word to such unverifiable man-made assumptions based on methodological naturalistic interpretations of the evidence that rule out God from the beginning. “…So, where does Barr fit in? It seems to me that Barr is saying, at a minimum, that God *may* act directly; .... But he is denying that such action can be detected by science. … Well, Barr could be right.” He could only be right if you disregard the Bible and the testimony of the Creator Himself. God has said that His footprints in nature are clear for all to see. Romans 1:19-20 “19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” That does indeed seem to be the case as we are continually amazed by the design we find in living things. Software in the cell points to a Programmer, information to a Mind/Sender, codes to an Encoder, machines to an Engineer/Inventor, beauty to an Artist, natural laws to a Law Giver, morality to a moral Law Giver, self-consciousness to a Mind/Person, systems to a Designer/Maker, and design to real, intrinsic purpose. "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them."tjguy
November 15, 2012
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Nick, Nucleic triplets and aaRS are an irreducibly complex system which you cannot refute.Upright BiPed
November 15, 2012
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The IC argument depends on the intermediate “partial” systems not being functional, but in case after case such systems have been found.
Ah, the "if you totally disassemble a mousetrap you can use the wire as a tie clip, therefore there's always a route to an IC structure" response. As if that hasn't been responded to ad nauseum and shown not to address the IC argument. What's more, that an IC system can (if broken into component parts) have functionality *for a different function* isn't require for the IC argument to go through. Nor do you do damage to the IC argument by positing some complex structure, and pointing out it can do the same exact function (perhaps less efficiently) with less parts. An IC structure, by definition, cannot do a particular function if any parts are removed. You've been here for years, Nick. You know this. Why is always a bluff with you? Is this really what you went to school for?nullasalus
November 15, 2012
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So you guys are actually just repeating the same ol' irreducible complexity argument. Yawn. Go read the Kitzmiller testimony. Go read the literature cited therein. Go read the hundreds of articles on the evolution of the immune system. The IC argument depends on the intermediate "partial" systems not being functional, but in case after case such systems have been found. Game over.NickMatzke_UD
November 15, 2012
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Nick @23:
You are forgetting that there are a lot of “tries” in evolution, and evolution preserves the rare successes. So they accumulate over time.
No, I'm not forgetting that there are lots of tries. You could add several orders of magnitude more tries and it won't make any difference. The probabilities are such that all the tries available over the entire history of the Earth aggregated are but a rounding error to the terrible odds that beset the materialist creation story. On the other hand, what you seem to be forgetting is that even in a sequence of tries you still have to have all the parts come together at the right time and place. Indeed, in sequence, we even have to have all the intermediates be functional, which, arguably, can be an even bigger hurdle in some cases. Take a functional biological system composed of parts A-J. With an abrupt scenario, we need all 10 parts to come together at the same time and place in a coordinated fashion to work. Effectively impossible, so no-one believes it anymore. A series scenario sounds more plausible at first blush, until we stop to think about it. In series we also need the parts to come together in the same place, but we also need the right timing for the various parts and the chain of intermediate systems. And we have to have an unbroken series of these functional, survival-advantageous, intermediate systems. System A has to function, then System A-B has to function, then System A-C has to function, and so on. And each one has to more than function; it has to provide a meaningful survival advantage over other organisms and other competing advantageous systems. Yes, yes, we are all duly impressed with Darwin's metaphor of selection dutifully selecting all that is good and adding it up over time. But there is essentially zero empirical evidence that any complex functional system in biology has ever arisen this way. Pick any existing system composed of a half dozen or more medium-length proteins and then let's do the math to see what would be required to get the system built on the basis of mutations to DNA. The math isn't going to be very pretty for the materialistic storyline, regardless of whether it is all at once or in a series. One of the great rhetorical moves of Darwinism is positing small changes that accumulate over time. The great rhetorical advantage to this approach is not that there is evidence complex biological systems can actually be built in this fashion, but rather that small changes are more believable. At least until we start to ask some hard questions . . .Eric Anderson
November 15, 2012
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Nick:
So they accumulate over time. As do lottery winners.
Or not: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/09/29/lottery-winner-dies/1603257/Mung
November 15, 2012
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OK, Ted, I'll give you Polkinghorne, on the strength of context. But note that he doesn't actually say anything about God doing any special divine action in the passage -- all he talks about are things like indeterminacy and butterfly effects and so on, which don't by themselves imply that God does anything special. "The smallest trigger" could be the flapping of a butterfly wing rather than God. It's only from the context, i.e., prayer, that one can infer that he is suggesting that maybe God can act by tiny nudges in the midst of all the countervailing forces. But he never says it outright. And you say he breaks off the discussion there. So he's given the straight line, but neglected the punch line. That's poor exposition. Nonetheless, I'll yield the point to you. OK, so "never" was too strong a word. Let me rephrase: I've never, in all the discussions I've read on the old ASA list, or on BioLogos, seen any TE suggest that God hides behind quantum indeterminacy and does invisible things *in order to make the normal operations of nature work*. I've never seen it suggested that Titan would fall out of its orbit if God weren't subtly twigging things under the quantum radar; I've never seen it suggested that the continental plates wouldn't move under their own power, without God nudging them. And I've never seen anyone say, "Maybe God does special actions in making the tide roll in and maybe he doesn't; that's a mystery of divine action I just don't have scientific data for." The operative assumption is that the tides roll in because of natural laws. I think you know this is a true statement of how your TE colleagues at BioLogos and on the old ASA have *usually* talked. So, can I induce you to talk about this majority TE conception (God nearly always works exclusively through natural laws, without throwing in any magic tricks), and address the substance of the argument I made to nullasalus? If evolution is a wholly natural process (which is the tacit premise of every single biological and geological article ever published on BioLogos), then TEs should no more be talking about subtle quantum interventions that God slips in to make evolution work than about subtle quantum interventions God slips in to make the tides work. Evolution should work just fine, if God does nothing but sustain the natural laws. So why the failure of nerve in TE naturalism? Why speak about God maybe doing something special in evolution and maybe not, as if there is any doubt about the adequacy of natural processes to turn a bacterium into a man? Aren't the TEs sure that random mutations plus natural selection can do it? Do they want possible quantum intervention as an insurance policy, in case the Darwinian mechanism proves inadequate? The overall theoretical position of TE is as clear as mud. Don't misunderstand me. I've got nothing against quantum intervention or divine action that's invisible. I'm quite content, theologically, to imagine such an action. I don't find it heretical or inconsistent with the Biblical God. My point is that such intervention shouldn't be necessary from a TE point of view. So the question is why Russell or any TE should posit it.Timaeus
November 15, 2012
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NM: Pardon, but lotteries are DESIGNED to be winnable on the scope of anticipated ticket purchases. Think about Powerball. That makes a VERY crucial distinction from the 500 bit threshold for FSCI on the gamut of our solar system. The chemical reaction time sample to the set of possibilities is as one straw sized sample to a cubical haystack 1,000 LY on the side. Even if such were superposed on our galactic neighbourhood, it is obvious that a one straw sized sample will overwhelmingly be straw and nothing else. To practical certainty. Too much haystack, too small a sample, too few "needles." And, this has been pointed out to you and your ilk over and over again, evidently to no effect because you seemingly cannot afford to see what is really a very simple point on needles, haystacks and searches. (And, we have not touched the 1,000 bit threshold or pointed out how the minimally complex observed genome has been of order 100,000 bits; where every successive bit DOUBLES the space of possibilities.) KFkairosfocus
November 15, 2012
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Nick Matzke:
Your “math” proves that no one has ever won any lottery, ever.
No, just your twisted/ demented version of it.
You are forgetting that there are a lot of “tries” in evolution, and evolution preserves the rare successes.
You are forgetting that successes are relative, sometimes competitive and both ID and baraminology are OK with that type of evolution.
So they accumulate over time.
Maybe, maybe not.
As do lottery winners.
Lottery winners will never accumulate to be some other species with new features, Nick.Joe
November 15, 2012
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Unfortunately for the committed materialist, it doesn’t matter whether you are talking about getting a bunch of coordinated mutations all at once (a la Goldschmidt’s Hopeful Monster) or a bunch of coordinated mutations one after another in a row. Either way, the math kills the Darwinian storyline.
Your "math" proves that no one has ever won any lottery, ever. In fact, we have hundreds or thousands of lottery winners around at any given time. You are forgetting that there are a lot of "tries" in evolution, and evolution preserves the rare successes. So they accumulate over time. As do lottery winners.NickMatzke_UD
November 15, 2012
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Ted Peters (quoting Polkinghorne):
The weather is incredibly complicated, in a way that makes it impossible to say exactly what will or will not make it rain next Saturday. Remember all those African butterflies. The smallest triggers can have the largest eventual effects.
Do you think he was saying this: The weather is incredibly complicated, in a way that makes it impossible to say exactly what [natural event] will or will not make it rain next Saturday. Remember all those African butterflies. The smallest [natural] triggers can have the largest eventual effects. So if you're praying, hope that something just happened, one of those tiniest natural triggers, at just the right time and in the right place so that just appears that God answered your prayer. Or this: If you're praying, hope that God, knowing in advance your need and your prayer and having decided in advance to answer it, caused something to happen that would not otherwise have happened, even though that event might have been very tiny and far away, in time and or distance so that your prayer could be answered.Mung
November 15, 2012
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Eric:
As if winning ten lotteries in a row is a whole lot more probable than winning ten lotteries at the same time. Right . . .
Having won one lottery increases your chances of winning the next lottery. It's basic lottery genetics. You ID'ers just don't understand simple maths.Mung
November 15, 2012
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Nick... I would love to see proof that sexual reproductive systems evolved step by step, then show me how random processes just happened to make a his and hers version by chance.... . It is impossible to procreate if the systems are not perfectly compatible. I honestly beg this question.....Andre
November 15, 2012
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Timaeus @13: Now, note what you *don’t* hear scientists of any camp, including TEs, saying. You don’t hear them saying: “As far as science is concerned, rainfall is caused by wholly natural causes, but there may also be some divine special action, done subtly under the cover of quantum indeterminacy, by which God makes sure that certain molecules evaporate rather than others, or makes raindrops fall more intensely upon certain places.” I've had several exchanges here in the past with you, Timaeus, and I think you've said that you just don't know the works of major TE authors (I don't mean the popular TE authors, but the major ones who don't usually write popular books), including Polkinghorne. If this is right, then we have an instance here to verify that. Let me quote from one of his least scholarly, most "popular" works, *Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity*, specifically from the chapter, "Can A Scientist Pray?" Here we go. "Can we really pray today in a way that asks things of God? In a drought, could we pray for a change in the weather? When people believed that rain came from turning on the heavenly tap, it might have made sense to do so. Now we're a bit more sophisticated. Doesn't the weather just *happen*? Hasn't science shown us that the world is so orderly and regular that there's no room left for God to do anything in particular? "Three things--one scientific, one human, one religious--should make us pause before dismissing this matter quite so quickly. The scientific one first. "If the world were mechanized, a king of gigantic piece of clockwork, with God being the great unseen clockmaker, then, no doubt, it would all just tick away and we'd have to hope that he'd wound it up so cleverly that things wouldn't turn out too badly. The last chapter, though, showed us that modern science doesn't describe the world like this at all. It is much more subtle and, maybe, also more supple than this. The weather is incredibly complicated, in a way that makes it impossible to say exactly what will or will not make it rain next Saturday. Remember all those African butterflies. The smallest triggers can have the largest eventual effects." (p. 63) He goes no further here with that topic, but there is enough here already to suggest that you're overreaching, Timaeus.Ted Davis
November 15, 2012
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