Another species of “hominin” still alive?

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April 21, 2022

Human evolution, Intelligent Design

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Human evolution
Intelligent Design}

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Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid by [Gregory Forth]

No, it does not make nearly that much sense. The Flores people were real.

Meanwhile, here’s the story by anthropologist Gregory Forth, author of Between Ape and Human (2022) — a summary of his book, more or less — advancing a remarkable claim about still-missing “hominins” at The Scientist:

Coming from a professional anthropologist and ethnobiologist, my conclusions will probably surprise many. They might even be more startling than the discovery of H. floresiensis—once described by paleoanthropologist Peter Brown of the University of New England in New South Wales as tantamount to the discovery of a space alien. Unlike other books concerned with hominin evolution, the focus of my book is not on fossils but on a local human population called the Lio and what these people say about an animal (as they describe it) that is remarkably like a human but is not human—something I can only call an ape-man. My aim in writing the book was to find the best explanation—that is, the most rational and empirically best supported—of Lio accounts of the creatures. These include reports of sightings by more than 30 eyewitnesses, all of whom I spoke with directly. And I conclude that the best way to explain what they told me is that a non-sapiens hominin has survived on Flores to the present or very recent times.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

So no one has ever found one of them but we are supposed to take this seriously?

Also:

Lio folk zoology and cosmology also include stories of natural beings, specifically humans, transforming permanently into animals of other kinds. And they do this, in part, by moving into new environments and adopting new ways of life, thus suggesting a qualified Lamarckism.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

Which is supposed to make the evidence stronger?

Our initial instinct, I suspect, is to regard the extant ape-men of Flores as completely imaginary. But, taking seriously what Lio people say, I’ve found no good reason to think so.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

There is no evidence for the existence of any such life form.

Okay. Untraceable hominins. Elves, fairies, the Abominable Snowman? So this is all “science” now?

Note: The Scientist story riffs off Flores Man, which was a genuine find.

Comments

Yes, Jerry, that and the paper "Waiting for TWO Mutations" should have sealed the deal. Those falsify evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. But there still isn't any way to test the claim that blind and mindless processes could have produced those proteins in the first place.ET_{April 26, 2022
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evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense
Not true. Discussed with Dr Gauger https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/do-nylon-eating-bacteria-show-that-new-functional-information-is-easy-to-evolve/#comment-631468 Again nothing to do with flagellum. Also nothing to do with nylon eating bacteria.jerry_{April 26, 2022
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OK, so we are right back to That is because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense. For example, no one knows how to test the claim that any bacterial flagellum evolved by means of blind and mindless processes. And the evolution of nylonase appears to have all of the hallmarks of Spetner's "built-in responses to environmental cues".ET_{April 26, 2022
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FH, did you try a web search before commenting dismissively? Try, Internet Enc of Phil (as in, Ethics is a main branch of Phil):
Evolutionary Ethics Evolutionary ethics tries to bridge the gap between philosophy and the natural sciences by arguing that natural selection has instilled human beings with a moral sense, a disposition to be good. If this were true, morality could be understood as a phenomenon that arises automatically during the evolution of sociable, intelligent beings and not, as theologians or philosophers might argue, as the result of divine revelation or the application of our rational faculties. Morality would be interpreted as a useful adaptation that increases the fitness of its holders by providing a selective advantage. This is certainly the view of Edward O. Wilson, the “father” of sociobiology, who believes that “scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized” (Wilson, 1975: 27). The challenge for evolutionary biologists such as Wilson is to define goodness with reference to evolutionary theory and then explain why human beings ought to be good. Table of Contents Key Figures and Key Concepts Charles Darwin Herbert Spencer The Is-Ought Problem The Naturalistic Fallacy Sociobiology Placement in Contemporary Ethical Theory Challenges for Evolutionary Ethics References and Further Reading
Of course, it is a Sisyphean task. KFkairosfocus_{April 26, 2022
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Please tell us how to test the claim that blind and mindless processes produced any bacterial flagellum.
I never said I could. I said I could test Darwinian evolution. Discussed in https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/do-nylon-eating-bacteria-show-that-new-functional-information-is-easy-to-evolve/jerry_{April 26, 2022
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"Evolutionary ethics"? Never heard of that. Are you sure you're not imagining that, Silver Asiatic?Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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DogDoc
You will change the subject by talking about how the calculator originally came to exist rather than about what the calculator does
This is why OOL researchers attempt to create life in a lab. They're looking for the origin of life. They don't merely say that life does certain things - like a calculator does. ID is about origins. Just like OOL research is. For evolution, it's the difference between artificial selection and natural selection. One is designed by intelligence the other is not. So, to prove materialistic OOL, it cannot use human intelligence. In the same with evolution. It's the same with comparing human designed mechanisms as if they were created by blind, natural processes. As stated before, the challenge for OOL is to come up with functional code in a self-reproducing organism, without the input of intelligence. Otherwise, it would be something Intelligently Designed. And that is definitely the point. We can't even create a living cell using all of our intelligence - and we know that blind, natural mechanisms are not as effective as an intelligent agent.
The programmers that put together the system didn’t understand the strategies that enable champion Go players to win. Still and yet, Alpha Go learned, all by itself, to be the best Go player on Earth
We're fully aware of the learning algorithm designed to create winning strategies. It's merely a memory device that self-optimizes strictly based on the rules of the game. It's like saying a deck of cards is more intelligent than a human being because we cannot predict what hand will be dealt after the shuffle. The AI product is entirely an output of human intelligence. It's not the product of a deterministic output. It would be like simulating evolution with a computer as proof that it occurred in that way. No, the evidence has to be shown in the wild - without intelligently designed input.
Deeper in the cortex, the neurons – following nothing but the laws of physics!
That's the hypothesis. As stated many times, to validate the claim, we need to see how the laws of physics can create the system. We don't even have a coherent theory as to why evolution supposedly developed vision systems multiple times, completely independently via convergent evolution. It's impossible to believe it happened once, but we're told it occurred at least 7 times.
His opinions about free will have nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary theory! If Miller said that snake oil cures cancer and Jennifer Anniston was an alien from Mars, would you say that came from evolutionary theory too?
The guy who was called in as the evolutionary expert in a court case against ID stated that "evolution created free will" but that's like him saying something about Jennifer Anniston? Darwin himself said that evolution explains free will:
“the general delusion about free will [is] obvious,” and that one ought to punish criminals “solely to deter others”—[not because they did something blameworthy]. “one deserves no credit for anything… nor ought one to blame others.” Paul Barrett, et. al., Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836-1844 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1987), 608

In The Moral Animal, evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright says: “free will is an illusion, brought to us by evolution”9 and “[u]nderstanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step toward understanding that —in many realms, not just sex—we’re all puppets….” Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 350
This is what evolutionists say about their theory. It's not like they're talking about movie stars or their favorite flavor of ice-cream. Evolution clearly presents itself as the origin of every biological feature since the theory purports to explain all life on earth. Every feature comes from a mindless, materialistic mechanism. There is no other option given.
G. E. Moore himself pointed out at the dawn of the twentieth century, there is no way to derive morality from Darwinism precisely because morality is dealing primarily with the “ought” question. Moore called this “the naturalistic fallacy.”[20] In its simplistic form, the fallacy states that a person cannot justify any behavior morally by arguing that it is that natural selection favors it.
Things don't evolve to become good or bad or to make any free choices about anything. It's not possible.
Evolutionary biologist David P. Barash of the University of Washington: "there can be no such thing as free will for the committed scientist, in his or her professional life.” Yet two paragraphs later, Barash writes: I suspect that we all—even the most hard-headed materialists—live with an unspoken hypocrisy: even as we assume determinism in our intellectual pursuits and professional lives, we actually experience our subjective lives as though free will reigns supreme. In our heart of hearts, we know that in most ways that really count (and many that don’t count), we have plenty of free will, and so do those around us. Inconsistent? Yes, indeed. But like the denial of death, it is a useful inconsistency, and perhaps even one that is essential…In many ways, we are forced to live with a degree of absurdity, if only because to acknowledge it in our daily lives is to admit yet more absurdity!
Evolutionary ethics deny free will as a direct outcome of mindless causes.
Evolutionist E. O. Wilson, declared: Ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to co-operate. It is without external grounding. Ethics is produced by evolution but not justified by it, because, like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves as a powerful purpose without existing in substance.
Richard Dawkins says ...
in The Selfish Gene: “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
Blindly programmed.
Evolutionary Ethics: Its Origin and Contemporary Face https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9744.00227 First, evolutionary ethical explanations were dependent on group-selection accounts of social behavior (especially the explanation of altruism). Second, they seem to violate the philosophical principle that “ought” statements cannot be derived from “is” statements alone (values cannot be derivedfrom facts alone). Third, evolutionary ethics appeared to be biologically deterministic, deemed incompatible with the free will required for ethics to be possible. Fourth, social policies based on evolutionary theory (for example, eugenics in the early part of this century) seemed patently unethical. Sociobiology (which coalesced as a field of study with Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 1975) addressed several of these problems and provided a rich framework and a new impetus for evolutionary ethics. The lingering problems were the philosophical is-ought barrier and biological determinism. Quantum propensities in the brain cortex and free will Unpredictability of animal behavior provides a survival advantage and allows for evolutionary optimization of manifested free will. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264721001258 On Free Will and Evolution William Simkulet https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21507740.2015.1032386?journalCode=uabn20 Ivanitsky, A. M., “Determinism and freedom of choice in the operation of the brain,” Zh. Vyssh. Nerv. Deyat., 65, No. 4, 503–512 (2015). Dubrovsky, D. I., “The psychophysiological problem and an informational approach,” in: Methodological Aspects of Studies of Brain Activity, Nauka, Moscow (1986), pp. 108–134. Wegner, D. M., The Illusion of Conscious Will, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2002).
Your five points:
1) That the first CSI could not have been created by an intelligent being because according to our experience, all intelligent beings are chock-full of CSI already.
ID does not purport to explain "the first CSI" but only the CSI it observes in nature. That CSI is best explained by intelligence and not by a mindless, unintelligent source. You're saying "you don't know" if a blind, natural source can produce the CSI - but you do not show evidence. ID can show that CSI is and can be produced by intelligence.
2) I’m also saying that you have no evidence that any particular attribute of the Intelligent Designer you hypothesize (learning, consciousness, beliefs, desires, etc) is actually an attribute of whatever caused the universe to exist.
ID does not hypothesize about the attributes of the designer, but only that there is evidence of intelligence in the design. In the same way, if SETI found signals giving evidence of having been caused by intelligence, it would not need to (or likely be able to) provide information about attributes of the alien intelligence that produced it. That's basic forensics. We don't need to know who the murderer was to know it wasn't an accident.
3) I’m also saying that ID describes no limits whatsoever on what an “intelligent cause” is capable of doing, which means it is impossible for any observation to contradict the theory.
Again, for the third time. If you can show a natural cause, then ID does not apply. Rain falls from clouds. We have a good physical theory for why and how. ID does not consider that a subject that "can only be explained by intelligent design".
4) I’m also saying that machine learning AI systems prove that deterministic mechanisms can produce novel CSI (which is in no way pre-programmed) which undermines ID’s assertion that no possible deterministic mechanism can produce CSI.
If you're saying that AI systems produced the first cell that is significant since we know that AI systems are programed with intelligence, and you would be admitting that an intelligent agent (even not truly a "designer" as AI systems cannot make a rational, conscious design decision) was necessary to explain the observation. That is an ID conclusion, in the same way that there are prominent IDists who think that life was seeded on earth by aliens. What that's saying is that an unintelligent cause could not have created the first life. But moving from the production of novel CSI to what is actually required to build self-replicating cellular life along with free-rational thought itself (that can create AI systems) is more than a deterministic intelligence can produce. There are different levels of intelligence. Some will say that plants have a sort of intelligence. Insects, birds, fish, mammals. We can consider some primitive design that comes from some of those intelligent sources - like beaver dams. It's more difficult to see plants actually designing purposefully - at only a very minor level perhaps. So, AI is a very low-level of intelligence which is entirely derived from human intelligence. But we don't even need AI to see the production of novel CSI. Quite a lot of software can do that and even come up with unpredictable results. This is not an argument against ID. If one has to cite artificial intelligence as the cause of the CSI we observe in nature, that's a validation of ID.
5) ID requires metaphysical libertarianism to be true, while evolutionary theory is independent of any assumptions regarding metaphysics. (Remember, just because you can find people who believe in evolution and have ideas about metaphysics does not mean those metaphysics are entailed by evolutionary theory).
All science is a product of metaphysical assumptions. Evolution is heavily weighted by metaphysics, as the opposition to ID shows clearly. And this is not merely from the opinions of evolutionists, but within the theory itself. Some of the assumptions are basic: Events that happened in the past were affected by and under the same conditions that we observe today. So the constancy of natural laws. That's a metaphysical assumption. Not a very radical one, but it's there anyway. More radically: It is possible to explain the development of all life on earth through material, physical processes alone. In other words, nothing else of any significance exists. An example would be when you stated that the eye functions entirely "through physics alone". That's a metaphysical assumption, not something that can be proven. A few more metaphysical assumptions for evolution are: Reason and logic and truth are valid means for assessing data We can arrive at intelligible truths about life through observation Evolution has no limit and therefore organisms have no boundaries to their malleability by mutation All organisms have a drive or impulse to survive Mathematical modelling provides valid knowledge about life Life can ultimately be understood through a reductive process down to the molecular levelSilver Asiatic_{April 26, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
Well, Andrew, that’s evolutionary theory, believe it or not.
Well, Fred, there isn't any scientific theory of evolution, believe it or not.ET_{April 26, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
You’re wrong about that but it’s not important as evolution is not a purely random process. The niche designs organisms.
Evolution is said to proceed via blind and mindless processes. Natural selection is nonrandom in a trivial sense in that not all variants have the same probability of being eliminated. The niche doesn't design anything. GIVEN starting populations of prokaryotes there isn't a naturalistic mechanism capable of producing eukaryotes. Endosymbiosis doesn't help.ET_{April 26, 2022
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Jerry- Please tell us how to test the claim that blind and mindless processes produced any bacterial flagellum.ET_{April 26, 2022
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Wow. This place cleared out like we were on a high dosage of Metamucil. Andrewasauber_{April 26, 2022
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"But the environment wanted to design some things." SA, And then it decided to design Evolutionists. Talk about bad design. Sheesh. Andrewasauber_{April 26, 2022
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The environment just likes to design things. What's the problem? A little patch of land. Same spot on earth, same climate, humidity, geology, temperature -- all environmental variables exactly the same. But the environment wanted to design some things. So, it created a thousand species of prokaryotes. Then another thousand eucaryotes. Then worms, moths, flies, beetles, spiders, some dozens of trees, vines, flowers, mosses. Then dozens of birds and then mice, moles, bats, squirrels, rabbits, skunks, deer, bears. Different locomotion, nutritional needs, digestive systems, skin, fur, photosynthesis, vulnerabilities, reproductive methods ... All in exactly the same environment. Some magical mutations come along and did a great job every time. The environment designs organisms. Just like evolutionary theory said.Silver Asiatic_{April 26, 2022
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"Still and yet, when presented with a mathematical question they provide the correct answer." DogDoc, They don't get presented with mathematical questions. They receive input patterns and present output patterns. Humans present and receive questions. Andrewasauber_{April 26, 2022
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SA,
Chemical bonds do not go through a logical analysis and choose what is true. In materialism, everything just “is”. Evolution cannot create good versus evil, true versus false since it is mindless and has no categories for that.
Calculators are nothing but plastic and metal, wires, buttons, transistors, diodes... Transistors do not go through a logical analysis and choose what is true. The electrons just go where they go because of conductors and semiconductors. Chips don't understand what a square root is, or a cosine. Still and yet, when presented with a mathematical question they provide the correct answer. Of course you will, as always, dodge the point by saying that calculators are designed by humans. You will change the subject by talking about how the calculator originally came to exist rather than about what the calculator does. The fact remains, once the calculator comes into existence it is not guided by anything except its own internal structure, and it answers questions truthfully merely because of its structure. Alpha Go systems are nothing but electronics too. Just electrons whizzing around inside the computer, following nothing but the laws of physics. The electrons and transistors don't understand Go. The programmers that put together the system didn't understand the strategies that enable champion Go players to win. Still and yet, Alpha Go learned, all by itself, to be the best Go player on Earth. Human retinas and the visual cortex are made of cells. Cells don't understand what a circle is, or a line. They don't understand the geometry that enables us to perceive how far away an object is, or how it is moving. Yet somehow these cells work together and accurately identify geometrical shapes, compute the speed and direction of moving objects, and so on. Deeper in the cortex, the neurons - following nothing but the laws of physics! - recognize increasingly complex things like a particular person, or an abstract concept like an apartment building. Perhaps you will say that brains can do these things becuse brains were designed by God, but again you'd be missing the point.
DD: Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with free will I quoted Miller who said that it does.
No, you are mistaken. He did not say that evolutionary theory made any claims about free will. His comments expressed his own thoughts about the matter.
He’s an evolutionary biologist.
His opinions about free will have nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary theory! If Miller said that snake oil cures cancer and Jennifer Anniston was an alien from Mars, would you say that came from evolutionary theory too? There is a huge literature of evolutionary biology in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks. None of it deals with free will. And just so we don't forget the outstanding arguments: 1) That the first CSI could not have been created by an intelligent being because according to our experience, all intelligent beings are chock-full of CSI already. 2) I’m also saying that you have no evidence that any particular attribute of the Intelligent Designer you hypothesize (learning, consciousness, beliefs, desires, etc) is actually an attribute of whatever caused the universe to exist. 3) I’m also saying that ID describes no limits whatsoever on what an “intelligent cause” is capable of doing, which means it is impossible for any observation to contradict the theory. 4) I’m also saying that machine learning AI systems prove that deterministic mechanisms can produce novel CSI (which is in no way pre-programmed) which undermines ID’s assertion that no possible deterministic mechanism can produce CSI. 5) ID requires metaphysical libertarianism to be true, while evolutionary theory is independent of any assumptions regarding metaphysics. (Remember, just because you can find people who believe in evolution and have ideas about metaphysics does not mean those metaphysics are entailed by evolutionary theory).dogdoc_{April 26, 2022
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"that’s evolutionary theory, believe it or not." FH, If you say so. Although, I was under the impression that evolutionary theory bent over backwards to avoid invoking things like design, lest people draw the wrong conclusions. Andrewasauber_{April 26, 2022
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Well, Andrew, that's evolutionary theory, believe it or not.Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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"environments design organisms" FH, This is the dumbest thing I've read today. Andrewasauber_{April 26, 2022
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Great stuff, Jerry. <3Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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Darwin’s key argument
Darwinian evolution is self refuting. If it worked it would destroy the organism. It only applies to genetics. It is vey limited by definition and science has proved it is extremely limited. DNA has nothing to do with Evolution because DNA has nothing to do with new body plans and no one knows where that information is.jerry_{April 26, 2022
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Regarding the way environments design organisms, it's Darwin's key argument.Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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I admire your self-confidence, Jerry. No kidding, the main reason I'm commenting here is to encourage you.Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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You’re wrong about that
No, I’m right. Darwinian processes by small accumulations can definitely be tested.
The niche designs organisms
Zero evidence to support that.jerry_{April 26, 2022
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Evolution cannot create good versus evil, true versus false since it is mindless and has no categories for that.
Well, whoever suggested otherwise?Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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132 JerryApril 26, 2022 at 5:56 am
That is because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense
No, it’s testable.
You're wrong about that but it's not important as evolution is not a purely random process. The niche designs organisms.Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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DogDoc
If our thoughts were determined by physics, then the reason we would care about something is because we were destined to care about it. Our caring about it is the result of physical interactions from the first instant of the universe. Get it?
Whether I get it or not would be irrelevant. Physics determines what you have to say. Your thoughts come from an irrational, non-living physical force. So, you say things. Rocks roll down the mountain. They're not true or false. Your thoughts are rocks rolling. They come out because, supposedly, they provide survival advantage. But, contradicting this, you're arguing as if I can freely evaluate what you say. But if your thoughts are determined by blind, mindless physics you'd be living an illusion to think I could freely respond to your ideas and give a rational response. Again, the logical process requires freedom of choice. You're denying that we have that freedom.
Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with free will
I quoted Miller who said that it does. He's an evolutionary biologist. Here's Provine that KF already quoted:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . .
Evolution is the mythological belief that all biological organisms and all of their features (free will is a feature) evolved from the first life form. There's no room for anything else. Free will, spirituality, rational thought, morality, aesthetics, science, philosophy ... it all comes from the supposed evolutionary development for survival and reproduction. There are no purposes for evolution. There is no direction. Things emerge from a mindless, deterministic physical source. If free will exists, it came from evolution (as Ken Miller said). Haldane didn't like that so he said there's something other than physics involved. But you didn't like that:
This has nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary theory! This is a biologist who is quoted while dabbling in philosophy!
Evolution accounts for every change in biological organisms from the very first life form. Human rational thought, and therefore philosophy is supposedly an evolved feature traceable to mutations and selection. There is nothing more to it. On Plantinga's argument:
2) If our minds are reliable, then Plantinga’s argument is moot – we ended up with reliable minds whether by evolution or divine creation.
No, if our minds are reliable then they are non-deterministic. Evolution cannot create a free, rational, logical thought process. It can only create a deterministic output which can not comprehend the difference between truth and falsehood. Chemical bonds do not go through a logical analysis and choose what is true. In materialism, everything just "is". Evolution cannot create good versus evil, true versus false since it is mindless and has no categories for that.Silver Asiatic_{April 26, 2022
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That is because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense
No, it’s testable. But they won’t do it because it will certainly fail. Then what? They will not be able to continue the farce. The farce has an objective. Justifying natural Evolution is not the objective, it just a tool, a means to and end.jerry_{April 26, 2022
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Earth to dog doc- There isn't any naturalistic mechanism capable of producing living organisms nor developmental biology. So, forget about intelligence arising via blind and mindless processes There isn't any scientific theory of evolution. That is because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense unless you are discussing genetic diseases and deformitiesET_{April 26, 2022
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SA,
DD: If the world is deterministic, then my actions are determined, and I could not refrain from making my arguments. How can you not understand that? SA: Noting your outrage and self-refuting question here … "Because I was determined not to". See?
No, SA, I don't see - you just don't get it. Let me break it down for you. Assume hard determinism is true, and that everything that happens is determined from the beginning of the universe. Under determinisim, our actions do not proceed from free choices. Everything we do - and everything we think - is determined by antecedent cause. Got it? Ok now, still assuming determinism is true, I say to you "Hey SA, you ought to believe in determinism!". You are arguing that it was "self-refuting" for me to try and convince you to believe in determinism, as though I could have decided not to say those words. But if determinism is true, then I did not decide to say those words. Just like everything else that happens, I was inescapably determined to think the thoughts I experienced and to say the words I said. If it was determined by the initial conditions of the universe to remain silent, then I would remain silent, and it wouldn't be any more or any less "self-refuting" than any other action I was determined to take.
You’ve really got nowhere to go with this. The blind watchmaker cannot produce the results. But you claim “you don’t know” that is the case.
No, I'm not saying that that I don't know whether or not a "blind watchmaker" can produce the CSI we observe. Rather, I'm saying: 1) That the first CSI could not have been created by an intelligent being because according to our experience, all intelligent beings are chock-full of CSI already. 2) I'm also saying that you have no evidence that any particular attribute of the Intelligent Designer you hypothesize (learning, consciousness, beliefs, desires, etc) is actually an attribute of whatever caused the universe to exist. 3) I'm also saying that ID describes no limits whatsoever on what an "intelligent cause" is capable of doing, which means it is impossible for any observation to contradict the theory. 4) I'm also saying that machine learning AI systems prove that deterministic mechanisms can produce novel CSI (which is in no way pre-programmed) which undermines ID's assertion that no possible deterministic mechanism can produce CSI. 5) ID requires metaphysical libertarianism to be true, while evolutionary theory is independent of any assumptions regarding metaphysics. (Remember, just because you can find people who believe in evolution and have ideas about metaphysics does not mean those metaphysics are entailed by evolutionary theory). By the way, now you are now arguing that AI systems are not actually intelligent on their own because they were designed by an Intelligent Designer, and that what they do only simulates intelligence. Do you also believe that human beings are not actually intelligent on their own because they were designed by an Intelligent Designer, and humans are also simply simulating intelligence? Let me guess: God gave humans free will so we have real intelligence - right? This is why people scoff at calling ID science.
i then challenge you to show what blind natural causes can produce.
Whether you ask for a "blind" (whatever that means) natural cause, or a "non-blind" unnatural cause, or a material cause, or an immaterial cause, or any other kind of cause - no matter what you want to call it - nobody has any evidence for any process, mechanism, entity, or any other type of thing that caused the universe.
DD: Stop pretending that science has proven that brains aren’t deterministic, you’re just wrong about that. SA: If your thoughts are determined by an unintelligent cause, then being right or wrong is irrelevant. Those are categories used for a rational mind. A deterministic brain cannot be rational.
A deterministic mind is completely, utterly, 100% indistinguishable from a mind that has contra-causal free will. If it wasn't, then we could devise an experiment to decide if libertarianism was true or false and be done with the problem of free will. But we can't. I think these attempts to show that ideas you don't like are "self-refuting" are fashioned after Plantinga's argument against naturalism - is that right? Such a terrible argument! Plantinga argues that if minds evolved by Darwinian selection, then our minds are probably not reliable, since evolution selects for reproductive advantage and not truth. But take another look: 1) Either our minds are reliable (in Plantinga's sense) or they are not 2) If our minds are reliable, then Plantinga's argument is moot - we ended up with reliable minds whether by evolution or divine creation. 3) Else, if our minds are not reliable, then Plantinga's argument and all other arguments are useless, because our minds are not reliable. 4) Therefore, Plantinga's argument is either moot or useless.
But I’m willing to accept your proposal: Your thoughts are determined by some non-intelligent physical cause, like gravity or chemistry. So why should anyone care about what you have to say?
Ok, just one more time, try hard: If our thoughts were determined by physics, then the reason we would care about something is because we were destined to care about it. Our caring about it is the result of physical interactions from the first instant of the universe. Get it? (Another way to think about determinism is that we are in a "block universe", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)
Evolutionary theory makes no claims whatsoever about free will. Where did you ever get that idea? Search term: “evolutionary theory and free will” There are a few hundred articles by evolutionists explaining what evolutionary theory claims about this.
That is your response? How about you find me a single citation that shows that evolutionary theory entails free will?
How about Ken Miller?: There’s a wonderful quote by J. B. S. Haldane, the great evolutionary biologist, that basically says, “If my brain is wholly made up of atoms, and I see no reason to believe that it is not, then even my belief that atoms exist is determined by the atoms in my brain and therefore I have no reason for believing it to be true.”
This has nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary theory! This is a biologist who is quoted while dabbling in philosophy! Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with free will; it is a theory about how speciation occurs by means of the accumulation of small heritable changes from random variations that confer reproductive advantage. Nothing about free will at all.dogdoc_{April 25, 2022
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Most stories of large unknown creatures can be settled by simple ecology. What do Loch Ness monsters eat? What do yetis eat? Where do yetis go to the bathroom?Fred Hickson_{April 25, 2022
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