Biological Fine-Tuning Goes to Extremes

_{johnnyb
August 1, 2020

Intelligent Design

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It turns out that biological fine-tuning goes to the very extremes of physics. In this lecture, William Bialek shows that eyes can detect individual photons, and a number of other phenomena where biology operates on the very edge of what is possible in physics.

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Great posts with interesting posts, Bornagain77!
the fact of the matter is that Darwinists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to

The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”

A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable
A fundamental assumption in science is that everything can be reduced to simpler components, and at the bottom of scientific investigations are fundamental entities from which all properties, laws, and macro behaviors are emergent. This assumption has failed repeatedly as deeper strata of information becomes more complex rather than less complex and the role of information looms ever larger in the context of the scientific endeavor to understand. Nevertheless, the curators of the sciences and the scientific process are resolute in their a priori rejection of a supernatural infusion of information and design, grimly hanging on to their convictions that despite all evidence to the contrary, there simply must be a naturalistic explanation for the source of this information and design. As a result, scientific progress is slowed or halted. • A geologist finds an out-of-place artifact and attributes it to “differential erosion.” • A biologist looks at DNA and imagines this incredibly complex code to be almost all junk. • A physicist desperately tries to find a way that information is preserved on the event horizon of a black hole, but never asks how the information arose in the first place. • A theorist in quantum mechanics tries to find a materialistic and deterministic interpretation for what appear to be immaterial mathematical probability waves. • A cosmologist postulates an infinite number of unobservable universes while a physicist postulates an infinite number of unobserved worlds, each of which are spontaneously generated at every choice or event in the universe—the most egregious violation of parsimony ever devised. Nevertheless, the various multiverse interpretations open wide a door that scientific theorists never intended to open—namely that by the anthropic principle, we live in the one universe where all of the miracles in the Tanakh and in the New Testament actually did occur and that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Son of God who came to provide the way to forgiveness and escape from God’s judgment. -QQuerius_{August 2, 2020
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In fact, instead of a biological systems being “dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules”, as Darwinists falsely presuppose with their 'bottom up' materialistic framework, the fact of the matter is that biological systems are now shown to be extremely resistant to random background noise. As the following article on photosynthesis stated, 'These biological systems can direct a quantum process,,, in astoundingly subtle and controlled ways – showing remarkable resistance to the aggressive, random background noise of biology and extreme environments.'
Unlocking nature's quantum engineering for efficient solar energy - January 7, 2013 Excerpt: Certain biological systems living in low light environments have unique protein structures for photosynthesis that use quantum dynamics to convert 100% of absorbed light into electrical charge,,, "Some of the key issues in current solar cell technologies appear to have been elegantly and rigorously solved by the molecular architecture of these PPCs – namely the rapid, lossless transfer of excitons to reaction centres.",,, These biological systems can direct a quantum process, in this case energy transport, in astoundingly subtle and controlled ways – showing remarkable resistance to the aggressive, random background noise of biology and extreme environments. "This new understanding of how to maintain coherence in excitons, and even regenerate it through molecular vibrations, provides a fascinating glimpse into the intricate design solutions – seemingly including quantum engineering – ,,, and which could provide the inspiration for new types of room temperature quantum devices." http://phys.org/news/2013-01-nature-quantum-efficient-solar-energy.html
in the following article, the authors even go on to state that 'this reverses the previous orthodoxy, which held that quantum effects could not exist in biological systems because of the amount of noise in these systems',,, Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement.
Quantum entanglement in hot systems Excerpt: The authors remark that this reverses the previous orthodoxy, which held that quantum effects could not exist in biological systems because of the amount of noise in these systems,,, Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement. http://quantum-mind.co.uk/quantum-entanglement-hot-systems/
Thus instead of the molecular machines of the cell being dominated by random noise in the cell, as Carl Zimmer, via his 'bottom up Darwinian presuppositions, had falsely claimed in his New York Times article, the molecular machines of the cell are instead now shown to have ‘remarkable resistance to the aggressive, random background noise of biology and extreme environments.’ Moreover, molecular machines are apparently designed in such an ingenious way so as to feed off the noise in the cell. Quote unquote, “Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement.” Finding the 'random background noise' of the cell to be tightly constrained by quantum processes is simply not even on the radar of Darwinists. As Jim Al-Khalili stated, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it."
Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it." At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q
And indeed, finding 'top down' quantum processes to be ubiquitous within life are simply devastating to the entire 'bottom up' reductive materialistic framework of Darwinists. Specifically, in order to explain quantum correlations within molecular biology, it is necessary to appeal to a beyond space and time cause.
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory - October 28, 2012 Excerpt: "Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them," says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and member of the team. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm
Darwinists, with their 'bottom up' reductive materialistic framework simply have no beyond space and time cause to appeal to, whereas Christians, on the other hand, have postulated a 'top down' beyond space and time cause for life all along,
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Moreover, it is also interesting to point out that quantum information is physically conserved and therefore cannot be created nor destroyed,,,
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html
Thus, since quantum information cannot be created nor destroyed, and since quantum information is also found to be ubiquitous within molecular biology, then that gives us some fairly strong empirical evidence for the physical reality of a 'soul' that is capable of living past the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following video, 'quantum information,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. ,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul'.
“Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://www.physics-astronomy.org/2017/10/new-theory-reveals-that-soul-does-not.html
Thus, the 'top down' constraint and control that is found to be ubiquitous within life,, and that the 'bottom up' Darwinian processes are a complete loss to explain the existence of, are, to consternation of atheists, actually turning out to be, in the end, evidence for a soul. And that is, despite how atheists may feel about it, VERY GOOD to learn and know!
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
bornagain77_{August 2, 2020
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In the OP JohnnyB states
William Bialek shows that eyes can detect individual photons, and a number of other phenomena where biology operates on the very edge of what is possible in physics.
And in post 9 BobRyan states,
Remove God as the designer and you cannot have a single law.
As to BobRyan's second point in post 9, Atheistic materialists believe that the finely tuned laws and/or universal constants of nature arise via bottom up physical processes. In the following comment Origenes clearly explains why such a 'bottom up' scenario is logically impossible,
“There cannot be, in principle, a naturalistic bottom-up explanation for immutable physical laws — which are themselves an ‘expression’ of top-down causation. A bottom-up explanation, from the level of e.g. bosons, should be expected to give rise to innumerable different ever-changing laws. By analogy, particles give rise to innumerable different conglomerations. Moreover a bottom-up process from bosons to physical laws is in need of constraints (laws) in order to produce a limited set of universal laws. Paul Davies: “Physical processes, however violent or complex, are thought to have absolutely no effect on the laws. There is thus a curious asymmetry: physical processes depend on laws but the laws do not depend on physical processes. Although this statement cannot be proved, it is widely accepted.” Saying that laws do not depend on physical processes, is another way of saying that laws cannot be explained by physical processes.” – Origenes
Origenes was not just whistling Dixie. In the following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remarked that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
The same logical impossibility faces Darwinian materialists. Darwinian materialists believe that all life can, ultimately, be explained via reference to 'bottom up' physical processes. As George Ellis stated, "A key assumption underlying most present day physical thought is the idea that causation is bottom up all the way:",,, "However there are many topics that one cannot understand by assuming this one-way flow of causation.",,, "living systems are highly structured modular hierarchical systems",,, "The lower level interactions are constrained by network connections, thereby creating possibilities of truly complex behaviour. Top-down causation is prevalent at all levels in the brain: for example it is crucial to vision",,,
Recognising Top-Down Causation George Ellis, University of Cape Town 1: The Theme A key assumption underlying most present day physical thought is the idea that causation is bottom up all the way: particle physics underlies nuclear physics, nuclear physics underlies atomic physics, atomic physics underlies chemistry, and so on. Thus all the higher level subjects are at least in principle reducible to particle physics, which is therefore the only fundamental science; as famously claimed by Dirac, chemistry is just an application of quantum physics [1]. However there are many topics that one cannot understand by assuming this one-way flow of causation.,,, ,,, living systems are highly structured modular hierarchical systems,,,,The lower level interactions are constrained by network connections, thereby creating possibilities of truly complex behaviour. Top-down causation is prevalent at all levels in the brain: for example it is crucial to vision [24,25] https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf
Indeed if there was not some type 'top-down' constraint and control over and above the 'bottom up' physical processes in life, then it would be impossible to differentiate one species from another species (much less would it be possible to explain the inner complexities of how life operates). And indeed Darwinists, with their 'bottom up' materialistic scenario have no way to differentiate one species from another species.
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage Excerpt:,,, Denial of True Species Enter Darwinism. Recall that Darwin sought to explain the origin of “species.” Yet as he pondered his theory, he realized that it destroyed species as a reality altogether. For Darwinism suggests that any matter can potentially morph into any other arrangement of matter without the aid of an organizing principle. He thought cells were like simple blobs of Jell-O, easily re-arrangeable. For Darwin, there is no immaterial, immutable form. In The Origin of Species he writes: “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.” Statements like this should make card-carrying Thomists shudder.,,, As philosopher Benjamin Wiker observes in Moral Darwinism, Darwin reduced species to “mere epiphenomena of matter in motion.” What we call a “dog,” in other words, is really just an arbitrary snapshot of the way things look at present. If we take the Darwinian view, Wiker suggests, there is no species “dog” but only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow.,,, https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-06-037-f
You don’t have to take Logan Paul Gage's word for it. Last year a Darwinist honestly admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery – July 16, 2019 Excerpt: Enough of species? This is only the tip of a deep and confusing iceberg. There is absolutely no agreement among biologists about how we should understand the species. One 2006 article on the subject listed 26 separate definitions of species, all with their advocates and detractors. Even this list is incomplete. The mystery surrounding species is well-known in biology, and commonly referred to as “the species problem”. Frustration with the idea of a species goes back at least as far as Darwin.,,, some contemporary biologists and philosophers of biology have,,, suggested that biology would be much better off if it didn’t think about life in terms of species at all.,,, https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-species-the-most-important-concept-in-all-of-biology-is-a-complete-mystery-119200
As well, it is also a 'complete mystery' to 'bottom up' Darwinists how the human eye can possibly detect a single photon. And the following researcher honestly admitted, “Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light”.,,, “it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,”,, and the researched added, “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,, “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise?”
Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light – July 21, 2016 Excerpt: Research,, has shown that humans can detect the presence of a single photon, the smallest measurable unit of light. Previous studies had established that human subjects acclimated to the dark were capable only of reporting flashes of five to seven photons.,,, it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,” says Vaziri. “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,, The gathered data from more than 30,000 trials demonstrated that humans can indeed detect a single photon incident on their eye with a probability significantly above chance. “What we want to know next is how does a biological system achieve such sensitivity? How does it achieve this in the presence of noise?” http://phys.org/news/2016-07-humans-smallest.html
And as JohnnyB alluded to in the OP, "Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants."
William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined - March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark, among them;,, the precision response in a fruit fly embryo to contouring molecules that help distinguish tail from head;,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html
Darwinists, with their 'bottom up' materialistic framework simply have no clue how it is possible for "Photoreceptors (to) operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics," Indeed, commenting on a 2013 video that was made by Harvard Biovisions (that was made specifically to try to counteract the overwhelming impression of Intelligent Design in the cell), Carl Zimmer, via his Darwinian presuppositions, commented that the molecules of the cell "flail blindly in the crowd. Our cells work almost in spite of themselves."
Watch Proteins Do the Jitterbug - Carl Zimmer - APRIL 10, 2014 Excerpt: In the 2006 version, we can’t help seeing intention in the smooth movements of the molecules; it’s as if they’re trying to get from one place to another. In reality, however, the parts of our cells don’t operate with the precise movements of the springs and gears of a clock. They flail blindly in the crowd. Our cells work almost in spite of themselves. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/science/watch-proteins-do-the-jitterbug.html
Carl Zimmer, via his 'bottom up' Darwinian presuppositions could not be more wrong. As the following 2016 paper stated “crowding in cells doesn’t hamper protein binding as much as they thought it did.” In fact, finding a lack of ‘collisions’ in the crowded cell was a ‘counterintuitive surprise’ for the researchers: Specifically one of the researchers stated: “This was a surprise,” “It’s counterintuitive, because one would think collisions between a protein and other molecules on DNA would slow it down. But the system is so dynamic, it doesn’t appear to be an issue.”
Proteins put up with the roar of the crowd – June 23, 2016 Excerpt: It gets mighty crowded around your DNA, but don’t worry: According to Rice University researchers, your proteins are nimble enough to find what they need. Rice theoretical scientists studying the mechanisms of protein-DNA interactions in live cells showed that crowding in cells doesn’t hamper protein binding as much as they thought it did.,,, If DNA can be likened to a library, it surely is a busy one. Molecules roam everywhere, floating in the cytoplasm and sticking to the tightly wound double helix. “People know that almost 90 percent of DNA is covered with proteins, such as polymerases, nucleosomes that compact two meters into one micron, and other protein molecules,” Kolomeisky said.,,, That makes it seem that proteins sliding along the strand would have a tough time binding, and it’s possible they sometimes get blocked. But the Rice team’s theory and simulations indicated that crowding agents usually move just as rapidly, sprinting out of the way. “If they move at the same speed, the molecules don’t bother each other,” Kolomeisky said. “Even if they’re covering a region, the blockers move away quickly so your protein can bind.” In previous research, the team determined that stationary obstacles sometimes help quicken a protein’s search for its target by limiting options. This time, the researchers sought to define how crowding both along DNA and in the cytoplasm influenced the process. “We may think everything’s fixed and frozen in cells, but it’s not,” Kolomeisky said. “Everything is moving.”,,, Floating proteins appear to find their targets quickly as well. “This was a surprise,” he said. “It’s counterintuitive, because one would think collisions between a protein and other molecules on DNA would slow it down. But the system is so dynamic, it doesn’t appear to be an issue.” http://phys.org/news/2016-06-proteins-roar-crowd.html
bornagain77_{August 2, 2020
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Einstein was not raised in a religious household. There was a reason his parents named him Albert and it had nothing to do with anything other than making a secular point with their son. The atheists of his day kept trying to claim him as one of their own, which he had no problem refuting. He made it clear that the more he studied the universe, the more he believed in God. He also made it clear he did not care how God created the universe, but how God did it. You cannot have the laws of physics without a designer to create them prior to the universe coming into existence. Remove God as the designer and you cannot have a single law.BobRyan_{August 1, 2020
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ET to Sev:
"Materialistic assumptions have hindered our growth,"
That is an understatement. Although the Darwinist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science, (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that Darwinists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to:
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Darwinian Materialism and/or Methodological Naturalism vs. Reality – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaksmYceRXM
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
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seversky:
It is fascinating stuff and it is also worth noting that this knowledge is the product of naturalistic science operating very successfully on materialistic/physicalist assumptions.
That is total BS. Thanks to materialism we have no idea how we came to be the way we are. Nothing. Materialistic assumptions have hindered our growth, intellectually.ET_{August 1, 2020
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Seversky is trying to be a thief again and steal science away from Christianity again
The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: …as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos),,, Jaki notes that before Christ the Jews never formed a very large community (priv. comm.). In later times, the Jews lacked the Christian notion that Jesus was the monogenes or unigenitus, the only-begotten of God. Pantheists like the Greeks tended to identify the monogenes or unigenitus with the universe itself, or with the heavens. Jaki writes: Herein lies the tremendous difference between Christian monotheism on the one hand and Jewish and Muslim monotheism on the other. This explains also the fact that it is almost natural for a Jewish or Muslim intellectual to become a pa(n)theist. About the former Spinoza and Einstein are well-known examples. As to the Muslims, it should be enough to think of the Averroists. With this in mind one can also hope to understand why the Muslims, who for five hundred years had studied Aristotle’s works and produced many commentaries on them failed to make a breakthrough. The latter came in medieval Christian context and just about within a hundred years from the availability of Aristotle’s works in Latin,, If science suffered only stillbirths in ancient cultures, how did it come to its unique viable birth? The beginning of science as a fully fledged enterprise took place in relation to two important definitions of the Magisterium of the Church. The first was the definition at the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, that the universe was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. The second magisterial statement was at the local level, enunciated by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris who, on March 7, 1277, condemned 219 Aristotelian propositions, so outlawing the deterministic and necessitarian views of creation. These statements of the teaching authority of the Church expressed an atmosphere in which faith in God had penetrated the medieval culture and given rise to philosophical consequences. The cosmos was seen as contingent in its existence and thus dependent on a divine choice which called it into being; the universe is also contingent in its nature and so God was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities. Thus the cosmos cannot be a necessary form of existence; and so it has to be approached by a posteriori investigation. The universe is also rational and so a coherent discourse can be made about it. Indeed the contingency and rationality of the cosmos are like two pillars supporting the Christian vision of the cosmos.?http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/ “A good case can be made,” Barbour writes, “that the doctrine of creation helped set the stage for scientific activity.” - Barbour
Christian philosopher Peter S. Williams, who provides the above quote from Barbour in his on-line article, “Does Science Disprove God?” lists several presuppositions of science that he argues “derive warrant from the theistic doctrine of creation:
• That the natural world is real (not an illusion) and basically good (and hence worth studying) • That the natural world isn’t divine (i.e. pantheism is false) and so it isn’t impious to experiment upon it • That the natural world isn’t governed by multiple competing and/or capricious forces (i.e. polytheism is false) • That the natural world is governed by a rational order • That the human mind is, to some degree, able to understand the rational order displayed by the natural world • That human cognitive and sensory faculties are generally reliable • That the rational order displayed by the natural world cannot be deduced from first principles, thus observation and experiment are required”
Again, notice that these presuppositions themselves cannot be proven by empirical science. Therefore, a science based epistemology, i.e. “scientism,” of any kind cannot be true. Williams observes that, “There is thus a wide-ranging consonance between Christianity and the presuppositions of science.” He then goes on to quote Barbour again.
Is Christianity Unscientific? - Peter S. Williams Excerpt: “Both Greek and biblical thought asserted that the world is orderly and intelligible. But the Greeks held that this order is necessary and that one can therefore deduce its structure from first principles. Only biblical thought held that God created both form and matter, meaning that the world did not have to be as it is and that the details of its order can be discovered only by observation.” http://www.bethinking.org/does-science-disprove-god/is-christianity-unscientific
Barbour is not alone in his claim that Christianity was necessary for the rise of modern science.
The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson.
The famous Christian writer and University of Cambridge professor C.S. Lewis summarized the position this way:
“Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a [Lawgiver.]”
The only 'stolen valor is from materialists who have tried to steal science away from. its Christian roots:
Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24 Taking Science on Faith – By PAUL DAVIES – NOV. 24, 2007 Excerpt: All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. ,,, the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html
Supplemental note:
No False Gods Before Me: A Review of Rodney Stark’s Work by Terry Scambray (December 2018) Excerpt: Informed by Jewish wisdom and Greek reason, the Christian God was “not only eternal and immutable but also conscious, concerned, and rational.” Jesus Christ is the embodiment of this rational principle as “the Word (logos) made flesh,” reason incarnate.,,, “The early Christians fully accepted this image of God,” Stark writes and then reasonably deduced “the proposition that our knowledge of God and his creation is progressive.” For example, even though the Bible does not condemn astrology, Augustine reasoned that if human destiny was determined by the stars, humans would lack one of Christianity’s indispensable features, free will; therefore, practicing astrology was sinful. So also slavery was normative in all ancient societies and rationalized even by many Christians; yet slavery clearly violated Jesus’ revolutionary concept that individuals are created in God’s image and thereby possess inherent value of immeasurable worth. As Paul wrote, “All are one in Christ Jesus.” From this theocentric faith in reason and progress, Christendom ventured forward to establish freedom and capitalism, organize universities, invent science, abolish slavery while at the same time bestowing virtue on physical labor all of which drove the incomparable advances in Western technology. And finally, Christendom spread these gifts around the world. Stark distances this version of progress from the meme of “Enlightenment progress,” sometimes called “Whig history.” With his usual deftness, he calls this claim, as well as other Enlightenment disinformation, “nonsense.” And that’s because progress was inherent in Jewish and Christian millenarianism, the idea that “history has a goal and humanity a destiny,” as the peerless historian, Paul Johnson puts it.,,, The basis for much of the antipathy toward Christianity is the image of the medieval Catholic Church fostered by “distinguished bigots,” as Stark calls Edward Gibbon and Voltaire among other Enlightenment notables. Stark, relying on primary source historians like the renowned Marc Bloch, shows, on the contrary, that medieval Catholicism was the breeding ground for modernity. Most, if not all, ancient societies believed in fate. However, Yahweh gave humans the wondrous and terrifying attribute of free will, freedom. Individual freedom in the West then merged with the legacy of Athenian democracy and the Roman republican tradition to form “the new democratic experiments in the medieval Italian city-states,” as Stark reminds us. These rival polities organized the first universities in a unique tradition of institutional learning and discourse which began at Bologna then spread to Oxford, Paris and elsewhere in Europe. From the medieval university science was born. The distinguished philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead, astonished a Harvard audience in 1925 when he said that science is a “derivative of medieval theology [since it arose] from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher.” Whitehead’s thesis was but another bolt from out of the blue because the notion that medieval philosophy, scholasticism, led to the development of science was astonishing! Though it should not have been, since scholasticism was complex, diverse, penetrating and devoted to reasoning from the two books that undergird Christianity: the book of God, Scripture, and the book of nature, Creation. As Stark writes, “Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable—the rise of science was achieved by deeply religious, Christian scholars.”,,, So Christianity, then and now, never was antithetical to science. And this is because European Christians believed in a rational God whose imprint could be discovered in nature; thus, they confidently looked for and found natural laws. As Johannes Kepler, the venerable 17th century cosmologist, wrote, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world” is to discover this harmony imposed by God in the language of mathematics. Stark concludes, “That the universe had an Intelligent Designer is the most fundamental of all scientific theories and that it has been successfully put to empirical tests again and again. For, as Albert Einstein remarked, the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” which Einstein called a “miracle.” And this “miracle” confirms the fact that creation is guided by purpose and reason. https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=189497&sec_id=189497
bornagain77_{August 1, 2020
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Rorydaulton @ 4
It seems you may be trying to take a kind of “stolen valor.”
On the contrary, there is no denying that many current researchers and many if not most of the great scientists of the recent past were theist of some denomination and were inspired by their beliefs. It is also true that science has been practiced in other places, ancient China, India, Egypt, Greece and by Islamic states where they did not enjoy the benefits of Christianity. And if you look at the actual research produced by the great scientists of Europe, for example, where do you find them invoking non-materialistic assumptions? Is there a term in Maxwell's equations that designates divine intervention at any point? If there is to be an accusation of "stolen valor" it should rather be leveled at Christians who try to arrogate to their faith sole responsibility for the science we have today.Seversky_{August 1, 2020
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Reply to 2 Seversky: It seems you may be trying to take a kind of "stolen valor." Many of the great biologists were Christians or theists and did not use "materialistic/physicalist assumptions." Two examples are Carolus Linneaus and Louis Pasteur--you should know many other examples. Theistic assumptions were required to get science in general and modern biology in particular started. And theists continue to make biological discoveries. Do you have evidence for the claim in your comment?rorydaulton_{August 1, 2020
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One quibble: He distinguishes mammal eyes from insect eyes sharply, saying that we have one lens for all the receptors, while insects have one lens for each receptor. Actually our eyes are more similar than that. Each retinal receptor has its own glial lens, which focuses and filters colors for the needs of the receptor. So our eyes are sort of like insect eyes turned inside out, with the compound lenses arranged concavely instead of convexly, and a single lens magnifying before all the compound lenses.polistra_{August 1, 2020
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It is fascinating stuff and it is also worth noting that this knowledge is the product of naturalistic science operating very successfully on materialistic/physicalist assumptions. Thus far, it has not required anything else.Seversky_{August 1, 2020
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If you watch to the end, it gets ridiculous when they start talking about evolution (it borders on complete nonsense). But, until then, it's quite fascinating stuff.johnnyb_{August 1, 2020
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