Designer Substitutes, Large and Small

_{Barry Arrington

January 28, 2018

Intelligent Design}

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It has been often noted that Darwin is so important for Atheist-Materialists because it (supposedly) accounts for the appearance of design in living things without a designer. It occurred to me that the multiverse is gaining headway in spite of the fact that it has not been (and in principle cannot be) tested empirically. It (again, supposedly) accounts for the existence of the universe, including its finely tuned parameters for the existence of life, without a creator (accounting for why there is something instead of nothing) or a fine tuning designer.

So there you have it — A-Mat designer substitutes at both the micro and macro levels.

Comments

CR, you are a fraud. GR and QM are considered our most reliable scientific theories precisely because they have never disagreed with experimental results. (confirmed to something like 14 decimal places!). If you cannot grasp even this most basic point about science, then it is hopeless to teach you any of the further nuances surrounding what 'unification' truly entails. Like I said, science is not your cup of tea, take up basket-weaving! https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z6tf5l_6zJw/maxresdefault.jpgbornagain77_{January 31, 2018
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@BA77 Yes, BA. And I'll say it again. They disagree with actual experimental tests. That's not a back pedal.
To use an analogy, imagine if while driving, you have two maps. One map only works while driving forward and the other map only works while driving in reverse. By nature of supposedly being a map, it shouldn’t matter what direction you’re driving. Regardless of the fact that the forwards map has never been observed to be wrong when navigation forwards and the reverse map has never been observed to be wrong when navigation in reverse, the observation that you must switch maps indicates both maps are false because they contradict each other. You just haven’t figured out they are false yet. They are approximations. In the above analogy, Quantum mechanics is the forwards map and General Relativity is the reverse map. The observation that we must switch between them tells us they are false.
Are you denying that QM and GR shouldn't be unified? Are you claiming the fact that we need both of them to explain observations isn't a problem? If not why?critical rationalist_{January 31, 2018
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You think atoms are “unobservable” in the same way something in another universe is “unobservable”? Equivocate much. Get help Cr. I think they are unobservable in the sense that matters. That's not equivocation. What's the difference in practice?critical rationalist_{January 31, 2018
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critical rationalist states: "Thank Zeus, you’re a lawyer, not a scientist." This statement comes from someone who stated that Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity "completely and repeatedly disagree with actual experimental tests." https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/actually-the-multiverse-is-cheerfully-beyond-falsifiability/#comment-649909 To which I responded,, CR, given your embarrassingly false claim that both QM and GR “completely and repeatedly disagree with actual experimental tests”, and your pathetic attempt to backpedal from that embarrassingly false claim, I think you would do very well to learn in silence for a while. Perhaps a decade or two. Or better yet, perhaps you should take up some harmless activity that is not associated with science in any way, shape, or form whatsoever. Science is definitely not your cup of tea. Perhaps underwater basket weaving would be more your speed: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z6tf5l_6zJw/maxresdefault.jpg https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/actually-the-multiverse-is-cheerfully-beyond-falsifiability/#comment-650015bornagain77_{January 30, 2018
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CR: "We think atoms exist despite not having observed them and being unobservable in principle." You think atoms are "unobservable" in the same way something in another universe is "unobservable"? Equivocate much. Get help Cr.Barry Arrington_{January 30, 2018
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CR @ *, Google "photos of gold atoms". They're visible through a tunneling electron microscope.EDTA_{January 29, 2018
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@G, KF, etc. We cannot derive theories from observations because the contents of theories do not actually come from observations. They are not out there for us to observe. Phenomena does not come with a "tags" that have theories printed on them for us to read. @Barry We think atoms exist despite not having observed them and being unobservable in principle. Atomic theory consists of a long chain of hard to vary, independently formed explanations about about observed phenomena. Thank Zeus, you're a lawyer, not a scientist.critical rationalist_{January 29, 2018
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Groov, Einstein 1905, Annalen der Physik, photoemissive effect. Quantisation of the radiation in flight and so on impinging on the metal surface. KFkairosfocus_{January 29, 2018
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Slight clarification: Planck proposed quantized energy states of the emitters of black body radiation, he did not foresee the actual quantized packets of energy proposed subsequently and later termed 'photons' in the 1920's.groovamos_{January 29, 2018
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CR "So, one way a theory can gain headway is to develop ways to empirically test it." In addition to CR's errors that others have pointed out, this too is wrong. (Proving once again, that A-Mats like CR are often wrong but rarely in doubt). The multiverse can never, in principle, be tested empirically. Why? Because something must be, in principle, observable in order to be tested empirically. If something can be observed then, again by definition, it is part of this universe and not another.Barry Arrington_{January 29, 2018
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Groov, very well said. Add the photoelectric effect of a threshold for emission and for relativity the failure to detect an ether wind across the orbit of the earth by Michelson and Morley. Observation and theory interact as even the simple school level outline of scientific methods suggests. KFkairosfocus_{January 29, 2018
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Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them.
So people/ scientists come up with theories that aren't based on anything and then see if observations fit it? Or do we make observations and in the process of trying to explain/ figure out what we have observed/ are observing form hypotheses that are then tested against reality? And then once tested, if confirmed used to form the theory?ET_{January 28, 2018
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c. r. : Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. False. Max Plank would never have proposed quantized energy states of emitted photons to incorporate into an expression for black body radiation spectral density, but for the failure of all other attempts to account for observations. Again, false. Einstein would never have postulated the origin of the statistical nature of forces on pollen particles suspended in water were it not for observations of the motions of the particles under a microscope.groovamos_{January 28, 2018
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You're assuming empirical criticism isn't the only kind of criticism applied to scientific theories. For example, a theory may fail to explain the phenomena in question at all. Or it may fail to explain the same phenomena just as well as some other theory. Or it may conflict with other theories. It's in the way that the vast majority of theories never even make it to the phase where criticism in the form of empirical tests come into play. Why go to all the work if they haven't reached that part of the process yet? Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. However, if a theory does manage to reach that point, then we try to figure out how they could be exposed to empirical criticism via experimental tests. IOW, theories start out as educated guesses. So, we don't expect theories to be complete out of the gate or even testable out of the gate. Even then we might find our a test we thought would end up showing our theory is false or not might result in an unexpected, neutral outcome. That would cause us to refine part of our theory in a non-ad hoc way to make it testable. But, that too starts out as a guess, etc. It's unclear how we could identify an infallible exhaustive source of empirical tests that we could us to criticize a specific theory empirically. That doesn't come from some inductive means either. So, one way a theory can gain headway is to develop ways to empirically test it.critical rationalist_{January 28, 2018
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