Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

It is time for ID to provide real leadership in rethinking origins across the board

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

The opportunity is open and it is time to seize the day. So, I think a comment in a discussion with GP and Dionisio should be headlined:

>>My observation is those who are closed minded, indoctrinated and hostile will simply flare up in anger at anything that threatens their favoured evolutionary materialistic scientism or their comfortable fellow-traveller views calibrated not to get them in hot water with the domineering atheists.

The issue then is, how well cultured they are. The cultured play at subtle rhetorical games pivoting on evasions and how could you concern trolling which provide more or less respectable “good cop” cover. Then come the “bad cops” who try to run riot, bully, intimidate, slander and stalk.

I say, toss over the whole rotten rhetorical game-board.

The whole lot are corrupt, at minimum as enablers.

Science seeks to accurately observe, describe, explain, predict and enable us to act effectively in our world. So truth-seeking is critical to science. Therefore we have to respect findings of related disciplines that support that work. Therefore, we must anchor on empirical observations and recognise that theories are inferences to the best current explanation and are inherently provisional. They remain [live] theories so long as it is credible that they may be substantially true and no further. They are inherently provisional; subject to empirical testing and the requirement of well-tested empirical reliability.

This holds for experimental sciences. It holds doubly for observational sciences and doubly again for scientific investigations of origins, where that deep past cannot itself be observed; we see traces and try to reconstruct and date past circumstances back to origins. All of this successively degrades strength of epistemic stance of relevant theories.

All of this, the a priori materialist activists and their enablers will not acknowledge and have repeatedly tried to turn into accusations of stealth Creationism, “religion” inserting itself into the temple of science and the like.

Such have media power and influence in governance up to a lot of state power.

But that is different from having a good case, or being credible on the merits.

If you cannot acknowledge the patent truth about the epistemological status of science i/l/o the pessimistic induction, you have no genuine credibility, period.

That is settled.

Going further, evolutionary materialistic scientism is self-referentially incoherent, it is amoral and open to nihilism. Indeed, by implying grand delusion of mind, it is profoundly anti-rational. Those who are its agit prop street or Internet cannon fodder are dupes of the ruthless and nihilistic. For them, some measure of sympathy is in order. Those who are ruthless manipulators and deceivers who wish to impose a crooked yardstick as the standard to assess what is straight/true, accurate and upright must now be named as enemies of sound civilisation and treated with stern resolve.

So, I don’t give 50c for their opinions once exposed.

Yes, the fact that for nigh on 70 years we have known that ALPHABETIC TEXT IN CODE lies in the heart of cell based life is utterly blatant. The fact that these still want to argue that extensive text wrote itself out of lucky noise incrementally filtered for performance, over sixty years past 1953 now goes to character.

Crick’s March 19, 1953 letter
Protein Synthesis (HT: Wiki Media)
DNA is a string digital data structure which stores coded information in the specific sequence of bases, G/C/A/T, both for protein coding and for regulation/control
Yockey’s analysis of protein synthesis as a code-based communication process
The Genetic code uses three-letter codons to specify the sequence of AA’s in proteins and specifying start/stop, and using six bits per AA
The Smithsonian’s tree of life model, note the root in OOL

But design of life from OOL up to us is not the whole story.

The Big Bang timeline — a world with a beginning

We also find that on evidence of the sol system and the wider cosmos, the observed universe was set up for that life.

Barnes: “What if we tweaked just two of the fundamental constants? This figure shows what the universe would look like if the strength of the strong nuclear force (which holds atoms together) and the value of the fine-structure constant (which represents the strength of the electromagnetic force between elementary particles) were higher or lower than they are in this universe. The small, white sliver represents where life can use all the complexity of chemistry and the energy of stars. Within that region, the small “x” marks the spot where those constants are set in our own universe.” (HT: New Atlantis)

Design, design not of life that could be effected in a molecular nanotech lab.

Design and construction of a universe.

Involving vast power, super-intellect and capability.

Design beyond and antecedent to cosmos.

Where, logic of being points to a finitely remote necessary being world-root capable of being the causal source of our world.

A world that happens to contain reasoning, knowing, responsibly and rationally free, morally governed creatures.

Us.

That challenges us to rethink worldviews, ideologies and cultural agendas.

And those making a noise and a row know it.

Know it deep inside.

And they are desperately afraid.

So now, it is time.

Time, to provide real leadership in rethinking origins across the board.

And that is why I do not shun to put the whole picture on the table, including as above:

The situation is, that we have inferred on evidence and reasoning a system of analysis termed cosmology. This contains a considerable mathematical apparatus.

In that apparatus we find many specific values and no indication that there are such as they must be as say pi is an exact value tied to the nature of circles.

What is not fixed is at least potentially contingent per the logic of being and the concept of possible worlds, so it is worth exploring on that contingency. And yes, here we are looking at possible worlds and the logic of structure and quantity as connected to such.

A reasonable exercise at the triple-point border between Science, Philosophy and Mathematics.

What emerged was astonishing: the values we see as a cluster are astonishingly fine tuned in ways that set our observed world at a fine-tuned operating point in parameter and structure of laws space.

This is remarkable already.

John Leslie observed a further matter that is also just as interesting:

“One striking thing about the fine tuning is that a force strength or a particle mass often appears to require accurate tuning for several reasons at once. Look at electromagnetism. Electromagnetism seems to require tuning for there to be any clear-cut distinction between matter and radiation; for stars to burn neither too fast nor too slowly for life’s requirements; for protons to be stable; for complex chemistry to be possible; for chemical changes not to be extremely sluggish; and for carbon synthesis inside stars (carbon being quite probably crucial to life). Universes all obeying the same fundamental laws could still differ in the strengths of their physical forces, as was explained earlier, and random variations in electromagnetism from universe to universe might then ensure that it took on any particular strength sooner or later. Yet how could they possibly account for the fact that the same one strength satisfied many potentially conflicting requirements, each of them a requirement for impressively accurate tuning?” [Our Place in the Cosmos, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 1998 (courtesy Wayback Machine) Emphases added.]

AND:

“. . . the need for such explanations does not depend on any estimate of how many universes would be observer-permitting, out of the entire field of possible universes. Claiming that our universe is ‘fine tuned for observers’, we base our claim on how life’s evolution would apparently have been rendered utterly impossible by comparatively minor alterations in physical force strengths, elementary particle masses and so forth. There is no need for us to ask whether very great alterations in these affairs would have rendered it fully possible once more, let alone whether physical worlds conforming to very different laws could have been observer-permitting without being in any way fine tuned. Here it can be useful to think of a fly on a wall, surrounded by an empty region. A bullet hits the fly Two explanations suggest themselves. Perhaps many bullets are hitting the wall or perhaps a marksman fired the bullet. There is no need to ask whether distant areas of the wall, or other quite different walls, are covered with flies so that more or less any bullet striking there would have hit one. The important point is that the local area contains just the one fly.”

Such is of course amenable to computer sims.

And now we see something that is confronting us with a well-known characteristic of design: multiple components synthesised into a coherent whole that requires the mutual adaptation of the parts to work.

Where, the alternative, oh we are just one bit out of a vast, quasi-infinite multiverse has many, many peculiarities and challenges. Not least, if you are doing that while wearing a lab coat you need to provide empirical observational data on the multiverse. That seems to be missing in fact and on many ways of thought in principle too.

If you slip across the border into highly mathematical philosophy [and much of this stuff is actually clearly across that border], you are looking at the point that in phil you cannot rule out any serious worldview option without a legitimate comparative difficulties process and something like fatal incoherence.

So, which is it:

A: in science we see per obvious contingency of the mathematics, fine tuning and cannot find credible evidence of a multiverse

OR

B: we look at the issues freely, and cannot rule out all that phil would bring to the table, including much broader worldviews issues . . . .

PS: If one suggests that the parameters we see are locked by higher order laws, so that our cosmos is explained on necessity, that simply postpones the contingency one level. And a fine tuning super-law is itself at least as fine tuned as what it specifies . . . .

[M]y view is we need to look at both together, especially on the significance of a cosmos set up to produce H, He, O and C as first four elements in abundance, with N close by: stars, periodic table, water, organic chem, proteins. Bring in terrestrial planets in circumstellar and spiral arm galactic habitable zones with privileged planet fine tuning, and we are looking at setting the table for biological life based on C-chemistry, aqueous medium cells

It is time for grand synthesis and a challenge to a dying civilisation: stop, turn back from the unstable, crumbling brink of the precipice. Before it collapses, precipitating us into a dark age of horrors worse than anything seen before.

Remember, nukes, bio weapons EMP and other weapons of mass devastation are now in play.>>

So, now, it is time. Time to think again. END

Comments
Nonlin.org @ 53
Everybody does – that’s the point: whatever you hold without proof (Facts Selection, Assumptions, Interpretation and Extrapolation of the Observable) is your Religion.
You are free to define "religion" any way you want but I don't think that's what most people understand by the word. It's certainly not what I understand by it. By your definition, me being a fan of Star Trek and Star Wars is a religion but that's not how I see it - although I confess to being attracted by Vulcan stoicism and Jedi mysticism (pantheism?).
It did not – you confuse atheistic religion with science and they’re not the same.
Ideally, science should be neither religious nor atheistic. It should approach the universe it studies without prejudice. In reality, as a messy human enterprise it often falls short of that ideal but that doesn't mean it shouldn't try to live up to it. And, as has been said many times before, atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Once you drill down matter to the subatomic level, you get to the immaterial. Also, since “matter = physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit”, are you claiming you’re a mindless automaton yourself? And if we’re all that, what’s the point of you trying to “convince” someone of your righteousness?
Yes, quantum theory has shown that matter at the sub-atomic scale is very different from what we once imagined it to be. That doesn't change the fact that if, following Dr Samuel Johnson, you kick a heavy stone, you will still hurt your toe.Seversky
January 31, 2018
January
01
Jan
31
31
2018
07:00 PM
7
07
00
PM
PDT
kairosfocus @ 51
Seversky, we only observe material entities through consciousness, which exhibits a rationality and en-conscienced moral government that cannot coherently be accounted for on materialism. KF
Not yet, it can't. That doesn't mean it never will. And need I remind you that our consciousness, rationality and voluntary acknowledgement of moral governance all disappear when the material brain dies or is destroyed and are never observed apart from that physical substrate?Seversky
January 31, 2018
January
01
Jan
31
31
2018
06:43 PM
6
06
43
PM
PDT
Seversky@50
What if they don’t have any religious views?
Everybody does - that's the point: whatever you hold without proof (Facts Selection, Assumptions, Interpretation and Extrapolation of the Observable) is your Religion.
Science and religion perhaps began to diverge in the Enlightenment.
It did not - you confuse atheistic religion with science and they're not the same.
Actually, all we can observe is matter and energy so materialism is a reasonable assumption.
Once you drill down matter to the subatomic level, you get to the immaterial. Also, since "matter = physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit", are you claiming you're a mindless automaton yourself? And if we're all that, what's the point of you trying to "convince" someone of your righteousness?Nonlin.org
January 30, 2018
January
01
Jan
30
30
2018
04:59 PM
4
04
59
PM
PDT
Seversky:
Actually, all we can observe is matter and energy so materialism is a reasonable assumption.
And yet information is neither matter nor energy:
“Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which disregards this, will not survive one day.” Norbert Weiner
ET
January 29, 2018
January
01
Jan
29
29
2018
07:42 AM
7
07
42
AM
PDT
Seversky, we only observe material entities through consciousness, which exhibits a rationality and en-conscienced moral government that cannot coherently be accounted for on materialism. KFkairosfocus
January 29, 2018
January
01
Jan
29
29
2018
05:00 AM
5
05
00
AM
PDT
Nonlin.org @ 49
Facts Selection, Assumptions, Interpretation and Extrapolation of the Observable are all Belief components (Religion) essential to conclusions in all scientific endeavors and no scientist will ever propose a hypotheses contravening his/her religious views.
What if they don't have any religious views?
But since when was Science separate from Religion and Philosophy? Historically, all scientists were philosophers/religious and, to this day, scientists still earn a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) title.
Science and religion perhaps began to diverge in the Enlightenment. It wouldn't be very obvious in the early days as expressing atheist views could end your career - and your life - in those days.
Of course materialism is a religion...
How do you define "religion"?
Would we be still debating materialism if it were confirmed by observation? Of course not. Can one even observe materialism?
Actually, all we can observe is matter and energy so materialism is a reasonable assumption.Seversky
January 28, 2018
January
01
Jan
28
28
2018
04:08 PM
4
04
08
PM
PDT
kairosfocus and materialists, Arguments around Science are useless because Science = Observable + Religion http://nonlin.org/philosophy-religion-and-science/ . Facts Selection, Assumptions, Interpretation and Extrapolation of the Observable are all Belief components (Religion) essential to conclusions in all scientific endeavors and no scientist will ever propose a hypotheses contravening his/her religious views. But since when was Science separate from Religion and Philosophy? Historically, all scientists were philosophers/religious and, to this day, scientists still earn a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) title. Of course materialism is a religion - all one has to do is to observe the fervor of its defendants in spite of utter lack of supporting evidence. Would we be still debating materialism if it were confirmed by observation? Of course not. Can one even observe materialism? Of course not - if anything we see there's no creativity in materialism and no path from random, purposeless, unguided matter to the apparent nonrandom and purposeful actions of its proponents.Nonlin.org
January 27, 2018
January
01
Jan
27
27
2018
06:07 AM
6
06
07
AM
PDT
Science and dogma, of any stripe, are utterly incompatible and that dogma throughout history, and within all cultural paradigms, has sought to undermine scientific discoveries that contradict their traditions, teachings, and rob their purists of prestige. Much better. :cool:ET
January 26, 2018
January
01
Jan
26
26
2018
06:20 PM
6
06
20
PM
PDT
rvb8@45
I believe strongly that science and religion are utterly incompatible, and that religion throughout history, and within all cultural paradigms, has sought to undermine scientific discoveries that contradict their holy books, and teachings, and rob their priests of prestige.
You strongly believe it but does that make it true? Your faith is impressive.Latemarch
January 26, 2018
January
01
Jan
26
26
2018
05:31 PM
5
05
31
PM
PDT
rvb8:
I believe strongly that science and religion are utterly incompatible, And yet Newton, the father of modern science, was religious and it influenced his science.
ET
January 26, 2018
January
01
Jan
26
26
2018
01:33 PM
1
01
33
PM
PDT
daveS, and kairos, I believe strongly that science and religion are utterly incompatible, and that religion throughout history, and within all cultural paradigms, has sought to undermine scientific discoveries that contradict their holy books, and teachings, and rob their priests of prestige. This position is amply supported by simple recourse to modern European history, and visiting sites such as this one today.rvb8
January 26, 2018
January
01
Jan
26
26
2018
11:08 AM
11
11
08
AM
PDT
DS, the rhetoric I have pointed out is all too commonplace and urgently needs to be corrected. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
12:22 PM
12
12
22
PM
PDT
KF,
But does that imply that we live in a chaos not a cosmos? Not at all.
Agreed. I certainly was not asserting otherwise.
So, the rhetoric that tries to cast theism as in inherent enemy of scientific thought and progress is either historically incredibly ignorant or outright deceitful.
Thankfully, no one here is engaging in such rhetoric. At least I'm not.daveS
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
11:30 AM
11
11
30
AM
PDT
DS, yes there is abundant evidence that there are relatively rare -- compared to the torrent of the mundane -- miracles, signs. Some good, some patently evil. Yes, I have witnesses some of both. I am here because of a miracle of guidance in answer to prayer. And there are sufficient, sufficiently diverse witnesses that cumulatively the weight renders odds of ALL being delusional massively unlikely. As the 9th Bridgewater Treatise by Babbage showed what coming on 200 years ago now, and that by a voice with a modicum of weight. But does that imply that we live in a chaos not a cosmos? Not at all. As for instance C S Lewis (again, not exactly an unknown, unheard of voice) highlighted: the point of a sign is that it must stand out from a backdrop. For miracles to have significance, there must be a stable, lawlike general order but one as Newton highlighted and as in a somewhat different way in our day Taleb did: an order open to the black swan. An order that has room for "exceptions" due to a higher order, lawlike progression intersected by intelligently directed contrivance, as we see at a lesser level in our own deciding and acting. So, no, ethical theism is not antithetical to science, indeed its adherents had a lot to do with founding modern science. And one of their mottos was, thinking God's creative and providential/sustaining thoughts after Him who upholds all things in an orderly fashion by his word of power. So, the rhetoric that tries to cast theism as an inherent enemy of scientific thought and progress is either historically incredibly ignorant or outright deceitful. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
11:27 AM
11
11
27
AM
PDT
We need a like button! re 40.jdk
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
10:14 AM
10
10
14
AM
PDT
KF,
DS, look above, you applied that to science by way of an argument. There are no neat firewalls in things at the level of knowledge of external reality by senses, reflection and instruments that extend such. the self-referential incoherence follows in short order, indeed the takedown of rationality. KF
No. In your worldview, there exist entities such as angels and demons, who can perform various feats including levitation. You have witnessed such events yourself. Would you want a demon to levitate your car and then abruptly drop it to the ground while you are collecting data with your backyard gravitational wave detector? I think not. Therefore you must believe that such events occur rarely, allowing you to collect data without disturbance. If we lived in a different type of universe, with gods constantly hurling lighting bolts at each other, causing earthquakes, &c., perhaps it be practically impossible to detect gravitational waves. But you believe, as I do, that these 'supernatural' entities either don't exist or keep a very low profile.daveS
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
10:08 AM
10
10
08
AM
PDT
Just a descendent. ;)ET
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
09:31 AM
9
09
31
AM
PDT
ET, are you one? (Just kidding.) KF PS: You are right to highlight Seversky's assertion. He needs to realise what has become forfeit by dint of the piece of definitional gerrymandering that has been foisted on us. We now have to ascertain not only what is knowledge but what is science both objectively and in the view of those we have to talk with; as we have been exploring for a while. For, the question begging ideological imposition highlighted would make science into little more than atheism in a lab coat with little or no accountability to truth about or world anchored on observations and linked analysis. Which, patently, cannot be what science is. PPS: Let me expand the above:
let us give a "rough working definition" of science as it should be (recognising that we will often fall short): science, at its best, is the unfettered — but ethically and intellectually responsible — progressive, observational evidence-led pursuit of the truth about our world (i.e. an accurate and reliable description and explanation of it), based on: a: collecting, recording, indexing, collating and reporting accurate, reliable (and where feasible, repeatable) empirical -- real-world, on the ground -- observations and measurements, b: inference to best current -- thus, always provisional -- abductive explanation of the observed facts, c: thus producing hypotheses, laws, theories and models, using logical-mathematical analysis, intuition and creative, rational imagination [[including Einstein's favourite gedankenexperiment, i.e thought experiments], d: continual empirical testing through further experiments, observations and measurement; and, e: uncensored but mutually respectful discussion on the merits of fact, alternative assumptions and logic among the informed. (And, especially in wide-ranging areas that cut across traditional dividing lines between fields of study, or on controversial subjects, "the informed" is not to be confused with the eminent members of the guild of scholars and their publicists or popularisers who dominate a particular field at any given time.) As a result, science enables us to ever more effectively (albeit provisionally) describe, explain, understand, predict and influence or control objects, phenomena and processes in our world.
--> Let's see if the usual interlocutors will be willing to suggest what they think given the concerns on the table.kairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
09:12 AM
9
09
12
AM
PDT
DS, look above, you applied that to science by way of an argument. There are no neat firewalls in things at the level of knowledge of external reality by senses, reflection and instruments that extend such. the self-referential incoherence follows in short order, indeed the takedown of rationality. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
09:03 AM
9
09
03
AM
PDT
Seversky:
I have to say, though, a lot of this reads like complaining because science isn’t coming up with observations and theories that you like or, more specifically, that are consonant with your religious presuppositions.
Your "science" has only produced untestable diatribe that only fit in with the religion of materialism. It's as if "science" isn't scienceET
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
07:14 AM
7
07
14
AM
PDT
No, it’s fine tuned for all of the organisms and I doubt very much that we are alone in the universe. Also it isn’t that it is fine tuned for us. It’s that it’s fine tuned to allow for our existence. To elaborate- All of the living organisms require the fine tuning of the universe. Without it they too would be impossible to produce. In some cases atoms would be impossible and in other atoms heavier than hydrogen would be impossible. I doubt we are alone in the universe means there are real ETs out there, somewhere. And it means that all of the (not faked) alleged evidence for them is also real. And finally the fine tuning allows for our existence as it is not sufficient to produce usET
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
07:11 AM
7
07
11
AM
PDT
KF,
DS, that we are all in a chain of delusions caused by some Cartesian demon...
That's not what I'm claiming.daveS
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
05:59 AM
5
05
59
AM
PDT
DS, that we are all in a chain of delusions caused by some Cartesian demon is hugely controversial and is an example of grand delusion that leads to patent absurdity thus self referential incoherence. What is pretty well established and which you seem unwilling to discuss is the known imposition of a tendentious redefinition of science implicating scientific and educational elites and even the philosophers who were called in on the project for NSTA. KF PS: If you doubt me, here is Phil Johnson's reply to Lewontin et al:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.
[--> notice, the power of an undisclosed, question-begging, controlling assumption . . . often put up as if it were a mere reasonable methodological constraint; emphasis added. Let us note how Rational Wiki, so-called, presents it:
"Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific "dead ends" and God of the gaps-type hypotheses."
Of course, this ideological imposition on science that subverts it from freely seeking the empirically, observationally anchored truth about our world pivots on the deception of side-stepping the obvious fact since Plato in The Laws Bk X, that there is a second, readily empirically testable and observable alternative to "natural vs [the suspect] supernatural." Namely, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity [= the natural] vs the ART-ificial, the latter acting by evident intelligently directed configuration. [Cf Plantinga's reply here and here.] And as for the god of the gaps canard, the issue is, inference to best explanation across competing live option candidates. If chance and necessity is a candidate, so is intelligence acting by art through design. And it is not an appeal to ever- diminishing- ignorance to point out that design, rooted in intelligent action, routinely configures systems exhibiting functionally specific, often fine tuned complex organisation and associated information. Nor, that it is the only observed cause of such, nor that the search challenge of our observed cosmos makes it maximally implausible that blind chance and/or mechanical necessity can account for such.]
That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
kairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
05:58 AM
5
05
58
AM
PDT
KF,
DS, pardon a chuckle. The force of your claim directly leads to the question as to whether this thread exchange, too is nothing but an infinitely regressive chain of grand delusions.
Just so we're clear, would you please reflect back to me what you believe I'm claiming? IMO, it's not really even controversial.daveS
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
05:18 AM
5
05
18
AM
PDT
RodW, see why it is sometimes important to stand back and look at the foundations-up big picture? And, why there is reason to speak of a good-cop, bad-cop intellectually and morally bankrupt rhetorical/ agit-prop game? (Do you understand what it means when you hold the education of children hostage to impose an intellectually bankrupt, ideologically loaded, morally corrupt redefinition of science? [And, JDK et al, just come on in and challenge it if you feel up to revisiting the whole sorry matter.]) KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
02:25 AM
2
02
25
AM
PDT
ET, good points, care to elaborate? KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
02:20 AM
2
02
20
AM
PDT
Nonlin, kindly, cf. the just above. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
02:11 AM
2
02
11
AM
PDT
Seversky, Strawman soaked in ad hominems and set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the issues:
a lot of this reads like complaining because science isn’t coming up with observations and theories that you like or, more specifically, that are consonant with your religious presuppositions.
What part of:
Science seeks to accurately observe, describe, explain, predict and enable us to act effectively in our world. So truth-seeking is critical to science. Therefore we have to respect findings of related disciplines that support that work. Therefore, we must anchor on empirical observations and recognise that theories are inferences to the best current explanation and are inherently provisional. They remain [live] theories so long as it is credible that they may be substantially true and no further. They are inherently provisional; subject to empirical testing and the requirement of well-tested empirical reliability. This holds for experimental sciences. It holds doubly for observational sciences and doubly again for scientific investigations of origins, where that deep past cannot itself be observed; we see traces and try to reconstruct and date past circumstances back to origins. All of this successively degrades strength of epistemic stance of relevant theories. All of this, the a priori materialist activists and their enablers will not acknowledge and have repeatedly tried to turn into accusations of stealth Creationism, “religion” inserting itself into the temple of science and the like.
-- is so hard to understand? Or, do I need to point to the exchanges in Kansas c 2001 - 2007:
2001 radical re-Definition imposed by evolutionary materialism activists: “Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world around us.” 2005 correction to that tendentious re-Definition: “Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” 2007 re-imposition after a dirty agit-prop operation and threats from NSTA and NAS to hold the children of the state hostage: "Science is a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."
Of course, "natural explanations" is patently a code for naturalistic explanations. Imposing an ideological a priori as Lewontin indicated, is grand question-begging, indoctrination and disregard for duty to seek, present and stand by truth. The accurate description of reality. Further, this was backed up by outright abuse of influence to hold families, children and their education hostage. Here is an excerpt from the NAS-NSTA letter that makes a very ugly downright threat that the complicit, enabling media did not expose:
. . . the members of the Kansas State Board of Education who produced Draft 2-d of the KSES have deleted text defining science as a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena, blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding. Emphasizing controversy in the theory of evolution -- when in fact all modern theories of science are continually tested and verified -- and distorting the definition of science are inconsistent with our Standards and a disservice to the students of Kansas. Regretfully, many of the statements made in the KSES related to the nature of science and evolution also violate the document’s mission and vision. Kansas students will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world if their science education is based on these standards. Instead, they will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the world.
Utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy expressed in outright nihilistic, will to power might and manipulation make 'truth,' 'right,' 'knowledge,' 'history,' 'education' and more. This was and remains utterly indefensible. Just by contrast, let me clip some high quality college-level dictionaries from the period before this radical redefinition was imposed by domineering and disregard for truth:
science: a branch of knowledge conducted on objective principles involving the systematized observation of and experiment with phenomena, esp. concerned with the material and functions of the physical universe. [Concise Oxford, 1990] scientific method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge [”the body of truth, information and principles acquired by mankind”] involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. [Webster's 7th Collegiate, 1965]
The first battle for leadership in science is to restore sanity to the basic understanding of what science is and does. Something is DEMONSTRABLY rotten in the state of science and science education and it must first be faced if we are to get anywhere sensible. Going further, with an historically-, epistemologically- and inductive logic limitations- sound understanding of science in hand, we can then look at experimental vs observational vs origins sciences, facts of observation vs theoretical explanations, degrees of warrant and responsible balance on claims such as "science is the only begetter of truth." Next, we can then squarely face the nigh on 70 year old finding that there is ALPHABETIC, CODED TEXT in the heart of the cell. Associated with, transcribing, editing, translation machinery and regulatory networks. Sophisticated digital information and communication systems at molecular scale and obviously tracing to origin of the living cell. Where the first cells credibly had 100 - 1,000 kbits of information in such codes, just to code the proteins and RNA they used. It is not too difficult to show that 100 kbits implies a configuration space of ~ 9.99 *10^30,102 possibilities, per n bits implies 2^n possibilities. The search challenge for such with an observed cosmos of ~ 10^80 atoms with ~ 10^-14 chemical level interactions per second [fast for organic chem] on a time span ~ 10^17 s since the singularity is hopelessly too small a scope of generously possible search to space. It is not credible that any blind chance and mechanical necessity process arrived at such functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I] on the gamut of available search resources. The only empirically well warranted causal explanation for such FSCO/I -- and yes I am applying Newton's vera causa principle -- is intelligently directed configuration. On trillions of known cases. Design sits at the table for explaining the FSCO/I in life as of right, from OOL up. The imposed a priori evolutionary materialism lockout is bankrupt and dead. Next, scroll up and glance at Barnes' chart on just two of the many finely tuned factors: strong nuke force and fine structure constant. Holding nuclei together but with room for nucleosynthesis and electromagnetic [thus also weak] interactions. Notice the window of possibilities? And where our observed cosmos is? Now, on the contingent option, fine tuning is blatant. On the oh there is a covering superlaw option, we have simply exported the fine tuning up one level, as in where did such a locking law come from. Where, you can see the multiverse appeal dilemma: keep your lab coat and recognise that appeal to multiverse is weak as scientific speculation [when we lack observation and perhaps observability . . . ] or go to multiverse and recognise you left the lab coat on the peg by the door and have to deal with worldview level comparative difficulties. On either prong, we face John Leslie's challenge:
“One striking thing about the fine tuning is that a force strength or a particle mass often appears to require accurate tuning for several reasons at once. Look at electromagnetism. Electromagnetism seems to require tuning for there to be any clear-cut distinction between matter and radiation; for stars to burn neither too fast nor too slowly for life’s requirements; for protons to be stable; for complex chemistry to be possible; for chemical changes not to be extremely sluggish; and for carbon synthesis inside stars (carbon being quite probably crucial to life). Universes all obeying the same fundamental laws could still differ in the strengths of their physical forces, as was explained earlier, and random variations in electromagnetism from universe to universe might then ensure that it took on any particular strength sooner or later. Yet how could they possibly account for the fact that the same one strength satisfied many potentially conflicting requirements, each of them a requirement for impressively accurate tuning?” [Our Place in the Cosmos, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 1998 (courtesy Wayback Machine).] AND: “. . . the need for such explanations does not depend on any estimate of how many universes would be observer-permitting, out of the entire field of possible universes. Claiming that our universe is ‘fine tuned for observers’, we base our claim on how life’s evolution would apparently have been rendered utterly impossible by comparatively minor alterations in physical force strengths, elementary particle masses and so forth. There is no need for us to ask whether very great alterations in these affairs would have rendered it fully possible once more, let alone whether physical worlds conforming to very different laws could have been observer-permitting without being in any way fine tuned. Here it can be useful to think of a fly on a wall, surrounded by an empty region. A bullet hits the fly Two explanations suggest themselves. Perhaps many bullets are hitting the wall or perhaps a marksman fired the bullet. There is no need to ask whether distant areas of the wall, or other quite different walls, are covered with flies so that more or less any bullet striking there would have hit one. The important point is that the local area contains just the one fly.”
Cosmological fine tuning is here to stay, and it puts design squarely on the table as candidate to beat. For origin of our observed cosmos. The only actually scientifically observed one. Now, lead, follow or kindly stand aside. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
02:10 AM
2
02
10
AM
PDT
FF, institutional and cultural dominance. That's why the history and even the basic definitions of science and its methods have been ideologically re-written. And that's the first step to taking back science for the cause of its proper end: seeking to objectively explore, explain, and understand our world with sufficient empirical reliability and credibility that we can confidently use our findings. KFkairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
01:17 AM
1
01
17
AM
PDT
DS, pardon a chuckle. The force of your claim directly leads to the question as to whether this thread exchange, too is nothing but an infinitely regressive chain of grand delusions. Are you absolutely sure you are not a loaded smoke bewitched prisoner in Plato's cave or a resident of the Matrix or, or, or . . . ? There is never a good reason to hold to grand delusion, and if you are suggesting that that is what evolutionary materialism is reduced to, that speaks telling volumes. Are you sure you are not UD founder WmAD in drag? KF PS: As touching the Lewontin-Sagan twist on Descartes as an obvious worldviews comparative difficulties question, ethical theism -- which we can summarised as a view on the necessary being world root adequate to ground the self-evident fact of consciousness of moral government (including in reasoning) -- is not trapped in such hyperskepticism. We are undeniably contingent and conscious, morally governed creatures. In that light, the necessary being world root must be adequate. This points to the inherently good and wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good according to our evident nature. In that context, a good and wise maximally great creator would not fundamentally and materially mislead us. This BTW was part of the confidence that led to the establishing of science and to confidence in observation, reasoning and mathematical analysis: thinking God's creative and provident, world-sustaining thoughts after him. PPS: By contrast, evolutionary materialistic scientism has severe difficulties grounding rationality, moral government, knowledge, warrant, science and more. Fundamentally, matter and energy in space-time has no credible base for the spontaneous emergence of an accurate or reasonably accurate information-rich, highly organised computational substrate due to the FSCO/I origination challenge given search challenge. Then, further, it has no credible account of a reliable, responsible, rationally capable conscious en-conscienced mind. Indeed, routinely its advocates have sought to use institutional and cultural dominance to impose challenges to the rationality of those who object to their scheme, without facing the self-referentially incoherence and thus self-refutation of the scheme. Evolutionary materialistic scientism is necessarily false.kairosfocus
January 25, 2018
January
01
Jan
25
25
2018
01:13 AM
1
01
13
AM
PDT
1 2

Leave a Reply