Once More from the Top on “Mechanism”

_{Barry Arrington

September 1, 2019

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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We often get some variation of “Until ID proposes a ‘mechanism’ for how the design is accomplished, it cannot be taken seriously as an explanation for origins.”

Here is an example from frequent commenter Bob O’H (who, after years of participation on this site should know better):

If ID is correct, then the design has to have happened somehow, so a “how” theory has to exist.

OK, Bob, once more from the top:

Suppose someone printed your post on a piece of paper and handed it to an investigator. We’ll call him Johnny. The object of the investigation is to determine whether the text on the paper was produced by an intelligent agent or a random letter generator.

Johnny, using standard design detection techniques, concludes that the text exhibits CSI at greater than 500 bits, and reaches the screamingly obvious conclusion that it was designed and not the product of a random letter generator.

“Ha!” the skeptic says. “Johnny did not propose a mechanism by which someone designed the text. Therefore his design inference is invalid. If his design inference is correct, then the design has to have happened somehow, so a ‘how’ theory has to exist.”

Bob, is the objection to Johnny’s conclusion valid?

Comments

To repeat, Do YOU EricMH consider gravity to be a physical explanation of a physical phenomena?bornagain77_{September 28, 2019
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Gravity is a physical phenomena (a force). It is an explanation for other other phenomena, such as a ball falling. There are explanations for gravity, such as the bending of space around mass, and there are further speculative explanations for gravity such as gravitons and loop theory, but nothing is established about those hypotheses. In general explanations come in chains, in general each physical phenomena being an explanation for the existence or action of another phenomena. Like all such chains, there are always unknowns at the beginning of the chain: no matter how far we go backwards, so to speak, there is always the question, "Well, why are things like that." One can always create non-physical explanations, such as God, but they are not really explanations because they don't describe the connection between phenomena. I like what EricMH wrote above,
You insist science does not operate according to ‘methodological naturalism’, but then only offer instances of ‘philosophical theism’ motivating research. However, the outcome of the research is *always* some physical explanation for a physical phenomenon.
hazel_{September 28, 2019
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EricMH states,
"you are not arguing against a position I am proposing. You insist science does not operate according to ‘methodological naturalism’, but then only offer instances of ‘philosophical theism’ motivating research. However, the outcome of the research is *always* some physical explanation for a physical phenomenon."
Always??? Really??? Let's take the prime example from science out of the plethora of examples that I could choose from, i.e. Gravity. Do you EricMH consider gravity to be a physical explanation of a physical phenomena? If so Stephen Meyer, (not to mention Isaac Newton himself), would disagree with you:
Eric Metaxas Interviews Stephen Meyer on Science and Faith - video (talk on the unknown cause of gravity from 7:30 to 13:00 minute mark) https://youtu.be/Ukaz2aULa0U?t=456
In fact one of the most major gaffs that Stephen Hawking ever made was to assign agent causality to the law of gravity:
Book Review: God and Stephen Hawking by John Lennox A review of John Lennox's response to Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design Excerpt: Stephen Hawking’s conclusion in The Grand Design is that “Because there is a law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.” Professor Lennox points out that the statement that the “universe can and will create itself from nothing” is a contradiction. He points out that, “…the law of nature (gravity) explains the existence of the universe is…self-contradictory, since a law of nature, by definition, surely depends for its own existence on the prior existence of the nature it purports to describe.” He goes on to say, “What this all goes to show is that nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.” https://clearlens.org/book-review-god-stephen-hawking-john-lennox/
etc.. etc... I could go on and on about other areas of science, but let's see where you stand on gravity first. Do you EricMH consider gravity to be a physical explanation of a physical phenomena?bornagain77_{September 28, 2019
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Eric:
@ET, yes, it would be great to know organisms operated by some cause other than physics and chemistry. Do we know this? How? What is the new causal explanation? What sorts of empirical experiments can we perform to confirm or deny the new causal explanation?
Yes, we know this. Proof-reading and error-correction require it. The operation of the genetic code requires it. Editing and splicing require it. The assembly of biological discrete combinatorial objects requires it. To refute the claim all one has to do is create a living organism using only synthesized components. If that works then we will know that physics and chemistry do suffice. See also "the Programming of Life" by Donald JohnsonET_{September 28, 2019
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@BA77, you are not arguing against a position I am proposing. You insist science does not operate according to 'methodological naturalism', but then only offer instances of 'philosophical theism' motivating research. However, the outcome of the research is *always* some physical explanation for a physical phenomenon. I think the two counter points you are proposing are: 1. quantum physics requires scientists' free choice 2. Turin shroud suggests Christ's body was extremely physically atypical (hovering, radiating enormous amounts of energy) Granting those two points, what non-physical causal explanation does that now provide standard science? At best, they seem to be non-physical conclusions about certain things. I am not arguing against such conclusions. I think ID is quite successful in this sort of way. However, I do not see how they introduce a new physical law that we can then use to make predictions in other areas. Perhaps you can explain how your two cases change 'methodological naturalism'. The closest statement you've made is that we can 'empirically detect free will.' Can you elaborate on this? How do we empirically detect free will? What does that mean physically? Can free will violate the laws of physics? Does this mean free will can violate the conservation of energy? How do we mathematically model free will? I think this line of thought is promising, but it is not very clear. @ET, yes, it would be great to know organisms operated by some cause other than physics and chemistry. Do we know this? How? What is the new causal explanation? What sorts of empirical experiments can we perform to confirm or deny the new causal explanation? @Bill Cole if we grant your statement, which seems circular: > A mind can generate almost unlimited amounts of functional information. This is what we are observing in DNA and protein sequences. how does this help us do science better? I have a mind, but there seem to be very clear limits on what sort of information I can produce.EricMH_{September 28, 2019
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Eric
Finally, since there is the possibility of generating any finite, discrete object given enough random samples, then we could replace God with a vast amount of probabilistic resources, that happen to be beyond our abilities to scientifically detect at the moment, i.e. the multiverse.
I don't think there is a scientific hypothesis of things not directly observable that could not possibly be wrong. As the theory of gravity in Newtons case and Einsteins case used mass as a causal mechanism. ID theory uses mind as a causal mechanism. A mind can generate almost unlimited amounts of functional information. This is what we are observing in DNA and protein sequences. What Gpuccio's empirical research is showing that the formation of these functional sequences are out of the reach of non deterministic processes.bill cole_{September 24, 2019
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Moreover, allowing the Agent causality of God (and of humans) ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. In the following video Isabel Piczek states,,, The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity.
“When you look at the image of the shroud, the two bodies next to each other, you feel that it is a flat image. But if you create, for instance, a three dimensional object, as I did, the real body, then you realize that there is a strange dividing element. An interface from which the image is projected up and the image is projected down. The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity. Other strange you discover is that the image is absolutely undistorted. Now if you imagine the clothe was wrinkled, tied, wrapped around the body, and all of the sudden you see a perfect image, which is impossible unless the shroud was made absolutely taut, rigidly taut.” Isabel Piczek – 2:20 mark Turin shroud – (Particle Physicist explains event horizon) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHVUGK6UFK8 A Quantum Hologram of Christ’s Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847
The following article, (which is behind a paywall), states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. http://www.academicjournals.org/sre/PDF/pdf2012/30JulSpeIss/Antonacci.pdf
Kevin Moran, who is an optical engineer who worked on the mysterious ‘3-Dimensional’ nature of the Shroud image, states that,, ,,, “The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image.,,, It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique,,, This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector.”
Optically Terminated Image Pixels Observed on Frei 1978 Samples – Kevin E. Moran – 1999 Discussion Pia’s negative photograph, from 1898, showed what looked to be a body that was glowing, but slightly submerged in a bath of cloudy water. This condition is more properly described as an image that is visible, at a distance, but by locally attenuated radiation. The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity and, if moving at light speed, only lasted about 100 picoseconds. It is particulate in nature, colliding only with some of the fibers. It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique,,, Theoretical model It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. Discussion The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/moran.pdf
In the following paper, the researchers found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete (quantum) values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/mus/541/1/c1a0802004.pdf
And to further drive this point home, the following study ‘concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud.’
Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. https://www.ewtn.co.uk/news/latest/astonishing-discovery-at-christ-s-tomb-supports-turin-shroud
Moreover, the overturning of the Copernican principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics adds considerable weight to my claim that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’
July 2019 – Overturning of the Copernican Principle by both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/we-are-invited-to-consider-a-simpler-perspective-on-the-laws-of-physics/#comment-680427
Thus in conclusion EricMH, not only did methodological naturalism not have anything to do with the founding of modern science, much less is methodological naturalism responsible for "all of the success of modern science" as you falsely believe, but presupposing methodological naturalism, (i.e. the arbitrary rule that science can only investigate and/or postulate “physical causes for physical phenomena"), actually turns out to be an severe impediment in science that sends leading scientists and researchers down blind alleys. A severe impediment that prevents them from finding, among other things, the true solution for the much sought after 'theory of everything' in science: Verse and video:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Hologram https://youtu.be/F-TL4QOCiis
bornagain77_{September 24, 2019
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Eric you made this unsupportable claim:
"This approach (methodological naturalism) accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena."
Yet, if methodological naturalism, i.e. "identifying physical causes for physical phenomena", really does account for "all of the success of modern science", as you hold, then please pray tell how modern science itself was born out of the medieval Christian cultures of Europe by men who were devoutly Christian in their beliefs?
Intelligent Design as a “Science Stopper”? Here’s the Real Story – Michael Flannery – August 20, 2011 Excerpt: If the “ID is a science stopper” argument rests on weak philosophical foundations, its historical underpinnings are even shakier. The leading natural philosophers (what we would call “scientists” today) of the 16th through 18th centuries, the men who established modern science as we know it — Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius, Harvey, Newton — would have considered the MN (Methodological Naturalism) dogma absurd and indeed rather peculiar. In fact, James Hannam has recently examined this issue in some detail and found that religion, far from being antagonistic or an impediment to science, was an integral part of its advance in the Western world (see my earlier ENV article on the subject). https://evolutionnews.org/2011/08/id_a_science_stopper_heres_the/ Is Religion a Science-Stopper? – REGIS NICOLL – OCTOBER 18, 2017 Excerpt: On the Shoulders of Giants Christians remained in the vanguard of scientific discovery well into the nineteenth century. Groundbreaking advances in electro-magnetism, microbiology, medicine, genetics, chemistry, atomic theory and agriculture were the works of men like John Dalton, Andre Ampere, Georg Ohm, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, William Kelvin, Gregor Mendel, and George Washington Carver; all believers whose achievements were the outworking of their Christian faith. Scientists in the truest sense of the word; these were investigators who doggedly followed the evidence wherever it led, approaching the gaps of understanding not with “God did it!” resignation, but with “God created it” expectation. https://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/religion-science-stopper
Eric if, as you hold, "This approach (methodological naturalism) accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena", then why in blue blazes was modern science not born out of the more secular cultures, or out of the more pagan cultures, of ancient times?
Jerry Coyne on the Scientific Method and Religion - Michael Egnor - June 2011 Excerpt: The scientific method -- the empirical systematic theory-based study of nature -- has nothing to so with some religious inspirations -- Animism, Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam, and, well, atheism. The scientific method has everything to do with Christian (and Jewish) inspiration. Judeo-Christian culture is the only culture that has given rise to organized theoretical science. Many cultures (e.g. China) have produced excellent technology and engineering, but only Christian culture has given rise to a conceptual understanding of nature. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/jerry_coyne_on_the_scientific_047431.html The Christian Origins of Science - Jack Kerwick - Apr 15, 2017 Excerpt: Though it will doubtless come as an enormous shock to such Christophobic atheists as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and their ilk, it is nonetheless true that one especially significant contribution that Christianity made to the world is that of science.,,, Stark is blunt: “Real science arose only once: in Europe”—in Christian Europe. “China, Islam, India, and ancient Greece and Rome each had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology develop into astronomy.”,,, In summation, Stark writes: “The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.” He concludes: “These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/04/15/the-christian-origins-of-science-n2313593
Eric, your claim that "(methodological naturalism) accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena" simply does not pass the smell test, and for good reason. The crucial assumption of the Christian founders of modern science was not "identifying physical causes for physical phenomena" as you falsely believe, but "science 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”, from which it follows that human minds created in that image are capable of understanding nature."
The truth about science and religion By Terry Scambray - August 14, 2014 Excerpt: In 1925 the renowned philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead speaking to scholars at Harvard said that science originated in Christian Europe in the 13th century. Whitehead pointed out that science 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”, from which it follows that human minds created in that image are capable of understanding nature. The audience, assuming that science and Christianity are enemies, was astonished. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/the_truth_about_science_and_religion.html
Eric, here are a few quotes that put the lie to your claim that "(methodological naturalism) accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena".
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” - Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy "At the same time I think that each individual man should do all he can to impress his own mind with the extent, the order, and the unity of the universe, and should carry these ideas with him as he reads such passages as the 1st Chap. of the Ep.(Epistle) to Colossians (see Lightfoot on Colossians, p.182), just as enlarged conceptions of the extent and unity of the world of life may be of service to us in reading Psalm viii, Heb ii 6, etc.,,," - James Clerk Maxwell "for the book of nature, which we have to read is written by the finger of God." - Michael Faraday “As a physicist, that is, a man who had devoted his whole life to a wholly prosaic science, the exploration of matter, no one would surely suspect me of being a fantast. And so, having studied the atom, I am telling you that there is no matter as such! All matter arises and persists only due to a force that causes the atomic particles to vibrate, holding them together in the tiniest of solar systems, the atom. Yet in the whole of the universe there is no force that is either intelligent or eternal, and we must therefore assume that behind this force there is a conscious, intelligent Mind or Spirit. This is the very origin of all matter.” - Max Planck, as cited in Eggenstein 1984, Part I; see “Materialistic Science on the Wrong Track”.
In fact, methodological naturalism, (i.e. the arbitrary rule that science can only investigate and/or postulate “physical causes for physical phenomena"), is a fairly recent development that, to repeat, the Christian founders of modern science would have found to be an absurd assumption,,
Intelligent Design as a “Science Stopper”? Here’s the Real Story – Michael Flannery – August 20, 2011 Excerpt: If the “ID is a science stopper” argument rests on weak philosophical foundations, its historical underpinnings are even shakier. The leading natural philosophers (what we would call “scientists” today) of the 16th through 18th centuries, the men who established modern science as we know it — Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius, Harvey, Newton — would have considered the MN (Methodological Naturalism) dogma absurd and indeed rather peculiar. In fact, James Hannam has recently examined this issue in some detail and found that religion, far from being antagonistic or an impediment to science, was an integral part of its advance in the Western world (see my earlier ENV article on the subject). https://evolutionnews.org/2011/08/id_a_science_stopper_heres_the/
In fact, Steven Weinberg himself holds that methodological naturalism, i.e. “identifying physical causes for physical phenomena", did not become a prevalent form of thinking in science until after Darwin. Specifically Weinberg stated, “the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf
In fact Weinberg, an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within, (i.e. because it violated the arbitrary rule of methodological naturalism). Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) By Mindy Weisberger – March 20, 2019 Excerpt: “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”. https://www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html
Moreover, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole. And now Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past, for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: In this Letter, we present a cosmic Bell experiment with polarization-entangled photons, in which measurement settings were determined based on real-time measurements of the wavelength of photons from high-redshift quasars, whose light was emitted billions of years ago; the experiment simultaneously ensures locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons and that the wavelength of the quasar photons had not been selectively altered or previewed between emission and detection, we observe statistically significant violation of Bell’s inequality by 9.3 standard deviations, corresponding to an estimated p value of ? 7.4 × 10^21. This experiment pushes back to at least ? 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
bornagain77_{September 24, 2019
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Eric, Your handwaving an avoidance is not an argument. Would it be (very) beneficial knowing that there is more to living organisms than what physics an chemistry can explain? That has nothing to do with making anyone feel better. So answer the question.ET_{September 23, 2019
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EricMH, you have not even begun to answer the challenges posed to your assumption of methodological naturalism. You state,
“Methodological naturalism” is a very narrow scientific approach that looks for physical explanations for phenomena. E.g. such as germs causing diseases instead of evil spirits. This approach accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena.
And yet Louis Pasteur, a Christian himself, did not presuppose 'evil spirits' to be causing diseases. Nor did he presuppose strict methodological naturalism in his scientific endeavors. In fact, as I pointed out, he held the materialistic philosophy in disdain. Louis Pasteur was only able to make his breakthroughs in germ theory by intelligently designing experiments and through his logical analysis of his experimental results by his immaterial mind. Neither the origination of his scientific instruments, nor his logic, nor his immaterial mind are physical, natural, and/or material. Yet you hold that quote unquote "This approach (methodological naturalism) accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena." That statement is, as Pauli might have said, 'Not even Wrong!" Where your claim that only physical/material causes can be considered scientific, i.e. methodological naturalism, gets you into the most trouble is in your required denial of free will. With that denial you forsake rationality itself and wind up in catastrophic epistemological failure. Moreover, although free will is a defining attribute on the immaterial mind, none-the-less, as Dr Egnor and Anton Zeilinger have pointed out, it is still empirically detectable. Is empirically detecting the presence of immaterial free will not science for you even though it does not toe strict methodological naturalism in your book? i.e. " identifying physical causes for physical phenomena."
Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Assessing the Damage MN Does to Freedom of Inquiry Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. If ID satisfied MN as that philosophical doctrine is usually stated, the decades-long dispute over both wouldn’t have happened. The whole point of invoking MN (by the National Center for Science Education, for instance, or other anti-ID organizations) is to try to exclude ID, before a debate about the evidence can occur, by indicting ID for inferring non-physical causes. That’s why pushing the MN emergency button is so useful to opponents of ID. Violate MN, if MN defines science, and the game is over. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/
bornagain77_{September 23, 2019
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@ET can you be specific in what ID will do beside just 'ID makes things better'? Hand waving is not science.EricMH_{September 23, 2019
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Eric:
I don’t really see how genetic algorithms are advanced by ID, don’t see the connection to extraterrestrials (nor does it sound very practical), and how it would explain the failure of genetic engineering. The failure of genetic engineering would seem to be a count against ID.
1- Genetic algorithms are examples of the powers of evolution by means of telic processes, ie intelligent design. 2- Right now we aren't even looking for then right things in order to find extraterrestrials. Under ID that would change thanks to Gonzalez and Richards. 3- Genetic engineering has failed because we have approached it from a materialistic framework. We are doing it wrong. Under ID that would change.
Are you talking about a soul?
No, Eric. You are not paying attention. The soul does NOT control cellular processes. The soul does not assemble bacterial flagella. The soul does not carry out the semiotic codes the rule cellular life. The soul did not invent them. I think it would be very beneficial knowing that there is more to living organisms than what physics an chemistry can explain. Yes or no?ET_{September 23, 2019
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@BA77, I think I have responded to all your questions quite a number of times. But, I'll try rephrasing. What I am calling "methodological naturalism" is not what you are calling "methodological naturalism". You are referring to "philosophical naturalism". "Methodological naturalism" is a very narrow scientific approach that looks for physical explanations for phenomena. E.g. such as germs causing diseases instead of evil spirits. This approach accounts for all of the success of modern science: identifying physical causes for physical phenomena. "Philosophical naturalism" is an unjustified extrapolation from the success of "methodological naturalism" that physical causes explain all physical phenomena. My challenge to the ID movement, of which I consider myself a part (so I challenge myself) is to come up with a methodology that rivals "methodological naturalism". I think this has been done, to a very respectable degree, but still in the beginning stages, in the works of Dembski, Marks, Ewert and Montanez. Dembski et. al. have conclusively demonstrated such a methodology is possible. But, besides what they have done, the ID movement has only focused on scientifically disproving "philosophical naturalism." I do not consider such disproof to be a scientific methodology on par with "methodological naturalism". That being said, such work is all valid, useful and true. The critics cannot touch it. It is just not the same a creating a scientific method to replace "methodological naturalism".EricMH_{September 23, 2019
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EricMH asks
what are some specific ways the practice of science would change if ID had widespread adoption?
Eric,, and in what exact ways do you think that Methodological Naturalism and/or Atheistic Materialism has been a driving force in science? I hold that there is not one invention or discovery that you can point to that has been wrought by the philosophical presupposition of Naturalism and/or Atheistic Materialism. You gave the examples of "discovering DNA or germs". Do you falsely believe that those discoveries were wrought by Methodological Naturalism? If so how? DNA was certainly not a prediction of Darwin's theory nor was it a discovery that was enabled by the presumption of naturalism, i.e. by Methodological Naturalism, but the discovery of DNA was a 'surprise' discovery that was wrought by advances in our scientific instruments. X-ray Crystallography to be precise. Humans intelligent designing and improving scientific instruments that then foster further discovery is certainly NOT naturalistic! And therefore the discovery of DNA certainly does NOT fall under the umbrella of methodological naturalism as you seem to presuppose. The same goes for germs. Louis Pasteur, a Christian himself, held the materialistic philosophy in complete derision and stated, "Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,,
Louis Pasteur on life, matter, and spontaneous generation - June 21, 2015 "Science brings men nearer to God.,, Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,, [en francais, Pasteur et la philosophie, Patrice Pinet, Editions L’Harmattan, p. 63.] https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/louis-pasteur-on-life-matter-and-spontaneous-generation/
Eric there is not one discovery that you can name that was fostered by Methodological Naturalism. Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, stated, “Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin.,,, I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.,,," If anything, methodological naturalism has hampered science by sending scientists down blind alleyways, (i.e. Junk DNA, Selfish genes etc...), Not to mention the rampant medical malpractice that the materialistic belief in vestigial organs brought about.. And yet here you are Eric, although methodological naturalism has been a severe impediment to science, asking me how science could possibly be improved upon by correctly assuming Intelligent Design as the starting philosophical presupposition instead of methodological naturalism. For you to even ask that question reveals a profound misunderstanding on your part as to how science actually works. ALL of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on intelligent design and is certainly not based on methodological naturalism as is presupposed by Darwinists. From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science, (i.e. that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results, from top to bottom science itself is certainly not ‘natural’. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever just found laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analysed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. In fact, (as I have pointed out several times now), assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
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 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). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387
Thus, although the Darwinist may 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 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;
Supplemental notes:
Bruce Charlton's Miscellany - October 2011 Excerpt: I had discovered that over the same period of the twentieth century that the US had risen to scientific eminence it had undergone a significant Christian revival. ,,,The point I put to (Richard) Dawkins was that the USA was simultaneously by-far the most dominant scientific nation in the world (I knew this from various scientometic studies I was doing at the time) and by-far the most religious (Christian) nation in the world. How, I asked, could this be - if Christianity was culturally inimical to science? http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/meeting-richard-dawkins-and-his-wife.html Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf
bornagain77_{September 23, 2019
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@Doubter How are reason, free will, abstract thought, etc. different from chance and necessity? I agree the first set are subjective and the latter are objective, but externally it seems they can both look the same. E.g. we could create a robot that behaves exactly like a person, but doesn't have reason, free will or abstract thought. The robot operates entirely according to chance and necessity, yet looks just like a human who has all the subjective qualities. Furthermore, in the ID paradigm, perhaps God has created us all as meat robots. Finally, since there is the possibility of generating any finite, discrete object given enough random samples, then we could replace God with a vast amount of probabilistic resources, that happen to be beyond our abilities to scientifically detect at the moment, i.e. the multiverse. Thus, within an entirely naturalistic scheme we can account for what the ID argument considers to be intelligent design. This seems to be a flaw in the ID argument.EricMH_{September 23, 2019
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@ET, I don't really see how genetic algorithms are advanced by ID, don't see the connection to extraterrestrials (nor does it sound very practical), and how it would explain the failure of genetic engineering. The failure of genetic engineering would seem to be a count against ID. And what do you mean by: > Understanding there is an actual guidance system that is not part of the physical systems themselves, would be very helpful. Are you talking about a soul? How are we going to hack the soul? These do not really sound like practical scientific things. On the contrary, they seem to fit my concern that ID does in fact open the door to 'scientific woo' that is neither empirically tractable nor useful, but just provides fodder for endless message board speculation. Bacon originally rejected teleology and formal causality for exactly that reason. It seemed to just generate a lot of useless speculation, while people around him were starving and dying from the plague.EricMH_{September 23, 2019
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Eric- see above. I think it would be very beneficial knowing that there is more to living organisms than what physics an chemistry can explain. Understanding there is an actual guidance system that is not part of the physical systems themselves, would be very helpful. Figuring out how to hack that system in order to induce self-repairs, including limb regrowth and the elimination of all cancers, would be very beneficial.ET_{September 23, 2019
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@ET and BA77, what are some specific ways the practice of science would change if ID had widespread adoption? Can you imagine any near term tangible results that scientific ID could produce? I don't mean philosophical conclusions, such as God exists or we have immaterial souls. But, some kind of very practical, physical benefit, like discovering DNA or germs.EricMH_{September 23, 2019
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Very well put again Doubter, if I might add this old gem from Paul Nelson,
Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Even a modest formulation of MN (methodological naturalism) excludes too much, hindering us from learning what we really might want to find out. Assessing the Damage MN Does to Freedom of Inquiry Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. If ID satisfied MN as that philosophical doctrine is usually stated, the decades-long dispute over both wouldn’t have happened. The whole point of invoking MN (by the National Center for Science Education, for instance, or other anti-ID organizations) is to try to exclude ID, before a debate about the evidence can occur, by indicting ID for inferring non-physical causes. That’s why pushing the MN emergency button is so useful to opponents of ID. Violate MN, if MN defines science, and the game is over.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/
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EricMH "Why do you remove the intelligent agent from the chance hypothesis?" The scientists in the thought experiment are strictly self-limited to the scientific method as presently defined, which presumes methodological naturalism (actually metaphysical naturalism). You forget that this scientific method (with its foundation of metaphysical naturalism) assumes as a paradigm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time. It cannot account for consciousness, for conscious agents, having the properties that include the ones I gave as examples. Therefore the scientists must assume that there really are no conscious agents - there are only deterministic/stochastic biological machines with consciousness being an illusory epiphenomenon of the workings of their neurological structures. And by implication, that these biological machines originated over millions of years by another combination of stochastic and deterministic processes, Darwinian evolution. A process where selective reproductive fitness is the only "purposive" force, the rest being stochastic random with respect to fitness genetic variation. That this paradigm is self-referentially absurd since it denies the real existence of the scientists themselves as real seekers after truth with the real free will to do so, is ignored for the moment, but it hangs in the background. As such, as already mentioned, in this paradigm reality is neatly divided into either deterministic or probabilistic/random processes. There is nothing else, no room for something else, for real conscious creative intelligences that are more than these processes. For these scientists to hypothetically propose an intelligent conscious human being as the origin of the Rembrandt portrait would actually amount within their paradigm to their proposing that at the historical time the work of art is dated to, a biological machine with no real consciousness and no real free will created the large amount of complex specified information in the portrait. I submit that this proposed hypothesis is absurd, first because we know that human conscious intelligence is fundamentally more than and different than physical processes. As evidenced by the properties of human conscious awareness such as the ones I used as examples, that fundamentally, existentially, can't be derived from the measurable material phenomena of science: - intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object - aboutness: being about something - this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi - having meaning - subjectivity - qualities of subjective awareness - i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness These properties or qualities and more are strongly elicited by the Rembrandt portrait, indicating a conscious intelligent originator having these immaterial properties. This is the only known source of such an artifact. Not a "meat robot" as assumed by materialism. This proposed hypothesis also is untenable because the researchers can't actually demonstrate even theoretically that a mechanism consisting only of random/probabilistic and deterministic sub-mechanisms can create such an artwork consisting of a very large amount of complex specified meaningful information (of course with no intelligent outside input). They can't do this any more than they can demonstrate even theoretically that the extremely large amount of complex specified information in biology has such an origin in Darwinian processes. This is shown by the bankruptcy of modern synthesis Neodarwinism. As absurd as hypothesizing that the faces on Mount Rushmore are the result of natural wind erosion and tectonic processes over millions of years. So if they are going to be both true to their paradigm and not absurd these scientists must exclude the intelligent conscious agent hypothesis.doubter_{September 8, 2019
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Eric:
Let’s say we accept your argument that there is no physical embedding of the information that gives an organism its form. And, let’s say we accept your argument before we discover DNA. And, let’s say that it is accepted by the entire scientific enterprise, so no one seeks to understand further how organisms get their form, and instead assume ‘God did it’.
That is a strange absolute extreme, Eric. Scientists like Newton and Kepler saw science as a way of understanding God's handiwork. If we saw there was something to explore inside of cells you bet we would develop the technology to do so. We would still need to know about the germs of germ theory. Just because DNA does not determine form doesn't mean it isn't important. Genomes and genotypes control and influence every aspect of development. It's just that neither of those are determining factors. Factory assembly lines control and influence the development of products. They do not determine what they are supposed to be producing. And no one advocates for saying "DESIGN" and ending it there. It would be very exciting research to determine how the biological molecules are directed to where they need to be. To determine where the assembly instructions are. And finally determine how we can infuse our synthetic cells with that information.
There is still some way the information that creates the flagellum is physically embedded in the generating organism?
I agree. But we just need basic science. We do NOT need to label it "methodological naturalism". Naturalistic processes had nothing to do with installing the software. Unless you are defining "naturalistic" so broadly as to make it superfluous.ET_{September 8, 2019
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. Eric, may I ask you a question please. You need not answer (and it is quite alright if you don't), but I am only asking in an effort to understand (only for myself) why you appear (to me) to be so utterly confused about the subject of biological information. Do you believe there is information in a carbon atom? And if so, what is it?Upright BiPed_{September 8, 2019
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Just because we now know that, as you derogatorily put it "‘God did it", that does not stop scientific inquiry. By the same token, although erroneously assuming 'unguided material processes did it' (as you still insist on doing) did not stop scientific inquiry. In fact science progressed regardless of the severe impediments that assuming methodological naturalism placed on science. The benefit we gain in science, by casting the erroneous assumption of methodological naturalism. i.e. materialism, to the wayside, is that we now have a correct understanding of what is actually going on in place, and a correct foundational understanding always catalyzes more fruitful areas of research. I could list many examples where the assumption of materialism has impeded scientific research (sometimes for decades). and where assuming Theism fostered scientific discovery. Shoot, modern science itself owes its very existence to Christianity. You are simply misguided, and worse yet you are parroting atheistic talking points, in your insistence that science should dogmatically assume materialism, i.e. methodological naturalism, as a starting assumption. Of supplemental note, your characterization of the discovery of DNA and your claim that "They were looking for the encoding because they thought something was physically causing organisms to have the form that they do,", is misguided at best. As Stephen Meyer has explained, Francis Crick was able to come up with the 'sequence hypothesis' for DNA primarily because of his prior work on breaking the German's ENIGMA code during WWII, not because of any assumption of materialism that he may have held as an atheist. i.e. Crick made the discovery IN SPITE of his atheistic materialism, not because of it! Moreover, experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, and DNA was discovered precisely because of the availability of new instruments and methodologies:
Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA, particularly Photo 51, while at King's College London, which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix for which James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. - per wikipedia
The advancements in instrumentation that allowed the discovery of DNA owes nothing to the assumption of materialism. The scientific instruments that allowed the discovery of DNA were INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED for crying out loud. To repeat for the deaf ears of EricMH, In fact, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on intelligent design and is certainly not based on methodological naturalism as is falsely presupposed by atheistic Darwinists (and as is, apparently, also falsely presupposed by some misguided Christians). From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science, (i.e. that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results, from top to bottom science itself is certainly not ‘natural’. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analysed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. EricMH, you simply, (like many atheists here on UD have done before you came along), are dogmatically trying to give credit for materialism where credit is not due. Any discovery in science that you can give that you think supports your claim that methodological naturalism. i.e assuming materialism, should be the ground rule for science, I can show where that discovery was fostered by the Intelligent Design and advancement of the instruments and techniques of scientific experimentation. As should be needless to say, none of that has anything to do with methodological naturalism, i.e. assuming materialism, as you are falsely presupposing.bornagain77_{September 8, 2019
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@BA77, the problem with your line of argument is the question: 'so what?' Let's say we accept your argument that there is no physical embedding of the information that gives an organism its form. And, let's say we accept your argument before we discover DNA. And, let's say that it is accepted by the entire scientific enterprise, so no one seeks to understand further how organisms get their form, and instead assume 'God did it'. It is not clear to me what benefit we gain. On the other hand, it is very clear that we would not have discovered DNA, since research into the information encoding will have stopped. No one is going to accidentally stumble across microscopically encoded information within intertwined nucleotide chains. They were looking for the encoding because they thought something was physically causing organisms to have the form that they do, i.e. following methodological naturalism to discover a physical cause for a physical phenomenon. And without discovering DNA, we would have missed out on significant chunks of modern progress in medicine and agriculture.EricMH_{September 8, 2019
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@ET to expand a bit more on my response. Perhaps you can answer this question by using your argument in a more familiar setting. If, following your line of argument, I say 'Windows is generated by immaterial information' because no one can point to the particular electrical/silicon component that generates Windows, what benefit does this explanation provide? It seems, rather, that I can understand Windows best by assuming it is produced by a particular digital encoding, which in turn is used by the various computer components to generate the OS we know and love. In particular, if I'm IT support, a programmer, or a hacker, then knowing the precise naturalistic details of how Windows is physically embedded and operates allows me to manipulate the system to greatest effect. On the other hand, as a standard end user, the naturalistic details are mostly irrelevant, and I can focus exclusively on the informational and teleological aspects of the OS. In my view of things, modern science operates in the role of the IT support/developer/hacker, and thus is best conducted by knowing the physically instantiated details of reality, i.e. methodological naturalism. On the other hand, we normal end users get the most benefit from the teleological user interface with which God has endowed creation, and this realm seems to be investigated without reference to methodological naturalism. The big question is whether these two realms ever intersect. The ID claim is that they do, and in a significant way. The modern science claim is that they do not. Philosophical naturalism goes further and claims the latter realm does not really exist. However, I do not really see ID making good on the intersection claim. But, ID is doing very well justifying the existence of the latter realm, and thus is falsifying philosophical naturalism. Yet, methodological naturalism remains largely untouched.EricMH_{September 8, 2019
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EricMH at 159, the misunderstanding, and misapplication, of methodological naturalism is entirely your own. Methodological naturalism, i.e. assuming materialism, has achieved NOTHING. You have made grand claims for materialism, (i.e. creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution), for which you, as has now been shown in this thread, simply have no evidence.bornagain77_{September 8, 2019
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It is safe to say that nobody really knows how an organism achieves its basic form. In the following article, Michael Denton remarks that,'to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint.'
The Types: A Persistent Structuralist Challenge to Darwinian Pan-Selectionism - Michael J. Denton - 2013 Excerpt: Cell form ,,,Karsenti comments that despite the attraction of the (genetic) blueprint model there are no “simple linear chains of causal events that link genes to phenotypes” [77: p. 255]. And wherever there is no simple linear causal chain linking genes with phenotypes,,,—at any level in the organic hierarchy, from cells to body plans—the resulting form is bound to be to a degree epigenetic and emergent, and cannot be inferred from even the most exhaustive analysis of the genes.,,, To this author’s knowledge, to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint. As mentioned above, between genes and mature cell form there is a complex hierarchy of self-organization and emergent phenomena, rendering cell form profoundly epigenetic. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.3/BIO-C.2013.3
And in the following article entitled 'how do rod-like bacteria control their geometry?', in the concluding paragraph, the authors conceded that, 'We are still far from unravelling the fundamental “engineering” challenges that biology has to overcome in shaping single cells as well as multi-cellular tissues.,,,'
Getting into shape: how do rod-like bacteria control their geometry? - March 31, 2014 Excerpt from concluding paragraph: We are still far from unravelling the fundamental “engineering” challenges that biology has to overcome in shaping single cells as well as multi-cellular tissues.,,, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.0015.pdf
,,,, the failure of reductive materialism to be able to explain the basic form of any particular organism occurs at a very low level. Much lower than DNA itself. 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 remark 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
further notes:
Darwinism vs Biological Form - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate (27:15 minute mark – how quantum information theory relates to molecular biology) https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=1635
bornagain77_{September 8, 2019
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@ET, it is hard for me to understand what you mean. When you say 'information is immaterial' I thought you meant there is some non physical source of the information that forms a biological organism, i.e. some kind of vitalism. But you claim there is no non-physical entity. So, I don't know what you mean. For example, even though the same software program can be implemented in multiple computers, and in that sense the program's information is some sort of abstract Platonic reality, the actual program that makes the computer do something is embedded in a physical medium. Is this what you mean when you say 'information is immaterial'? There is still some way the information that creates the flagellum is physically embedded in the generating organism? If so, this seems best studied with some sort of methodological naturalism, where we seek out the manner in which the information is physically embedded. Of course, it is best if we assume philosophical theism so that we seek out information in the first place, but once we get to the point where we are explaining the operation of the flagellum building process, we rely entirely on physical mechanism and material encodings of immaterial information. It is this restricted setting that methodological naturalism seems best suited for providing scientific guidance. ================= @BA77, hopefully the above illustrates the sort of distinction I am making. I agree with much of what you write, I think you are misunderstanding my terminology. Theism certainly works much better than naturalism as a guide and motivation for science. But when it comes down to the actual silicon, wiring and programming that makes our computers work, we rely entirely on physical mechanisms and materially encoded information, all things that are entirely within the realm of methodological naturalism. That being said, the inference from what we discover scientifically seems to overwhelmingly point towards intelligent agency, as you point out with your catalogue of examples. I believe our basic disagreement comes down to different definitions of methodological naturalism. I am only referring to the sort of science that 'gets things done'. Currently, such science proceeds entirely by reference to physical mechanisms. The error comes in when people extrapolate from the methodological naturalism necessary to 'get things done' to philosophical naturalism about the ultimate origin of everything. A charitable understanding of the motivation for exclusively focusing on methodological naturalism given by Francis Bacon is that before he proposed only looking at formal and efficient causality in natural philosophy, many theologians were supposing metaphysical entities that were practically worthless for solving what Bacon saw as the pressing physical problems of his day. By restricting focus to formal and efficient causality Bacon sought to solve the problems of disease and hunger that surrounded him in his era. And arguably, this restriction in focus has achieved exactly what Bacon sought to great effect. ================= @Doubter, well thought out example. My question is, why do you remove the intelligent agent from the chance hypothesis? That seems like special pleading. For any event under examination, we can always remove whatever causal agent we want to designate as 'intelligent' and get positive CSI. For instance, say I flip a double headed coin, and for sake of analysis I use a fair coin as my chance hypothesis. Under this setting, I get about N bits of CSI for N coin flips. Yet, there is no intelligent agency involved. I get positive CSI because I have chosen to set 'double headed coin' as the 'intelligent agency' and this gives the desired result. This shows that if we get to choose what to exclude from the chance hypothesis, then the explanatory filter is not a test for intelligent agency, per se, but a test for the alternate hypothesis, i.e. a Bayes log likelihood test. However, this then begs the question. The Darwinist claims that human beings have been created through the evolutionary process, so are themselves the product of chance and necessity, and thus should be included in the chance hypothesis, potentially resulting in no CSI. The ID argument, on the other hand, claims there is something special about humans and thus excludes them from the chance hypothesis, resulting in positive CSI. However, the whole reason there is something supposedly special about humans is because they are intelligently design and are themselves intelligent agents and outside the realm of stochastic processes. But, this is precisely the point under debate between the two sides, so cannot be used as the assumption in the IDist's argument. Thus, both sides beg the question when applying the explanatory filter by deciding whether to include or exclude humans from the chance hypothesis for the piece of art. Since setting up the explanatory filter must be a priori set with either side's assumptions to achieve the desired conclusion, then the circularity of the argument means the explanatory filter does not provide any assistance in objectively resolving the question for either side.EricMH_{September 8, 2019
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Eric- The immaterial information exists in the cells. As I said there isn't any evidence that the assembly instructions are the DNA. So how do you think any bacterial flagellum gets assembled, faithfully, time after time? And of course we would have discovered DNA. All that took was a powerful microscope. I didn't say anything about a non-physical entity. "Information is information, neither matter nor energy" Norbert Weiner Information is immaterial, Eric. And my suggestion is testable. Just find the physio-chemical component that details the assembly processes of biological structures (and developmental biology). No one has found such a thing so far. And yet those structures exist and get faithfully replicated.ET_{September 8, 2019
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@ET, I'm not sure what you are saying. You think there is the equivalent of a bacterium flagellum blueprint that exists in some non-physical realm? What is the evidence for this? And what is the difference between this idea and before we discovered DNA? What if a biologist back then claimed that the information encoded in the DNA was emerging from some non-physical realm and therefore we should not seek a physical medium and the problem was solved? We would never have discovered DNA and biological science would be set back centuries. This seems to be the danger of the current state of ID, that it can appeal to non physically testable entities as an explanation, thus not explaining anything and not seeking out a possible testable explanation, which is precisely the major criticism leveled against ID by methodological naturalists. Is this problem not clear to you? How can ID mitigate it? Again, I'm not saying this problem is fatal to ID. I am saying it is at least a potential problem, and I've fallen prey to it myself. We need a rigorous methodology to guard against postulating untestable explanations.EricMH_{September 8, 2019
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