Once More from the Top on “Mechanism”

_{Barry Arrington

September 1, 2019

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 continue on with EricMH's fallacious claim that
Once ID can start doing something equivalent to creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution, then it deserves to be taken more seriously than methodological naturalism. Otherwise, methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward and ID is an interesting philosophical argument to consider in your free time.
As was shown in post 154, methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism, had nothing whatsoever to do with creating modern medicine. In regards to agriculture in particular we find that methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism, was also useless. As Jerry Coyne himself admitted, "But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.”
Doctors and Evolution – May 19, 2015 Excerpt: Coincidentally, a correspondent today sends across my desk this from biologist Jerry Coyne, of Why Evolution Is True fame. Writing in Nature (“Selling Darwin”), Coyne has conceded: “[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.” per Evolution News
And as plant geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig asked, " why -- even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements -- all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective "micromutations" (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by "larger mutations" ... and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment (as predicted) instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species...(?)"
Peer-Reviewed Research Paper on Plant Biology Favorably Cites Intelligent Design and Challenges Darwinian Evolution - Casey Luskin December 29, 2010 Excerpt: Many of these researchers also raise the question (among others), why — even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements — all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective “micromutations” (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by “larger mutations” … and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species… (Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some Further Research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology Vol. 4 (Special Issue 1): 1-21 (December 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/peer-reviewed_research_paper_o042191.html Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, (retired) Senior Scientist (Biology), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Emeritus, Cologne, Germany.
Likewise, Dr. John Sanford, a leading expert in plant genetics, (whose most significant scientific contributions involved three inventions - the biolistic ("gene gun") process, pathogen-derived resistance, and genetic immunization), also found the assumption of materialism, i.e. Darwinian evolution, to be useless in his research on plant genetics. In fact he wrote a book entitled "Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome' which is simply devastating to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution. In that book he stated (among other things),
"What about polyploidy plants? It has been claimed that since some plants are polyploidy (having double the normal chromosome numbers), this proves that duplication must be beneficial and must increase information. Polyploidy was my special area of study during my Ph.D. thesis. Interestingly, it makes a great deal of difference how a polyploid arises. If somatic (body) cells are treated with the chemical called colchicine, cell division is disrupted , resulting in chromosome doubling - but no new information arises. The plants that result are almost always very stunted, morphologically distorted, and generally sterile. The reason for this should be obvious - the plants must waste twice as much energy to make twice as much DNA, but with no new genetic information! The nucleus is also roughly twice as large, disrupting proper cell shape and cell size. In fact, the plants actually have less information than before, because a great deal of the information which controls gene regulation depends on gene dosage (copy number). Loss of regulatory control is loss of information. This is really the same reason why an extra chromosome causes Down's Syndrome. Thousands of genes become improperly improperly regulated, because of extra genic copies. If somatic polyploidization is consistently deleterious, why are there any polyploidy plants at all - such as potatoes? The reason is that polyploidy can arise by a different process - which is called sexual polyploidization.This happens when a unreduced sperm unites with a unreduced egg. In this special case, all of the information within the two parents is combined into the offspring, and there can be a net gain of information within that single individual. But there is no more total information within the population. the information within the two parents was simply pooled. In such a case we are seeing pooling of information, but not any new information.",,, "in some special cases, the extra level of gene backup within a polyploidy can outweigh the problems of disrupted gene regulation and reduced fertility - and so can result in a type of "net gain". But such a "net gain" is more accurately described as a net reduction in the rate of degeneration." John Sanford - Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome - pages 191-192 - Dr. John Sanford has been a Cornell University Professor for more than 25 years (being semi-retired since 1998). He received his Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin in the area of plant breeding and plant genetics.
As to the claim from EricMH that methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism, lay behind the IT (Information Technology) revolution, that claim is simply the most insane and ludicrous of all of EricMH's claims for methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism.. That humans should 'master the planet' due to his unique ability to manipulate immaterial information is completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that undergirds Darwinian thought. Although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not by brute force, but simply by our unique ability to communicate information and also to, specifically, infuse immaterial information into material substrates in order to create, i.e. intelligently design, objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also for our pleasure.
History of Invention http://www.explainthatstuff.com/timeline.html
And although the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, that allowed humans to become ‘masters of the planet’, was rather crude to begin with, (i.e. spears, arrows, and plows etc..), this top down infusion of immaterial information into material substrates has become much more impressive over the last half century or so. Specifically, the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial mathematical and/or logical information into material substrates lies at the very basis of many, if not all, of man’s most stunning, almost miraculous, technological advances in recent decades.
Describing Nature With Math By Peter Tyson – Nov. 2011 Excerpt: Mathematics underlies virtually all of our technology today. James Maxwell’s four equations summarizing electromagnetism led directly to radio and all other forms of telecommunication. E = mc2 led directly to nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The equations of quantum mechanics made possible everything from transistors and semiconductors to electron microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. Indeed, many of the technologies you and I enjoy every day simply would not work without mathematics. When you do a Google search, you’re relying on 19th-century algebra, on which the search engine’s algorithms are based. When you watch a movie, you may well be seeing mountains and other natural features that, while appearing as real as rock, arise entirely from mathematical models. When you play your iPod, you’re hearing a mathematical recreation of music that is stored digitally; your cell phone does the same in real time. “When you listen to a mobile phone, you’re not actually hearing the voice of the person speaking,” Devlin told me. “You’re hearing a mathematical recreation of that voice. That voice is reduced to mathematics.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/describing-nature-math.html Recognising Top-Down Causation – George Ellis Excerpt: page 5: A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics, ,,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf
To presuppose that methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism, lay behind the IT revolution is simply completely disconnected from the reality of the situation. In fact, the fact that human beings ALONE process this ability to manipulate immaterial information, and the fact that both the universe and life itself are 'information theoretic' in their foundation basis, is proof for the Theistic claim that human beings alone are 'made in the image of God'.
The Galilean Challenge - Noam Chomsky – April 2017 Excerpt: The capacity for language is species specific, something shared by humans and unique to them. It is the most striking feature of this curious organism, and a foundation for its remarkable achievement,,, There has been considerable progress in understanding the nature of the internal language, but its free creative use remains a mystery. This should come as no surprise. In a recent review of far simpler cases of voluntary action, neuroscientists Emilio Bizzi and Robert Ajemian remark, in the case of something so simple as raising one’s arm, that “the detail of this complicated process, which critically involves coordinate and variable transformations from spatial movement goals to muscle activations, needs to be elaborated further. Phrased more fancifully, we have some idea as to the intricate design of the puppet and the puppet strings, but we lack insight into the mind of the puppeteer.”8 The normal creative use of language is an even more dramatic example.,,, One fact appears to be well established. The faculty of language is a true species property, invariant among human groups, and unique to humans in its essential properties. It follows that there has been little or no evolution of the faculty since human groups separated from one another,,, There is little evidence of anything like human language, or symbolic behavior altogether, before the emergence of modern humans.,,, Our intricate knowledge of what even the simplest words mean is acquired virtually without experience. At peak periods of language acquisition, children acquire about a word an hour, often on one presentation.26 The rich meaning of even the most elementary words must be substantially innate. The evolutionary origin of such concepts is a complete mystery.,,, --- Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT. - per Inference
In the following article, Anton Zeilinger, a leading expert in quantum mechanics, stated that ‘it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows.’
Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum mechanics: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf
In the following video at the 48:24 mark Zeilinger states that “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” and he goes on to note at the 49:45 mark the Theological significance of “In the Beginning was the Word” John 1:1
48:24 mark: “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” 49:45 mark: “In the Beginning was the Word” John 1:1 Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ZPWW5NOrw
Vlatko Vedral, who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and is also a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics, states
"The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena." Vlatko Vedral - Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College - a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics.
Moreover, besides being foundational to physical reality, information is also found to be ‘infused’ into biological life.
Information Enigma (Where did the information in life come from?) - - Stephen Meyer - Doug Axe - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g Complex grammar of the genomic language – November 9, 2015 Excerpt: The ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher –,,, ,,, in their recent study in Nature, the Taipale team examines the binding preferences of pairs of transcription factors, and systematically maps the compound DNA words they bind to. Their analysis reveals that the grammar of the genetic code is much more complex than that of even the most complex human languages. Instead of simply joining two words together by deleting a space, the individual words that are joined together in compound DNA words are altered, leading to a large number of completely new words. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109140252.htm
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made ‘in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’ precisely because of our ability infuse information into material substrates. I guess a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. And that is precisely the proof claimed within Christianity.
Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words ‘The Lamb’ on a Solid Oval Object Under The Beard – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ
Verses:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
bornagain77_{September 8, 2019
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Eric- Back to the immaterial information. Think about a bacterial flagellum. Its assembly instructions are not in the DNA sequence. Yet it gets faithfully assembled each time. It's beyond absurd to think that the different proteins just diffuse through the cell, just happen to all meet and self-assemble. The faithful assembly only makes sense under Intelligent Design and immaterial information guiding cellular processes. We are missing that under methodological naturalism. It's right in front of everyone but no one wants to admit the obvious so they look for naturalistic narratives. How is that helping advance anything? The only thing methodological naturalism is good for is a sobriety check. As in repeat these words "methodological naturalism". :cool:ET_{September 7, 2019
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In post 146 EricMH made this fallacious claim
Once ID can start doing something equivalent to creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution, then it deserves to be taken more seriously than methodological naturalism. Otherwise, methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward and ID is an interesting philosophical argument to consider in your free time.
Methodological naturalism, i.e. the assumption of materialism, had nothing whatsoever to do with creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution. And therefore it is completely ludicrous for EricMH to claim that 'methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward.' In regards to 'creating modern medicine', 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.,,, From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,, Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology."
"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 recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. 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. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,, Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology." Philip S. Skell - (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. - Why Do We Invoke Darwin? - 2005
Even Jerry Coyne himself admitted that Darwinian evolution has been useless for medicine, among other things:
Doctors and Evolution – May 19, 2015 Excerpt: Coincidentally, a correspondent today sends across my desk this from biologist Jerry Coyne, of Why Evolution Is True fame. Writing in Nature (“Selling Darwin”), Coyne has conceded: “[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.” per Evolution News
And as Dr. Egnor stated, "Evolutionary explanations by themselves are worthless to medicine. All medical treatments are based on detailed proximate explanations."
Darwinian Medicine and Proximate and Evolutionary Explanations – Michael Egnor – neurosurgeon – June 2011 Excerpt: 4) Evolutionary explanations by themselves are worthless to medicine. All medical treatments are based on detailed proximate explanations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/darwinian_medicine_and_proxima047701.html Against "Darwinian Medicine" – Dr. Michael Egnor - August 9, 2016 Excerpt: Darwinist Randolph Nesse has been peddling "Darwinian Medicine" for years.,,, He argues for integration of Darwinian science into medical school curricula,,, The very admission that Darwinism has had no role in medical science is a telling argument not for its inclusion, but for its irrelevance. Medical science is remarkably successful. Antibiotics, cybernetics, cancer chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, hip replacements, heart transplants, and a host of near-miraculous advances have greatly extended our lifespan and improved the quality of our lives -- all without Darwin. Whether or not Darwinian hypotheses can be teased out of some medical advances, it is simply a fact that doctors and medical researchers pay no attention to Darwinian speculations in their work, and their work has been astonishingly successful. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/08/against_darwini103058.html
In fact, besides being worthless to medicine, in so far as Darwinian evolution has influenced medical diagnostics, it has led to much medical malpractice in the past, For example, the false evolutionary assumption of vestigial organs has misled medical doctors into much needless medical malpractice in the past:
Evolution’s “vestigial organ” argument debunked Excerpt: “The appendix, like the once ‘vestigial’ tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body’s immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary ‘left over,’ many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice” (David Menton, Ph.D., “The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution,” St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). “Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery” (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/ LSU Ophthalmologist Commends a “Design Approach” in Appraising Supposedly Vestigial Organs – December 8, 2016 Excerpt: I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and I teach residents how to perform eye muscle surgery. The plica semilunaris is the curvilinear pinkish tissue in each person’s eye nasally. According to neo-Darwinian advocates, the tissue is a useless holdover from evolution, a vestigial tissue of the nictitating membrane in other mammals. Residents, who are generally a bright bunch, routinely quote this “truth” to me each year. Thus, residents tend to be careless with this tissue unless taught properly. When performing surgery for esotropia (“crossed eyes”), one must be very careful with the plica semilunaris. The tissue can easily be improperly attached too far temporally,,, I explain to the residents that the plica is needed to allow the eye to move outward or temporally, and sewing the plica in the wrong location can not only result in a dreadful red appearance to the eye, but the eye can be drawn inward.,, In the first few years of my practice, I saw an unfortunate Vietnamese gentleman, ,, He had a benign growth on the nasal portion of his eyes (a pterygium). The operation to remove this lesion is usually straightforward, but whoever performed his surgery neglected the plica and sewed the plica semilunaris too far temporally, resulting in very crossed eyes and double vision. Understandably upset, I had to perform eye muscle surgery (strabismus surgery) to restore his vision to normal. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/12/lsu_ophthalmolo103350.html
Whereas the presumption that the human body was designed would have avoided all that needless medical malpractice involving supposedly useless vestigial organs. Moreover, billions of dollars have been wasted on animal testing because of the false evolutionary assumption of common descent.
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? – Mouse Models Excerpt: A recent scientific paper showed that all 150 drugs tested at the cost of billions of dollars in human trials of sepsis failed because the drugs had been developed using mice. Unfortunately, what looks like sepsis in mice turned out to be very different than what sepsis is in humans. Coverage of this study by Gina Kolata in the New York Times incited a heated response from within the biomedical research community. AZRA RAZA – Professor of medicine and director of the MDS Centre, Columbia University, New York http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/12/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement-edge-org Animal Testing Is Bad Science: Point/Counterpoint Excerpt: The only reason people are under the misconception that animal experiments help humans is because the media, experimenters, universities and lobbying groups exaggerate the potential of animal experiments to lead to new cures and the role they have played in past medical advances.,,, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted that 92 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous.,,, Physiological reactions to drugs vary enormously from species to species. Penicillin kills guinea pigs but is inactive in rabbits; aspirin kills cats and causes birth defects in rats, mice, guinea pigs, dogs, and monkeys; and morphine, a depressant in humans, stimulates goats, cats, and horses. http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animal-testing-bad-science.aspx Comparing the human and chimpanzee genomes: Searching for needles in a haystack – Ajit Varki1 and Tasha K. Altheide – 2005 Excerpt: we have many characteristics that are uniquely human. Table 1 lists some of the definite and possible phenotypic traits that appear to differentiate us from chimpanzees and other “great apes”2. For the most part, we do not know which genetic features interact with the environment to generate these differences between the “phenomes”3 of our two species. The chimpanzee has also long been seen as a model for human diseases because of its close evolutionary relationship. This is indeed the case for a few disorders. Nevertheless, it is a striking paradox that chimpanzees are in fact not good models for many major human diseases/conditions (see Table 2) (Varki 2000; Olson and Varki 2003). http://genome.cshlp.org/content/15/12/1746.full
And whereas evolutionary assumptions have led to much needless medical malpractice, on the other hand, Intelligent Design, particularly the presumption that there are strict limits to what unguided evolutionary processes can accomplish, is turning out to be very useful for medicine.
Guide of the Perplexed: A Quick Reprise of The Edge of Evolution – Michael Behe – August 20, 2014 Excerpt: If there were a second drug with the efficacy of chloroquine which had always been administered in combination with it (but worked by a different mechanism), resistance to the combination would be expected to arise with a frequency in the neighborhood of 1 in 10^40 — a medical triumph (over malaria). per evolution news and views Fighting Cancer with Intelligent Design – Casey Luskin – December 25, 2015 Excerpt: “In fighting antibiotic resistance, Darwin’s theory actually provides little guidance. Indeed, quite the opposite. As SUNY Professor of Neurosurgery Michael Egnor has written here, “Darwinism tells us that … bacteria survive antibiotics that they’re not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That’s it.” To create drugs that outsmart evolving bacteria or cancer cells, biomedical researchers must use a process of intelligent design. They create drug cocktails that bank upon the fact that there are limits to how much living things can evolve on their own. Far from being evidence for Darwinian theory, antibiotic resistant bacteria point to what Michael Behe has called “the edge of evolution,” beyond which unguided Darwinian processes are powerless.” In simple terms, Darwinian evolution tends to work fine when only one mutation is needed to give an advantage. But when you need multiple mutations to gain an advantage, the process tends to get stuck. By throwing lots of antibiotic drugs at an organism, we force it to evolve lots of mutations — more than Darwinian evolution can produce — in order to survive. In this way, we can beat antibiotic-resistant microbes.,,, Dr. M. William Audeh at UCLA School of Medicine. He makes the same point with regard to fighting cancer.,,, He says we kill cancer cells by using many (“combinations of”) drugs — more than they can possibly evolve resistance to. When he says that we can “overcome the adaptive potential of the population,” he means there are limits to how much cancer cells can evolve. If we intelligently design combinations of drugs that would require more mutations than could possibly arise via Darwinian evolution, then we kill cancer cells before they evolve mutations to evade our therapy techniques. – per evolution news and views
The multiple drug cocktail that has been so effective in controlling HIV uses the exact same strategy of being beyond the ‘edge of evolution’ that Dr. Behe has elucidated:
When taking any single drug, it is fairly likely that some mutant virus in the patient might happen to be resistant, survive the onslaught, and spawn a resistant lineage. But the probability that the patient hosts a mutant virus that happens to be resistant to several different drugs at the same time is much lower.,,, it “costs” a pest or pathogen to be resistant to a pesticide or drug. If you place resistant and non-resistant organisms in head-to-head competition in the absence of the pesticide or drug, the non-resistant organisms generally win.,,, This therapy has shown early, promising results — it may not eliminate HIV, but it could keep patients’ virus loads low for a long time, slowing progression of the disease. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/medicine_04
Design principles also offer promising avenues in treating cancer
Can biological complexity be reverse engineered? - Sara Green - 2015 Excerpt: “But many biologists agree that there is a connection between the robustness of biological networks and their non-random connectivity distribution and hierarchical structure (Steinacher & Soyer, 2012). Other examples of design principles are bi-stable switches (Tyson et al. 2003) and overabundant sub-circuits in gene regulatory networks, called network motifs (Alon, 2007a, see below). To some researchers, such findings provide optimism that there is simplicity in the apparent complexity of biological systems (Csete and Doyle, 2002; Alon, 2007c). The quest for design principles reflects a hope that key properties of biological systems can be understood without knowing all the lower-level causal details. This is not only a point about practical convenience but also about the relevant level of analysis. The cancer biologist Lazebnik (2002) provocatively compared biomedical research strategies to the attempt to fix a radio by atomizing the system into component parts and studying these in isolation. If the malfunction of the system is connected to the orchestrated organization of parts and processes, searching for broken molecular components is bound to fail. Lazebnik therefore proposes an engineering approach to investigate how the components are wired together as a functional whole.” http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12168/1/Can%20biological%20complexity%20be%20reverse%20engineered.pdf
If the successful treatment of pathogens and cancer using Design principles does not impress EricMH as to the usefulness of Intelligent Design as a guiding heuristic in medicine, then nothing ever will. On a personal note. I would much rather have a Doctor who rightly believed that the human body was designed, (and even one who might even be willing to pray with me during my time of crisis), than having a Doctor who thought that the human body was basically an accident of time and chance: This Professor of Medicine agrees
Why Understanding Intelligent Design Helps Us to Understand Physiology - Philip Anderson - March 23, 2017 Excerpt: The progress of my career from wide-eyed and nervous first year medical student to head of an anesthesiology department and examiner for the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa was at no point aided by an understanding of Darwinian evolution, even though I was taught it and was first in my university class in biology. And my understanding of Darwinian evolution has not in any way benefited the manner in which I treat patients. Quite the opposite! Every year, when I give the annual opening address at our hospital when welcoming new graduates and senior medical officers, I point out that it is only when you understand the human body as the pinnacle of design that you can truly care for patients. Studying the Darwinian theory of evolution at medical school may align the beliefs of medical students with those of their colleagues in the biology department, but it in no way benefits them as physicians or helps them practice medicine. On the contrary, as the candidate I was helping illustrates, a lack of understanding of design in physiology may hinder their performance. A student happy to embrace design will have one less mental hurdle to overcome. per Evolution News
I will further address EricMH's other fallacious claims against ID later tonight or tomorrow.bornagain77_{September 7, 2019
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Very well put Doubter. Liked your Rembrandt illustration,bornagain77_{September 7, 2019
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EricMH's insistence on methodological naturalism or materialism as the only practically fruitful paradigm reminds me of a little thought experiment. Forensic science could be considered to include art analysis. Let's say some scientists decide to attempt to scientifically establish the origin of a Rembrandt portrait. True to the scientific method, to do so they must exclusively use observation, hypothesis building, testing and experiment, refining or replacement of the hypothesis, and so on. True to their paradigm of methodological naturalism only "natural" causes outworking from the laws of nature are to be considered. True to their paradigm, all potential hypotheses involving a conscious intelligent agent human or otherwise producing an artifact must be excluded at the start. Only processes and mechanisms that can be understood as outworking from the laws of physics, chemistry, mechanics, and especially quantum mechanics can be considered. In this paradigm reality is neatly divided into either non-stochastic (deterministic) processes and stochastic (probablistic or random) processes. There is nothing else. Unfortunately this enterprise will soon inevitably grind to an impotent halt, because this particular configuration of paint on canvas (the Rembrandt portrait) contains a very large amount of complex specified information that purely "natural" processes either deterministic or random simply can't be demonstrated to be able to produce. Since the scientists are prohibited by their paradigm of methodological naturalism from ever even at the start considering conscious creative intelligence as a possible origin, they get nowhere. Incidentally, this is just as they have failed to explain the origin of the extremely large amounts of complex functional information in biology. The problem is, their basic method excludes consciousness in its view of reality, and consequently deliberately excludes consciousness and teleology of any kind as a source of complex functional information. Of course the truth is that a conscious creative intelligent agent produced this artifact of art, and the true nature of this consciousness and the creative ingenuity it put into the intentional purposive effort of painting it is probably forever impenetrable to physical science, since physical science by its very nature excludes consciousness as part of reality except as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. So how fruitful is methodological naturalism in this scenario? It isn't at all, even to the slightest extent. Sure, it is immensely fruiful within its own intended physical realm, but this purely physical realm deliberately excludes the most important part of reality - consciousness and intelligence, the essence of what we are as humans. This situation will prevail indefinitely, until (if ever) science can explain and has a mechanism for, consciousness. I won't be holding my breath. In the mean time, the properties of conscious awareness (the essence of what we are) remain in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space, what can be investigated by physical science. This is the conscious awareness that was the true source of the Rembrandt portrait. Some examples with conscious awareness: - 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 - subjectivity - qualities of subjective awareness - i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness Of course the paradox of modern physical science is that all things that can be measured and investigated start with quantum mechanical reality, in which observation and consciousness are fundamental. After quantum state reduction or "collapse of the wave function", measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this that can be scientifically measured and experimented with amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts. The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena investigatable by physical science. They are in entirely different existential categories. So this seems to leave consciousness out in the cold as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness obviously has causative power in the world. To claim that this is just "emergence" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery of consciousness and creativity remains, impenetrable to physical science as limited by methodological naturalism. If this is not "science" as it is currently restrictively defined doesn't change the fact that it is of supreme importance.doubter_{September 7, 2019
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It is very telling that every time IDists point out the evidence that supports ID that it is just hand-waved away. And when we press back for their methodology for determining nature did it, we get either silence or misdirection. Sad, really.ET_{September 7, 2019
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Brother Brian:
Eric has just been criticizing the lack of action of the ID community for refusing to advance beyond the unconfirmed (and unconfirmable) detection of design in biology
Design has been confirmed. And no one has a scientific alternative to ID. Go figure. So Brian is just another willfully ignorant troll.ET_{September 7, 2019
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BA77
EricMH, continues his fallacious defense of methodological naturalism as such,
There must be a reading comprehension problem here. Eric has not been defending methodological naturalism, although it’s success suggests that it needs no defence. Eric has just been criticizing the lack of action of the ID community for refusing to advance beyond the unconfirmed (and unconfirmable) detection of design in biology.Brother Brian_{September 7, 2019
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EricMH, continues his fallacious defense of methodological naturalism as such,
An actual scientific methodology of ID, something that is like physics and chemistry that produces interesting results, makes predictions and drives technological advancement. Otherwise ID nothing more than another apologetic argument, just like a multitude of other such arguments that rely on scientific data, and is nothing special. Actually being a science is different than using scientific data to make a point. ID claims to be the former, but mostly is just doing the latter. Once ID can start doing something equivalent to creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution, then it deserves to be taken more seriously than methodological naturalism. Otherwise, methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward and ID is an interesting philosophical argument to consider in your free time.
There is so much that is 'not even wrong' in that statement it is hard to know where to begin. There is, and has been, much debate on what qualifies something as a real science. Whether or not a theory is based on methodological naturalism is not even on the list of different criteria that are usually used to determine whether or not something may be scientific. In fact, as has been pointed out several times to EricMH now, and yet he apparently refuses to listen, assuming methodological naturalism as true prior to investigation is completely absurd. To repeat for the apparently deaf ears of EricMH: , 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
What part of 'catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself' do you not understand EricMH? Clearly, despite what Eric may falsely imagine as being true, methodological naturalism is a non-starter as the supposed 'ground rule' for doing good science. The generally accepted 'ground rule' for determining whether something is even a real science science or not, as was clearly pointed out to EricMH in post 78, is that something must be testable and potentially falsifiable to be science. i.e. Popper's falsification criteria. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/once-more-from-the-top-on-mechanism/#comment-683425 And on that score of being falsifiable, Darwinian evolution and methodological naturalism, since Darwinism is based explicitly on the assumption of naturalism, Darwin's theory fails to qualify as a science. In fact, as was also pointed out to EricMH in post 78, it is not that Darwinism is not falsifiable, it has been falsified many times over, it is that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept any empirical falsification against their theory. And as was also pointed out in post 78, ID is testable and potentially falsifiable, and, in spite of the fact that many millions of dollars have been spent, and thousands of scientists, have been trying to falsify ID, (by showing that unguided material processes, i.e. 'natural' processes, can generate functional information) none-the-less ID remains standing and is unfalsified to this day. If that does not qualify ID as a rigorously testable scientific theory, then nothing ever will. Apparently none of this is good enough for EricMH for him to personally consider ID as 'good science'. Although EricMH completely ignores Popper's falsification criteria in determining whether ID is good science or not, EricMH does seem to tentatively hold to the criteria of predictability and fruitfulness when he tries to condemn ID as being bad science and hold methodological naturalism as supposedly being good science. And indeed predictability and fruitfulness are good indications of whether something is science or not. And yet Darwinian evolution, which is based explicitly on the assumption of naturalism, i.e. methodological naturalism, fails to qualify as a science by the criteria of predictability and fruitfulness as well. Darwinian Evolution, and by default methodological naturalism, simply fails to qualify as a science by any reasonable measure of science one might wish to invoke:
“There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17 Darwinian Evolution Fails the Five Standard Tests of a Scientific Hypothesis – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7f_fyoPybw
I addressed the failure of methodological naturalism to ‘find predictive models for what we observe’ in post 135, and further showed in post 136 that the very act of 'finding predictive models for what we observe' is a thoroughly ‘non-naturalistic’ affair that presupposes the very reality of the very things, i.e. immaterial minds and immaterial mathematics, that naturalism itself denies the very existence of. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/once-more-from-the-top-on-mechanism/#comment-683535 To further drive this point home, imposing materialistic answers onto the scientific method beforehand, methodological naturalism, is especially problematic in these questions of origins, since we are indeed questioning the materialistic philosophy itself. i.e. We are asking the scientific method to answer this very specific question, "Did God create the universe and us or did blind material processes create the universe and us?" When we realize that this is the actual question we are seeking an answer to within the scientific method, then of course it is readily apparent we cannot impose strict materialistic answers onto the scientific method prior to investigation. When looking at the evidence from modern science in this light we find out many interesting things which scientists, who have been blinded by the philosophy of materialism, miss. This is because the materialistic and Theistic philosophy make, and have made, several contradictory predictions about what type of science evidence we will find. These contradictory predictions, and the evidence found by modern science, can be tested against one another to see if either materialism or Theism is true. Here are a few comparisons:
1. Naturalism/Materialism predicted space-time energy-matter always existed. Theism predicted space-time energy-matter were created. Big Bang cosmology now strongly indicates that time-space energy-matter had a sudden creation event approximately 14 billion years ago. 2. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the universe is a self sustaining system that is not dependent on anything else for its continued existence. Theism predicted that God upholds this universe in its continued existence. Breakthroughs in quantum mechanics reveal that this universe is dependent on a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause for its continued existence. 3. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that consciousness is an ‘emergent property’ of material reality and thus should have no particularly special position within material reality. Theism predicts consciousness precedes material reality and therefore, on that presupposition, consciousness should have a ‘special’ position within material reality. Quantum Mechanics reveals that consciousness has a special, even a central, position within material reality. - 4. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe. Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time. – Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, is relative and comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. (Psalm 90:4 – 2 Timothy 1:9) - 5. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and that life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind. Scientists find the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. Moreover it is found, when scrutinizing the details of physics and chemistry, that not only is the universe fine-tuned for carbon based life, but is specifically fine-tuned for life like human life (R. Collins, M. Denton).- 6. Naturalism/Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe. Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex organic life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe (G. Gonzalez; Hugh Ross). - 7. Naturalism/Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11). Geochemical evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth indicates that complex photosynthetic life has existed on earth as long as water has been on the face of earth. - 8. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the first life to be relatively simple. Theism predicted that God is the source for all life on earth. The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 9. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse animal life to appear abruptly in the seas in God’s fifth day of creation. The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short “geologic resolution time” in the Cambrian seas. - 10. Naturalism/Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record. Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. - 11. Naturalism/Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth – Man (our genus ‘modern homo’ as distinct from the highly controversial ‘early homo’) is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. (Tattersall; Luskin)– 12. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the separation of human intelligence from animal intelligence ‘is one of degree and not of kind’ (C. Darwin). Theism predicted that we are made in the ‘image of God’- Despite an ‘explosion of research’ in this area over the last four decades, human beings alone are found to ‘mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities.’ (Tattersall; Schwartz). Moreover, both biological life and the universe itself are found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. 13. Naturalism/Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made – ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a “biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”. - 14. Naturalism/Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life on earth – The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule). Theism compared to Naturalism - Major predictions of each Philosophy - video https://youtu.be/WY5ppoqPNVo
As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. - In fact modern science is, as was pointed out in post 130 and 131, even very good at pointing us to Christianity as the solution to the much sought after 'theory of everything'. Moreover, even though Naturalism has been spectacularly wrong in its predictions, EricMH, completely oblivious to that spectacular failure of methodological naturalism, holds that quote unquote, "methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward'. That statement is so far disconnected from the reality of the situation that it is obvious that EricMH has thought NONE of this through and is just parroting atheistic talking points against ID. I just wonder when EricMH will try to bring up 'the argument from evil' to go alongside his current fallacious 'god of the gaps' argument since that is the other major atheistic argument, i.e. talking point, against ID? Fruitfulness, Eric's other criteria for teying to say ID is not good science,, is another area that EricMH is severely off the mark with his apparent bias against ID. There are several examples I could give to show ID is indeed fruitful. But alas, time forbids me from addressing his fallacious objection of 'fruitfulness' this morning. Perhaps later today I will further expose EricMH's arguments against ID, as supposedly being bad science, as being severely misguided and misinformed.bornagain77_{September 7, 2019
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OK, wait. Intelligent Design is about the detection and study of design in nature. That encompasses the science of ID. The scientific methodology is with the detection part. What we do with the knowledge of being part and parcel of an Intelligent Design is up to us. To me that knowledge is a game changer. It completely changes the way we look at things- that science and scientists look at things. That said, genetic algorithms exemplify evolution by means of intelligent design. They show us the power of telic processes reigning over, random (not blind and mindless)/ constrained variations. They also show us the limitations but those are purely of our own making and limitations. And I think it is exciting that IDists are the researchers who told us what to look for to find extraterrestrials. It isn't their fault no one seems to be reading what they say. ID being true and accepted will drive the research you are looking for. Just for the mere fact that scientists would finally be looking at living organisms correctly. Meaning they would at least know more about what determines form. It might help them understand why genetic engineering, after a huge success with the insulin gene inserted into bacteria, just hasn't lived up to the hype. So yes, exciting times indeedET_{September 6, 2019
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An actual scientific methodology of ID, something that is like physics and chemistry that produces interesting results, makes predictions and drives technological advancement. Otherwise ID nothing more than another apologetic argument, just like a multitude of other such arguments that rely on scientific data, and is nothing special. Actually being a science is different than using scientific data to make a point. ID claims to be the former, but mostly is just doing the latter. Once ID can start doing something equivalent to creating modern medicine, agriculture and the IT revolution, then it deserves to be taken more seriously than methodological naturalism. Otherwise, methodological naturalism is what gets results and drives the modern world forward and ID is an interesting philosophical argument to consider in your free time.EricMH_{September 6, 2019
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Yes, Eric, I know the point of Darwinian evolution. That has nothing to do with what I said. Just because it was supposed to do something doesn't mean it evolved any further than a narrative. Genetic algorithms start with the very thing that needs to be explained in the first place- the ability to reproduce. Then come the fitness functions which guide the preliminary solutions towards a goal. And if Dembski already proved it then what else do you want? Proof, proof?ET_{September 6, 2019
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@ET the whole point of Darwinian evolution is to explain how design (i.e. CSI) can come about without a designer through stochastic processes. We can test whether Darwinian evolution can generate CSI with genetic algorithms.. Dembski proved CSI cannot be generated by stochastic processes through his law of conservation of information, and then empirically demonstrated that when we detect CSI from a genetic algorithm we can trace it back to a designer (programmer). That's the sort of methodological scientific approach I am asking for. Very quantitative and measurable, with specific claims. This is more like physics and chemistry than philosophy.EricMH_{September 6, 2019
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EricMH- There was never a model for Darwinian-type evolution producing CSI. And I don't know of any way to test the claim that Darwinian-type evolution can produce CSI. All Darwin and others have done is baldly assert that nature can do it. Then write a sciencey narrative to that effect. The only reason why Dr. Dembski came up with the probability argument in the first place is because of what I said- there wasn't anything else to go after. No substance to grab onto and examine. It's one big house of cards that Vinnie Gambini would easily shred.ET_{September 6, 2019
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@ET, BB is correct, and Dr. Dembski et. al. have falsified the prediction that Darwinian evolution can create CSI, both mathematically and empirically.EricMH_{September 6, 2019
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Brother Brain:
I think the bottom line is that evolutionary theory leads to predictive models that are or can be testable.
Nonsense. If that were true then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. And you would have posted something to support your trope.ET_{September 6, 2019
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@BB, what BA77 says is correct. I am reading through a couple bioinformatics books, and they are full of falsified predictions of Darwinian evolution. A lot of bioinformatics is fudging around the failure of Darwinian theory. If the Discovery Institute wanted to make good on its "ID is science" claim, there seems to be plenty of low hanging fruit in the very practical field of bioinformatics.EricMH_{September 6, 2019
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BB, Darwinism is notorious for making predictions that are later falsified. Per: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/hard-to-believe-but-true-senior-canadian-journalist-knows-darwinism-is-bunk/#comment-683164
not only does Darwinian evolution not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology, in so far as Darwinian predictions have guided biological research, those predictions have greatly misled researchers,, Darwin’s (False) Predictions Introduction Why investigate evolution’s false predictions? Responses to common objections Early evolution predictions The DNA code is not unique The cell’s fundamental molecules are universal Evolutionary causes predictions Mutations are not adaptive Competition is greatest between neighbors Molecular evolution predictions Protein evolution Histone proteins cannot tolerate much change The molecular clock keeps evolutionary time Common descent predictions The pentadactyl pattern and common descent Serological tests reveal evolutionary relationships Biology is not lineage specific Similar species share similar genes MicroRNA Evolutionary phylogenies predictions Genomic features are not sporadically distributed Gene and host phylogenies are congruent Gene phylogenies are congruent The species should form an evolutionary tree Evolutionary pathways predictions Complex structures evolved from simpler structures Structures do not evolve before there is a need for them Functionally unconstrained DNA is not conserved Nature does not make leaps Biological architecture predictions Behavior Altruism Cell death Conclusions What false predictions tell us about evolution https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/ And let’s not forget the granddaddy of all false predictions from Darwin’s theory, i.e. Junk DNA: Why Are Biologists Lashing Out Against Empirically Verified Research Results? – Casey Luskin July 13, 2015 Excerpt: no publication shook this (ID vs Darwin) debate so much as a 2012 Nature paper that finally put junk DNA to rest–or so it seemed. This bombshell paper presented the results of the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Project, a years-long research consortium involving over 400 international scientists studying noncoding DNA in the human genome. Along with 30 other groundbreaking papers, the lead ENCODE article found that the “vast majority” of the human genome shows biochemical function: “These data enabled us to assign biochemical functions for 80 percent of the genome, in particular outside of the well-studied protein-coding regions.”3 Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analyst, explained in Discover Magazine that since ENCODE studied 147 types of cells, and the human body has a few thousand cell types, “it’s likely that 80 percent will go to 100 percent.”4 Another senior ENCODE researcher noted that “almost every nucleotide is associated with a function.”5 A headline in Science declared, “ENCODE project writes eulogy for junk DNA.”6,,, Evolutionists Strike Back Darwin defenders weren’t going to take ENCODE’s data sitting down.,,, How could they possibly oppose such empirically based conclusions? The same way they always defend their theory: by assuming an evolutionary viewpoint is correct and reinterpreting the data in light of their paradigm–and by personally attacking, (i.e. ad hominem), those who challenge their position.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/the_encode_embr097561.html
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@BB I stated that Dr. Ewert has created a testable model of ID with his dependency graph of life, and Dembski's information tracking methodology. So it is not impossible. My point is that the ID movement via the Discover Institute does not seem very committed to making ID a practical science, which is supposedly its big claim to fame. Again, I am not saying this is impossible. Just that the movement has become distracted from its fundamental claim that ID is science. But, your other point that evolutionary theory leads to predictive models is correct, and the reason it has been preferred over ID. It is just that the predictive models of evolution have been falsified. And even more importantly, the implicit idea of Darwinian evolution is that stochastic processes can create CSI, and Dembski has proven this claim to be false. So, Darwinian evolution is the one theory in all of this that is truly dead in the water. This leaves open the huge question: if stochastic processes cannot create CSI, then what can? Whatever it is, we call it 'intelligence' but that does not tell us very much.EricMH_{September 6, 2019
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Eric@133, very good points. I think the bottom line is that evolutionary theory leads to predictive models that are or can be testable. Maybe it is possible for ID to make testable predictive models, but I have not seen anyone attempting to do so.Brother Brian_{September 6, 2019
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Thus in conclusion EricMH, you do not get to presuppose that methodological naturalism entails 'find predictive models for what we observe' since the very act of finding predictive models for what we observe is a thoroughly 'non-naturalistic' affair that presupposes the very reality of the very things, i.e. immaterial minds and immaterial mathematics, that naturalism itself denies the very existence of. What you have done Eric is that you have committed the logical fallacy of "begging the question" in your argument. i.e. You have presupposed that your conclusion of methodological naturalism is true in the premises of your argument so as to arrive at your desired conclusion of methodological naturalism. It is a logical fallacy that is also known as 'circular reasoning':
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. It is a type of circular reasoning: an argument that requires that the desired conclusion be true. This often occurs in an indirect way such that the fallacy's presence is hidden, or at least not easily apparent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
Yet Eric, you do not get to presuppose that finding "predictive models for what we observe" is a naturalistic affair,, As Kurt Gödel himself stated, “Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine.”
“Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine.” Kurt Gödel As quoted in Topoi : The Categorial Analysis of Logic (1979) by Robert Goldblatt, p. 13
And as mathematician James Franklin stated, "the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,,"
The mathematical world - James Franklin - 7 April 2014 Excerpt: the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,, - James Franklin is professor of mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/what-is-left-for-mathematics-to-be-about/
Moreover, to repeat what I said earlier in this thread, Albert Einstein, of relativity fame, and Eugene Wigner, who won a Nobel prize for quantum symmetries, are both on record as to considering it a miracle that the (immaterial) mind of man is able to accurately model the universe using mathematics: Specifically, Einstein stated “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way,,, That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.”
“You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles”. Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the “miracle” without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it.,,,” - Albert Einstein – On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine - March 30, 1952 http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine
And along that same line, Eugene Wigner stated “,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here,,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
Of supplemental note and to repeat, Methodological Naturalism had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the founding of modern science. In fact the founders of modern science would have considered the dogma of methodological naturalism to be absurd.
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/
And rightly so. Methodological naturalism is completely absurd. To repeat for the apparently deaf ears of EricMH: (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 Darwinian atheist (and the misguided Christian) 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;
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EricMH, geeze you are stuck in the mud with this false atheistic talking point of methodological naturalism that you keep trying to push. You state:
To define my terms, because I think that is leading to the confusion. methodological naturalism: find predictive models for what we observe philosophical naturalism: claim that all of reality must be the same sort of thing as the predictive models
The source of your confusion is that you are (now) making up your own definitions to try to suit your own purposes. You do not get to make up your own definitions. I've never heard or seen of a definition of methodological naturalism that is defined as "find predictive models for what we observe" Per the anti-ID website rational wiki:
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.
And from the NCSE website, (another anti-ID organization), we find methodological naturalism defined as such:
Methodological naturalism is not a "doctrine" but an essential aspect of the methodology of science, the study of the natural universe. If one believes that natural laws and theories based on them will not suffice to solve the problems attacked by scientists - that supernatural and thus nonscientific principles must be invoked from time to time - then one cannot have the confidence in scientific methodology that is prerequisite to doing science. The spectacular successes over four centuries of science based on methodological naturalism cannot be gainsaid. On the other hand, a scientist who, when stumped, invokes a supernatural cause for a phenomenon he or she is investigating is guaranteed that no scientific understanding of the problem will ensue.
And Eric, even you yourself earlier in this thread defined your assumption of materialism in science, i.e. methodological naturalism, as such,
doesn’t it seem like all of modern science is materialistic, and that it has progressed precisely because scientists have sought materialistic mechanisms that underly (underlie) observed phenomena, instead of assuming spirits, vital forces, etc.?
There is nothing in any of those definitions that entail 'find predictive models for what we observe', and for good reason. Finding predictive models for what we will observe in the future is a thoroughly 'non-naturalistic' affair that does not entail the presumption of methodological naturalism in the least. In fact, to 'find predictive models for what we observe' is a thoroughly 'non-naturalistic' affair that presupposes the reality of the immaterial mind. As Stanley Jaki pointed out, "There is no physical parallel to the (immaterial) mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future."
The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, May 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now
Moreover, even the mathematical models that allow us to predict, for instance, lunar eclipses many years into the future, are the result of immaterial minds deducing those abstract and immaterial mathematical models for physical phenomena. Abstract models, i.e. 'non-natural' models, that allow us to predict lunar eclipses many years into the future. In fact, one of the more interesting falsifications of the reductive materialistic framework, i.e. methodological naturalism, that undergirds Darwinian evolution comes from the Platonic, i.e. 'non-naturalistic', nature of mathematics itself. It is almost universally acknowledged that mathematics exists in some kind of transcendent, beyond space and time, “Platonic” realm,
Platonic World vs Physical World https://i2.wp.com/abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/platonic_physical.gif Mathematical Platonism Excerpt: Mathematical platonism enjoys widespread support and is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics. This is unsurprising given its extremely natural interpretation of mathematical practice. http://www.iep.utm.edu/mathplat/ Mathematical Platonism Mathematical platonism is the view on which mathematical objects exist and are abstract (aspatial, atemporal and acausal) and independent of human minds and linguistic practices. According to mathematical platonism, mathematical theories are true in virtue of those objects possessing (or not) certain properties. One important challenge to (of) platonism (to reductive materialism) is explaining how biological organisms such as human beings could have knowledge of such objects. Another is to explain why mathematical theories about such objects should turn out to be applicable in sciences concerned with the physical world. https://philpapers.org/browse/mathematical-platonism
,,, and although every rigorous theory of science requires verification from mathematics, and experimentation, in order to be considered scientific in the first place, (In fact, this is precisely where I believe you are getting stuck in your thinking with regards to ID, EricMH)
"No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically." - Leonardo da Vinci
,,, the reductive materialism, i.e. methodological naturalism, that Darwinian evolution is based upon denies the very existence of anything beyond the material realm. (This denial is practically built into the very definition of methodological naturalism itself)
What is the difference between naturalism and materialism? Excerpt: Naturalism is the view that the world can be explained entirely by physical, natural phenomena/laws. Naturalists either assert that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,, Materialism is the related view that all existence is matter, that only matter is real, and so that the world is just physical. It simply describes a view on the nature of the universe, while the different branches of Naturalism focus on applications of effectively the same view. Thus, the difference between the two is the purpose of the definition - materialism makes an argument about the ontology of the universe, while naturalism takes a premise (effectively that of materialism) to make an argument on how science/philosophy should function. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2406/what-is-the-difference-between-naturalism-and-materialism
There simply is no place for the immaterial, i.e. Platonic, realm of mathematics to find grounding for its reality in the reductive materialism, i.e. methodological naturalism, that undergirds Darwinian thought.
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html Platonic World vs Physical World https://i2.wp.com/abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/platonic_physical.gif Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”? It seems a stretch. What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
As David Berlinski states, “There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time….”
An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time…. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html
Therefore, besides Darwinian evolution already being shown to be mathematically impossible (by Sanford, Dembski, Marks, Axe, Behe, Durston etc.. etc..), Darwinian evolution is further falsified by mathematics as being a scientific theory since Darwinism denies the very reality of one the thing it most needs, i.e. mathematics, in order to be considered scientific in the first place.bornagain77_{September 6, 2019
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Eric- According to ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are predictions borne from ID. And the exciting prediction is that life is not reducible to physics and chemistry, which means there is something more to life that we cannot see. As far as I call tell archaeology merely predicts there will be signs of work. An that when intelligent agencies act within nature they tend to leave traces of their activity behind. Forensic science that there will be signs of intelligent agency activity (work). "The Privileged Planet" predicts that extraterrestrials will be from a system with a host star similar to our Sun. And that it too will have a large stabilizing moon. So it really all depends on what you are looking for with respect to predictions.ET_{September 5, 2019
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@ET, sure, you can define some kind of science where predictions are not required. It sounds like a fairly uninteresting sort of science. @BA77, a great many fascinating articles. I'm impressed by the breadth of your research, and what you say about the observer dependent nature of quantum physics is very interesting. That does seem to be the positive sort of ID science I'm talking about, where the intelligent agent is a key part of the equation. But, I don't know any quantum physics to be able to evaluate what references to 'free will' and 'observer dependence' mean concretely. There also may be an error since the Bell test is about disproving local realism, not related to free will in any way, as far as I know. The articles about the shroud of Turin are also very interesting, I didn't realize people have been able to analyze it that carefully, I thought the shroud was off limits. That being said, these sorts of scientific conclusions are not the sort of science I'm referring to. While I don't argue with the conclusions you draw and their scientific basis, what I am getting at is that there is not a scientific ID methodology that is distinct from methodological naturalism. To define my terms, because I think that is leading to the confusion. methodological naturalism: find predictive models for what we observe philosophical naturalism: claim that all of reality must be the same sort of thing as the predictive models So, I can, for instance, practice methodological naturalism by understanding how a car operates, without be philosophically naturalistic about its origin. This approach to the natural world of using naturalism to understand the how has been very successful. Much of these discoveries have been made by theists who are motivated by theism to look for these mechanical and predictable models of how the world operates. And the mechanical and predictable models they derived we now call modern science. And it is these mechanical and predictable models that we do not have a replacement for with intelligent design. It is also hard to see how we can have an adequate replacement with intelligent agents, which are neither mechanical nor predictable. The closest I've seen to a scientific methodology of ID is Dembski's information tracking idea, that you can always track positive CSI back to an intelligent agent, since stochastic processes cannot generate CSI due to the conservation of information. Ewert and Marks put this theory to practice in their analysis of a variety of artificial life simulations and genetic algorithms. And the other closest thing to a scientific methodology is Ewert's dependency graph of life. These steps have been great, but progress in creating the positive ID methodology seem to have ended with them. There is also the problem that the information tracking is a mostly negative enterprise, and deals with scenarios where we already know an intelligent agent is involved. It'd be even better if it was used in a scenario where we don't know if an intelligent agent is involved, so would actually be delivering surprising results in identifying intelligent agency where none was believed to be. The dependency graph is a more positive enterprise, but in that case the connection to intelligent agency is based on analogy to human generated code. I think this can actually be said to be a positive ID result, because the analogy is made based on the inference that the genetic code is designed, so it gave Ewert a hypothesis to test due to what he saw in human generated code. Another great thing is that it is a very quantitative experiment. He took a great deal of data, and ran a hypothesis test to demonstrate the superiority of the dependency graph model. So, this is the one solid example of positive ID theory in action, and is the sort of thing the Discovery Institute should be putting full focus on. An even better step is if there is a more solid theory of intelligent agency, and how it differs from stochastic processes, so we can make the concrete, deductive predictions more akin to physics and chemistry. And, it is still in a sense methodological naturalism, because no where in Ewert's analysis is there any rigorous appeal to a non stochastic cause, except by implicit assumption that either human engineers are non stochastic causes, or AIs created by an ultimate non stochastic cause (i.e. God). At any rate, it is the standard ID fallback that somewhere along the cause and effect chain that results in a design type outcome there must be non stochastic intelligent agency involved.EricMH_{September 5, 2019
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EricMH:
@ET, you and I seem to agree. The inference to design is warranted, but the state of ID is not such that we can use it to make specific predictions about the world, so it is not a science in the same way physics and chemistry are sciences.
Please tell me why predictions are required for science. Then show how that applies to forensics and archaeology. I have never seem a definition of science that says predictions are a requirement. And then explain why IC isn't a prediction of ID, when it is clearly spelled outET_{September 5, 2019
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Moreover, the following article found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form 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 only to several billion watts)”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion (trillion) Watts of VUV radiation to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3014106 Supplemental notes defending the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/viruses-devolve/#comment-674732
Another piece of evidence that adds considerable weight to my claim that Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead provides the correct solurion for the much sought after 'theory of everything' is the fact that both Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, our most powerful theories in science, have now overturned the Copernican Principle,
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
Bottom line Eric, your belief that "we focus on stochastic explanations for the phenomena we see within science, since that has been the most successful path science has followed" is a patently false belief that has been falsified time and time again in modern science. Eric, I don't know how you have been so drastically misled in your beliefs about what you falsely believe has supposedly been the 'most successful path' in science, (atheistic propaganda would be my first bet), but I suggest that you return to your Christian roots and to the true 'most successful path' in science. The path that gave us modern science itself, i.e. Christianity, i.e. I suggest you return to the scientific worldview that is based on the Christianity that you have publicly confessed here on UD!
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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words “The Lamb” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ
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In short, the quantum zeno effect, regardless of how atheistic materialists may feel about it, is experimentally shown to be a real effect that is not reducible to any materialistic explanation, i.e. it is NOT "randomly determined'i.e. without 'method or conscious decision'. Moreover, the atheistic belief that entropy itself is 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', is also falsified by recent advances in quantum information theory that have now shown that entropy is "a property of an observer who describes a system.” As the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/
Moreover, Penrose himself did not think that the initial entropy of the universe was 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', but Penrose himself said that “This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.”
“This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.” Roger Penrose - How special was the big bang? – (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989)
One final note to highlight Christianity's central importance in science and to dispel your belief that science best operates by thinking everything is “randomly determined’ i.e. without ‘method or conscious decision’,,, , the main conflict of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into a 'theory of everything' appears to arise from the inability of either theory to successfully deal with the Zero/Infinity conflict when we try to combine the two theories into one mathematical framework:
THE MYSTERIOUS ZERO/INFINITY Excerpt: The biggest challenge to today's physicists is how to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. However, these two pillars of modern science were bound to be incompatible. "The universe of general relativity is a smooth rubber sheet. It is continuous and flowing, never sharp, never pointy. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, describes a jerky and discontinuous universe. What the two theories have in common - and what they clash over - is zero.",, "The infinite zero of a black hole -- mass crammed into zero space, curving space infinitely -- punches a hole in the smooth rubber sheet. The equations of general relativity cannot deal with the sharpness of zero. In a black hole, space and time are meaningless.",, "Quantum mechanics has a similar problem, a problem related to the zero-point energy. The laws of quantum mechanics treat particles such as the electron as points; that is, they take up no space at all. The electron is a zero-dimensional object,,, According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the zero-dimensional electron has infinite mass and infinite charge. http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/edit01_02/edit6_mar02.htm Science vs God Its The Collapse Of Physics As We Know it - Michio Kaku - video https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2jbd7x
And yet, when we allow the Agent causality of God ‘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”. Isabel Piczek and Chuck Missler note in the following video and articles, the Shroud of Turin reveals a strange ‘event horizon’:
“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 – Turin shroud – (Particle Physicist explains event horizon) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIpdIz5Rp3I THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox. http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation 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
To support Isabel Piczek’s claim that the Shroud of Turin does indeed reveal a true ‘event horizon’, the following study 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/app/webroot/article/article1380798649_Antonacci.pdf
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with, the shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics was dealt with. In the following paper, it was 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
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer working on the mysterious ‘3D’ nature of the Shroud image, states the ‘supernatural’ explanation this way, “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
bornagain77_{September 5, 2019
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EricMH, you repeated this false claim,
I think you are missing my point about the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The latter would imply there is no structure to be discovered in the world, but the former means we focus on stochastic explanations for the phenomena we see within science, since that has been the most successful path science has followed.
I am missing nothing. To reiterate,
,,, assuming methodological naturalism, i.e. insisting on materialistic answers prior to investigation, is equivalent to assuming that philosophical naturalism is true. For crying out loud, it is a glaringly obvious point that insisting on materialistic answers prior to investigation is functionally equivalent to assuming philosophical naturalism is true from the outset. It is almost embarrassing to even have to point this out to you.
Eric, this is the second time that you have claimed that,,,
"we focus on stochastic explanations for the phenomena we see within science, since that has been the most successful path science has followed."
To clearly define your terms so to dispel any ambiguity,,
sto·chas·tic randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely. ran·dom adjective made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision
My first reaction is that you have got to be a atheistic troll who has taken over Eric's handle. That claim is pure balderdash. Presupposing things are 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', is a Atheistic presupposition that had nothing to do with the founding of modern science itself and is also a presupposition that has been shown to wrong time and time again by recent advances in modern science. For prime example, one of the main presuppositions of Darwinists is that mutations are 'randomly determined', i.e. without rhyme or reason, and that 'randomly determined' mutations are the foundational source for all the diversity of life we see around us.
CHANCE ALONE,” the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Jacques Monod once wrote, “is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of creation.” [Berlinski]
Yet we now know that mutations are not 'randomly determined',
"It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works. All careful studies of mutagenesis find statistically significant non-random patterns” James Shapiro - Evolution: A View From The 21st Century - (Page 82) WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Fully Random Mutations - Kevin Kelly - 2014 Excerpt: What is commonly called "random mutation" does not in fact occur in a mathematically random pattern. The process of genetic mutation is extremely complex, with multiple pathways, involving more than one system. Current research suggests most spontaneous mutations occur as errors in the repair process for damaged DNA. Neither the damage nor the errors in repair have been shown to be random in where they occur, how they occur, or when they occur. Rather, the idea that mutations are random is simply a widely held assumption by non-specialists and even many teachers of biology. There is no direct evidence for it. On the contrary, there's much evidence that genetic mutation vary in patterns. For instance it is pretty much accepted that mutation rates increase or decrease as stress on the cells increases or decreases. These variable rates of mutation include mutations induced by stress from an organism's predators and competition, and as well as increased mutations brought on by environmental and epigenetic factors. Mutations have also been shown to have a higher chance of occurring near a place in DNA where mutations have already occurred, creating mutation hotspot clusters—a non-random pattern. http://edge.org/response-detail/25264 How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. - 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 (Lee) Spetner goes through many examples of non-random evolutionary changes that cannot be explained in a Darwinian framework. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/10/the_evolution_r/
And in quantum mechanics we find that the atheistic belief that everything is 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', is directly falsified by the fact that "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,,,"
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, again 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. 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. Specifically, in 2018 the 'freedom of choice' loophole was closed in Quantum Mechanics,
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
Moreover, we know that the probability distributions we obtain in quantum mechanics, after our choice of what to measure, cannot be 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', since the failure of Atheistic Materialists to account for the 'Born rule' in their Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is one of the main falsifications of their Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). The irresolvable problem of deriving the "Born rule” within the MWI is discussed at the 4:30 minute mark of the following video,
The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics - (Inspiring Philosophy) - 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE
To go further, in Thermodynamics we find that Ludwig Boltzmann, an atheist who first linked entropy and probability, and because he believed, as an atheist, that everything was 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', did not think to look for a constant for entropy. Whereas Max Planck, a Christian, automatically assumed that there would be a constant for entropy to be found and quickly found it.
The Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann first linked entropy and probability in 1877. However, the equation as shown, involving a specific constant, was first written down by Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics in 1900. In his 1918 Nobel Prize lecture, Planck said: This constant is often referred to as Boltzmann’s constant, although, to my knowledge, Boltzmann himself never introduced it – a peculiar state of affairs, which can be explained by the fact that Boltzmann, as appears from his occasional utterances, never gave thought to the possibility of carrying out an exact measurement of the constant. Nothing can better illustrate the positive and hectic pace of progress which the art of experimenters has made over the past twenty years, than the fact that since that time, not only one, but a great number of methods have been discovered for measuring the mass of a molecule with practically the same accuracy as that attained for a planet. http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Boltzmann_equation.html
To further demonstrate that entropy itself is not 'randomly determined', i.e. without 'method or conscious decision', (as is presupposed within Atheistic materialism), we find that in the Quantum Zeno effect "an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay."
Perspectives on the quantum Zeno paradox - 2018 The quantum Zeno effect is,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/196/1/012018/pdf
Atheistic materialists have tried to get around the Quantum Zeno effect by postulating that interactions with the environment are sufficient to explain the Quantum Zeno effect. Yet, the following interaction-free measurement of the Quantum Zeno effect demonstrated that the presence of the Quantum Zeno effect can be detected without interacting with a single atom.
Interaction-free measurements by quantum Zeno stabilization of ultracold atoms – 14 April 2015 Excerpt: In our experiments, we employ an ultracold gas in an unstable spin configuration, which can undergo a rapid decay. The object—realized by a laser beam—prevents this decay because of the indirect quantum Zeno effect and thus, its presence can be detected without interacting with a single atom. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150414/ncomms7811/full/ncomms7811.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20150415
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@BA77, I think you are missing my point about the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The latter would imply there is no structure to be discovered in the world, but the former means we focus on stochastic explanations for the phenomena we see within science, since that has been the most successful path science has followed. That doesn't mean we can only draw materialistic conclusions from what we observe, but such conclusions are not science of the physics and chemistry variety that allow us to make specific predictions about the world. So, we are free to draw the ID conclusion, but it is not a hard science, at least not yet, so we shouldn't say it is. @ET, you and I seem to agree. The inference to design is warranted, but the state of ID is not such that we can use it to make specific predictions about the world, so it is not a science in the same way physics and chemistry are sciences. And I see almost no progress in that direction. The Discovery Institute and Bio-Complexity seem content to mostly identify the shortcomings of Darwinism, and Mind Matters is mostly focused on the shortcomings of stochastic theories of mind, i.e. artificial intelligence. But nowhere do I see much of a positive project to show what the science of ID itself is, to make an ID science that can make rigorous predictions about the world like physics and chemistry, so we can actually say ID is truly a science. The singular exception to this negative trend is Dr. Ewert's dependency graph of life paper. So, as a movement, I cannot say that ID is much of a scientific movement. It seems more to be focused on the culture wars, which may be terribly important, but are also terribly boring. In my opinion, presenting a positive case for ID would be much more successful, both on its own merits, and in the culture wars. Just as with atheism it is hard to rally around a negative cause. If ID truly offered a positive science that was providing decisive insights that elude current methodological naturalism, I think that would be much more attractive to those currently wedded to Darwinian evolution.EricMH_{September 4, 2019
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Well EricMH, you are all over the map in your criticisms of ID. First you were claiming that ID needs to toe the methodological naturalism party line. Yet. as Paul Nelson pointed out in his article that I cited, "Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys", methodological naturalists do not even toe the methodological naturalism party line unless they are trying to exclude ID from consideration. It is a rhetorical ploy on the part of atheists. Yet, you apparently fell for that rhetorical ploy from atheists hook, line and sinker.
a commitment to materialistic explanations is what moved things forward, so methodological naturalism guided by philosophical theism is what gets results. - EricMH
Moreover the fact that all of science is dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions is revealed by the fact that Darwinian arguments are replete with bad theological presuppositions. In fact, their arguments fall apart without those bad Theological presuppositions:
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise’s Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous “God-wouldn’t-have-done-it-that-way” arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1/ Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don't - Published - 2019-06-02 The Problem of God-talk in Biology Textbooks Abstract: We argue that a number of biology (and evolution) textbooks face a crippling dilemma. On the one hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks include theological claims in their case for evolution. (Such claims include, for example, ‘God would never design a suboptimal panda’s thumb, but an imperfect structure is just what we’d expect on natural selection.’) On the other hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks exclude theological claims in their case for evolution. So, whether textbooks include or exclude theological claims, they face debilitating problems. We attempt to establish this thesis by examining 32 biology (and evolution) textbooks, including the Big 12—that is, the top four in each of the key undergraduate categories (biology majors, non-majors, and evolution courses). In Section 2 of our article, we analyze three specific types of theology these texts use to justify evolutionary theory. We argue that all face significant difficulties. In Section 3, we step back from concrete cases and, instead, explore broader problems created by having theology in general in biology textbooks. We argue that the presence of theology—of whatever kind—comes at a significant cost, one that some textbook authors are likely unwilling to pay. In Section 4, we consider the alternative: Why not simply get rid of theology? Why not just ignore it? In reply, we marshal a range of arguments why avoiding God-talk raises troubles of its own. Finally, in Section 5, we bring together the collective arguments in Sections 2-4 to argue that biology textbooks face an intractable dilemma. We underscore this difficulty by examining a common approach that some textbooks use to solve this predicament. We argue that this approach turns out to be incoherent and self-serving. The poor performance of textbooks on this point highlights just how deep the difficulty is. In the end, the overall dilemma remains. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/44
Darwinists, with their vital dependence on bad liberal theology, instead of scientific evidence, in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution are, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.
“In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).
I also pointed out that assuming methodological naturalism, i.e. insisting on materialistic answers prior to investigation, is equivalent to assuming that philosophical naturalism is true. For crying out loud, it is a glaringly obvious point that insisting on materialistic answers prior to investigation is functionally equivalent to assuming philosophical naturalism is true from the outset. It is almost embarrassing to even have to point this out to you. Moreover, I also previously pointed out that 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 Darwinian atheist (and the misguided Christian) 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;
Apparently none of this mattered to you Eric since you did not even acknowledge your profound mistake in claiming that methodological naturalism as a supposed ground rule for science. Eric, In the latter part of the thread you wanted ID to be a science like chemistry.
Just like with the table of elements, we identified gaps and were able to make predictions about what will fill those gaps. In bioinformatics, when DNA sequences are reconstructed, we know when certain proteins are missing, and can predict what sort of genes we need to still discover. Or, when reverse engineering source code, based on what the designer intended, we can make predictions about what sort of functionality we need to discover, and search it out.
And I would argue that ID, and even the progress of science in general, (since science itself is based on principles that can only be grounded within Theism), is doing exactly as such, although perhaps not specifically to your personally liking. For example,
New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model - Cornelius Hunter - July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert’s three types of data are: (i) sample computer software, (ii) simulated species data generated from evolutionary/common descent computer algorithms, and (iii) actual, real species data. Ewert’s three models are: (i) a null model which entails no relationships between any species, (ii) an evolutionary/common descent model, and (iii) a dependency graph model. Ewert’s results are a Copernican Revolution moment. First, for the sample computer software data, not surprisingly the null model performed poorly. Computer software is highly organized, and there are relationships between different computer programs, and how they draw from foundational software libraries. But comparing the common descent and dependency graph models, the latter performs far better at modeling the software “species.” In other words, the design and development of computer software is far better described and modeled by a dependency graph than by a common descent tree. Second, for the simulated species data generated with a common descent algorithm, it is not surprising that the common descent model was far superior to the dependency graph. That would be true by definition, and serves to validate Ewert’s approach. Common descent is the best model for the data generated by a common descent process. Third, for the actual, real species data, the dependency graph model is astronomically superior compared to the common descent model. Where It Counts Let me repeat that in case the point did not sink in. Where it counted, common descent failed compared to the dependency graph model. The other data types served as useful checks, but for the data that mattered — the actual, real, biological species data — the results were unambiguous. Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand. Ten thousand is a big number. But it gets worse, much worse. Ewert used Bayesian model selection which compares the probability of the data set given the hypothetical models. In other words, given the model (dependency graph or common descent), what is the probability of this particular data set? Bayesian model selection compares the two models by dividing these two conditional probabilities. The so-called Bayes factor is the quotient yielded by this division. The problem is that the common descent model is so incredibly inferior to the dependency graph model that the Bayes factor cannot be typed out. In other words, the probability of the data set, given the dependency graph model, is so much greater than the probability of the data set given the common descent model, that we cannot type the quotient of their division. Instead, Ewert reports the logarithm of the number. Remember logarithms? Remember how 2 really means 100, 3 means 1,000, and so forth? Unbelievably, the 10,064 value is the logarithm (base value of 2) of the quotient! In other words, the probability of the data on the dependency graph model is so much greater than that given the common descent model, we need logarithms even to type it out. If you tried to type out the plain number, you would have to type a 1 followed by more than 3,000 zeros. That’s the ratio of how probable the data are on these two models! By using a base value of 2 in the logarithm we express the Bayes factor in bits. So the conditional probability for the dependency graph model has a 10,064 advantage over that of common descent. 10,064 bits is far, far from the range in which one might actually consider the lesser model. See, for example, the Bayes factor Wikipedia page, which explains that a Bayes factor of 3.3 bits provides “substantial” evidence for a model, 5.0 bits provides “strong” evidence, and 6.6 bits provides “decisive” evidence. This is ridiculous. 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence, and when the dependency graph model case is compared to comment descent case, we get 10,064 bits. But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/
Now Eric, if you want to get into the business of making successful predictions for ID, might I suggest that you will never go wrong in assuming God to be behind the Design of life and making predictions for ID based on that presupposition? For instance, as the following recent 2019 article stated (which was written by people who are not even necessarily pro ID), It’s now known that some form of positional information makes genes variously switch on and off throughout the embryo, giving cells distinct identities based on their location.,,, when researchers have been able to appropriately determine what cells are doing, many have been surprised to see clear indications of optimization.,,,”
The Math That Tells Cells What They Are - March 13, 2019 Excerpt: It’s now known that some form of positional information makes genes variously switch on and off throughout the embryo, giving cells distinct identities based on their location.,,, That mounting evidence is leading some biologists to a bold hypothesis: that where information is concerned, cells might often find solutions to life’s challenges that are not just good but optimal — that cells extract as much useful information from their complex surroundings as is theoretically possible.,,, when researchers have been able to appropriately determine what cells are doing, many have been surprised to see clear indications of optimization.,,, “I don’t think optimization is an aesthetic or philosophical idea. It’s a very concrete idea,” Bialek said.,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-that-tells-cells-what-they-are-20190313/
"Optimal" is not just some word that they are carelessly tossing around. When they describe a biological system as being in a 'optimal' state, they mean exactly what they are saying. As the following article states, "In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants."
William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined - March 23, 2013 Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped. “Light is quantized, and you can’t count half a photon,” said William Bialek, a professor of physics and integrative genomics at Princeton University. “This is as far as it goes.” … Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark, among them;,, the precision response in a fruit fly embryo to contouring molecules that help distinguish tail from head;,,, In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/william-bialek-more-perfect-than-we.html Welcome to the Electric Cell - May 31, 2019 Excerpt: The dynamics governing information transmission have been extensively investigated by the pioneering work of Fisher, Shannon and others (see below). Ideal information transmission occurs when the receiver obtains precisely the information that was sent from its source. This is because, any channel carrying a signal from a sender to a receiver cannot (by definition of a channel) convey more information than is contained in the source signal. Instead, there is inevitable loss of source Shannon information en route during the process of encoding, transmission, reception and decoding of the message. Therefore, minimizing such loss is the realistic goal of such a system. Note that this ignores the evolutionary cost to the system of acquiring the message. Instead, it tacitly assumes every such possible message to be acquired with equal cost, and focuses upon the issue of how well the system can respond to that message, regardless of cost…. (It will be no surprise to ID advocates that cells are already well-optimized for information transmission:) In the case of microtubules, which typically converge on the centrosome, this coarse grain information allows rapid assessment of the overall state of the environment over time. Or in the case of microfilaments, which typically link to protein complexes on the nuclear membrane, the fine-grain information can convey, to the nucleus, detailed information about the spatial and temporal variations of the environment. In prior work we found these information dynamics to be highly optimized. https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/welcome-to-the-electric-cell/
Moreover, as the following article states, “There are a surprisingly limited number of ways a network could be constructed to perform perfect adaptation.”,,, Moreover, the "amazing and surprising" outcome of the study is applicable to any living organism or biochemical network of any size.,,,”
Math sheds light on how living cells 'think' - May 2, 2018 Excerpt: "Proteins form unfathomably complex networks of chemical reactions that allow cells to communicate and to 'think' --,,, "We could never hope to measure the full complexity of cellular networks -- the networks are simply too large and interconnected and their component proteins are too variable. "But mathematics provides a tool that allows us to explore how these networks might be constructed in order to perform as they do.,,, Dr Araujo's work has focused on the widely observed function called perfect adaptation -- the ability of a network to reset itself after it has been exposed to a new stimulus. "An example of perfect adaptation is our sense of smell," she said. "When exposed to an odour we will smell it initially but after a while it seems to us that the odour has disappeared, even though the chemical, the stimulus, is still present. "Our sense of smell has exhibited perfect adaptation. This process allows it to remain sensitive to further changes in our environment so that we can detect both very faint and very strong odours. "This kind of adaptation is essentially what takes place inside living cells all the time. Cells are exposed to signals -- hormones, growth factors, and other chemicals -- and their proteins will tend to react and respond initially, but then settle down to pre-stimulus levels of activity even though the stimulus is still there. "I studied all the possible ways a network can be constructed and found that to be capable of this perfect adaptation in a robust way, a network has to satisfy an extremely rigid set of mathematical principles. There are a surprisingly limited number of ways a network could be constructed to perform perfect adaptation.,,, Professor Lance Liotta, said the "amazing and surprising" outcome of Dr Araujo's study is applicable to any living organism or biochemical network of any size.,,, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180502094636.htm
Thus, contrary to what you believe Eric, ID is doing quite well as science advances one slow step at a time.bornagain77_{September 4, 2019
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