Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

[quote mine] Charles Darwin: “all has been intelligently designed”

Salvador Cordova
August 20, 2007
Humor, Intelligent Design
Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

From Letter 3154 — Darwin, C. R. to Herschel, J. F. W., 23 May [1861]

One cannot look at this Universe with all living productions & man without believing that all has been intelligently designed

Charles Darwin, 1861

I think that would make a perfect textbook sticker.

Comments
“One cannot look at this Universe with all living productions & man without believing that all has been intelligently designed; yet when I look to each individual organism, I can see no evidence of this. Charles Darwin
It would have helped if he pulled his head out and then took a look. Had Charley known what the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Project knows he would have had a different out-look: ENCODE in Nature ENCODE changing the definition of a gene (what is a gene?) BBC on ENCODE Washington Post weighs inJoseph
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
08:34 AM
8
08
34
AM
PDT
How many evolutionary materialists claim that evolutionary materialism can warrant morality? I don’t think you will find that they claim that evolution creates a basis or ground for morality. A good bit of the discussion has been trying to pin down what exactly they think is the source of morality. We have not been able to do so. It's one of those things that make you go hmmmm. And it really shouldn't be disputed by thinking people that morality must have a source.tribune7
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, what you are saying only has validity for evolutionary materialists or any other type of materialists if they accept your defined parameters of evolutionary influence as well as your theistic beliefs as grounded in reality. You said:
whether evolutionary materialism, relative to its premises, can warrant morality as a system. The answer, ever more plainly, is “no.”
How many evolutionary materialists claim that evolutionary materialism can warrant morality? I don't think you will find that they claim that evolution creates a basis or ground for morality. If you want to claim that theism is superior to materialism because it directly addresses morality in a profound way whereas materialism does not, I don't think that will matter in the least to a materialist. They don't care that theisitic based concepts might be more moral then the law of the jungle. To them it's just mental concoctions created by humans, not divinely inspired revelation. So regardless of the moral inequality or relativity of materialism the reality is that materialists don't care. Whether they can justify morality from evolution or materialism doesn't matter to them because they don't see theistic metaphysics as having relevance due to their non belief in a transcendental reality. That's why Daniel King replied to you: "Irrelevant word games". What you are saying is irrelevant to them because to them your philosophy is based on fantasy, not reality.mentok
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
07:34 AM
7
07
34
AM
PDT
DK: Final follow up for the morning, unfortunately on another shift in the topic to be addressed:
kf complains that nobody has addressed his argument that Philosophical Materialism aka Evolutionary Materialism aka Methodological Naturalism is self-referentially absurd . . .
1] Not so, I first asked and ask for a sound answer that grounds morality relative to EM premises, and secondly in that context have pointed out that this is part of the wider problem of failing to properly ground the credibility of mind relative to such premises 2] On your cite from an attempt to reply to Plantinga's paper here, I note: --> Observe F & S's key claim: what is true is that neither position has an answer to hyperbolic doubt. Evolutionists have no way to justify the theory they believe other than by critically assessing the evidence that has been amassed and employing rules of inference that seem on reflection to be sound . . . The theist, like the evolutionary naturalist, is unable to construct a non-question-begging argument that refutes global skepticism. -> What is the basic problem with that? Well, what first happens is that such global skepticism, surprise – not!, is self-referentially absurd – in effect, implicitly claiming to know that we cannot know anything. (Skeptics then too often go on to take such up again selectively, such as in this case, and dismiss arguments they cannot otherwise address by question-begging and setting an arbitrarily high burden of proof.) So, are you willing to plead that we cannot know anything, or else that in this case – in order not to go where the argument naturally leads, you are wanting to set a burden of proof that you cannot coherently apply generally? --> Now also, observe what is happening here with Evolutionary materialist thinkers, who have no way to justify the theory they believe other than by critically assessing the evidence that has been amassed and employing rules of inference that seem on reflection to be sound. -> Notice the number of times we are seeing the gap between being reasoning agents and GROUNDING reason relative to one's EM premises? This is why I noted as excerpted in 49, that:
. . . if materialism is true, the “thoughts” we have and the “conclusions” we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! . . .
-> Plantinga is telling (and expands in loving details by a magisterial philosopher . . . well worth the read):
I'll briefly outline the original argument here. It begins from certain doubts about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, where, roughly,5 a cognitive faculty--memory, perception, reason--is reliable if the great bulk of its deliverances are true. These doubts are connected with the origin of our cognitive faculties . . . According to this [EM] story, it is by way of these [NDT] mechanisms, or mechanisms very much like them, that all the vast variety of contemporary organic life has developed; and it is by way of these same mechanisms that our cognitive faculties have arisen . . . . if naturalism is true, there is no God, and hence no God (or anyone else) overseeing our development and orchestrating the course of our evolution. And this leads directly to the question whether it is at all likely that our cognitive faculties, given naturalism and given their evolutionary origin, would have developed in such a way as to be reliable, to furnish us with mostly true beliefs . . . . evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn't care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave. It selects for certain kinds of behavior, those that enhance fitness, which is a measure of the chances that one's genes are widely represented in the next and subsequent generations . . . But then the fact that we have evolved guarantees at most that we behave in certain ways--ways that contribute to our (or our ancestors') surviving and reproducing in the environment in which we have developed . . . . there are many belief-desire combinations that will lead to the adaptive action; in many of these combinations, the beliefs are false.
--> in short, we are right back at the issue I raised in 49: relative to evolutionary materialist [but not theistic evolutionary premises, BTW] premises, we cannot ground the credibility of the mind, so the very minds used to think argue and reason to evolutionary materialism, are inextricably caught up in the problem of self-reference and self-defeat. --> A spider caught in its own web. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
07:24 AM
7
07
24
AM
PDT
D.K. I am moral. I am rational. Says who? You? Which takes us back to Nietzsche.tribune7
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
06:52 AM
6
06
52
AM
PDT
D.K. -- I wonder what tactics you might use to attract us [hiding-in-the-garden materialists] to your defense. I hope you take KF's words to heart:
I think the issue is not to “attract” but to call: call to duty under intellectual integrity, and to duty before simple justice, on pain of revealing oneself to be an enabler of oppression, deceit and injustice
tribune7
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
06:38 AM
6
06
38
AM
PDT
Daniel King, Does this mean that you are arguing that both theism and evolutionay biology are faith based. If you are, then welcome to the club. Nearly everyone here thinks that evolutionary biology is faith based and not much different from traditional religion.jerry
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
06:25 AM
6
06
25
AM
PDT
kf complains that nobody has addressed his argument that Philosophical Materialism aka Evolutionary Materialism aka Methodological Naturalism is self-referentially absurd. He references the writings of Alvin Plantinga. Other philosophers have rebutted Plantinga, and Plantinga has rebutted his critics. And so on. That debate will continue. Case in point: Fitelson and Sober
Plantinga suggests that evolutionary naturalism is self-defeating, but that traditional theism is not. However, what is true is that neither position has an answer to hyperbolic doubt. Evolutionists have no way to justify the theory they believe other than by critically assessing the evidence that has been amassed and employing rules of inference that seem on reflection to be sound.If someone challenges all the observations and rules of inference that are used in science and in everyday life, demanding that they be justified from the ground up, the challenge cannot be met. A similar problem arises for theists who think that their confidence in the reliability of their own reasoning powers is shored up by the fact that the human mind was designed by a God who is no deceiver. The theist, like the evolutionary naturalist, is unable to construct a non-question-begging argument that refutes global skepticism.
Daniel King
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
06:11 AM
6
06
11
AM
PDT
DK: Sadly, further remarks as below are indicated: 1] I am moral. I am rational. --> In fact, on much evidence: NONE of us is either wholly and consistently moral or wholly and consistently rational, so the first issue is whether on this particular topic evolutionary materialist thought is well-warranted in terms of grounding morality, i.e the infamous is-ought gap surfaces:
However we may define the good, however well we may calculate consequences, to whatever extent we may or may not desire certain consequences, none of this of itself implies any obligation of command. That something is or will be does not imply that we ought to seek it. We can never derive an “ought” from a premised “is” unless the ought is somehow already contained in the premise . . . . R. M. Hare . . . raises the same point. Most theories, he argues, simply fail to account for the ought that commands us: subjectivism reduces imperatives to statements about subjective states, egoism and utilitarianism reduce them to statements about consequences, emotivism simply rejects them because they are not empirically verifiable, and determinism reduces them to causes rather than commands . . . . Elizabeth Anscombe’s point is well made. We have a problem introducing the ought into ethics unless, as she argues, we are morally obligated by law – not a socially imposed law, ultimately, but divine law . . . . This is precisely the problem with modern ethical theory in the West . . . it has lost the binding force of divine commandments. [Holmes, Arthur F. Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions (Downers Grove, IL: 1984), pp. 70 – 72. ]
-> So far, EM thought shows it self sadly wanting in this case,a s we can see above. --> Also, the response is on a strawman: no-one – for well over 50 posts now - is seriously arguing that evolutionary materialists by virtue of not being theists do not have moral intuitions that hye try to live up to. --> As to the claim to be a “moral” person, a fairer summary is that you, too, have moral intuitions just like the rest of us, but do not wholly live up to the standard you set for others or even yourself; just like the rest of us. (How do I know that? Because I know on very good grounds that we are finite, fallible, fallen and too often ill-willed. In short that holds for me too, and for all of us in this thread.) 2] Irrelevant word games. This is a dismissal attempt regarding the following summary of the substance of the thread to date on the precise issue that EM thought evidently has great difficulty grounding morality, and has a problem getting to the credibility of mind itself, starting from its premises [cf 49 above etc], and the context of my remarks in 18 to DK on his comment in 108 that I agree and sympathize; naturalism undermines theism, as it did in ancient Greece and has done throughout the Western intellectual tradition, especially since the 16th century. :
This is a diversion to an unfortunately strawmannish side-issue [and in the teeth of repeated direct statemets of the issue]. For, that the movement of naturalism has promoted an apostasising of especially the educated elites of Western culture from God over the past 200 or so years, is not in dispute. [And such is to be expected in light of say Rom 1:19 – 2:15, once men lose sight of gratitude to God and vaunt themselves in their imaginations. What classical Judaeo-Christian theism contends [cf here Ps 53 etc too], is that such is always in the end irrational, and we can subject that to the test of reason relative to evident facts.] Thus, the real issue to be properly addressed, as repeatedly stated, is that [a] evolutionary materialism (a descriptive term, cf. linked supra), whether in the form naturalism or otherwise, fails to ground morality relative to its premises – the notorious is-ought gap, and [b] said evolutionary materialism also self-refers and fails to ground the credibility of the mind, due to its inherent undermining. That such a condescending diversion of focus now appears at length is telling as to the balance of the case above on the merits.
In short, far from speaking to the merits, DK again tries to dismiss the issue he is plainly unwilling to address. So, we are entirely right to highlight the remark that appears just before my cite from 108 and response as just excerpted: if there were a solid [evolutionary materialist] answer, it would be everywhere across the Internet, just a search and a click away. Sometimes, absence of evidence is a strong pointer to that fact being eloquent evidence of absence. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
05:59 AM
5
05
59
AM
PDT
Daniel King, Is your morality higher or lower than it was when you were a child?bornagain77
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
05:11 AM
5
05
11
AM
PDT
kf:
evolutionary materialism, on the merits, is [a] evidently unable to properly ground morality, and also [b] evidently self-referentially and inescapably undercuts the credibility of the minds that one needs to think even materialist thoughts. So, it is self-referentially absurd.
Irrelevant word games. I am moral. I am rational. QEDDaniel King
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
04:13 AM
4
04
13
AM
PDT
4] DK, 111: Looks like both sides in this dispute want to make it into an apocalyptic fight. Enjoy yourselves. Please, please, let us address the issues on the merits. They are serious issues, that are worthy of a response. Failing such, we have a right, maybe even a duty, to draw prudential conclusions and act in accordance with them under the points made in the Locke excerpt in 76 above. 5] Mentok, 117: As for your [Barry's] claim that it is only sentiment which is a logical basis for people’s behavior without a belief in God, and that I couldn’t give any other reason, I have to disagree. I mentioned both empathy (which I guess can be seen as sentiment but it can also be seen as reason) and also conditioning. Sorry, but first, this does not accurately reflect the point made by Barry: The issue is not whether people who don’ believe in God can be moral and ethical. Of course they can. The issue is whether they can articulate a logical basis for their behavior other than pure sentiment. In further responding you first listed “empathy.” But, empathy is, literally, “to feel with” someone else, i.e. it is a motivation rather than a logical warrant. Duty under morality goes beyond empathy and in fact seeks to awaken it; e.g. that is part of the “put yourself in the other's shoes and imagine how you would feel and think about that” component of the Golden Rule. For, too often we dehumanise or even demonise and distance ourselves from those we would oppress or refuse to come to the aid of. Conditioning is equally double-edged. Whether classical or operant or more generally socio-cultural, this boils down to reacting to environmental pressures and perhaps being habituated in those responses. But, conditioning is a mechanism, not a warrant. E.g., how then can we object to another's conditioning that leads him to be a racist in say pre-1994 South Africa? Or, to the Nazi Nuremberg defence that their behaviour was according to the duly instituted and enacted laws and customs etc of their own country and its properly elected and appointed leaders? (Or, what about is there our own conditioning that makes us prefer it to the reaction of a Boer or a Nazi? So, is it just a matter of who wins the fight in the end? [In short, we see here a pointer to rampant relativism, and to “might makes right.”]) 6] in most countries outside of the Islamic world the laws are not religiously based. They are based upon the idea of what is best for the common good, reason, not sentiment. It isn’t sentiment which inspires these moral and ethical laws, it’s the seeking to live in a society where people can live safe and free from the exploitation of immoral and unethical people . . . . A society can seek self preservation and the seeking to live in a world where justice and freedom are real and not simply be about “taking a free ride on Judeo-Christian” moral capital.” It’s doesn’t take a religious commandment to see the sense it makes to create laws and to systematically instill moral and ethical education on the citizenry for the common good. All it takes it intelligence and the desire to live a secure happy life. That is not sentiment, that is reason. I have highlighted some of the terms which presume the validity of moral intuitions. But the issue is not whether one is wise to act in accordance with such intuitions or even whether that is empirically justified, but, whether evolutionary materialism, relative to its premises, can warrant morality as a system. The answer, ever more plainly, is “no.” Also, note that both the Common Law [British-American] and Justinian's Corpus Juris [Continental, including even the Code Napoleon, which I gather is a part- basis for law in Louisiana] traditions which underly much of Western law, are in fact deeply and inextricably rooted in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition and its biblically anchored statements of moral principles, as, say, Blackstone, notes. And, as there is an accelerating secularist movement to strip out that tradition, as it proceeds step by step, many evident absurdities emerge in the courts and on the streets, just as Jefferson and his Clients in the US Congress of 1776 warned. In short, Barry's summary on living off dwindling moral capital – and BTW, on my recall of previous remarks in this blog, he is an Attorney-at-Law – is unfortunately correct. 7] It’s not “we all know at the innermost core of our being that His law exists and we transgress it at our peril” . . . In fact, Barry is summarising in short the implications of the general, consensus intuition that we are morally bound, which is reflected in the fact that and the way how we quarrel: we appeal to Moral Law, which requires, in the end, Lawgiver. As Haidt summed up in his article in Science: People are selfish, yet morally motivated. What wordview best explains that? Why, relative to factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power? [It is strongly emerging that evolutionary materialism is, on incoherence, plainly not that 'best explanation”!] GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
01:29 AM
1
01
29
AM
PDT
All (especially onlookers): Isn't it interesting to see what happens to the case for evolutionary materialism when the issue of the incoherence of this worldview, as just linked in outline, comes up seriously in a forum where by virtue of a strong moderation policy discussions cannot run off into nasty personalities and the like? [Observe in particular, how the issue of failure in grounding what we all experience -- that morality is binding – stands in effect unanswered after many days, two failed but at least serious attempts (Tyke's emergent properties, Haidt's pragmatic coevolution) and over 50 posts since the issue came up explicitly. Worse, the associated and underlying issue that the worldview itself is fundamentally incoherent as unable to ground the credibility of the very minds required to think even materialist thoughts has not even been even addressed. Note what that is telling us, in light of the now infamous shadow-shows in the parable of Plato's Cave, given the dominance of this worldview in the academy, the education systems, the media culture and the various cultural elites of leading Western nations -- if there were a solid answer, it would be everywhere across the Internet, just a search and a click away. So bear this in mind as we continue to take on particular points raised, which are too often on distractions or weak caricatures of the actual case to be faced.] Now, on points of note (a pity they are on side issues in the main): 1] DK, 108: I agree and sympathize; naturalism undermines theism, as it did in ancient Greece and has done throughout the Western intellectual tradition, especially since the 16th century. This is a diversion to an unfortunately strawmannish side-issue [and in the teeth of repeated direct statemets of the issue]. For, that the movement of naturalism has promoted an apostasising of especially the educated elites of Western culture from God over the past 200 or so years, is not in dispute. [And such is to be expected in light of say Rom 1:19 – 2:15, once men lose sight of gratitude to God and vaunt themselves in their imaginations. What classical Judaeo-Christian theism contends [cf here Ps 53 etc too], is that such is always in the end irrational, and we can subject that to the test of reason relative to evident facts.] Thus, the real issue to be properly addressed, as repeatedly stated, is that [a] evolutionary materialism (a descriptive term, cf. linked supra), whether in the form naturalism or otherwise, fails to ground morality relative to its premises – the notorious is-ought gap, and [b] said evolutionary materialism also self-refers and fails to ground the credibility of the mind, due to its inherent undermining. That such a condescending diversion of focus now appears at length is telling as to the balance of the case above on the merits. 2] I disagree with your view that there is an agenda-driven movement afoot. I don’t see it, feel it in my bones, or intuit it. Some naturalists and secularists are militant and movement-minded, but I respectfully submit that many (probably most) of us just want to tend our gardens. Your agreement or disagreement may tell us interesting things about your personal psychology and/or even the effects of the subterranean shadow shows as mentioned and linked above, but again that is besides the point. In the excerpt in 1 you spoke of a spreading (and by implication accelerating) rejection of the western theistic tradition over the past several centuries; such plainly does not happen without movements that propagate it. QED. Your acknowledgement that “[s]ome naturalists and secularists are militant and movement-minded” simply clinches a point hat would be obvious from the behaviour of Mr Padian and Ms Scott of NCSE, the staff of the Smithsonian in their ostracism and career-busting of Mr Sternberg, the ongoing case with Mr Gonzalez, the shoddy ACLU-copycat decision – blatant misrepresentations and factual errors and all -- by Judge Jones over in Dover, the insistence on removal by court order of any and all even historically warranted references to the Judaeo-Christian roots of Western Culture, the militancy of the likes of a Dawkins or a Harris, the secularist PC culture on many campuses and in many education system, the bigoted behaviour of Germany's past Chancellor in his repudiation of Mr Bush, the breathless accusation against Mr Bush and Mr Blair in the UK media that they may have “prayed together,” Ms Amanpour's current attempt to morally equate Christians and Jews with Islamist terrorists on CNN, the publication of a blatantly fact-challenged letter by Mr Harris in the premier science journal, Nature, the abusive use of terms like “fundamentalist,” “theocracy,” etc, etc, etc. So, hiding in the garden won't answer to the key issues on the table. Namely, there is a militantly secularist, so-called progressivist movement whose worldview is anchored in the worldview of evolutionary materialism, often in the guise “Science.” In turn, that evolutionary materialism, on the merits, is [a] evidently unable to properly ground morality, and also [b] evidently self-referentially and inescapably undercuts the credibility of the minds that one needs to think even materialist thoughts. So, it is self-referentially absurd. 3] I wonder what tactics you might use to attract us [hiding-in-the-garden materialists] to your defense. Note the emotively loaded words. Sigh . . . More on point, I think the issue is not to “attract” but to call: call to duty under intellectual integrity, and to duty before simple justice, on pain of revealing oneself to be an enabler of oppression, deceit and injustice. If the points Barry A, Tribune, Jerry, I and many others have made and the challenges we have raised are in error, correct us on the merits – shouldn't be hard to do with challenges that have been in the public for decades. If it turns out that our challenges are sound, you have a duty to turn from error and follow the truth and the right, a duty that as cited from Rom 2:6 ff, is also at least potentially loaded with eternal consequences. . . .kairosfocus
August 25, 2007
August
08
Aug
25
25
2007
01:23 AM
1
01
23
AM
PDT
BarryA you wrote:
Mentok writes: “I’ve seen the argument for some time now from theists that without belief in a God that there is no basis for moral or ethical behavior,” I never said this. The issue is not whether people who don’ believe in God can be moral and ethical. Of course they can. The issue is whether they can articulate a logical basis for their behavior other than pure sentiment. Jack Krebs, an obviously intelligent man, could not. Judging by what you write here, neither can you.
Barry I didn't say you had said what I said. As for your claim that it is only sentiment which is a logical basis for people's behavior without a belief in God, and that I couldn't give any other reason, I have to disagree. I mentioned both empathy (which I guess can be seen as sentiment but it can also be seen as reason) and also conditioning. It isn't sentimental to be afraid to break the law and go to prison. In most countries there are laws which enforce a fairly strict moral and ethical code. People are conditioned from birth that by breaking certain moral and ethical rules that they will have to suffer if caught by the law enforement apparatus. You can claim that the basis for the law is based upon sentiment or that it is based upon religious beliefs. But we can see that in most countries outside of the Islamic world the laws are not religiously based. They are based upon the idea of what is best for the common good, reason, not sentiment. It isn't sentiment which inspires these moral and ethical laws, it's the seeking to live in a society where people can live safe and free from the exploitation of immoral and unethical people. Self preservation and freedom from harm are not sentimental reasons to be ethical and moral. Sentiment implies decisions based on emotion. The laws and people's willingness to follow their moral and ethical restrictions are based on reason, not sentiment. BarryA you also wrote:
Mentock writes: “ and that having belief in God is the sole cause of peoples morality and ethics.” I never said this either. As I mentioned, many materialists are trying to take a free ride on our culture’s Judeo-Christian moral capital. This is becoming more and more difficult as that capital dwindles.
Again, I never said you did. A society can seek self preservation and the seeking to live in a world where justice and freedom are real and not simply be about "taking a free ride on Judeo-Christian" moral capital." It's doesn't take a religious commandment to see the sense it makes to create laws and to systematically instill moral and ethical education on the citizenry for the common good. All it takes it intelligence and the desire to live a secure happy life. That is not sentiment, that is reason. BarryA you also wrote:
Mentok writes: “So it is definitely possible to be moral and ethical and have reason to be so if you are a materialist.” Of course it is. You see, there are no real materialists. The Bible says that God has put eternity in our hearts and that we all know at the innermost core of our being that His law exists and we transgress it at our peril. The most dyed-in-the-wool atheist still feels the tug of the law of the God he denies on his heart.
It's not "we all know at the innermost core of our being that His law exists and we transgress it at our peril", many people don't "know" that at all or they have completely different conception about what God's law is. What exists at the core of our being is God, the soul of our soul. It is God's presence as our conscience, nudging us towards empathy, which most can feel (not all, some people are mentally disturbed). Being good because it is the law is a lower form of consciousness then being good because it is the right thing to be. I am not impressed by people who are good because they are afraid to be bad, I am impressed by people who are good because they don't want to be bad, who don't want to harm others because of their empathy for the suffering of others, who actually desire to aid others and give love. I am sure God feels the same.mentok
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
06:08 PM
6
06
08
PM
PDT
So it’s a hypothetical but one of so low probability that it makes the origin of life by natural means look like a piece of cake.
I respect that you believe that, but my assessment is that it is inconclusive on both ends of the question, it is not by any means settled empirically. If you visit the www.YoungCosmos.com you'll see a very balanced debate with good arguments from both sides. It is actually good to mention all this here because the issue of ID's origin came up and it's relation to creation science. If the reader wishes to compare my writings in the ID movement with my writings for the creation science movement they can visit www.YoungCosmos.com. It will be a good way for the readers to actually compare modern creation science with modern ID. It would be hard to say that they are in any way identical. Salvadorscordova
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
05:14 PM
5
05
14
PM
PDT
Somebody will have to explain the mid Atlantic Ridge and the alternating magnetic strips on the ocean floor and about 500 other things.
Reading Walter Brown's work, I learned that the "alternating" stripes were not actually reversed polarity lines...they were actually increases and decreases of magnetic strength, like a sine wave. Sure, you can draw an arbitrary line through the center of wave and call everything of less strength "negative", but you can just as easily draw the line at the base of the wave, calling that zero, and say that there are regular pulses of magnetism that occurred. See Walter Brown's YEC site for more details, I just browsed a while back. Don't be surprised if geological work is also interprested in odd, gradualistic ways, even when that is not the only or even the best interpretation.Atom
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
04:47 PM
4
04
47
PM
PDT
Jerry, Exactly!!!!tribune7
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
04:11 PM
4
04
11
PM
PDT
Daniel, You said "Looks like both sides in this dispute want to make it into an apocalyptic fight." Not true. How did you arrive at that from a paragraph that just said one side is being suppressed and wants its side heard. No apocalyptic fight, just a hearing of its ideas. tribune7, I will follow the data wherever it leads. I have nothing philosophically against a young earth. The world lived with this assumption for quite awhile and I don't see how it was held back in anyway but I am not sure that is still true. It just doesn't compute based on what we know today. Somebody will have to explain the mid Atlantic Ridge and the alternating magnetic strips on the ocean floor and about 500 other things. So it's a hypothetical but one of so low probability that it makes the origin of life by natural means look like a piece of cake.jerry
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
03:33 PM
3
03
33
PM
PDT
Also I am not comfortable with what they might do if they had any political power.
You and me both, and I'm supposedly one of them. I've been working very hard trying to solve some YEC science questions. Have any of those evangelists so much as lifted a finger to help in the research? Heck, no. Rather, I get chided for making the public aware of the difficulties. On the other hand, there are a small minority of YECs like myself that think the empirical case will prevail. I wouldn't count them out just yet. I was an OEC 6 years ago until it became evident the Big Bang cosmology was collapsing. David Berlinski has an excellent article on the topic at the DI website. It might be advisable not to shut off the empirical debate in ones mind on YEC just yet. The case has more promise than one may be giving it credit for. But if one is prejudiced against YEC because of the attitudes of some YECs, I can't blame them.scordova
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
02:04 PM
2
02
04
PM
PDT
jerry #109:
Would you get out of your garden to object when others who claim there is no empirical support for gradualism in evolutionary biology but are then not allowed to speak their piece becausse of a threat of sanction. Or will you continue to hide behind your plants and then wash your hands of any involvement. You have choices. What will your choose?
Looks like both sides in this dispute want to make it into an apocalyptic fight. Enjoy yourselves.Daniel King
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
01:59 PM
1
01
59
PM
PDT
Jerry, you are missing my point. The science that indicates an Old Earth is honest and good. But so was Newtonian physics. Now, suppose something -- in science -- comes along that just turns everything we have done w/regards to determining the age of the Earth on its head. (Note: this has not happened. This is a hypothetical.) Would your outlook change?tribune7
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
12:43 PM
12
12
43
PM
PDT
Tribune7, In science I follow what I believe the truth is anywhere it leads. I don't see this in Darwinists, YEC's or Theistic Evolutionists when it comes to evolutionary biology and for YEC's when it comes to anything that contradicts the age of the earth being very short. I also worry about what other agendas the YEC's may have just as I recognize the dangers of the agendas of the materialists. I find it hard to walk with one group who does not speak the truth in order to counter another group that doesn't speak the truth. I rather counter falsehoods with truth not another set of falsehoods. While I agree that the YEC's are generally correct on their interpretation of materialism and its implications, their solution to it I find almost as objectionable because falsehoods never lead to good. Also I am not comfortable with what they might do if they had any political power. Daniel King, "I wonder what tactics you might use to attract us to your defense." How about freedom to speak. I assume you will support the search for truth too and object to attempts to suppress others from criticizing theories which have no empirical backing. Would you get out of your garden to object when others who claim there is no empirical support for gradualism in evolutionary biology but are then not allowed to speak their piece becausse of a threat of sanction. Or will you continue to hide behind your plants and then wash your hands of any involvement. You have choices. What will your choose?jerry
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
12:10 PM
12
12
10
PM
PDT
kf #98:
For, we have institutionally powerful secularist progressivist agendas that are asserting a right to determine the direction of a whole civilisation and are busily attempting to de-legitimise and in many cases even demonise and scapegoat those who would challenge this, as even potential terrorists and tyrants; Ms Amanpour’s hit piece over at CNN being only the latest example [I now have protests from my Jewish friends . . .], and the upcoming conference mentioned in the Open Society Thread being another. When such an agenda is on the table, one may not dodge or divert such serious questions like that – not without the consequences of ceding the right to us to infer likely motives and act prudently, promptly and vigorously in our defence.
I take this as your personal opinion, and therefore trust that you will not charge me with an ad hominem argument if I comment: You have made your concerns about naturalism clear. I agree and sympathize; naturalism undermines theism, as it did in ancient Greece and has done throughout the Western intellectual tradition, especially since the 16th century. But I disagree with your view that there is an agenda-driven movement afoot. I don't see it, feel it in my bones, or intuit it. Some naturalists and secularists are militant and movement-minded, but I respectfully submit that many (probably most) of us just want to tend our gardens. If you believe that we who are not with you are against you, I wonder what tactics you might use to attract us to your defense.Daniel King
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
08:35 AM
8
08
35
AM
PDT
Jerry --I do not have any problem accepting new scientific theories, just ones which flow arbitrarily from theology. Go back and look at my post 90. I don't think you and I are in disagreement. Remember post 90 was a response to D.K. w/regard to a discussion about the source of moralty. If a new paradigm about nature should arise, I doubt that you or I would change our value system. But would a materialist?tribune7
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
08:16 AM
8
08
16
AM
PDT
tribute7, I do not have any problem accepting new scientific theories, just ones which flow arbitrarily from theology. You do not know when the next arbitrary theory will be promulgated for adherence and the consequences of such a theory. Cotton Mather had people hanged based on some of his nonsense ideas. The Spanish Inquisition is still a staple for citing religious excess. If YEC science proved valid, I would not have any problem but at the moment it defies credibility and the only reason for its existence is to shore up a religious belief. So as I said, what next? Galileo did not overthrow geocentricism. The honor should go to Copernicus and then Kepler and there were others before them who proposed heliocentrism. The parallax problem was not solved till 1838 so until that time there was no proof for heliocentricism. Also the theory of Tycho Brae fit the data better than did Galileo's theory. Galileo had a lot of nonsense ideas mainly about tides and their causes. His view of heliocentrism was also wrong. He also stuck his nose into things that had tremendous political implications and for that he was put under house arrest not because of this scientific theories. His martyrdom for science was essentially a fiction drummed up a century later and still persists today. It wasn't Galileo's science that caused problems and led to his internment. He was causing problems in the midst of the 30 Year War and was being used for political purposes in this war between the Hapsbugs and France who were enemies. Both of which were Catholic.jerry
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
06:31 AM
6
06
31
AM
PDT
KF--We do not have to go to discussions on YEC claims to get to evidence of cognitive dissonance on the part of evolutionary materialists, in this thread! Excellent way to make a point, KF!!!!tribune7
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
05:54 AM
5
05
54
AM
PDT
Jerry--I would feel very queasy in such a society because it would be similar to Alice in Wonderland not knowing what is up and what is down. That's the society we live in now. Our understanding of nature has changed drastically many times just in the history of modern science. Galilio overthrew geocentricism which many very smart and honest people (Francis Bacon for example) accepted dogmatically. Einstein's physics surplanted those of Newton creating an earthquake. And -- w/regard to Alice in Wonderland -- consider quantum mechanics. The point is that one should not base one's value system on one's understanding of nature. The "moral" is spiritually based and has to be the magisterial area that trumps in all conflicts with the measurable.tribune7
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
05:39 AM
5
05
39
AM
PDT
Jerry Thanks for the clarification - it helps make your context clear. (And judging by some of what Mr Ken Miller has done, sadly, you have a serious point.) I do, however, still hold that the point I made that there is a problem of attacking the man and his position by labelling and dismissing, is irrelevant to the core questions. So -- again -- let's hear from the defenders of materialism on the merits . . . emergent properties and pragmatic coevolution having plainly failed. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
04:24 AM
4
04
24
AM
PDT
kairosfocus, When I said Theists in my comment, I really meant to say Theistic Evolutionists and I only suspect them on evolutionary biology. I have read some of their books and read their website at ASA and find that many of them are driven by a theology that presupposes Darwinism. Right now some are arguing amongst themselves on Behe's book and it is interesting to see how some dismiss Behe's ideas out of hand without considering its merits. Interesting is that Pim van Meurs is one of their cheerleaders but I gather most believe he is an annoyance rather than a source of information.jerry
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
04:03 AM
4
04
03
AM
PDT
Sal, 98: I think you have a point, but overlooked a key implication and onward rhetorical agenda, in your cite from Ms Scot, as can be seen in her:
ID is a lineal descendent of William Paley’s Argument from Design (Paley 1803,) which argued that God’s existence could be proved by examining his works. Paley used a metaphor: He claimed that if one found an intricately contrived watch, it was obvious that such a thing could not have come together by chance. The existence of a watch implied a watchmaker who had designed the watch with a purpose in mind. Similarly, because there is order, purpose, and design in the world, so naturally there is an omniscient designer. The existence of God was proven by the presence of order and intricacy . . .
While Paley had and has a point, in fact there is a crucial difference between design theory in science and the argument from design to God as designer. Namely, as even the ever so humble Pandas points out:
This book has a single goal: to present data from six areas of science that bear on the central question of biological origins. We don't propose to give final answers, nor to unveil The Truth. Our purpose, rather, is to help readers understand origins better, and to see why the data may be viewed in more than one way. (Of Pandas and People, 2nd ed. 1993, pg. viii) . . . . Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science. (pg. 126-127, emphasis added)
In short, Ms Scot was implying (and should have known better, even in 1997) that ID is religion in the guise of science, when in fact it is not and that is why it draws a line on where empirical data can properly establish relative to science, and where philosophy -- metaphysics in particular [= “beyond physics”] -- takes over. TMLO –BTW, I think this was also an ID-friendly College level textbook -- says something quite similar when it points out that inferring design on the context of the nano-technology of cell-level life does not by itself support the further inference to a conclusion on whether life as we see it reflects a designer beyond the cosmos or within it. I am not sure if it was you or Dave S that I had a dispute with on the significance of the cosmological side of ID, but as my always linked summarises, this part highlights that border. For here we are asking on the origins of a finely tuned, intricately complex cosmos as we observe it that so happens to be very friendly to life as we know it. Design by a powerful intelligent agent intending to make a cosmos supporting of life, or some sort of quasi-infinite array of sub cosmi with parameters scattered at random are the two obvious alternatives. On further inspection the latter turns out to be also sufficiently wondrous to point to intelligent agency, as I discuss based on Leslie et al – LOCAL finetuning is also wondrous, just as seeing a fly on a wall in isolation get hit by a bullet, to which the “fact” that a mile away there is a carpet of flies on another section of the wall is utterly irrelevant. Collins' universe-making factory example is also apt on this – how do you cook up a life-habitable cosmos, without producing the equivalent of a sadly failed burned and lump that would have been a loaf of bread. Thence we see the grounds for a serious on the merits comparative difficulties discussion in light of the constraint of evidence of design. But that is in phil, not science. [And Ms Scot evidently wishes to keep the evidence from science out of that discussion in the culture at large by subtly impugning motives and implying agendas.] GEM of TKIkairosfocus
August 24, 2007
August
08
Aug
24
24
2007
02:46 AM
2
02
46
AM
PDT
1 2 3 4 5 6 … 8

Leave a Reply