Stephen Meyer on ID’s Scientific Bona Fides

_{William Dembski

July 13, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Petrushka, I do not know that Denton is wrong, I know materialists are, as well as those who refuse to address the evidence. It's all in the evidence. And, before you tac off on your next tangent, please realize that Denton provides a full-fledged attack on Darwinism in both his major works. (e.g. Darwinism is not looking for a set of design principles embedded in nature that direct purpose upon the unfolding of Life from the beginning). Have you actually read his work? It was what brought me into ID. However, in your case this is all a moot point. As has already been stated above, you do not intend to address the evidence as we find it, you intend to argue from a position bolstered by that which is safely ignored.Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka you stated: "I have no idea how to generate information," That is completely nonsensical sense you in fact generated information to say you did not know how to generate information, or do you deny that a coherent English sentence is information? Falsehood number two from you: "but I have a good idea how genomes change over time." but the evidence says: Comparing molecular sequences gives the same pattern of discontinuity as the fossil record does: The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution - Eugene V Koonin - Background: "Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable; Congruence Between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies - Colin Patterson Excerpt: "As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology." http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/sampler171.htm 'The theory makes a prediction (for amino acid sequence similarity); we've tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely.' Dr. Colin Patterson Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Paleontology Department at the British Museum Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 7 Excerpt: "There is not a trace of evidence on the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life > fish> amphibians > reptiles> mammals. In general, each of the many categories of organisms appear to be equally isolated." http://evolution-facts.org/Appendix/a21.htm Bones, molecules...or both? Excerpt: Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don't resemble those drawn up from morphology. Can the two ever be reconciled?,,, When biologists talk of the 'evolution wars', they usually mean the ongoing battle for supremacy in American schoolrooms between Darwinists and their creationist opponents. But the phrase could also be applied to a debate that is raging (between Darwinists) within systematics. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6793/full/406230a0.html Trees for bees Excerpt: the application of different analytical methodologies does not explain why molecular and morphological data suggest strikingly different hypotheses for the evolution of eusociality in bees. http://www.life.illinois.edu/scameron/pdfs/Lock&Cam.TREE_01.pdf The universal ancestor - Carl Woese Excerpt: What then was this universal ancestor? A discrete picture of the ancestor began to emerge only when many more sequences representing all three phylogenetic domains became available. These sequences could be seen as putting phenotypic flesh on an ancestral phylogenetic skeleton. Yet that task has turned out to be anything but straightforward. Indeed, it would seem to require disarticulating the skeleton. No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves. http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full Do orthologous gene phylogenies really support tree-thinking? Excerpt: We conclude that we simply cannot determine if a large portion of the genes have a common history.,,, CONCLUSION: Our phylogenetic analyses do not support tree-thinking. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15913459 Why Darwin was wrong about the (genetic) tree of life: - 21 January 2009 Excerpt: Syvanen recently compared 2000 genes that are common to humans, frogs, sea squirts, sea urchins, fruit flies and nematodes. In theory, he should have been able to use the gene sequences to construct an evolutionary tree showing the relationships between the six animals. He failed. The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories. This was especially true of sea-squirt genes. Conventionally, sea squirts - also known as tunicates - are lumped together with frogs, humans and other vertebrates in the phylum Chordata, but the genes were sending mixed signals. Some genes did indeed cluster within the chordates, but others indicated that tunicates should be placed with sea urchins, which aren't chordates. "Roughly 50 per cent of its genes have one evolutionary history and 50 per cent another," Syvanen says. ...."We've just annihilated the tree of life. It's not a tree any more, it's a different topology entirely," says Syvanen. "What would Darwin have made of that?" Does the fossil record help your grand evolutionary narrative Petrushka? Deepening Darwin's Dilemma - Jonathan Wells - Sept. 2009 Excerpt: "The truth is that (finding) “exceptionally preserved microbes” from the late Precambrian actually deepen Darwin’s dilemma, because they suggest that if there had been ancestors to the Cambrian phyla they would have been preserved." Deepening Darwin's Dilemma - Jonathan Wells - The Cambrian Explosion - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4154263 "The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find' over and over again' not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another." Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager "A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God." Paleontologist, Mark Czarnecki "There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways, it has become almost unmanageably rich and discovery is outpacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." Professor of paleontology - Glasgow University, T. Neville George "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." David Kitts - Paleontologist "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – Stephen Jay Gould - Harvard Genesis 1:21 & 25 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.,,,,, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. "Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9 "The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be .... We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time ... so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated". David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History The Fossil Record - Don Patton - in their own words - video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4679386266900194790 "In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms." Fossils and Evolution, TS Kemp - Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 "Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.” George Gaylord Simpson (evolutionist), The Major Features of Evolution, New York, Columbia University Press, 1953 p. 360. I don't know Petrushka you repeatedly state one thing and yet the evidence repeatedly says another,,, Why does it not bother you to keep repeating these falsehoods of evidence? Does repeating a lie over and over make you it any less of a lie? Of course not!!! So why the games?bornagain77_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka, "Either that or a simple replicator" That was nothing but a punt. A willful refusal to address the observable evidence as we find it. You are certainly welcome to close your eyes if you must, but if you are going to be consistent, then stop taking positions about what must then follow.Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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It’s about the observable presence of a semiotic abstraction of the orgainsm embedded in matter. It’s about inanimate matter creating a semiotic abstraction of itself. It’s about that abstraction being embedded into a material carrier for the purposes of heredity. It’s about matter establishing the non physico-dynamic rules by which that abstraction can be realized from that carrier.
How do you know that Michael Denton is wrong, and that it is not in the nature of matter itself, for whatever reason or cause, to self-organize?Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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This sentence "Just like all of the arguments you and Gaz were using before about the scientific usefulness of the idea of a straight line and so on and so forth." should end with "so on and so forth are just distractions really." And "One position is that all phenomenon.." Phenomena**Phaedros_{July 20, 2010
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It’s about the observable presence of a semiotic abstraction of the orgainsm embedded in matter. It’s about inanimate matter creating a semiotic abstraction of itself.
Either that or a simple replicator. As I said, I don't have any predictions about how OOL research will go. I'm glad that it's being done.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka- "On the part about the conceptual plausibility of self-replicators arising from simpler compounds, I’d say you are standing on the same ground as those who thought in a previous century that organic compounds could not be synthesized." I would say this type of argument is useless at best. Just like all of the arguments you and Gaz were using before about the scientific usefulness of the idea of a straight line and so on and so forth. We don't know, and can't know, which of our ideas about particular things hinder our understanding of other things. We have to work with what we have and what we know now. That aside, from the naturalistic viewpoint human beings are natural phenomena. If human beings are a natural phenomenon, then intelligence is a natural phenomenon, i.e. it can be found in nature. This, I think, is a great paradox in your thinking. It is obvious that intelligence is a natural phenomenon, if naturalism is to be consistent, and yet naturalists, or materialists, constantly argue against the possibility of it being a natural phenomenon. Choose a position. One position is that all phenomenon are natural therefore anything to be found an nature can possibly be appealed to as a cause or some things are not natural and therefore naturalism (materialism) is falsified.Phaedros_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka, You are missing the point. There is no need to. You begin by saying I don't know the "full history of life". This is a trivial observation to be sure, but if it were somehow a prerequisite to understanding then we all could know nothing in the least. These debates over interpretation of evidence would be silly at best, always ending with "yeah, but you don't know the full history of life". A clearer view might suggest that Newton didn't know the history of life either, but that didn't stop him from being productive in interpreting what was in front of him. I suggest we stay with that model and leave the trivialities and pointless observations to others, okay? Now you say: "On the part about the conceptual plausibility of self-replicators arising from simpler compounds, I’d say you are standing on the same ground as those who thought in a previous century that organic compounds could not be synthesized." Here is the deal, I am not talking about the synthesis of parts. In that regard I stand on the ground that assumes every constituent part of biology can be synthesized by some means, and that each will follow the laws of nature with unwaivering regularity. I gain this rather ground-shaking perspective by realizing they all exist already. And this is the point. The researchers who synthesize the chemical constituent parts of living systems do not accomplish that task by inducing the tranfer and intepretation of semiotic content. In other words, I am talking about something else entirely. I am on record here suggesting that after every last tidbit of biology has been created in the lab, this debate will at last begin in earnest. Its not about the synthesis of parts. It's about the observable presence of a semiotic abstraction of the orgainsm embedded in matter. It's about inanimate matter creating a semiotic abstraction of itself. It's about that abstraction being embedded into a material carrier for the purposes of heredity. It's about matter establishing the non physico-dynamic rules by which that abstraction can be realized from that carrier. "How do you label your thought?" I am not sure how to answer that question, but I can say this: I am certain that there is only one recorded source of semiosis and meaning in the Universe. If you can offer a second, I am happy to listen. Also, I can tell you that I do not need to misrepresent the evidence presented by my intellectual opponents in order to attack it. "Do you believe the absence of evidence justifies the absence of research?" Like I said before, let's leave the silly questions to others.Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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And yet Petrushka we have zero present observed instances of material/evolutionary processes generating functional information...
I have no idea how to generate information, but I have a good idea how genomes change over time. Based on a rather detailed series of fossils, I believe the bones of the inner ear evolved from jawbones through slight, incremental changes. In doing so, evolution created a new function. I'd bet that interpretation would win in a court of law. In fact I know it would.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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But, what ground are you on?
On the part about the conceptual plausibility of self-replicators arising from simpler compounds, I'd say you are standing on the same ground as those who thought in a previous century that organic compounds could not be synthesized. In the absence of actual evidence, I'll label my thought as a conjecture. I think you are in the same evidentiary boat as I am. How do you label your thought? Do you believe the absence of evidence justifies the absence of research?Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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---Clive Hayden on [mainstrem science]: "That’s because their catfights are lovefests." LOL.StephenB_{July 20, 2010
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In the face of not a single contrary example in evidence, and indeed, in the face of no conceptually plausible means to have physical entities begin to fashion non-physical mappings to other physical entities...I would say that I am on safe evidentiary ground. After all, which of our four Grand Theories of the material universe decides what the non-material rules are in semiotic mappings? But, what ground are you on? On what observable, non-contradicted evidence do you base the idea that material entities can create and organize themselves from the processing of semiotic mappings?Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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But Petrushka you stated this: “I have no apologies for extrapolating present observations to the past. That’s what geologists have done for hundreds of years. It’s a productive approach.” And yet Petrushka we have zero present observed instances of material/evolutionary processes generating functional information, or constructing machines, at the present time, even though the cell is overflowing with functional information and machines. And yet we have "present observations" of intelligence generating functional information and constructing machines right now with humans (although of a lower level of complexity for the functional information, and a lower level of efficiency for the machines) Thus Petrushka why in blue blazes do you not heed your very own words and "have no apologies for extrapolating present observations to the past"??? notes: Stephen C. Meyer - The Scientific Basis For Intelligent Design http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4104651 The Coding Found In DNA Surpasses Man's Ability To Code - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4050638 Bill Gates, in recognizing the superiority found in Genetic Coding, compared to the best computer coding we now have, has now funded research into this area: Welcome to CoSBi - (Computational and Systems Biology) Excerpt: Biological systems are the most parallel systems ever studied and we hope to use our better understanding of how living systems handle information to design new computational paradigms, programming languages and software development environments. The net result would be the design and implementation of better applications firmly grounded on new computational, massively parallel paradigms in many different areas. http://www.cosbi.eu/index.php/component/content/article/171 “Although the tiniest living things known to science, bacterial cells, are incredibly small (10^-12 grams), each is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of elegantly designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world”. Michael Denton PhD Nanoelectronic Transistor Combined With Biological Machine Could Lead To Better Electronics: - Aug. 2009 Excerpt: While modern communication devices rely on electric fields and currents to carry the flow of information, biological systems are much more complex. They use an arsenal of membrane receptors, channels and pumps to control signal transduction that is unmatched by even the most powerful computers. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090811091834.htm The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines "We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today,,, Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each which is composed of a set of large protein machines." Bruce Alberts: Former President, National Academy of Sciences; http://www.imbb.forth.gr/people/aeconomou/documents/Alberts98.pdf "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro - Molecular Biologist As well, Physicists find many processes in a cell operate at the "near optimal" capacities allowed in any physical system: William Bialek - Professor Of Physics - Princeton University: Excerpt: "A central theme in my research is an appreciation for how well things “work” in biological systems. It is, after all, some notion of functional behavior that distinguishes life from inanimate matter, and it is a challenge to quantify this functionality in a language that parallels our characterization of other physical systems. Strikingly, when we do this (and there are not so many cases where it has been done!), the performance of biological systems often approaches some limits set by basic physical principles. While it is popular to view biological mechanisms as an historical record of evolutionary and developmental compromises, these observations on functional performance point toward a very different view of life as having selected a set of near optimal mechanisms for its most crucial tasks.,,,The idea of performance near the physical limits crosses many levels of biological organization, from single molecules to cells to perception and learning in the brain,,,," http://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/wbialek.htmlbornagain77_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka: Your second statement is unkind. I have freely admitted having no academic credentials. I do this as a hobby. I do it to improve my own understand of evolution. I seek out the best challenges I can find and I argue in good faith. Didn't mean in any way to be unkind. And I am no fan of academic credential. My cobcept is that I prefer any single creative concept from you to any passive restatement of the trivialities exhibited at Dover, because it's with you that I am discussing, and I definitely prefer you or any other sincere and tolerant interlocutor to the likes Dawkins or Moran or Myers, whatever their credentials. Moreover,I am frankly tired with the Dover affair, a merely political plot with no relevance to science, and it is really sad to see people who call themselves scientists hide behind the authority of a judge. It would be ridicule, if it were not depressing. Moreover, I am in no way interested to the school issue. I live in Italy, where the political aspects of the darwin wars are scarcely known, understood and felt, for various reasons. It's fine for me that the darwinian model be teached as the main accepted explanation. ID must win in the science field, before entering the schools. If ID is accepted in the scientific field, as it rightly deserves, be it even as a minority approach, than the school has to acknowledge its existence. But with the current scientific establishment, utterly dogmatic and intolerant to this regard, and shamefully ready to willingly delegate a judge to decide what is science and what is not, there is little hope. But time and truth and knowledge will help, where politics and authority continue to deny freedom of thought.gpuccio_{July 20, 2010
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This hardly seems to be the case
I've only posted on a few threads, and I've stuck with them. I don't simply drop comments and run. I can't pretend that I've devastated anyone with my knowledge and my logic, but I do try to learn about the shortcomings of my own arguments. Of course people who disagree on fundamental things seldom see their adversaries improve. That works both ways.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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There is only one presidence for semiotic mappings of meaning in all of history, and that is intelligence.
You appear to be assuming your conclusion. You don't actually know the full history of life.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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>> precedence sorry...Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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"I have no apologies for extrapolating present observations to the past. That’s what geologists have done for hundreds of years. It’s a productive approach." Life as we know it is powered (to a large extent at least) by the semiotic mappings of chemical structures. One thing means another thing, but is not the product of it. There is only one presidence for semiotic mappings of meaning in all of history, and that is intelligence. Thats an observation of the here and now. There isn't a single alternative to it, and that is but one of the ID arguments being made. Your statement above is therefore likely to be more self-serving than it is about being productive in observations. "I seek out the best challenges I can find and I argue in good faith." This hardly seems to be the case, but you are welcome to begin at any time. Thats the intellectually repsponsible thing to do, is it not?Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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The questions asked at Dover are not necessarily good questions. Do you want a free advice? Try to ask questions from your free mind...
The questios posed at Dover will surface whenever the issue of teaching ID in public schools is brought to court. It's only going to get worse, because many of the questions about flagella and blood clotting have been illuminated in the past five years. Your second statement is unkind. I have freely admitted having no academic credentials. I do this as a hobby. I do it to improve my own understand of evolution. I seek out the best challenges I can find and I argue in good faith. When I make mistakes I admit it. I avoid debating religion and philosophy because I know only a little about them. Certainly not enough to debate them. I do not assert that evolution is TRUE. I argue that it is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life. The only thing I have to say about the origin of life is that I am interested in the research. I will always side with people who are tring to find things out. Not to the point of agreeing with all their conjectures, but agreeing with their approach. I have no apologies for extrapolating present observations to the past. That's what geologists have done for hundreds of years. It's a productive approach.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka, further study of irreducible complexity is in order. Its an exceedingly simple concept to understand. It is not based upon proteins having other functions. What you count on as a falsification is nothing but another misrepresentation. May I ask... It is well known that ID critics often seem frozen in a constant state of misrepresenting ID arguments. This is all propelled by a science and media community that incessantly promotes the misprepresentations, so anyone who is new to the arguments could easily be forgiven for it. Yet, you say that you're an old hand at this, so I can only assume you've been given the correctives. So... does this constant need to misrepresent ID arguments ever grow tiresome for you? And on that note, how does one intellectually process the knowledge that one must ignore correctives in order to maintain a particular worldview?Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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I have presented positive evidence in the form of the natural history of protein domains.
You have posed a challenge, but you have presented no history. Neither has mainstream science. The big question is how you deal with mysteries and challenges. Do you continue the centuries old traditions of science, and look for natural explanations? Do you assume, for the generation of research proposals, that phenomena observable today can lead to explanations of historical phenomena?Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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Behe has presented two examples of irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum and the common branch of the clotting cascade. Both are still perfectly valid.
The only issue of importance is whether a large number of mutations would have to occur in a single step.would imply that the protein That would imply that the proteins, taken individually, have no value. We know that is wrong because all but one or two are present as subsets in other organisms. In lots of different subsets.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka: Mainstream science makes catfights look like lovefests. Yes, except for challenging the most challengeable of theories: neo darwinism. For most scientists, the greatest moment in their lives would be to find a flaw in someone else’s hypothesis, or some data that is inconsistent with established theories. But at the moment of offering adoration to neo darwinism, they all agree. OK, just as soon as you get some positive evidence for an instance of design intervention, or a definition of CSI that results in a reliable, meaningful number in a broad set of contexts, or an instance of something irreducible in the sense that subsets of its components have no function or do not function in other contexts, give me a holler. I have presented positive evidence in the form of the natural history of protein domains. I have given a very precise definition of dFSCI which is valid for all biological information in the proteome, and practical methods to measure it. Behe has presented two examples of irreducible complexity, the bacterial flagellum and the common branch of the clotting cascade. Both are still perfectly valid. I have to say that you are the only UD poster who actually engages my questions, and although I have no formal credentials, I do not ask trivial questions. I ask the kinds of questions that were asked at Dover and the kinds of questions that will be asked at any future confrontation where the teaching of ID is on the line. Thank you. The questions asked at Dover are not necessarily good questions. Do you want a free advice? Try to ask questions from your free mind, not from the mind of an arrogant judge. It's more difficult, but more satisfying. And one thing I deeply believe: questions are more important than answers.gpuccio_{July 20, 2010
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blockquote>That’s because their catfights are lovefests. It occurred to me after I posted that, that catfights and cat lovefests might sound pretty much alike, from a safe distance.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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When it comes to the origin of the observed cosmos, on multiple factors [amounting to the several dozens], we see a cumulative case for a fine-tuned design, set up to support carbon chemistry cell based intelligent life. To a degree of precision that is well beyond what human engineering can dream of.
That seems to be the position of Michael Denton in Nature's Destiny. Of course that book accepts pretty much all of mainstream biology's narrative for the history of life.Petrushka_{July 20, 2010
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---Petrushka: "I don’t want to derail the discussion or be interpreted as ridiculing ID, but I think ID has a lot in common with advocacy of UFOs and the paranormal. The difficulty is not about ID but rather with your mistaken impressions about it. ID scientists understand the limits of their pardigms, meaning that they argue only for the existence of a designer and make no claims about the designers identity or methods. If only Darwinists understood the limitations of their paradigm. ---"Same with ESP, ghosts, and such." Keep the strawmen coming. Please! ---"In the context of this thread, I have been called hyperskeptical. I’m not offended, That’s part of my personality." There are two extremes to be avoided, gullibility and hyperskepticism. The former trait is found in those who accept dubious propositions without sufficient supporting reasons; the latter trait is found in those who reject good arguments for ideological reasons. What is called for is a healthy skepticism concerning questionable claims and a rational faith concerning self evident truths. It's the golden mean between two radical extremes, with Darwinism at one end of the continuum and superstition at the other end. The irony is that Darwinists are hyperskeptical toward good arguments for design, yet they are, at the same time, exceedingly credulous about anything that will support their world view. Consider the case of those on this thread who believe that wind, air, water, and time can build a perfect sand model of a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray or could, in principle, write thematic sentences on the the surface of the planet Mars. What is that except irrational and unwarranted trust in naturalistic metaphysics? In keeping with that point, Darwinists are hyperskeptical about first principles and a creator God, but they are exceedingly gullible about everything else, holding that something comes from nothing, life comes from non life, mind comes from matter, and universes come from out of nowhere. That is the way it is with any extreme position. To be hyperskeptical about reason's first principles is to be hypercredulous about everything else.StephenB_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka,
Mainstream science makes catfights look like lovefests.
That's because their catfights are lovefests.Clive Hayden_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka,
Give me an observable phenomenon like evolution, and I’m willing to extrapolate it, even into areas that are unknown and unexplored.
Thank you for your honesty.Clive Hayden_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka at 327, 331, 333 et al, Quit pandering to yourself. If you think no one notices, you are sadly mistaken.Upright BiPed_{July 20, 2010
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Petrushka: Note that again you do not see the focus of the design inference: That of the observed causal factors, chance, necessity and agency, each has characteristic manifestations. Thus, through appropriate procedures and in light of evident and tested signs, it is appropriate to infer from the evidence of the sign to the signified, the act of design. At no point thus far has any hypothesis or assumption entered regarding the nature or identity of a designer, i.e. we are reasoning back from evidence to explanatory causal factors on principles of warranting a best explanation, in light of the reasonable enough premise that the present points the way to the past, but bearing in mind the observation that was old in the days of Job: we obviously were not there to observe the deep past of origins, so our explanations have to be very open to correction indeed. So, sadly, you have again erected and knocked over an unwarranted strawman misrepresentation, and that after the accurate summary haws been repeatedly presented to you. Answer, please: why is it that you are consistently unable to accurately summarise and respond to what we have said, and even insisted on? That inability to acknowledge what is in front of you is not any healthy skepticism, it is plainly selective hyper-skepticism that demands unreasonable and often arbitrary standards of warrant from what does not fit with one's preconceptions that are not demanded of cases that do. As a consequence, ironically, one then often ends up in the hyper-credulous fallacies of question-begging, confirmation bias and ideological closed-mindedness. in this case, evidently in a priori, Lewontinian evolutionary materialism. (Please cf the summary discussion here, as has been repeatedly linked. Next time, can you kindly first tell us in a precis, what it argues, and why; before making your own responses in that light. That will assure us that you are responding to us not to a strawman.) Now, also, evidence that warrants inference to design, under certain circumstances can then tell us a lot about the designer in question, especially if we can locate place and time to some reasonable degree of confidence. For that may allow us to rule in or out certain candidates or suspects as the case may be. (Remember how a successful alibi is a valid defence against a criminal charge.) Now, too, that may in turn sit ill with say an evolutionary materialistic worldview, but that is a matter for a different level of discourse, comparative difficulties across competing worldviews. (And, notice, as the linked summary shows, we have documented and linked abundant materials to show that this is an issue of concern in institutional science and science education.) What the scientific design inference is telling us on the case of the digital information system in cell based life is that there was credibly a designer at the point of origin of life, capable of molecular nanotechnology, and of sophisticated software and hardware design and integration. We may then seek further evidence on what such a designer most likely is as to identity, but that is a further floor in the building. One thing we do know is that blind forces of chance and mechanical necessity in a still warm pond, or a volcano vent or a comet are simply not credible sources for the origin of such an entity as cell based life, for reasons that have been discussed repeatedly and linked. (Onlookers, notice how consistently the subject gets switched when this issue is put on the table. No prizes for guessing why.) When it comes to the origin of the observed cosmos, on multiple factors [amounting to the several dozens], we see a cumulative case for a fine-tuned design, set up to support carbon chemistry cell based intelligent life. To a degree of precision that is well beyond what human engineering can dream of. Such a designer would be enormously powerful, would be of superior genius level intelligence, and would be causally antecedent to matter, energy and the like as we know it. We also know that the observed cosmos credibly had a beginning, which leads to the logical inference that the ultimate ground of the cosmos is a necessary being; on the premise that something does not come from nothing. Cumulatively, such inferences do fit well with core Judaeo-Christian worldview claims, but that is a matter of the inference to best explanation on evidence and relevant signs, not of a priori imposition. (Eighty years ago, the dominant view was that the material cosmos was the necessary and eternal being. Then came Hubble, and eventually, 3K background cavity radiation [a la Planck . . . the actual case that led to the rise of Quantum mechanics] that fits very well with the energy radiation expected form such a singularity-expansion model.) So, your diversion to tabloid type speculations is a crude caricature and strawman. Please, do better than that. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 20, 2010
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