This is a follow up to my Stupid Things Atheists Say post. Evolve is being obstinate in his idiocy. He does not seem to understand the rather simple distinction between “evidence” and “evaluation of evidence.” I will try to help him (whether a fool such as he can be helped remains to be seen; there are none so blind as those who refuse to see). I will try to spell it out in terms adopted to the meanest understanding:
What is “evidence”? The dictionary defines the word as follows: “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.” The rules of evidence that I use in court define relevant evidence as anything that has a “tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence” Note that for evidence to be evidence it need not compel a conclusion; it need only have a tendency to lead to the conclusion.
Suppose I am trying a case and the key issue in the trial is whether the light was green. I put on two witnesses who testify the light was green. Is this testimony evidence? Of course it is. The testimony has a tendency to make a fact of consequence to the case (i.e., the light was green) more probable than it would have been without the evidence. My opponent then puts on three witnesses who testify the light was red. That is evidence also.
The evidence closes; we make our closing statements; the jury is charged; and off the to the jury room they go. The jury then evaluates the evidence. Now suppose the jury comes back and says, “we find as a matter of fact that the light was red.” I lose the case. Did I lose the case because the jury had “absolutely no evidence” on which to find that the light was green? Of course not. I presented evidence (i.e., testimony) that the light was green; presenting evidence is, after all, what a trial is about. I lost the case not because there was no evidence the light was green. I lost because the jury was unpersuaded by the evidence I submitted.
Now, if someone comes along and says I lost the case because there was “absolutely no evidence the light was green,” we would say that person was an idiot. Of course there was evidence. The evidence just did not persuade the decision maker.
Now, the evidence for God: All of the things I listed in my last post are evidence that God exists. Let’s take fine tuning as an example. There are a few possible explanations for fine tuning: Inexplicable brute fact; multiverse; God did it. The fact that God is at least a possible explanation for fine tuning means that fine tuning is evidence for the existence of God.
Who is the jury? Everyone is a juror. We all evaluate the evidence for God’s existence and come to a conclusion. I find the evidence from fine tuning very persuasive. If I were on the jury I would vote “God exists.” The fact that you would vote “God does not exist” does not mean there was “absolutely no evidence.” You are like the jurors who believed the light was red and were unpersuaded by the evidence that the light was green. It is not a matter of whether there was no evidence. It was a matter of the evaluation of the evidence.
I hope that helps. I doubt that it will since your ideological blinders seem to make you incapable of seeing anything outside of your narrow dogmatic myopic point of view.
The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. In the case of a Risen Christ, there also exists credible eyewitness evidence and testimony. “Cold Case Christianity”, a compilation & evaluation of the evidence, is quite “danming”.
Good explanation – I hope it helps.
Another important consideration is the use of terms like “absolutely no” or “zero” when it comes to evidence.
To make a claim like that, one would have to investigate and evaluate every claim of evidence supporting the case and then claim it is ‘not evidence’.
Another problem is the statment: “there is no direct, scientifically observed evidence of the existence of God”.
Ok, but there’s no direct observed evidence that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors but that doesn’t stop a lot of claims about the supposed-overwhelming support for evolutionary ideas.
“There’s no direct, physical, observed evidence of anything immaterial”. Therefore the immaterial does not exist? Logic is physical? Math is a thing that can be observed with scientific instruments?
Evidence can be direct (scientifically observed/repeated in real-time) or indirect (e.g. historical clues, testimonial evidence).
I’ve heard the claim “there is zero evidence for the existence of God” many times elsehwere, so it’s worth pointing all this out.
SA:
That is not accurate. Again, evaluating the evidence is separate from whether it is evidence. Even if one ultimately rejects evidence as unpersuasive, it was still evidence.
Evidence is something that ID’s opponents do not understand. 🙂
Silver Asiatic: Another problem is the statment: “there is no direct, scientifically observed evidence of the existence of God”.
It is reasonable to distinguish scientific evidence from other forms of evidence.
Silver Asiatic: there’s no direct observed evidence that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors
That is incorrect. Hominid fossils, for instance, are direct observed evidence that are entailed in the hypothesis of human evolution.
There is no direct observed evidence of the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors.
Evolution is a process – an action. Fossils are static.
The evolution of humans from ancestral species exists only in the imagination, until and unless it can be demonstrated and observed directly, in real-time.
What counts as evidence in a law court is very different from what counts as evidence in a science laboratory.
Silver Asiatic: The evolution of humans from ancestral species exists only in the imagination, until and unless it can be demonstrated and observed directly, in real-time.
That’s not how science works. For instance, scientists had evidence of the Earth’s movement long before it was possible to directly observe that movement; and evidence of the atom long before it was possible to directly observe atoms.
Silver Asiatic: There is no direct observed evidence of the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors.
In science, evidence is the observations that are entailed in a hypothesis.
If I visit that traffic light, I presumably will sometimes see it as green and sometimes as red. And maybe it will sometimes be yellow.
When a witness reports that the traffic light is green, they are reporting one of several possibilities.
When we look at the world, it is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Saying that it is “fine tuned” is just saying that it is the same as it has always been. There is no other universe to compare it to. Maybe it is terribly tuned, but we cannot know that because we have not seen the better tuned universes.
Saying that it is fine tuned is merely opinion. There is no statement of fact involved. It is rhetoric, not evidence.
If the world were tuned one way on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, and another way on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, we would at least have some sort of comparison as to the fineness of tuning. But we have no such comparison available.
Zac,
Unresponsive. Or are you saying that science does not distinguish between directly observed evidence and information gathered from other sources?
Box: Or are you saying that science does not distinguish between directly observed evidence and information gathered from other sources?
The evidence is directly observed, the evidence being the entailments of the hypothesis. The evidence may be indirect, even though the observation is direct.
ppolish @1
If you enjoyed cold case Christianity (I have bought the book, yet to read it) you may well enjoy Simon Greenleaf. An interesting chap. He was an atheist and a professor of law. He wrote a lot of the ‘rules of evidence’ for the American court system. Challenged by his students to take apart the new testament under the rules of evidence he ended up becoming a Christian.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p.....nleaf.html
Excerpt (talking of the evangalists)
And first, as to their honesty. Here they are entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. This presumption, to which we have before alluded, is applied in courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests. The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
NR:
I must be misunderstanding you. It seems that you are saying that evidence for the existence of God does not count unless it is “scientific evidence” whatever that is. I am pretty sure you are not that stupid. So can you clarify what you mean?
Bollocks. Fine tuned means that if it were different even in a small degree, life would not exist. That is a fact. Even most atheists admit the universe is fined tuned. Obviously, they disagree on how to account for that. Neil, you are entitled to your own opinion on that issue. But you are not entitled to your own facts.
Fossils are directly observed, however the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors is NOT directly observed. So Silver Asiatic is right when he states:
Got it?
Box: There is no direct observed evidence of the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors.
The observation of the evidence for the claim is direct. The evidence for the claim may be indirect (and usually is!). This means that the evidence is a deduced effect rather than that the claim is directly observed.
Silver Asiatic: The evolution of humans from ancestral species exists only in the imagination, until and unless it can be demonstrated and observed directly, in real-time.
Generalizing: “The purported phenomenon is only speculation until it can be observed directly in real-time.”
That is incorrect. Nearly all scientific findings have been and are still based on indirect evidence, including the movement of the Earth, that dinosaurs once roamed the Earth, and the existence of atoms.
Box: There is no direct observed evidence of the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors.
This statement is accurate: There is no direct observation of the evolution of humans from ape-like ancestors.
From my first O.P. here: http://www.uncommondescent.com.....stifiable/
There is, in fact, so much evidence for the existence of a god of some sort that to deny such evidence even exists is borderline pathological; to insist that there is no god in spite of the evidence available is simple blind ideology; to perhaps be unconvinced but open-minded about the idea might at least be a rationally justifiable position.
Atheism – the strong or weak position that there is no god or probably is no god – is simply not a rationally justifiable position.
Hello Mr. Arrington.
I do recall hearing some advice regarding pearls and swine. That said, as often as not, the pearls are cast for the benefit of the audience more than for the subject. I’ve run into the ‘evolve’ argument before, ‘there is absolutely no evidence for God’ because God doesn’t exist. This relieves ‘evolve’ from the necessity of evaluating the evidence. Because evaluating evidence is hard.
When we have a serious court trial on the existence of God, we can begin to ask whether the evidence is appropriate for that case.
If a serious scientific study is undertaken to determine whether there is a God, we can begin to ask whether the evidence is suitable for that study.
In the meantime, all we have is people expressing opinion. So the “evidence” mentioned in the post title would seem to only be about what people might find subjectively persuasive.
Barry Arrington,
Just to respond back from the previous post on a different thread. Nano-technology does no increase the probability that “God” exists anymore than it increases the probability that ALIENS exist. It only increases the probability that an intelligence is responsible. That’s NOT evidence for God. That’s only indirect evidence of tenet of God.
Evidence for God would have to come with an objective means to display why things are or were perfect, and that they display the utmost state of perfection in relation to the fact that all things that God creates are perfect. As it stands, there is no scientific way to determine the “perfection” of design and therefore evidence for God in relation to creation is impossible.
Barry wants testimonials to count as evidence in science, as it is in a courtroom! That means if someone testifies that God visited him yesterday we should count that as evidence for God! Nice way to settle scientific debates!
Now I don’t care Barry’s continuing personal attacks on me, as all his points are moot and he’s merely trying to make up for his lack of evidence with his rhetoric. He always pulls that stunt. Theists have absolutely no evidence for the existence of God.
Neil @ 19. If you are saying that the existence of God is not an inquiry that is suitable for the methods and limitations of scientific inquiry, we can agree on that. Science does not speak to whether God exists.
Reply to mrchristo post# 6 from the previous thread,
///Fine tuning is real. It takes just as much faith to believe in a multiverse to explain it.///
No, you don’t need any multiverse.
A universe with any of countless other values of cosmological constants could have come into existence. That this universe with this set of values materialized happened by sheer chance. This is just like how one sperm cell out of 50 million fused with one egg cell to produce you and me by chance. It could have been any of those 50 million cells, and in each case the result would have been different. However, none of those all other possibilities ever materialised, only one did – you/me.
Galaxies, stars, planets & life all came about as mere consequences of how the universe ended up being. In other words, life is fine-tuned to the universe, not the other way around.
As Lawrence Krauss put it, we are fine-tuned to the earth’s gravity, not the other way around (i.e earth’s gravity is not fine-tuned to produce us). You guys are making the mistake of reversing the sense of cause and effect.
Another mistake you make is to see teleology in everything. You’re assuming upfront that the goal of creation is to produce a universe supporting life and humans, therefore all values required for that purpose must be set exactly right in order to realise it. No, this universe was just one among countless other possibilities, any of which could have materialised. You’re ignoring the importance of random chance in bringing about phenomena.
Reply to mrchristo post# 6 from the previous thread,
///Your explanation is descriptive but morality is prescriptive about why we should or should not do anything. There is no should or should not within nature. Nature just is.///
That’s also wrong as I have explained umpteen times in the previous thread. What we should/should not do is subjective, what you deem as right may be wrong for me. For example, there are cultures which state that barring women from driving is a good thing! See this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQEeXmcWOxI
He has his own reasons why that’s good!
I can give you many such examples if you want. Another one: Dressing scantily is absolutely ok in the west, but considered disrespectful in the middle east. This difference in opinion on what’s right and wrong stems from our evolutionary past, where our ancestors not only experienced increased brain development and cognitive abilities, but also formed societies and developed culture. Each person’s morality has evolved and adapted to suit the cultural evolution his society has undergone.
It’s laughable that you guys totally ignore how evolution has shaped humans and claim that an unknown transcendent being injected moral values into our brains! And I get called all kinds of names by people for pointing out their mistake!
Evolve, this Universe arising by chance is dismissed by current Cosmologists and Physicists. Its either God, Multiverse, or a God/Multiverse combo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ata_player
Evolve @ 21:
*Sigh* Your triumphalist tone is really kind of embarrassing, because your assertion is demonstrably wrong at multiple levels.
Level 1: You assume that testimony cannot count for evidence in a scientific inquiry. Wrong. Almost every experiment in the field of psychiatry relies on reports from the subjects (i.e., testimony).
Level 2: You also assume that evidence is only evidence if it is “evidence in science.” Wrong. Evidence is evidence if it is information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Consult any dictionary. Evidence is not limited to scientific inquiry.
In comment 17 WJM states:
I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and conclude that you are just really really stupid. But WJM may be right; you may be pathological.
Finally, I am attacking you in every post. Please understand that I my intent is to try to help you, not to hurt you. I am trying to shame you into making an effort at clear thinking. You are so mule-headed and blinkered in your outlook that my efforts at shaming you are almost certainly in vain, but I am trying.
Evolve
You think you have evidence to support that claim?
How do you know that there was even one other possible universe?
Random chance needs to act on something. How do you know there was any material thing existing before our universe?
WJM, another explanation occurred to me. Maybe Evolve is a fundamentalist Christian only pretending to be a dogmatic blinkered atheist for the purpose of bringing disrepute on the atheist side by saying really really stupid things. In that case, you are right. He is crazy — crazy like a fox.
evolve-
You keep using the word evidence. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You might try using the word proof instead.
Regarding what I said above…the word “God” in this example is also quite vague. Are you talking about a who or a what? Also,
Barry @ 26,
///Almost every experiment in the field of psychiatry relies on reports from the subjects (i.e., testimony).///
It may rely on testimonies, but it does not reach conclusions and pass judgments on testimonies alone. The condition must also be studied and assessed empirically. That’s the cornerstone of the scientific procedure. You’re making a big mistake by likening court proceedings to science.
///Evidence is evidence if it is information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Consult any dictionary. ///
Dictionary definitions of evidence are not what matter here.
Here’s how Cambridge dictionary defines evidence:
“something that makes you believe that something is true or exists”
…which means each person can have his own personal evidence to believe that God exists. That won’t work here because we’re trying to objectively verify whether an entity called God exists. For that you need to produce objectively verifiable evidence which rules out competing explanations or makes them highly unlikely.
Neil Rickert at 7: You write, “What counts as evidence in a law court is very different from what counts as evidence in a science laboratory.”
Well, excuse me, the impression you are leaving is that a courtroom is the A ship and science is the B ship.
A courtroom has strict rules of evidence.
If there is one thing that a dozen years on this beat has taught me is that standards of evidence in science are often tailored to protect one or another naturalist theory, in the sense that what is accepted as evidence is only what supports such theory.
One can’t do that in a courtroom. (I have relatives who work in the courts, so I know this independently from Barry.)
One can’t make a rule that the only evidence that can be admitted is what would tend to convict Schmeazle of Schmoe’s murder. And all contrary evidence is to be discounted, rejected, or explained away.
Well, yes, that kind of thing CAN happen, but there are unpleasant names for such courts (hanging jury, lynch mob). And they are not supposed to form part of our legal system.
One outcome is that if naturalism is wrong, it would not be possible to know. Some like it that way, I guess.
Evolve
Distinctions …
You claimed there was “no evidence”. Now you’re saying that you’re looking for a particular type of evidence.
As above, what objectively verifiable evidence do you have that the universe “occurred by sheer chance”?
Evolve @ 31. This comment demonstrates that you are beyond help. I am so sorry. It really does make me sad.
SA,
///How do you know that there was even one other possible universe?///
There could have been…not there was.
There could have been a different human born from the union of my father and mother – any of tens of millions of possible humans. Only one came into existence (me) because only 1 out of 50 million sperm cells fused with the egg. The remaining millions of possible humans were never realized. Ditto for the universe.
///Distinctions …
You claimed there was “no evidence”. Now you’re saying that you’re looking for a particular type of evidence.///
It’s well understood that by evidence I mean evidence based on reason and not evidence based on personal whims and fancies.
///As above, what objectively verifiable evidence do you have that the universe “occurred by sheer chance”?///
Because standard cosmological theory allows for it. Our current universe has one set of physical constants. But physical constants could have assumed any of countless possible values – each set would produce a different universe with different properties.
Evolve
Ok, true – but you seemed to draw a definite conclusion on something that might not be true at all. So can you also accept: “God could exist”?
True with egg and sperm, not with universe. You know that there are lots of potential sperm/egg combinations. But you don’t know if there’s even one other universe.
The point here — you’re willing to make a decision about the chance origin of the universe, but you have no evidence that it happened that way. It could have happened, but there also could only be one universe.
Would you say that “it’s impossible that God exists”?
///If you are saying that the existence of God is not an inquiry that is suitable for the methods and limitations of scientific inquiry, we can agree on that. Science does not speak to whether God exists.///
Wrong. I often see accommodationists trying to declare a truce between science and faith by placing God outside of the purview of science.
This is a mistake because science has no limitations, it can inquire about anything including God. The only requirement is that there should be testable hypotheses, empirical evidence supporting a given hypothesis which renders competing hypotheses implausible or unlikely.
///True with egg and sperm, not with universe. You know that there are lots of potential sperm/egg combinations. But you don’t know if there’s even one other universe.///
There are also lots of potential combinations of physical constants as well. Each combination will theoretically give rise to a different universe, just like how a given sperm-egg combination will give rise to a different human.
///you’re willing to make a decision about the chance origin of the universe, but you have no evidence that it happened that way///
The evidence is in the nature of events itself. There’s nothing preventing physical constants from assuming a myriad of different combinations producing a multitude of universes. There’s no reason to believe that our universe was specially created and fine-tuned with humans in mind. Don’t forget that that was the point I was rebutting.
Now, whether a multiverse actually exists or only one single universe exists is obviously unknown.
///Would you say that “it’s impossible that God exists”?///
I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that God exists, but I will reiterate that there’s absolutely no evidence for a God.
Please demonstrate that anyone besides yourself is conscious.
You can’t do it, neither can “science” (i.e, that investigative actions of human beings.)
Evidence doesn’t mean anything without an interpretive framework. What is your interpretative framework?
This is fun its almost as if evolution messed with the brains of some people, also known as atheists.
The universe could not be its own cause because to be your own cause you have to exist before you existed. Remember that the next time you try the chance just so story.
/// The universe could not be its own cause because to be your own cause you have to exist before you existed.///
The same applies to God then.
By invoking God, you’re not solving any problem, you’re only pushing it one step back.
Remember to say YOU DON’T KNOW, which is much better than asserting goddidit.
///Please demonstrate that anyone besides yourself is conscious.///
Forget humans, we can even demonstrate that animals have self-awareness and consciousness through several tests. See this:
http://news.discovery.com/anim.....110504.htm
Almost all of the 50 million sperm would create a baby, Evolve. But ONLY ONE cosmological constant out of a trillion trillion raised to the trillion trillion squared gives rise to a Universe with monkey men. Scientifically laughable to view that as chance. Knowledgable scientists are not laughing haha. They are very puzzled. Very very very puzzled. God or multiverse explains the evidence. Or God/Multiverse combo,
Geez, Evolve, why do you think the Multiverse has become so grudgingly popular among many scientists? Not by chance. But because chance has been ruled out.
Evolve and Rickert are apparently unaware that probably 95%+ of the so-called “scientific evidence” they supposedly base their views on is really nothing more than testimonial or anecdotal evidence where they are concerned. Unless they are conducting the experiments themselves, they either read about it in published research papers. which makes the claims testimonial when evolve, rickert or others read it, or anecdotal if they read articles about the research in popular science periodicals or the news.
For the most part, humans base almost all of their beliefs and knowledge about the world and their lives on (1) their own first-hand knowledge and (2) testimony from trusted sources. How many people who believe in evolution or anthropogenic global warming actually conduct any of the relevant scientific research themselves? How much of that science is predicated upon and directly assumes the research (testified evidence) of other science in order to draw conclusions?
Anyone ever heard of the peer-review problem? The number of retracted papers and debunked work still being cited?
But, when it comes to evidence supporting that which they do not want to believe in, suddenly we have a major firewall where they will not even consider a thing unless it’s demonstrated 9 ways to Sunday via officially sanctioned “scientific evidence”.
The whole “scientific evidence” firewall is just another fraudulent tactic used entirely as a rhetorical device to keep oneself from having to actually look through and consider the available evidence objectively. It’s an ideological mantra used to ward off troubling ideas and information.
Those tests only demonstrates that other animals/humans act like you, that is, they act like what you assume consciousness to act, because you are relating them to your own actions. But they may be merely zombies acting like they are conscious.
I’m asking you (or “science”) to PROVE they are conscious. Not merely acting as if they are.
Can you do it? Of course not.
Assumptions are not evidence.
One of the claims about god that science was able to look into was the idea that god created the universe; in order for that claim to have scientific merit, science would have to be able to demonstrate that the universe had a beginning (and was not, as previously thought, eternal).
The big bang theory (nicknamed in ridicule by those who felt the theory was creationist hokum) made predictions which were later verified; the universe, it seems, began. You may not think that’s such a big deal now, but back then it was an enormous finding. Many cosmologists tried everything they could in order to thwart the evidence that supported the idea that the universe came into being instead of always existed.
The fine-tuning evidence, which is accepted as such by Hawking and others, begs for a plausible, non-ID counter-theory, which Hawking and others attempt to provide via their “infinite universes from nothing” hypothesis, which have been soundly rebutted and which are ludicrous on the face of it since that very theory entails many more habitable universes with gods than without.
I don’t expect such information to make it past the gated walls of hyperskeptical secular fanaticism, but many giants of physics have in the past admitted that our universe seems to have been designed. It’s a reasonable position to hold if one can get past their own emotional blinders.
William J Murray @ 45 & 47,
As always, your brilliance and eloquence shines through.
Thank you
You are comparing the coming into existence of a life-permitting universe (universe X) with the coming into existence of a particular person; let’s call him John.
You are saying that the coming into existence of universe X and John are equally unlikely. One problem with this comparison is that the coming into existence of John presupposes universe X. A second problem is that – contrary to universe X – we have knowledge of the (chance) process by which John (at least his body) comes into existence. We know that when things have been started up it’s likely that a person will be born. We know of no such cause of universe X.
This second problem undermines your claims. Without the postulation of a multiverse – which you reject – we have a universe X without a known cause. And since we are without a known cause we have no ground for assuming that a chance process produced it – as you claim.
If you want to posit chance as an explanation for universe X you have to postulate a chance process – e.g. a multiverse.
Evolve,
I’m with SA @2 above:
Depending on how you define “evidence”, the amount of evidence for God, and the amount of evidence for molecules-to-man Evolution is exactly the same: either 0, or significantly greater than 0.
If you define evidence as Direct Observation Of, then there is no evidence for either. No man has seen God. No man has seen abiogenesis-to-man.
If you define evidence in any way that meets the definition of “we have evidence for Evolution”, by that same definition “we have evidence for God”. Any number of authors, scientists and philosophers (including the Lee Strobel example already given) have used exactly such definitions of “evidence” to present the case for the existence of God.
Disagree? Then provide a) your definition of evidence and b) a concrete example thereof that supports the statement “there is evidence for Darwinian Evolution”. By any standard, that same definition and a corollary example can be provided that supports the statement “there is evidence for God”.
For example: Zachriel proposed the existence of hominid skeletons. By this definition, the existence of Life is evidence for God – after all, there isn’t any physical, observable evidence that any given hominid skeleton was not human, was human, was a direct ancestor of a human, was a direct ancestor of a non-human, was a descendant of a human, was a descendant of a non-human, etc. Sure, some morphology matches the Evolutionary storyline somewhat, but so what – a modern ape has similar morphology too, who’s to say the hominid skeleton wasn’t simply a now-extinct ape form not currently known? On the other hand, Life has all kinds of characteristics that make it unique and distinct from non-life, and we know for a fact that the most intelligent form of life can’t create Life. This fits the God storyline that only something with greater intelligence than man could create life – God fits. Therefore, evidence for God.
I think you’d be better off just admitting that thousands of years worth of men much more intelligent than you and I may have been on to something in their belief that there is, in fact, “evidence” for God, than arguing that you are somehow more logical and more sensible and more knowledgeable than all the geniuses who came before you.
Up until 1998, the Cosmological Constant was just theoretical. A weird Einstein number/plug that was required to make the equations of General Relativity work. Theoretical Fine Tuning.
In 1998 it was discovered. Confirmed and reconfirmed by expirement. Fine tuning no longer theoretical but revealed in our expanding universe. We live in a special place:) Surronded by trigintiions and trigintillions of not special place? lol
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make there.
Yes, they do, though that does not prevent innocent people being convicted.
The point here is that science and law address very different kinds of questions, so have different ways of evaluating evidence.
This is a misunderstanding of the nature of science and of scientific theory.
Neil Rickert
Neil, you (and evolve) are missing the argument in a rather spectacular fashion. It has nothing to do with how evidence is evaluated. The point is that all evidence must be evaluated (and interpreted) and no evidence can ever speak for itself.
Thus, to say that there is no evidence for the existence of God is flat out insane. The philosophical evidence alone is so powerful that the only way to deny it is to deny reason itself.
Regularity, points to order, which points to an Orderer.
Regularity, points to law, which point to a Law Giver.
Those two points alone constitute powerful evidence for the existence of God. To deny them, you (and evolve) must deny reason itself. Anyone, therefore, who tries to take it ever further by saying that law-like regularity doesn’t count as evidence is–how should I put this–not conspicuous intellectually.
dgosse #18
Perceptive and witty. Thanks!
Axel,
dgosse is right. But I would say that more than “hard” evaluating evidence can be “scary.” As I’ve mentioned on these pages before, I was very scared when I first started evaluating the evidence for Darwinism. What if it turned out to be, as we are so often told, “overwhelming.” I would have to change my entire worldview. Turns out the evidence is weak. But it might not have been. Evolve does not have the courage to face the evidence on its own terms. That is probably why he pretends it does not exist. You don’t have to deal with evidence that does not exist. Right? Well, sadly, that is true only in the short term. Reality is the wall you smack into when you’re wrong.
When you first started this weird foray into the thought processes of the afflicted Evolve and his fellow materialists, Barry, and expressed such bitter anguish at the folly the endeavour had already occasioned you, I was quite puzzled.
Athough I don’t have the patience to undertake remedial teaching for tertiary level adults myself, I nevertheless, did feel that your anguish seemed a little ‘over the top’.
Having read the first half of the posts, I now understand. Alas, not merely intellectually, but as viscerally as you do. You ratbag! I should have known better once I saw where Evolve’s posts were going – or rather were not going. Be careful you don’t have a heart attack!
‘You don’t have to deal with evidence that does not exist. Right? Well, sadly, that is true only in the short term. Reality is the wall you smack into when you’re wrong.’
Barry, I remember James Howard Kunstler making that point about reality’s blithely brutal insouciance towards our own folly and its just desserts. A bit like the Pope, yesterday: ‘God always forgives; Man sometimes forgives; Nature never forgives.’
StephenB:
“Philosophical evidence”? What criteria distinguish that kind of evidence from scientific evidence or theological evidence or philosophical argument?
This is ridiculous.
The earth rotates approximately every 24 hours. Thank you, Orderer, for arranging that.
Gravity attracts objects with mass. Thank you, Law Giver, for decreeing that.
Daniel, it is good to be thankful, very thankful. This rotating Earth is so incredibly special. Evidence of that is overwhelming.
I recommend the Psalms as prayers of praise, Daniel.
Hi ppolish and Axel.
I agree with you both. I am thankful for my life, which has been blessed with good fortune.
But I am also mindful of the many people who have not been so blessed.
What concern do you have for them and the circumstances that you believe have been ordained by a supernatural power for them?
SB: Regularity, points to law.
Daniel King
It is obvious. What do you think regularity points to, chaos?
I notice, by the way, that you completely ignore the broader point, the fact that all evidence must be interpreted.
Danial King
You didn’t know that science deals with evidence that can be measured? You didn’t know that evidence also comes in forms that can’t be measured? Just ask your friend Niel Rickert, who couldn’t wait to tell us that legal evidence is different from “scientific evidence.”
Daniel, mountains of evidence of incredible suffering. Famine, cancer tormenting kids. Depression, disease, acts of heinous cruelty. Mass extinction events, tsunamis and earthquakes. Seemingly endless list of evidence.
That evidence strengthens my belief in a Loving God. If all that takes place without a Loving God? How utterly hopeless and cruel that would be. Suffering points me towards a Loving God. Not away for crying out loud.
Unguided evolution doesn’t have any entailments nor does it seem to be able to generate any testable hypotheses.
Correct, only imagination can take such a leap.
I asked StephenB:
He answered:
Unmeasurable evidence indeed. How does one measure evidence and determine which classes of evidence are measurable and which classes can’t be measured? The weeds grow thicker.
In any case, I see no criteria in that response that distinguish “philosophical evidence” from other kinds of evidence and I suspect that the category “philosophical evidence” is yet another of StephenB’s figments invented ad hoc for rhetorical effect.
StephenB, after claiming that regularity “points to” law, which “points to” a lawgiver, and after I called that claim ridiculous, said:
What’s ridiculous is the invocation of “law” and “lawgiver.”
Teleological thinking run amok. Assuming one’s conclusions is not good intellectual form, StephenB.
Daniel King, you seem to think you have a right to take regularity and order in the universe as a given. It seems safe to say that the default position should be that chaos obtains unless order is imposed. You seem to think you can get your order and regularity for free. Who is doing the assuming? Hmmmm?
One of the most ironic evidences for the existence of God is that the core of neo-Darwinian theory is reliant on faulty theological presuppositions:
It is not really all that surprising, given all the failed predictions of Darwinism, that neo-Darwinism, at its core, would be reliant on faulty theological presuppositions, because all of science is, at its core, reliant on the following minimal Theological presuppositions:
Here is a photo that gets the atheist’s predicament across humorously
Here is a lecture on presuppositional apologetics:
Hi Barry.
I see no need, as you and your fellow theists do, to invoke an anthropomorphic creator and mover.
What assumptions (or evidence) motivate your claim that chaos is the “default”?
I’m going to bed. See you mañana.
Creationists don’t understand what the word ‘evidence’ means. Fine tuning etc, may be evidence of a hand at work, I would be prepared to accept that, but which hand ?
If you are a Christian then of course, its your favourite god. But if you are Hindu ? Why its krshna or some such. The point is: what is there about fine-tuning that links it to your god, rather than some other god ?
Daniel King
You seem to be a little confused. Regularity is the product of law, and law is the product of a law giver. Regularity is also the product of order, which in turn, is the product of an orderer. The concept isn’t really that hard. Just think painting >>> painter. Does that help?
Your confusion persists. To conclude the existence of a painter from an observed painting is not assuming a conclusion. It is arriving at a conclusion from an observation. You do understand that the observation precedes the conclusion and not the other way around, right? Well, no, I guess you don’t.
I think the point that Barry and other theist are trying to make is that accepting or believing in God as the cause of the visible universe is not an irrational position given the evidence. I also do not think that an atheist rejects God because of the evidence no more than a theist believes in God solely because of fine tunning. In most cases faith in God is a personal choice that is founded on reason, but not exclusively driven by it. Athiesim is likewise often founded on some form of reason, but is usually drive by personal reasons, lifestyle choices, bad religious experiences, pain etc… The point of this post was only to show that theist have valid reasons to believe that God created the universe, and they are no less valid than a multiverse, and personally I believe they are more valid given the recent track record of string theory…
Daniel King.
Every law has a lawgiver.
Evolve
Who created God? We have been through this a million times lets do it again…..
Everything that BEGINS to exist has a CAUSE.
I am however glad to see you are taking cause and effect seriously, I have some atheist friends that deny the law of causality.
Graham2 @ 73:
Graham, as far as I am aware no one argues that fine tuning, all by itself, proves the existence of the Christian God. It is evidence for a God capable of creating the universe, and certainly the Christian God is a candidate.
Just as when I am trying a case, usually no one piece of evidence makes the case all by itself. TV notwithstanding, a smoking gun is never placed in evidence for the simple reason that if a case involves a smoking gun it never gets to trial. It settles beforehand.
In real trials (as opposed to the TV kind), the lawyer’s goal is to pile up piece after piece after piece of evidence until finally you’ve got a pile of evidence that convinces the jury.
Same thing here. Fine tuning is evidence for a generic God. If you want to get to the specifically Christian God, there is plenty of other evidence.
So in the end, I kind of agree with your comment. Fine tuning is evidence for a hand at work; it does not identify the hand.
So, Andre, who created god ?
Graham 2
Again, everything that BEGINS to exist has a CAUSE
Think about it, begins to exist…. if you don’t begin to exist do you need a cause?
Daniel King asks:
Does your house clean itself up? No. Why is that? Because spontaneous order is counter to all evidence.
Order does not just happen. It must be imposed. What is true of your house is true of the universe as a whole.
Barry
Stop speaking sense you’re going to confuse the people that evolved from monkeys!
Andre: That wasn’t my question. My question was simple: Who created god ?
Graham 2
You are trying to ask me for the explanation of the explanation. I’m not sure how evolved your brain is but that is illogical. Who caused God is irrelevant if God is a sufficient explanation for the cause of this universe, the moment we go into infinite regress reason and logic is removed from the entire conversation.
Graham 2
Who created God? This may help you with that question…..
http://coldcasechristianity.co.....eated-god/
So Graham 2. What sound does silence make?
Andre:
You have just finished berating me for not understanding that everything has a cause, so it doesn’t seem an unreasonable question.
Im not asking for an infinite regress, just 1. So, who created god ?
Graham 2
The problem is with your question? By definition God is uncreated and eternal so why would you ask who created God? Like I said the question is as irrational as asking what sound does silence make?
And please spare me from the idea that your feelings have been hurt, you berate people all the time here……. Go ahead call me a hypocrite that’s not living to his Christian values because I know that’s your next charge!
God does not require an explanation because God is THE maximally greatest conceivable Being!
Andre: God does not require an explanation
Ah, yes.
I wont bother with that line of enquiry any more, but my question from somewhere above still stands: Why does the creator have to be your particular god ? Perhaps its some other god.
Graham 2
http://coldcasechristianity.co.....41QVx.dpuf
Graham 2
It is entirely possible that the Christian God is not the creator of the universe, every single Christian I know also knows this but here is how it works, after weighing all the evidence of all the possible gods the evidence fits better that it was the Christian God. Now I know evidence does not mean anything to you but Genesis 1:1 is consistent with what we already know about our universe, that it had a beginning. There are allot more evidence obviously some subtle some not so and others brutal.
Let me tell you why I believe the bible to be true, The bible does not sugar-coat anything, it does not hide the fact that its heroes like Moses ( a murderer and a man of no backbone) David (A murderer and adulterer)If I was to try and sell you a religion I would not sell you these facts about its heroes would I? No I’d tell you about all the nice things only. Another thing I find peculiar is that the Bible says there will be no sex in heaven. Let me tell you something, you don’t tell men there will be no sex in heaven. Which man do you know will buy into something that says there will be no sex, unless of course its true.
Think about that………
Andre: Dawkins makes the point that we (you) adopt the religion that was passed on by our parents. So if your parents were Hindu, then right now you would be making all the same arguments, but in defence of the Hindu gods. And most energetically too. You would just simply refuse to accept anything else. Ditto Islam, etc etc etc, for as many gods as you like.
Don’t you find this funny ?
Graham 2
I can attest that Dawkins is wrong, I was born into an atheist home and I was one for 34 years. The day finally came when I had to open myself to the fact that the life I’ve lived is wrong or false.
I’ll tell you why the Hindu holy books don’t work, its holy books say the universe is eternal….. Is it?
The Quran says Allah placed mountains on top of the earth to act like tent pegs so it won’t shake….. is this consistent with how mountains are formed or with what we observe with plate tectonics?
The Bible says God made the mountains rise up………. That is completely consistent with our observations.
These are just 3 examples there are many more.
Graham, most kids reject their parents taste in music, fashion choices, etc etc etc. But Religion sticks. Don’t you find that funny?
Why does Religion stick? Because sapien is born Religious and tends to stay that way. By nature. And it makes sense to look back many many generations, not just looking at parents. I’m sure my family tree has different Religions represented over the ages. All the way back to monkey lol.
Andre: No, sorry, not so. That’s why Pakistan remains (very) largely Islamic, why the US remains (mostly) Christian, etc etc. Its a statistical thing. You may buck the trend, even Dawkins switched, but generally, people retain the faith of their parents. I realise you find it hard to imagine, but the odds are that if you were born in Pakistan to Moslem parents, you would now be stoutly defending Allah. Even me. Imagine that.
Graham 2
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
keith s and Zachriel try to use objective nested hierarchies as evidence for unguided evolution even after it is proven that unguided evolution could not produce an objective nested hierarchy. Now we have this that also refutes them:
The case should be closed but it is a given we will be addressing this, again, some time in the future.
Daniel King:
Yet you cannot explain the evidence without at least one Intelligent Designer. That means you see no need to explain what we observe.
Talk about anti-science lunacy…
Folks,
Fascinating, as in car wreck in progress . . . horrifically, sadly, cry of the heart to God . . . fascinating.
The notion, that there is “no evidence” for God, really means, no evidence I am willing to accept. That is, we see here the error of the skeptic, selective hyperskepticism in action. As Greenleaf puts it:
Collins has a nice definition:
Wiki’s article on Evidence, leads:
Now of course much of the problem pivots on the prevalence of a priori evolutionary materialist scientism in our day, which collapses on a modicum of inspection of say Lewontin’s infamously question-begging statement in NYRB in 1997:
I suggest:
1 –> Much of the matter pivots on foundational issues on worldviews and epistemology (study of knowledge), so here is a good place to begin:
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....u2_bld_wvu
2 –> For instance, unless you ponder impossible vs possible being and contingent vs necessary being, the idea of an uncaused, necessary root of reality and existence may seem strange. Where contingent possible beings depend on external, on/off enabling causal factors which is why they can begin or end; by contrast, there are things that don’t have such on/off enablers, and either exist in any possible world or — like square circles — are impossible due to contradictions in core proposed characteristics. For instance the truth expressed in 2 + 3 = 5 never began to exist, nor can it cease to be so . . . a simple case of a necessary being.
3 –> Also, a true nothing — non-being — has no causal powers. So if ever there were an utter nothing, nothingness would forever obtain. So, as we live in a real world, something always was, at the root of reality.
4 –> The issue is not whether reality has a necessary being at its root, but the nature of that root. This of course implies that God is always a serious candidate to be the root necessary being, especially for an observed cosmos with a credible beginning and which in any case comprises composite, changeable beings and so is credibly contingent.
5 –> A little while back, I took up here at UD, one direction this points in:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....eat-being/
. . . also, note here on dismissiveness to “religion”:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....eat-being/
6 –> And of course, things like the mere fact that I am alive to be typing this (I should have died 40 years ago, absent a miracle of guidance to the right doctor . . . ) and the experience of millions of others who have met God in miraculous and/or life changing ways are evidence of God in action.
7 –> Speaking of which, we need to focus miracle no 1 in its historical and scriptural context, as summarised in 1 Cor 15:
. . . where, here on in context (do, watch the video!) may be of help to the perplexed:
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....l#u1_grnds
(And yes, having read Cold Case Christianity by J W Wallace, I can highly recommend it for those needing a good 101.)
8 –> This is of course record of eyewitness testimony dating to 35 – 8 AD, written down AD 55. In the very literal sense, it is evidence that points to God, the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
9 –> Our consciences, notoriously, tell us that we are under the eye of a law written in our hearts, that the same Apostle discusses in Romans, c 57 AD . . . starting with the implications of pointing an accusing finger:
10 –> We have a choice. We can take this testimony seriously and recognise that we are under law, a core moral law that grounds rights and duties, that OUGHT is real and binding. Thus, there is a world-foundational IS that grounds OUGHT. There is but one serious candidate . . . and yes, I am here using explicitly abductive, inference to best explanation reasoning . . . the inherently good Creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, the root of reality.
11 –> Or, we may find some lab-coat clad way to dismiss that general testimony, deflecting it into a delusion of obligation that is merely subjective and probably psycho-socially conditioned. But, that pays a price that is not generally acknowledged.
12 –> Namely we here see an inference to general delusion on a major facet of mindedness. But as there are no fire-walls in the mind, we see here yet another way that a priori evolutionary materialist scientism and its fellow travellers are self-undermining and inherently irrational. Yes, irrational per ex falso quodlibet.
13 –> So, the balance on best explanation is to acknowledge conscience as generally pointing to a true, profoundly important reality: we are under moral government, so also a moral governor.
14 –> The onlooker will note I have not invoked design in the world of life or the cosmos. Deliberately, such is not the start-point for relevant evidence, though it strongly buttresses it. A cosmos fine tuned in many ways that set up C-chemistry aqueous medium cell based life and the fact that such life is chock full of FSCO/I — a strong sign of design — support the view that a serious and open minded assessment of evidence will conclude that there is much evidence pointing to the reality and relevance of God.
But, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
KF
PS: Link budget used up pretty much so here is a link on the objectivity of morality and where it points:
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....#u2_morals
PPS: Similarly, Kreeft’s 20 or so arguments here will bear examination:
http://www.strangenotions.com/god-exists/
PPS: He walked among us is also well worth a read, and a free download:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jmm.us/Books-Downloadable/He+Walked+Among+Us.pdf
F/N: I have asserted that evolutionary materialist scientism is self-referentially incoherent. Here is a 101 on why I say that (go there for onward links etc):
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>> 13 –> Some materialists go further and suggest that mind is more or less a delusion. For instance, Sir Francis Crick is on record, in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
14 –> Philip Johnson has replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: “I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Johnson then acidly commented: “[[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [[Reason in the Balance, 1995.]
15 –> In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin . . . .
This issue can be addressed at a more sophisticated level [[cf. Hasker in The Emergent Self (Cornell University Press, 2001), from p 64 on, e.g. here as well as Reppert here and Plantinga here (briefer) & here (noting updates in the 2011 book, The Nature of Nature)], but without losing its general force, it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way:
a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity.
b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances.
(This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or “supervenes” on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure — the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. Such physical causal closure, clearly, implicitly discounts or even dismisses the causal effect of concept formation and reasoning then responsibly deciding, in favour of specifically physical interactions in the brain-body control loop; indeed, some mock the idea of — in their view — an “obviously” imaginary “ghost” in the meat-machine. [[There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. “It works” does not warrant the inference to “it is true.”] )
c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this meat-machine picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick’s claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as “thoughts,” “reasoning” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains that (as the Smith Model illustrates) serve as cybernetic controllers for our bodies.
d: These underlying driving forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection [[“nature”] and psycho-social conditioning [[“nurture”], within the framework of human culture [[i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. And, remember, the focal issue to such minds — notice, this is a conceptual analysis made and believed by the materialists! — is the physical causal chains in a control loop, not the internalised “mouth-noises” that may somehow sit on them and come along for the ride.
(Save, insofar as such “mouth noises” somehow associate with or become embedded as physically instantiated signals or maybe codes in such a loop. [[How signals, languages and codes originate and function in systems in our observation of such origin — i.e by design — tends to be pushed to the back-burner and conveniently forgotten. So does the point that a signal or code takes its significance precisely from being an intelligently focused on, observed or chosen and significant alternative from a range of possibilities that then can guide decisive action.])
e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And — as we saw above — would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain?
f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely cognitive, conceptual error, but delusion. Borderline lunacy, in short. But, if such a patent “delusion” is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it “must” — by the principles of evolution — somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be a major illustration of the unreliability of our conceptual reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism.
g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too.
h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, “must” also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this “meme” in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. Reppert brings the underlying point sharply home, in commenting on the “internalised mouth-noise signals riding on the physical cause-effect chain in a cybernetic loop” view:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. [[Emphases added. Also cf. Reppert’s summary of Barefoot’s argument here.]
i: The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist (as well as Socialist) J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (Highlight and emphases added.)]
j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the “thoughts” we have, (iii) the conceptualised beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt based on such and (v) the “conclusions” and “choices” (a.k.a. “decisions”) we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to “mere” ill-defined abstractions such as: purpose or truth, or even logical validity.
(NB: The conclusions of such “arguments” may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or “warranted” them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.)
k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that — as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows — empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: in science, one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one’s beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.)
l: Worse, in the case of origins science theories, we simply were not there to directly observe the facts of the remote past, so origins sciences are even more strongly controlled by assumptions and inferences than are operational scientific theories. So, we contrast the way that direct observations of falling apples and orbiting planets allow us to test our theories of gravity.
m: Moreover, as Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin reminds us all in his infamous January 29, 1997 New York Review of Books article, “Billions and billions of demons,” it is now notorious that:
. . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel [[materialistic scientists] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [[And if you have been led to imagine that the immediately following words justify the above, kindly cf. the more complete clip and notes here.]
n: Such a priori assumptions of materialism are patently question-begging, mind-closing and fallacious.
o: More important, to demonstrate that empirical tests provide empirical support to the materialists’ theories would require the use of the very process of reasoning and inference which they have discredited.
p: Thus, evolutionary materialism arguably reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, as we have seen: immediately, that must include “Materialism.”
q: In the end, it is thus quite hard to escape the conclusion that materialism is based on self-defeating, question-begging logic.
r: So, while materialists — just like the rest of us — in practice routinely rely on the credibility of reasoning and despite all the confidence they may project, they at best struggle to warrant such a tacitly accepted credibility of mind and of concepts and reasoned out conclusions relative to the core claims of their worldview. (And, sadly: too often, they tend to pointedly ignore or rhetorically brush aside the issue.)>>
___________
FYI.
KF
@your #62, Dan’l:
‘I agree with you both. I am thankful for my life, which has been blessed with good fortune.
But I am also mindful of the many people who have not been so blessed.
What concern do you have for them and the circumstances that you believe have been ordained by a supernatural power for them?’
————————-
I’m sure we both pray for them every day, morning, noon and night. It’s implicit in most Christian prayers, when it’s not explicit.
Moreover the life of the Christian, notably his/her crosses have redemptive power in respect of the welfare of others others, as well as our own, in this life as well as for the next; and we hope that we are included in their prayers and redemptive power, too.
F/N: A warning on the matches that are being played with:
This last seems rather jarring, so let us note Rom 1:
. . . with also Paul’s presentation to the Athenian elites c AD 50:
Paul was literally laughed out of court.
With but scanty apparent results.
And yet, 2000 years later the verdict of history is plain.
It did not belong to the pagans, or the skeptical philosophers or the cynical politicians, but tot he Apostle and the gospel.
The Areopagus and the Parthenon are a;ong a road, named after the Apostle and his chief convert, Dionysius. And there is a ring of churches surrounding the old pagan monuments.
From a tiny acorn, a massive oak grows.
KF
ppolish @ 44,
///Almost all of the 50 million sperm would create a baby, Evolve. But ONLY ONE cosmological constant out of a trillion trillion raised to the trillion trillion squared gives rise to a Universe with monkey men///
But each of those 50 million babies would be different. And only one among them ever materialises. Similarly, different cosmological constants can potentially produce different universes with different results. But only one materialized – ours (if the multiverse exists, then more than one universe could have materialised).
Your mistake, as I have pointed out many times already, is teleological presuppositions. You assume that the goal of creation is to produce humans, therefore all parameters must be tuned to achieve that purpose.
This is like the fallacy of saying that the earth’s gravity is fine-tuned to produce us, when in reality it is we who are fine-tuned to how the earth ended up being.
Likewise, it is we who are fine-tuned (or adapted) to the universe, the universe is not fine-tuned with us in mind.
I’m sure many of you already get this, but I don’t expect theists to agree and shake hands with me even if they’re wrong. Barry may now start another thread calling me names.
If we prayed only for ourselves, if the churches had not led from the front, in setting up hospitals, schools, and other charitable institutions, and in causing slavery to be abolished, neither we nor our institutional church, compromised as it has been by both human and inhuman failings, neither could be called Christian. But that’s what we are, goldurn it!
And now we are being marginalised by self-styled progressives, slavery’s been making a massive come-back; along with all manner of other ills.
ppolish: most kids reject their parents taste in music, fashion choices
That’s a fairly modern phenomenon. For most of history, children closely resemble their parents in terms of music, fashion, as well as religion. Even today, when teenagers around the world listen to popular music, it often has traditional instruments, costumes, dance, and vocal idioms in the mix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdHEqAfK69I
Graham2
The evidence can lead you on a path of understanding – from one concept to the next.
Fine-tuning may show a hand at work. If that evidence became convincing enough, you could move from atheism to deism. There is now a prime mover and creator.
But the evidence from fine-tuning may say more than there’s merely an impersonal force at work. Is this really an impersonal force that created things, or isn’t it more reasonable to conclude that the creator “had us in mind” and shows this through the many coincidences that support the existence of life on earth?
Every class of elements that exists on the periodic table of elements is necessary for complex carbon-based life to exist on earth. The three most abundant elements in the human body, Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, “just so happen” to be the most abundant elements in the universe, save for helium which is inert. A truly amazing coincidence that strongly implies “the universe had us in mind all along”. — Michael Denton
So, if that became convincing enough, you could move from Deism to Theism. Now you would have a creator God who was ‘personal’ to the extend of willing the existence of humanity.
Fine-tuning arguments don’t take us much farther than that.
To move to the next step: “Which theistic God is it?” – requires analysis of whether or not God communicated anything to humanity (through prophets or teachers).
But if you look just at “a creator God”, you can find that in several religions, so theism is supported by that.
Graham2, “Fine tuning etc, may be evidence of a hand at work, I would be prepared to accept that, but which hand ?”
The evidence points to “a hand”, singular. This says a lot about the hand. The evidence may not point to a particular variant of a monotheistic God, but it does point directly to monotheism. The only other possibility (other than a moment of ultra-luck caused by a bazillion failed plays) is that there are multiple “hands” working in concert. The latter, however, isn’t much difference from “one”.
G2:
Notice how a rope works?
Different strands work together to do an overall job.
It’s a common situation, one that should be understood for what it is and does.
KF
Evolve, unlike 50 million nearly identical babies, the Multiverse has trigintillions of dead empty voids and this one with life. Fine tuning is still above your head sigh.
Zachriel, in the past most things were sticky. Now, it is common for kids to reject political musical fashion views of parents, but religion still sticks. i ask again, why does Religion stick?
If one is blindly (irrationally) attached to a worldview position, one can’t be open minded, can’t think out of the box. Hence one willfully avoids trying to understand other positions. Perhaps one might incorrectly equate understanding to agreeing? Sometimes understanding may lead to agreeing, but that’s not always the case.
I understand the materialistic worldview position, simply because I was an atheist part of my life. Was raised, strongly educated, intensively trained, radically brainwashed within that worldview. However, now I disagree with that worldview position, because I know it well, and I believe it’s false. Now I count that period of my life as a loss.
Given these two opposite irreconcilable worldview positions, one might logically ask how can one truly (not superficially) switch* from one to another?
How did the zealous self-righteous religious Saul of Tarsus, who hated and persecuted the people of “The Way”, become Paul the Apostle, the self-proclaimed ‘chief of sinners’, who prostrated himself at the feet of his divine Savior, and wrote the theologically profound letter to the Romans?
(*) I believe such switch is possible only in one direction. I don’t believe it would be possible to convert Paul the Apostle to Saul of Tarsus. But this is not the topic of this discussion thread.
ppolish: in the past most things were sticky. Now, it is common for kids to reject political musical fashion views of parents, but religion still sticks. i ask again, why does Religion stick?
As previously pointed out, fashion usually expresses modernism as well as incorporating aspects of traditional culture. That’s why you can tell Hollywood from Bollywood.
In any case, religion is less sticky today than in previous periods.
#110 addendum
The two last questions are not directly related, because the first has to do with two philosophical worldview positions, whereas the second is about a radical spiritual change within the same philosophical worldview position.
Perhaps the answer to the first of those two last questions can include learning as a decisive factor. However, the answer to the last question is much more complex.
I agree with you Zach, easier than ever to change one’s religious beliefs. I was a baptized Catholic, then Lapsed Catholic, then Zen/Buddhist/Hundu, then BornAgain Catholic, then LongDayCreationistCatholic;)
The Dawkin’s view of mindless religion of your parents zombie kids is an atheist myth talking point. See Graham2.
And what are conversions based on? Evidence. Mountains of evidence.
ppolish: The Dawkin’s view of mindless religion of your parents zombie kids is an atheist myth talking point. See Graham2.
Can’t imagine that would be Dawkins’s actual position, but there is a strong correlation between the religion of the parents and the religion of the children, even though that correlation has weakened over time.
” there is a strong correlation between the X of the parents and the X of the children”
Deep stuff Zach, filling in the X with religion. Lanquage for X works too. Heck, maybe there are more substitutes for X? Deep stuff.
More Religons equal more evidence of God or less evidence? Zero evidence of God?
ppolish: filling in the X with religion. Lanquage for X works too. Heck, maybe there are more substitutes for X?
That’s right. There is a strong correlation between the culture of parents and children, including religion. You had claimed there was a distinction with regards to religion when the evidence indicates that all aspects of culture tend to pass through generations, while culture as a whole is increasingly influenced by modernity.
StephenB, Barry, et al.:
Thank you for your replies. I understand that you are defending the teleological argument.
As is typical in the many versions of that argument, your examples are all analogies to human activities, and the analogies break down when we’re dealing with the Cosmos, because nobody thinks that the order within the Cosmos required the efforts of a human being.
These regularities seem to have derived from the properties of matter and energy, according to the findings of physicists and cosmologists. The idea that a human-like actor (a lawgiver, a regulator, a creator) outside of the Cosmos made it all happen is a superfluous relic of superstition.
What is true of my house is not necessarily true of the universe as a whole. Apropos of which, check out this new analysis of the Big Bang: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-b.....verse.html
DK:
Once again, our opponents’ penchant for substituting mere contradiction for argument is demonstrated. DK thinks he can get his order for free. Why? No reason (or at least no reason he deems necessary to identify). This comment says more about DK’s credulity and his faith commitments than it says about the source of order.
Im increasingly struck by the no. of creationists who were non-believers in an earlier life. Is this the fervour of the re-born or something ?
Daniel King, that popular link you posted titled “No Big Bang…” Is a misleading title per the authors:
“A new paper in Physical Letters B has the popular press wondering if there was no Big Bang, but the actual paper claims no such thing… The Big Bang is a robust scientific theory that isn’t going away, and this new paper does nothing to question its legitimacy.”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-b.....er-1487517
This new theory is a bit retro, old school – no talk of a Multiverse;)
Professor Larry Krause on “No Big Bang” paper:
https://mobile.twitter.com/LKrauss1/status/565595561307701250
“Cosmological Constant put in by hand.”
My money is on the science, and I said so in the excerpt you quoted. There’s a lot of information out there on the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang. You might look up Baryogenesis (not Barry O’Genesis).
It’s my understanding that once symmetry is broken, the formation of atoms follows naturally. And once you have atoms, you have gravity and order evolving at higher and higher levels until you wind up with suns and planets, etc.
Thanks ppolish. To me, those tweets, including the one by Krauss, don’t amount to anything more than gut reactions.
It will be interesting to see if this story has legs.
Yes Daniel, and this “order evolving at higher and higher levels until you wind up with suns and planets, etc” sits on an incredibly razor sharp amount of fine tuning. Right from the get go and into the future, structure is dependent on and driven by the fine tuning. That is why Science is very perplexed.
It is not like we are fish stuck in a puddle THINKING our puddle is special. We now KNOW empirically that the puddle IS special. There are no other puddles, just parched dead non puddles by the gazillions.
And, water is itself a wonder of fine tuning rooted in the core physics of the cosmos.
ppolish, surely you are aware of the anthropic principle. If the puddle were so different that life was not supported, we wouldn’t be here to reflect upon it.
Why do you feel the need to be special?
Daniel, surely you are aware how utterly unlikely it is that we are here, imagining things?
Use that imagination of yours to imagine all the NATURALLY POSSIBLE universes that would not allow imagination. It is mind boggling, and you will not even get close to imagining the right amount.
“We’re not special” please stop. Please.
Daniel, the Douglas Adams puddle exercise is based on other puddles of fish that we can’t imagine. Those other puddle fish also feel special.
Douglas Adams passed just as Science was finding evidence of “Dark Energy” ie Cosmolocical Constant. We now know there are not any other puddle fish out there. Our puddle is indeed incredibly special. Science is perplexed.
Daniel King
Well, not exactly. Only one out of the three was teleological. At least you have quietly withdrawn your silly claim that I was assuming my conclusion. Or did you labor under the illusion that a teleological argument is tautological?
The purpose of the analogy was to help you to understand the principle: effects always need proportional causes to produce them. That principle doesn’t change either inside or outside the cosmos. Quantum theory depends on the principle of causation. It can hardly be used to nullify it.
It is the physical laws that direct the activities of matter and energy, and not the other way around. That you would think that matter and energy could produce the laws that direct them is a problem.
To create something from nothing is not a “human like” activity. Humans just direct and redirect matter; they don’t bring it into existence. The idea that any effect can occur without a cause is a piece of imbecility that can be safely discounted as post-modern pablum. Incredibly, given the choice between “poof” and a first cause, you choose poof.
Daniel King
It is not that I feel special it is that you are special……
1.) The processing capacity of 49 0000 super computers.
2.) A Neural Network that when unravelled goes to the moon and back
3.) All the information ever created fits into less than 1% of your storage capacity.
4.) 100 Trillion cells each with a 100 000 chemical reactions every second and you are constant at 37C
5.) Sophisticated nano-tech molecular machines that runs you.
6.) In the last year almost all your atoms have been replaced but you are still you.
You are very special.
Bravo, Andre. What is your source for those astonishing stats?
AnimatedDust
Everyhwere! Examples;
http://www.extremetech.com/ext.....processors
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar.....nformation
Just look around, but are you the product of the blind workings of matter?
Not a chance!
Has anybody yet to admit that teleology is not evidence for “God”(still kinda wondering in what way this word is being used) anymore than it’s evidence for any other intelligent being? Maybe there is a creator of the universe, and if there is then it’s an intelligence outside of the universe it STILL doesn’t make it God.
I said since the last thread that nano-tech in cells is not evidence of God anymore than it’s evidence for any other intelligent being. Since science can’t distinguish who then it’s not evidence for God.
ForJah, you are anticipating the next debate – after Design becomes accepted. That debate will be Theistic Design vs Natural Design. Both are guided and purposeful Design, but only one goes Supernatural.
ForJah
Murder scene: Size 12 footprints, red carpet fibers, one glove, left-handed attack from a person 6’5″ tall, tire tracks from a Chevy SUV.
Suspect: Size 12 shoes, has red carpet in car, has similar glove, is left handed, is 6’5″, drives a Chevy SUV.
Conclusion: “There is no evidence that the suspect was involved because it could be anybody with shoes, carpet, glove, left-handedness, height and tire” … Right?
ForJah, “Has anybody yet to admit that teleology is not evidence for “God””
ForJah, you totally didn’t understand the premise of the article that started this thread, did you?
Of course evidence for teleology is evidence for “God”. Evidence for teleology is not “proof of God”. Proof of teleology is not “proof of God”. Please read and ponder the article that started this thread.
Your #25: Nice riposte Silvery one!
BFast, I see three groups…
1) Appearance of Design (Materialists like Dawkins)
2) Real Design but Natural (Teleological Atheist like Nagel)
3) Real Design and Supernatural (Theologist like Dembski)
Arguments today are between 1&2 and 1&3, not so much between 2&3. Theist Dembski finds plenty of common ground with Atheist Nagel in his new book “Being as Communion”
Although when some of the 1’s become 2’s, things will get nastier between 2&3.
“Murder scene: Size 12 footprints, red carpet fibers, one glove, left-handed attack from a person 6’5? tall, tire tracks from a Chevy SUV.
Suspect: Size 12 shoes, has red carpet in car, has similar glove, is left handed, is 6’5?, drives a Chevy SUV.”
Let me correct the argument in more relatable terms with what we are talking about with the argument from design.
Murder scene: footprints, carpet fibers, one glove, attack from a person, tire tracks from a car.
Suspect: Size 12 shoes, has red carpet in car, has similar glove, is left handed, is 6’5?, drives a Chevy SUV.
Now that I have corrected the Murder scene so that it reflects more accurately the argument from design. Tell me if any of the evidence actually points to the suspect in any reasonable way in which it doesn’t point to anyone else.
Fair enough, let’s try again. Just using what we’ve seen in the past few posts
Murder scene: nano-tech in cells, The processing capacity of 49 0000 super computers, something created from nothing, existence of physical laws that direct the activities of matter and energy, incredibly razor sharp amount of fine tuning for earth and the existence and support of life on earth.
Suspects:
Suspect 1. Non-intelligent laws. [Suspect eliminated. Laws cannot create themselves and do not explain the origin of laws.]
Suspect 2. Chance. [Suspect eliminated. Chance cannot produce the fine tuning observed]
Suspect 3. Intelligent Design by “any intelligence” (your claim). [Suspect is a candidate because intelligence is only known source of fine-tuning, nano technology and laws – but eliminated for human, terrestrial or intelligences within the universe.]
Suspect 4. Material intelligence of some kind. [Suspect eliminated because it cannot exist prior to matter and laws existing].
Suspect 5. An immaterial intelligence, with sufficient power and sophistication to create a universe, laws and finely-tuned conditions for the existence of life – and the nano-technology in the cells that support life.
Best candidate that aligns with evidence?
In this particular case, it’s indeterminate. I also don’t agree with your groupings though. 3,4,5 compliment each other while 4,5 are opposites. and 3 incorporates 4 and 5.
ForJah
I would appreciate a better analysis. You’re stating it’s ‘indeterminate’. But you didn’t explain that.
Forjah at 141,
I think what SA was getting in the 1-5 exercise should be read like this:
1 — out.
2 — out.
3 — in. Ok, let’s divide 3, now, into 4 and 5; either 4, material or 5, immaterial.
4 — out.
hence, 5. Now, what is best candidate? (ooh, not to mention personality, morals, beauty etc. . . if we enjoy/were-endowed-with these, perhaps they came from . . . ) God.
Again, not a proof, just evidence.
I don’t like how you clumped them, and BTW we are talking about nano-technology in cells, not the laws of the universe. We have no idea what could have created the laws of the universe.
It’s indeterminate because there isn’t enough evidence to provide evidence for a who.
StephenB’s god creates things out of nothing:
Has that happened lately? If so, please provide examples. If not, I conclude that the very idea is a fantastic figment of your imagination.
I thought that we were discussing reality here, not Medieval folk beliefs.
ForJah@144,
I think we cross-posted. Check out 143, “unclumped,” with some evidence that the “what” is a “who” tossed in just for kicks.
I dropped those in overly briefly, but as long as we are considering a creator/designer. . . and we, in our world, have things like love/hate (we are relational to our core), see beauty, sense in/justices, and seem to be the only beings on the planet “particular to” such happenstance, that is indeed evidence that the creator/designer is a person.
It makes little sense (to me) to envision the designer as a “what” lacking those aspects listed above writ large. But, that’s just me.
Again, evidence, not proof.
DK,
Don’t knock folks from the Medieval times until you’ve tried them. Their “science” was bigger than yours. Ask Abelard, or Aquinas, or Anselm, or . . .
As for the ex nihilo charge, the “when” of something happening is hardly grounds for calling it fantastic. When was the last time you were born? . . . Oh, that long? I guess I am forced to . . .
Hi Tim,
You’re a treasure.
I assure you, I was not made from nothing. I have a birth certificate certifying that my parents conceived me and that my Mommy delivered me into this wonderful world almost a century ago.
When you see things popping into existence out of nothing, let the World know.
I never said anything about proof. I feel the word is loaded, for the very reason you are using the idea “evidence, not proof” against me as if I said that. Beauty, love, hate, justice…those are all subjective things. Even in that case though, I never said that the designer is not a person…in fact, that’s exactly what I mean when I say “evidence for intelligence”.
Daniel King,
Ok, I will. Come to think of it, I just read about a person’s life that what completely transformed, seemingly out of nothing, from a small, myopic lechery into large-hearted, lovely and loving human generosity, yes, ex nihilo.
Oh, and thank you.
ForJah,
Please don’t think my “evidence, not proof” was some sort of criticism about your comments. As this is a thread about evidence, I was merely reminding readers.
I am a little confused about your other complaint. Previously you wrote:
The quote itself is a little confusing, but I think I got what you meant. Anyway, it does seem to be you saying that there is not enough evidence that the designer is a person (a “who” as it were), so I just thought I would list those things that we experience as evidence.
Again, that we experience such things, having been created out of the intelligence of a what that could not apprehend them, seems to me a bit hinky.
I’m not sure what you mean being created out of a “what”…
Reminds me of the “ID critic” here at UD with the stated purpose “to evaluate the evidence” while simultaneously denying that the evidence exists.
Thanks Barry.
F/N: It seems necessary to ask for a clarification.
I/L/O say 98 above
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-547642
. . . is it still maintained by relevant objectors, that there is “no evidence” for the reality and relevance of God?
I/L/O the issue of selective hyperskepticism raised and initial evidence outlined and linked (incl. in the PS with links), is this because of an actual lack of evidence that makes theism a reasonable position, or is this a dismissive rhetorical gambit driven by scientism and/or evidentialism?
Are such objectors aware of the self referential incoherences involved in these views?
Namely:
(a) to claim or suggest that science is the only source and ground of truth and warrant is to make a claim in epistemology, i.e. philosophy.
(b) the demand for “evidence” at each stage in thought leads to an infinite regress and/or question-begging.
KF
PS: (b) just above points to the significance of avoiding turtles all the way down, and to the necessity of finitely remote first plausibles tested against plumbline self-evident truths and constituting the core of a worldview. Where hyperskeptical objectors often wish to dismiss SET’s whilst refusing to see that they face infinite regress. But just think, error exists is undeniably true, on pain of patent absurdity . . . to try to deny it implies affirmation by showing an example of error.
Silver Asiatic: Suspect 1. Non-intelligent laws. [Suspect eliminated. Laws cannot create themselves and do not explain the origin of laws.]
Suspect 2. Chance. [Suspect eliminated. Chance cannot produce the fine tuning observed]
Suspect 1 couldn’t do it. Suspect 2 couldn’t do it. But Suspect 1 working with Suspect 2 have capabilities neither have alone. It was a conspiracy!
Z,
the search space for just 1,000 bits of FSCO/I so overwhelms the atomic and temporal resources of our observed cosmos that there is a fail.
First, as a rule, lawlike mechanical necessity produces low contingency of outcomes. (But perhaps you mean basic physics and chemistry are programmed to produce cell based life. That’s a serious fine tuning implication there, but more directly, produce the evidence.)
Second, chance produces stochastic contingency, and so becomes a maximally implausible source of effective searches for the islands of function implied by wiring diagram organisation, once we are beyond 500 – 1,000 bits of FSCO/I.
Blending the two would only work if programming pushes pond salts or the like to form life structures, so we move to hill climbing within an island.
Empirical basis for such? I/l/o the state of OOL studies, zip.
This is a case of ideology triumphing over evidence that the only empirically observed, analytically plausible source of FSCO/I is design.
All this has been pointed out many times, but of course is routinely brushed aside due to a priori, question begging evolutionary materialist scientism and its fellow travellers.
KF
kairosfocus: the search space for just 1,000 bits of FSCO/I so overwhelms the atomic and temporal resources of our observed cosmos that there is a fail.
In fact, evolutionary algorithms show that the process can quickly search structured spaces, even if those spaces are vast.
Zachriel:
In fact, evolutionary algorithms are intelligent design evolution in action so that is to be expected.
Z, Evolutionary Algorithms are carefully fine tuned to be within islands of function, and to have well-behaved fitness metrics that facilitate following a gradient uphill. Design misread as blind chance and mechanical necessity in action as per usual. KF
PS: In short your “structure” feeds in a lot of active intelligently input information.
Tim @ 143
Thanks for unclumping that – it works much better that way.
Zac
A chance result cannot be obtained without law-like processes already in place.
Suspect 1 was eliminated since the origin of those laws remain unexplained.
Combining the two won’t work.
SA:
A chance result cannot be obtained without law-like processes already in place.
It just seems like every result would be chance without law like processes
Suspect 1 was eliminated since the origin of those laws remain unexplained.
If we don’t know how gravity came to be we cannot predict Haley’s Comet?
Veilikovskys
It does seem that way but it can’t work. “Results” occur only within the context of law. Chance cannot produce results unless there are already laws in place.
It’s a question of origins. Gravity is an aspect of order which is not explained by chance or laws (or a combination of the two). If we can’t explain how gravity came to be, then we don’t have an explanation for the origin of gravity.
So, suspect 1, natural laws, is eliminated as a cause of the laws which govern/order things in the universe.
Order is a hallmark of intelligent design. So, there is evidence for a non-physical, intelligent origin for the laws of the universe. Considering that all other sources for those laws have been eliminated, the most reasonable explanation for the origin of those laws is that a non-physical, ordering-intelligence exists.
kairosfocus: Evolutionary Algorithms are carefully fine tuned to be within islands of function, and to have well-behaved fitness metrics that facilitate following a gradient uphill.
Fine tuning isn’t required. A standard evolutionary algorithm will be adept at navigating landscapes structured such that nearby points are correlated, the more dimensions the better.
Silver Asiatic: Suspect 1 was eliminated since the origin of those laws remain unexplained.
Knowing the origin of laws doesn’t answer the question raised, which concerned whether, given the existence of laws, if they could explain “nano-tech in cells”.
Silver Asiatic: Order is a hallmark of intelligent design.
Ah, so gems are forged by Vulcan.
Zac
I was responding to ForJah @133
Maybe there is a creator of the universe, and if there is then it’s an intelligence outside of the universe it STILL doesn’t make it God.
As above, you’re lacking an explanation for the origin of what does create gems.
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that StephenB has not responded to my devastating rebuttal at #145.
Maybe he’s taken the day off. Enjoy your liesure, Stephen.
Zachriel: In fact, evolutionary algorithms show that the process can quickly search structured spaces, even if those spaces are vast.
You and I both know that EA’s are designed.
You have a standing challenge here at UD to demonstrate otherwise. So far you’ve abstained.
Zachriel: A standard evolutionary algorithm will be adept at navigating landscapes structured such that nearby points are correlated, the more dimensions the better.
Post your version of “the standard evolutionary algorithm.” If you can.
Denial King: “I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that StephenB has not responded to my devastating rebuttal at #145.”
“Maybe he’s taken the day off. Enjoy your liesure, Stephen.”
********
He does not have to now Danny. Apparently Astrobiologists have used more divination to discovered that Aliens created life and everything else. For further info, contact the Aliens.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....lp00000592
–
Mung quoting – Zachriel: “In fact, evolutionary algorithms show that the process can quickly search structured spaces, even if those spaces are vast.”
Mung – “You and I both know that EA’s are designed.”
“You have a standing challenge here at UD to demonstrate otherwise. So far you’ve abstained.”
**********
Don’t hold your breath for any intelligent real world answer for how this mystic used blind unguided forces to create his EAs. Maybe Lee Croteau has been in mourning all this time, since his brother John Croteau died last December 7th 2014. From the comments around the Net from his family members, including his wife, brother John is in Heaven with their Father. Wonder how well Lee’s beliefs come off at those Croteau family gatherings ?
We have no evidence that intelligence creates natural law and even if we did, we wouldn’t know who.
DD:
Don’t hold your breath for any intelligent real world answer for how this mystic used blind unguided forces to create his EAs. Maybe …. family gatherings ?
That is really creepy
There isn’t any evidence for such a thing and there isn’t any way to test the claim.
SA:
It does seem that way but it can’t work. “Results” occur only within the context of law. Chance cannot produce results unless there are already laws in place.
Without laws all results are unpredictable. Chance. Laws diminish chance ,not create it.
~It’s a question of origins. Gravity is an aspect of order which is not explained by chance or laws (or a combination of the two).
But it exists, that is all that is required for premise of natural law to be possible.
If we can’t explain how gravity came to be, then we don’t have an explanation for the origin of gravity.
That is a syllogism
So, suspect 1, natural laws, is eliminated as a cause of the laws which govern/order things in the universe.
The question was can natural laws be the cause of an effect? Say the Grand Canyon?
Daniel King
Wow, this sounds promising. Let’s check it out.
@145
Well, yes, Daniel. First there was nothing, and then there was something. It’s the big bang, you know. Theologians characterize the event as “creation ex-nilio,”
No, Daniel, it hasn’t happened lately. There was only one big bang. Or, were you thinking that things just keep on banging? (Can you believe this conversation?)
Reality good, folk beliefs bad. Got it.
ForJah
We have evidence that intelligence creates laws. It’s the most reasonable inference that an intelligence created the natural laws.
The question of how to find who it is was answered elsewhere on this thread. There can be evidence that God exists without evidence on full nature and identity of God.
There is one premise that I think I agree on with the naturalists, and that is that it is an all or nothing proposition. It’s either all natural or all miracle. Since it can’t be natural, well . . .
EVERYTHING that exists is a miracle. Why is it we think we can describe this or that as “natural”? Because we see it happen a 100 times? What is the law that a tree come from an acorn? Why not a mouse?
velikovskys
Without laws, there can’t be any ‘results’ – only chaos. It’s like if the only the color that was possible was ‘blue’, it would be impossible to know it. We know ‘blue’ in contrast to other colors. Chance exists in contrast to law – and it can “result” in things only if there are laws that can allow results to occur. For example, a combination of molecules by chance … that requires law-like properties to be in place in order for combinations to occur.
Even random-chance as we know it is affected by law-like properties that create patterns and distributions. But the origin of the laws – governing or ordering principles, have to be explained.
True, gravity exists and that’s all that is required to explain many features we see in the universe. But gravity is an ordering or governing principle/force that works in a law-like function. That’s how we talk about finely-tuned natural laws and forces – they can be measured and understood mathematically. But the question is where did they come from? An intelligent source is the most reasonable inference we can make.
Yes, as above. Even though we didn’t see the Grand Canyon being created, we observe the properties of gravity and water and stone and we can model it. So, it’s a very reasonable conclusion that gravity was the cause of that effect (however, we can still wonder at the beauty of what actually resulted).
But what caused gravity to exist have have its specific properties and powers? That’s the ultimate cause of the Grand Canyon. if we look at the origin of the law-like principles themselves – if we look for the origin of gravity, where did it come from? Why are there orderly results? This is evidence that an intelligence was the source and origin.
Gravity cannot create itself, and chance can’t create it.
We observe that intelligence can create governing, ordering principles and laws. So, by inference, it’s reasonable to conclude that an intelligence created the laws the govern the universe.
Silver Asiatic: you’re lacking an explanation for the origin of what does create gems.
The basics of gem formation are known well enough that gems can be created artificially by analogous means.
Mung: You have a standing challenge here at UD to demonstrate otherwise.
You’re conflating the model with the thing being modeled. Or are you saying we can’t build theoretical models. How do you think they calculate rocket trajectories? Or predict weather, for that matter?
Mung: Post your version of “the standard evolutionary algorithm.”
Sure. Descent with modification, that is, populations of replicators with variation.
SB (attn DK, 145):
As a first point of reference, Wikipedia:
The way the above carefully skirts that there was an objection to the idea that the observed cosmos — the only actually scientifically observed cosmos — had a temporally finitely remote beginning, traceable to a singularity event some 13.7 or 8 BYA is quite interesting bit typical. It is of course the microwave background radiation observations of the 1960’s that clenched the deal, giving a blackbody radiation temperature of 2.7 K.
The site http://www.big-bang-theory.com/ gives an interesting discussion:
Ex nihilo, anyone?
(Not quite a dismiss by the clock drive-by rhetoric talking point.)
In addition, of course, famously, the circumstances of the physics of the observed cosmos put it at an incredibly fine tuned operating point surrounded by a wilderness of non-functional points in the config space set by cosmology.
This is held to strongly point to design, making the candidate very powerful, highly intelligent and purposing to set up a cosmos that makes possible c-chemistry, aqueous medium, cell based life forms. With the additional astonishing feature that many parameters that make for such also make for a cosmos that invites observation, exploration and discovery.
I suggest for quick reading on astronomy and the fine tuning issue, a 101 here:
http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2.....cosmointro
On the fine tuning issue, with emphasis on the first four elements and water, cf here:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....inference/
For the logic of what has a beginning or is otherwise contingent has a cause, I note:
1 –> Compare a fire as an example, it depends on on/of enabling factors showing its contingency.
2 –> There are circumstances where it obtains, and others where it does not.
3 –> The beginning of such results from a sufficient cluster of causal factors which must include all on/off enabling factors as illustrated by the heat, fuel, chain reaction and oxidiser required for a fire.
4 –> Consider a candidate being that however has no such dependencies, i.e. there is no possible world in which absence of factors would block existence.
5 –> Such a candidate — if serious (things like flying spaghetti monsters or pink unicorns or ideal islands are not) — would be either impossible or actual in any possible world.
6 –> Square circles are impossible due to contradictions of core characteristics; the truth stated in 2 + 3 = 5 is an example of a successful candidate, a necessary being. (And yes being here is used ontologically.)
7 –> God, is a serious candidate necessary being; his existence will be either impossible or actual.
8 –> God is also a serious candidate for creating an observed cosmos such as we live in.
9 –> Likewise, given that we must needs take the general testimony of conscience seriously that we are under moral government, have rights and duties etc (on pain of undermining the general credibility of mind if there is such a general delusion) we see that the only serious candidate to explain that is the inherently good Creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. Cf here for more:
http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.....#u2_morals
__________
So, in fact there is a cluster of converging lines of evidence that point to a cumulative compelling case for theism.
Of course, such will be stoutly resisted . . . but that is the point, it is compelling cases that some find themselves alienated from that attract intense resistance in an attempt to justify oneself.
Where, of course, the reply to such attempts is not at all the same thing.
KF
Silver,
What evidence do we have that Intelligence creates natural laws?
FJ, Kindly cf the just above. KF
PS: Collins may also be helpful (along with several other onward linked items from the ID Foundations discussion at UD):
http://commonsenseatheism.com/.....gument.pdf
Was that to me? What did you ask?
ForJah, yes that is directed to you. You have asked though answers have been long on the table, these I point to again. KF
I’m sorry, can you point to the thread where you showed intelligence creates natural laws? I may have missed it in all of the posts.
FJ,
the pivotal issue is fine tuning of the observed cosmos pointing to design as best empirically warranted explanation. 179 just above gives first step outline points and onward links of long standing, including to a UD ID Foundations post.
As just one small indicator of how serious the point is, notice this buried acknowledgement against interest in thw Wiki Big Bang article as was cited in 179:
What is not said explicitly, is that inflation itself is fine tuned.
And so also are several dozen other critical matters, some of them linked to how we have a cosmos where the first four elements in abundance are H, He, O, C; main ingredients for stars, gateway to the rest of the periodic table, source for water and rocks [rocky planets . . . ], organic chemistry. N is close and IIRC is 5th in our galaxy . . . proteins.
A fairly significant amount of foundational physics has to be Goldilocks zone just right to get our cosmos, which as noted sits at a deeply isolated operating point in the relevant config space for physics.
That sort of complex co-adaptation of many parts is a hallmark of design.
And beyond, design points to powerful designing intelligence. Thus, mind. Mind before fine tuned physics and cosmos based on such.
Where of course, “proof” is a misplaced concept. Empirically grounded inductive reason operates on inference to the best current explanation. This is not “proof” beyond all doubt. Demand that of scientific matters across the board and science would collapse; selectively apply it to what one wishes to dismiss and one has strayed into selective hyperskepticism. (Note how the antitheists are suddenly having to face this issue they long derided, over the Elevatorgate scandal.)
Other aspects point to more, as 179 outlines, and as onward links draw out at first level.
KF
I’m really looking, I promise, but I can’t see anywhere in your last post nor in 179 where you provided evidence that intelligence can create natural laws. I really would like to see that evidence before we go on…
“The Privileged Planet”:
The laws of nature are what allow the designed universe to be dynamic yet predictable. They are similar to the programmed parameters of computer simulations. They allow for non-intervention from the intelligent designer(s).
FJ, Your root problem is probably refusal to acknowledge the empirically grounded and analytically backed point that FSCO/I is a characteristic pattern and signature of design, a manifestation of purposeful, knowledgeable and skilled mind. The substance of the design in this case is the framework of integrated laws, constants, ratios, parameters etc that put our observed cosmos at a finely tuned operating point, just as very careful design goes into the FSCO/I in fishing reel or a petroleum refinery. I am not sure whether you are willing to acknowledge the difference between blindly mechanical non-rational GIGO limited computational substrates and self aware, rationally contemplative mind. And yet the gap between the two is such that the attempt to reduce the latter — our first fact of conscious existence — to the former, is to try to get north by insistently heading west. If those are your real problems, your issue is not with natural laws reflecting signs of design, it is that you have major problems with the first fact of our self-aware existence. KF
“The laws of nature are what allow the designed universe to be dynamic yet predictable. They are similar to the programmed parameters of computer simulations. They allow for non-intervention from the intelligent designer(s).”
But, the parameters of computer simulations are not a creation of new law, it’s simply manipulating current law to create an effect. I want to know why a god can be invoked as an explanation for the existence of natural law when we have never observed law being created.
KF, I have no problem with a being existing outside of the universe that manipulates already existing laws in order to create us. That’s fine…but natural law does not COME from intelligence. Therefore the fine tuning of the universe is not evidence for God.
ForJah
You have never observed a being existing outside of the universe that manipulates laws to create us.
I think you’ve got your answer above.
“You have never observed a being existing outside of the universe that manipulates laws to create us.”
The location of the being doesn’t really matter, as long as we can assume this being has similar intelligence like we do. If not, i don’t mind dismissing the idea that ANY intelligence caused us to live. You choose I guess.
“I think you’ve got your answer above.”
I didn’t, that’s why i asked again 😉
@Forjah
‘but I can’t see anywhere in your last post nor in 179 where you provided evidence that intelligence can create natural laws.’
All that ‘law’ refers to in this context, is regularity of occurrence. That’s all. It’s actually a misnomer, as Planck pointed out: ‘We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.’
Randomness tends not to produce regularity or ‘law’; only intelligence can do that to any significant extent, and only does so, at the whim of the Creator of such regularity.
“All that ‘law’ refers to in this context, is regularity of occurrence”
Regularity as if to assume something could break that law? In which case the law itself was never a law. Either way, I have never seen intelligence create a law of similar fashion.
FJ, when we create digital wolds we impose laws embedded in constraining laws embedded in algorithms all the time. In this light, reflect on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physical sciences. My fav example was the objection to the Young wave theory, but then shadow of a tiny ball in monochromatic light should have a central bright spot . . . thought to be a refutation . . . then somebody checked — the dot was in fact there, as predicted by the logical consequences of a wave theory. So, think on the difference between chaos and cosmos. Use the comparison of the digital world and how law is intelligently embedded and shows itself in fine tuning. Perhaps, that will give a conceptual bridge. KF
StephenB:
How does that work? How do you know there was nothing? If there was nothing, there would not be something. Yes?
But you’ve invented a SOMETHING that CREATED the Big Bang!
The remarkable and entertaining thing is that you don’t feel foolish about your transparently irrational invention of an imaginary Creator.
DK,
there is no invention there.
As noted above, nothing — non-being — has no causal powers. If ever there had been an utter nothing, that would forever obtain.
Something . . . everything . . . from nothing is a non-starter.
Something, therefore always was, as a necessary being.
The issue, is the successful candidate.
In 179 supra, I outlined on that and at 99 onwards too.
KF
KF, like I said, I have no problem with intelligence manipulating the laws of the universe to create a digital world. But intelligence has never been shown to create natural law. Thus the point, you are saying that the integration of many natural laws causes us. Not really taking the time to analyze that statement I could agree. Perhaps there is a being outside the universe that integrated the laws of physics in order to cause us. Problem still remains of where the LAWS owe their origin.
Also, how do we know that nothing has no causal power?
FJ,
I think your problem is that first origin of a cosmos will not be an observable to those who come along afterwards — in part because of the going concern state required. That is, the remote past of origins is not a direct observable.
That is a general problem for origins science.
On top of the problem that sciences cannot prove explanations but only provide a so far best empirically based, inductive explanation.
The main solution is the vera causa principle that takes the observed tendency to be an intelligible, orderly world seriously. Accordingly traces from that which is not directly observable are explained on forces/factors/ causal influences shown in the here-now to have capability to effect the same sort of result.
It is in that context that I pointed to how orderly, coherent worlds (so far we can build digital ones) show patterns of regularity, stochastic behaviour and the influence of designing intelligence. So do many things we easily observe, e.g. fishing reels, watches, petroleum refineries etc.
What emerges is that we see mechanical necessity (e.g. F = m*a), chance driven stochastic contingency, and design; all with characteristic signs.
Where functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I) is inductively strongly associated with design, and where it appears as an aspect of an entity or phenomenon it is a reliable signature of design. In a context where mechanical necessity is not a good source of high contingency, and stochastic chance based contingency faces the blind chance needle in haystack search problem that makes it maximally empirically and analytically implausible as an explanation of FSCO/I.
In this context, it is notorious that life based on cells, major body plans and ours in particular are chock full of major increments of FSCO/I. This is contrasted with the actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors — chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I.
This leads to the obvious conclusion others and I have championed for years here at UD, the world of life shows strong signs that its cause is not “nature” but the ART-ificial, i.e. design.
Accordingly, I am quitepuzzled to find you characterising my view as;
No, I am saying that we are embodied, consciously aware, enconscienced intelligent beings with bodies full of FSCO/I with a world of cell based life similarly full of such signs. All this points to design, per vera causa.
Then, when we lift our eyes to the observed cosmos, we find that starting from what is needed to set up a cosmos in which C-chemistry, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet in galactic habitable zones life is enabled to be possible, there is an evident complex organised fine tuning that sets the observed cosmos up at a deeply isolated operating point. Just the example buried in Wiki’s article on fine tuning should give us pause.
So, on inductive reasoning we identify reliable signs of design, and see them pointing to design of the cosmos. Here is Nobel equivalent prize holding astrophysicist (and lifelong agnostic) sir Fred Hoyle:
Again, in the same underlying Caltech talk of 1981:
Thus also:
Now, I cannot force you to any conclusion, but I can lay out sufficient of my context of thought and that of others to show why we think as we do, and that it is not ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked to think that way.
In particular, the world of life and the observed cosmos both show strong signs of design, and per vera causa the phenomena of relevance — FSCO/I and fine tuning of physics and cosmology — are only reasonably explained on design. And if that points to extra cosmic mind and sets us in a further context of identifying a necessary being at the causal root of the cosmos and of cell based life in it, that’s reasonable.
I have outlined thinking at 99 ff and 179 above with onward links and readings. Collins is a monograph length paper that would well repay study. Barnes is also good. And more.
I cannot reasonably reproduce what is in linked 101 level discussions and onward works, but I can direct you to materials and points to read, watch and ponder.
And, to highlight the issue of reasonable evidentiary warrant for matters connected to the deep unobserved past of origins.
KF
Axel: Randomness tends not to produce regularity or ‘law’
Boyle’s Law.
KF:
In this context, it is notorious that life based on cells, major body plans and ours in particular are chock full of major increments of FSCO/I. This is contrasted with the actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors– chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I.
You are assuming your conclusion, the complexity of the cell could be empirical evidence that natural means creates FSCO/i. What you do not have is any empirical evidence that any known intelligence has the capabilities to design the complexity or what the probabilities that such an intelligence ,if capable, actually did design whatever it designed.
Your root problem is probably refusal to acknowledge the empirically grounded and analytically backed point that FSCO/I is a characteristic pattern and signature of design, a manifestation of purposeful, knowledgeable and skilled mind.
How does one determine the FSCO/I of the strong nuclear force for instance?
velikovskys:
That claim requires evidence, which it doesn’t have. Tat claim can’t even be modeled.
You don’t understand how science works. We know there was some intelligent agency capable of constructing Stonehenge because we have Stonehenge.
Joe,
That claim requires evidence, which it doesn’t have. Tat claim can’t even be modeled.
Provide the modeling how an unknown designer at an unknown time thru unknown means designed something then maybe your critism will be more persuasive.
You don’t understand how science works. We know there was some intelligent agency capable of constructing Stonehenge because we have Stonehenge.
Let’s see What you do not have is any empirical evidence that any known intelligence has the capabilities to design the complexity
We have the bones of potential designers, habitations of said designers, comparable sites, evidence of more primitive structures predating Stonehedge,any such evidence of the designer of life?
or what the probabilities that such an intelligence ,if capable, actually did design whatever it designed.
The probability approaches 1
velikovskys:
VS, Kindly acquaint yourself with the inductive exercise of inference to best explanation on tested, reliable sign and the linked vera causa principle. Where, specifically, FSCO/I is a well known readily recognised pattern, and on trillions of cases is highly reliable as an index of design as relevant cause. This, independent of identifying particular designers and methods. Where, we also know that proverbially there is more than one way to skin a catfish. So, the attempted objection is irrelevant and distractive; it patently manifests ideologically motivated resistance to well warranted conclusion. KF
VS, an inductively well warranted inference to best explanation in the face of an open contest of potentially relevant causal candidates — cf here most recently — is not assuming the conclusion and you know it or should full well know it; whereas in fact it is Lewontin et al who ARE on record as imposing a priori evolutionary materialism and force fitting evidence to that ideology, so we see here the ideological tactic of projecting a turnabout, unfounded accusation as if it were a serious argument. Per fair comment, your rhetoric is increasingly evidently driven by ideological resistance to what is well warranted. At this stage, I will just point it out for onlookers to see what has been going on for far too long. KF
Z, Statistical averages exist, in this case the pressure of a body of gas which at constant T and under reasonably ideal conditions will be inversely proportional to volume . . . we are not in the zone where at first onwards level Van der Waals factors kick in. They also exist in contexts of high contingency which is the more precise concern. Mechanical necessity such as F = m*a, does not produce high contingency. High contingency comes from chance and/or design. Where, once we see FSCO/I, we face blind search in vast config spaces for needles in haystacks.Consequently blind chance is a poor explanation for FSCO/I, and the readily observable cause, design is a much better one. Indeed, the reliability per vera causa is sufficient that we are epistemically entitled to hold FSCO/I a characteristic sign of design. KF
It seems we are still having a problem here with addressing the question. In what sense does intelligence CREATE natural laws? A computer simulation is an example of intelligence using the current laws of the universe and integrating them into a system in order to produce a desired effect.
Like I said, I don’t disagree that FSCO/I is a hallmark of design. But I don’t think FSCO applies to natural law itself. It seems you are trying to say that an intelligence tinkered with already existing law where the law of gravity is no longer a law but has a broader understanding.
I’m also at a loss with the idea that if these laws weren’t just right, we wouldn’t exist. Okay…but it could be true that another form of life might exist, we don’t really know. I mean, it’s also true that the interactions I have everyday with others, if certain situations didn’t spring up in my life I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I’m not really sure what that proves in relation to a designer of the universe though.
It seems that in all this my main question still remains unanswered, where is there an example of intelligence creating law? And in what sense can we say it was a who (AKA, GOD)
FJ, We have given reasons for drawing the conclusion that the laws, parameters etc of our observed cosmos show fine tuning that sets up a very narrow and isolated operating point habitable for C-Chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life. How twerdun is a second level of question and does not break the force of an inference on sign. KF
ForJah
Maybe we could start with what you already accept and build on it.
Ok, the universe is all physical matter, time and space (among other things).
We’d have a ‘being’ that exists outside of the universe – so obviously, that being cannot be physical.
You’re ok with that being ‘manipulating existing laws in order to create us’ – but there are a few problems.
How does this non-physical being manipulate things?
Also, we’re talking about the origin of the universe so before the universe existed, where did the physical matter come from?
The term ‘creation’ in the classical sense means to ‘make something out of nothing’. It’s not, as you rightly point out, merely manipulating things that already exist. So, in that sense, humans don’t really ‘create’. We develop new things but we always start with something that already exists.
In Western theology, God is the creator of the physical universe from a point where it did not exist. So, God created physical matter.
The natural laws of the universe were created in the same way – since they act on physical matter. There would be no physical laws if there was no physical universe (or at least only God could know those laws existed).
Other ideas from classical Western Theism include the non-depencency/contingency of God on anything.
Joe,
Your criticisms are not persuasive and your strawman means nothing. But thank you for admitting yours can’t be modeled. ID is exemplified via evolutionary and genetic algorithms. Those are our models.
Actually you have no idea how the design was implemented, when or what, model that.
“We have the bones of potential designers,
And no way of testing if that is true.
That humans are not capable of moving rocks? That the bones are not dead humans? Potential designers Joe, what physical evidence beyond the speculation that what you are seeing is design do you have?
habitations of said designers, comparable sites, evidence of more primitive structures predating Stonehedge,any such evidence of the designer of life?
All that is pure speculation wrt the question. We cannot test if the claim the people had the capability to do such a thing. All the evidence you have could just be people who went there to see it and stayed.
Speculation based on physical evidence of beings known to be capable of intelligent design, ID lacks that, do you apply the same skeptism to ID?
We have the design along with a tried and true methodology for determining intelligent design from nature
Based on the assumption that life is designed,
Z, the inference to design on FSCO/I is a well supported inductive inference to best explanation, not an assumption. There IS an assumption problem out there . . . the a priori evolutionary materialism so tellingly, inadvertently acknowledged by Lewontin. A turnabout projection simply inadvertently shows the real problem. KF
kairosfocus: the inference to design on FSCO/I is a well supported inductive inference to best explanation, not an assumption.
Not only couldn’t you provide the actual calculation of the FSCO/I of the example you recently introduced for that very purpose, but evolutionary algorithms are quite adept at navigating structured fitness landscapes of many sorts, hence generating very complex structures.
“So, in that sense, humans don’t really ‘create’. We develop new things but we always start with something that already exists.”
So the inductive reasoning for best explanation has no applicability to God. One reason I admire the design inference is because it’s based on a POSITIVE inference. We see beings create CSFO/I, therefore intelligence is a good causal explanation. What you just did is say that we have never seen humans “create” in the way God creates…therefore, there IS NO positive causal link between ID and God.
THUS why I have been asked someone to provide me an example where intelligence creates natural laws. So far no one has provided me with such a thing. Where do we even see humans being able to TINKER with the natural laws? If you want to understand what I’m talking about, let’s assume that WE as intelligent beings created a computer program such as “the sims” and these characters actually developed the ability of being self-away and have intelligence so ask to ask the question “Where did I come from” to them…their universe appears to have had a beginning! The moment the computer software was finished and turned on, they also exists in a different state of matter than we do. They COULDN’T create what we are from within the program, to them, we are God but notice, we do not know all the laws of our universe, we are ignorant, we aren’t all powerful, etc…etc….
That’s all the inference does for me…if you are then going to say that we are in a computer program then it simply means that there ARE laws outside of this universe, and not created by it. ALSO it would remain true that the LAWS are the cause of the universe, and not God directly. So while it may be true that we owe the origination of the integration of the laws to an intelligence, the LAWS are the direct cause of why we are here, NOT Design.
ForJah,
Could you explain these “laws” you are speaking of without reference to matter? You seem to be saying the laws are separate from matter, but that isn’t the case. The “laws” have matter as their source. No matter, no laws.
Now, are you further suggesting an infinitely existing universe? I suppose you know this is untenable, right? You’ll immediately run into needing a natural cause to break the regress, but with no natural cause explanation available, as it is nature itself that is in need of explanation.
Brent @ 215
Are you suggesting ID Agent created universe? I suppose you know this is untenable, right? You’ll immediately run into needing a cause to break the regress – ID agent created universe, who created ID agent ? Who created the creator of ID agent…….ID agent himself is in need of explanation.
As for me, I’m speaking of God, an uncreated creator, the uncaused cause. When I say God, I’m saying eternally existing being. If you understand the infinite regress problem, then you understand the necessity that somewhere, then, there must be an uncaused cause. Propose a natural cause for nature??? That’ll never work. Supernatural it is, then.
I’m not really sure where you are going with any of that? Where did I say the universe was eternal? And btw, a rock is a being. Rocks “are”, they exist! i have no problem with “God” being the uncaused cause. I just define God as an uncreated creator that exists eternally. The only difference between my God and your God is that yours has personhood and mine does not.
ForJah,
I obviously didn’t understand your position. Sorry.
What do you mean by God not having personhood? What is the problem with that for you? I suppose you’ve mentioned it in a post upthread, so could you direct me if you have? Thank you.
Brent @ 217
Whoever is the uncaused cause has to be on higher dimensions. We know even 4th (spatial) dimension is impossible to manage. You can’t even tie a knot beyond 3rd dimension. A creator who creates in 4D or any higher dimension can’t even create a single atom as the atoms will have nP orbitals (n=the number of dimension). In 4th dimension, you have 4P orbitals, in 5th, 5P orbitals and so on. This will allow more than two electron per orbital- which will change the element ! Every element will have weird properties ! Atoms will collapse easily. Atomic bonding will be shot. Molecules forming will be difficult and weird.
Z, Why do you keep playing at zero concession, dismissive strawman caricatures? I intended to provide a familiar recognisable example of the phenomenon, and gave in outline the method of quantification by highlighting the nodes-arcs pattern and its link to a structured string of Y/N q’s; such as is the basis for say a DWG file for AutoCAD or a similar format, likely to be used by the engineers of Abu Garcia. I obviously do not have access to the CAD files for a 6500 C3 reel, but that does not prevent reasonably inferring and indicating that just the main gear will easily exceed 125 bytes worth of descriptive information to specify it; gear design is a serious, sophisticated exercise. (–> Do you seriously intend us to accept that it is plausible for the DWG files for the 6500 C3 will in aggregate be 1/8 k byte or less? That is revealing on unreasonableness and utter unwillingness on any flimsy excuse to face an inconvenient reality long since identified by Orgel and Wicken, FSCO/I . . . ) So, confidently, we are well past the relevant threshold where FSCO/I can be seen as present . . . and that was easily known by objectors BEFORE trying rhetorical gambits. Similarly, over years your response and that of your ilk of objectors to cases of direct digitally coded strings . . . readily quantified . . . such as with text in posts or R/DNA (and proteins by extension) shows that the presented objection is not the true issue, as FSCO/I is calculable not just observable as a phenomenon. Indeed, going back to 1973, Orgel gave a framework for just that — likewise distracted from and dismissed. Your dismissive rhetoric in response to a reasonable answer is revealing of the underlying problem of selectively hyperskeptically refusing to address the reality and relevance of FSCO/I . . . likely, because of a priori ideological commitment to Lewontin’s evolutionary materialism or one of its fellow travellers. KF
PS: As has been repeatedly pointed out (including in the technical literature), evolutionary algorithms are designed, work WITHIN islands of function with nice fitness functions that point uphill (the real FSCO/I problem is to get TO such islands in vast seas of non function with strictly limited blind search resources, i.e. the needle in haystack search challenge . . . again repeatedly pointed out including in the recent post on FSCO/I, so again, strawman caricature tactics), and generally require oodles of intelligently provided active information. Not to mention, typically, a fair amount of fine tuning to get them to work. So this is a case of clinging to a long since answered objection.
PPS: Here is a longstanding answer I have made:
>> . . . GA’s do not only start on the shores of an island of function, but also the adaptation targets are implicitly pre-loaded into the program [[even in cases where they are allowed to wiggle about a bit] and so are the “hill-climbing algorithm” means to climb up to them. This point has been highlighted by famed mathematician Gregory Chaitin, in a recent paper, Life as Evolving Software (Sept. 7, 2011):
xi: Plainly, this more sophisticated approach is a model of optimising adaptation by generic hill-climbing, within an island of function; i.e. this is at best a model of micro-evolution within a body plan, not origin of such complex, integrated body plans.
xii: So, while engineers — classic intelligent designers! — may well find such algorithms quite useful in some cases of optimisation and system design, they fail the red-herring- strawman test when they are presented as models of microbe to man evolution.
xiii: For, they do not answer to the real challenge posed by the design theorists: how to get to an island of complex function — i.e. to a new body plan that for first life would require something like 100,000 base pairs of DNA and associated molecular machinery, and for other body plans from trees to bees, bats, birds snakes, worms and us, at least 10 million bases, dozens of times over — without intelligent direction.
xiv: Instead, we can present a key fact, one that Weasel actually inadvertently demonstrates. That is: in EVERY instance of such a case of CSI, E from such a zone of interest or island of function, T, where we directly know the cause by experience or observation, it originates by similar intelligent design. And, given the long odds involved to get such an E by pure chance — you cannot have a hill-climbing success amplifier until you first have functional success! — that is no surprise at all. >>
kairosfocus: I intended to provide a familiar recognisable example of the phenomenon, and gave in outline the method of quantification by highlighting the nodes-arcs pattern and its link to a structured string of Y/N q’s …
But didn’t provide the actual calculation.
kairosfocus: As has been repeatedly pointed out (including in the technical literature), evolutionary algorithms are designed, work WITHIN islands of function with nice fitness functions that point uphill (the real FSCO/I problem is to get TO such islands in vast seas of non function with strictly limited blind search resources, i.e. the needle in haystack search challenge . . .
The claim is that that islands are isolated, but that depends on the structure of the landscape. Your statement, then, would not be that evolutionary algorithms can’t traverse complex landscapes, but that they can only traverse certain types of complex landscapes, which was our position from the get-go. If the landscape is structured such that points in a multidimensional space (the more the merrier) are correlated with nearby points, then evolutionary algorithms can effectively navigate the space.
kairosfocus: For, they do not answer to the real challenge posed by the design theorists: how to get to an island of complex function — i.e. to a new body plan that for first life would require something like 100,000 base pairs of DNA and associated molecular machinery, and for other body plans from trees to bees, bats, birds snakes, worms and us, at least 10 million bases, dozens of times over — without intelligent direction.
The appeal to BIG NUMBERS shows you don’t understand the evolutionary process. It’s the structure of the landscape that determines whether an evolutionary algorithm can effectively navigate the space.
MT, I find it amazing to see the notion of everything having a cause popping up again as though the matter has not been adequately addressed. In a nutshell, a fire exemplifies contingent being, exhibiting dependency on on/off enabling causal factors heat, fuel, oxidiser, chain rxn. That is why it needs not exist, begins, is sustained, ends. Now, consider a serious candidate being without that kind of dependence, it will not have beginning or end, it will be either impossible as a square circle or else will necessarily be in any possible world. For instance, the truth in 2 + 3 = 5 is like that. Now, you know or full well should as it has been pointed out to you that God is not understood by any serious person to be a contingent being, but as the eternal one, a necessary being — by sharp contrast with parodies such as a spaghetti monster or a unicorn, or even a perfect island etc. So, your argument is ill informed to the point of verging on a strawman tactic. No, there is no infinite causal regress of contingent gods. Indeed, just the point that nothing — non-being — has no causal powers so if ever there were an utter nothing that would forever obtain implies that our world is rooted in necessary being with adequate capacity to be causal root. The real issue is, which candidate makes best sense, why? And, there are serious reasons for holding that God aptly fills the bill. Cf 98 above http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-547642 and onwards. KF
Z, you again resort to dismissive caricatures. As you know full well from the UD Darwinism essay challenge, the first problem for evolutionary materialists et al to answer is OOL in a Darwin warm pond or the like where the challenge to the magical powers of incrementalist evolution cannot be appealed to. The only serious vera causa meeting answer on the FSCO/I involved including the self replication subsystem necessary to cell replication, is design. Design sits at the table from the root, OOL. Second on origin of body plans, you have no empirical, vera causa passing direct observation, just a priori impositions and ideological exclusions. Third, as exactly the case of the 6500 reel shows which you are so eager to distract from, FSCO/I works by correct arrangement and coupling of correct correctly oriented parts per a Wicken wiring pattern. That is, FSCO/I inherently comes as deeply isolated islands in vast config spaces. The needle in haystack search challenge is real for OOL and OO body plans alike and talk about “big numbers” is a case of label and dismiss not serious thinking. The big numbers are real, readily pass thresholds where blind search on gamut of solar system or observed cosmos are at low end comparable to trying to find needles in a cubical haystack as thick as our galaxy by picking the equivalent of one straw at random. Not a plausible search strategy. KF
PS: Z has just repeated a distractive side track point regarding FSCO/I in the 6500 reel, refusing — again — to engage a reasonable response. That speaks volumes. I just note, as is immediately evident from the post the primary reason for using the reel is to illustrate the nodes-arcs pattern that defines FSCO/I and leads directly to the structured string of Y/N q’s to describe. This directly indicates information content, as Orgel pointed out in 1973, immediately following a well known cite (as my 2nd hand copy shows, just flip the page) — and I find the consistent failure to bring that up telling. And, it is quite reasonable to point out that due to its functional complexity just the main gear will be well beyond a threshold of 125 bytes. Where also, reduction to strings points to the common cases of coded text including with R/DNA, for which many calculations have been shown over years. In essentially every case, objectors have refused to acknowledge such values, including with Durston et al. So, we have reason to know the objections are selectively hyperskeptical and unresponsive to adequate answer, and so are patently unreasonable.
F/N: Let me clip the discussion of the 6500 reel etc:
>> Now, it should be readily apparent . . . let’s expand in step by step points of thought [u/d Feb 8] . . . that:
a –> intelligence is inherently purposeful, and
b –> that the fishing reel is an example of how the purposeful intelligent creativity involved in the intelligently directed configuration — aka, design — that
c –> leads to productive working together of multiple, correct parts properly arranged to achieve function through their effective interaction
d –> leaves behind it certain empirically evident and in principle quantifiable signs. In particular,
e –> the specific arrangement of particular parts or facets in the sort of nodes-arcs pattern in the exploded view diagram above is chock full of quantifiable, function-constrained information. That is,
f –> we may identify a structured framework and list of yes/no questions required to bring us to the cluster of effective configurations in the abstract space of possible configurations of relevant parts.
g –> This involves specifying the parts, specifying their orientation, their location relative to other parts, coupling, and possibly an assembly process. Where,
h –> such a string of structured questions and answers is a specification in a description language, and yields a value of functionally specific information in binary digits, bits.
If this sounds strange, reflect on how AutoCAD and similar drawing programs represent designs.
This is directly linked to a well known index of complexity, from Kolmogorov and Chaitin. As Wikipedia aptly summarises:
In algorithmic information theory (a subfield of computer science and mathematics), the Kolmogorov complexity (also known as descriptive complexity, Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity, algorithmic entropy, or program-size complexity) of an object, such as a piece of text, is a measure of the computability resources needed to specify the object . . . . the complexity of a string is the length of the shortest possible description of the string in some fixed universal description language (the sensitivity of complexity relative to the choice of description language is discussed below). It can be shown that the Kolmogorov complexity of any string cannot be more than a few bytes larger than the length of the string itself. Strings, like the abab example above, whose Kolmogorov complexity is small relative to the string’s size are not considered to be complex.
A useful way to picture this is to recognise from the above, that the three dimensional complexity and functionally specific organisation of something like the 6500 C3 reel, may be reduced to a descriptive string. In the worst case (a random string), we can give some header contextual information and reproduce the string. In other cases, we may be able to spot a pattern and do much better than that, e.g. with an orderly string like abab . . . n times we can compress to a very short message that describes the order involved. In intermediate cases, in all codes we practically observe there is some redundancy that yields a degree of compressibility. >>
KF
MT,
as has already been pointed out, there is no need to resort to side-track debates on higher dimensions etc — though I note that a major though speculative theory in Physics explains particles and space on 11 dims, most of which are “rolled up” — but instead a very direct inductive inference from the astonishing fine tuning of the cosmos. Fine tuned co-adaptation of parts that leads to function in a narrow zone of a config space is a strong indicator of design. We already know from logic of cause and of being that we have a necessary being at the root of reality. Fine tuning points to one capable of co-ordinated sophisticated design, just water is astonishing and rooted in fundamental cosmological physics. Of course, with the sheer raw power to effect a cosmos that in aggregate disposes of a huge quantity of energy, including in the fabric of space. Beyond, there are other aspects as were discussed above. What we need to do is to see the signs, take them seriously on their own substantial basis then address the usual comparative difficulties. If you imagine there is a serious worldviews option without difficulties, think again. KF
Me_Think,
This is interesting to me. You seem to demand that any “higher dimension” also be a natural dimension, or one with some sort of “natural constraints”. Strange.
But, if your understanding is correct (and I have no understanding about it myself), it seems to indicate to my mind that there is a reason, perhaps, for God to create with a “Big Bang”, as it were. I dunno, just the first thing that hit me.
ForJah
Ok, the part I bolded is good. We keep looking for the origin of things and we find that only an intelligence can be the origin of the laws.
But now you say that the laws are the direct cause of why we are here and not Design – but you’re looking for the ‘direct cause’. I’m not sure what that is when looking for origins. We could call God the ‘ultimate cause’ of the universe because the laws only act in the ways they are created to act.
For example, the ‘direct cause’ of you existing could be your beginning as a fertilized egg. But then we see your parents as a cause, then going back through humanity, then the origin of life on earth, then the origin of earth, then the origin of the universe, then the origin of the laws of the universe … then we still have God as the cause. That’s evidence.
VS, an inductively well warranted inference to best explanation in the face of an open contest of potentially relevant causal candidates
Yes, I am aware of what best explanation consists of, my objection is that the design option seems to be the default position. Neither the designer nor his unknown means are subject to the same probabilty calculations as are evolutionary processes . If those calculations are impossible then one cannot say the design option is best.
— cf here most recently — is not assuming the conclusion and you know it or should full well know it;
Let’s see
This is contrasted with the actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors- chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I.
You are assuming that FSCO/I in the cell is not empirical evidence of natural causation .That is the question,therefore you cannot conclude that as evidence for design. If you do you are assuming the conclusion as evidence for the conclusion.
Likewise one cannot discount ID because the is no empirical evidence that design can create FSCO/ I in a living cell.
VS, what are you talking about? Have you heard of Craig Venter and others? As if, the obvious point that it is in principle possible were not already enough. As to your drumbeat attempts to insinuate that an inference to best explanation on empirical evidence and lined analysis is a question-begging assumption, it inadvertently reveals the depth of the bankruptcy of a priori materialism and its fellow travellers . . . they can only falsely project and accuse, instead of forthrightly putting up empirically grounded argument. Well there is a saying about clutching at straws. KF
KF:
As to your drumbeat attempts to insinuate that an inference to best explanation on empirical evidence and lined analysis is a question-begging assumption
Not all all, it is you who is assuming that complexity in the cell is not caused by natural causes therefore design. Bluster does not conceal that fact.
it inadvertently reveals the depth of the bankruptcy of a priori materialism and its fellow travellers
In other words” look over over there ,an elephant”
they can only falsely project and accuse, instead of forthrightly putting up empirically grounded argument. Well there is a saying about clutching at straws. KF
I am not accusing ,merely pointing out the obvious. You cannot make the statement
actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors- chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I.
without the assumption that the FSCO/I is the cell is not due to natural causes.
A more effective rebuttal might consist of an actual argument rather than an adjective laden meandering
What amount of FSCO/I did Venter add to the existing cell was there loss of FSCO/I as well, just curious?
VS, you have clearly crossed the final line into willful misrepresentation. You seem to imagine that by rhetorically substituting “making assumptions” for the actual process of abduction per serious candidate explanations you can pretend that I am begging questions. It is utterly unlikely that a discussion will suffice to move you, so I note here for record for the interested onlooker, on 2350 years of documentation, that it is a reasonable cluster of factors to asses forces of mechanical necessity, chance, and ART or design as having causal effect; something we routinely do down to today. In that context we may reasonably assess characteristic signs of each factor, per aspect of an object or phenomenon, etc. Mechanical necessity leads to regularities such as F = m*a with low contingency under closely similar initial conditions, i.e. this is how we infer to mechanical laws. Secondly, for many cases — e.g. dropping a common die — there is high contingency under similar initial conditions. A likely explanation is chance driven stochastically distributed outcomes in many forms, c.f. statistics in various forms. However, in certain cases it is maximally implausible per needle in haystack search challenge reasons, that chance will hit on outcomes that are functionally specific AND complex such as an Abu 6500 C3 reel, which one does not routinely assemble by shaking up a bag of parts. Such cases of FSCO/I on trillions of cases, have a consistently known cause, intelligently directed configuration. So reliable is this that — save where ideological a prioris such as Lewontiniam materialism obtain — we routinely recognise cases of FSCO/I as designed. Indeed, that FSCO/I is a reliable signature of design. Per the vera causa principle, we are epistemologically and logically entitled to infer design from FSCO/I. Such is reasonable inference, not question-begging assumption. For more on the design inference at 101 level, here may prove helpful. KF
PS: Observe above the resistance to a simple matter of fact by way of a red herring led away to a strawman. Venter et al have for decades demonstrated that molecular scale intelligent design of living cells is a reality not speculation. This leads to in the qualitative sense functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information. For values, say, for the moment that an artificial functional protein of 300 AAs was inserted successfully into a gene. This requires 3 base pairs per AA, and therefore 900 bases. As each base has 4 possible values, that’s 2 bits per base on a first estimate basis. 1,800 bits of FSCO/I. Onwards experimentation may lead to some AA’s being less constrained, as Durston et al did for protein families. But the basic approach is clear to the reasonable mind.
Mung: Post your version of “the standard evolutionary algorithm.”
Zachriel: Sure. Descent with modification, that is, populations of replicators with variation.
That hardly qualifies as an algorithm, and what is it that make it “the standard evolutionary algorithm”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E....._algorithm
Mung: You and I both know that EA’s are designed. You have a standing challenge here at UD to demonstrate otherwise.
Zachriel: You’re conflating the model with the thing being modeled. Or are you saying we can’t build theoretical models. How do you think they calculate rocket trajectories? Or predict weather, for that matter?
And you are making claims about what the model can demonstrate without a model. We are talking about your assertion, the one which has no basis whatsoever in fact.
Zachriel: Or are you saying we can’t build theoretical models.
You’re babbling. I just invited you to build your theoretical model.
You can’t. You won’t. Whatever model you build will either need to be designed or it will fail.
kairosfocus: As you know full well from the UD Darwinism essay challenge, the first problem for evolutionary materialists et al to answer is OOL in a Darwin warm pond or the like
That’s not the question that was raised, which presupposed reproductive entities.
Mung: And you are making claims about what the model can demonstrate without a model.
The model is the evolutionary algorithm, which models the basic process of replication, variation, and selection.
Mung: Whatever model you build will either need to be designed or it will fail.
All models are designed, whether mathematical models of the solar system and rocket trajectories, or weather simulations.
KF:
VS, you have clearly crossed the final line into willful misrepresentation.
Please clearly point it out, did I misquote your statement
actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors- chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I.
Let me try again, the question on the table what caused the FSCO/I is the cell to exist and as you have said with inductive reasoning one cannot have definitive proof.
Scenario one- all non IDists are correct and the cell and the FSCO/I occurred by nature , in which case when we observe the FSCO/I in the cell it is empirical evidence that nature can cause FSCO/I.
Scenario two – the cell is designed by an unknown designer at unknown time thru unknown means which created FSCO/I, it which case one could say FSCO/I in the cell represents ” actual absence of empirical evidence that undirected natural factors- chance and/or mechanical necessity (a reasonable understanding of “nature”) — can and do in our observation credibly account causally for FSCO/I
Now sure you can say that scenario 2 is your opinion, what you can’t do to to declare ,there is no empirical evidence , therefore design is best explanation without assuming scenario one’s entailment, that it represents positive empirical evidence, is false, that is assuming one’s conclusion.
You seem to imagine that by rhetorically substituting “making assumptions” for the actual process of abduction per serious candidate explanations you can pretend that I am begging questions.
I am not pretending anything
It is utterly unlikely that a discussion will suffice to move you,
Just show where I am mistaken and I will admit mea culpa, mea culpa ,mea maxima culpa
so I note here for record for the interested onlooker, on 2350 years of documentation
that it is a reasonable cluster of factors to asses forces of mechanical necessity, chance, and ART or design as having causal effect; something we routinely do down to today. I
In the same documentation things which men believed as necessary for design have been shown to have natural explanations. Again you are assuming the cell is not one of those cases, you can only assume that the cell is the former not the latter.
Zachriel: All models are designed, whether mathematical models of the solar system and rocket trajectories, or weather simulations.
That would include, of course, models of evolution. Including theoretical models of evolution. It would include, as well, evolutionary algorithms.
Mung: And you are making claims about what the model can demonstrate without a model.
Zachriel: The model is the evolutionary algorithm, which models the basic process of replication, variation, and selection.
So you can’t produce a model to substantiate your claim. I know that. You know that. So why pretend otherwise?
Let’s review:
kairosfocus: the search space for just 1,000 bits of FSCO/I so overwhelms the atomic and temporal resources of our observed cosmos that there is a fail.
Zachriel: In fact, evolutionary algorithms show that the process can quickly search structured spaces, even if those spaces are vast.
Indeed. By design.
And lest we forget:
Zachriel: All models are designed…
Indeed.
Mung: Including theoretical models of evolution. It would include, as well, evolutionary algorithms.
That’s right. Scientific models are designed. However, pointing out that models are designed doesn’t determine whether the model represents a natural or artificial phenomenon. In the case of models of planetary motions, weather, and evolution, they model natural phenomena.
Zachriel, you seem to have lost your way. Not uncommon in these debates.
VS, I simply need to repeat, as this is what you need to address:
________________
>> 233 kairosfocus February 16, 2015 at 3:37 pm
VS, you have clearly crossed the final line into willful misrepresentation. You seem to imagine that by rhetorically substituting “making assumptions” for the actual process of abduction per serious candidate explanations you can pretend that I am begging questions. It is utterly unlikely that a discussion will suffice to move you, so I note here for record for the interested onlooker, on 2350 years of documentation, that it is a reasonable cluster of factors to asses forces of mechanical necessity, chance, and ART or design as having causal effect; something we routinely do down to today. In that context we may reasonably assess characteristic signs of each factor, per aspect of an object or phenomenon, etc. Mechanical necessity leads to regularities such as F = m*a with low contingency under closely similar initial conditions, i.e. this is how we infer to mechanical laws. Secondly, for many cases — e.g. dropping a common die — there is high contingency under similar initial conditions. A likely explanation is chance driven stochastically distributed outcomes in many forms, c.f. statistics in various forms. However, in certain cases it is maximally implausible per needle in haystack search challenge reasons, that chance will hit on outcomes that are functionally specific AND complex such as an Abu 6500 C3 reel, which one does not routinely assemble by shaking up a bag of parts. Such cases of FSCO/I on trillions of cases, have a consistently known cause, intelligently directed configuration. So reliable is this that — save where ideological a prioris such as Lewontiniam materialism obtain — we routinely recognise cases of FSCO/I as designed. Indeed, that FSCO/I is a reliable signature of design. Per the vera causa principle, we are epistemologically and logically entitled to infer design from FSCO/I. Such is reasonable inference, not question-begging assumption. For more on the design inference at 101 level, here may prove helpful. KF
PS: Observe above the resistance to a simple matter of fact by way of a red herring led away to a strawman. Venter et al have for decades demonstrated that molecular scale intelligent design of living cells is a reality not speculation. This leads to in the qualitative sense functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information. For values, say, for the moment that an artificial functional protein of 300 AAs was inserted successfully into a gene. This requires 3 base pairs per AA, and therefore 900 bases. As each base has 4 possible values, that’s 2 bits per base on a first estimate basis. 1,800 bits of FSCO/I. Onwards experimentation may lead to some AA’s being less constrained, as Durston et al did for protein families. But the basic approach is clear to the reasonable mind. >>
_________________
When you can bring yourself to accurately characterise the inductive inference process relative to the deep past of origins and the reason why there is a challenge relating to cause of FSCO/I, then some progress will be possible.
KF
Zachriel: It is reasonable to distinguish scientific evidence from other forms of evidence.
Why is it reasonable to distinguish scientific evidence from other forms of evidence.?
What is “scientific evidence” and how do you propose that we distinguish “scientific evidence” from “other forms of evidence”?
Sorry ,Kf , thought we were done, let me get back to you
Mung: What is “scientific evidence” and how do you propose that we distinguish “scientific evidence” from “other forms of evidence”?
Science is based on hypothetico-deduction and objective verification. If you were to be visited by an angel, you may consider this evidence, even if you could not provide scientific support for your belief.
You still seem to be conflating the model with the thing being modeled. The former is necessarily artificial, while the latter may or may not be artificial.
And again Zachriel demonstrates that its position doesn’t meet the criteria of science. And then Zachriel flat out lies:
The model for intelligent design evolution is the evolutionary algorithm which employs a goal-oriented targeted search to actively solve a problem.