On theological but not necessarily scientific grounds. He’s defending it against Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, pointing to a defense by Michael J. Murray and John Ross Churchill:
One of the things I appreciate about Michael J. Murray and John Ross Churchill’s paper is their candid embrace of the label, “theistic evolution,” for their view.1 This strikes me as much more accurate and straightforward a label than the euphemistic appellation, “evolutionary creationism,” recently adopted by some theistic evolutionists, which seems clearly an attempt to coopt the label, “creationism,” in order to make their view more palatable to evangelical Christians.
It will be helpful at the outset to note the very limited scope of Murray and Churchill’s response to the volume, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique (SPTC). They state that the volume as a whole conveys “the message that for Christians with traditional doctrinal commitments, no version of theistic evolution that adheres largely to consensus views in biology will be a plausible option.”2 They maintain to the contrary that it is “incontrovertible” that there are versions of theistic evolution that are “immune to many of the key criticisms advanced” in the book.3 More specifically, they argue that “there are versions of theistic evolution … that are consistent with traditional doctrinal commitments” concerning divine providence, miracles, evidence for theism, and nonphysical souls. It is evident, then, that their concern is with doctrinal criticisms of theistic evolution.4
Now immediately I felt myself rather left out of the conversation. For I am a Christian with traditional doctrinal commitments, but any reservations I have about the viability of theistic evolution have nothing to do with such doctrinal commitments. My reservations are not theological but scientific in nature.
William Lane Craig, “Response to “Mere Theistic Evolution”” at Peaceful Science (March 7, 2022)
Some of us would think that if theistic evolution fails a science test, one needn’t bother with the theology. But maybe we misunderstand.
You may also wish to read: Casey Luskin: The mytho-history of Adam, Eve, and William Lane Craig. Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend. But the pruning process in which he is engaged can never really stop. The “sensible God” is most likely the one looking back at us from our medicine cabinet mirrors.
Very disappointing, but he has been moving further and further that way for a while now. I guess it’s because he thinks it safeguards him from the anti-science label and maybe thinks it makes his ideas more appealing to his opponents? You know – there is less they can attack him for. Creationism is an easy target.
As to: “but any reservations I have about the viability of theistic evolution have nothing to do with such doctrinal commitments. My reservations are not theological but scientific in nature.” – (Craig)
Well frankly, besides ‘science’ itself falsifying Darwinian/Theistic Evolutionary claims,
,, besides ‘science’ itself falsifying Darwinian/Theistic Evolutionary claims, the ‘theology’ of theistic evolution is, to put it mildly, found to be wanting clarity.
Another place where Theistic Evolutionists are ‘theologically compromised’ is in their appeal to the artificially imposed limit on science, by atheists, of ‘methodological naturalism’.
Yet, all of modern science is based on Judeo-Christian presuppositions, (and is certainly not based on ‘methodological naturalism’ as both Darwinists and Theistic Evolutionists try to hold),
In fact, directly contrary to what Atheistic materialists and Theistic Evolutionists try to claim, it would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Again, it would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
That some Christians would be willing to compromise their theology just so in order to try to make their theology compatible with Darwinian evolution is nothing new.
In fact, when Darwin first wrote his book, it was the “liberal Anglicans strongly supported Darwin’s natural selection as an instrument of God’s design” whist “the Church of England scientific establishment reacting against the book”
And the reason why Darwin was able to so easily ‘sell’ evolution to liberal Christians right off the bat is precisely because Darwin’s book is, basically, filled with faulty, and/or deceptive, theological argumentation instead of any compelling scientific evidence.
In fact, Darwin’s arguments, (since Darwin had no mathematical, nor empirical, evidence supporting his claims in his book), were essentially dependent on faulty theological presuppositions.
In fact, directly contrary to the claims of Darwinists, even today, (since Darwinists still have no real time empirical evidence supporting their claims), faulty, and/or deceptive, theological presuppositions are still found to be essential for Darwinian arguments today.
Thus in conclusion, for Craig to say, “My reservations (with Theistic Evolution) are not theological but scientific in nature” is for him to, basically, admit that he accepts the faulty, even deceptive, theological presuppositions of Darwinian evolution, and is therefore for him to, basically, admit that he is ‘theologically compromised’.
@1 Years ago he used to support ID. Wiki labeled him as a creationist, and so did serval other places too. He slowly stopped mentioning ID and is now talking about TE a lot. It saddens me really and I couldn’t agree with you more
Do people here read?
Here’s what Craig said about ID. It’s long but what should be responded to. It accuses many of conflating ID with religion. An accusation that I agree with as most so called ID advocates here only want to talk about religion.
Craig is now like a man without a country. He gives some reasonable advice to IDers:
But, of course, IDers will never take that advise, they are too busy trying to score points rather than put forth a serious intellectual position….
Can ChuckDarwin read? Obviously not.
But we all knew that.
Another candidate for most ironic comment of century.
From the commenter who gets nothing right.
it is very disturbing, how many obviously smart people can be sooo confused …
Obviously, Darwinian propaganda made great job.
Unfortunately, this is exactly how it ends, when e.g. biologists – natural science graduates – researching / talking /reviewing/ commenting on something they DON’T UNDERSTAND, in this case, very advanced engineering …
PS: I never understood, what is the difference between atheistic and theistic evolution. Could someone explain to me? I might be wrong, but both versions have the exactly same fatal problems ..e.g. missing fossils.
Maybe we can start by stating the truth and emphasizing that.
However, many here espousing ID are conflating ID with religion. As the comment above said, it could be Zeus and ID shouldn’t care.
Never heard of John Bloom before but here’s an interview with him.
https://idthefuture.com/825/
So mythical Zeus is OK with you Jerry?
Perhaps you and Bloom should think these things through a bit more carefully. Especially after Stephen Meyer wrote his book last year entitled “Return of the God Hypothesis”.
Here are the three necessary Judeo-Christian presuppositions for modern science that Meyer laid out in chapter 1 of his book:
As should be needless to say, if you can’t even do science without first presupposing Judeo-Christian presuppositions, then Zeus, contrary to what you and Bloom are trying to claim, will hardly suffice as the Intelligent Designer..
“I have good friends and colleagues on both sides of the debate, and I hope that my comments here today may promote better understanding and serve to bring us closer together.”
This is the cat pouncing out of the bag. TE is a political triangulation. Blech. Had enough of those.
Andrew
martin_r
Theistic evolution is not a scientific theory as such. It’s a religious view and it doesn’t do any original scientific work. Basically, it just says that “whatever mainstream science comes up with, we’re good with that”. They use theological explanations for how evolution fits into a theistic worldview.
It gets kind of crazy where they talk how there is no empirical evidence at all of intelligent design in nature. But at the same time, they will say that everything we perceive as random is created by God. Then some of them realize the problems with this and say that God doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Nature just runs along on its own. God made the laws but is not involved.
It’s actually a lot like deism and I don’t see how it is theistic – since for theism, God does need to be involved with creation.
ID Is just science and doesn’t explain the source of intelligence.
CD, the design inference on empirical, tested sign is just that, empirical, with trillions of known cases, no exceptions to design as cause. Where, that ties right into the linked configuration space challenge. Yes, one can discuss at philosophical level too but that is besides the point. Meanwhile, the living cell still has in it 4-state coded digital, algorithmic information well beyond a 500 – 1,000 bit threshold whereby the atomic resources accessible to us are simply unable to search, blindly, more than a negligible fraction of relevant configuration spaces. We are dealing with complex language and goal directed processes, both strong signs of design. Then, there is the added complexity of a von Neumann kinematic self replicator. Apart from entrenched Lewonin type a prioris, this would be a no brainer. KF
F/N: I clip from Craig:
KF
PS, as I recall statistical thermodynamics and quantum theory, I see no reason why randomness does not play its part.
You made no attempt to understand what Bloom was saying.
I suggest you listen to his ideas and read what he has said. If you disagree with him on anything, let us know.
I can find zero to disagree with. I doubt anyone here who supports ID can find anything either.
It’s interesting two people I had not heard of a year ago are two of the best thinkers on ID I have seen and both have similar last names, John Bloom and Stephen Blume.
Jerry: “You made no attempt to understand what Bloom was saying.”
Yet, per Craig, “I recall a conversation I had with ID theorist John Bloom about the objection that ID would require no more than Zeus as the explanation of biological complexity. He nodded slowly in approval. “Zeus will do,” he said. “Zeus will do.”
And you then stated, ” it could be Zeus and ID shouldn’t care.”
So I asked you, “So mythical Zeus is OK with you Jerry?”
You didn’t reply to that question but instead accused me of not understanding what you and Bloom were actually saying.
Hence, what part did I not understand of what you and Bloom were saying?
If your words actually mean what they say, then you are indeed claiming that I shouldn’t care if Zeus or Jesus Christ is posited as the Intelligent Designer. i.e. “it could be Zeus and ID shouldn’t care.”
Yet I do care. I care very much!
One reason I care very much is, (besides the little matter of the propitiation, and/or justification, of our souls before the living God via Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice), and as I pointed out via Stephen Meyer, modern science itself is dependent on Judeo-Christian presuppositions about God.
Thus my response that Zeus, (as a contingent being and not as the ‘necessary Being’, i.e. God), and contrary to what you and Bloom are trying to claim, will hardly suffice as the Intelligent Designer of the universe and all life in it. (Again, see Stephen Meyer’s book “Return of the God Hypothesis”, chapter 1).
As the following article succinctly put it, “Comparing the mythological gods of the Greeks and Romans with the God of Christianity is like comparing beats with beets, or bells with belles — they aren’t even “gods” in the same sense of the term.
The mythological gods were contingent beings like you and me. They didn’t have to exist; something caused them to exist. But the true God as Christians understand Him exists necessarily. He can’t not be.”
Here is a recent discussion on theistic evolution by Jay Richards.
https://idthefuture.com/1574/
Again I recommend the following book that we all should be reading.
Richards has two chapters in the book. Denyse also has a chapter. John Bloom has a chapter too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0736977147/?asin=0736977147&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
SA
as to theistic evolutionists
i wasn’t aware of that … that’s so sad. Poor guys.
KF @ 12
What are you talking about? Trillions of what known cases? Empirically verified in what manner? Is the design to which you refer a cause or an inference–you appear to call it both? Design causes nothing other than design. If I design a car, all I have is the design of a car. If I want an actual car, I have to build it. So how did the “Intelligent Designer” build whatever life forms you claim “resulted from” design? What was the first life form designed and/or built by the designer? Since, at least for you, this is all a “no brainer,” you should easily be able to answer these questions.
There isn’t any empirical evidence for non-human intelligent design in nature, just arguments by analogy and improbability.
Seversky
Beaver dams, bee hives, communication from dolphins, crows. Even lowly plants indicate intelligent design as show communication protocols with each other.
There’s a hierarchy of intelligence and we have empirical evidence of non-human intelligent design.
We recognize intelligence in plants is a lower-order than that of insects. Then fish and birds have a higher order intellect. Then we claim some are of “the most intelligent animals” – the hierarchy continues upwards to human intellect.
It’s a very easy inference to accept that there is an intellect, greater than human, that is responsible for the design that we see in nature.
Seversky
This species alone falsifies the theory of evolution and it is an ultimate proof of intelligent design… of course, people like you may disagree, but it does not matter what people like you say or think …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B91tozyQs9M
Seversky claims that, “There isn’t any empirical evidence for non-human intelligent design in nature, just arguments by analogy and improbability.”
Well then Seversky, if intelligent design is so hard to see in life, then these quotes coming from leading Darwinists are certainly strange to read
Of related note: Natural Selection, the supposed ‘designer substitute’ of Darwinists, has now been cast by the wayside by the mathematics of population genetics (and empirical evidence).
On top of all that, studies now establish that the design inference is innate ‘knee jerk’ inference that is built into everyone, especially including atheists, and that atheists have to mentally work suppressing their innate “knee jerk” design inference!
It is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature and biology, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves see in nature. And yes, ‘denialism’ is considered a mental illness.
Verse:
KF is referring to the written word.
Silver Asiatic/20
As wonderful as these natural phenomena are, intelligent design entails a capacity both to consciously conceive of an objective to be achieved and to devise the means of giving material effect to the achievement of that objective. Beavers and bees are wonderful creatures but there is no evidence to show that intelligent design in that form is at work in what they do.
I believe we should be wary of inflating our own egos by focusing on our status as the dominant species on this planet. Yes, we have achieved great things but they also include inflicting great suffering and damage both on ourselves and the natural world of which we are a part.
We should also bear in mind that the dinosaurs were the dominant group of reptiles on Earth for 180 million years – far longer than we have been around – until an asteroid strike 65 million years ago put an end to them. A similar impact could finish us off just as easily for all our vaunted intelligence and power and we would be ill-advised to rely on any of our gods to protect us.
CD,
I first suggest you look at the Resources Tab and then the menu starting with weak argument correctives.
Next, let’s look on points briefly:
>>What are you talking about? Trillions of what known cases?>>
1: Did you notice, I was speaking to inference on reliable, empirically tested observable signs? (This goes back, in logic, to Hippocrates of Cos and diagnostic signs.)
2: There are trillions of known cases of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information beyond 500 – 1,000 bits of complexity, FSCO/I. Go to your hardware store and go to the fastener section, pass by a library and see books, surf the Internet, look around you at a world of technology.
3: You have been around UD long enough, you have had opportunity enough to learn a tad about what is on the table.
4: Where, a particularly important case is coded information in string — i.e, -*-*-*- pearls on a string type — data structures. Often, for communication, or control and for algorithms. In every case we directly observe origin, intelligently directed configuration i.e. intelligent design is cause and so the best explanation.
5: As for trillions, notice the cases pointed to.
6: Now, observe that since 1953, we have known that the cell has in it precisely such information greatly in excess of the threshold, in D/RNA and extended into ribosome and protein structures. Coded so linguistic, algorithmic so directed to goals. Seventy years, long enough.
7: Further to which, this is expressed in a facility equivalent to a von Neumann kinematic self replicator, so we know Paley was right in ch 2 of his key work when he pointed to the thought exercise of a self replicating watch thus ADDITION-ality of complexity to get to replication and reproduction. Yes for 150+ years there has been a grand strawman caricature of the watch and designer argument.
8: We now see the signs of design in the tree of life from its root, the living, self replicating cell. This is the context where I declare intellectual independence. There is strong warrant being resisted by using arbitrary ideological rules to lock out reasonable abductive inference.
>> Empirically verified in what manner?>>
9: By direct and highly familiar reliable observation.
10: I am pointing to the corrective force of Newton’s rules, here that in going to things beyond our observation, the actual past of origins, we must not invoke explanatory mechanisms that have not been observed by us to have causal capability to produce the like effect.
11: Or if you will, title to vol 3 of Lyell’s Principles of Geology:
>> Is the design to which you refer a cause or an inference>>
12: We are dealing with causal explanation, as you full well know, rhetorically pretended ignorance notwithstanding.
13: Further to which, we are dealing with abductive reasoning, inference to best explanation form. So,
14: we are looking at observed cases of intelligently directed configuration in here and now, establishing reliability of signs and “causes now in operation,” thus grounding our epistemic right to infer from signs tracing to the past of origin, the best causal explanation.
15: See here, D/RNA, ribosomes and proteins (including enzymes). This plainly traces back to the root of the tree of life, OoL and thence to every stage since.
>>–you appear to call it both? >>
16: We are dealing with direct observation warranting conclusion, FSCO/I is a reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration as a pattern of “causes now in operation,” with capability exceeding blind chance and/or mechanical necessity.
17: So, we warrant sign by observation, and infer to best explanation regarding the actual past of origins which we cannot observe from traces seen in the present.
18: That explanation is of causal factors, in the context, inference to the best explanation, a form of inductive reasoning in the modern sense.
>>Design causes nothing other than design.>>
19: Design is more broadly used to denote intelligently directed configuration. That is, design routinely involves both specification and contrivance, and indeed, there are often on the spot design works in contrivance.
20: Intelligent design is used for emphasis as a notion has been circulated on unintelligent design by gross extrapolation of capabilities of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity.
21: Thus, threshold of complexity involving scale of configuration space to be blindly searched becomes pivotal, 500 – 1,000 bits implying a space of 3.27 * 10^150 to 1.07 * 10^301 possibilities, overwhelming, respectively, atomic resources of the sol system, 10^57 atoms, and the observed cosmos, about 10^80 atoms. With 10^17 s as yardstick of available time and 10^-12 to -14 s as a metric of interaction time for organic reactions etc.
22: Consideration on strings is WLOG, as Autocad etc show how complex functional organisation may be reduced to description on strings using a description language. Which ties to the tape in a von Neumann kinematic self replicator 1948 [vNSR] and the observed DNA from 1953 on.
23: So, we can see just what is meant.
KF
SC, an internet full of digital string based code, starting with YouTube and its rivals, going on to a mechanical world starting with fasteners and gears etc. coded explicit information and information implicit in specific functional organisation. KF
BA77:
That could suggest that it is non rational and open to dismissal as convenient.
But in fact, it is not. It is here seen as a part of common good sense, where a lot of logic, science and more builds on glorified common sense.
Here, first, we experience ourselves and others as intelligent, building up a growing fund of experience forming part of our background common sense knowledge. Along the way, we acquire a name for the phenomenon, intelligence. As a dictionary — Random House etc version, Webster’s — summarises:
Wikipedia, that bastion of the party of partisan Big-S Science, actually makes a telling concession:
Then, too, we live in the midst of a Sci-Tech Civilisation, so we readily come to understand contrivance, art, intelligently directed configuration, that is design. By playing with coins and dice etc, we recognise chance, randomness, distributions and typical vs atypical results. We also learn about natural regularities, starting with say the falling of objects and the swinging of pendulums . . . Galileo started with a chandelier observed in church.
These give us frames of reference and we become familiar with characteristic signs and patterns associated with natural (chance and/or mechanical necessity) and artificial causal factors. Where, cause-effect patterns are again part of our background.
So, “intuitively,” we readily recognise many signs of design and readily infer it as credible cause. Where, life forms of course show many such signs. But in a post Darwin world, powerful elites insist, this is the great counter example that overturns the common sense design inference, all dressed up in the lab coat.
What is happening, is that a refinement of common sense is rehabilitating the design inference, through more sophisticated analysis. But as evolutionary materialist scientism is deeply entrenched, it is a fight. One that has been won on merits but mere warrant is not enough by itself to overwhelm entrenched schools of thought.
As one reflection of this, too many objectors to the design inference presume we cannot truly know what we are talking about and must be ignorant or stupid, insane or even wicked.
That’s morlockery. And it has serious backing.
We need to ask, what is it that the Technoplutocrats want, that ID threatens.
Dollars to cents, we can bet that the big dogs have an agenda.
KF
Zero degrees of freedom does not make for a good statistical inference.
Sc, string based codes do not exhibit zero degrees of freedom; and for D/RNA, the chaining is modular, it is side branches that store information and any of ACGT/U can be followed by any other, the matching of two strands in the double helix confers redundancy, it is not where the high contingency of chaining to make a string with coded information arises. For proteins, similarly any of the twenty main AAs used in life can follow any other, again with a backbone and side branch architecture. Ask any machinist about screw threads and gears, they will tell you that the blanks from which such are cut are not exhibiting zero degrees of freedom, nor the machines that process them. In fact, such show high contingency and otherwise utterly implausible configurations most credibly explained on design. KF
F/N: Paley, Ch 2:
KF
If you are making statistical inferences about string based codes to something other than their known source (humans) you would be correct. However, all known sources of string based codes are human therefore zero degrees of freedom.
Maybe this will make it clearer. Three degrees of freedom would be something like:
But all you have is humans create string based codes. It is still a valid statement to say that all known sources of string based codes are intelligence. But to claim that there are trillions of examples has zero statistical power because they are all from the same source. Humans.
Sc, humans, first, are contingent designers and our existence does not lock out other designers, we do not exhaust either intelligence nor contrivance, as even many animals demonstrate. So, intelligence and design are generic. We do not need to observe other designers on other planets etc to recognise that our existence shows what is possible, intelligent design. Where, observing patterns and signs of design becomes relevant. The objection you tried to construct on an oddball use of degrees of freedom in this context, fails. KF
PS, I should add, each of us is a separate case of a designer, of course differing levels.
PPS, as a test of the capability of blind chance and mechanical necessity, random document generation would be worth looking at. The results to date are 10^100 short of the threshold as a factor.
Seversky
This is a question of design-detection and intelligence. The intelligence that beavers use shows intentionality. It’s not a deterministic process, like raindrops falling from clouds or stones rolling down a hill. When we observe a pile of logs in a stream – Intelligent Design detection can tell us that the pile was created either by random, non-intelligent, materialism – or by intelligence. The beaver dam gives evidence of intelligent design. The beavers made choices and sorted through variables. The beaver dam is the work of intelligence, although only animal intelligence. There is some level of awareness (consciousness) in what the beavers are doing. It’s not rational, self-awareness, but there’s a non-deterministic process.
I was just talking about human intelligence. That is at the pinnacle of life forms that we observe, whether we use the intelligence well or badly. One thing that separates us is that we continue to learn and communicate education to other humans. Today, humanity is more advanced in knowledge than before. We build houses differently, we transport ourselves differently and we use the materials of the earth to create things and communicate and build even more knowledge.
Other animals or plants or insects do not do this at all. Ants still build their ant-colonies the same as the first ones. That in itself is strange – why haven’t they improved their processes? They do not leave new instructions for future generations. It tells us, they’re not worried about their future, whether they have a future as a species or not is irrelevant to them.
Why is this something that humans care about? No other species tries to improve their status in life and leave instructions or wisdom for future generations. Instead, every bird makes the same mistakes that every other bird has made. Even smart animals like cats do the same foolish things. Mice keep getting caught in traps, when they could tell their progeny to avoid them, and leave instructions somewhere for future mice to understand. But that doesn’t happen.
I’m not sure where you’re going with this except that it sounds like some kind of punishment will fall from heaven if we become too boastful? Whether a meteor destroys the earth or not, we could walk around flexing our muscles and proclaiming “We are the champions” as the dominant species. If there was no God, who would care or do anything about it?
But yes, if God did create us and does demand good behavior, justice and humble reverence – then we would be in trouble if we let our egos get too big.
Humble wisdom is the path of growth – true. Proud proclamations of our greatness could bring on devastation (wars and even disasters) from God’s providence, but they also take away the respect we should have for all creatures, made by God, for His glory and the good of all people.
KF @ 26
I’ve seen all this stuff before. I don’t need one more cut-and-paste professorial on DNA code, hypothetical von Neumann self-replicators, abduction, or the universe’s incapacity to contain all the information necessary to start a universe.
I initially thought that you might be on to something new when you claimed trillions of empirically known “cases.” But it is just business as usual. Your “empirically tested observable signs” are simply the same inanimate, human-designed and constructed things (i.e., human artifacts). Library books, assorted wing nuts from Home Depot or dating sites on the web don’t cut it–my question went directly to life forms. Philosopher James Croft already dismantled Stephen Meyer when he tried this same “empirical ” argument back in August while debating Meyer’s “God Hypothesis” book. That ship has sailed. You don’t get to bootstrap off of human examples to conjure up your intelligent designer. (https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/o34c7a/discussion_between_james_croft_me_and_stephen/ )
Nor do you get to rely upon infinitely malleable concepts like “intelligence” or “design” to elude actual explanations for questions like those I asked:
I will suggest that the terms “intelligence” and “designer” are not merely generic, they are meaningless buzzwords. They explain nothing.
The pending questions remain: [H]ow did the “Intelligent Designer” build whatever life forms you claim “resulted from” design and [w]hat was the first life form designed and/or built by the designer?
Chucky, so your objection to questioning evolution is… we don’t know how the designer did it?
Or, it doesn’t immediately answer your questions?
Good news is, evolution theory doesn’t know how anything in detail happened and can’t answer any real questions with certainty on a macro level. So, I guess that shouldn’t stop you.
CD
That’s certainly one way to try to argue against intelligent design. Just say that the word “intelligence” is meaningless.
Evolutionists have been trying to tell us for a long time that the universe is the product of blind, unintelligent, mindless forces that care nothing for us.
Dawkins stated that biology is the study of things that appear to be designed for a purpose.
He knows what the word design means, and also what intelligence means.
Forensic science can discern the different between a blind, unintelligent cause and an intelligent design.
CD, translated, I disagree and dismiss as I have a favoured hypothesis pivoting on causal factors never seen as adequate to actually produce FSCO/I. Abduction FYI is a major province of logic. As for trillions of cases, they are indeed out there despite your dismissiveness; you just told us you are in the position of Galileo’s faculty colleagues who refused to actually look through his telescope. As for your attempt to dismiss JvN’s vNSR analysis, that speaks for itself and not in your favour. Sad, in the end. KF
Could the same thing be said about “evolution” and “life” since no one can define these either and they just became generic buzzwords. Throw in “species” too.
I don’t have a problem with that.
My argument is that your “trillions of examples” doesn’t have the power as a statistical inference that you think it does. This is simply a fact.
But all are human. Given that every human, with the exception of those with severe mental handicaps, is born with the potential ability to create coded strings, we are not talking about 6+ billion independent variables. The strength of your statistical inference to design has the same strength with a population size of two and ten coded strings as it does with a population of 6 billion and trillions of coded strings.
Sc, I am making an OBSERVATION not a statistical inference. We have trillions, quite literally, of cases of FSCO/I, which have been observed as to actual origin. In every case beyond the relevant threshold, those cases have been observed to come from intelligently directed configuration. This is backed by a readily done blind needle in haystack, search the configuration space analysis [linked BTW to the statistical mechanics foundation of the second law of thermodynamics] which makes it obvious. For simple case ponder 500 coins in a row, tossed at random, exhibiting a binomial distribution. The overwhelming bulk of outcomes will be close to 50-50 H-T, in no particular organised pattern, typical random result. And BTW, that maps directly to ASCII codes for 72 characters more or less, the distribution [3.27*10^150 possibilities matching all possible 1/0 patterns] will have every possible 72 character string, but the overwhelming bulk will be gibberish, why random doc search so far has only found up to 19 – 24 or so characters of sense. Result, we have a very strong empirically tested sign, FSCO/I is a signature of design. So, we have an epistemic right to abductively infer design as best causal explanation on seeing FSCO/I at or beyond the threshold 500 – 1,000 bits. What is almost amusing, but then sad, is to see how hard people struggle not to see this. KF
PS, it should be common sense that those too young or incapable of speaking or writing language are excepted. Yes, design starts with things like intelligible speech. As noted, the Internet is a repository in the trillions (esp YT), a hardware store full of fasteners and gears points to other cases and generally, look around. FSCO/I is readily observed and there are trillions of cases with a uniform result, design. Add in things like beaver dams for specific sites and you see that it is not just humans, as SA noted (and as one of my earliest contributions explored). We exemplify designers, actual and possible, we do not exhaust the possibilities and to imagine that billions of us come down to in effect one case is beyond failing the giggle test.
CD,
This is in a context where,
We see how frantic objectors are as predicted, when we see them trying to dismiss actual definitions of intelligence and design in defence of a failed orthodoxy.
You can’t make this up.
KF
Sorry, but you are implying a statistical significance from the magnitude of your attributed “trillions” of cases. If you didn’t think that your “trillions” of observations were statistically relevant, you wouldn’t have raised them. Why don’t you just admit that your “trillions” reference is a hyperbolic reference falsely intended to assign statistical power to an inference that does not deserve it?
One example would be enough.
Two would be an amazing coincidence. A thousand for a thousand would be one of the most certain inferences ever.
A trillion for a trillion is off the charts.
Most definitely deserves it.
Sc, your attempt to deny is transparently hyperskeptical. Ironically, you are actually adding to the total as you object. KF
PS, perhaps, you do not recognise a distinction between a reliable scientifically or empirically observed pattern and statistical inferences. This is a pattern with trillions of cases in point. Notoriously so.
I guess it is always easier to malign the commenter than to address the comment.
Actually, I make a living out of distinguishing between reliable scientifically or empirically observed patterns and statistical inferences. My Stats Can employer insists on it.
Do you really want to continue defending the strength of your “trillion example” statistical inference?
Sc, you have first chosen to erect assertions that try to deny that there are trillions of artifacts exhibiting functionally specific, complex organisation and/or information, in the face of a case where even your objections simply add to the already trillions online. As for hardware and general resources of technology, this includes the machines you use to comment. That is directly a case of selective hyperskepticism expressed as denial of patent fact, and it is not a personal attack to duly (and, sadly) note it. In this case, whatever your employment or profession, you are inadvertently letting us know that your preferred scheme of thought regarding origins is grossly factually inadequate. I suggest, you think again. KF
Jerry, we can see where it has now come out. It would be funny if it were not sad, we see here denial that the Internet, hardware and general resources of technology, frankly even our junkyards and rubbish landfills collectively involve trillions of examples of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or information where we directly know the cause. Further, we can see that there is evident unwillingness to accept that we do not exhaust the possibilities for intelligent design, as contingent creatures we are demonstrations — billions of them — that such are possible. Just, beaver dams show that other species are capable of limited designs. I guess, this tells us the depth of commitment to other views we are dealing with. The obvious historical parallel is Galileo’s faculty colleagues refusing to look through his telescope at the heavens that they were convinced could not be as he observed and sketched. Sad. KF
PS, in a sense, the exchanges above show that we have the case on the merits. If objectors to the design explanation feel they have to attack matters of patent fact, then that is a sign they don’t have the facts and what they warrant as explanatory inference. Sad.
Kf, it’s all about you.
I’ve said it before. There is a resentment from others here to your long posts. So they challenge them in any supercilious way they can. In the process they reveal who they are.
You make the mistake of trying to correct them with even longer posts.
The above exchange about statistical inference is a case in point. The objections to your observations were nonsense, pure and simple.
You and I know they have no facts or truth.
They know it too.
I always maintain that it is the motivation of these people that is most interesting. What drives them to such behavior?
My guess – resentment. They come here expecting bumpkins and then find it is they that are intellectually deficient.
I shouldn’t have to respond, but apparently some folks on this blog are so literal that they can’t understand context. I fully understand that the words “intelligent” and “design” have dictionary definitions. My comment that these two words are meaningless is in the context of the claim that “intelligent design” is science. ID advocates, especially with the term “intelligent,” repeatedly use the term without ever anchoring it to an operational definition, i.e., a measurable variable. The same is true with the term “design” which is even more vague because IDers refuse to even identify the entity doing the design and the mechanism of design, except the overtly Christian IDers who claim it is the God of theism and the description is akin to the Genesis myth (which carries its own empirical problems as the Adam and Eve wars rear their ugly head).
Until the term “intelligent design” is operationally defined, it is empirically meaningless….
ChuckyD,
Put A Sock In It
https://uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/
Andrew
But it is defined.
Still batting a thousand getting things wrong. So perfect, it must be intelligently designed. It couldn’t happen by chance.
As Adam Sedgwick pointed out to Charles Darwin himself about his ‘grand principle’ of natural selection, “what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact.”,,, and yet,,, “You write of “natural selection” as if it were done consciously by the selecting agent.”
And indeed this totally imaginary power for nature to supposedly intelligently choose between viable options is woven throughout the ‘just-so story telling’ of Darwinists in which they, (without any empirical warrant whatsoever), falsely give nature the power to ‘select’ whatever characteristic one is seeking to explain the origination of simply because they can imagine it had some sort of fitness advantage over not having that particular characteristic.
As Stephen Jay Gould explained, “Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection.
Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.”
To repeat, “Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.”
Try telling that line to your physics or chemistry professor and see what kind of reaction you get! 🙂
CD, not even wrong. As there is a claim that blind incremental variation and differential reproductive success lead to descent with unlimited variation and to apparent design, there is manifest need for terms that clarify in the face of frankly obfuscation. Further to which it is quite evident on a trillions member observation base that there are empirically — yes, observationally — reliable signs of intelligently directed configuration or contrivance as key cause. In that context we actually routinely recognise such design with high confidence, independent of who did it, when, how, or why. All of those are red herrings as there is further good reason to see that blind processes cannot credibly produce FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits. Yet further given Venter et al, we know molecular nanotech driven design of cell based life is feasible, have in hand viable techniques and see good prospects for better technique. Then, there is more than a single way to skin a cat fish, i.e. differing technologies can give the same result. So, given that we show design is possible by such means, designers are possible so we should take observable evidence of design seriously as a scientific matter. As for needless religion baiting, that inadvertently exposes hostility and bias on the part of those who go there. KF
PS, I document that bias next.
F/N: Documenting the bias, Lewontin:
Then, there is the US National Science Teachers Association Board tendentiously trying to redefine science ideologically, it is not an isolated individual speaking:
F/N2: There is no need to follow the Creationism red herring, those who want to debate that or seek answers can go to old and young earth creationism sites. The rhetorical subtext is the snide insinuation that ID is a stalking horse for creationism, to which the proper answer is to point those playing that game to the Resources tab. A red herring is a distractor showing one cannot face the issue on the merits, and in this thread we have seen resort to trying to dismiss trillions of observed artifacts demonstrating signs of design.
F/N3, operational definition, here is a stalking horse for the verification principle of logical positivism. At first, I was not sure but now we know that meaninglessness is in the context of a project that failed fifty years plus ago: apart from analytically true statements, meaningfulness is confined to statements subject to verification procedures. That was used to deride thought about God, ethics, metaphysics and more, until it was challenged to meet its own criterion. Self referentially incoherent and so REALLY meaningless, no wonder it tended to rule everything else as meaningless. Fail. Fail, in the face of a trillions member base of artifacts showing that FSCO/I is a highly reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration as cause. Fail, showing fifty years out of date rhetoric being resurrected (again, that happened with the deductive problem of evil). KF
PS: Sufficient has to be stated to substantiate.
You do not know my thoughts on origins because I have never presented them. Please stop attempting to read minds or infer motivations because you are not very good at it.
I don’t understand why you are getting so worked up about being told that the quantity of designs with known sources doesn’t have the statistical power you think it does. It is a very simple statistical concept that any first year statistics student could grasp.
There are plenty of other, more sound, arguments for design. Might I suggest that you retire your “trillions of examples” meme in favour of the others.
@Jerry #53
CD is literally the definition of “sucker for punishment.”
Sc, I do not need to know the specifics of your model of origins to recognise that you have a problem with evidence. As for your dismissal of trillions of artifacts exhibiting FSCO/I as a signature of design, that is more than enough to warrant that cases otherwise with the sign can be confidently inferred as designed, precisely because of the exceedingly high reliability of the sign and the linked configuration space blind needle in haystack search challenge. Of course, in abstract theory, there could arise counter examples on the morrow, but as for the linked case, thermodynamics of the second law, we simply say, produce the observed exception. (Which shows the testability and potential falsifiability.) This, too, is not to infer that there may not be other cases of designed items that do not exhibit the sign FSCO/I, which will be missed; that is of no relevance to the matter. The design inference on sign is not a general design detector. KF
He is a pro ID advocate.
Anyone that consistently wrong can only be that way by design.
You did once revealing your ignorance.
No, I am fine with evidence. I just have a problem with overstated claims about the evidence. And your “trillions of examples” is a grosse exaggeration of the strength of the evidence. When there is a single known source (humans) a single example of a coded string has exactly the same strength to support the design inference as a trillion examples of coded strings does. So your repeated use of the “trillions” qualifier is simply an attempted misrepresentation of the strength of the evidence. The misrepresentation is probably unintentional but it is still a misrepresentation.
The evidence is overwhelming for a design inference.
Trillions of examples is just pile on. Each instance of the trillion is additional strong support for the design inference.
I am not arguing against the evidence for design. Or even that coded strings are not evidence for design. Just that a library full of books does not provide a stronger design inference than a single book does. This is the misconception that KF keeps spreading.
No, each instance of the trillion are separate pieces of evidence, but their existence does not provide any more statistical strength for the design inference than a single instance does.
Sc, the first matter is that of willingness to acknowledge patent facts, or rather the absence of such. Just the Internet contains already trillions of cases of FSCO/I beyond the threshold, of known provenance; and the rest of our technological world starting with the hardware store backs that up. This is already parallel to Galileo’s colleagues who would not look through his telescope. Next, we do not need to look at likelihood ratios or the like to assess this case: inference to best explanation of a common phenomenon with just one empirically warranted cause. Show us a few observed cases that come about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity and we can say that we do not have just one empirically warranted, configuration space search challenge backed causal source. Recall, beyond 500 – 1,000 bits of complexity. Where, further, code implies much more information and organisation that appears in the actual code, a language, algorithms, underlying subject knowledge and protocols have to be in place and execution machinery. Language and protocols are already further strong signs of design and sophisticated knowledge is directly a product of intelligence. The implied argument is that you suggest or enable inferring miracles of chance, as the focus is OOL, before there is self replication. Fail, fail on first, directly observable facts. KF
PS, as for there is a single known source of FSCO/I, your attempt to double down on that means you have paid no attention to my or SA’s note on other known cases, most clearly, beavers and their dams. Beyond direct observation, intelligence and design are exemplified by humans, as contingent creatures we cannot exhaust the possibilities, as the SETI project illustrates, the attempt to suggest no trillions of observed cases vanish into one causal agent humans, fails. Besides, as was also pointed out there are billions of us, and our conscious use of verbal language is an example of FSCO/I by design. Speak a couple of typical sentences or write and more FSCO/I beyond the complexity threshold by observed design. Each of us is a case of an intelligent designer, and as noted, we cannot exhaust the possibilities. There is a whole popular literature that pivots on the point, Sci Fi. You tell us why we should imagine that it is dubious that there are other or are possibly other designers with similar or more advanced capabilities. You have no good warrant for that piece of hyperskepticism either. In fact the evidence of the cell on the strength of a lawlike observed regularity should be understood as strongly pointing to designs done before there was life on our planet, thus of agents capable of such designs. You have the whole case backwards, KF
Sc, a single instance of observed FSCO/I does not indicate a regular pattern. It is true that it would be an observed case of design but in that hypothetical world it would be an oddity. A pattern with trillions of cases and billions of intelligent designers as causes with nil, zip zilch actually observed from blind chance and/or mechanical necessity is a different matter. Observable regularity and reliable sign of that cause, here. KF
There is none so blind who will not see.
It is obvious that I am wasting my time instructing you on the proper use of statistical inferences.
If the inference from one example is p=1.0, you are right. That’s the highest probability one can get.
But in reality it’s a distinction without a difference and just fuss over nothing.
The real interesting thing is the inference is p=0 that a functional system exists that was not designed that provides coordinated output.
And then for the purist such as Seversky, the inference that accumulated variations in a genome produced anything significant is also p=0.
Aside: the supposedly creative part of Darwin’s ideas is the inheritance of new variation. Natural selection just preserves the accumulated variation. But again the inference is p=0 that this has produced anything but trivial changes.
Sc, the manifest evidence, is that you are refusing to acknowledge a striking, prominent observable reality, trillions of cases of FSCO/I, observed by design and nil by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. I would go further, the pattern we see suggests that there would be no intelligent observers to see and understand a single isolated case, i.e. FSCO/I is a characteristic product of intelligent designing agents and is directly connected to their ability also to observe with recognition of significance. So, the multiplicity of observations would be an aspect of the evidence. It is agents capable of design who can create science as a discipline, likewise create math including statistics as a discipline and of course embracing use of language. What we have done is simply to identify a readily observed, highly reliable indicator of design and point out that one of the longest established scientific methods is inference on observed sign. All of this is the equivalent of Galileo inviting his colleagues to look through his telescope, only to be met with flat refusal. KF
Jerry, assuming a blind chance and/or mechanical necessity null hyp, the core problem is, number of observed cases of FSCO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits of complexity by that = 0. While of course, the number of observed cases by observed intelligently directed configuration is in the trillions, starting with the Internet, proceeding to the fasteners and gears in a hardware store then on to the general pattern of a technological civilisation. Neglecting, that conscious utterance of significant length across history is also trillions of cases, minimum. Footnoting, beavers and the like, which show that directing intelligence is broader than our species. Further to such, as I pointed out, we will not observe — that act of reason requires sophisticated inference associated with habitual designing capability — an isolated case of FSCO/I by intelligent design, the number will naturally be large; this indicates that where we see one rat by day, there are dozens by night. In this context, we have no empirical basis to construct a distribution of FSCO/I by blind undirected nature, apart from flat zero. We are left with precisely the Newton’s Rule challenge, before inferring a blind force hypothesis, first demonstrate that such a candidate cause is observed capable of the effect. We are therefore back at the premise, we have a reliable sign backed by huge observational base and associated needle in haystack blind configuration space search challenge analysis, that FSCO/I reliably comes about by and is a strong sign of intelligently directed configuration. KF
PS, I am taking the definition of P value as a metric of “how often you would expect to see a test statistic as extreme or more extreme than the one calculated by your statistical test if the null hypothesis of that test was true.” There has to first be good reason to hold that the null can and does create the result. There is no such base of actual observation.
I have no idea what you are trying to communicate.
I stop reading your posts after a couple sentences. I assume everyone else does too.
I’ve said it before. I’m not disputing your point. I just don’t know what it is. You have to know that your English construction is unlike anyone I have ever seen and I have read a lot.
Goodness Gracious.
I’m getting so sick & tired of people with these pompous pithy retorts as if they’re the intellectually elite, when all they are is a demonstration of pure Bias dressed up as scholarship.
So WL Craig, who actually is Elite, is fashioning his beliefs to conform and please others because you disagree with him? That’s a garbage attack. Atheists use the same fallacies when they say things like – Faraday & Maxwell were just checking the box “Christian ” because of the Times. They couldn’t be Believers because believers are stupid.
Are we not better than a bunch of godless atheists? These topics do not even rank in the top hundred in what’s important to serving Jesus Christ. I always say, if your pet doctrines are your life, so much so you always attack your own – flush it all down the toilet and go truly serve Christ volunteering for the poor, instead of serving yourself and your need to feel superior.
Peace