Intelligent design

[davidinalameda]

I've been thinking about this for a while now. While I am NOT a Christian, I am a theist. I really have a hard time believing the universe developing on its own.

Maybe it was just a nudge or maybe it was "hands on" so to speak, but I don't think that everything is here by chance though.

It may be because that I belive the divine exists in everything and that everything is touched by the divine

That touch, in my opinion, is what led to things developing the way they have.

I certainly don't believe that we as a species are finished evolving by any stretch of the imagination.

Without getting flamed too bad, I'm just curious to hear others' opinions on this.

And by the way, no, I don't think that ID should be taught in school.

[LiberalVoice]

1. Other then the fact that it has no basis in science at all...

theres not much to say.

It cannot be proven through scientific method therefore it shouldn't be treated as an even remotely sound scientific theory.

[davidinalameda]

2. that's why this post is in religion and theology

and not science

[Stunster]

9. Quite

Where the fundies go wrong is in insisting that ID is a legitimate form of science.

But there's nothing wrong with it being a legitimate philosophical hypothesis.

There are countless philosophical statements made by loads of people, including atheists. There are vast numbers of reasonable, but non-scientific, explanations and hypotheses and inferences made by vast numbers of people every day.

"I must have left the keys in my other pants."

"I ought to love my kids by spending more quality time with them."

"I think my dad was sad because he was never able to pursue his desire to be an artist."

Let's suppose an atheist gives a philosophical argument against theism. Should we immediately denounce it and shout, "But that's not science! So shut up!"?

[VegasWolf]

140. Of course not, the atheist has given a philosophical argument and

not a scientific argument. But, philosophy should not be taught
as science.

[papau]

63. Intelligent Design is a natural common feeling that is usually part of

Intelligent Design is a natural common feeling that is usually part of the discussion of God - as in God the creator, I do not understand it's use in a discussion of evolution. I do not believe the Catholic Church takes any position on the usefulness to science of "evolution"

It appears to be a war between the fundies and the no-God crowd - and not central to ones faith.

There are at least 2000 and perhaps more years of "God the Creator because I see intelligent design" thought from very learned folks. I am always amazed by those no-God types that I consider intelligent who reject what I consider obvious, and fall back on the no path to anywhere logic of "it is because it is" - occassionaly re-package as the Anthropomorphic Principle -

Why do folks fear others seeing the existence of a teleological universe - a universe made with a purpose? It does not affect the science that they do.

Now I grant you that both sides - fundie and no-god - have tried to use the fact that the fundamental constants of the universe are within the narrow limits that allow life - one side saying we exist to observe this fact simply because if those constant were different, we would not exist - - - - while the other side says those constants are our constants because our universe was set up specifically for the purpose of our life.

And as with all matters of faith, there is no bridging the logic gap between the two camps. The No God camp says that thermodynamics explains how ordered structures will form spontaneously if the ordered structure has lower energy than the unstructured alternatives, and the faith camp says that is a law that is true in this universe that was given to us - God as law giver - or if you like - as the designer of the rules of the game.

The response is by the No God folks is that God could have done a better design if he was trying to favor humans - LOL - - followed by the power of infinity to overcome many arguments - as in infinite budding universes, or infinite contraction/expansion big bangs that eventually get around to the set of constants that permit life - and if that fails to convince, the no-God folks fall back on "faith" - LOL - and say there are laws yet to be discovered that will explain all - and most certainly they will explain all without reference to a God.

So do you - the no-god folks - feel you have an adequate explanation of the universe - with laws to be discovered to fill in the obvious gaps, and therefore you feel there is no "need" for God, - so there is no God?

Since science can not provide a proof of a universal purpose or the creator of such a purpose (or disprove such), the rules of science would seem to permit folks of faith to be scientists

But I come back to where I started - I do not understand ID's use in proving - or disproving - the usefulness of evolution.

What am I missing?

[Az]

64. The missing peace

Its not a scientific argument. Its a political argument. Because the reason teaching creationism was supplanted with teaching evolution was that the course was about science. The argument boils down to the fact that science class should teach science. You may believe in all your heart that God created the universe. But when teaching science you stick to what science currently says about evolution.

The solution to this is to package creationism as science. To do this you need something that appears to be science. Creationism on its own is too connected to the doctrine and doesn't pass the sniff test to appear to be science. So they adopted another strand. ID.

ID seems to be creationism taken a step back. But it still reverses the process of science by presupposing the solution before the evidence is gathered. In other words ID proponents don't examine the evidence and draw their conclusions from it. They start with their conclusions (the universe was deisgned) and then search for anything that may support this notion.

Approaching it like this you will find many circumstantial factors that can quite easily be turned to support your presupposition. But this is simply not how science proceeds. You do not start with the conclusion. It creates too many possible errors.

The truth is that the overwhelming evidence simply supports an unguided evolutionary process. Now this does not preclude a god so smart and omniscient that he/she/it could not have simply set all this wonder in action and controled it from the singular instance of creation. But it certainly seems to be satisfactory evidence against a meddlesome god that guided and tweaked life on this earth as it developed.

[papau]

66. a meddlesome god that says single cell is boring - lets do multi-cell?

Or one that rains water onto the Earth at one Comet a month for a few million years

and we end up with myths & bible stories that describe what is now leading edge theory.

I grant you the clockwork GOD is never precluded - and never of interest to science.

But the meddlesome god is not precluded - and also not of interest to science since all science wants is the repeatable experiment with consistent outcome with some idea of why that will allow the design of new repeatable experiments with consistent outcome.

presupposing the solution before the evidence is gathered is call hypothesis testing - and indeed is real science. Granted we then go back the other way to verify - but the "error introduction problem" does not exist in my opinion.

[lastknowngood]

3. All things are connected by the natural and physical laws so the

"design" doesn't have to be intelligent as we know it. Nature and it's laws tend toward order out of chaos so the intelligent is more a fact of natural law than an intellect. We were not designed nor was anything else it's the effect of the laws of physics over time, by realizing this you no longer have to insert a all powerful being with a plan, you can just study nature and physics and let "god" enlighten you.

If there were really a god as promoted by most religions how could it allow the things like hate murder destruction and the evil of the shrub and his minions exist. No "just god" would allow such things, the existence of so much evil is pretty good evidence that there is no god.

[Az]

4. I suspect this notion stems from

the idea that we were the intended outcome. People wonder what the odds of getting just this sort of life is even in a massively huge universe. The odds of getting just this outcome boggles the mind. But it only does so if you are trying to get this outcome.

Imagine this experiment. Take a deck of cards and toss it in the air. Note the position that all the cards land in. Now calculate the odds of trying to do exactly that again. The odds are astronomical. The problem is proclaiming the outcome before the process begins.

Its like wondering how water knows how to fit the glass it is in. This is not how things flow.

[Dookus]

7. yup

it's the anthropomorphic universe: the notion that the universe was "designed" to create us. Of course, since this is the only universe we're in (that we know of), we're working backwards from the results.

Who knows if there weren't trillions of other universes wherein life did not develop? Who knows if a very different kind of life could've evolved in universes with very slightly different variables?

[Stunster]

16. A common argument

goes like this

When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to >be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable. (I'm quoting John Allen Paulos)

You seem to think this is a good argument.

I disagree. Paulos is using a bad analogy. Whatever hand one was dealt would necessarily be a hand of cards. But whatever universe was 'dealt' wouldn't necessarily be a universe capable of supporting human life, though of course it would necessarily be a universe. The proper 'card analogy' for the universe supporting intelligent life such as ours would be to be dealt 13 cards of the same suit. The odds of that hand are indeed the same as for every other hand. But if you were dealt that hand, you'd much more reasonably believe that the deck was stacked than that the hand was dealt quite randomly.

Davies, Carter, Wheeler, Tipler and many other scientists have acknowledged that anthropic cosmological fine-tuning cannot be explained on the analogy you seek to draw. They see it as a genuine problem, calling for explanation. The literature on this is vast.

The anthropically fine-tuned nature of the universe is established fact. The question is why.

Sir Martin Rees (the British Astronomer Royal), recently published a book Just Six Numbers attempting to answer this question. If the Paulos quote was on the right lines, this would be a misguided thing to do. But it is not. The only way Rees can see to avoid the
Design Hypothesis is by positing a multiverse. I.e., he has to posit a vast, possibly infinite, number of parallel universes, each with a different set of numbers governing their basic physics.

It is only by positing this colossal number of extra universes that one can render it unsurprising that the numbers in our universe are suited for the generation of human life. Note that this Multiverse Hypothesis violates the test of observability, and violates Ockham's Razor with a vengeance. It is pure speculation, and a metaphysical
prejudice on Rees's part. But the point I'm making is that he is forced to adopt this hypothesis to avoid the Design Hypothesis. In other words, it is only probable that the universe would turn out as fine-tuned as it is if it is but one of many, many universes. Otherwise it is extremely improbable.

Let me show this a bit more by drawing your attention to a lengthy quotation from leading philosopher Peter van Inwagen's recent book, METAPHYSICS, (pp. 134-6):

Some philosophers have argued that there is nothing in the fact that the universe is fine-tuned that should be the occasion for any surprise. After all (the objection runs), if a machine has dials, the dials have to be set some way, and any particular setting is as unlikely as any other. Since any setting of the dials is as unlikely as any other, there can be nothing surprising about the actual setting of the dials, whatever it may be, than there would be about any possible setting of the dials if that possible setting were the actual setting. (Here is a parallel argument. If you toss a coin and it comes up 'heads' twenty times in a row, you shouldn't be surprised. After all, you wouldn't be surprised if the sequence HHTTHTHTTTHTHHTTHTHT occurred, and that sequence and the sequence HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH both have exactly the same probability of occurring: 1 in 1,048,576, or about .000000954.) This reasoning is sometimes combined with the point that if 'our' numbers hadn't been set into the cosmic dials,
the equally improbable setting that did occur would have differed from the actual setting mainly in that there would have been no one there to wonder at its improbability.
This must be one of the most annoyingly obtuse arguments in the history of philosophy. Let us press the 'parallel' argument a bit. Suppose that you are in a situation in which you must draw a straw from a bundle of 1,048,576 straws of different length and in which it has been decreed that if you don't draw the shortest straw in the bundle you will be instantly and painlessly killed: you will be killed so fast that you won't have time to realize that you didn't draw the shortest straw. Reluctantly--but you have no alternative--you draw a straw and are astonished to find yourself alive and holding the shortest straw. What should you conclude?
In the absence of further information, only one conclusion is
reasonable. Contrary to appearances, you did not draw the straw at random; the whole situation in which you find yourself is some of kind of 'set-up'; the bundle was somehow rigged to ensure that the straw you drew was the shortest one. The following argument to the contrary is simply silly.
"Look, you had to draw some straw or other. Drawing the shortest was no more unlikely than drawing the 256,057th-shortest: the probability in either case was .000000954. But your drawing the 256,057th-shortest straw isn't an outcome that would suggest a 'set-up' or would suggest the need for any sort of explanation, and, therefore, drawing the shortest shouldn't suggest the need for an explanation either. The only real difference in the two cases is that you wouldn't have been around to remark on the unlikelihood of drawing the 256,057th-shortest straw." It is one thing, however, to note that an argument is silly and another thing to say why it is silly. But an explanation is not hard to come by. The argument is silly because it violates the following principle: Suppose that there is a certain fact that has no known explanation; suppose that one can think of a possible explanation of that fact, an explanation that (if only it were true) would be a very good explanation; then it is wrong to say that the event stands in no more need of an explanation than an otherwise similar event for which no such explanation is available.
My drawing the shortest straw out of a bundle of over a million straws in a situation in which my life depends on my drawing just that straw certainly suggests a possible explanation. If an audience were observing my drawing the shortest straw, they would very justifiably conclude that I had somehow 'cheated': they would conclude that had had some way of knowing which straw was the shortest and that (to save my life) I had deliberately drawn it. (If I know that I didn't know which straw was the shortest--if I am just as astounded as anyone in the audience at my drawing the shortest straw--then the situation will not suggest to me that particular explanation of my drawing the shortest straw, but it will suggest the one that I have already mentioned, namely that some unknown benefactor has rigged the drawing in my favor.) But if an audience were to observe my drawing the 256,057th-shortest straw (and my consequent immediate demise),
this would not suggest any explanation to them: no one would suppose--nor would it be reasonable for anyone to suppose--that I knew which straw was the 256,057th-shortest and that I deliberately drew it; nor would anyone suppose that someone had rigged the drawing to ensure my getting the 256,057th-shortest straw; nor would any other possible explanation come to anyone's mind.
We have seen that the setting of the cosmic dials does suggest an
explanation: the dials were so set by a rational being who wanted the cosmos to be a suitable abode for other rational beings. Therefore, those critics of the teleological argument who say that one setting of the cosmic dials is no more remarkable than any other possible setting are certainly mistaken.
We should note that our principle does not say that one can think of a really good explanation for some fact, one should automatically assume that that explanation is correct; the principle says only that in such cases it would be a mistake simply to assume that that fact required no explanation.


So you see, Rees has to posit the Multiverse in order to explain the fine-tuning (that is, keeping to the straw analogy, he has to posit that all the straws are drawn, but that as soon as each straw is drawn, the drawer pops up in a separate universe, in all but one of which he is dead.) This is the only way to avoid the Design Hypothesis. But it is done at the cost of the most egregious and unscientific violation of Ockham's Razor in the history of philosophy.

Incidentally, the six numbers Rees refers to are:

nu (a ratio of the strength of electrical forces that hold atoms together
compared to the force of gravity, which is 10 to the 37th power)

epsilon (how firmly the atomic nuclei bind together, which is 0.004)

omega (amount of material in the universe)

lambda (force of cosmic "antigravity" discovered in 1998, which is a very small number)

Q (ratio of two fundamental energies, which is 1/100,000)

delta (number of spatial dimensions in our universe).

Martin Rees is Britain's Astronomer Royal. He is the author of several
books, including _Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe_ (with Mitchell Begelman) and _Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others_. A member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and numerous foreign academies, Rees is Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University.

[Az]

19. You make the same mistake in the very beginning again

It is not a question of whether the universe is capable of supporting human life. There is not a big bullseye painted on the celestial dome with human laying at the center. We are not intended. We are not the purpose of the universe. We are a, one of many, part of the process, an individual aspect, of this particular universe. We are a result of this particular universe. If it had started differently we would simply not be here. Maybe something else would have been.

Furthermore you presume the universe has one go at it. Whether there is a multiverse explanation or a continuum of universes there are many ways around your statistical speed bump. So cut it out ya big knuckle head :evilgrin:

[Stunster]

24. What-EVER!

We are not the purpose of the universe.

That, actually, is the question at issue! LOL!

You are presupposing that the universe is purposeless. The argument is that it doesn't look as if it's purposeless, and that to avoid the inference that it is purposeful, one would have to construct the speculative multiverse hypothesis, which is exactly what Rees & Co. have proceeded to do , because they understand the science of the universe and see the difficulty for the anti-teleological viewpoint thrown up by the actual details of the physics of our universe, in particular its apparent fine-tuning.

(Even your string physics fellow, Brian Greene, sees this and talks about it: "In light of the of the sensitive dependence of life on the details of physics...." (THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE, p. 367). Greene of course, opposes the Multiverse. His preferred answer is that there is one logically possible physics. That's the whole thrust of his book, for pete's sake.)

But the argument being discussed is that there are reasons why it's more reasonable to posit purpose than to posit a quasi-infinity of purposeless universes. Ontological economy for one, and analogy to something we know (our own purposive minds) for another, and the fact that many, many people have religious experiences that dovetail quite nicely with the hypothesis of a divine conscious mind being the purposive creator of the universe, for a third.

I mean, I really don't get why, when you don't even grasp the argument, you think that you can easily refute it. You don't refute it. You simply, systematically, beg the question, as per the above quote!

Sheesh, and have a nice day! Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go to work.

[Az]

25. My string physics fellow?!?

You make it sound as if there is only one scientist advocating string theory. Green is not the end all and be all of string theory.

And as to what is being discussed, as you pointed out, the question is whether there is purpose to the universe or not. And as you claim I am presupposing there is no purpose you are conversely presupposing there must be purpose.

I try to state my positions as possibilities. You continue to insist that your views are the only acceptable ones.

Have fun working.

[Stunster]

31. Cutting to the chase

Lunchtime!

I'm not suggesting that string physics is incompatible with a multiverse, nor am I suggesting that a correct string physics might not one day be shown to entail the existence of a multiverse. I'm saying that string physics, in its current formulations, does not entail a multiverse. There are in fact millions and millions of solutions to string physics equations that would involve something much less than a multiverse. I'm aware of one model in which the solution involves a brane of infinite dimension, which I suppose can be shown to suggest a multiverse (the Randall-Sundrum model), and Susskind and Linde who propose multiverse models are now incorporating insights from string theory. But string theory as such, as currently understood, does not entail a multiverse, and some string theorists are even hopeful that string theory will render the multiverse hypothesis superfluous.

String theory itself is highly controversial within physics, of course.

But let's cut to the chase. The point is that there is no way string physics or any other physics can avoid positing an unobservable, spaceless, timeless, infinite reality. Let me explain why.

Let's suppose that string physics, or some other development in physics, becomes scientifically established, and is shown to entail a multiverse. Immediately we'd want to know why there is any such thing as this physics, and why there is any such thing as a multiverse. Well, there's two ways to go at this point.

One way (that favored by Greene) is to say that the physics will turn out to logically necessary and that this follows from the mathematics exhibiting it. But how would this ultimate theory establish the validity of mathematical reason itself---the very mathematical reason that underlies the ultimate theory?

After all, the construction of the theory would be presupposing the validity of the mathematical reasoning involved, and it would be suggesting that mathematical reason is valid not only for this universe, but for the multiverse as a whole. And why would this universally valid Mathematical Reason be such as to instantiate anything in physical reality, not least ourselves, who can appreciate and grasp and understand it? Or to put it another way, why is there something (even this multiverse generating mathematics), rather than nothing at all. Hawking famously asked why the equations would go to the bother of making anything like a universe, and one could ask the same thing about the string, or whatever, equations that make a multiverse.

One would seem to be left with either theism, or a form of mathematical Platonism, and in either case, one would be positing a non-physical unobservable something as being responsible for both the multiverse and our reasoning about it. Moreover, mathematics itself is an infinite abstract structure. The trouble with Platonism as an account of reason is that if the Platonic entity itself is suitably to be grasped by mind, then it's deeply puzzling why it should not be intimately connected with mind (or intellect, or spirit), and in fact be the content of a mind, or intellect, or consciousness. But an infinite content, such as mathematics is, would need an infinite mind, or intellect, or consciousness to comprehend it.

There is a way around this problem though. And that is to invoke once again the principle of natural selection. It would go like this: We get this universe because it is naturally selected within a multiverse. And we get the multiverse described by the equations of string theory (or whatever the final theory is) because it is naturally selected within a multiverse of multiverses. And we get the multiverse of multiverses because it is naturally selected by a multiverse of multiverses of multiverses. And so on, ad infinitum.

But either way, you have to end up positing a physically unobservable infinite. Either, Mathematical Reason. Or, an infinity of multiverses.

The point of doing so was to avoid having to posit a physically unobservable infinite. But the point turns out to be self-defeating.
And we see this ahead of time. E.g. the Randall-Sundrum model posits an infinite brane. Obviously we could not observe an infinite brane, even if we had a reason to infer that there must be one.

I have to laugh when atheists complain that God 'doesn't explain anything' and then are driven by science itself to posit things like infinite branes, and an infinity of universes, and maybe even an infinity of multiverses, etc.

Then there's the issue of consciousness. Doubtless more conceptual work is needed on all sides. Even from a scientific viewpoint, I think more and more we are finding that notions such as 'information' are fundamental and irreducible. Philosopher David Chalmers talks about matter being information from the outside, and consciousness being information from the inside. One can think of God as self-subsistent Reason--one can conceptualize God as unlimited, pure information communicating itself to itself, which just is, or which eternally generates, Consciousness, and therefore also Value. It generates Value (goodness, love, beauty, etc) because this unlimited self-communicating, self-revealing information is eternally united in harmony with itself, and thus is eternally One and Whole. (These concepts are also partly inspired by and suggestive of St Augustine's theology of the Trinity, which he suggests we try to grasp on an analogy with the operations of intellect/knowledge and will/love of the mind.)

And if one runs with Chalmers' idea that information is matter from the outside, the reason we don't see God is not so much that God isn't physical---it's rather that God is infinite. God is the unlimited self-communicating rational consciousness that knows the mathematics of string theory (or whatever the ultimate theory is). Or, God is the infinite self-communicating consciousness that grasps the infinity of multiverses, or multiverses of multiverses, etc.

So the reason we don't 'see' God is that there's just too much information for anyone looking at this unlimited information from the outside to be see it---finite minds can only fully comprehend finite information. But 'inside' the unlimited information , it's infinite consciousness--God fully comprehends Godself-and thus all of reality is ultimately intelligible, because God is an unlimited act of rational understanding (or self-communicating information).

If your epistemology requires observation and rational intelligibility, and your ontology is infinite or quasi-infinite, then you need an infinite mind to 'do' the observing and rational understanding of that ontology, which of course will include itself.

Science kind of gets there in the end, but religion had it essentially figured out a long time ago. :-)

[Az]

35. And yet all adding God does is complicate the matter

If you can't handle the existance of void without mandating the existance of a god then how the heck are you going to account for an impossibly complex god. Your solution offers nothing more than more questions. It solves nothing other than your need for a reciever for your prayers. Sorry sooner or later it is going to boil down the an answer of that this is the particular nature of the universe. And so far there it is quite answerable without necissitating a creator. The only thing mandating a creator is the emotional call of believers.

[Stunster]

36. 'Night

"I'm telling you, an infinity of universes or multiverses or of anything at all (except God), is less complex than a single infinite consciousness, because I say so. And no, none of those infinite universes/multiverses/things could possibly contain an infinite consciousness."

:shrug:

:boring:

[Selwynn]

42. I only disagree with one thing.

I don't agree that the universe is perfectly answerable. It's not even close to perfectly answerable. We still exist in a place in human history where there are more unanswered questions and mysteries about the universe than there are known answers.

None of this is an argument for God, so for just once, could people please not read intent into what I type.

I agree that there is nothing out there in the domain of scientific inquiry that necessitates a god. I disagree that the universe is "quite answerable." We basically still don't know much. But we know more than we did, and tomorrow we'll know more than we do today, and the journey is exciting. But in our haste to deny theistic arguments, lets stay honest about the extreme amount of things we don't have a clue about.

Given all the scientific data we have to date there is no scientific evidence that proves god or leads to the necessity of postulating a god. I just don't like to get too cocky about how much we "know." :)

Sel

[Stunster]

34. And a PS to my last post

This is a provocative piece on theism and the multiverse idea.

I also like this quotation:

God has chosen the world that is the most perfect, that is to say,
the one that is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the
richest in phenomena.
-- Gottfried Von Liebniz

[VegasWolf]

141. Yes, but to me the theory of the mutliverse is similar to divine

intervention. if all possible worlds exist simultaneously and
every outcome is guaranteed, then that is no better a solution
than throwing up one's hands and saying god did it.

[EVDebs]

5. You may want to take up Pascal's Wager

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

[Az]

6. The old flawed one? Or the new and improved multicultural one?

They lead to different conclusions ya know.

[EVDebs]

12. Any 'singularity' will do ! That's what the start of the Big Bang is all

now, isn't it ? Is The Great Architect of the Universe more aptly described in 'singularity' http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae251.cfm where none of the laws apply . An equation doesn't do justice either.

[Stunster]

8. I know the feeling

Imagine there's a large barrel of straws all of different lengths in front of you. You have to pull out one. Unless you pull out the shortest one you will be killed instantly. There are 25 billion straws in the barrel. The point at which you have to draw out the straw has a camera which will instantly register the length of the straw. The length of the shortest straw is known in advance. If you fail to pull out the shortest one the camera will instantly send a signal to an electronically triggered array of machine guns, all aimed at you. If you don't pick the shortest straw, then you're a dead man.

Lo and behold, you pick out the shortest straw! You're alive! And amazed.

Now suppose this is the only straw drawing there is. The odds of you being alive after you pick the straw are 25 billion to 1.

That's too unreasonable, you think. So you hypothesize one of two alternatives.

1. There are actually 250 billion similar straw drawings taking place, all of which are intrinsically undetectable by you, except the one you're part of. This means that the odds of the shortest straw being drawn by someone in one of these 250 billion straw drawings is considerably improved, compared to the odds of your drawing the shortest if that's the only straw-drawing there is.

Or

2. An intelligent being designed the straw drawing you're part of, and 'fixed' it so you'd draw out the shortest one.

If you pick 2, you will be attacked as being unscientific. When you protest that the 250 billion minus 1 straw drawings are inherently undetectable by science, you'll still be attacked. When you say that Ockham's razor urges ontological economy, and that one intelligent straw-drawing designer, whose nature is analogous to your own, is ontologically more economical than 250 billion straw-drawings, complete with 250 billion sets of straws (none of which are intelligently designed) and 250 billion straw-drawers (none of which are intelligently designed), you're denounced as an idiot.

Still, you're amazed that you're alive.

[qazplm]

10. what?

First you draw up an insane hypo, but even allowing it, your arbitrary listing of only two possibilities is classic bad logic.

how about:
3. you got damn lucky

But by all means, please continue to set up insanely improbable and wild hypos set up purely to attempt to prove a "point", it's certainly entertaining, but that's all it provides.

[Stunster]

14. You're wrong

I did not arbitrarily exclude your hypothesis 3. Here's what I wrote:

Now suppose this is the only straw drawing there is. The odds of you being alive after you pick the straw are 25 billion to 1.

That's too unreasonable, you think. So you hypothesize one of two alternatives.

In other words the exclusion, far from being arbitrary, was simply a standard bit of probabilistic reasoning.

As for the general scenario being 'wild and improbable', I think you should perhaps take that up with the proposers of the Multiverse, such as British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees (as in his recent book JUST SIX NUMBERS), and others. Because the straw-drawing analogy is precisely how their argument goes.

They look at how wildly improbable it is that the universe, if it's not teleologically directed, should turn out to be fit for human existence (the physical parameters compatible with it being such that they fall within a very narrow range). So they hypothesize that this universe is just one of a vast, possibly infinite number of universes. Upon that (Multiverse) hypothesis then it's not surprising or improbable that there be one out of the vast range that is fit for life like ours.

It wasn't theists who came up with the Multiverse scenario---it was scientists who were trying to avoid the design inference. So your mocking remarks could hardly be more ironically misdirected, and merely serves to display how ill-informed you are about the subject under discussion.

I merely note the irony of positing a colossal or infinite number of entities that are by definition unobservable and unexperienceable by us---as the Multiverse hypothesis does---in order to avoid positing one that, though physically unobservable, many people honestly claim to have experienced, and then saying that the Multiverse alternative is more compatible with reason and science.

[Az]

18. Two flaws (at least)

Just glancing at this post and there are two important flaws.

Again it must be repeated that the universe was not designed for humans. Your statement "They look at how wildly improbable it is that the universe, if it's not teleologically directed, should turn out to be fit for human existence " clearly implies that the universe was designed for us to come about. This is entirely backwards from the process in which things came about. We are the result of this particularl universe. It is not set up for us. We are as we are because of it.

Second flaw is suggesting that the Multiverse theory was designed to account for the anthropomorphic issue. The Mutliverse theory comes from an entirely different school of thought, namely String theory. It is a reasonable conclusion based on the concepts in string theory. The fact that it also rather nicely explains the issue of starting conditions is merely reinforcement of its likely validity. It was not created in a desperate attempt to undermine creation arguments as you are suggesting.

[Stunster]

20. Far from coming from string theory

You're making things up as you go along, it seems.

Brian Greene discusses the Multiverse hypothesis in his celebrated layman's guide to string theory, THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE, pp. 364-370. As a leading string physicist, Greene himself is of the persuasion that far from there being a vast number of logically possible sets of physical laws, it will turn out that there is only one logically possible physics, and that it will be a form of string physics. That indeed is the whole thrust of his book. He favors what he calls a 'final theory' or 'ultimate theory'. So what does he have to say about the multiverse hypothesis?

Well, he entitles this section of the book COSMOLOGICAL SPECULATION AND THE ULTIMATE THEORY. Implied in that choice of title is what he obviously sees as a contrast. Let me give a few quotes:

But even beyond the issue of the initial conditions and their impact on the ensuing historical twists and turns of cosmic evolution, some recent and highly speculative proposals have argued for yet other
potential limits on the explanatory power of any final theory. No one knows if these ideas are right or wrong, and certainly they currently lie on the outskirts of mainstream science. But they do highlight---albeit in a rather provocative and speculative manner--an obstacle that any proposed final theory may encounter.
The basic idea rests upon the following possibility. Imagine that what we call the universe is actually only one tiny part of a vastly larger cosmological expanse, one of an enormous number of island universes scattered across a grand archipelago.... (p.366)

He then describes Andrei Linde's version of it. Then he writes:

As presented, it is a perspective that is diametrically opposed to the dream of a rigid, full predictive, unified theory in which things are the way they are because the universe could not be otherwise. Rather than being the epitome of poetic grace in which everything fits together with inflexible elegance, the multiverse and the anthropic principle paint a picture of a wildly excessive collection of universes with an insatiable appetite for variety. It will be extremely hard, if not impossible, for us ever to know if the multiverse picture is true.....

We should require that our ultimate theory give a quantum-mechanically consistent description of all forces and all matter. We should require that our ultimate theory give a cogent cosmology within our universe. However, if the multiverse picture is correct---a huge if---it may be asking too much for our theory to explain, as well, the detailed properties of the particle masses, charges, and the force strengths.
But we must emphasize that even if we accept the speculative premise of the multiverse, the conclusion that this compromises our predictive power is far from airtight.... For one relatively conservative musing, we can imagine that---were the multiverse picture true---we would be able to extend our ultimate theory to its full sprawling expanse, and that our 'extended ultimate theory' might tell us precisely why and how the values of the fundamental parameters are sprinkled across the constituent universes. (pp. 368-369)


Greene, in other words, who is perhaps the best known string physicist, champion and popularizer of string physics in America, is resolutely opposed to the idea of the multiverse, and hopes that it's not true, since it would threaten his dream of a final, ultimate theory. And in a last-ditch effort to fend off this conclusion, he suggests that we might be able to formulate an ultimate final theory that would comprehend the entire multiverse. He discusses how Smolin's conjecture about black holes might allow for a unified theory of even a multiverse.

If Smolin's theory is right, and if we are a typical member of a mature multiverse (these are big 'ifs' and can be debated on many fronts, of course), the parameters of the particles and forces that we measure should be optimized for black hole production. That is, any fiddling with these parameters of our universe should make it harder for black holes to form. Physicists have begun to investigate this prediction; at present there is no consensus on its validity. But even if Smolin's specific proposal turns out to be wrong, it does present yet another shape that the ultimate theory might take. The ultimate theory may, at first sight, appear to lack rigidity.....In fact, however, this discussion illustrates that an ultimate explanation can be achieved.... (pp. 369-370)

In sum, your suggestion that the multiverse derives from string theory could hardly be more off-base. Greene obviously views the multiverse with distaste, and scrambles to find ways in which it can be rendered consistent with a unified string theory. But it does not grow out of string theory!

I address your other point in a different reply.

[Az]

30. Unfortunately science is not decided by public awareness

Greene is the most known scientist advocating string theory. His book does a good job of presenting it to the public. But guess what. He's not the leading scientist on the subject. He is just one of many with his own personal theories. If he is the only one you have read then you very out of touch. His book is very old relative to the speed of research these days.

And back to the point, the multiverse theory much to Greene's horror does arise from other scientists speculating to the conditions set by string theory. Shocking I know. But there are more than one or two individuals working ons such things.

[Stunster]

17. See also this post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=8428#8664

[trotsky]

11. You may not think it should be taught in school, but...

your openness to the idea cracks the door for the cretinists to push ID (i.e., Cretinism) into the classroom. That's their goal. They failed with the direct approach, and so now the new stealth tactic is being used. Supernatural creation stories belong at home and in churches - NOT in public schools.

[davidinalameda]

21. my "openess" is a matter of faith

it's not my openess that cracks the door

but one of the things that has cracked the door is the hard core evolutionists that dismiss the whole theory (and yes, it is a theory just like evolution) as less

they're putting their faith in evolution forth as hard-core science

evolution cannot be proven to satisfy some of its critics and these are the ones who have studied and looked for the flaws

I think what it may be time to do is to stop pushing the traditional theory of evolution as fact,

I do believe that all life on earth came from that primordial soup and I happen to believe that something stirred that soup just so or added a few ingredients to get us to where we are today.

Saying that everything just happened in the right sequence is as hard to believe as a deity created the world in six days. It takes just as much faith.

[trotsky]

23. STOP

Evolution is not "just a theory."

That is an ignorant thing to say.

[davidinalameda]

26. yes it is

a lot of what we accept as scientific fact is indeed "only" theory

[trotsky]

27. Please educate yourself about evolution.

Evolution is simply the change in allele (gene) frequency in a population over time. That is known and proven.

And if "Intelligent Design" is a theory, tell me how we test it.

[Az]

28. Go check the magazine racks this week

There is an article in Discover (not my usual fare) concerning verification of the theory of evolution.

[davidinalameda]

32. no, that's mutation

ID is a belief

and why so hostile

[trotsky]

33. Nope, that is the scientific definition of evolution.

Mutation is the change of a single gene. You keep demonstrating your atrocious ignorance of evolution.

Why am I hostile? Because the same folks pushing "Intelligent Design" are the ones who want the Ten Commandments posted in courtrooms, who want gays to forever be treated as second class citizens, who want abortion outlawed, and who want their religion front and center in American life.

I intend to fight their every move with as much hostility as I can muster.

On edit: PLEASE do yourself a favor and read this basic introduction to evolution. It will clear up most of your misconceptions. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html

[davidinalameda]

38. one question

not all people who have religious beliefs are the same

so why the sweeping generalizations

or do you just not like people who have religious beliefs

[Az]

39. Looked specific to me

He is claiming to be upset with those trying to mandate their religion as law. Or were you refering to another post of his.

[davidinalameda]

41. oh okay

:shrug:

[aneerkoinos]

125. Ehm...

All science produces is theories, all science does is theory. Sometimes theory is considered so strong it is called a Law, even thoug it is clear that there is no agreement (about the finer points) even on such basic laws as gravity and thermodynamics (Newtonian gravity, General Relativity which is not in fact very falsifiable theory and thus, unlike Special Relativity, lacks strong empirical confirmation, new and versatile attempts towards understanding and explaining gravity; thermodynamics is vague in relation to living organism, Brownian motion and what is often called "order out of chaos". By "scientific facts", if we wish to be precise, we should not refer to theories aka explanations, but only the observational data.

So yes, evolution is theory, nothing less, nothing more. And I agree that ID is not a theory in the strictest sense, as it does not AFAIK make testable predictions. However, the criticism against the lack of explanatory power of materialistic evolution theories from the information oriented ID camp (and from others) is essential part of scientific discussion and progress, regardless of the motivations. Our understanding of living organisms, their mental aspects, information, time, etc. are still very limited.

Educational politics are a different matter, belonging in the domain of politicizing truth with litte or no understanding of the nature of scientific truth, which is by nature conventional, not absolute.

[trotsky]

144. A distinction.

Again, evolution is simply shifting allele frequencies within a population. We've seen it. There is no "theory" that this happens - it just does. Or, as you state, since it's observational data, evolution is a scientific fact.

The "theory" part of evolution is explaining WHY it happens. Natural selection (coupled with genetic mutation) is the prevailing theory. Considering the theory explains just about everything pertaining to evolution, it's a very strong theory.

[Stunster]

145. Systematically missing the point

The denial of evolution is not essential to ID. There are ID proponents who accept that evolution occurred (e.g. Dembski and Behe).

But, as proposed by Darwinian theorists, evolution is like a theory that 'explains' the existence of a watch solely in terms of the observed bodily movements of watchmakers, with no reference to the watchmakers' designing intelligence.

What we literally see when we look at a watchmaker at work is complicated material bodies in various states of mathematically intelligible motion, which result in the production of another material body, namely the watch. One could 'explain' watches that way. One could 'explain' functioning computers this way too. One could dispense with minds altogether, and simply note that complex bodies combined and interacted with other material in accordance with physical laws, resulting in a functioning computer.

But notice that in both cases, the resulting 'explanation' is simply the result of a methodological decision to ignore the role of intelligent minds. The ignoring of that role is not itself a scientific finding. It is simply a consequence of the analytical and explanatory paradigm being employed.

In other words, the cases of intelligent design that we 'know' about are no different in terms of standard physical observation from the cases in biology, except for the precise form and kinds of complexity involved. So, if science is meant to explain and investigate everything, there must be a scientific way of making precise what types of material motions and complexity of structure and function license an inference to intelligent design, and what types do not.

[Az]

29. Evolution: Fact and Theory

Evolution happens. There are documented examples of it both in the wild and in lab conditions. We know it happens. Just as we know gravity exists. Evolution is a fact. It is our understanding of it that is limited (as it is for all things). Thus our explanation of evolution is a theory.

So saying evolution is just a theory is not quite accurate. And proclaiming that we know everything about it certainly is inaccurate.

[lazarus]

40. So is gravity

Should we teach alternatives to that, too?

Educate yourself on what scientists mean by "theory", then we can talk.

[sam sarrha]

13. None of any of the parts can define the whole, it is just a limitation of

our perceptual abilities that create a grey space called god, because our conventional minds abhors a vacuum.. to the point of rounding of edges, adjusting visual perspective, ..it automatically fills in the blanks without us knowing it

as an old scientist and suffering PTSD from my childhood Talaban Christian experiences.... I have found the greatest wisdom for such things in Buddhism.

In Buddhism the "Origins" are not a factor and not addressed. origin is just a distraction .

the focus in life is to quit doing things that cause suffering to ourselves and others.. the 8 Fold Path. Then learn to train the mind to work as intended without distraction. There are functions/quality's of the mind that the political elements do NOT want us to use or develop. they want to keep us stirred up on crap that has no answers or solutions so that they dont have to do their jobs.. and can spend the time acquiring power and wealth at others expense.

Buddhism is not a Religion. The Buddha said that the mysticism, that apparently does exist is not the important thing in life... and is essentially a distraction. it is basically first things first.. without developing the mind.. you are a victim of these things, once the mind is developed you see it for what it is..no problem.

check out the Movie 'Little Buddha' with Keanu Reeves, Chris Isaak and Bridget Fonda, a Bernado Bertolucci film. very cute film.. stories within stories. explains it pretty well. it is at most rental Video/DVD stores

when i was a Juvenile parole officer the kids i got to meditate all got paroled in 30 to 60 days and literally changed beyond recognition into wonderful caring helpful people, who went out of their way to help others...after being really vicious offenders

[sam sarrha]

15. Religion is supposed to give people hapiness and peace of mind, but

when they take the leap to demanding i have their religion so that they can be happy i draw the line..

[BurtWorm]

22. Prove it.

;)

[sam sarrha]

37. prove what ???

[Selwynn]

43. Let me be one of the few people honest enough to tell the truth here:

I don't know enough about either intelligent design or evolutionary theory to have an informed opinion on the subject.

I don't know.

So until I do know the subject better, I choose to defer to credible experts. I have yet to find a credible expert for intelligent design who treats it as anything other than a religious faith claim.

Sel

[lazarus]

44. Heh heh

very nice, Sel. :hi:

[Nikia]

45. Microevolution is proven, macrovolution involves speculation

Microevolution is an observable phenomena. Macoevolution is a speculation based on the theory that microevolution+time= macroevolution. The fossil record is given as evidence. This all made sense to me until I discovered that evolution as shown by the fossil record didn't quite work so neatly.
"and the seas sprang forth life."
After a couple billion years of single celled organisms, all modern phylum appeared simetaneously as shown by the fossil record. This may or may not mean intelligent design, but it is something that should be studied more closely.

[Az]

46. Actually we have many examples of speciation

Not just in the fossil record. We have live examples of mutation leading to speciation in both lab and the wild. For a very detailed list of species observed diffentiating go here http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

[SlackJawedYokel]

48. Akshirley.

"and the seas sprang forth life."
That is one theory.
Called Abiogenesis, btw.

The other is that life came to the Earth from some extraterrestrial source... possibly during a metor shower.
Panspermia... or more properly, Exogenesis.

Wikipedia is a great place to start.

After a couple billion years of single celled organisms, all modern phylum appeared simetaneously as shown by the fossil record.
Ahh... I think that might be a *slight* exaggeration.
What I've read says that there were probably many, many millions of years of many different life-forms existing in that "primordial soup".

Cletus

[Zhade]

47. Intelligent Design ("Creationism is a cheap tuxedo") = Infinite Dumbassery

NT!

[rogerashton]

49. The problem with ID is that

those who oppose evolution claim that ID is contrary to evolution. It is not.

Many of the posts on this thread have focused on the anthropic principle, the idea that the conditions for the existence of life are very improbable and so the intervention of a will of some kind is a reasonable inference. I find that principle persuasive myself, since all of the counterarguments I can follow turn out to involve probablistic fallacies -- they do not accord with Bayes' Law. But the issue has to do with the conditions for life -- and therefore indeed the conditions necessary for evolution to take place. So one who affirms the anthropic principle does not deny evolution, but, presumably, affirms it.

Here's another point. Ask a biologist and she will tell you (ask my wife, in particular, and she will tell you) that there is nothing in evolutionary thinking that explains a tendency toward increasing complexity of organisms and the biosphere. Therefore, no such tendency exists. (But when we observe the history of life, we do observe such a tendency.)

It's too bad that belief contrary to reason and evidence is so common among human beings. Probably a product of our evolution -- believing whatever the local tribe believes was probably a survival trait for tens of thousands of years.

[papau]

65. I agree - evolution has nothing to do with faith - or intelligent design

Intelligent Design is a natural common feeling that is usually part of the discussion of God - as in God the creator, I do not understand it's use in a discussion of evolution. I do not believe the Catholic Church takes any position on the usefulness to science of "evolution"

It appears to be a war between the fundies and the no-God crowd - and not central to our faith.

There are at least 2000 and perhaps more years of "God the Creator because I see intelligent design" thought from very learned folks. I am always amazed by those no-God types that I consider intelligent who reject what I consider obvious, and fall back on the no path to anywhere logic of "it is because it is" - occassionaly re-package as the Anthropomorphic Principle -

Why do folks fear others seeing the existence of a teleological universe - a universe made with a purpose? It does not affect the science that they do.

Now I grant you that both sides - fundie and no-god - have tried to use the fact that the fundamental constants of the universe are within the narrow limits that allow life - one side saying we exist to observe this fact simply because if those constant were different, we would not exist - - - - while the other side says those constants are our constants because our universe was set up specifically for the purpose of our life.

And as with all matters of faith, there is no bridging the logic gap between the two camps. The No God camp says that thermodynamics explains how ordered structures will form spontaneously if the ordered structure has lower energy than the unstructured alternatives, and the faith camp says that is a law that is true in this universe that was given to us - God as law giver - or if you like - as the designer of the rules of the game.

The response is by the No God folks is that God could have done a better design if he was trying to favor humans - LOL - - followed by the power of infinity to overcome many arguments - as in infinite budding universes, or infinite contraction/expansion big bangs that eventually get around to the set of constants that permit life - and if that fails to convince, the no-God folks fall back on "faith" - LOL - and say there are laws yet to be discovered that will explain all - and most certainly they will explain all without reference to a God.

So do you - the no-god folks - feel you have an adequate explanation of the universe - with laws to be discovered to fill in the obvious gaps, and therefore you feel there is no "need" for God, - so there is no God?

Since science can not provide a proof of a universal purpose or the creator of such a purpose (or disprove such), the rules of science would seem to permit folks of faith to be scientists

But I come back to where I started - I do not understand ID's use in proving - or disproving - the usefulness of evolution.

What am I missing?

[aneerkoinos]

126. Teleology

>>>Why do folks fear others seeing the existence of a teleological universe - a universe made with a purpose? It does not affect the science that they do.<<<

I don't want to enter the speculation about the causes of such fear, at least not on this occation. I don't think teleology can be or should be a priori excluded from scientific discourse, but I think we should be extremely carefull about making teleological assumptions about the purpose of universe and ourselves. Intentionality is extremely challenging field of study in itself, and for one, it should be quite clear that presumption that universe would have a purpose, is anthropomorfic - which of course does not prove such assumption wrong.

What comes to cosmological wondering caused by the anthropic principle - the inescapable fact that this universe is tuned so that observers like us can emerge to observe it, - my Ockhamian take is that if I was the Creator Demiurge with purpose of creating observers like us, I would get off with less effort if I just turned on a random Universe generator with infinite tries (success guaranteed), than finely tweaking and tuning the initial values of just one Universe to get it rignt (quite an effort even for an omniscient and omnipotent tyrant). Of course, there may be other possibilities...

[immoderate]

76. Have your wife look up autocatalysis.

It explains how complexity comes from simplicity. With all due respect, "there is nothing in evolutionary thinking..." is a pretty sweeping statement.

--IMM

[rogerashton]

78. Actually my wife is currently doing research on

Waddington's influence, and Waddington is an important source for the idea that complexity can come from simplicity. However, can is the key word. Evolutionary processes of genetic variation and selection via fitness are equally as consistent with stasis as with emerging complexity. Consider the alligator, for example. So -- what are the chances? If the evolutionary model tells us that emerging complexity is possible, does that count as an "explanation?" Perhaps we disagree, but I would hold out for an "explanation" that tells me quantitatively that emerging complexity is probable.

Anyway, I've gotten that response from any number of very good biologists. If I remember rightly, Steven Jay Gould even tried to argue that their is no increasing complexity, since most organisms are microorganisms that are no more complex than they were hundreds of years ago.

[immoderate]

80. Why should evolution be different?

I'm not an authority nor up on the latest data, and analogies are odious, but having said that, I'll cop to having explored theories of chaos and complexity and the idea of complexity from simplicity abounds.

Some obvious examples: the Miller experiments which consistently produced amino acids from basic elements; snowflakes, which display properties like symmetry and uniqueness; Mandelbrot set, which is a plot of infinite variation and complexity based on a simple formula; various cellular automatons of artificial life, which lead to complex structures from simple instruction sets.

The notion of autocatalysis, that agents can exist which promote the creation of other structures, which in their turn can accelerate of yet other agents, supplants pure chance as the mechanism for how organic structures come about. It seems to me as obvious as natural selection.

--IMM

[rogerashton]

82. But those same processes,

with slightly different parameters, can generate series that converge rapidly to a stationary state. (I'm clear on chaos models on this point -- I'm not sure how any of this applies to snowflakes). So the question becomes, again, why did we "just happen" to get the right parameters -- as with the big bang -- IF that is what is going on. And that would be controversial among evolutionary biologists, I believe.

[immoderate]

83. Oh. THAT problem.

You got me there. Shot gun theory, maybe.

It seems out of the field for biologists, though any scientist is curious, I'm sure.

Snowflakes are more complex and ordered than the water vapor they are formed from. That usually baffles ID aficionados.

--IMM

[rogerashton]

84. I think it is more general that THAT problem, though

Suppose your position is:

1) I won't believe in evolution as long as there is any doubt -- only absolutely conclusive evidence can convince me to believe in evolution.

Of course, such evidence cannot be produced, since an all-powerful God may have put the evidence there even though evolution never occurred, to test our faith.

Most of us on this board would probably recognize 1) as prejudiced -- a rationalization for belief contrary to reason and evidence.

Now suppose your position is

2) I won't believe in ID as long as there is any doubt -- only absolutely conclusive evidence can convince me to believe in ID.

Now, Darwinian random-variation-and selection theory establishes that it is possible for the world we see to have emerged without ID, and so does complexity theory. For a person with position 2, that is enough to open a doubt, so that person does not believe in ID.

But isn't 2 just as prejudiced as 1?

[immoderate]

85. One must ake into account...

that in the world of knowledge, science and bullshit are not accorded equal weight.

--IMM

[rogerashton]

88. And it's bullshit because you say it is bullshit,

right?

[immoderate]

89. No. Tell me about the designer.

It's the difference between overwhelming and compelling evidence, and someone who says, "I think there's a designer."

Unless I missed something. Can you provide me with evidence of "The Designer?"

Thanks for the flattery though.

--IMM

[Stunster]

90. The evidence is so strong

that leading scientists like Rees, Linde and Susskind have been rushing to posit an infinity of unobservable parallel universes (aka the Multiverse) in order to avoid the design inference.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge116.html
http://www.stnews.org/guide_confirm_0105.html

The irony of positing an infinity of unobservables in order to avoid positing one infinite unobservable has not been lost on theists, I might add.

But the multiverse idea, by which the apparently fine-tuned features of this universe are to be explained by a kind of cosmic natural selection mechanism actually doesn't help overcome the basic problem affecting any alleged global explanatoriness of natural selection as a scientifically inferred mechanism.

For natural selection to work at all, it must work upon some domain.
To identify any domain whatsoever in the first place, science must find order of some kind pertaining to that domain. For example, one multiverse theorist is Smolin. But he has to construct
mathematically a physical theory in order to infer the existence of the domain upon which his natural selection mechanism is supposed to work. But if the domain in question was devoid of order altogether, Smolin couldn't mathematically construct a coherent physical theory referring to it or identifying it.

Because science always needs to discover some intelligible order as a feature of what it is investigating in order even to identify anything at all as being a physical reality, every domain upon which natural selection is proposed to operate must already be ordered in some way.

Hence, natural selection cannot be the sole explanation of order in nature, unless one posits an infinite unobservable (such as an infinite brane, as in the Randall-Sundrum model), or an infinity of unobservables----which kinda defeats the purpose of relying on natural selection in the first place, which was to explain phenomena without positing anything infinite and/or unobservable (such as God is supposed to be).

I.e. Some order, at some level of scientific analysis, must be primitive. It can't all be generated by natural selection. Or else, one must posit an infinity of some kind, which by definition must be scientifically unobservable by finite scientists.

[Az]

91. I'll see your three scientists and raise you 500+ scientists named Steve

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3697_the_list_2_16_2003.asp

[Stunster]

92. Duh

And again I say, duh.

[immoderate]

93. Let me help you out here.

What happened before the universe is very debatable. Since then though, the evidence is clear, and grows stronger constantly, that some form of evolution can account for what we see around us. The evidence of a designer, or even a design, doesn't exist.

The need for this is more readily explained by psychology than natural science.

--IMM

[Stunster]

95. Ditto

The need for this is more readily explained by psychology than natural science.

That's what I'd say about the multiverse proponents. They have a psychological need to find some way, no matter how bizarre or unverifiable or ontologically extravagant, to avoid...... "aaaaaarrrrrghhhhh, oh nooooooooo, please, noooooo...." having to posit an intelligent creator.

This is pretty evident, for example, in Martin Rees' book JUST SIX NUMBERS.

[immoderate]

100. I solved it.

On the one hand, you have an intelligent creator, unlikely, considering his (her) work. I wouldn't give him another chance. But it's not up to me and I guess a creator, given the hang of it, could create any number or an infinity of universes, so you can't say that a multiverse is impossible because god could do it.

But all the evidence points to an unintelligent creator, who though brain dead, could build up enough gas in his digestive system to bring forth the Big Fart! and that gas evolved into what we see today.

I think this is the best explanation of what happened before the universe, and it makes almost everybody happy.:bounce:

--IMM

[Stunster]

102. Please specify in detail

the logically possible alternative physics that would have produced a better world overall than the one we live in, that you think an intelligent designer ought to have instantiated.

I ask, because you seem to think that the design as we have it is evidence of the designer's unintelligence. But presumably it is only that if there is obviously a better logically possible design that a designer could have opted for. And I'm very intrigued that there is someone---namely, you---who knows and can demonstrate what this superior design alternative is, and how it would lead to a better world. Indeed, I'm surprised you haven't published a book spelling out in detail your superior world design.

Or have you?

[immoderate]

103. If I did...

then this universe would end and the new one would begin.

But before that, I think that we need to rule out my suggestion as a possibility, can you do that?

--IMM

[Stunster]

104. I'll take that

as an admission of defeat.

[Az]

105. He is using absurdity

But his point is valid. Can you rule out an unintelligent creator? Instead of Prometheus perhaps his brother Epimetheus. Can you rule out an evil creator that merely wants to create suffering? Why do you settle on the creator you have?

[Stunster]

106. Irrelevant

Can you show me an alternative physics, spelling out in detail how it would result in a better universe, with less suffering?

Because if you can't, then you have no rational basis for saying that the universe's designer, if there is one, is unintelligent.

To say of an architect that he must be unintelligent, judging by the design of some building s/he designed, you need to demonstrate the existence of a better possible design. Otherwise, it's just a gratuitous accusation.

[aneerkoinos]

129. A teleological theory

Extremely alternative physics by Matti Pitkänen does just that:

"The identification of p-adic space-time sheets as representations for intentions and the identification of p-adic-to-real phase transitions as transformations of intentions to real actions gives additional concreteness to this vision. The identification of the psychological time as the value of the geometric time characterizing the phase transition front at which p-adic-to-real phase transitions mostly occur, allows to understand psychological time as the time value around which volition is strongly concentrated. The ethics is simple: evolution is the good thing. Therefore the increase of p is good and reduction of p is bad. There are two options for identifying
moral choice: either the p:s characterizing initial and final sectors Dp are compared or the p:s characterizing various possible nal state Dp:s are compared. The latter option does not look so plausible since it predicts that our moral choices are between innite number of possible alternatives. In accordance with Hume's law values (in fact all qualities) belong to the realm of subjective existence (quantum jumps) rather than being properties of the objective world (quantum histories).
Moral rules are related to the relationship between indvidual and society and presumably develop via self-organization process and are by no means unique. Moral rules however tend to optimize evolution. There is entire hierarchy of selves and every self has the selsh desire to survive and moral rules develop as a kind of compromise and evolve all the time. The newest progress in this evolution is brought by the cosmology of consciousness, which forces to extend the concept of society to four-dimensional society! The decisions of "me now" aect both my past and future and time like quantum entanglement
makes possible conscious communication in time direction by sharing conscious experiences. One can therefore speak of genuinely fourdimensional society. Besides my next-door neighbors I had better to take into account also my nearest neighbors in past and future (the nearest ones being perhaps copies of me!). If I make wrong decisions those copies of me in future and past will suffer the most. Perhaps my personal hell and paradise are here and are created mostly by me."
http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/cbookI.html#timesc


So the "good" is what helps evolution (including "spiritual" evolution) towards a "better" universe with less suffering, "bad" is what hinders evolution. Each of us is a "designer".

QED

[VegasWolf]

142. Good! So now we are approaching in physics what has been taught

in existentialism since Sarte.

[immoderate]

107. Ok, so I'm a failure as a creator of universes.

How does that help your point?

We never got around to the platypus. What was the designer's intention there? Indeed, a design implies a purpose. Mybe the designer designed the universe so we could have this conversation. But that is not evident.

From what I see here, you're saying that since you find the argument for multiple universes flawed, therefore there must be a designer. And you don't allow for any other possibilities.

That you could use the fact that I can't design a better universe as an argument highlights the paucity of that position.

--IMM

[Stunster]

108. The argument is very simple

You are suggesting that the design of this universe is evidence of the designer's unintelligence, assuming it had a designer.

Unless you can show that there is a superior alternative design that a designer could and should have instantiated, your inference is rationally without foundation.

It is totally ridiculous to point to one small bit of the universe, and say you can imagine how it could have been better designed, unless you can show how it could have been designed better. So, for platypuses to be different and better, there would have to be a different and better physics, because they are products of the physics we have. Change the physics by all means---but what else would be a consequence of changing the physics?

If you grasp the science involved, as presented in books like Rees' JUST SIX NUMBERS, you'd see what the difficulty is.

Tiny changes in the basic laws of the universe lead to lifeless, valueless universes.

[immoderate]

109. I understand the six numbers.

I don't see that implies an intelligent designer. My unintelligent designer does just as good a job as far as I'm concerned.

It seems to me that ID proponents base their assertions on "one small bit of the universe." It's not very compelling.

"Tiny changes in the basic laws of the universe lead to lifeless, valueless universes."

Subjective. Value is a construct of sentient beings. You value life because you live. I consider life to be precious, priceless, and sacred. But I'm not impartial.

Theories of the universe abound, and ID is one of the weaker ones. I can't see why you are wedded to it.

As far as I can tell, given our current state of knowledge, what happens outside the universe, stays outside the universe.

--IMM

[Stunster]

110. The question at issue

is whether the 'design of the universe' is intelligent or unintelligent. You've provided no evidence to show that it's unintelligent. (I'm using the phrase 'design of the universe' here in a sense intended to be neutral as to whether there is a conscious intelligent designer of the 'design').

Large numbers of scientists are impressed by 'the design of the universe' too. They notice that it displays a profound, mathematically intelligible order. I can't think of any physicist who says that the physics of the universe shows a lack of intelligence or exhibits a poor design.

ID applies to the whole universe, in principle. It's not as if the ID theorists are saying "Bacteria are intelligently designed, but stars are not."

You mentioned the platypus. Let's say the platypus got to be the way it did because of a genetic mutation, and let's say genetic mutations are governed by quantum mechanics. (Both claims would be generally supported by the scientific community.)

How would this show a lack of intelligence on the part of a designer, if there is a designer? It turns out that quantization is absolutely crucial for the existence of life. The excerpt below explains why, in the context of talking about multiverses, and the more I think about what this guy is saying, the more convinced I become that he's completely right:

The multiverse generator itself, whether of the inflationary variety or some other type, seems to need to be "well-designed" in order to produce life-sustaining universes. After all, even a mundane item like a bread machine, which only produces loaves of bread instead of universes, must be well designed as an appliance and must have the right ingredients (flour, water, yeast, and gluten) to produce decent loaves of bread. If this is right, then invoking some sort of multiverse generator as an explanation of the fine-tuning serves to kick the issue of design up one level, to the question of who designed the multiverse generator.

The inflationary multiverse scenario, widely considered the most physically viable, provides a good test case of this line of reasoning. The inflationary multiverse-generator can only produce life-sustaining universes (or regions of space-time) because it has the following "components" or "mechanisms:"

1) A mechanism to supply the energy needed for the bubble universes: This mechanism is the hypothesized inflaton field. By imparting a constant energy density to empty space, as space expands the inflaton field can act "as a reservoir of unlimited energy" for the bubbles (Peacock,1999, p. 26).

2) A mechanism to form the bubbles: This mechanism is Einstein's equation of general relativity. Because of its peculiar form, Einstein's equation dictates that space expand at an enormous rate in the presence of a field, such as the inflaton field, that imparts a constant (and homogenous) energy density to empty space. This causes both the bubble universes to form and the rapid expansion of the pre-space which keeps the bubbles from colliding.

3) A mechanism to convert the energy of inflaton field to the normal mass/energy we find in our universe. This mechanism is Einstein's relation of the equivalence of mass and energy combined with an hypothesized coupling between the inflaton field and normal mass/energy fields we find in our universe.

4) A mechanism that allows enough variation in constants of physics among universes: Currently, the most physically viable candidate for this mechanism is superstring or m-theory. Superstring theory might allow enough variation in the variations in the constants of physics among bubble universes to make it reasonably likely that a fine-tuned universe would be produced, but no one knows for sure. (4)

Without all these "components," the multiverse generator would almost certainly fail to produce a single life-sustaining universe. If, for example, the universe obeyed Newton's theory of gravity instead of Einstein's, the vacuum energy of the inflaton field would at best simply create a gravitational attraction causing space to contract, not to expand.

In addition to the four factors listed above, the inflationary multiverse generator can only produce life-sustaining universes because the right background laws are in place. Specifically, the background laws must be such as to allow the conversion of the mass-energy into material forms that allow for the sort of stable complexity needed for life. For example, without the principle of quantization, all electrons would be sucked into the atomic nuclei and hence atoms would be impossible; without the Pauli-exclusion principle, electrons would occupy the lowest atomic orbit and hence complex and varied atoms would be impossible; without a universally attractive force between all masses, such as gravity, matter would not be able to form sufficiently large material bodies (such as planets) for complex, highly intelligent life to develop or for long-lived stable energy sources such as stars to exist. (5)

In sum, even if an inflationary multiverse generator exists, it, along with the background laws and principles have to have just the right combination of laws and fields for the production of life-permitting universes: if one of the components were missing or different, such as Einstein's equation or the Pauli-exclusion principle, it is unlikely that any life-permitting universes could be produced. In the absence of alternative explanations, the existence of such a system suggests design since it seems very surprising that such a system would have just the right components as a brute fact, but not surprising under the theistic design hypothesis. Thus, it does not seem that one can completely escape the suggestion of design merely by hypothesizing some sort of multiverse generator.... The full article is here:
http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/finetune/stanford%20multiverse%20talk.htm#_1_6

ID theory can be construed very simply as asking, "What is the correct science of intelligent design?" We know, or think we know that there is such a thing as intelligent design in reality (welcome signs, cars, watches, skyscrapers, AI robots, architects, computer scientists, rocket scientists, etc). If this is true, then there ought to be some scientific basis for, and way of, differentiating instances of intelligent design from instances which are not those of intelligent design. What are the differentiating criteria? We don't know yet, is how I would answer. But there might well be some such criteria which a science of intelligent design could discover. If there are, and we discover what they are, then we could look at the data of biology to see if they are present in those data.

As standardly taught, Darwinian evolution says, "No intelligent design--it all happened without that." For that to be a genuinely scientific claim, then it needs to be falsifiable--there needs to be a type of empirical evidence such that, if it were ever found, would tend to falsify the "no intelligent design" claim in question. Ok, what would tend to falsify that claim? Well, evidence of intelligent design, of course! But in that case, it's absolutely crucial that we have a clear, scientifically derived idea of what such evidence would look like, were it ever to be discovered. After all, how do we know that watches are intelligently designed? One might answer that we can see watchmakers at work. But what we literally see when we see watchmakers at work are just complex material, functional, bodily movements and processes. And that's so even if we're looking at the watchmaker's brain. Why is it that some complex, material, functional, bodily movements and processes license an inference to intelligent design, while others do not? I think that's a genuine scientifically respectable question, at least it is if Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a scientifically respectable pursuit.

Without a clear idea of how to differentiate in general between intelligently designed structures from structures that are not intelligently designed, then there's no way to tell whether anything we observe is intelligently designed or not, including watches, waves lapping on a seashore, computers, pyramids, dogs, aircraft or bacterial reproduction. And it's that clear idea which a general science of intelligent design ought to yield.

Think of the alternatives. Either there is a general science of intelligent design that yields clear criteria for assessing whether something is or isn't intelligently designed, or there is no such science possible. If there is such a science, then it should yield the clear criteria, and we can then apply them to the study of living species as much as to anything else. We can apply the criteria to holes dug by dogs, and to skyscraper buildings in New York, and to the reproductive mechanisms of hippopotami, and to AI robots.

But if there is no such science even possible, then we can never scientifically distinguish between something being intelligently designed or something that is not intelligently designed (which would mean that Darwinian evolution and ID would be in the same boat, since the denial of intelligent design and the affirmation of it both imply that there is a clear criterion for making the distinction).

But if there are instances of intelligent design, but no science of intelligent design, then that would mean that science can't answer all meaningful questions. Alternatively, we might say that there is no such thing as 'intelligent design', and hence even skyscrapers, and watches, and watchmaking factories are not intelligently designed any more than nonhuman living species are. But at least for now, that seems to be decidedly counter-intuitive.

So if there is a real distinction between being intelligently designed and not being intelligently designed, and if science can answer in principle all meaningful questions about reality, then it ought, in principle, to be able to yield criteria differentiating between being intelligently designed and not being intelligently designed.

[immoderate]

111. Or maybe we just got lucky.

You did a lot of work here, and I appreciate that, though I may not deserve it. I see hypotheticals and intuitions there, but nothing that leads to a compelling conclusion.

I think Darwin makes a good case.(!) I don't think Darwinians have postulated there's no designer, he's just superfluous to their scheme.

I'm not mathematically steeped enough to really argue over the possible validity of the abstractions you cite. And I do see them as abstractions. Like the magnanimous benediction of someone who refers to the "great father of us all." A concept designed to encourage emotional comfort and unity. I feel no more qualified to argue the details of bubble universe, than the number of fairies that can dance on the head of a pin, and I know a lot about dancing.

Again, I see using the conclusion to prove the hypothesis, and that is flawed logic. You allow that our current knowledge cannot verify this position, why rule out hypotheses as yet unproposed?

And, if it is so important that the designer have intelligence, could you tell me, what was he thinking? And what is he doing now?

--IMM

[Stunster]

112. "using the conclusion to prove the hypothesis"

How do Darwinian theorists not do that?

ID theory is essentially asking these questions:

"Is there ever any scientific evidence for intelligent design, in general? What type of evidence is it? Ok, and do we find any of that type of evidence in the data we observe in the biological world?"

How is that coming to a conclusion to prove the hypothesis?

To me, it looks like it's the Darwinians who are trying to close off these questions by philosophical fiat. But it strikes me that if science is supposed to be about everything there really is, then it ought to be about intelligence, and about design, and about minds, among many other things. We think we know that there is intelligence, and we think we know that there is design, and we think we know that there are minds. Ok, what makes us think this in general--what evidence do have for thinking this? And could whatever makes us think this in general be applicable to an understanding of the biological world? I don't see what is unscientific about that in principle. Nor do I see any questions being begged.

Rather than ID coming to the conclusion before the facts, it strikes me that it is Darwinian evolutionism that's determined to come to the conclusion before the facts, namely the conclusion that "No, there's no intelligent design involved." By contrast, ID is construable as asking---"What would be scientific evidence of intelligent design in general? And do we find any such evidence in the biological world?" Which is not the closing-off of anything at all, because it could be that with scientific criteria for intelligent design in hand, it turns out that none of those criteria are fulfilled in the biological data. Once we know how to recognize intelligent design, in other words, we could find that there is no evidence for it in what we observe about living species. But it strikes me that science hasn't yet determined what the criteria are, if there are any. What's the scientific basis for saying watches are intelligently designed, but orangutans are not?

The Darwinian conclusion is that there is no intelligent design at work--I mean that's what this controversy is all about, is it not? But how can they know that unless we know what the difference is in general between something being intelligently designed and something not being intelligently designed? What's the difference between, say, watchmaking or skyscrapermaking or aircraftmaking on the one hand, and evolution of living species on the other, as regards what we can physically observe and with respect to whether there is any intelligent designing going on? What's the scientific basis for saying watches are intelligently designed, but orangutans are not? Well, to answer that, we'd need a correct scientific theory of intelligent design.

But unless you answer that question, there is simply no way to say, and no scientific basis for the claim that a conscious designing intelligence is 'superfluous'! That would be like saying the watchmaker's mind is scientifically 'superflous'---all that's needed for the watches to be produced is his body to move in the right way, which can be completley accounted for by biochemistry, anatomy, and so on....

Go back to the AI comparison. Suppose someone designs an intelligent computer or robot. Then we all blow ourselves up in a nuclear war, or die out through global warming. But these robots survive, and are so intelligent that they can make other robots. Etc. Now, along come humanoid-type aliens, and they see the robots all over the planet Earth, engaged in complex material movements and functional behavior. Would the aliens be unscientific in positing that these robots as a species originated through the action of some intelligent designer(s)?

I think it's that kind of issue that ID essentially addresses.

Obviously, we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that ID posits as having created living organisms, or the universe as a whole. But we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that was behind the construction of the pyramids either, and yet we infer that there must have been some.

Even more to the point: we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that we infer is responsible for making watches, even if we are standing at the shoulder of a master craftsman as he goes about making watches. What we literally see when we're standing at the craftsman's shoulder is a complex series of material, bodily movements. Hands moving, picking up things, using things they have picked up to put other things together, etc, producing in the end a watch. Is this any more 'artificial' or 'complex' (other than as a matter of degree) than what we observe when we watch DNA at work, producing and reproducing cells? Oh, and if we opened up the craftsman's skull and looked at his brain, we'd see more of the same---complex, material, functional movements. In other words, we never literally observe 'intelligent agency' except as an inference from complex material movements, even if we're watching a human being building a castle or making a watch! Nor do we physically observe our own minds. We are consciously aware of them, however.

In every case where we posit a conscious intelligent designing agency or a 'rational mind at work', we don't see it physically. We are either simply consciously aware of it (in the case of our own mind), or infer it from bodily movements (in the case of other minds). God is like other people's minds in this respect (we see something physical--their bodily motions--and we infer something mental, indeed, we infer that they have a mind like ours). And we think we have minds of our own simply because we're consciously aware of having them.

Also, many people have claimed to be simply consciously aware of God's presence. So the evidence for the existence of other people's minds, and the evidence for the existence of our own minds, is just like the evidence ID suggests that we have for God--it's the same general type of evidence, and rests upon a) the observation of complex, ordered physical movements and processes, and b) additionally upon our direct awareness of our own consciousness making it reasonable to posit the existence of minds in general.

I see no scientific reason for not treating the detection of rational minds being at work as a scientifically respectable enterprise. If aliens discover the robots we left behind, would they say, oh, it's silly and unscientific to ask whether these were intelligently designed? I see no scientific reason for thinking such a thing.

Ah, but perhaps we simply can't go beyond this universe when asking such things? Oh, ok then. In other words, just assume what needs to be proven and is the issue at stake, namely, whether all explanations of phenomena in this world have a purely this-worldly character! How brilliant---and illogical!

[Stunster]

113. A scientific way

of saying that it's not scientifically rational to believe that something occurred a certain way is to say that the odds against it happening that way are 44 billion to 1 against.

Standard probabilistic reasoning looks at the odds involved.

The well known British cosmologist Fred Hoyle compared the creation of life happening by chance, in terms of the odds against, as being like the putting together of all the parts of a Boeing 747 to make a functioning plane by means of a wind sweeping through a yard containing all the disassembled parts. That was just Hoyle's colorful way of saying that it didn't happen that way, because the odds against it happening by chance are too astronomical. In other words, he thought it was irrational to think such a thing.

So, when people say, "Maybe we just got lucky", they are in fact being scientifically irrational.

It didn't happen by chance. How it did happen is another question. But it wasn't luck.

To avoid this conclusion is essentially why people came up with the multiverse idea. But even that idea cannot explain the origin of all order, because the multiverse, to be identified as something real at all, must conform to the mathematical order expressed by the equations of physics which posit and describe the multiverse.

So we need to look at the best abductive hypothesis for order being ontologically primitive.

One explanation is essentially Platonic. This says that the universe/multiverse-generating equations or cosmic computer code are logically necessary, eternal, and necessarily unique, and necessarily self-instantiating.

The other explanation is theistic---there's a transcendent mind.

Since we only know of Platonic mathematical entities as being essentially things that can be comprehended by minds, and we only ever encounter them as being the contents of minds, and we never see Platonic entities being causally efficacious in the absence of minds, and we are familiar with minds being causally efficacious (we decide to lift our arm, and up it goes), and since all the computer code we know of ultimately flows from the conscious minds of programmers, it seems a more reasonable and economic and elegant explanation to posit a transcendent Mind, whose contents include the universe/multiverse-generating equations/cosmic computer code.

There is simply nothing unreasonable about this abductive inference, relative to its competitors. Au contraire.

[immoderate]

114. There's room for flights of fancy.

And I'll admit my AADD is acting up when I'm trying to penetrate your arguments. But I'll be glad to let you know where I'm coming from.

Darwin didn't have a preconception of his theory. It came about as he observed the species that had evolved in the Galapagos. The museums are full of documentation of his system. The fossil record, experimental biology, microbiology, genetics, physics, astronomy all contribute evidence to support it without having reexamine the basic principles of science. Your arguments are going to the fringe of imagination and philosophical thought. Two different arenas here. Darwin was about origin of species, not origin of life.

IDers I encounter, and they are rare, are creationists, trying to evade the heavy boot of the advance of science. To me, it's an apologism.

Loved Fred Hoyle's books. To bad he was consistently wrong on cosmology. He assumes life to be a random event. There's much evidence it's not. Miller's experiments for instance. Some might say the universe is "designed" this way, with a tendency toward complexity. But again we've shifted the argument to the realm of speculation and philosophy, where familiar words have to be redefined.

I like the story of the robots and the aliens. But why be so selective about our assumptions? These aliens possess intergalactic travel. They would be very smart. They would chuckle and and say, "Not those old ID arguments again!" They would already know about our downfall from studying the light waves that emanated from our planet millennia before. If they didn't know about us in advance, why would they come here? The odds are even more daunting than Fred Hoyle's speculation on the probability of life.

Do all IDers know what you know? What's the basis of their understanding? Would they understand your arguments about the nature of science? No, they're creationists, getting their feet in the door. And there are a few who've taken it to the level of fairy dancing.

--IMM

[Stunster]

116. Does the stuff in museums come with labels

saying "Not Intelligently Designed"?

How do we know if something is intelligently designed or not? In general, and scientifically?

That's the key question. You see a guy making a watch, and you say, "He intelligently designed the watch". What scientific observation did you make to come to that conclusion? What type of empirical evidence did you rely on? How do you know that it didn't just happen by nature, with atoms moving here, there, and everywhere, and thus resulting in the watch?

Unless you answer that question correctly, there's no scientific basis for denying or affirming that the watch was intelligently designed.

Now you look at genes, and you see them moving this way and that, and then producing a tiger. And you conclude the tiger was not intelligently designed. What scientific observation did you make to come to that conclusion. "Oh, I don't need to posit any intelligent design involved in the genes-to-tiger process". Ok, then why do you need to posit any intelligent design in the watchmaker's bodily movements-to-watch process? Why not just say of the watch that there was no intelligent design involved in its production, and that it "can all be explained" by observed movements of molecules (the molecules of the watchmaker's body), without positing any intelligent design?

What I'm getting at is that the statement "This was intelligently designed" said of the watch, and the statement "This was not intelligently designed" said of the tiger cannot be verified or falsified unless you have a scientific criterion for deciding when something is intelligently designed or not. So, the Darwinian statement "Tigers were not intelligently designed" is either scientific, and hence depends on such a prior scientific criterion for being intelligently designed not being empirically observed to obtain in the case of tigers; or else it's simply a nonscientific statement deriving from a philosophical worldview. So if it's the former, what is the scientific criterion in question?

Either instances of intelligent design exist or they don't. But if there are instances of intelligent design (let's say the Egyptian pyramids are some instances), then what's the scientific basis for coming to that conclusion? Unless you show what are the general criterion (or criteria) is for something being intelligently designed, then it makes no scientific sense to affirm or deny of anything that it was intelligently designed.

[immoderate]

117. Our understanding of evolution and natural selection...

effects actions we take in caring for the environment, developing pharmaceuticals, and treating disease. How would the introduction of the intelligent designer change anything we do?

Why are arguing about something that can't be defined?

--IMM

[Stunster]

118. Well, for one thing

a lot of people act from religious motives. For example, I pray, go to Mass, give money to the poor, and so on for religious motives. And I think those motives are rational in part because I believe the world was intelligently designed.

I don't believe that I do those things simply because of genetic variation plus natural selection.

[immoderate]

119. Praying and going to mass, that's understandable, but

giving money to the poor and other acts of charity can be prompted by other reasons as well. But your reasons are of course, your own.

How would you change disease control, or environmental management, knowing the designer is looking over your shoulder? Maybe by cutting research money and environmental regs. If we really screw up, will the designer step in, or should we go with what we know?

--IMM

[Stunster]

120. Without an intelligent designer

reason itself would be problematic.

We'd have to assume that what we call reason and what we call unreason were both products of genetic variation and natural selection. This would give us a reason to believe that rational behavior is adaptive, and presumably that having that belief itself is adaptive, but it wouldn't rationally ground the belief that our cognitive equipment when functioning properly yields true science. After all, monkeys have cognitive equipment, and when it functions properly it's presumably adaptive. But it would be an invalid inference to suggest that from these two facts we can conclude that monkey minds yield true science.

The problem is that there are millions of species whose behavior is adaptive. They don't just for that reason have true beliefs about the world. Monkeys and other species may or may not have beliefs, but we generally don't think they hold them on the basis of scientific reasoning. Whatever beliefs they have, they are presumably adaptive. But they've got nothing to do with scientific reasoning.

But hold on. If we are just like monkeys with respect to how our beliefs are formed--that they come about through natural selection upon a domain of genes---then there's no reason to attribute to us any better basis for having our beliefs than that they are adaptive. But as in the case of those other species, there's a difference between having a belief because it's adaptive to have it, and having it because it is justified by scientific reasoning. So what makes us think that in our case our beliefs are justified by scientific reasoning? Or is 'scientific reasoning' just a name for a particular adaptive behavioral process?

If it's the latter, then we don't have any rational grounds for thinking that our scientific beliefs are true or that our cognitive equipment reliably leads to truth about the world. After all, on the no intelligent designer view, our cognitive equipment merely serves to adapt us to our environment. But other species' cognitive equipment also serves them to adapt them to their environment, and that's quite compatible with them not knowing any scientific truths about the world. So adaptiveness can't be the sole basis for cognitive equipment to yield scientific truth about the world. Some cognitive equipment can be very adaptive, and not yield any scientific truths about the world.

Hence, if evolutionary materialism is true, we don't have a rational basis for believing it's true. We don't, in other words, have a rational basis for believing that reason is a good guide to knowing truths about the world. We might, relative to some alien species, be as scientifically dumb as monkeys appear to be to us.

[immoderate]

121. Reason is problematic.

I think we're demonstrating that, and we're not even the best example.

--IMM

[Stunster]

123. Ha!

Speak for yourself!

:beer:
:beer:
:beer:
:beer:
:beer:
:beer:

[Stunster]

115. And a PS to #113

In addition to accounting for the mathematical design apparent in physical nature, theism also looks to be a plausible abductive hypothesis when accounting for the data of moral experience, religious experience, aesthetic experience, as well as just the plain old existence of reason, consciousness, and of a world in general, compared to Platonism and materialism.

[rogerashton]

94. I said,

that some people would evaluate those two symmetrical statements on different bases, and that fits the definition of prejudice. You agreed that you would evaluate the two symmetrical statements on different bases.

I didn't understand anything else you said.

But I don't say that makes it bullshit.

[immoderate]

101. When did we establish they're symmetrical?

Maybe in the way that opposites are symmetrical.

Pick out one thing you didn't understand and we can shine the light on it. What did I say that wasn't clear?

--IMM

[aneerkoinos]

127. Ex nihilo

We have a very strong intuition and logical reluctance against accepting any ex nihilo arguments, as in emerging complexity e.g. in such subsystems as evolutionary biology or Mandelbrot sets. But it is quite evident that such problems arise only when the frame of study is too narrowly defined, evolution is interaction between organisms and their enviroment, complexity of a Mandelbrot set becomes evident only when the potentiality of the algorithm is manifested through space time actualities. Yep, we can't make much sense about this stuff without age old Greek philosophical notions of potentiality and actuality, and holism, which also play a crucial role in our understanding of quantum domain.

Dynamic self-organizing processes is the name of the day, and the Heraclitian metaphore of beings as semi-autonomous whirlpools in the stream of becoming is very helpfull.

[Stunster]

50. Two questions about Darwinian evolution

It strikes me that there is a sense in which Intelligent Design must be a scientific hypothesis, even if it's one for which there is as yet no evidence (a claim which, of course, its proponents dispute).

The reason for saying so is that if Darwinian evolution is

A) a scientific hypothesis

and

B) one that asserts or entails that the evolution of species did not occur by intelligent design,

then the claim of 'no intelligent design' must be falsifiable. But what would falsify it is strong evidence of intelligent design. However, if nothing is allowed even to count as evidence of intelligent design, then the 'no intelligent design' claim is not falsifiable. But then it would not itself be a scientific claim, since one generally accepted mark of scientific claims is that they are falsifiable.

In other words, if Darwinian evolution is a genuine scientific theory, then it must be the case that something could count as evidence against it. And if it includes as a core component of the theory the denial of intelligent design, then it must be the case that something could count as evidence of intelligent design.

Now, it is often charged against the ID proponents that they don't come up with anything that would be evidence for their hypothesis that can't be accounted for by Darwinian mechanisms. But then Darwinians don't come up with anything that would be evidence for their hypothesis that can't be accounted for by the ID hypothesis.

It is not as if evolutionary biology is a completed inquiry. It is an ongoing scientific research program, with some things that are still to be explained. So the question arises, at what point, if any, do we decide that this research program is never going to be satisfactorily completed?

After all, if ID proponents point out that X has yet to be explained by Darwinian mechanisms, meaning that it has not yet been shown that X actually arose by Darwinian mechanisms, is it really sufficient to say, indefinitely, in reply "Well, yes, we haven't yet shown that X arose by Darwinian mechanisms. But we Darwinians think it's possible it did, and you can't prove that it's impossible"?

If the Darwinian can say "it might have occurred by Darwinian mechanisms" forever, then how is this different empirically from saying "it might have been designed that way"? Surely one has to specify, as part of the theory, what would count as evidence against it were it to be discovered?

This charge is usually made against the ID theorists. But it seems to me that the Darwinians are in the same boat---they have to specify, as part of their theory, what would count as evidence of intelligent design, were it to be discovered. Because if they don't specify empirical criteria of falsifiability, then they're really not much better off than the ID theorist. But, ironically, as soon as they do specify such criteria, then that would make ID a scientific hypothesis in the sense that there would be empirical observations which even Darwinians would, ex hypothesi, agree in advance to count as confirmatory of intelligent design, were they to occur.

My question is, therefore, have Darwinians ever collectively individually specified, as part of their own theory, what would count for them as evidence of intelligent design? Because if they haven't, then it seems to me that their own theory cannot be falsified, and hence cannot be scientific in the full sense of the term.

Of course, at the moment, it seems that since there is no agreement as to what would count as evidence for or against it, Intelligent Design cannot be confirmed or falsified and hence, to that extent, it cannot be a scientific theory. But my question is asking in essence, whose fault is that? If Darwinians don't specify what they would consider as falsifying their theory, then that just means, not that there isn't or couldn't be empirical evidence for ID, but merely that Darwinians are never going to count anything as such evidence.

One evidential criterion that has been proposed by ID theorists is the notion of 'irreducible complexity'. So, my second question is this:

Regardless of whether anything has been shown to be irreducibly complex in the relevant sense (and I realize that Darwinians contend that nothing has been so shown), would Darwinians accept that if something were to be shown to be irreducibly complex, this would count as evidence for ID, and hence would confer upon ID the status of being an empirically supported scientific hypothesis? And if not irreducible complexity, what else might count as an evidential criterion for disconfirming the Darwinian theory?

[Az]

51. A couple of issues

But first I will answer the question you got around to in the end. An example of an irreducible aspect of some critter would not be an instant win for ID. It is not a case of Evolution or ID. An irreducibly complex find would merely be refutation for the current theory of Evolution. It doesn't mean instant death for Evolution either. It merely means that our current understanding is flawed and we would have to reconsider the facts with the new evidence in play. What would be the result of that consideration depends on the evidence and not on front loading the question in an either or state.

As to what would constitute evidence for ID it depends on the theory the IDer's present. It is not our job to define the criteria of a theory we believe to be flawed. Thats your job. Our job is to examine the criteria you set up and judge whether it is a valid theory and examine the evidence provided. Then we get to try to tear it apart and present evidence that refutes your claim. Generally fun for all.

The theory of Evolution in no way mentions or demands anything concerning ID. It has no need to prove ID wrong. Its not a competition. The theory of Evolution only has to defend it's own claims.

Interestingly enough scientists have developed a means of testing evolution. Using a program called Avida they are able to create a miriad of generations of coded entities within a computer. By setting rewards for certain behaviour or mutations they are able to watch how evolution works over time. Its quite an interesting read. The current issue of Discover (not my prefered science journal) has an accessible article concerning this study.

The relatively recent advent of genetics and the Human Genome project has rather cemented the theory of evolution though. There is just too much evidence in the genetic code to even rationally question the theory of evolution any longer.

Consider Junk DNA. Between active strands of DNA there are huge tracts of DNA that no longer serves any purpose. Junk DNA can mutate with no effect on the species. The interesting thing about it is it can serve as a road map to mutation and the branchs of various species evolutionary tree.

Each time a mutation occurrs in a section of Junk DNA it is preserved from that point forward in the species. Its like a roadmark on the map. We can look at various similar species and find the same errors in the Junk DNA sections originating in shared ancestor from the past. In this way we can build a superior understanding of how various species are related to each other. Everything ties together far too nicely for us not to accept that evolution is the answer to how things came to be.

[Stunster]

52. Not sure this does the trick

But first I will answer the question you got around to in the end. An example of an irreducible aspect of some critter would not be an instant win for ID. It is not a case of Evolution or ID. An irreducibly complex find would merely be refutation for the current theory of Evolution. It doesn't mean instant death for Evolution either. It merely means that our current understanding is flawed and we would have to reconsider the facts with the new evidence in play. What would be the result of that consideration depends on the evidence and not on front loading the question in an either or state.

This exemplifies the type of response which motivated my post. Substitute for 'irreducible complexity' something else, and you could re-type it word for word. But the upshot is that nothing ever gets to count as falsifying the Darwinian theory since you can always claim that it's just the current form of the theory that's wrong, but that with a bit of tweaking it will be able to accomodate the finding. It's like saying, "Well, we don't know how this happened, but we know it wasn't intelligently designed to happen that way. And how do we know? We know because our theory doesn't allow for intelligent design."

As to what would constitute evidence for ID it depends on the theory the IDer's present. It is not our job to define the criteria of a theory we believe to be flawed. Thats your job.

I resent you attributing to me a belief in ID by using the word 'your'. You should have written 'their'. I'm approaching this not as a partisan of ID, but in terms of the philosophy of science. Since the dispute between ID and Darwinian evolution often centers around a demarcation dispute as to what is science and what isn't, it's important to investigate that issue, regardless of whether Darwinian evolution is true or not. After all, the usual cry made against ID is that "it's not science", whereas Darwinian evolution is. But if Darwinian evolution is also saying that ID is not true, which on a common reading is what it does say, then that statement ought to be empirically testable if Darwinian evolution claims scientific status for itself. On the other hand, if Darwinian evolution is not saying that ID isn't true, then what's all the fuss about?

In other words, I am trying to get a more precise handle on what the fuss is all about.

The theory of Evolution in no way mentions or demands anything concerning ID. It has no need to prove ID wrong. Its not a competition. The theory of Evolution only has to defend it's own claims.

I question this. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Darwinian evolutionary theory says that no intelligent design was involved in the emergence of living species, and that it all happened via random genetic mutation, natural selection and genetic drift without any conscious purpose being a causal factor. Isn't that the basic idea--the claim that no conscious design was involved---which people understood Darwin to be implying, and hence made Darwin and Darwinism so controversial?

If that is a genuinely scientific claim, as against a philosophical one, then it ought to be falsifiable and so Darwinian scientists ought to tell us how it would be falsifiable. I suspect that they are reluctant to do so even in principle because that would render ID more scientifically respectable by showing how ID could come to be empirically supported. As standardly taught, Darwinian evolution says 'no intelligent design--it all happened without that.' Ok, well what would tend to falsify that claim?

The relatively recent advent of genetics and the Human Genome project has rather cemented the theory of evolution though. There is just too much evidence in the genetic code to even rationally question the theory of evolution any longer.

How so? The Human Genome project is a project investigating the genes of one species, namely human beings, is it not? How would this mapping of the human genetic code show that these genes were naturally selected, having originated in a different species, and that they were not intelligently designed? What you are calling 'junk DNA' presumably wasn't always junk. You yourself write, "there are huge tracts of DNA that no longer serves any purpose." The implication is that it once 'served a purpose'. That means it once carried an adaptive advantage, and that on its own is quite compatible with it being intelligently designed. Many ID proponents do not deny evolution happened, after all. (E.g. some of them admit there is common descent). They just deny that it happened exclusively through Darwinian or other purely natural mechanisms.

Also, to talk about 'errors' in DNA code ironically suggests design. It is intelligent designers who make errors. Nature, on the other hand, just does whatever it does. So it would be better to say 'non-adaptive'. But given some changes in a species' genetic code and some environmental changes, it's hardly surprising that something that was once adaptive becomes non-adaptive. It doesn't follow that it wasn't intelligently designed in the first place, any more than a ruined castle suggests that it wasn't intelligently designed in the first place. And of course, mutations are presumably governed by the laws of physics, and it's hard to make sense of the idea that those laws have 'errors' in them.

[Solon]

53. OK, I'll bite...

Az is correct, Evolutionary theory makes no presumptions about ID scientifically. Basically Mr. Evolution says: "As far as the facts collected so far, and our understanding of those facts, there has been no evidence that an intelligent designer has influenced Evolution." This is basically a lack of data, no scientific theory, that I know of, would make any conclusions before the data comes in. Evolution is silent on ID for precisely that reason, we have no data to support it, and the data some claim supports ID is not without flaws. There needs to be a body of evidence that comes out for ID to be accepted, and the problem is the data isn't there. Darwin did not write Origin of the Species before he set sail on the S.S. Beagle, why do so many people think he did?

On your comment on the Human Genome project, a few things: Number one, you seem to be splitting hairs over Az's use of language, on the first comment, he should have basically said that there are huge tracts of genetic code that our no longer used by our species, they were used by our predecessors. Basically, as species evolve into their niche, there are leftovers from past species that they descended from, this leads to a map that we can follow back in time, a genetic fossil record if you will, that allows us to see how and more importantly when our species split off with others. Whether its to the "Missing Link" between us and the Great Apes, or whether it is looking back to the first split between Mammalian Order, Reptiles, and Dinosauria(Avian) order hundreds of millions of years ago. I'm sure, if scientists looked hard enough in our genetic code, we would have the genes necessary for growing scales and how they evolved into fur, but not feathers. The reason for that is that we are descended from Mammal-like reptiles of hundreds of millions of years ago that branched from reptiles and yet birds are in a different branch of the same reptilian source, the Dinosauria, depending on the classification system, they are sometimes still included in the Dinosauria order, I'll keep that for simplicity sakes.

This way, by critically examining the DNA of various species, a more complete picture can emerge about the origin and evolution of not just our species but all species on the planet. This holds true for many other examples, another would be bipedal-ism, this has been displayed in only two orders of animals, Mammals and Dinosauria(Aves), as above, this means they evolved independently and not as a direct evolutionary path. In fact, by examining the bone structures, they are not remotely similar, but using DNA is simply another source for for facts, to either verify or disprove whether horses could ever really grow feathers. :) Its called compare and contrast, simple really.

The thing I want to get across the most is this, Science is not a philosophy, its a process for critically examining data and finding out how things work using self correcting methodology and mathematics to explain its theories. The why isn't even on the radar, that is outside of science's purview entirely, its up to philosophy and religion to figure that question out. Just like philosophy would be a terrible way to try to explain nuclear physics, science cannot answer questions such as "Why are we here?", the most it can say is how we came to be. That is the big problem with ID as scientific theory, it came to the conclusion before the facts, and then tries to bend the facts to fit its own preconceived notion.

Also, your comparison of extinct non-adaptive species with a ruined castle is erroneous to say the least. For one, a castle is not a living organism, and therefore cannot adapt, or even have the capability of adapting to its environment. It cannot grow or stay in shape without an intelligent hand in it all the time, plus it is obviously manufactured. I have a question, how can you tell a Castle from a pile of rocks? That's easy, one you can see was designed by intelligent minds, the other, not at all.

This is similar to the clock on the beach scenario, a clock is so complicated that it must have been designed!!! Just like living organisms, so the saying goes. The part they forget, is why did you notice the clock to begin with, weren't all the sand and pebbles on the beach just as designed as the clock? Or is it that the clock is blatantly artificial in nature that you can tell the difference between it and the natural world?

[Stunster]

55. The question is...

what would count as evidence of design. You're saying the data has not been provided by IDers. I'm not saying it has. I'm asking a logically prior question "What sort of data would it have to be?"

I see no clear answer to that question being given by Darwinian evolutionists. But in that case, I see no clear way in which Darwinian evolution could be falsified. And hence my worries about the scientificity of the theory.

Your answer also seems to be missing a vital point. It is not an essential part of the ID thesis that there was no evolution, or common descent. Let me quote a leading ID theorist, Dembski, on this point:

Nor can design theory strictly speaking be said to be anti-evolutionist. This may sound surprising, especially since design theorists tend to dislike the term "evolution," viewing it as a weasel word that serves more to obfuscate than clarify. The reason design theorists dislike the word is not because they repudiate every possible construal of it, but because they regard it as a Protean term which, much like the process it describes, adapts itself too readily to any situation. Although design theorists regard the word "evolution" as assuming too many distinct meanings that are too easily confused, the notion that organisms have changed over time hardly upsets them. Design theory places no limits on the amount of evolutionary change that organisms might have experienced in the course of natural history. Consistent with classical views of creation, design allows for the abrupt emergence of new forms of life. At the same time design is also consistent with the gradual formation of new forms of life from old.

The design theorists' beef is not with evolutionary change per se, but with the claim by Darwinists that all such change is driven by purely naturalistic processes which are devoid of purpose.
http://www.origins.org/articles/dembski_theologn.html

I'm aware that ruined castles are not living organisms, and that sand and pebbles are not watches. But, what is interesting is that as science unfolds, it finds that living organisms are in a way even more complex and ordered than ruined castles and that the physical laws necessary for there to be such things as sand and pebbles display a profound mathematically intelligible order. And at this point we do indeed ask the question, why did we notice the castle and the watch, when everything else is just as, if not more, ordered-looking when we investigate it more thoroughly?

There is a clear link between the order observed in one pair of cases and intelligent agency---why, therefore, are we not connecting the dots in an analogous way in the other? Obviously, we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that ID posits as having created living organisms, or the universe as a whole. But we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that was behind the construction of the pyramids either, and yet we infer that there must have been some.

And let me say something even more to the point: we do not literally observe the intelligent agency that we infer is responsible for making watches, even if we are standing at the shoulder of a master craftsman as he goes about making watches. What we see when we're standing at the craftsman's shoulder is a complex series of material movements. Hands moving, picking up things, using things they have picked up to put other things together, producing in the end a watch. Is this any more 'artificial' or 'complex' (other than as a matter of degree) than what we observe when we watch DNA at work, producing and reproducing cells? Oh, and if we opened up the craftsman's skull and looked at his brain, we'd see more of the same---complex, material, functional movements. In other words, we never literally observe 'intelligent agency' except as an inference from complex material movements, even if we're watching a human being building a castle or making a watch! God is like other people's minds in this respect. Nor do we physically observe our own minds. We are consciously aware of them, however.

The whole AI movement raises interesting questions in this regard. By asking the question, what degree of complexity in material movement or functional performance requires us to posit intelligence, it forces us to consider this as a scientific issue. Well, if the AI folks are right, then there is some finite degree of that kind of thing which does require us to posit intelligence, and they're making this claim as a purportedly scientific statement. Yet oddly, they are not targetted for the same degree of hostility as ID theorists are. I say 'oddly', because ID can be construed as doing the same general sort of thing as AI is doing. It can be construed as asking, what degree of complexity in material movement or functional performance requires us to posit design. Both AI and ID are in the business, or trying to be in the business of investigating what thresholds exist for there to be a reasonable scientific inference from observed complexity and order to intelligence and to design. One is celebrated as cutting edge science (AI), the other is denounced as a load of anti-scientific gibberish (ID).

But if you think about it hard and deeply enough, I suspect you'll see that they are both formulating a type of question that science ought to be able to address, and possibly answer. If science cannot say anything about intelligence, or design, then it would appear that science is not even in principle a complete account of reality. But if it can make statements of the form, "such-and-such = evidence of intelligence", and "such-and-such = evidence of design", then it seems to me that ID should be given a hearing within the scientific community, at least in principle.

If the question, "Does anything observable ever count as evidence of intelligence or intelligent design, and if so, what exactly?" is in general a respectable scientific question (which I believe it is), then all the ID theorists are doing in principle is asking, "Does anything observable in the world of biology ever count as evidence of intelligent design, and if so, what exactly?" If the first and general question is legit, then so is the second one. And what worries me is that Darwinian biology might be trying to answer the second one negatively, not on scientific grounds, but on a priori philosophical grounds, by simply ruling out of court in advance the possibility that anything found in biology will suggest a threshold of intelligence.

Go back to the AI comparison. Suppose someone designs an intelligent computer or robot. Then we all blow ourselves up in a nuclear war, or die out through global warming. But these robots survive, and are so intelligent that they can make other robots. Etc. Now along come humanoid-type aliens, and they see the robots all over the planet Earth, engaged in complex material movements and functional behavior. Would the aliens be 'unscientific' in positing that these robots as a species originated through the action of some intelligent designer(s)?

I think it's that kind of issue that ID essentially addresses.

Moreover, you're simply mistaken in thinking that ID is illegitimate in that it attempts to come "to the conclusion before the facts, and then tries to bend the facts to fit its own preconceived notion." No. It's asking the questions---"Is there ever any scientific evidence for intelligent design? What is it? Ok, and do we find any in data we observe in the biological world?" To me, it looks like Darwinians are trying to close off these questions by worldview fiat. But it strikes me that if science is supposed to be about everything there is, then it ought to be about intelligence, and about design, among many other things. We think we know that there is intelligence, and we think we know that there is design. What makes us think this in general? And could whatever makes us think this in general be applicable to an understanding of the biological world? I don't see what is unscientific about that in principle. Nor do I see any questions being begged.

Rather than ID coming to the conclusion before the facts, it strikes me that it is Darwinian evolutionism that's determined to come to the conclusion before the facts, namely the conclusion that "No, there's no intelligent design." ID is construable as asking---"What would be scientific evidence of intelligent design in general? And do we find any such evidence in the biological world?" Which is not the closing-off of anything at all.

[Az]

57. Falsifying evolution

It is rather simple to falsify the theory of evolution. Simply examine its claim and proceed from there. Evolution claims that the life that we see before us has evolved through a gradual process over time.

So how would we refute this? Find a species that has no divergent ancestory. Find a chimera that combines fully developed aspects of disparate species (winged horses). Demonstrate that there is a mechanism to prevent mutations from accumulating. Provide an example of an organism being created spontaneously.

The issue isn't that there isn't a way to falsify evolution. Its that it has not been refuted. There are numerous ways to refute it. But none have succeeded. This merely adds to the strength of the claim.

Order occurrs all the time in nature. Look at salt. It forms a crystal lattice structure that is highly ordered. Carbon forms many different ordered structures. This assumption that order cannot occurr in nature is a bit naive.

Molecules interact with each other. All manner of complex ordered structures naturally result from these interactions. There is sugar in deep space due to such interactions(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52311-2004Sep26?language=printer). Yes life is a very interesting example of order in chaos. But order happens all the time. Its natural. There is no apparent need for design for order to happen.

[Az]

54. Responses

First off let me appologise for assuming you were in the ID camp. My bad.

Ok, evidence is found that discredits evolution. We look at it and can't make it fit into the theory no matter what. The theory is destroyed. We then have to reexamine the evidence and form new theories. It is likely that the new evidence will folded in within a modified form of evolution because there is simply so much extrordinary evidence supporting evolution. But suppose even a modified version of evolution can't account for this new evidence. Then evolution dies.

Theories flow from the evidence.

As to the dispute between proponent of Evolution and ID (not including you), it is not that scientists that support Evolution go out of their way to proclaim ID unworthy. Its a case of ID not presenting arguments that satisfy the requirements of a scientific theory. If they do put together an actual theory it gets to go through the peer review process and usually gets beat down within this particular stage.

As to the reason the claim is made that ID is not scientific is because they typically do not include a means of refuting the claim. This is what keeps it from being science.

The reason the impression may be that scientists claim ID is not true is because so many attempts to storm the barricades have failed that they have lost any hope that there may be some truth to it. Add to this the fact that the evidence for evolution is so stunningly overwhelming. At some point the mountain of evidence supporting a theory becomes so immense that it becomes ridiculous to withhold acceptance.

Another factor that may kick in is the annoyance factor. Having attended numerous speechs and meetings myself I have been witnes to the shenanigans that Creationists and Fundamentalists often partake in trying to disrupt the progress of Evolutionary theory.

Study of creatures in nature should give us some insite into whether a species was planned or happened. I am sure you have heard of the Panda's thumb so accept this explanation as education for those that haven't. The Panda evolved from a carnivorous species. Carnivores have an emphasis on being able to kill things. Thus the particular species the panda evolved from had its paw fused together to be a more effective killing device.

But the panda wandered down a different branch and became an herbavore. More specifically it developed a diet of just bamboo. Fused paws are not effective for tearing plant material. But Evolution cannot reverse itself. A fused paw remains fused. No matter how inconvienient. But evolution can create new features. And this is what happened in the Panda.

Instead of intelligently reversing the fused paws the Panda developed its spur as a new thumb. If you have a cat you know what a spur is. Its that jutting bit about an inch up on their front paws. In the Panda this hardened and became more pronounced. It allows them to grasp (clumsily as its not an ideal solution) the bamboo so they can eat it. This is hardly the work of a thoughtful planned out process. It is working with what you have and developing it. Here is an interesting list of examples of such jury rigged design http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

The reason for the mention of the Human Genome project is due to the immense amount of information flowing from this study. We are not the only species we have mapped as such. Many other species were done prior to humans as a warm up. And since we have improved our technique many many other species have been mapped as well. There is tremendous amounts of information spilling out from this process. Just recently they claim they may have found evidence for a genetic link to homosexuality. The importance of this information flow brings it to the conversation on its own.

I agree using the word error creates a semantic issue. You correctly adapted for it. Thanks.

But as I said the theories flow from the evidence. Evolution does not "try" to disprove ID. It may find that it does discredit ID but that is not it's intent. Evidence such as the Panda's thumb do the dirty work of discrediting ID. Scientists just stand by and go "hmmm, that was interesting."

[Stunster]

56. I wrote...

"Many ID proponents do not deny evolution happened, after all. (E.g. some of them admit there is common descent). They just deny that it happened exclusively through Darwinian or other purely natural mechanisms."

So, there's tremendous evidence of evolution? Yeah, fine. Plenty of IDers don't deny that there was evolution in some sense, and in some way, or even that it involved genetic mutations and natural selection. But how is that evidence that it all must have happened without any intelligent design?

In order to answer that question, we would have to have a good scientific theory of intelligence and of design in general. We'd have to say that in general X is evidence that something is intelligent, that in general Y is evidence of something being designed, and so on and so forth.

Ok, what sort of evidence would that be, in general? Ok, now that you've answered that general question, we can now ask if there's any of that type of evidence apparent in the biological data.

I go into all this in more detail here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=8428&mesg_id=9236

[Az]

58. Panda's thumb

I provided an argument against intelligent design. The Panda's thumb is an example of nonintelligent design. An intelligent designer would have unfused the panda's thumb giving it an effective digit to eat with. Instead evolution being incapable of reversing itself had to adapt that which was present and utilized the panda's spur creating a sixth digit. Though less effective than a proper thumb it enabled the panda to survive.

It is reasonable to assume that an intelligent designer would favor a superior design over a flawed and juryrigged design. That is the implication of a deisgner. That they are intelligent. An intelligent designer can reverse a step taken in order to create a better solution. Evolution cannot.

Evidence supports that there are no examples of reversing a mutation. In fact it shows that rather than remove a mutation to bring back an adaption life invariably creates a new path to achieve its needs. It is a case of piling on rather that design. Whatever works is what is adapted. Rather than getting the design right the first time.

[Stunster]

59. What an intelligent designer would do

is really quite hard to say from our vantage point, involving, as it does, all kinds of complex modal reasoning. Moreover, the intelligent designer has to look at the whole picture, not just one piece of the puzzle.

Let's say mutations that appear non-adaptive are the result of quantum mechanics.

Would an intelligent designer nonetheless design and make a universe that is quantum-mechanical? There are reasons to think so:

In addition to the four factors listed above, the inflationary multiverse generator can only produce life-sustaining universes because the right background laws are in place. Specifically, the background laws must be such as to allow the conversion of the mass-energy into material forms that allow for the sort of stable complexity needed for life. For example, without the principle of quantization, all electrons would be sucked into the atomic nuclei and hence atoms would be impossible; without the Pauli-exclusion principle, electrons would occupy the lowest atomic orbit and hence complex and varied atoms would be impossible; without a universally attractive force between all masses, such as gravity, matter would not be able to form sufficiently large material bodies (such as planets) for complex, highly intelligent life to develop or for long-lived stable energy sources such as stars to exist. (an excerpt from this fascinating piece).

So the apparent non-adaptiveness of the panda's thumb may not be non-adaptive overall with respect to making life. It appears that life needs to be based on quantum mechanical physics. But then the thumb issue doesn't look so non-adaptive after all. Furthermore, an intelligent designer using quantum mechanics, and noticing its consequences for the thumbs of pandas, might have then "utilized the panda's spur creating a sixth digit".

All design involves problems, which are logically inherent in finitude. Intelligent designers solve them, incorporating the solution into the design.

[Az]

60. Heh

So you are saying we would never be able to recognise what a suitably intelligent designer would consider a good design. Forgive me but I think you just rendered the ID notion undemonstrable.

Lets look at this again. The theory of evolution predicts that species build up over time. Adaption is situational and once an adaption is made it cannot be reversed.

ID supposes that the course and design of each organism is orchestrated. In such an arraingement you would expect to see reversals and designs specialized for specific situations to be best suited for them. The flow should not enter into the equation. Forward and backward make no difference to a designer that can control the ebb and flow of life itself.

Reality corresponds better to the theory presented by the undirected Evolution.

In the case of the Panda's thumb it would be superior to have simply unfused the paw. Release the thumb and let it do the work the spur now has to struggle to do.

Consider further all the extinct animals. Were these failed experiments? What need has a omniscient designer have for experiments?

To suggest that the designer made it seem this way for inscrutible reasons simply begs to bring Occams razor in and do some trimming. It amounts to trying to argue the absense of evidence is evidence for a designer. And thats not going to work.

The system flows. At best from just the evidence of life on this planet you could theorise that a designer created the conditions for life and left it to it's own course. But that puts you into conflict with other fields of study and the debate of ID and Evolution is rendered null.

[Stunster]

61. Hehe

So you are saying we would never be able to recognise what a suitably intelligent designer would consider a good design.

No, I did not say that, nor am I saying it now. What I said was that it's hard. That may be one reason why the science concerning intelligence and concerning design is still fairly new. Of course, if science is or aims to be truly a complete theory of reality, then there will be a good science concerning intelligence, and a good science concerning design. I think we're still a long way from that. But I think those sciences are possible. And if they are possible, they will yield evidential criteria regarding the presence and detection of intelligence and of design.

So perhaps the only reason ID isn't well established is because the correct science regarding intelligence and design generally isn't well established yet.

ID supposes that the course and design of each organism is orchestrated.

Read the Dembski link I posted. He would deny that that is essential to ID. In fact, here's what he says in that piece:

Nor can it be said that design theory endorses progressive creation. Progressive creation holds that God intervened at various points in natural history, creating new kinds, as it were, from scratch. Progressive creation can accommodate a considerable degree of evolutionary change once a given kind is in place. According to this view the creation of a given kind induces an evolutionary envelope within which considerable, but not unlimited, variation is possible. For instance, we might imagine God creating an initial pair of dogs, and all subsequent dogs being related to this initial pair by common descent--everything from a St. Bernard to a Chihuahua. Nevertheless, the progressive creationist would be uninclined to view dogs and amoeba as sharing the same genealogical tree.

[Az]

62. The absense of evidence for ID simply could mean

That ID simply has no merrit. This is a serious problem within the ID community and part of why it is often dismissed as not being science. It is because the research is trying to fit any evidence it finds to the solution they want. This is not how science works.

I am reminded of the contract researchers at the Institute of Creation Science (ICR) are required to sign. It stipulates that any evidence they turn up that refutes the bible will be discarded as false evidence. I understand that this is not true of all ID or creation research. But the point stands that there is a concerted desire to prove ID correct over and above the simple desire to find out what is going on.

The arguments for ID have the ring of the God of the Gaps argument. Each time science shines a light on some aspect of nature the God of the Gaps flees to another dark place. And so on as long as science continues to shine its light around.

[Stunster]

67. You're simply not dealing with the argument

I'm not sure why.

The argument is really very simple, and I'll try to keep it that way.

1. We are familiar with the concepts of intelligence and design. We also generally take them to describe certain things in reality (such as people, and computers).

2. If science aims to investigate the whole of reality, then there ought to be a general science of intelligence and a general science of design, since we take those things to be real. Part of those sciences will explicate the notions of 'evidence of intelligence' and 'evidence of design'. There will be some level of material complexity and functional performance that will generally count as evidence of intelligence and count as evidence of design.

3. When those sciences give well-established, scientific criteria for intelligence and design (it's not clear that they are anywhere near being mature enough sciences to have done so yet), then we can ask the question of whether the biological data furnish us with types of evidence that meet those criteria.

4. In the meantime, it is premature for either IDers or Darwinians to say that there definitely is, or that there definitely is not, evidence of intelligent design in the biological data. We typically think that the existence of computers and computer code indicate intelligence and design. We need to make that inference more precise in order to be able to make, or rule out, a similar inference regarding biological data.

5. It is not a good objection to say that we 'know' that computers and computer code are intelligently designed, because we can see people at work doing the designing, and that this is why those cases are different from the evolution of species case, and that is because we don't physically observe anyone's intelligent consciousness. What we literally see when we look at a computer scientist at work is complicated material bodies in various states of mathematically intelligible motion. That's also what we see when we observe any life form or investigate its history. In other words, the cases of intelligent design that we 'know' about are no different in terms of physical observation from the cases in biology, except for the precise form and kinds of complexity involved. So, if science is meant to explain and investigate everything, there must be a scientific way of making precise what types of material motions and complexity of structure and function license an inference to intelligent design, and what types do not.

6. The necessary degree of precision has not yet been established. ID is essentially asking that scientific criteria of intelligence and design be established, and then used to evaluate the biological data we have to see if those data license an inference to intelligent design.

[Az]

68. Problems

Your use of observation of designs we are aware of opens you to a problem. We don't just know that computer programs are created by design because we can see the programmers. We also can see the process of development and alterations based on descisions within the coding. There is a consistant flow of design throughout.

In looking at life and genetics what we see is not well thought out design. It is haphazard juryrigging. It is poorly chosen paths that just manage to survive. We see paths that fail utterly. We find genetic dead ends. We find entire species gone extinct. We find surviving species suffering from poor design.

Add to this further the fact that we have witnessed evolution in progress. We have cateloged species developing and differentiating. We have seen it in action.

Now we also can read the roadmaps of genetic code. We have been able to create models in laboratories that enable us to test out theories. And everything continues to point to the notion that once life began on this planet it proceeded at a great muddle rather than a divinely orchestrated process.

We have the ability to determine if there is an intent to things. And in the venue of biological development of life on this planet there appears to be no indication that things were planned. This of course leaves open the possibility of a initiator god that simply set the process in motion. But all the evidence points to the process being autonomous and not in need of a guide.

Find some evidence that suggests otherwise and then you can revolutionize the field. That is the goal of all scientists. But insisting that we simply don't have the means to percieve the great design as yet without evidence to back your claim is not going to make your case.

[Stunster]

69. You're asserting your interpretation of what the evidence shows

I'm not sure you're really giving an argument, since I think other people can look at the same evidence without sharing your interpretation of it.

I already gave you a reason for why an intelligent designer would choose to make a universe that is quantum mechanical. That implies some adverse mutations. But in that case, those mutations wouldn't indicate there's no intelligent design at work. They would actually be the outcome of intelligent design favoring quantum mechanics (for good reasons I've mentioned previously).

It is kind of remarkable, if it's quite as haphazard and undesigned as you claim, that higher life forms ever developed at all. Why the upward path, from bacteria to string physicists? That doesn't look haphazard to me. And if it's soooo haphazard, why wasn't it complex at the start, and then become more simple?

It seems there may be a trade-off between greater complexity and vulnerability. It seems that many relatively simple forms of life can endure very harsh conditions for very long periods of time. Yet, here we are too. And it may be that if the goal is complexity of the human sort, there would have to be considerable vulnerability along the way. So simply pointing out the vulnerabilities of various species wouldn't show there's no goal.

You would reply that we very well might not have been here, and the fact that we are is just an accident. But everything we're finding out about the universe is tending to show that such an accident is improbable in the extreme.

At this point, the Multiverse is invoked. But even to identify a Multiverse as being real, one needs to identify some sort of mathematically intelligible order.

The problem a cosmic natural selection mechanism (apart from whether the overall physics is even right, which some are not sure is the case) is that it doesn't help overcome the basic problem affecting any alleged global explanatoriness of natural selection as a scientifically inferred mechanism.

For natural selection to work at all, it must work upon some domain. But to identify any domain whatsoever in the first place, science must find order of some kind pertaining to that domain.

I.e. Some order, at some level of scientific analysis, must be primitive. It can't all be generated by natural selection.

Or else, one must posit an infinity of some kind, which by definition must be scientifically unobservable by finite scientists.

In short, order is inescapable and fundamental to existence. And order is essentially linked to mind.

There is a way out of this, and that's to reject scientific realism.
There are some philosophers who do this. They say that science doesn't tell us what the world is really like, but only how our minds must think of the world. But this immediately suggests another problem. If our minds are part of the world, then scientific antirealism would mean that science doesn't even tell us what our minds are really like--and yet would also mean that it does tell us how our minds must think! Which seems incoherent! There is a very large philosophical literature on this issue.

[Stunster]

137. Problems alright

Your use of observation of designs we are aware of opens you to a problem. We don't just know that computer programs are created by design because we can see the programmers. We also can see the process of development and alterations based on descisions within the coding. There is a consistant flow of design throughout.

In looking at life and genetics what we see is not well thought out design. It is haphazard juryrigging. It is poorly chosen paths that just manage to survive. We see paths that fail utterly. We find genetic dead ends. We find entire species gone extinct. We find surviving species suffering from poor design.

Suppose we look at a computer program with errors in it. Does that mean that the program had no designing intelligence behind it?

The very concept of error presupposes the concept of intelligent design.

But in any case, an intelligent designer may deliberately choose a program that will have a certain amount of indeterminism in it. An intelligent designer may have good design reasons for incorporating an element of randomness into his/her design. For example, a designer of a quantum computer would want to do so.

So your argument above doesn't hold water.

[Jim__]

70. You are misrepresenting the claims of ID

From your post:

6. The necessary degree of precision has not yet been established. ID is essentially asking that scientific criteria of intelligence and design be established, and then used to evaluate the biological data we have to see if those data license an inference to intelligent design.

From a paper by William Dembski, one of the leading proponents of ID:

And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even though the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is, I argue, a reliable criterion for detecting design. The Explanatory Filter is a net. Things that are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to design. But given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are designed.

I argue that the explantory filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design. Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design, it does so correctly.(source of quote)

Of course, I don't blame you for misrepresenting what ID claims. The claims are clearly ridiculous.

[Stunster]

72. Darwinian theory claims

to successfully avoid false positives.

A 'positive' in this context would be "caused by natural mechanisms only". Darwinian theory then says it can successfully avoid the false attribution of this property to any living organism. And then it says that whenever the Darwinian Filter attributes purely natural causes, it does so correctly.

[Jim__]

74. Alleged "Darwinian" claims have nothing to do with your misrepresentation

of ID claims.

But, now that you've brought up these alleged "Darwinian" claims, it would be nice if you could provide a reference to a recognized "Darwinian" (e.g. not Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, or any of the assorted creationists and IDers) who claims:

Darwinian theory ... says it can successfully avoid the false attribution of this property to any living organism. And ... that whenever the Darwinian Filter attributes purely natural causes, it does so correctly.

The reference should contain, at least, a reasonable facsimile to your allegation; and a definition of the "Darwinian" filter.

Lest we suspect that you are now misrepresenting the Scientific Theory of Evolution.

[Stunster]

75. The Blind Watchmaker

by Richard Dawkins is a systematic treatise arguing for the claim that whenever the Darwinian Filter attributes purely natural causes, it does so correctly.

Any denial by you of this I will interpret as a sign of your disingenuousness.

[Democrat Dragon]

71. One of my biggest pet peeves is that evolution and intelligent design.....

and too often treated as "etiher-or" ideas. C'mon! start thinking between the margins. Depending on what religion you are in you can hypothesize on the method of creation:

-Charles Darwin himslef believed that evolution was an act of God(he ammidited it on his deathbed).

-It is possible that a few species had been created at first. Then they changed slightly overtime. I mean, seriously, how could Noah carry 500,000 animals in his ark?

-Species might have been created and killed gradulally, to slowly alter Earth's geochemical features to be fit for intelligent life.

-Even if if all life was created like the fundies say so, gradual change is inevitable and can be observed when bacteria and inscects become resistant to antibiotics.

[trotsky]

73. Not the "Darwin on his deathbed" nonsense again...

-Charles Darwin himslef believed that evolution was an act of God(he ammidited it on his deathbed).

Total bunk. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html. Quit spreading a creationist lie.

[Democrat Dragon]

150. Thank you for clearing that up, but...

how can that statement be a "creationist lie" if it promotes creation via evolution rather than juat plain creationism?

I first heard the statement when a student was making a presentation on the life of Charles Darwin, in case you where wondering where I heard it.

[immoderate]

77. Is ID predictive?

One of the aspects of a scientific theory is that it predicts phomena. I can see how evolution is predictive and how it can be tested. How is ID predictive? If it's not, it's disqualified as science right there.

--IMM

[moobu2]

79. You have to ask God that because

he could decide to alter somthing and we wouldnt have any way to predict that.

[immoderate]

81. I hope he'll be in a good mood, but confidentially...

I don't think he likes me.

--IMM

[Stunster]

148. Predictiveness

I can see how evolution is predictive and how it can be tested.

Could you specify what you have in mind with this statement?

As for ID being predictive, suppose I predict that some watchmakers will make some watches next month, and that some construction workers will build houses next month. Would that confirm that there is such a thing as intelligent design? The reason I ask is that I think it's important to define what would count as examples of intelligent design before we predict that they will occur.

If your answer is that there is such a thing as intelligent design (instances including the intelligent design of houses and watches), what are the criteria you have for recognizing it when it occurs?

If you say that for an object to count as being intelligently designed, it has to be 'man-made', wouldn't that entail that if we encountered spacecraft flown by space aliens, those spacecraft would fail to count as being intelligently designed?

But now if you say that for an object to count as being intelligently designed, it has to be produced by an intelligent designer (be it man, or space alien), your definition would be uninformative and circular.

So, give me a noncircular criterion or criteria for determing just from the nature of an object that it is intelligently designed.

[moobu2]

86. If there is any ID evidence,

will someone please post it in a plain logical form which is easy to understand. Please don't go off on philosophical mind bending circular logic tangents, otherwise I will have to assume it's purpose is simply meant to confuse the issue.

Evolution is such a simple and beautiful explanation of how life changes over time resulting in the huge variety of species we see today.

Where's the ID theory? Where's the evidence?

[enki23]

87. here's my take, for what it's worth.

ID is mostly, in practice, an endrun around the supreme court decision that creationism carries an "inescapable religiosity." (I think that was the phrase used.) Most academic ID proponents are old earth creationists rather than young earth creationists. Behe, whose Darwin's Black Box makes up almoet the entirety of their thrust at the academic end of the issue, agrees that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. For example.

Most ID pushers do not actually believe that, however. They are using the arguments of Behe, and perhaps a few other actual scientists who pursue that angle, as more of a criticism of evolution rather than as a positive statement of anything. In practice, their 'Intelligent Design' requirements in school curricula will probably not be limited to old earth creationism. It *could* possibly be limited to a scientific discussion, perhaps, but it's doubtful the forces pushing for its inclusion would stop there.

Anyway, to *me* ID seems to be a very incomplete theory. On its best days it runs close to the edge of an being no more than argument from ignorance. Most times it crosses well into that territory. The idea of "irreducible complexity" which makes up almost the entire scientific part of their argument, is a pretty damned brash idea. If for no other reason, it presupposes we understand enough about evolution and biology in general that we would know, with a high degree of certainty, whether a biochemical process really was irreducibly complex, rather than simply appearing to be irreducibly complex. Instead of admitting we don't know the details of whether, and how some process could have evolved, we would say we knew that it could *not* have evolved.

Their other major academic argument is that there are certain characteristics objects, organisms, and processes might have by which we could recognize whether they are designed. Many of these ideas were cribbed from ideas developed by scientists looking for evidence of alien civilizations. The problem for these scientists is, how do you recognize something which was intelligently designed rather than naturally occurring? One of the major problems with this, with regard to biological evolution, is simply that no decent biologist would tell you organisms *aren't* designed. Of course organisms are, in a sense, "designed." Evolution isn't random. Virtually nobody is trying to say it is.

So another major problem comes down to this: how can you tell the difference between the "design" inherent in processes driven by natural selection and the design which might have been imparted by a sentient "designer" of some sort? And then we run into the problem of just what, exactly, they mean by "intelligent?" Most christians, which make up the majority of both our population, and of the ID movement, believe "intelligent" means "like us." Of course they mean their particular god, really, but might also pretend to mean any self-aware entity capable of directing biological evolution in some manner. My problem with this is, why must "intelligence" imply sentience? What if biological evolution, actually *life* itself could be considered an intelligent system? Obviously, it could. Though, admittedly, this part of the argument doesn't address the "irreducible complexity" angle.

Anyway, I see ID as having two major angles

1. Irreducible complexity
2. Recognizable patterns of "design."

My problems with ID are summed up as:

1. How do we recognize, given our very incomplete understanding of biology, what is irreducibly complex?

2. How do we recognize intelligent design from naturally occuring "design?" How would we know the difference between something "designed" by a complex interaction of natural processes, and the work of a theoretically free-willed sentient designer? Is design by humans simply a complex version of natural design? Is there, ultimately, a difference between a skyscraper and a coral reef, or a termite mound? or do termites count as designers as well?

3. Doesn't the idea of "designer" somehow beg the question of whether there is such thing as design in the first place? What is design? Do humans design? Are our designs different, in kind, from the designs of waves lapping at a beach? Doesn't their idea of design require free will, something that sets off the work of designers that are "like us" from the designs of a colony of termites? Or are we akin to the termites, but with our own biology directed by a truly free-willed entity? Is there any scientific basis for any of this whatsoever?

3. If we accept that something was designed by a "designer" entity, or entities, what is the nature of these entities? Who designed the designers? Could the designers have been the products of natural evolution themselves, but who were capable of intervening in natural evolution here on earth? Are we talking "designed by aliens" or designed by a god? Would we know the difference? Would science, a necessarily materialistic view of the world, be required to look for materialistic explanations for these designers, or could we simply accept that some diety did it and move on from there?

[Stunster]

98. Good questions

Anyway, to *me* ID seems to be a very incomplete theory. On its best days it runs close to the edge of an being no more than argument from ignorance.

Substitute 'Darwinian evolution' for 'ID' in the sentence above, and ask yourself how complete DE is. A lot of DE runs along the lines of, "Assume just genetic variation and natural selection....we don't know how exactly this would have produced all the data.....but it might well have... we're not exactly sure of the details". In other words, it says that species could have been produced solely by Darwinian mechanisms. It doesn't show that all species actually were in fact produced in that manner.

Let's go back a bit, though, and just ask a scientific question. What is the correct science of design? We know that welcome signs and cars and watches and watchmaking factories are intelligently designed. What is the scientific basis of this knowledge? Well, one might say we simply observe intelligent designers designing these things. But how do we know that what we are observing is an instance of intelligence design? When we look at a watchmaker at work, for instance, what do we literally see? We see a body in complex forms of motion. We don't literally 'see' the watchmaker's intelligent consciousness. And when we see subhuman species, that's also what we see---bodies in complex forms of motion. We very naturally infer that the watchmaker's bodily motions and actions and the watches he produces are determined by the activity of a conscious intelligence. What properties do complex bodily motions, actions, and products have to possess in order to license an inference to the existence of an intelligent consciousness?

Artificial Intelligence is a young science that suggests we could design an intelligent and, in some versions of AI, conscious physical structure. This idea in turn suggests that there must be some scientific way of deciding whether some physical structure is living (since I take it that if something is intelligent and conscious, it is living), and artificially and intelligently designed and produced. If that idea is on the right lines, then there must be some scientific answer to this question. Let's say there is such an answer. Ok, let's take that answer and apply it to the realm of pre-human biological history. I don't see anything unscientific about such a project in principle.

How would we know the difference between something "designed" by a complex interaction of natural processes, and the work of a theoretically free-willed sentient designer? Is design by humans simply a complex version of natural design? Is there, ultimately, a difference between a skyscraper and a coral reef, or a termite mound? or do termites count as designers as well?

Very good questions, and precisely to the point. Is there a possible science that would give us the answers? And if so, can this science be applied to the task of detecting the presence of design in biological history? Again, I see nothing wrong or unscientific with such questions in principle.

Do humans design? Are our designs different, in kind, from the designs of waves lapping at a beach? Doesn't their idea of design require free will, something that sets off the work of designers that are "like us" from the designs of a colony of termites? Or are we akin to the termites, but with our own biology directed by a truly free-willed entity? Is there any scientific basis for any of this whatsoever?

All very good questions. Notice that if science is capable in principle of answering all meaningful questions about reality, and if these are meaningful questions (which I believe quite firmly they are), then science ought to be capable of answering them in principle.

ID theory can be construed very simply as asking 'what is the correct science of intelligent design?' We know, or think we know that there is such a thing as intelligent design in reality (signs, cars, watches, skyscrapers, AI robots, etc). If this is true, then there ought to be some scientific way of differentiating instances of intelligent design from instances which are not those of intelligent design. What are the differentiating criteria? We don't know yet, is how I would answer. But there might well be some such criteria which a science of intelligent design could discover. If there are, and we discover what they are, then we could look at the data of biology to see if they are present in those data.

As the regards the nature and origin of an intelligent designer, those are whole other questions. But there is a good argument for thinking that order must be primitive at some level. Here it is in a nutshell.

1. For natural selection to work at all, it must work upon some domain.

2. To identify any domain whatsoever in the first place, science must find order of some kind pertaining to that domain.

3. Hence, every domain upon which natural selection is to operate must already be ordered in some way.

4. Hence, natural selection cannot be the sole explanation of order in nature, unless one posits an infinite unobservable or an infinity of unobservables, which defeats the purpose of relying on natural selection in the first place, which was to explain phenomena without positing anything infinite and/or unobservable.

I.e. Some order, at some level of scientific analysis, must be primitive. It can't all be generated by natural selection. Or else, one must posit an infinity of some kind, which by definition must be scientifically unobservable by finite scientists.

But returning to the more specific idea of natural selection with respect to living species... Suppose we found that when magnified sufficiently, the subatomic particles making up living organisms repeated a pattern which we could read as saying "Hi there. My name is God---yeah, that's right, Yahweh/Adonai/Father of my only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I intelligent designed this and all other living species". What would we have to say, as a matter of scientific conclusion from this data? That it was a coincidence? Hmmmm. If that's what would or should be said, how would Darwinian naturalism be a falsifiable theory? And if it's not, how can Darwinian evolution be considered genuinely scientific?

Of course, no such discovery of messages from Yahweh seems even remotely likely. But still, the thought-experiment raises a crucial issue, which is not unknown in science already, as any Egyptologist would tell you.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Darwinian evolutionary theory says that no intelligent design was involved in the emergence of living species, and that it all happened solely via random genetic mutation, natural selection and genetic drift without any conscious purpose being a causal factor. Isn't that the basic idea--the claim that no conscious design was involved---which people understood Darwin to be implying, and hence made Darwin and Darwinism so controversial?

If that is a genuinely scientific claim, as against a philosophical one, then it ought to be falsifiable and so Darwinian scientists ought to tell us what kind of evidence would tend to falsify it--preferably in advance of any such evidence being found. If it is the case that what appeared to be subatomic written messages from Yahweh could always be arguably explained by a natural selection mechanism, then how could Darwinian naturalism ever be falsified--and if it can't be, then how does it count as a genuinely scientific theory?

As standardly taught, Darwinian evolution says 'no intelligent design--it all happened without that.' Ok, well what would tend to falsify that claim? Well, evidence of intelligent design, of course. And so it's absolutely crucial that we have a clear idea of what such evidence would look like, were it ever to be discovered. Without that clear idea, then it strikes me that Darwinian evolution is just as incomplete and philosophically biased as ID is accused as being--unless it actually shows that all living organisms not only could have, but really did come to be without any intelligent design involved. But I really don't see how it has shown that. In which case, it's not much more than a working hypothesis.

Some will retort, "NO! It's not just a working hypothesis. It's a fact!" What they usually mean is that evolution of some kind is a fact. But one can accept this fact without accepting that it's a FACT that all evolution occurred without the involvement of any intelligent design, and solely on the basis of purposeless genetic variation and purposeless natural selection. I.e. evolution may well be a fact, but the nonexistence of any intelligent design doesn't strike me as being a fact at all, let alone a scientifically established fact, because we don't as yet seem to have any mature science enabling us to distinguish between structures that are intelligently designed and structures that aren't.

If the question, "Does anything observable ever count as evidence of intelligence or intelligent design, and if so, what exactly?" is in general a respectable scientific question (which I believe it is), then all the ID theorists are doing in principle is asking, "Does anything observable in the world of biology ever count as evidence of intelligent design, and if so, what exactly?" If the first and general question is legit, then so is the second, specific one.

[enki23]

147. if you were to try to have an actual debate

instead of trying to lose people in a stream of semi-coherent verbiage, i'm not sure what would become of you.

[Stunster]

149. Thanks

[formerrepuke]

96. A perspective worth considering: Time

Any Christian will agree that God is eternal- no beginning and no end. Being eternal, God's design (creation) can take two seconds, six days or billions of years to develop. It is our own mortality that makes us want to see instant results. For God the eternal, time is irrelevant.

[Az]

97. One problem

Time is related in terms of night and day in Genesis. Night and day are the results of this planets spin. These are quite fixed periods of time and not metaphorical in nature.

Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

[moobu2]

99. That's why the fundamentalists feel so threatened.

Their entire power structure was built on the fact that the Bible is interpreted literally. This literal interpretation doctrine was developed well before we had the scientific technology to prove otherwise. We can fairly easily disprove the literacy of the Bible today because of scientific advances.

Because of huge advances in the last decade or 2, it's become imperative for these leaders to counter this science, which not only includes biological evolution but geology, physics, psychology and even space sciences -virtually all modern sciences. They've even resorted to developing their own (hate to even call it this) "science" with a few Christian apologist scientist to sell it as legitimate for them. ID is one of those "sciences"

Anyway, apart from the psychosocial need for some westerners to believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible, there's the very real threat to power these religious leaders feel from science because they've chosen to "put all their eggs in one basket" by insisting the Bible can never be wrong.

Then, of coarse, there's the symbiotic relationship these Christian religious leaders have developed of late with Republicans. The Republicans are willing to pass laws (at the expense of the education of our children and civil rights) in order that these religious leaders get the faithful to the polls etc..The republicans pushing ID as science, anti-abortion laws, marriage laws and even payola in the form of "faith based initiatives" are all payoffs for the Christian rights support at the polls which allows the republicans to stay in power.

Oh, crap, I forgot where I was going with this...

anyway, ID is a compromise the fundamentalist are willing to accept right now (they really don't have any other choice) but, they know that getting the concept of ID into public education will give the message to children that the earth was created by a God, and that God will, by default, be the Christian God because of our western culture etc...I mean they know it wont be Vishnu or Buddha.

The Christian leaders and Republican appeasers are only interested in retaining power in all these instances though, that's the only reason they push ID and try to discredit real science.....Science is a threat to them.

[GOPBasher]

122. As a science person, I can draw only two possible conclusions.

The universe seems finely tuned to allow for life. I wrote a paper on this in college. For example, the four fundamental forces seem to be just strong enough, but not too strong, to allow for life. If the strong nuclear force had been different than what it is by plus or minus 0.001%, atoms would not be able to stay together the way they do. That's just one example. There are many more like these.

It leads to this conclusion: If -- I stress the word "IF" -- this is the only universe, the likelyhood that all these things would be put together so perfectly is ridiculously low; you'd have a much better chance of winning the lottery 3,000 days in a row. So, *IF* this is the only universe, I think it's pretty certain that it was designed by some higher intelligence to allow for life. The other possible conclusion is that there are trillions and trillions -- or possibly and infinite number -- of universes, and out of all of them, certainly in one of them all those things would fall directly into place to allow for life, and here we are.

[Stunster]

124. Exactly

So, rationally speaking, we should posit the existence of "trillions and trillions -- or possibly and infinite number -- of universes", none of which would be observable to us, rather than posit one intelligent designer of this universe.

You see, it's important not to posit unobservable entities beyond necessity. So, from a scientific point of view, we should posit trillions and trillions, or possibly an infinite number of unobservable entities, rather than posit just one.

Scientific materialism DEMANDS nothing less.

:wow:



:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

[Az]

128. There is an infinite something down either path

Infinite universes down one path and an infinitely powerful god down the other. So we wait and explore.

[Stunster]

131. Naturalism as a research program

One way to think of the theism v naturalism debate is to think of it not as two competing worldviews, but as a worldview, and something else again, namely a 'research program'. The concept of research program has been a staple in philosophy of science since the work of Imre Lakatos. But one of the things a research program does is define the kind of thing that constitutes evidence. That is, it sets out criteria for being evidence. But that criterial selection process is internal to each research program. Hence you can't use evidence to choose between research programs, you can only use non-evidential or pragmatic considerations such as scope, predictive power, economy, simplicity, elegance, coherence with other entrenched beliefs, logical consistency etc (this is all philosophy of science 101, btw).

Now one of the things that Lakatos talks about is whether a research program is forging ahead successfully, or else is degenerating. Ok, my take is that naturalism is degenerating. It is finding insoluble problems within its own framework. For example

1) Consciousness
2) Fine-tuning combined with simplicity of the laws of physics
3) Modal reasoning about material objects
4) Intentionality

Now it's important not to think of a degenerating research program as a failed research program!!!! What it means is that it has done what it is able to do, perhaps extremely well, but now it is encountering
data which it's not capable of solving within its existing conceptual paradigms. I think naturalism is reaching this point.

Examples abound within the history of science. Newtonian physics gave way to relativistic and quantum physics. But very quickly, as Greene has shown in a celebrated way, and has been known within the physics community for some time, it turns out that quantum physics and relativity are not mutually consistent. (Greene, of course, proposes string theory as the new paradigm.)

The whole notion of paradigm shift goes back to Thomas Kuhn's seminal work in the philosophy of science.

Ok, another, even more challenging example of a proposed paradigm shift is that put forward by Chalmers:

"We know that a theory of consciousness requires the addition of something fundamental to our ontology, as everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence of consciousness. We might add some entirely new nonphysical feature, from which experience can be derived, but it is hard to see what such a feature would be like. More likely, we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time. If we take experience as fundamental, then we can go about the business of constructing a theory of experience."

Another example of a paradigm shift is David Bohm's notion of the 'implicate order'.

Ok. Now you might say that this is all within 'science'. Yeah, well, not a few people--especially among old-fashioned materialists---foam at the mouth because the new physics seems to be so damn 'mystical'.
I am suggesting that the 'mystical' character of this new physics is on the right track---the ontologically fundamental character of information for understanding the nature of both the physical and the mental; the irreducibility of consciousness to the material world; the close links of consciousness to the rational order disclosed by quantum physics; the scientific finding of mathematically designed intelligibility all the way down, etc. But there is an obvious conceptual connection between intelligibility, information, consciousness, and mind.

Which brings me back to the fine-tuning of physics. If you think about it, then you will not see this as science in a traditional materialistic sense. We are not looking at material, spatiotemporal objects, but rather laws, equations, mathematical structure, etc.

The materialist tradition is just one way of defining science (though I prefer 'rational inquiry', as it's a less loaded term than science). And what I think is that rational inquiry in a broad sense is homing in on something that wouldn't count as a naturalistic entity in the way that naturalism has been defined up until now. Naturalism, as defined to date, is finding that it has not got within itself enough conceptual resources to formulate the problems that lie at the boundaries of the data---consciousness, fine-tuning, Big Bang cosmology, etc all propose limits beyond which lie not naturalistic spatiotemporal entities, but something altogether more abstract, information-like, thought-like, and hence consciousness-like. These limits drive the older naturalistic paradigm into serious internal incoherence--an incoherence evidence by such moves as positing an infinity of unobservables; or proclaiming the New Mysterianism; or saying that consciousness is not material at all---all of which would be anathema to the older generation of naturalists.

These and similar considerations lead me to think that naturalism is degenerating (in Lakatos's sense) as a research program. Theism, as a worldview, enables me to adopt new kinds of research programs, open to broader conceptual and evidential resources. Old style materialism or scientific naturalism does not do so well, imo.

SOME FURTHER READING:

Materialism at the fin de siècle

The materialist mood in the twentieth century has been poised between an almost triumphalist self-confidence and a more modest perplexity. The triumphalism is produced by the success of science, which makes materialism seem obviously true. In this mood, materialists are prepared to deny what seem to be the most obvious facts of mental life if their theory requires it. In a more sombre moment, however, some will confess that all attempts to tackle the problems have so far missed the mark. This more sober tendency became stronger in the 1980s and 1990s. Nagel (1974) had already declared that the mind-body problem could only be solved by a conceptual breakthrough we could not, as yet, imagine. McGinn (1991) pronounced the problem insoluble in principle because the mind cannot understand itself Galen Strawson (1994) has denied that there is any conceptual connection between mind and behaviour. All these philosophers deem themselves to be materialists, of some not-yet-quite-articulable kind. The Journal of Consciousness Studies has been set up to 'take consciousness seriously' in a way it is said science has not so far done; but perhaps this underestimates the main reason why consciousness has been sidelined and treated harshly: namely because it seems so clearly impossible to say anything constructive about it within the materialist presuppositions of natural science.
http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/MATERIALISM_MIND.html

Here's a summary of the problems for naturalism raised by modal reasoning:
Naturalism has a problem with the “discovery problem,” which “is just the fact that intrinsic modal properties seem to be undiscoverable by the methods of the natural sciences” (77). Our ordinary beliefs about material objects carry modal commitments. A statute, for instance, cannot survive smashing, but a lump of clay can. Such persistence conditions are integral to our very concepts of material objects. But how can a naturalist account for our knowledge of these modal properties? A naturalist observes a region of matter arranged statue-wise. Without appealing to a faculty of intuition, how can she justifiably infer that something in that region cannot survive smashing? There is only one way, according to Rea, and that is to adopt conventionalism: our conventions make it true that wherever there is some matter arranged statue-wise, there is something that cannot survive smashing. But conventionalism renders modal properties extrinsic, existing only in relation to us and to our mental activity. If minds like ours had not existed, then neither would these modal properties or, consequently, the objects that have them. That, says Rea, is just antirealism.

From antirealism follows a host of evils. First, substance dualism. If dualism were false, then minds could not exist unless material objects like brains existed. But by conventionalism, such material objects could not exist unless fairly advanced minds already did. Since at least one mind exists, dualism is true. Second, given that naturalists think non-physical minds play no role in the explanation of behavior, and given their newfound dualism, they must be skeptics about the existence of other minds. Third, without appeals to intuition, naturalists find themselves with no grounds for ruling out idealism. For, even if the hypothesis that there is a mind-independent external world is simpler than idealism, naturalism provides no reason to think that simpler hypotheses are more likely true.

If a naturalist has followed Rea to this point, she will no doubt be casting about for some weaker position that nevertheless stops short of Rea’s own supernaturalism, and a natural stopping point is intuitionism. If the naturalist adds rational intuition to the stock of basic evidential sources and says we rationally intuit intrinsic modal properties, she thereby protects the justificatory status of our beliefs about the instantiation of intrinsic modal properties and staves off conventionalism, dualism, and idealism.

But intuitionism is self-defeating. Adapting an argument from Plantinga, Rea makes the case that “. . . we have no reason to think that evolutionary processes could give rise to creatures that have reliable rational intuitions and, apparently, good reason to think that they could not” (194). For the purpose of survival, it seems not to matter whether we believe that S5 is the correct modal system or that material objects cannot be co-located. Furthermore, intuition, at least outside of logic, math, and conceptual truth, has an abysmal track record. Given the belief that our cognitive mechanisms are the products of evolution and given in addition the poor track record of intuition, one has a defeater for intuition-based beliefs; even if such beliefs are prima facie justified, their justification disappears upon reflection.

With the demise of naturalism and intuitionism, we are left with only supernaturalism, which grants religious experience basic evidential status. On the basis of religious experience, we may justifiably believe that the world is the creative work of a being “relevantly like the God of traditional theism,” and that this being has provided humans with a reliable means of detecting intrinsic modal properties (222-223). Such a supernaturalistic strategy offers the “only hope” for saving realism about material objects (225).

On the problems for naturalism raised by intentionality, see
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/docs/natreal.html

Also very worthwhile and relevant reading is this piece:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/docs/ntsereport.html

[aneerkoinos]

132. Agreed as far as

The naturalism/materialism based line of inquiry has reached its limits.

Your choise is theism, which has problems of its own, and depending on the given definition of theism, inconsistencies with evidence.

I think the basic search much start with the question how forms and structures (actualities) differentiate and "unfold" from the formless, infinite potentia, and what can be said about the laws or tendensies guiding that process of differentiation.

When consciousness is taken as real, unreducible quality of being, hierarchical subject-object/observer-observed divisions that are still the cornerstone of the naturalistic paradigm, run into major problems. Uncertainty Principle could be taken as fundamental manifestation of the intuitively evident more general principle that it is logically impossible for differentiated observer/measurer to observe and measure itself accurately.

I suppose we are still mostly in agreement. I'm not sure about the next cornerstone of the new Heraclitian paradigm, that instead of differentiated, separate object-beings we are limited to talking about events, as phenomenology and process oriented inquiry seem to be the only ways out of the current impasse.

Platonic idealism is indeed interesting avenue, because of the central role of mathematics and mathematical imagination in science, which has now also moved with probability math from the qualitative study of algorithms into quantitative calculus power as the cutting edge of science, calculus power has become a quality in itself, and even more so with future quantum calculus by quantum computers. But Platonism and mathematical idealism are anything but clearly understood, they themselves are inherently open to many approaches and lines of investigations, open to philosophizing. Forinstance, it's a huge effort to try to understand what Plato thought and not fall into a trap of "naturalized" Plato. Indeed, the for the Greeks (and Bohm) the highest form of truth was jumping on the bandwagon of Dialogue, as the ultimate openness of any linguistic definitions was very clear at least to Plato. To develop modern understanding of these issues and beyond, I'm beginning to believe that for Western minds Heidegger's reading of the classics is inescapable. I'm now on the page 50 of Heidegger's 'Plato's Sophist', which in regard to ontology clearly takes the dynamical position and refutes the essential position.

Now to the main point, criticism of theism. The logical inconsistency of an omniscient, omnipotent personal benevolent being has been beaten to death many times, so let's leave that issue at rest. Where the real challenges currently lie, are our understanding of causality itself, as our psychologically all important unidirectional notions about time are crumbling. Buddhist and especially Nagarjuna's skepticism about causality rejecting all causal relationships as fundamental but dependent arising is so far the only logically consistent position, and it is the one that dynamic paradigm can very well live with. But not theism presuming PersonalLy Intentional Creator or Unmovable Mover, which is not only logically extremely problematic, but still bounded and presupposed by our (faulty) psychological theory of causality as fundamentally time-related, and not not only time-related but ruled by only unidirectional time.

To conclude, (semi-mystical restricted by Uncertainty Principle)mathematical study of dynamic forms (strange attractors etc) offers much more promising avenues for scientific inquiry than all-mystical theism (which by definition is out of bound of scientific knowledge) or semi-mystical time-bound notions about causal, purposefull and thus personal Creator. Platonism beats theism.

UGH.

[Stunster]

133. Theism v Platonism

One explanation is essentially Platonic. This says that the universe/multiverse-generating equations or cosmic computer code are logically necessary, eternal, and necessarily unique, and necessarily self-instantiating.

The other explanation is theistic---there's a transcendent mind.

Since we only know of Platonic mathematical entities as being essentially things that can be comprehended by minds, and we only ever encounter them as being the contents of minds, and we never see Platonic entities being causally efficacious in the absence of minds, and we are familiar with minds being causally efficacious (we decide to lift our arm, and up it goes), and since all the computer code we know of ultimately flows from the conscious minds of programmers, it seems a more reasonable and economic and elegant explanation to posit a transcendent Mind, whose contents include the universe/multiverse-generating equations/cosmic computer code.

There is simply nothing unreasonable about this abductive inference, relative to its competitors. Au contraire.

In addition to accounting for the mathematical design apparent in physical nature, theism also looks to be a more plausible abductive hypothesis when accounting for the data of moral experience, religious experience, aesthetic experience, as well as just the plain old existence of a world containing personhood (reason and consciousness), in general, compared to Platonism and materialism.

But let me think about your ideas a bit more, because I'm not sure I fully understand them yet.

[aneerkoinos]

134. transcendent mind

By word 'transcendent' I understand something not 'supernatural', but something that is not bound by the limits of 4D subluminal world. Thus, all mind is "transcendent", and individual consciousness rises from the dynamical interaction between local brain and "mindfield", ie something that we perceive as the non-local "beable" wave aspect in the quantum domain. Non-local means exactly transcendent in the sense I just positited, but it is still mathematically describable (e.g. in the more general multidimentional Hilbert space), within the limits that Uncertainty Principle puts on any description - hence the intuitive non-definability of "God" at least in positivistic terms in all "true" religions.

Thus Idealism and transcendent minds such as collective unconsciouss etc are in no way inconsistent or contradictory. (Future) Math and intuition just happen to be our only ways to reach the forms of mind, methodological materialism being able to give only indirect evidence of mind. What is interesting and noteworthy is that the introspective empirical methodology (meditation) of the most advanced science/philosophy of mind, buddhism, has in various Buddhist schools produced notions and theories that are strikingly similar to post-modern theoretical physics.

On a sidenote which you may find interesting, and may or may not be significant for the context, Finnish language consept, unlike most Indoeuropean consepts related to understanding, is not a two-way relation (English 'standing under'; German 'standing before' - verstehen -; Greek 'taking down' - katalaveno - or French 'taking together' - comprendre - etc), but multidimensional, multiway relation, based on the consept of surrounding, circling (verb "ymmärtää" from "ympyrä" for circle) the object, looking at it from as many different angles as possible. So two value logics inherently don't impress speakers of Fenno-Ugric language world-view, our basic consepts lead us towards fuzzy logics. And also, unlike Indo-European languages, our verb system has not three but four persons, in addition to 'me', 'you' and 'he/she/it' we have the fourth impersonal "person", linguistic category describing prepersonal existential level that does not, of course, inflect according to singular and plural, but is somewhere between... ;)

[Stunster]

135. Interesting

I suppose the difficulty I have with a universal quantum mind-field is that it seems less than personal. One of the types of experience that most convinces me that materialism is false is moral experience.

It strikes me that your view entails that there is no such thing as a rational being in Kant's sense, i.e. there is no such thing as a being endowed with rational and moral autonomy---in other words, a person.

Instead, you seem inclined to say that we humans are natural objects in the natural world, governed by natural laws, and there is nothing above and beyond that in a true description of what we are. Intellect and will in Kant's sense, and in the theistic sense more generally, don't really exist. Unlike the materialist who says, "There are just brains, behavior, instincts, etc", you add impersonal quantum consciousness as a further category. But if the consciousness is impersonal, then how are we to account for personal intellect and personal will?

For even with this non-materialistic addition, it follows that you are not a rational being in Kant's sense---you do not have moral or intellectual autonomy; on your view, Kantian autonomy or any irreducible notion of the self is an illusion of some sort.

But if that's an illusion, then it strikes me we have no genuinely rational basis for believing in morality, or believing in your view of the world. It strikes me, in other words, that the existence of rationally and morally autonomous personhood is a precondition of morality and of rational thinking about the world in general. If we are just part of a bigger system, whether it's materialistic or nonmaterialistic doesn't matter. In either case, we'd still be in a systematically illusory state.

Morality in particular seems to presuppose that we are autonomous, and that there are other autonomous persons---that is, it presupposes the existence of a multiplicity of self-determining beings. But on your view, that cannot be the case, because on your view there is no self. Self is an illusion on your view.

But this seems to fly in the face of our deepest convictions about personal responsibility, moral freedom, and the inherent moral value of each person. It flies in the face our deepest moral convictions drawn from our most profound moral experiences. And here's the problem: I would never be as inclined to believe in a universal impersonal consciousness as I am inclined to believe in the reality and supreme importance of personal responsibility, moral freedom, and the inherent moral value of each person. That is to say, no theory of the universe which dispensed with such concepts would be as convincing to me as those concepts themselves---especially a theory that was so hard to grasp and so counter-intuitive as any quantum-consciousness theory seems to be.

[aneerkoinos]

138. Buddhism and ethics

Your descriptions about my views are correct to a degree. But in fact it is Buddhist view of self as an illusion is the logically consistent one, based on the four noble truths about universality of suffering, the causes of suffering, and the potential to be freed from suffering.

You use the word autonomous, which is of course ambivalent in regards to real/illusionary, so in fact you are strictly speaking taking any position towards the fundamental nature of personal separate self or ego. Yes, buddhism presumes autonomous sentient beings have degree of freedom of choice, but that autonomy is in the domain of dependent existantance, not free from Karma, and freedom from Karma is the same as freedom from suffering, ie. the moral good, if we insist on that kind of terminology. Buddhists rather speak about skillfull actions (not piling Karma) vs. unskillfull actions (piling Karma), because notions about moral good and bad tend to get confused and dogmatic and thus likely to lead into unskillfull action.

Now, to go bit further and deeper, according to Buddhism the ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance. And to bring in some Christian terminology, ignorance here means the opposite of Gnosis, which also according to to Gospel of Thomas is nondualistic union with God/Everything. In that sense, illusion of being separated (from God, if you like), which causes the "autonomous" entity with all these moral dilemmas and deafness to our inner truth/daimon/conscience we live with (ie Ego/personal self), is the "original sin", to keep going with the Christian terminology. What comes to 'faith' in the most noble sense of the word, as mystics from monotheistic background communicate it, means the leap of letting go of belief in one's personal self, letting go of all aspirations and putting all trust in whole/holy/God: impersonal indifferentiating love/compassion that makes no distinction between me/inside and others/outside. That is what I understand that Kierkegard meant by his notion of leap of faith.

At this point I'd like to share with you the thought of Yrjö Kallinen, who to my knowledge is the only socialist pacifist ever to serve as Minister of Defence:

Enlightenment - the awakening of insight that happens in yourself and is independent of others - makes it possible to create an everlasting world of beauty and harmony, the home of nirvana.
One thing I want to emphasize: nobody can reach a real experience, enlightenment and liberation by any kind of intense struggle. Tillich was right: we don't find it; it finds us.
Glimpses of enlightenment, of experiencing reality, are not connected to any religion or ideology, not to any time or place. They can happen anywhere - always here and now.
Becoming aware, awakening, enlightenment, is possible right here and now, for everyone. From moment to moment, and yet only here and now, never sometimes, somewhere. Reality, God, is present here and now. The kingdom of heaven, blessedness, moksha, nirvana waits here and now. Outwardly nothing may happen, and yet a purely inner process can open up a new world, a new life, a new reality. - New? - Yes, really new, and yet as all those who have ever experienced it assert, at that moment we know that we have always been at home in that world, although we only now become aware of it."

Sure, by the word person we can mean different things, also personality traits/reincarnate memory/etc beyond the ego-construct, and understanding the true nature of will/intentionality is, as you said, one of the biggest problems that science is facing.

Empirical evidence as in "from their actions you shall know them" should be quite evident and undeniable also by you, that the Buddhist religions, even though anything but perfect, based on the thoughts about morality I have outlined above, so far hold the best score of all major religions/ethical philosophies.

And what comes to my personal relation to Buddhism, it should be evident from my often obnoxious posts, that my interest is still on the intellectual level, not that of practical commitment to Buddhist way. :)

[Stunster]

136. NDE links

Btw, aneerkoinos, here are some interesting NDE links:

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence02.html

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research11.html

http://www.mikepettigrew.com/afterlife/html/dutch_study.html

http://www.mikepettigrew.com/afterlife/html/u_k__study.html

[aneerkoinos]

139. Thanks

It is also interesting that in many way those experiences are consistent with the Tibetan Book of Death, which is about bardo, the state between lives, and the guidance to reaching liberation in that bardo-state.

[Stunster]

146. Maybe off topic

but you might be interested in Kurt Godel's Ontological argument for the existence of God.

Godel of course has a claim to be considered the greatest logician of all time. He was also deeply religious.

A fascinating analysis and discussion of his argument can be found here:

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology.html
http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology1.html
http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology2.html

This piece on consciousness is also worth looking at:

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/conscious.html

[aneerkoinos]

130. There's more

The classical QM Bohrian position would be that there's a superposition of all possible universes, and the inevitable act of observation collapsed that potentia into actuality of this universe, into time and history.

Of course, this theory does not necessarily state that the observer must be human consciousness and exclude the possibility of even transcendent observer (if we take the word trancendet to mean not bound by 4D subluminal restrictions).

[VegasWolf]

143. The entire theory of Intelligent design has one major failing. It requires

an Intelligent designer.