Posted on 05/16/2005 8:28:44 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
It sure seems that way, from all of these C vs E things I've been in.
Let's turn off our monitors and play with the kids!
XenuDidit place mark
We DO have an advantage that a room full of talkers doesn't: We can go back and re-read what was said.
(Well... if things were being taped and an instant replay was called for....)
Send him to southern Indiana -- we have a TOWN by that name!
I don't know about that.
here seems to be an AWFUL lot of typos in your replies right about now!
It is not really metaphysics - just simple logic and reason - although in a non-formal sense, all questions that science can't answer are considered metaphysics. There is no way to prove one exists - all proofs presuppose existence (you can have a man prove man exists because man would have to exist in the first place). There is no way to prove man is capable of rational thought without presupposing the existence of rational thought (proving it would imply the prover is capable of rational thought). These are the a priori foundations of all thought and intelligence.
A priori probablitity estimates could be correct, or incorrect. The problem is, they cannot be the basis for scientific knowledge because they cannot themselves be tested.
I barely understand what you are talking about (I am a software engineer and musician by trade) - what exactly are you referring to when you say "a priori probability estimates" within ID. Try to use as small of words as possible :-)
The concept of "irreducible complexity" postulates a mechanism could not "evolve" into place because all parts are needed for it to function - are you saying probability estimates of the mechanism evolving in a single mutation cannot be the basis for scientific knowledge? (or do I have no idea what you are talking about)
Sheesh...
I am not debating the theory of evolution.
I am not debating the idea of abiogensis.
I am not debating the Big Bang theory.
I am not debating the existance or non-existance of God.
What I am debating is Intelligent Design, as presented as a possible theory to be included in the realm of science, and eventually taught in science classrooms.
ID must stand or fall on its own merits. Right now ID has only two possible outcomes. Either there is an infinite chain of designers, which does not get us anywhere because then an ultimate designer would not exist. Or the designer violates the very premise of ID by existing as an entity that does not have a designer, thus proving that entities do not need to be designed.
I don't know if science can be used to prove the existance of a creator (maybe it can). But ID isn't it.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
which does not get us anywhere because then an ultimate designer would not exist.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Science offers us "matter that always existed" or "matter that sprang from nothingness" - neither of these positions get us anywhere so are you going to throw away everything that follows?
Or the designer violates the very premise of ID by existing as an entity that does not have a designer, thus proving that entities do not need to be designed.
Oh please - what current science has to offer - "always existed" and "something from nothing" both violate the very premise on which science is built - should we now throw it all away?
I'm not sure you understand what I meant. I think natural selection is a design process. I think human and animal learning is a process with many points of similarity to evolution. In particular, learning is shaped by consequenses, just as the consequenses of variation shapes populations.
It seems that your understanding of science differs greatly from mine. As far as I understand (and I admit that I am a layman and there are many fields of science that I am not an expert) there is nothing in science that says "always existed" and there is nothing in science that says "something from nothing."
From what I know of the Big Bang, we have a good idea of what happened right after the big bang occured. But since we do not have the tools to look into singularities (and probably never will) we do not know what happened before the big bang. In fact, since time and space was created by the big bang, there was no "before the big bang." In a nutshell, our defintion of time ceases to exist just before the big bang, so it is meaningless to ask what came before it. Otherwise, our universe is dated to be between 12 and 15 billion years old (according our current technology to measure the age of universe).
As far as something from nothing, my understanding is that there can't be nothing. Nothing would have to be an infinte void. And I really mean INFINTE and VOID, for if there was a boundary then "something" would have to be on the other side of boundary (and thus it wouldn't be nothing now would it). In a nutshell, NOTHING cannot exist. This means that "something from nothing" is meaningless because there is no nothing.
(Sorry if that all sounds confusing with all of the double negatives.)
My ultimate point though is that we cannot debate the merits of ID by debating the merits of other theories (or the merits science in general). ID must stand or fall on its own. If someone were to disprove the theory of evolution for example, it would not automatically make ID correct. It would just mean that evolution is false. ID would still have to justify its own existance.
Learning and thinking are not the same thing. Never mind similarity to "evolution" - human and animal thought processes bear scant similarities even to each other.
Created implies a creator, no?
The universe is expanding, if it isn't expanding into nothing, how come there are so few insurance claims?
"yet it finds design where there isn't."
Your second example was flawed. The defense showed the deterministic model which the prosecution failed to analyze. The explanatory filter requires rejecting both determinism AND chance as causes.
"Dembski's "explanatory filter" can't find design where there is design (which he admits)"
Which I have also pointed out. The null hypothesis (undesign) cannot be proven, only proven wrong.
Perhaps not, but they are the ones with the thinnest skin and they doth protest way too much.
I'm not dismissing anything (except a priori probability estimates, trying to pass tautologies off as scientific theories or essentially untested scientific theories off as well-verified by confounding them with one of their implications which could be true without the theory being true, and literalist Scriptural hermeneutics).
As most of my posts weren't addressed to you, you probably missed the actual statement of my position.
See 605 and 614, for the most explict statement.
Thank you for expressing your opinion.
Actually it points out the two biggest flaws of Dembski's filter.
The prosecution failed to analyze the genetic possibility because at the time, a genetic cause of SIDS wasn't widely accepted (it still isn't but support is growing).
In general, you have to accept a given theory (or theories) of believable outcomes as you apply the "explanatory filter" to grade the event to one of three categories: Regularity, Chance, or Design.
Before Ernest Rutherford, radioactive decay would've fallen into the 'design' category. The theory then being that elements could only combine with other elements, but could never transmute into new or different elements. Alchemy was impossible and only God the designer could do it.
After accepting the theories of Rutherford (Bohr, Fermi, & a host of others), the "filter" would put radioactive decay firmly into:
Acceptance of the theory(ies) of the standard atomic model makes all the difference between a predictable (& sane) universe and a unpredictable (& insane) one.
Of course, if you reject the standard atomic model, then the Sun and stars are magic design.
The second flaw follows from the first, there is no 'unknown' or 'poorly understood' category.
Since classification into 'Regularity' and 'Chance' depends on a positive application of a given theory of a understandable universe, any event that's not thoroughly explored falls, by default, into 'Design'.
Dembski's "explanatory filter" guarantees that, if: you 'don't believe it' or you 'don't understand it', then 'Goddidit'.
I believe I was very explicit about what I disagreed with. You had asserted that attributes of the designer were a separate issue from the detection of design. I disagreed with that point, and your reply seemed to infer that I held positions I do not.
Like I said: "What matters in biochemistry is whether scientists can actually come up with proper models for how these unintelligent processes actually could have resulted in the things we see." Either they can or they can't. That's what the issue is here.
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