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Life's Irreducible Structure (DEBATE THREAD)
CMI ^ | Alex Williams

Posted on 01/12/2009 7:23:26 AM PST by GodGunsGuts

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To: 2ndClassCitizen

[[If there had to be an Intelligent Designer, who designed the Intelligent Designer?]]

Who says that God had to be created? If God is eternal, then He is supernatural, and if Supernatural, He then has no restrictions except that He can’t sin if He is perfectly sinless.


61 posted on 01/12/2009 9:52:24 AM PST by CottShop
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To: tacticalogic

[[That would seem to imply that no mutation from the origial form is survivable.]]

Why? There’s nothign in that statement suggesting it- Again, we start fro mchemically pure, and devolve into less pure as entropy has it’s way with hte species (I will also point out that htis is exactly what hte genetic investigation called the ‘Mitchondrial EVE project’ has found- more pure to less pure as time goes on)


62 posted on 01/12/2009 9:54:22 AM PST by CottShop
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To: count-your-change

Geewiz, I sure wish somebody would address the affirmative. It seems we are talking about just about everything except life’s irreducible structure :o(


63 posted on 01/12/2009 9:56:18 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: LeGrande
The fact that something exists does not necessarily imply a creator. Your logic is based on a false assumption.

No, you're falsely assuming that the causal need for a creator is nullified, simply on the basis of the double slit experiment, when the "falsification of the law of causality" explanation for the results of that experiment is one of the more unlikely and controversial explanations for it. Much more likely is just that we don't understand the underlying nature of the mechanism of causality presented in those results. Ergo, you are drawing conclusions as if they were confirmed, but doing so on the basis of extremely insufficient grounds. Ergo, your logic is fallacious.

64 posted on 01/12/2009 9:58:38 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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To: LeGrande
In QM, the double slit experiment or pair creation, is not causal, thereby falsifying the Law of Cause and Effect.

So you don't believe in science, right?

65 posted on 01/12/2009 9:59:51 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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To: GodGunsGuts
C’mon now. I gave you guys a couple of days to prepare. What specific arguments in the paper seem illogical or arbitrary?

I just told you. It seems arbitrary to me, but I am not an expert on molecular structures and related atomic theory. I find it arbitrary because it theorizes limits on what is not possible (natural occurrance of the described molecular structures), without showing why it is not possible.

The entire basis for the determination seems based on a subjective evaluation of the curent state of knowlege - we don't have a way to explain this as a natural phenomenon so it is reasonable to assume that there isn't one.

The arguments that follow from that assumption seem reasonable if you accept the assumptions, but the basis on which we're being asked to accept those assumptions seems entirely subjective.

66 posted on 01/12/2009 10:02:53 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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Comment #67 Removed by Moderator

Comment #68 Removed by Moderator

To: CottShop
Why? There’s nothign in that statement suggesting it- Again, we start fro mchemically pure, and devolve into less pure as entropy has it’s way with hte species (I will also point out that htis is exactly what hte genetic investigation called the ‘Mitchondrial EVE project’ has found- more pure to less pure as time goes on)

The agrument seems to be that all species are irreducibly complex, as they exist. Any change - whether you call it evolutionary or de-evoulutionary - is not tolerable to the organism as a whole.

69 posted on 01/12/2009 10:07:32 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Ha Ha Thats Very Logical

==My main issue with the paper is that, as far as I can tell, his argument about living organisms is based on the capabilities of nonliving things.

Yes, he’s saying that the structure of life is not reducible to the laws of chemistry and physics, which is one of the reasons that he calls naturalistic evolution a Polyani impossibility.

==I think we can all agree that living things have unique capabilities, so claiming restrictions on what life can do based on what nonliving things can do strikes me as an unwarranted logical leap.

But isn’t that the whole point of neo-Darwinian evolution: namely that evolution is a product of random mutations plus natural selection? Are you positing that random mutations aren’t random, and that natural selection isn’t natural?


70 posted on 01/12/2009 10:09:59 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: tacticalogic

[[That would seem to imply that no mutation from the origial form is survivable.]]

Let me also point out htat the species ability to ‘cope with’ mutaitons also goes to show design- especially hwen it is considered that species cope with mutaitons in very specific species specific manners.

[[If the affirmation is submitted as an absolute, then then anything that may be relevant is a consideration.]]

While it may prove later to be an absolute, for now it is just being possited that only naturalism is incapable of ‘creating’ what we see for hte resons laid out in the article, this would be establishing a scientific ‘law’, not asserting an absolute, however, it can be so resonably correct and pluaible as to render soemthign else like naturalism unreasonable and in violation of the established objective ‘law’

[[The requirement for autopoiesis seems intuitive. That declaration that particular molecular structures are not possilble except by design seems arbitrary.]]

How so? IF it establishes a ‘law’, then it’s the most plausible ‘intuitive’ conclusion to coem to- ALL of Macroevolution relies on ‘intuitivennes’ which quite frankly is misplaced as it violates biological, mathematical, and natural laws already established, and so we must compare hte two ‘intuitive’ approaches to see which is the more plausible and reasonable, and hwich more closely follows the ACTUAL evidences objectively- Coming to a reasonable conclusion isn’t ‘arbitrary, but rather a result of pure, objective deductive reasoning that conforms to laws established, This isn’t arbitray, this is forensic objectiveness- Arbitrary is suggesting that a naturalistic process somehow violated several established laws, and overcame severe iompossibilities and resulted in fully completed systems that give ‘the appearance of’ IC


71 posted on 01/12/2009 10:11:00 AM PST by CottShop
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To: CottShop
This isn’t arbitray, this is forensic objectiveness-

Forensics involves things that have happened, based on observation of available evidence. This is speculating on things that cannot happen, based on an absence of evidence.

72 posted on 01/12/2009 10:16:16 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: LeGrande

[[Any evidence then, that life was created?]]

Yes- there is evidence life was created- the very article listed by GGG is evidence

[[The author seems to be presupposing that there is a cause and effect the assumption being that a creator is the cause and life is the effect. ]]

Please keep the discussion about hte article and not about Who God is- you are deviating from the article’s claims

[[Let me take the liberty of simplifying the authors argument. The “effect” (existence or anything) has to have a cause. Therefore “existence” (effect) proves a “creator” (cause).]]

It is showing evidnece for IC, and it is statign that naturalism is incapable of creating htis IC in a stepwise manner- This article is attemptign to establish a ‘law’, not create an arguemtn for cause and effect proving God.


73 posted on 01/12/2009 10:16:57 AM PST by CottShop
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To: GodGunsGuts
I don’t see what the double slit experiment has to do with the argument at hand. They don’t know nearly enough about the particle/wave aspects of light to do away with cause and effect. To do so would completely destroy the scientific method.

The Law of Cause and Effect is a philosophical law not a scientific law. Science is not based on deductive reasoning. A single black swan destroys the theory that all swans are white.

74 posted on 01/12/2009 10:17:12 AM PST by LeGrande
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To: tacticalogic

==The entire basis for the determination seems based on a subjective evaluation of the curent state of knowlege - we don’t have a way to explain this as a natural phenomenon so it is reasonable to assume that there isn’t one.

Williams is going much further than that. Not only is he claiming that life’s irreducible structure cannot be reduced to naturalistic explanations, but further that intelligent design is the ONLY acceptable historical inference with respect to the laws of cause and effect. Can you think of any naturalistic/neo-Darwinian historical inferences that can compete with intelligent design with respect to Williams argument?


75 posted on 01/12/2009 10:17:21 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: CottShop
Let me also point out htat the species ability to ‘cope with’ mutaitons also goes to show design- especially hwen it is considered that species cope with mutaitons in very specific species specific manners.

On what basis has it been determined that the design was intended to cope with mutations, but disallow evolution?

76 posted on 01/12/2009 10:19:45 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic

[[The requirements of this irreducible complexity thoery seem to be that any change in the form will render the organism unsurvivable. ]]

No sir that isn’t true- IC is designed to handle change- Yuo are tryign to assert that nothign in IC can change, and if it does, it renders IC unreasonable- this is NOT the case- IC does NOT have to include ONLY IC components- but hte components that ARE IC can not be reduced

[[Every species is already “irreducibly complex” as it exists.]]

no it isn’t- no they aren’t- They CAN be reuduced i nthe REDUCIBLE parts and systems, however, they can NOT be reduced in the IC parts and systems- Miller in his testimony knew this full well, but he too tried, and succeeded unfortunately for honestly intellectual scientific practicioners, to convince the activist judge that his argument abotu IC was correct- it was not-


77 posted on 01/12/2009 10:21:16 AM PST by CottShop
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To: LeGrande
Cause and Effect isn't just a philosophical proposition as everything in existence is theorized to be the effect or results of energy and matter arising from....no cause whatsoever.

And if you care to point the famous double slit experiment then it must be noted that we get answers according to how we ask them, even as physicist John Wheeler commented,

“It is wrong to think of that past [ascribed to a quantum phenomenon]
as “already existing” in all detail. The past is theory. The past has no existence
except as it is recorded in the present. By deciding what questions our quantum
registering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable choice in
what we have the right to say about the past.
—1980
If “ In science there are no proofs only falsifications....”, then the finding of science should not be used as proof of anything, only as an opinion from a biased position.

78 posted on 01/12/2009 10:21:33 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: GodGunsGuts
Can you think of any naturalistic/neo-Darwinian historical inferences that can compete with intelligent design with respect to Williams argument?

I don't know of any that have even attempted to make such a subjective argument.

79 posted on 01/12/2009 10:22:27 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Not necessarily. More likely is that we simply don't understand the mechanism of causality yet.

No, "cause" is not always needed. There is no scientific Law of Cause and Effect. It is a philosophical argument.

80 posted on 01/12/2009 10:24:22 AM PST by LeGrande
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