Posted on 09/11/2002 7:33:21 PM PDT by Ahban
7. (New designs in nature)Indeed! The Designer could make mammal-bird, amphibian-mammal, or amphibian-bird composites just as easily as He made Archeopteryx with its wonderful mix of bird and reptile features. But He only seems to make composites that look just like transitionals on that evolutionary tree of life. This item boldly states that such is far from necessary. Creation/ID can freely predict a far wider range of designs than does evolution.Anti-Supernatural: Complex new designs would be rare and develop slowly whereas simple transitions would be common
Supernatural: No restriction on designs with the possibility that new designs would be created "overnight"
So where are they?
That's another bias. Being closer makes the wobble bigger. The inverse r2 factor in Newton's Law and all that.
Almost every astrophysicst beleives they formed further out and drifted in. This would have disrupted the orbit of any earth-like planet.
But it's harder to see the cases where that didn't happen.
That is a statement of faith on your part. Ultimately, it is a matter of faith which side we choose. You are SURE it can be done, but we just have not figured out how YET. Pure faith, by the facts, it is currently impossible, but by faith it is just a matter of time. Maybe, maybe not.
In the meantime, the fellow has made some testable predictions. Prove them wrong and you have negated his hypothesis. Isn't that fair enough?
This gets a little silly, you know. We're talking about the chemical synthesis of organics.
Can we add another prediction to a very short list?
1) OK, well, there's never going to be another transitional fossil found,
2) OK, well, there's never going to be another organic compound synthesized.
Have we been all over that? Ring species? Aren't you one of those micro-isn't-macro-dodgers?
Just did it all over today with Dark Knight, who (throwback that he is) doesn't even accept microevolution. First this, then later the following.
Let me summarize the evidence a bit. We can see this micro thing, even if we can't always do the ultimate test.It isn't always happening somewhere else. It happens slowly but detectably now. As that slide show pointed out:From Smooth Change in the Fossil Record.
We can see this macro thing, which looks a lot like the micro thing writ large.
From Appendicular Skeletal Evolution, part of The Evolution of the Horse.
Now, you can protest that your version predicts anything we find now or will ever find with its "Hey! He could have done that too!" Designer. The problem is convincing anyone that your version is more scientific.
I believe you are mis-using the word "faith" in this context. As I use the word faith, it means belief in something without evidence or logical proof. Many theological doctrines are believed on faith, as I've described it.
However, I gave a list of scientific accomplishments which were, in the pre-scientific past, believed to be impossible. But science has provided us with the understanding of nature to accomplish things which, in our ignorant past, we were unable to do. So science has a track record. This is evidence of the efficacy of the scientific endevour.
Thus, when I say that some things now claimed to be impossible (the claims are made by creationists, not scientiests) may in the future be accomplished, I am pointing to the scientific track record and, with confidence (not faith), I predict that such matters can be solved by further research.
I admit that such predictions may be too enthusiastic, and some problems may turn out to be unsolvable. But it's confidence, based on observable facts, not faith, based on ... well, on nothing but faith.
Moheled again!
The odds of getting a 1 in roulette are 1 in 38 (36 numbered slots, plus 0 and 00). The odds against getting two 1s in a row are 1 in 382. Three 1s in a row will happen once in 383 times. Very unlikely. But if it happens, I won't be looking for a "causitive agent" ... unless I suspect a barking wheel.
That is a statement of faith on your part.
That is an assumption on your part. I would not say "we will," but rather, "we may." Or (granted), we may not. But no matter how you slice it, what the author has is an argument from incredulity. That's a logical fallacy no matter how you slice it.
6. (Origin of Life)"Anti-Supernatural?" What's wrong with just "Natural?"Anti-Supernatural: Life emerged late, during ideal environmental conditions. Life began as simple systems (pre-bacteria)
Supernatural: Life emerged early under adverse conditions. Life has always been complexThis "bold prediction" is too mushy. Evolutionist J. William Schopf has tried to peg cellular life at 3.8 billion years ago, when the earth had barely cooled. Those are not exactly late or ideal conditions. (Questions have emerged about Schopf's claim. The 3.8 bya "fossils" may be geologic artifacts.) Why does Deem stake out the same position for the supernatural? How early is "early" and how complex is "complex?"
Actually, you did force me to muse about this for a while because of a previous thread. What I had wanted to point out was that the criteria for a thesis to be scientific isn't limited just to practically realizable refutability.
There is a fundamental problem called under-determination that you might stumble onto if you look into the literature on this subject. Under-determination is 90 cent word for "can't ever really be sure". And it is a kind of complement to the principal of refutability. It holds that, since you can't prove squat, there is no way to be sure that the cause you have demonstrated for an effect is the fundamentally explanatory cause, no matter how useful it seems. I'll give you an excruciatingly relevant example: if I somehow manage to determine beyond reasonable doubt what the exact naturalistic pathway is from long-lasting sulpherated paint-pot bubbles to cellular life, I will still not have demonstrated that it didn't require intervention by God to get the whole shebang rolling. Just because I can provide a detailed naturalistic explanation for babies resulting from combining sperm and eggs from bisexual species, does not refute the notion that the sperm and eggs are being directed to each other by God's Master Plan. God may simply be working through naturalistic tools to accomplish His Plan.
It is because of the problems mounted by underdetermination that we obey other restrictions on what we allow into the science club. We don't, for instance, let in explanations whose broadness of scope is such that any number of similar alternative explanations would work equally well on the available evidence. When we propose alternative scientific explanations, it is generally to, in terms of potential proposed tests, narrow down, not expand, the field of discourse.
Hence, an answer like "God did it." To be science, needs to explain, in some verifiable manner, why Zeus, Jupiter, the elephant on the back of the turtle, or Allah aren't just as good candidates.
Science, after taking many knocks in the noggin about this, has learned to restrict its inquiry to naturalistic events. That is, events which leave some trail of positive material evidence behind to chew on. You cannot easily imagine how to refute theories that do not rely on positive evidence. By contrast, theories that rely on positive evidence, can be refuted by finding tangible counter-examples.
Hence, I can refute Newton's theory of gravity by finding counterexamples that do not obey Newton's law--which is exactly what happened with the perihelion of Mercury experiment. We are presently in the throws of figuring out whether outer orbits of galaxies refute the current law of gravity.
By contrast, suggest to me where to look for counter-examples of the thesis: "God created the heavens and the earth". As a thesis, its scope is too broad and vague for me to mount a scientific search for refuting counter-examples.
The idea that a perfect God would not create a universe less than "perfect" is logically flawed.
The idea that a perfect God could create a less than perfect universe is logically flawed. (I love it when these guys lecture on whats logically flawed. Its a sure sign that what follows is utterly irrational.) If all that existed was God then all God knew was perfection. Since He is perfect and complete, He couldnt learn, so how did He know about imperfection, unless He already had the knowledge, meaning He must have been imperfect in some aspect. In other words, how could He know that there was the possibility of something other that goodness, for there to be a freewill choice concerning, if He didnt already know about evil, unless He Himself created it?
Why didn't God create this perfect universe in the first place? Forcing creatures to be prefect (sic) would abrogate their free will and prevent them expressing true love, since they would have no choice.
There are a number of problems here. First, the above says that God could not create a perfect universe where freewill was possible, therefore He is not Omnipotent and by definition not God. Second, that being created perfect would abrogate freewill, which means either there is no freewill in perfection or if one has freewill one cannot be perfect, so does God lack freewill or perfection? Following from this it, if one is created perfect one cannot express true love. But if one were perfect one could only express true love, or it would violate the definition of perfection. The contradictions here abound.
When I first read this I thought there was more here to criticize but the rest is such an irrational mish mash it takes all the fun out of it. It is just a pile of assertions without proof that arent even connected logically enough to point out the contradictions. For example, the very first sentence.
In essence, ID is a statistical study in which the product is unlikely to occur by naturalistic process alone.
This is nonsense. There isnt anything that exists that doesnt occur by naturalistic process alone unless you beg the question that there is something other than the naturalistic (what a word! you can always see obfuscation coming when you see words like this) process. In other words, this very sentence already assumes the existence of the supernatural. It is utter assertion without proof that is the premise for all that follows. If you take the word unlikely it gets more ridiculous. It has the logical form of saying, it is statistically unlikely that what has occurred naturally could have occurred naturally.
The whole document is filled with this kind of thing. Enough said.
That is not what I was asking about.
The intelligent Designer is identified as the Creator God of the Bible.God may have been the Designer, but who was the builder and how was it built? What was the physical agent that created human, animals, plants, etc. I have yet to see a description of how the act of creation could have occured.
All the Creationist arguments I see are mostly anti-evolution arguments. I'd like to see some affirmative discussions of what the theory of Intelligent Design is and how it works, minus attacks on competing theories.
I know I've tried to explain to you before about how families don't pop out of nowhere. It's a tree. Big branching limbs were once little limbs. Little limbs were once tiny buds.
Moving further up the taxonomic hierarchy, the condylarths and primitive carnivores (creodonts, miacids) are very similar to each other in morphology (Fig. 9, 10), and some taxa have had their assignments to these orders changed. The Miacids in turn are very similar to the earliest representatives of the Families Canidae (dogs) and Mustelidae (weasels), both of Superfamily Arctoidea, and the Family Viverridae (civets) of the Superfamily Aeluroidea. As Romer (1966) states in Vertebrate Paleontology (p. 232), "Were we living at the beginning of the Oligocene, we should probably consider all these small carnivores as members of a single family." This statement also illustrates the point that the erection of a higher taxon is done in retrospect, after sufficient divergence has occurred to give particular traits significance.Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record, which in its entirety could have been written directly to you.
Isn't that basically what a proof involves?
ax·i·om Pronunciation Key (ks-m)
n.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.