Posted on 05/17/2022 7:53:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
A growing number of scientists seem finally ready to at least include intelligent design within the ‘range of views’ allowed to be heard.
At first glance, the Potential and Limitations of Evolutionary Processes conference in Israel last week, which I attended, looked like any other scientific meeting on evolution, with talks by highly-credentialed scientists from institutions such as the Technical University of Munich, Cambridge, and the Weizmann Institute. But a closer look at the list of speakers shows that this one was different; it gave a platform to numerous notable proponents of intelligent design.
The conference included chemistry Nobel prize winners Ada Yonath and Sir John Walker, and numerous well-known evolutionary theorists such as University of Chicago molecular biologist James Shapiro and Georgia Tech biophysicist Jeremy England. But this time four or five intelligent design scientists were also invited, including Michael Behe of Lehigh University.
Most, but not all, avoided mentioning design explicitly, but still emphasized the “limitations” of evolutionary processes. Even Rice University chemist James Tour (who considers himself “agnostic” toward intelligent design) argued that origin-of-life researchers have deceived the public into believing that we are close to understanding how life formed, when we are not.
As stated on the conference web page, “the main goal of this unique interdisciplinary, international conference is to bring together scientists and scholars who hold a range of views on the potential and possible limitations of chemical and biological processes in evolution.” The organizers attempted, to a large degree successfully, to create an atmosphere of mutual respect between those who emphasized the “potential” of evolutionary processes, and those who emphasized their “limitations.”
Until recently, intelligent design has been considered an untouchable topic in mainstream scientific circles, where it’s considered axiomatic that everything must be explainable in terms of the unintelligent forces of nature, no matter how implausible and incomplete our current explanations may be. This axiom has worked well in other areas of science, but the problems of explaining the origin and evolution of life without design are inherently much more difficult than other scientific problems (for reasons which are obvious and outlined in my video, “Why Evolution is Different“).
For this reason, a growing number of scientists seem finally ready to at least include intelligent design within the “range of views” allowed to be heard. The meeting in Israel represented an important step in this direction and shows that mainstream science can ignore the obvious for a long time, but not forever.
If you need further evidence that intelligent design is finally being taken more seriously, look at the long list of distinguished scientists endorsing Stephen Meyer’s 2021 book “Return of the God Hypothesis.” Physics Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson said the book “makes it clear that far from being an unscientific claim, intelligent design is valid science.” Another endorser is Brazilian chemist Marcos Eberlin, whose own book “Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose,” which promotes intelligent design, carries the endorsements of three Nobel prize winners.
Of course, you shouldn’t judge a scientific theory by the number of distinguished scientists or Nobel laureates who support it, and certainly scientists who advocate intelligent design are still only a growing minority. But you should judge a scientific theory by its merits, and you don’t have to be a distinguished scientist to understand the merits of intelligent design. In fact, many already do.
Intelligent Design theory is a valiant effort to marry science with faith. However, as for any theory, to be acceptable as potentially valid science it must be falsifiable. It is incumbent on proponents to conceive of a theoretical proposition, a prediction from theory which could be tested empirically and potentially disproven. Just pointing to fascinating phenomena, no matter how many, does not qualify as empirical data, and without data there is no science.
“Why assume that time has a beginning or an end?”
We don’t assume. We know the universe must have a beginning because we scientifically demonstrated the alternative hypotheses do not conform to the observed universe that we live in.
“Why assume that God, or a conscious universe, needed to create itself or have a beginning in time.”
God and the universe are separate questions. God is by definition supernatural and outside the universe. So science can’t tell us much of anything about Him. But the universe is natural, bound by physical laws, and observable to us at least to an extent, so science can inform us about the universe quite a bit.
“These are anthropomorphic concepts based on our own understanding of time.”
No, math and physics are not anthropomorphic concepts.
“It’s just a parable to help you understand the age of the universe in light of the scientifically verified Twin Paradox.”
Well, if it’s just a parable then it really explains nothing, since you are using a mechanism in the parable (God traveling faster than the speed of light) to account for physical discrepancies. But if you handwave away questions about that using a “parable” excuse, you have also handwaved away any potential explanation that could have been provided.
Dude, why so nitpicky? Why not instead work on the math of how fast a being would have had to travel to generate the universe in 7 days from one side of the twin paradox to appear 14 billion years old? Instead, you’re getting all petulant.
Shove off.
“A god that is created is not a “big G God”,”
So you’re saying God always existed. By that logic why can’t one say the universe always existed.
You’re a lot like an atheist. 110% sure of your unverified beliefs, with no room for doubt. God would not be happy with the poor use you’re making of the most precious gift he gave you - your brain.
“That rules out a creator’s omnipotence then.”
No it doesn’t. You need to reclassify the argument into two different categories, say a “strong omnipotence” and a “weak omnipotence” argument (though that sounds like an oxymoron, bear with me).
The “strong omnipotence” argument would be that God has omnipotence, the ability to accomplish anything, AND that anything God wants, is automatically accomplished.
The “weak omnipotence” argument would be that God has omnipotence, the ability to accomplish anything, BUT that God does not choose to automatically accomplish everything that He wants.
In this case, an imperfect world rules out only the strong omnipotence argument and not the weak omnipotence argument.
FWIW, death by disease or from old age was not part of God’s plan for Adam.
It follows that, before the Fall, nothing was certain except taxes. 😉
“Nature does not care about our rigged rulebook.”
No, but we’ve gotten pretty damn good at discovering nature’s rulebook (laws of nature) and using them to our benefit.
“It is probably obvious that I do not subscribe to the theory of theistic evolution.”
You’re free to subscribe to whatever theory you want, even the Tooth Fairy theory, but unless it can stand up to critical scrutinity and reality, it isn’t worth much.
After I posted: - ‘Then wondered was Adam created fully grown, or as a Zygote?’
= = =
I thought about the 2nd Adam.
He WAS created as a Zygote, Holy Spirit and Mary and all that.
(Well, He always existed but this is how He came to live on earth.)
In my life, I have found there are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe. The only “fools etc” are those who use their heads as a hat rack.
“math and physics are not anthropomorphic concepts”
There are a lot of assumptions buried in those few words.
First among them is the definition of “math” and “physics” since of course the details (including the most basic assumptions and definitions) have changed over the thousands of years since homo sapiens has studied them.
But—let us give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you meant to say that today’s version of math and physics are not anthropomorphic concepts.
Your view of mathematics is actually a philosophical position called mathematical Platonism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Platonism
It is highly controversial (and I am being kind here....).
Terence McKenna had some wonderful thoughts on this topic.
He said that Homo Sapiens made great toys for children.
;-)
Ahah...so any passage of Holy Scripture that doesn’t clearly survive strict scientific scrutiny is either stamped DEBUNKED in bright red ink, or is interpreted in some non-obvious way so as to allow the good and honest among us to consider it as true?
The new Adam, yes, of course, all true.
Son of the New Eve! 🤗
“It is incumbent on proponents to conceive of a theoretical proposition, a prediction from theory which could be tested empirically and potentially disproven.”
It’s just as incumbent on proponents of evolution to come up with the same type of prediction, but as far as I can see, they have not.
“By that logic why can’t one say the universe always existed.”
Because Einstein and some colleagues of his disproved that hypothesis about a century ago, that’s why.
“You’re a lot like an atheist. 110% sure of your unverified beliefs, with no room for doubt.”
No, I’m not, you are just assuming I am because that allows you to make a nice straw man argument I think.
As soon as a materialist can show any system by which hundreds of complex amino acids can appear by chance and also appear in a cell membrane I might start to take abiogenesis seriously. Mathematical odds of even one small chain appearing by chance is 10 to the 164th power. There are “only” 10 to the 80th power atoms in the observable universe.
An agnostic is an atheist who lacks conviction.
“Your view of mathematics is actually a philosophical position called mathematical Platonism.”
Well, says you at least.
I suppose you could posit that mathematics is purely an invention of man and that it’s just a coincidence that we can use it to describe so many complex processes of the universe in very simple terms, but that would be an extraordinary coincidence, so you would have to provide some extraordinary evidence to explain it. Until then, I’ll take the default position that mathematics is something we have discovered, not something that we have created.
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