Hang on a mo Paul - stop telling fibs about science and scientists.
They make no such premise or supposition - they simply look for evidence.
They see no evidence of a god intervening (no unless you want to claim a god of the gaps argument here) so look for natural explanations.
You are the one with a presupposition - your position is actutally called presuppositionalism - why do you think that making up fibs about what science does will help your case beats me.
So give scientists evidence of your god and they will believe in him.
Have you got any evidence at all that this is what science does to back up this tissue of porkies?
Shame on you.
Psi
Psi: I'm not talking about what "scientists" think at all. There are plenty of scientists who are not materialists/naturalists, much as that sticks in the throat of certain people from that community. It's just that they have to keep their heads down because anything that smacks of teleology evokes pretty direct opposition from the dominant, ateleological group. For example, both New Scientist and Scientific American seem to set aside at least one issue a year to bang the party drum on evolution and ateleology.
As far as evidence is concerned, the post identified several ways in which the ateleological presumption has been shown to be flawed over the last few decades - the universe not infinite aged; low-level life not simple; earth not "any other planet". I can add more - "junk DNA" not being vestigial; "vestigial" organs not being vestigial; OOL easy to demonstrate; fossil record not showing continual graduation, but recognisable species. None of these represents conclusive evidence of design; all can be accommodated within a materialist framework - but on the other hand, an awful lot of what materialists had assumed would be the case given their lack of belief in external agency has been shown not to be the case.
Incidentally, if you say you are prepared to go where the evidence leads, what would you take as evidence of design?
Wow you really are just making this up as you go along aren't you.
Evidence of people keeping their heads down?
Your list of examples of ateleological presumptions being in error are neither examples of such a presumption or even errors.
If you think that recognisable species in the fossil record as opposed to continual gradation I'm afraid you need a basic primer in evolutionary theory.
OOL easy to demonstrate? Can we have some quotes please? he he
Did you get this from a creationist website? Just try reading some basic science.
I am currently doing a natural sciences degree with the OU and you just failed the pre course self test.
Claiming that science thinks Junk DNA's existence supports evolution in the first place is simply making it up. When it is the process of science itself that continues to ask questions about such rather than claiming teleology and stopping in it's tracks just shows how hollow your position is.
Evolution can be a cause of stasis as well as change.
You biggest howler yet;
"Incidentally, if you say you are prepared to go where the evidence leads, what would you take as evidence of design?"
Evolution produces design. We have watched this happen in thousands of experiments.
- - -
How can you be so sure you know that something is wrong when you so clearly demonstrate a huge degree of ignorance about even the very basics of that subject?
I am embarrassed for you.
Psi
PS you can do a free intro course to evolution on the OU - would you like the details?
I bet 50p you don't need to as you already know you are right - reality is not relevant.
Perhaps you are a reincarnation of the pope's representatives refusing to look into Galileo's telescope to see the craters on the moon - because they knew they didn't exist.
BTW as usual you have ignored all my questions.
Psi: you asked one question in your previous comment - have I got any evidence, which I understood meant in support of the assertion that science is driven by presuppositions. As far as I was concerned, I addressed that question, both in the original post and then amplified in the comment above. The evidence is in the assumptions about the nature of the universe and life which have been shown to be false.
Specifically, I didn't say that scientists say that junk dna supports evolution. What I was saying is that scientists assumed that junk dna was an evolutionary leftover, rather than having a function of its own, and the reason for this was because darwinism was considered to be blind and purposeless - and could therefore, supposedly, leave tracts of wasted dna in genomes. That was what people thought until the mid 90's. Again, the fact that non-coding dna has a purpose doesn't prove design, but any assertion that it indicates purposelessness now looks a little hollow.
Evolution seems to have happened in your case - you seem to have evolved into a troll at some stage, perhaps with your acquisition of "a little knowledge". I have also studied natural science, and continue to be interested in many areas of art and science. This post was targeted at a non-technical audience. You are welcome to criticise in comments, but I am not inclined to take much notice of comments that are long in bluster and irrelevance and short in fact.
There was one thing. I missed out a "not". OOL has not been shown to be easy to demonstrate. But your reaction to the missing negative shows you didn't have a clue as to how it fitted into the flow of the argument anyway - that's the clever thing about prose - if you understand it, you can even tell when the writer has said something he didn't mean.
Paul,
"prose" simply listing things which are compatible with an all powerful god can include anything at all.
This is why it is not science.
This is why is is not possible to follow the logic of such prose (there isn't any).
Are you going to address any of the questions I raised?
Are you going to address the points I made about you making things up wholesale?
This should be extremely simple for you to counter.
Hair splitting back at you e.g. "You didn't say god created the world you just assumed it."
Perhaps you can see the flaw in such an argument when it is pointed back at you?
BTW - Name calling as well now?
Taking offence at an argument against your case and substantial questions about your position reveals some awareness of your lack of rational responses.
If scientists just assume junk DNA is left over from evolution then why are scientists probing it and continuing to discover more about it?
Will you attempt to answer this one either I wonder?
Psi
Taking offence? No, just criticising its lack of substance and coherence. Had I taken offence, I would have just deleted it, or edited it.
Of course non-coding DNA is still under investigation. However, it has been suggested that it would have been more thoroughly investigated by now had it not been assumed to be vestigial.
Okay. The questions you raised. I've explained what I think is evidence in support of the assertion that the assumption of ateleology has proven to be weak. Evidence of people keeping their heads down? Ask Mike Gene, formerly of Telic Thoughts, why he uses a pseudonym. OOL easy to demonstrate - well, dealt with the omission of "not" there, which changes the sense and might possibly change your request. On the other hand, it might not: who knows?
I didn't get it from a creationist website, and I have "read some basic science".
By the way, "its" doesn't need an apostrophe. Read some basic English grammar. :p
"How can you be so sure something is wrong ... ignorance?" That is, I think, called a rhetorical question. In case you don't know what one of those is, it's one that doesn't anticipate an answer. Also notice that the apostrophe in "it's" there was correct, as it's a contraction of "it is".
Do I want details of an OU course? No thanks; I am in the process of applying for one anyway.
"Reincarnation of the pope's representatives..." What were you saying about name calling? And you are also showing ignorance about history of science - if you want to understand what happened to Galileo, you need to read more widely than you have. I'd recommend "Galileo's Daughter" by Dava Sobel. I would anti-recommend Brecht's play "Life of Galileo".
As far as my name-calling is concerned, I'm sorry but your comments display all the characteristics of trolling. Can't be a watchdog if howl like wolf.
Um, that's the answers to your "questions" from the first two comments. Most of your questions in the next comment amount to "are you gonna answer my exciting questions? Huh? Are you? Or are you .... CHICKEN!!!!" Well, now I have, for what it was worth, which was barely the time it took me to write this comment, since they were so slight.
Well, at least it's better than the standard lists containing such items as "there are no transitional fossils". Picking one...
- evolutionary transitions between phyla - bear in mind that for the most part even changing the number of chromosomes in an animal can have a drastic effect on its ability to survive: this has to happen over and over again as biodiversity increases;
Chromosome numbers change within phyla as well as between them. For the mechanics of how, see here. It's not a very likely process, which is why it happens pretty infrequently, but it has happened in the past. You can see the remnants on the human second chromosome, which looks like two particular chimp chromosomes stuck together end-to-end.
I think you may have a misconception as to how transitions between higher-order taxa happen. Consider you a distant cousin. You're not very closely related. But go back a few generations, and your shared great-grandparents are very closely related. Move forward in time, and your descendants will be more distantly related.
If you were to send a bunch of taxonomists back in time to the Cambrian, they wouldn't place the ancestors of currently-separate phyla in different phyla themselves. Higher-order taxonomic splits are simply the result of a lower-order split, plus plenty of time.
Hi Paul,
OK Just before I give up here are the questions you are ignoring again;
What about the pope and the archbishop of canterbury?
You seem to be implying that they are either not christians or don't accept evolution. Or is it something else - please clarify.
How can you say they both assume junk DNA does nothing AND that they are investigating it?
So anyway - why does Genesis have to be literally true for the rest of the book to be true?
Is it a science course you are applying for?
Psi
Oh and by the way - molecuar clock evidnce shows evolution well in train about 900 Ma ago well before the Lower Cambrian. In fact the "explosion" does not appear to be much of a genetic event at all.
We also see the shelly fossils in the pre-Cambrian and the first evidence of burrowing as well.
Such developments seem to open up huge new niches and opportunities of diversity for NS to work on.
- - -
Just in case you were interested in the science.
Psi
Gren, Psi: "Evolution was in train 900 MY ago"..."Chromosomal changes can occur with low probability"
Well, of course this is the case, if a putative designer chose to use natural processes, rather than direct miraculous intervention. Your next statement will then be, "if the processes could appear to be natural, then why hypothesise a designer at all?"
The point is as far as I'm concerned, if the "natural" process requires too many implausible stacking up of exactly the right throw of dice, simply shrugging and putting it down to luck or anthropicism is unreasonable. Gren, you talk about the distance between me and a distant cousin. The question is, can I keep doing that until we're talking about me and a chimp? Possibly. Me and a whale? Me and grex? Me and a petunia? Me and an amoeba? I know the theory - I'm just not convinced you can keep scaling it up. I still think there is little evidence that you can; it is a matter of dogma.
Psi: The molecular clock thing is interesting. You are right that a lot of the development must have taken place prior to the Cambrian, for us to see such geologically sudden changes. But it would be a bit spooky, wouldn't it, if it was shown that evolutionary developments in the pre-cambrian were related to changes that were not expressed until later - a kind of "evolutionary credit" had been banked that was only cashed 500 MY ago. Natural selection works using existing environmental factors - the thought that sufficient "neutral" changes could be made to revolutionise life in the Cambrian. Again, I know what the darwinian answers are - have to be! - I am just not convinced that they really make ateleological sense.
Psi: You keep asking about the pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as if you want me either to say that they aren't Christians (inflammatory) or they don't believe in evolution (false). The fact is that there are many Christians who believe in a wide spectrum of things - a point I made in the first of these two posts. Your raising of this is just trying to stir up a secondary debate, and I have no interest in going there at the moment.
Hi Paul,
You seem more friendly today!
We know that you aren't convinced that the fact a man can take a step means that some men walk hundreds of miles - but then you have yet to give any reason for this at all.
You resort to fallacious probability arguments - is the OU course a maths one?
Deal a pack of cards Paul - the odds of just that deal appearing are billions(?) to one against. woooooo!
No spookiness implied at all re the precambrian - no hard parts usually means no fossils or traces.
Only when hard parts evolved (shelly fossils - remember) do we get to see the results of the previous evolution.
- - -
It's hilarious that in a post about whether or not christians can "believe" in evolution that you won't even talk about the fact that catholics and anglicans do both.
Is such talk not official dogma perhaps?
Regards,
Psi
Oh and don't forget the bit about why Genesis can't be just a beautiful allegorical myth.
Thanks,
Psi
"Men can take a step..."
Well, it depends where the step is, doesn't it? I mean, let's use the fitness landscape as an analogy. If the slopes of the fitness landscape are all gentle in every direction, then there is no reason why you can't just keep walking wherever you want to go. But supposing there are deep crevasses, and whenever you go too far, you reach one. Then the fact that a person can take one step in a direction doesn't imply that he or she can go 100 miles.
I'd argue that since we see pretty well-defined organisms, which appear without a gradual series of antecedents (except putative ancestors that are also well-defined), and there are pretty solid drop-offs (numbers of chromosomes) the fitness landscape is the evidence in support of my claim. But again, there is no solid research to show and most experiments don't focus on actual creatures, but concepts, which are easier to handle.
I'm also familiar with that probability argument. But even dawkins accepts that a chance explanation may not be reasonable if the likelihood is too low. This occurs in both "the blind watchmaker" and "the god delusion", although the probabilities he gives are, I believe, different. He seems to accept that your position (a blithe shrug at however many negative powers of ten are required) is intellectually untenable. He goes on to say that he believes a more powerful god is less probable than the low probability event, which is what makes the whole of TGD a pile of rot. It doesn't make his position secure from theists; it just highlights that he knows little about theology or philosophy, which given hsi book is theological/philosophical is pretty inexcusable.
And as a matter of fact, I think given what I have said, you would be hard pushed to make the case that I don't believe in evolution, let alone all these supposed godless other christians. What I don't believe in is an atelic process, as don't they. If they don't believe at some level in God as creator, they are not Christians, according to the historic creeds.
"COuld Genesis be myth?" Well, is it written as myth? In writing TGD, could Dawkins have been using irony to make the case for God? You are not a postmodernist. Don't you think you should take seriously authorial intent?
I agree, incidentally, that Gen 1 doesn't necessarily refer to 6x24 hour periods. For a start, they are written from God's perspective, not a human's. But the gOd who is spoken about in Gen 1 is the same as the god who reveals himself later on... is it reasonable to disconnect that text from what follows?
The mistake is to assume that Gen 1 is written to answer our questions about science. The Bible is rarely written on just one level like that...
Hi Paul,
Fitness landscapes are not solid surfaces - they change.
You next appear to be denying the existence of an intermediate or transitional forms - look out of the window - or at any basic biology text.
Look at the previous comments - you have already been told about chromosome numbers once on this very thread.
Ah - the "it's a pile off rot" - with no reason given - argument. I will leave this to die of lack of any support on its own.
Of course their are two contradictory stories in genesis as well.
How do you know that genesis are not simply myths written by people?
Authorial intent - what of every author of every book?
How do you decide which to take seriously?
- - -
No - I am not expecting any answers to those last three questions.
- - -
Just content to point to the rather large holes in your "science" comments.
Regards,
Psi
Regarding the "pile of rot" - well, I've commented extensively on this blog on TGD. I have also had comments from atheists (thinking ones, who have no interest in ID, since you are quite likely to assume that the testimony of anybody in any other camp is suspect...) to the same end - that Dawkins had a chance to write a great book, and blew it. There are also at least four or five substantive book-length rebuttals of TGD. I assumed that you were aware of the state of the debate ... :p
The two stories in Genesis don't contradict one another. Here's a link to the first alternative to your perspective that I came across. I'm not endorsing the page it's on - just illustrating how quickly I can find something which holds there is no contradiction.
It doesn't matter whether fitness landscapes change. I am quite happy that the peaks move with time - which is why you see Darwin's Finches on the Galapagos changing generation by generation to adapt to the new fitness landscape. The question is whether they are continuous (and changing) or discrete (and changing). Not that discrete is a terribly good word to use of a polydimensional surface. However, personally, on the basis of the nature of speciation and life around us, I am pretty convinced that they are fairly discrete, and this being the case, only trivial movement is likely between "peaks" on the fitness landscape. You may think differently. At the moment, the most one can say is that this analysis lies beyond computational resources. It is necessary, if darwinian evolution is true, that the fitness landscape be traversable - so you will be committed to believing that anyway. However, I don't think you have any real evidence in support of this.
With regard to the authorship of the Bible ... well, the question is, is it one book, one coherent whole, with a single overall purpose? Or is it no more than a random jumble of writings? I would argue for the first, and for an overall "authorial intent". But that's another story ....
Chromosome numbers - again, this is a matter of faith. Your belief in evolution demands belief that chromosome numbers are fundamentally a variable quantity - not often, but often enough and undamaging enough to allow darwinian evolution to occur. Since I believe that God may have worked through evolution to achieve what we see today, I don't have a problem with lots of low probability events happening along the way. But what I want to know is, just how miraculous would things have to be before you would be convinced that there is a God? Somebody coming back from the dead, perhaps?
Is it more likely that there is a designer - not just on the basis of these issues, but all the others that one might raise - or that nature just got lucky lots of times in a row? I am convinced that an obstinate refusal to accept that there is a God isn't "science" at all - it's wilful rejection
Paul: Chromosome numbers - again, this is a matter of faith. Your belief in evolution demands belief that chromosome numbers are fundamentally a variable quantity - not often, but often enough and undamaging enough to allow darwinian evolution to occur.
No. No. That's not how it works. It's not a matter of faith. Science is not the same thing as belief with the serial numbers filed down and "Darwin!!" written in with crayon. I'm presenting evidence--human chromosome two looks like two particular chimp chromosomes welded together; this is the mechanism by which chromosomes split and join--and you're... waving your hands.
But what I want to know is, just how miraculous would things have to be before you would be convinced that there is a God? Somebody coming back from the dead, perhaps?
Nothing so outlandish. Regenerating someone's severed limb through the miraculous power of prayer would be pretty likely to convince me. Basically anything along these lines. (These are sufficient, but not necessary. I'm sure there are other things that could well convince me.)
I am convinced that an obstinate refusal to accept that there is a God isn't "science" at all - it's wilful rejection
And I'm beginning to become convinced that an obstinate refusal to see a difference between evidence-backed claims and furious handwavery is willful rejection.
You wonder why people don't seem terribly interested in answering your questions about biology--it's because when someone makes a good-faith effort to explain something to you, your response is to derogate it as "a matter of faith" and move on to some other topic which you don't actually have an interest in either. This tactic is referred to by some as the "Gish gallop" due to its use by Duane Gish. It's infantile, and it's dishonest.
Hi Paul,
;-P to you to
I think you just conceded the debate.
Regards,
Psi
No, it's handwaving both ways.
The human chromosome is two chimp chromosomes welded together. Fair enough - so you can see that at some point this represented a transitional point between humans and chimps. That describes, if you like, the process. But the thing is, we all know that substantive changes at the level of chromosomes are almost always harmful to an animal, if not fatal. And yet, this change somehow was not only neither harmful nor fatal, but has brought about a species which is self aware and has transformed the world.
Arguing from a theistic evolution point of view, nobody would dispute the process (the welding of chromosomes). But to say, "Well, there's your mechanism, then" kind of misses the point. Your insistence that this is the ateleological (low probability) solution is just as handwavy as the insistence that such events were orchestrated by a higher intelligence.
Hi Paul,
Do a google. Spend an afternoon reading around the subject.
The come back and wave your hands in apology.
- - -
When will you realise that the fact you don't know about something does not mean that the sum total of human knowledge can't include it either.
- - -
Arguments from ignorance never sounded so smug.
Regards,
Psi
Whatever. My perspective is that you need to realise that a just-so story, with no maths attached, is a just-so story, not a scientific explanation. The fact is that chromosome-level events are seriously disruptive to organisms. We see them over and over again, and they are bad things - and yet you say if you stack enough bad things together randomly, you will eventually get enough good things to create the diversity of life that we see today. For myself, the arriving at a "good" outcome as a consequence of many "bad" things happening smacks of design.
Wow a new world record in ironical arguments.
1 - After refusing to go ad look at the research you then characterise it as "a just-so story, with no maths attached". You haven't even looked have you?
2. - You don't stack anything Paul. The bad things die before reproducing as much (or at all) and the good things survive and prosper in the population. Ready for the next beneficial accident. This is most basic natural selection. I am in awe of your ability not to have picked this up from the previous eight times I have explained it in basic english.
You really are giving a text book example of a closed mind . . . and on top of that you won't even talk about (let alone think about and re-examine) why the huge majority of religious folks in the world have no problem with the evidence for evolution.
Most religious folks are happy enough to state that evolution is gods way for the living world to make itself.
You have previously refused to even to discuss this and this is very eloquent about the intellectual black hole your particular circular reasoning is in orbit around.
For the second time in this very thread - NS produces design Paul - no one is arguing there isn't design. Why oh why do you still try to imply that - isn't that just dishonest?
Regards,
Psi
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