Good! I'm glad to hear that. And, I am truly sorry for the harsh tone of some of my earlier posts.
I think you will find that an honest examination of the material about this topic will be very rewarding and will advance science rather than destroy it.
... This is the scientific method. Darwinism at no point claims that there is NOT an intelligence behind the forces of nature. None of science does because it is grossly unscientific to make hypotheses involving unmeasurable phenomena.
Yes, that's exactly my point. The distinction between evolution (in the micro) and Darwinism (which is evolution in the macro combined with materialism/reductionism) needs to be made more clear, IMO. There are extreme, radical atheists who try to muddy the water between the two (and even Darwin himself recognized this and argued against it). It is quite an extrapolation to take micro-evolution out to the extent so commonly put forth (i.e., billions, trillions of years, almost an infinite amount of time). And, if that weren't enough, now we also have an infinite number of universes so of course *everything* is possible somewhere.
Let me be clear about this--neither I nor any proponent of ID that I know of denies the explanatory powers of [micro-] evolution. It is the unholy marriage of this idea with materialist philosophy that we argue against (which is so commonly put forth as 'evolution' in both the mainstream media and 'science' publications). The idea of evolution does absolutely nothing to enforce or support a materialist philosophy and yet it is so often taken for granted (or implied) that it does.
And, I do apologize for getting snippy--you're absolutely right about that (it's an easy thing to do when you are derided so often [and not by you in particular but by many on your side of this debate]).
Ahh, yes. You seem to prefer the Roman-ized version of the Church. Jerome, Augustine et al did more to hijack the faith than they did to advance it. For several hundred years after Christ, the Romans efficiently executed true Christians. Do you think that changed when they suddenly adopted it as the 'state religion'?
You should take a look at the contention between Antioch and Alexandria and decide for yourself which is the 'true' Christianity.
Creationists do not maintain that God could not have produced a universe where X evolved. They maintain that the explanation 'X evolved' only makes sense after you take the most obvious explanation off the table. The position 'X evolved' comes from a materialist philosophy and it takes as much [or even more!] faith in that philosophy to believe such an outlandish idea.
"An unintelligent process could not possibly have produced system X".
Did you ignore the second paragraph entirely because it did not fit well with your preconceived notions?
Obviously, I quoted Behe out of context. He was merely responding to claims made by Russel Doolittle and Kenneth Miller about the possibility of such a random process. They made a feeble attempt (i.e., very short on details) at providing one which Behe shot down in short order.
Please read all of my posts before continuing the conversation so that I do not have to keep repeating myself.
No, ID's relationship to theology is well-understood. Obviously, if there is an intelligent designer, then we have a whole host of descriptions of Him to choose from the theological bag.
ID is merely Creationism evolved to survive in the hostile environment created by materialist philosophers masquerading as 'rational' scientists. If Creationism is excluded from science due to its religious aspects, then ID surely must not be because no mention is made about who the Creator is [though yes, most proponents are Christians]. Also, if you are going to mention falsifiability at this point, then please see my last 3 posts immediately preceding this one (in response to cromar).
P.S. The two claims are in the same boat with respect to historical science. To claim that an intelligent process or an unintelligent process actually *did* produce a given system is beyond the explanatory powers of both theories. This is why he used the weaker word 'could' instead of 'did' and why also he rephrased:
"An intelligent process could produce this system"
as
"No unintelligent process could produce this system".
The two claims are identical but one is vastly easier to prove or disprove. [A simple and quite common logic trick really].
In other words, ID should be thought of as a critique of Darwinism as much as or more than it is a theory in its own right. And, surely critique is a part of the 'scientific process' no?
"A frequent charge made against ID is that it is not falsifiable. However, Russel Doolittle and Kenneth Miller and a number of other scientists advance scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID.... Now, one cannot have it both ways. One cannot say both that ID is not falsifiable and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable." He goes on to further say that ID is side open to falsification by a series of rather straightforward laboratory experiments such as those described by Miller and Doolittle (and that is exactly the reason they pointed to them).
And further on:
"It seems that, perhaps counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for this can be seen when we examine the basic claims made by the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical system. The claim of ID is 'No unintelligent process could produce this system.' The claim of Darwinism is that 'Some unintelligent process could produce this system'. To falsify the first, one need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second, one would have to show that the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do."
Does it get any clearer than that for a rational mind? If you would bother yourselves enough to actually read those you are so vehemently opposed to, then maybe I wouldn't have to channel them for you.
--Johanatan
P.S. This does not even go into the futility of demarcation I alluded to earlier. I'll leave that for a later post if you are still interested in continuing the conversation. This should, however, convince you that if you do insist on holding to your 'testability' criteria, then you have disqualified your own pet theory as much or even more so than the [actually quite obvious] alternative.
BTW, before you dismiss ID according to your carefully chosen demarcation criteria, it may do you well to see from Meyer why demarcation is futile (and why, even if you do attempt to demarcate (with any reasonable set of criteria), evolution fails the very same test!!)
It is all too common for so-called 'scientists' to dismiss ideas without even reading them.
Well, I wouldn't overlook Stephen Meyer's essay and his list of citations either. If you don't particularly care for the 'introductory' ID material (though it is engaging enough to keep most readers' interests), you could start by just looking through Meyer's 'works cited' list and going from there (something which I haven't actually done myself yet).
I was taught (and believe it to be proper) to add lots of assertions of expected types in dynamically-typed languages. This addresses both your 'deep frame untangling' problem and your 'difficulty of random orientation' problem.
About Godel:
J.R. Lucas The 'Minds, Machines & Godel' and 'Implications of Godel's Theorem' are particularly good.
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe
A good summary of ID theory from 3 of its main proponents. The philosophical angle is approached more by Stephen Meyer (including his thoughts on Kant) so his essay (the second in this book) and its reference list in particular would interest you. He only alludes to much of the discussion which I, being only an armchair philosopher, have yet to fully discover and appreciate. [But, he does make it clear that there's much written thought on these topics].
I have seen some crapware that attempts this. It does do it server side though. The client software (i.e., web browser) is designed to always pull its data through particular servers which do the transformations. It's the same idea as when you let m.google.com load your pages for you (but in my experience, no where near as good quality-wise).
There has been lots of talk about this, but you're more likely to find it in the philosophy or theology departments at your university than at the hard science departments. The hard scientists like to avoid these topics because the implications of such do not sit well with their reductionist/materialist philosophies (which they are in no way prepared to question).
Exactly. They could've picked any number of other [less popular] devices which do this, but they chose the one single device (or at least first) which displays the entire unedited page [elegantly]. Pure ignorance!
I just tried it with Safari and he is right. When all the windows are minimized, you get Safari's menu, but none of its windows (if they're *all* minimized) when tabbing back to it.
Yea, but unless you are already over 55, you could probably just wait 20 years or so for some of these young ones to mature with the mutation in utero.
Actually, the Christian sect of Judaism believes that the soul is eternal. Though, the GP may have witnessed a soul disconnecting from its body, he did not (in my view) witness the soul ceasing to exist...
E.g., I doubt that Wiles' proof Fermat's last theorem even bothers to state that it starts from ZFC, and most mathematicians probably have a strong expectation that it doesn't matter whether you pick some other foundation, Wiles' proof will still be valid. Nevetheless, it's possible that that's not true.
I'm glad you said that. I think it's not only possible, but quite likely as knowledge increases.
Slashdot Mirror
Good! I'm glad to hear that. And, I am truly sorry for the harsh tone of some of my earlier posts.
I think you will find that an honest examination of the material about this topic will be very rewarding and will advance science rather than destroy it.
... This is the scientific method. Darwinism at no point claims that there is NOT an intelligence behind the forces of nature. None of science does because it is grossly unscientific to make hypotheses involving unmeasurable phenomena.
Yes, that's exactly my point. The distinction between evolution (in the micro) and Darwinism (which is evolution in the macro combined with materialism/reductionism) needs to be made more clear, IMO. There are extreme, radical atheists who try to muddy the water between the two (and even Darwin himself recognized this and argued against it). It is quite an extrapolation to take micro-evolution out to the extent so commonly put forth (i.e., billions, trillions of years, almost an infinite amount of time). And, if that weren't enough, now we also have an infinite number of universes so of course *everything* is possible somewhere.
Let me be clear about this--neither I nor any proponent of ID that I know of denies the explanatory powers of [micro-] evolution. It is the unholy marriage of this idea with materialist philosophy that we argue against (which is so commonly put forth as 'evolution' in both the mainstream media and 'science' publications). The idea of evolution does absolutely nothing to enforce or support a materialist philosophy and yet it is so often taken for granted (or implied) that it does.
And, I do apologize for getting snippy--you're absolutely right about that (it's an easy thing to do when you are derided so often [and not by you in particular but by many on your side of this debate]).
Ahh, yes. You seem to prefer the Roman-ized version of the Church. Jerome, Augustine et al did more to hijack the faith than they did to advance it. For several hundred years after Christ, the Romans efficiently executed true Christians. Do you think that changed when they suddenly adopted it as the 'state religion'?
You should take a look at the contention between Antioch and Alexandria and decide for yourself which is the 'true' Christianity.
Creationists do not maintain that God could not have produced a universe where X evolved. They maintain that the explanation 'X evolved' only makes sense after you take the most obvious explanation off the table. The position 'X evolved' comes from a materialist philosophy and it takes as much [or even more!] faith in that philosophy to believe such an outlandish idea.
"An unintelligent process could not possibly have produced system X".
Did you ignore the second paragraph entirely because it did not fit well with your preconceived notions?
Obviously, I quoted Behe out of context. He was merely responding to claims made by Russel Doolittle and Kenneth Miller about the possibility of such a random process. They made a feeble attempt (i.e., very short on details) at providing one which Behe shot down in short order.
Please read all of my posts before continuing the conversation so that I do not have to keep repeating myself.
No, ID's relationship to theology is well-understood. Obviously, if there is an intelligent designer, then we have a whole host of descriptions of Him to choose from the theological bag.
ID is merely Creationism evolved to survive in the hostile environment created by materialist philosophers masquerading as 'rational' scientists. If Creationism is excluded from science due to its religious aspects, then ID surely must not be because no mention is made about who the Creator is [though yes, most proponents are Christians]. Also, if you are going to mention falsifiability at this point, then please see my last 3 posts immediately preceding this one (in response to cromar).
"An intelligent process could produce this system"
as
"No unintelligent process could produce this system".
The two claims are identical but one is vastly easier to prove or disprove. [A simple and quite common logic trick really].
In other words, ID should be thought of as a critique of Darwinism as much as or more than it is a theory in its own right. And, surely critique is a part of the 'scientific process' no?
Channeling Behe [paraphrased]:
... Now, one cannot have it both ways. One cannot say both that ID is not falsifiable and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable." He goes on to further say that ID is side open to falsification by a series of rather straightforward laboratory experiments such as those described by Miller and Doolittle (and that is exactly the reason they pointed to them).
"A frequent charge made against ID is that it is not falsifiable. However, Russel Doolittle and Kenneth Miller and a number of other scientists advance scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID.
And further on:
"It seems that, perhaps counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for this can be seen when we examine the basic claims made by the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical system. The claim of ID is 'No unintelligent process could produce this system.' The claim of Darwinism is that 'Some unintelligent process could produce this system'. To falsify the first, one need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second, one would have to show that the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do."
Does it get any clearer than that for a rational mind? If you would bother yourselves enough to actually read those you are so vehemently opposed to, then maybe I wouldn't have to channel them for you.
--Johanatan
P.S. This does not even go into the futility of demarcation I alluded to earlier. I'll leave that for a later post if you are still interested in continuing the conversation. This should, however, convince you that if you do insist on holding to your 'testability' criteria, then you have disqualified your own pet theory as much or even more so than the [actually quite obvious] alternative.
It is only such to willfully-ignorant 'scientists'.
BTW, before you dismiss ID according to your carefully chosen demarcation criteria, it may do you well to see from Meyer why demarcation is futile (and why, even if you do attempt to demarcate (with any reasonable set of criteria), evolution fails the very same test!!)
It is all too common for so-called 'scientists' to dismiss ideas without even reading them.
Well, I wouldn't overlook Stephen Meyer's essay and his list of citations either. If you don't particularly care for the 'introductory' ID material (though it is engaging enough to keep most readers' interests), you could start by just looking through Meyer's 'works cited' list and going from there (something which I haven't actually done myself yet).
I was taught (and believe it to be proper) to add lots of assertions of expected types in dynamically-typed languages. This addresses both your 'deep frame untangling' problem and your 'difficulty of random orientation' problem.
About Godel: J.R. Lucas
The 'Minds, Machines & Godel' and 'Implications of Godel's Theorem' are particularly good.
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe
A good summary of ID theory from 3 of its main proponents. The philosophical angle is approached more by Stephen Meyer (including his thoughts on Kant) so his essay (the second in this book) and its reference list in particular would interest you. He only alludes to much of the discussion which I, being only an armchair philosopher, have yet to fully discover and appreciate. [But, he does make it clear that there's much written thought on these topics].
I have seen some crapware that attempts this. It does do it server side though. The client software (i.e., web browser) is designed to always pull its data through particular servers which do the transformations. It's the same idea as when you let m.google.com load your pages for you (but in my experience, no where near as good quality-wise).
There has been lots of talk about this, but you're more likely to find it in the philosophy or theology departments at your university than at the hard science departments. The hard scientists like to avoid these topics because the implications of such do not sit well with their reductionist/materialist philosophies (which they are in no way prepared to question).
I think that Kant pretty well covered the limitations of the physical senses. And, Godel's theorms also imply that reality outruns knowledge.
Listen, that came from 'Larry Bagina'--I think he's an expert on the matter.
Exactly. They could've picked any number of other [less popular] devices which do this, but they chose the one single device (or at least first) which displays the entire unedited page [elegantly]. Pure ignorance!
I just tried it with Safari and he is right. When all the windows are minimized, you get Safari's menu, but none of its windows (if they're *all* minimized) when tabbing back to it.
So, you're going to start guessing strings of length 2048. Good luck. [And BTW, I bet their server will start ignoring you unless you use a botnet].
'Evolution by jerks' -- I like that. It's true on at least two levels.
Wasn't this 'demonstration' you speak of (like most things relating to evolution) mere speculation?
Yea, but unless you are already over 55, you could probably just wait 20 years or so for some of these young ones to mature with the mutation in utero.
Good analogy. The soul is something like software I think as it can change over time.
Actually, the Christian sect of Judaism believes that the soul is eternal. Though, the GP may have witnessed a soul disconnecting from its body, he did not (in my view) witness the soul ceasing to exist...
he merely saw it slip out to eternity.
E.g., I doubt that Wiles' proof Fermat's last theorem even bothers to state that it starts from ZFC, and most mathematicians probably have a strong expectation that it doesn't matter whether you pick some other foundation, Wiles' proof will still be valid. Nevetheless, it's possible that that's not true.
I'm glad you said that. I think it's not only possible, but quite likely as knowledge increases.