Yes, but who is to say that known mathematics doesn't already have a contradiction of the sort Godel pointed out? There's a lot of different 'theories' and there's no guarantee that they mesh properly.
My apologies. [I had to brush up on the actual numbering system].
Correction:
The Godel numbering system assigned a unique prime number to each symbol and axiom of his arithmetic. Then, the IDs of the combinations of symbols making up formulas were computed by raising each symbol or axiom ID to the power of its position in the sequence. And, finally, the ID of each proof or theorem by applying the same algorithm to the formula IDs making up each proof.
More info here.
And the way he did it was through a formal numbering system for his theorems using prime numbers. Essentially, his system computed a truth statement (i.e., a theorem) such as this (except with an extremely large prime number instead of 1729):
1729 - - - - - - - - - Well-formed formula no. 1729 is not true
What does machine-readable have to do with it? Goedel's codification system was the very thing that made his conclusion rock-solid. With actual machines, one would think that the conclusion would be even more forthcoming.
P.S. It is another logical fallacy to conclude that ID theory has nothing scientific to offer because its predecessor Creationism included religious aspects: ad hominem.
Science should be concerned with deciding the truth values of claims no matter their source.
William Paley predated Darwin. And, certainly Creationists have not in the interim ceased 'preaching' the same message which has gone forth since before either of them.
They have certainly modified the message over time. You are familiar with the "God of the gaps" argument, I presume? Whenever science comes up with a decent explanation of something that the creationists claimed "god did it", they change their message. See dover trial and the flagellum argument for one example, or their find/replace of "God did it" with "some intelligent designer did it" when they changed their name from creationism to ID.
I don't justify or feel responsible in any way for the arguments of the last 200 years or so coming from Creationists. And, I'm sure that you would not want to claim responsibility for the embarrassing moves your side has made either (such as the 'discovery' of cro-magnum man or neanderthal man based entirely on archaeological unearthing of one single pig's tooth!).
My point remains the same, but maybe I should've used Moses instead of Paley as surely you couldn't say that Moses was 'targetting' evolution some 3200 years before Darwin? I think it is safe to say though that Moses' work was in part to combat paganism and early forms of atheism (which are philosophical stances, not scientific ones). Genesis was never intended to provide detail about scientific processes.
And, Dover proves nothing except that a liberal judge continued the status quo. The supposed 'refutation' of irreducible complexity does nothing more than multiply imagination upon imagination. And those imaginations come up very short. Even if they were sufficient (and they're not--they're way short) to explain how the bacteria flagellum *could* have evolved, they certainly come no where close to showing how they *did* evolve. You should read Michael Behe's book on this subject--_Darwin's Black Box_. There's way more proteins and enzymes involved than can be explained with a simple vague guess as to how it might have happened. What Dr. Behe says is lacking is detail of a step-by-step process (and this process is still yet to be detailed).
The evolutionists' argument here is really a logical fallacy--argument ad ignorantiam. While providing only far-fetched and imaginative theories about everything from how smart Neanderthal man was to how much fur specific dinosaurs must've had, they claim that since no one has disproved evolution (and their imaginations), it must be true.
How can you say I moved the goalposts when the author used the word 'origin'? Is not origin an endpoint? Is there such a thing as an original origin. Or, is one origin more original than another? Obviously, if the author had chosen another less absolute word, then my refutation would not have applied.
And, even if evolution did offer this explanation, it is solely a conjecture that rebuffing evolution is ID theorists' sole motive in advancing their theory.
Conjecture, my hindquarters..
"The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter ÃoeIDÃ), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child." [wikisource.org]
It is quite clear that the ID movement was born after the creationists' failed attempts to get creationism into the school curriculum. If rebuffing the theory of evolution isn't their goal then what is?
Well, I personally consider myself an ID theorist (attacking the problem from an information science perspective), so I can speak for myself. I think the theory has interesting ideas and merits on its own. Rebuffing evolution certainly isn't my sole motive. I agree that Creationism has morphed into ID, but isn't it the message that should matter, not the messenger? [Also, I know a bi
Well, I think the real problem is that evolution is pushed into the science classroom, so that leaves no other option for the ID theorists and Creationists except to push for their material being presented as well. Evolution is more imagination than anything else (and no, I'm not ignoring the 'evidence' supporting it such as mutating viruses). Let's leave imagination to the liberal arts and not science, no?
Very true. And, this 'breakthrough' isn't all that surprising either. Our honorable leader GW Bush has said all along that we should wait for this better technology to develop instead of burning embryos. Looks like one less thing the liberals can blast him on now.
Don't you think the Smalltalk parts might confuse some pure C coders? I mean, heck, some of them are using C++ as if it is C because they don't want to or don't care to learn object-oriented programming.
I didn't read TFA (or T original FA from a couple of days ago) but I figured that there'd be at least some ad lib-ing going on. Wouldn't it be rather boring to have an entire mission scripted? Is that really the way they do things? I think that even in a military setting (which you would think would be more serious than a mere space mission), there's some room for creativity (at least if any of the movies I've seen on actual combat are any indication).
No, you're absolutely right that evolution says nothing about origins (either of the universe or of man because even if you can trace man's origin back to the primordial soup, that soup must've come from somewhere). That was kind my point too. How can you speak of intermediate origins? Either something is an origin or it isn't and I don't think you can speak of the origin of the species independent of the origin of the universe. Anyone who is satisfied by science's explanation of the very distant past is simply either very easily satisfied, not very inquisitive or engaging in willful ignorance.
I addressed your critique of anthropic principle in another post if that's the 'refutation' you're referring to. But, in short, sentience and ultimately intelligence are the keys to the anthropic principle (mere sentience is not enough unless it evolves into intelligence or hyper-intelligence). Consider a universe where everything else had turned out the same except that we humans and animals were not self-aware (so either a fully plant-like life existed in this hypothetical universe or none at all, just matter). In that universe, the anthropic principle would not apply. I wouldn't want to begin to speculate exactly how unique the sentience trait is (out of the 2^52 possibilities in your illustration), but I would bet that it is rather rare (not to mention that the existence of a soul really transcends the physical entirely). [And, obviously, I believe sentience is more than a rare trait, but even with your rationalist methodology, you ought to be able to agree that sentience affects the odds quite a bit].
I suppose you could say at this point that sentience is merely an illusion, but it's pretty clear that in our current universe there's both sentient and non-sentient beings/collections of atoms. I think that if you chose to roll the die and come up with alternate universes, you'd at least have the possibility of coming up with one just like we have here--so both sentient and non-sentient life forms are possible in all alternate universes too [and maybe there's even hyper-sentience or meta-sentience ad infinitum].
See previous reply. I think it was very clear where the statement:
'Evolution offers an explanation for the origin of the human species based solely on natural processes'
came from (hint: it wasn't me. IT was TFA and it was the same statement that I objected to).
Also, please see previous post discussing the nature of the word 'origin'. Is there such a thing as an 'original origin'? Or, can you say that one origin is more original than another? I don't think so--origin is an ENDPOINT!
Well, speaking as an YEC who routinely speaks out against evolution (and reads much on the subject), I can tell you why 'they' oppose evolution so strongly. [And, it's not just because it's a convenient place to fight].
There's a very vocal group of extremist and evangelical atheists (Hitchens, Dawkins, & Dennett et al) that have convinced the world that evolution proves materialism and thus atheism. This is total and clever reversal of the inference (and for those of you who like to talk about circular reasoning so much, there's a few loops you can go through there). The only way one can possibly arrive at pure coincidence as an explanation of the origin of life on this planet, is if you *start* from materialism. This debate is not about science at all. It is about philosophy masquerading as science. Evolution is not the problem (even if it were true). The problem is the phony implications pushed by extremist atheists. Evolution does nothing to support their philosophy and they should stop claiming that it does. I recommend one of two things (and preferably both) to bring a truce to this situation:
Educating the masses on philosophy and the philosophy of science in particular.
Restraining your vocal evangelical atheists from pushing their philosophy of materialism in the 'science' classroom and the popular media.
Either of those two things will bring a quite quick-like end to all of the opposition you guys are facing from Creationists and ID theorists (of course, there is a third option, but it is so outlandish that I almost didn't mention it--don't rule out 'design' a priori as a cause for high order--I know, it is hard to imagine order arising via intention).
Yea, and who exactly defined Creationism the way you quote. I would think that the best definition of Creationism would come from Creationists, not the secular humanists holding positions of power on Wikipedia. If you haven't noticed yet, Wiki does not represent non-mainstream ideas very well--tyranny of the masses, you know?
Oops, nevermind. I thought you were looking for a specific permutation (which would actually fit the anthropic principle better as an analogy than your illustration).
Order (or sequence) is way more specific than a binary category and the anthropic principle includes *VERY* long odds for the tuning of the universe. So long in fact, that for all intents and purposes, it is by definition 'impossible' (according to a standard metric of statisticians).
Actually, what the hell does base 2 have to do with it (is it just because we are on a geek site typing on computers which happen to have a binary numbering system)? I think the actual odds would be something more along the lines of:
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but who is to say that known mathematics doesn't already have a contradiction of the sort Godel pointed out? There's a lot of different 'theories' and there's no guarantee that they mesh properly.
My apologies. [I had to brush up on the actual numbering system].
Correction: The Godel numbering system assigned a unique prime number to each symbol and axiom of his arithmetic. Then, the IDs of the combinations of symbols making up formulas were computed by raising each symbol or axiom ID to the power of its position in the sequence. And, finally, the ID of each proof or theorem by applying the same algorithm to the formula IDs making up each proof. More info here.
And the way he did it was through a formal numbering system for his theorems using prime numbers. Essentially, his system computed a truth statement (i.e., a theorem) such as this (except with an extremely large prime number instead of 1729):
1729 - - - - - - - - - Well-formed formula no. 1729 is not true
It's essentially a more formal rendition of the Epimenides Paradox.
What does machine-readable have to do with it? Goedel's codification system was the very thing that made his conclusion rock-solid. With actual machines, one would think that the conclusion would be even more forthcoming.
Amen to that.
P.S. It is another logical fallacy to conclude that ID theory has nothing scientific to offer because its predecessor Creationism included religious aspects: ad hominem.
Science should be concerned with deciding the truth values of claims no matter their source.
William Paley predated Darwin. And, certainly Creationists have not in the interim ceased 'preaching' the same message which has gone forth since before either of them.
They have certainly modified the message over time. You are familiar with the "God of the gaps" argument, I presume? Whenever science comes up with a decent explanation of something that the creationists claimed "god did it", they change their message. See dover trial and the flagellum argument for one example, or their find/replace of "God did it" with "some intelligent designer did it" when they changed their name from creationism to ID.
I don't justify or feel responsible in any way for the arguments of the last 200 years or so coming from Creationists. And, I'm sure that you would not want to claim responsibility for the embarrassing moves your side has made either (such as the 'discovery' of cro-magnum man or neanderthal man based entirely on archaeological unearthing of one single pig's tooth!).
My point remains the same, but maybe I should've used Moses instead of Paley as surely you couldn't say that Moses was 'targetting' evolution some 3200 years before Darwin? I think it is safe to say though that Moses' work was in part to combat paganism and early forms of atheism (which are philosophical stances, not scientific ones). Genesis was never intended to provide detail about scientific processes.
And, Dover proves nothing except that a liberal judge continued the status quo. The supposed 'refutation' of irreducible complexity does nothing more than multiply imagination upon imagination. And those imaginations come up very short. Even if they were sufficient (and they're not--they're way short) to explain how the bacteria flagellum *could* have evolved, they certainly come no where close to showing how they *did* evolve. You should read Michael Behe's book on this subject--_Darwin's Black Box_. There's way more proteins and enzymes involved than can be explained with a simple vague guess as to how it might have happened. What Dr. Behe says is lacking is detail of a step-by-step process (and this process is still yet to be detailed).
The evolutionists' argument here is really a logical fallacy--argument ad ignorantiam. While providing only far-fetched and imaginative theories about everything from how smart Neanderthal man was to how much fur specific dinosaurs must've had, they claim that since no one has disproved evolution (and their imaginations), it must be true.
How can you say I moved the goalposts when the author used the word 'origin'? Is not origin an endpoint? Is there such a thing as an original origin. Or, is one origin more original than another? Obviously, if the author had chosen another less absolute word, then my refutation would not have applied.
And, even if evolution did offer this explanation, it is solely a conjecture that rebuffing evolution is ID theorists' sole motive in advancing their theory.
Conjecture, my hindquarters.. "The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter ÃoeIDÃ), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child." [wikisource.org] It is quite clear that the ID movement was born after the creationists' failed attempts to get creationism into the school curriculum. If rebuffing the theory of evolution isn't their goal then what is?
Well, I personally consider myself an ID theorist (attacking the problem from an information science perspective), so I can speak for myself. I think the theory has interesting ideas and merits on its own. Rebuffing evolution certainly isn't my sole motive. I agree that Creationism has morphed into ID, but isn't it the message that should matter, not the messenger? [Also, I know a bi
Well, I think the real problem is that evolution is pushed into the science classroom, so that leaves no other option for the ID theorists and Creationists except to push for their material being presented as well. Evolution is more imagination than anything else (and no, I'm not ignoring the 'evidence' supporting it such as mutating viruses). Let's leave imagination to the liberal arts and not science, no?
Amen to that. Working with clueless recruiters is not fun either. I feel like I almost need an agent in this industry.
Very true. And, this 'breakthrough' isn't all that surprising either. Our honorable leader GW Bush has said all along that we should wait for this better technology to develop instead of burning embryos. Looks like one less thing the liberals can blast him on now.
Don't you think the Smalltalk parts might confuse some pure C coders? I mean, heck, some of them are using C++ as if it is C because they don't want to or don't care to learn object-oriented programming.
I didn't read TFA (or T original FA from a couple of days ago) but I figured that there'd be at least some ad lib-ing going on. Wouldn't it be rather boring to have an entire mission scripted? Is that really the way they do things? I think that even in a military setting (which you would think would be more serious than a mere space mission), there's some room for creativity (at least if any of the movies I've seen on actual combat are any indication).
No, you're absolutely right that evolution says nothing about origins (either of the universe or of man because even if you can trace man's origin back to the primordial soup, that soup must've come from somewhere). That was kind my point too. How can you speak of intermediate origins? Either something is an origin or it isn't and I don't think you can speak of the origin of the species independent of the origin of the universe. Anyone who is satisfied by science's explanation of the very distant past is simply either very easily satisfied, not very inquisitive or engaging in willful ignorance.
I addressed your critique of anthropic principle in another post if that's the 'refutation' you're referring to. But, in short, sentience and ultimately intelligence are the keys to the anthropic principle (mere sentience is not enough unless it evolves into intelligence or hyper-intelligence). Consider a universe where everything else had turned out the same except that we humans and animals were not self-aware (so either a fully plant-like life existed in this hypothetical universe or none at all, just matter). In that universe, the anthropic principle would not apply. I wouldn't want to begin to speculate exactly how unique the sentience trait is (out of the 2^52 possibilities in your illustration), but I would bet that it is rather rare (not to mention that the existence of a soul really transcends the physical entirely). [And, obviously, I believe sentience is more than a rare trait, but even with your rationalist methodology, you ought to be able to agree that sentience affects the odds quite a bit].
I suppose you could say at this point that sentience is merely an illusion, but it's pretty clear that in our current universe there's both sentient and non-sentient beings/collections of atoms. I think that if you chose to roll the die and come up with alternate universes, you'd at least have the possibility of coming up with one just like we have here--so both sentient and non-sentient life forms are possible in all alternate universes too [and maybe there's even hyper-sentience or meta-sentience ad infinitum].
'Evolution offers an explanation for the origin of the human species based solely on natural processes'
came from (hint: it wasn't me. IT was TFA and it was the same statement that I objected to).
Also, please see previous post discussing the nature of the word 'origin'. Is there such a thing as an 'original origin'? Or, can you say that one origin is more original than another? I don't think so--origin is an ENDPOINT!
It sure looks like a religion to me. It has a basic set of tenets (or doctrine). And, there have been U.S. courts who agree.
See the 'Legal mentions...' section of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
There's a very vocal group of extremist and evangelical atheists (Hitchens, Dawkins, & Dennett et al) that have convinced the world that evolution proves materialism and thus atheism. This is total and clever reversal of the inference (and for those of you who like to talk about circular reasoning so much, there's a few loops you can go through there). The only way one can possibly arrive at pure coincidence as an explanation of the origin of life on this planet, is if you *start* from materialism. This debate is not about science at all. It is about philosophy masquerading as science. Evolution is not the problem (even if it were true). The problem is the phony implications pushed by extremist atheists. Evolution does nothing to support their philosophy and they should stop claiming that it does. I recommend one of two things (and preferably both) to bring a truce to this situation:
Either of those two things will bring a quite quick-like end to all of the opposition you guys are facing from Creationists and ID theorists (of course, there is a third option, but it is so outlandish that I almost didn't mention it--don't rule out 'design' a priori as a cause for high order--I know, it is hard to imagine order arising via intention).
Yea, and who exactly defined Creationism the way you quote. I would think that the best definition of Creationism would come from Creationists, not the secular humanists holding positions of power on Wikipedia. If you haven't noticed yet, Wiki does not represent non-mainstream ideas very well--tyranny of the masses, you know?
Actually, it's secular humanism which is the religious form of atheism.
It's MS' favorite mode of operation--client side security.
And, don't you mean Adobe instead of Amazon (or are both involved)?
Well, if the Average Stupid Computer User won't be there, then maybe they're shooting for the Below Average Stupid Computer User?
I personally checked the box 'always use iTunes plus' when it first appeared so the last two years of purchases from iTunes for me have been DRM free.
I wonder if the dialog amongst the spacemen was any different this time?
Oops, nevermind. I thought you were looking for a specific permutation (which would actually fit the anthropic principle better as an analogy than your illustration).
Order (or sequence) is way more specific than a binary category and the anthropic principle includes *VERY* long odds for the tuning of the universe. So long in fact, that for all intents and purposes, it is by definition 'impossible' (according to a standard metric of statisticians).
Actually, what the hell does base 2 have to do with it (is it just because we are on a geek site typing on computers which happen to have a binary numbering system)? I think the actual odds would be something more along the lines of:
1: 52! (that's 52 factorial)
Apparently, you should brush up on discrete math.
And, BTW, before you think I'm just heckling you, I agree with your point even though it was modded -1 flamebait.