It looks to me like what you are actually saying and what you are trying to say are in contradiction. You're either conflating two definitions of the word "fact" or (less likely) your wording confuses epistemology and ontology.
You agreed with the statement, "Facts are things that are true, despite whether they are believed or not." This is an ontological claim--it's about what actually exists "out there" in the world beyond our experience. By agreeing, you are saying that an objective reality exists, regardless of our ability or inability to know it. This much is compatible with common sense.
Yet you then said, "And since human beings are only capable of opinion-not actually knowing reality, but only a model of reality we carry around in our heads-facts cannot exist." This is an epistemological claim--it's about what is or can be known--that you've twisted into a malformed ontological claim. You are basically saying that somehow, because of the limits of our knowledge, what exists "out there" in the real world doesn't actually exist at all!
That is, unless you've conflated two completely different uses of the word "fact" without telling us. (And to do so is really confusing!) Assuming that you've done this, and if I read you correctly, what the spirit of your words implicitly argue is:
1) We don't have direct access to the objective "real" world;
2) because of #1, we can never be 100% certain of our claims about the real world;
3) because of #2, all of our opinions on these matters are subjective and should not be called "facts." (Or something much like this.)
I think the responses have been largely in agreement with #1 and #2, but taking great exception to #3. (If not, that at least reflects how I feel about it.) I don't think we ever know the truth about anything as certainly as we know 2+2=4, but I think there are principled ways to go about finding it; and one can certainly say that one given opinion is better than another, or even that one is the best at any given time. I don't see how one can deny--even granting our imperfect access to the world--that some claims are more supported than others, with some claims being so strongly supported that we should give them special consideration. I'd call them facts, even with the understanding that they might change.
In a more pointed fashion, Stephen J. Gould wrote something on the subject of science that I think reflects how I think of such fact claims:
In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Further, to change directions a little, it looks to me like you might have used a form of what philosopher David Stove awarded the title: "Worst Argument in the World." (No insult intended. He chose this argument because it's so common--he's even caught himself making it.)
It basically goes like this: We can know things only
o as they are related to us
o under our forms of perception and understanding
o insofar as they fall under our conceptual schemes, etc.
So, we cannot know things as they are in themselves.
You can see more on it at this page devoted to it, since I can't recreate his entire account of it here.
The x86 does have some history that is holding its performance back, but it has still remained very competitive with relatively fresh designs. Instead, the main factor causing performance differences between CPU and GPU is generality--you can either do absolutely anything kinda' fast or something specific real fast. This trade-off isn't anything really new.
I had been using Norton programs ever since the early 90s, but for the last couple of years I haven't been able to stand it. So someone told me about NOD32. I found it on a torrent, installed (install was only a couple of MB--unbelievable!)... and it was magic. It (1) found viruses Norton missed and (2) was not noticeably slower (even on boot) than having no virus scan at all.
I was so appreciative, it become one of the few pieces of software I actually paid for.
I agree with your comment, even though when I first read it, I thought you'd be getting a lot of flack. I guess I was right.:/
If I understand correctly, you're saying that evolution and creation are (for the most part) orthogonal concepts, the truth of one having little to do with the truth of the other. Even as an atheist, I agree with this. In fact, this is what many scientists (many of whom were atheists) have tried for decades to tell creationists (the science-denying kind) to no effect.
[Aside: I also understand (but perhaps not totally agree with) atheists who consider evolution to be evidence against God. It is certainly evidence against one rigid reading of the Bible; a reading and conception of God believed even by its proponents to be a virtual house of cards. It forces a more metaphorical account of Eden, which may be troubling since the fall was a main theodicy and is featured in understandings of Jesus' sacrifice. Evolution is also an explanation that makes parsimony more of an issue. (Is God superfluous?) And evolution does, in the least, remove the argument from design from the table. (Is belief then too difficult to justify?)]
On the matter of language... I guess you found out that using "Creationism" or "Intelligent Design" to mean only that God is responsible for Creation (and not to refer to the crazy pseudo-science) is just simply begging for misunderstanding. In today's language, the specific pseudo-scientific theories are all that the words refer to. I think most today speak of "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creationism" in order to keep things clear.
Well, I agreed with you except on: "Evolutionists tend to take the closed-minded view that, because evolution happened, it must have happened entirely spontaneously and creationism of any sort must therefore be false."
I guess it depends on what you mean by "evolutionists." Most people who accept evolution are also religious. I believe the rate in the US is 40-50%, which by simple force of numbers requires atheists to be far outnumbered. Perhaps you mean just those who promote an exclusively materialistic account. (I would certainly argue that an exclusively materialistic account fits all the known scientific facts.)
But I would like it to be clear one way or the other, if you wouldn't mind responding.
"Also, the burden of proof argument is not a solid argument by any means, merely the basis of our own scientific method."
Scientific method? The burden of proof has been a fundamental part of logical debate and philosophy since the ancient Greeks. It continues in these areas because it's a necessary, pragmatic rule--not just some arbitrary inconvenience. Now, if you can imagine some new system where those who make claims of possessing new knowledge don't have to justify their claims and it reliably produces new knowledge then I'd like to hear it. (If you can, I think that'd be great. It would make my philosophy classes a hell of a lot easier!)
That nasty thing's giving me huge differences in my times and accuracies depending on which keys and hands I'm using. Three left hand fingers on 123 are score suicide.
It seems to be more a test of one's affinity to the input method than a test of reflexes.
Wasn't it essentially that motto that once gave us the CISC architecture...?
No. I admit I'm no expert, but this is my understanding of it. CISC has several very good reasons (at the time) behind it:
1) Keep the code footprint as small as possible, since memory (disk and RAM) was expensive. 2) Try to factor out the most common "overhead" instructions (i.e. load and store) which many thought were actually crowding out the important code. 3) Make compiler writing easier (but not necessarily easier to optimize for speed). 4) Ease assembly language programming (but not necessarily optimization). And, yes, this does involve implementing a few common functions in hardware.
When the hardware changed (with memory becoming much less expensive) and the software changed (with far fewer actually writing in assembly) and people's needs changed (with speed becoming more important than just getting the program to fit on the computer), RISC grew to dominate.
Well, not to accuse any culture of having an unusual history... there is a connection between reproductive strategy and penis size in the animal kingdom.
Promiscuous creatures tend to have large penises. Big schlongs (especially with the shape of the penis head) can remove some competitor's man-juices while insuring ideal placement of his own; and greater numbers of sperm increase his chances of reproduction, rather than some of the other guys working the same womb.
In contrast, creatures that force females into harems have smaller dicks. Males beating each other to gain alpha-male status is where all the pressure is at for these guys. The size of the penis and testicles atrophy to almost the minimum necessary in order to reproduce under nearly ideal (read: sole access to the female) conditions.
While gorillas developed huge upper bodies to do the beating, human beings may have developed culture to do the same thing (kings and the wealthy get lots of women, etc.)./Not to say there is a real size difference or that this is how it happened.
You haven't been making your case. Frankly, I really suspect you're purposefully avoiding it. You continue to ignore all mention of process and methodology and focus on how "unlikely" but "possible" Intelligent Design's claims are. To do this is to fail to engage what Doc Ruby and myself are saying.
For example, Doc Ruby initially responded with, "[Intelligent Design is] fake science because it doesn't include all the evidence and data when explaining phenomena." And you ignored it. You wrote on some other point. But this one is the core!
And now I wrote some 9/10ths of my previous post on methodology and you comment on only the conclusion. We've both been trying to get the point across that science is both falsifiable claims and process. If people are not engaged in the scientific process but are still claiming to be doing science, then they are doing "fake science." It doesn't matter that their claims could, in principle, be turned into a science that might be found true or false. The point is that they are not now doing any science with their claims right now.
It's the same as doing bad math. You may have a real math problem before you, but if you aren't following any of the relevant mathematical rules, you're doing "fake math." It doesn't matter that someone else might be able to solve it. Your attempt should be judged faulty and non-mathematical.
"Irrelavent. People being (allegedly) stupid or evil does not change the truth of a concept itself."
Irrelevant. What people are supposedly doing is acting out truth-discovering methodology.
Unreliable methods (like fraud, denial, and fallacious reasoning) may be right by extremely unlikely accident, but there is no reason to believe so for any particular case. What Creation Scientists and Intelligent Design advocates are doing isn't even really a process of discovery or valid justification. Reliable methods (like science) give much more reason to believe they have discovered the truth.
When one is facing off against the other, I know where I'm placing my bets.
"Science has still not (yet) given a convincing account of the orgin of the first cell(s), and evolution requires the existence of a population for natural selection to operate on, so the answer will require scientific theory beyond neo-Darwinian natural selection alone."
I agree that "fist life" is a problem with many clues and many ideas but, yet, no conclusive answer. I think it raises an interesting question: should abiogenesis be considered part of the theory of evolution? Currently it isn't, but all the proposed models I know have strong evolution-like mechanisms.
From what little I think I do know about the current state of research, many rocks have pore-like structures that can cause simple fat molecules to form bubbles, or proto-cell membranes. I think one of the questions they are facing is how the escalation from a simple (and short lived) proto-cell to an increasingly robust, modern cell works. Rocks also have regular structures that can select only left-handed or right-handed molecules. The molecules themselves are hypothesized (?) to be able to replicate and evolve right out of chemistry. I don't think anyone's shown this part in a lab.
I think it's fascinating work. But, yeah, early stuff.
But did it really take a large social movement questioning evolution itself to bring this to light? There were already scientists just beginning work on the problem.
"Theology isn't the answer, but neither is disingenuously trying to act like everything in evolutionary thory has been sewn up since Darwin."
I don't think that's what they're doing. It's one thing to say that the case is basically closed that evolution happened. I agree with that much. It's another to say that evolution has solved every problem to which it applies and there are no more questions to answer. But I don't think that's even being said. I don't think I've ever seen it.
Far from that depiction, I have read many biologists (I think even PZ Myers) propose that exposing people to the real debates in evolutionary biology will help people understand what about it is confirmed and what is debatable; and that scientists don't pretend to have all the answers all the time, but they are trying to find out.
"From most of the responses here, I see an outright dismissal of the possibility of ID, because of "overwhelming proof"."
On the contrary, the arguments for the theory of Intelligent Design have been dismissed because they have been found to be faulty, but this has no bearing on the possibility of a God. I would remind you to never confuse the idea that there is a God with the crank ideas of a few academics in Seattle.
"What about the concept of entropy and the Laws of Thermodynamics? Without outside influence (in their natural states), systems move from order to disorder. Under Big Bang theory, we have a cosmic explosion that has gradually become more and more ordered while eons and eons have passed. Am I somehow "unscientific" for questioning Big Bang theory on this basis?"
Yes, as others have said, you are unscientific for questioning Big Bang theory on this basis. Thermodynamics isn't about order, even though it so often seems to be in daily life. It's actually about the amount of usable energy available.
What's really interesting about thermodynamics and the order in the universe is how the order is the result of the thermodynamics! For example, by starting with little more than the conservation of energy, one can derive the principle of least action. This, in turn, can be turned into a powerful form of Newtonian Mechanics. With just Newtonian Mechanics, one can roughly understand how planets and solar systems form (minus the nuclear fire of the stars). All this just from thermodynamics.
One book I've been thinking of getting for the past week is "Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life". It's a popularization (and a little bit of philosophical extension) of the well-known fact that, far from being a problem, the second law of thermodynamics is the driving force behind biological evolution, and even economics. The books says, even life's origin./Well, that's my product placement for the day.;-p
"You misunderstand the definition of "fact". The Big Bang is a reasoned inference based on the collection of data which support a specific theory of origins."
Yes. And? As are all facts! Do you have your own concept of "fact"? Please share it!
You've given very few clues, such as "The data are the facts used to reason for a Big Bang." I suspect you're saying that there are some things that are theory-less (to be called facts) and some things that are theory. This is a distinction that has long been abandoned in the philosophy of science. But as it is, I don't think I have enough to really know what you're talking about for sure. I've already given you my usage, which I believe is common enough in science. A fact is any small "t" truth.
"If you still wish to insist that the Big Bang is a fact, then allow me to ask one further question: from where did this cosmic egg come?"
(I'm unsure if I should let language of "cosmic egg" pass. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but it brings to my mind the idea that there was some kind of pattern, kept very small, waiting to be released. In contrast, the singularity that the Big Bang involves is almost a formless point of energy.)
There are guesses for where this singularity came from, but I fail to see what that has to do anything. I don't think answering that question is strictly part of the Big Bang theory. (But I could be wrong.) And yours still isn't a question about the Big Bang as much as it's a question about all models of a non-eternal universe. Frankly, you don't seem to have doubted the Big Bang so much as you want to investigate even earlier before it!
Now, going outside established science, some have said that a huge and extremely rare quantum fluctuation could have created the universe. Some have suggested that, from what little we can tell about the laws of physics, it could not not have happened. (Yes, I too would wonder where those laws come from.) Others, myself included, don't think we can really know what rules apply when there are no rules or what kind of causes there might be outside of causation. I suspect some very stange things can happen and that our reasoning, based on the universe as it is, does not apply.
"I expect to be respected for questioning a theory that has become an assumption of many who refuse to look at the evidence."
I've got to ask you to say more on this, to be clear. More evidence for the Big Bang?--or more evidence that God was invoved in it? I think it's well understood that the singularity requires some kind of explination and is not taken for granted.
I think people do see what hasn't been explained about the orgin of the singularity and do recognize it as such. But this is not itself (without some kind of positive argument for God, rather than "How else can you explain it?") evidence of God. Many prefer honest ignorance to a God of the gaps.
"I have recently come to the conclusion that Creationism is scientific (it's falsifiable and has made predictions) while ID isn't"
I agree. I was arguing that Creation Science can be in principle a real science just a few weeks ago in my philosophy of science class. After all, like you said, it does make falsifiable claims: the earth is young, all life was created at approximately the same time, there was a worldwide flood that killed all but two of most (7 each of some clean) creatures, and so on. Of course, each one of these falsifiable claims has been falsified. But something doesn't have to be true to be scientific. (I admit that it is nit-picking.)
The important difference that keeps Creation Scientists from being real scientists is that science is not just scientific claims, but a scientific process. That claims are falsifiable is only important because these are the claims that the process can use. Creation Science, as it is actually done, is missing the honesty and methodology of science.
In fact, Creation Science is probably the best example of how ad hoc adjustments can be made to save any claim, no matter how consistently and how thoroughly it fails. They actually even explain the lack of evidence for one Biblical miracle with several more non-Biblical ones! The entire enterprise is, admittedly, an exercise in reasoning from a conclusion. As such, while it is a science in principle, it fails to be a science in practice.
"Since when is it a fact that the entire known universe started as an miniscule "cosmic egg" that exploded into everything?"
Since the evidence piled up became so overwhelming that it became perverse to believe otherwise. Without a series of incredible--and extremely unlikely--future discoveries bringing doubt upon the theory, belief otherwise must either be dishonest or purely a matter of blind faith taxed to its extreme.
And personally, I find it interesting how William Lane Craig uses the Big Bang in his version of the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God.
"Intelligent design similarly interprets available facts (e.g., the notion of irreducible complexity) and attempts to coordinate them within a unified theory of origins."
Except Intelligent Design has more problems than any conventional scientific theory. To be honest, it has been thoroughly disproved several times over. That it hasn't been abandoned is proof that its proponents either aren't open to reason or aren't concerned with truth.
Basically, the challenge it presents is shallow and weak. If Irreducible Complexity were understood as most do (that there is no evolutionary path for something), it's clearly and provably incorrect. Investigation into the evolution of the bacterial flagella, the blood clotting system, the immune system, and Behe's other examples have all filled in the picture on how these things evolved. As Behe saw in the recent trial, much of this has already made it into textbooks.
If it's understood as Behe put it (that there no evolutionary path that always maintains the function we see now), it's true but also irrelevant and not a challenge to evolution. Evolution doesn't require that this happen.
And finally, Dembski's "Explanatory Filter" relies on Behe to throw out evolution as a likely natural cause. One must have already rejected Evolution for it to work. That is without even going into how its nothing more than a mathematic version of the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. At it's simplest it's this: Do you know how this thing could come about naturally by law or chance? No? Then it was designed.
"Neither camp can prove their theory to a scientific certainty (as much as either side wants to believe they can)"
Maybe I don't follow this right. Are you squaring Intelligent Design against the Big Bang? As far as I can tell, there is no position or argument in ID that requires anyone to reject the Big Bang.
"but each should be allowed to make their arguments. Let the arguments be tested and challenged in the public sphere, and learn from the debate."
As is happening. Conferences are held, books are written, talks are given, papers are published, websites serve up evidence and arguments... and nobody has ever tried to stop this.
Of course, some want Intelligent Design to be given a free pass to be included in public school classrooms, bypassing the long, hard process everything else is subject to. That's not debate in the public sphere -- that's giving into all demands but requesting negotiations continue. It's absurd!
P.S. I don't know a single atheist or agnostic that isn't familiar with Pascal's wager.
The problems with the argument are long-known and generally accepted as a refutation. Simply put, the basic assumption of the argument, that there is a simple binary choice between belief and nonbelief, is unfounded. Working through the math with the multiple possible gods of various natures and various possible reward systems that can not be excluded a priori, the argument fails to mark any action as being strategically preferred. Further, many believe that a moral God would frown upon such a basis for belief, perhaps considering such calculations as atheism.
"... something in there obviously ruffled your feathers. You immediately attacked my character and said to me that, "you have no idea what you're talking about.""
I think what it was is obvious: he, like many, doesn't like to be accused of relying on faith. I think he also doesn't like others telling him that his personal ideas on religion are completely different from how he understands them. (It's like someone telling you that you actually don't believe in God, despite what you think.) It is a little presumptuous to do so...
""believing that there is no god" and "not believing that there is a god" are absolutely equivalent statements."
Absolutely not. Ignorance of the concept of God, the agnostic position (which he claims to hold), and failure of religious faith defaulting to atheism all fall under simply "not believing". It's a simple, often tentative, and fairly meek claim, equivalent to "I have no reason to believe." It's another step--one many are not willing to take--to make the stronger claim and set it in stone that "I believe there is no god". Both are claims of nonbelief, but the philosophical baggage of one path (and some agnostics would say, arrogance) is greater than the other.
Further nobody (no atheist I've ever known, including myself) believes anything like your analogy. It was a poor denial of the very mechanization of nature that has been a contributing factor in so much modern disbelief. Almost all of nature (save a few examples like the mind, for which we have many good clues) are fairly well understood in terms of law-like determinism. The question for many is not "How could this or that come about without God?", because the very existence of the answer is so often what causes the doubt; the question is, "What place does God have, with everything physical that we see being understood so well without Him? Is God superfluous?"
"Sure, intelligent design is a lame concept, but if any of you have taken Philosophy 101, you can't argue with the leap of faith. Sooner or later you have to believe in something--whether it's your own conclusions or a supreme being."
If you're a foundationalist, which, if you make in past PL101, you might not be. Coherentism seems to be the current fashion.
"... and with support like Richard Dawkins, it is no wonder so many people "believe in" creationism or ID over evolution. Based on some of his comments from The Root of All Evil, he comes across as a raving atheist fundamentalist."
Agreed. I'm an atheist, but that program really didn't fit me at all. I was turned off by his nauseating arrogance, I didn't at all agree with his treatment of the liberal Anglican, and his focus on religous pathology unjustly spread the blame around far enough even to anger any believer even in a healthy frame of mind.
Sometimes people join a fight simply because there is someone to oppose, not because they have anything worth defending. Dawkins was making that a reality for fundamentalism. I have no doubt that atheism's ranks shrank (or at least, failed to grow) as a result of that program; and a few more Christians may have been made, having seen this shallow and pitiful example of atheism.
"you were meant to extrapolate the analogy to something that is not easily observed and a set of events that are highly impracticle to reproduce"
His answer to the thought experiment was explicit about proper extrapolation and didn't involve any reproduction. The observations involved were analogous those in real evolutionary science. Did you even read it?
I thought it was complete, proper, sound, funny... perfect!
This is just nitpicking, but spontaneous generation really isn't part of the theory of evolution -- and it's probably not even what you're talking about.
Spontaneous generation is the theory that fairly complex life (like mice, maggots, and bacteria) can appear fully formed from non-life, most often decaying matter. This is also sometimes called Aristotelian pathogenesis. It's a theory that Pasteur famously disproved.
As you surely know, what a naturalist account for life's origin would require is actually a relatively slow (compared to spontaneous generation, there is nothing "spontaneous" about it) and gradual process that spends time passing through an ambiguous and gray area between life and non-life, such as the ambiguity found when trying to classify any virus as living or nonliving. In general, the modern terminology is "origin of life" or "abiogenesis" but not spontaneous generation.
"By random chance? Do you realize the complexity of the molecules needed by a cell to be sensitive to light? How would these be randomly made?"
First, nothing in evolution is completely random. That's the point of evolution. Second, two kinds of neurons that exist in primitive brains are entirely by accident light sensitive. (By "accident" I mean that they didn't form by selection for light sensitivity. That cells that function like neurons would be light sensitive is not at all unlikely. In that sense, it is not very accidental.) These cells are the rhabdomeric and ciliary cells. If these cells come close enough to the skin to be exposed to light, they can function as early eyes. (Of course, I suppose this is easier in primitive organisms that don't yet have skulls.)
Interestingly, most animal's eyes are based on rhabdomeric cells (with ciliary cells remaining embedded in the brain), but all apes and a some other creatures are the other way around.
"What about the other proteins in our DNA - afterall, that's all DNA holds, a map of proteins - how did the DNA magically mutate, time after time after time, to create these proteins which are so vital to our survival?"
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. "other" proteins? If you want an explanation of where amino acids and other components of DNA come from, that's not necessarily a question that falls under evolution. If you want to know how DNA came to have the information encoded in it, that would be a question that falls under evolution.
Of course, the answer to the second question is that they didn't magically mutate time after time. The number of failed and thrown away mutations may outnumber the successful mutations (the information) we carry in our DNA by several orders of magnitude.
"Does it use the premise that an eye is a good thing? If so, how is this valid? A cell which can see light slightly better than another does NOT always imply that cell will have a higher chance of living. Sometimes, perhaps, but 100 million (or however many mutations were necessary to create our eyeball) in a row?"
First question: Yes and no.
The premise that vision is advantageous is true of many, but not all, environments and niches. Since it is true of some, it is a valid assumption to work with in the evolution of the eye. (But you are right that light sensitivy is not guaranteed to be an advantage. In fact, some species have eyes that have atrophied genetically because eyes were no longer any help in dark caves or deep underwater. If it is an advantage depends entirely on environment.)
Now, the eye probably didn't take 100 million mutations since we only have around 20,000 genes. (Of course, there can be more mutations that genes.) An estimate was made in the paper Nilsson, D.-E. and S. Pelger, 1994. A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences, 256: 53-58. The conclusion was that they eye could evolve in 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.
But is there any specific point you can pick out that causes you trouble?
1) Neurons become exposed to light. 2) They a copied, and thus a light-sensitive patch forms. 3) A depression forms. etc. (several links on this process were posted in one of the parents.)
"Can strawman arguments be presented in Socratic form?"
I suppose so. A Socratic question is, by definition, always a little bit leading. One could ask someone he is engaged in debate with, "How can random chance create complex life?" which could be considered a Socratic strawman (strawman because evolution doesn't suppose that), rather than a rhetorical, question about evolution; if in the context of one's entire strategy in the debate to be one of questioning the other's claims like this, in order to "teach" him that he's wrong.
But I wasn't saying that the argument is a valid form simply because it's Socratic. (That was just an aside, recognizing how it was being presented. And I suppose that a stronger case could be that that it's simply rhetorical.) It had premises and a conclusion that taken together can have a valid deductive form.
And I said it wasn't a strawman because a strawman argument is one in which a purposefully flawed argument or position is attacked instead of a genuine one. But Microsoft or IE's development wasn't replaced with something exaggerated to be knocked down. Instead, Mozilla (and other projects) were made to look unrealistically good!
This super-positive image of Mozilla was just based on a single flawed premise that "smaller software companies can patch all of their bugs serious or minor." (Italics mine.) But there are no software companies that patch all of their bugs; at least none that were shown.
One might even argue that this whole situation is an apples/oranges comparison because of the different development, bug fixing, and bug reporting models. Any useful comparison between IE and Mozilla bug-patching would have to be more careful and more detailed.
Slashdot Mirror
You agreed with the statement, "Facts are things that are true, despite whether they are believed or not." This is an ontological claim--it's about what actually exists "out there" in the world beyond our experience. By agreeing, you are saying that an objective reality exists, regardless of our ability or inability to know it. This much is compatible with common sense.
Yet you then said, "And since human beings are only capable of opinion-not actually knowing reality, but only a model of reality we carry around in our heads-facts cannot exist." This is an epistemological claim--it's about what is or can be known--that you've twisted into a malformed ontological claim. You are basically saying that somehow, because of the limits of our knowledge, what exists "out there" in the real world doesn't actually exist at all!
That is, unless you've conflated two completely different uses of the word "fact" without telling us. (And to do so is really confusing!) Assuming that you've done this, and if I read you correctly, what the spirit of your words implicitly argue is:
1) We don't have direct access to the objective "real" world;
2) because of #1, we can never be 100% certain of our claims about the real world;
3) because of #2, all of our opinions on these matters are subjective and should not be called "facts."
(Or something much like this.)
I think the responses have been largely in agreement with #1 and #2, but taking great exception to #3. (If not, that at least reflects how I feel about it.) I don't think we ever know the truth about anything as certainly as we know 2+2=4, but I think there are principled ways to go about finding it; and one can certainly say that one given opinion is better than another, or even that one is the best at any given time. I don't see how one can deny--even granting our imperfect access to the world--that some claims are more supported than others, with some claims being so strongly supported that we should give them special consideration. I'd call them facts, even with the understanding that they might change.
In a more pointed fashion, Stephen J. Gould wrote something on the subject of science that I think reflects how I think of such fact claims:
Further, to change directions a little, it looks to me like you might have used a form of what philosopher David Stove awarded the title: "Worst Argument in the World." (No insult intended. He chose this argument because it's so common--he's even caught himself making it.)
It basically goes like this:
We can know things only
o as they are related to us
o under our forms of perception and understanding
o insofar as they fall under our conceptual schemes,
etc.
So, we cannot know things as they are in themselves.
You can see more on it at this page devoted to it, since I can't recreate his entire account of it here.
The x86 does have some history that is holding its performance back, but it has still remained very competitive with relatively fresh designs. Instead, the main factor causing performance differences between CPU and GPU is generality--you can either do absolutely anything kinda' fast or something specific real fast. This trade-off isn't anything really new.
I've got to second NOD32.
I had been using Norton programs ever since the early 90s, but for the last couple of years I haven't been able to stand it. So someone told me about NOD32. I found it on a torrent, installed (install was only a couple of MB--unbelievable!)... and it was magic. It (1) found viruses Norton missed and (2) was not noticeably slower (even on boot) than having no virus scan at all.
I was so appreciative, it become one of the few pieces of software I actually paid for.
I agree with your comment, even though when I first read it, I thought you'd be getting a lot of flack. I guess I was right. :/
If I understand correctly, you're saying that evolution and creation are (for the most part) orthogonal concepts, the truth of one having little to do with the truth of the other. Even as an atheist, I agree with this. In fact, this is what many scientists (many of whom were atheists) have tried for decades to tell creationists (the science-denying kind) to no effect.
[Aside: I also understand (but perhaps not totally agree with) atheists who consider evolution to be evidence against God. It is certainly evidence against one rigid reading of the Bible; a reading and conception of God believed even by its proponents to be a virtual house of cards. It forces a more metaphorical account of Eden, which may be troubling since the fall was a main theodicy and is featured in understandings of Jesus' sacrifice. Evolution is also an explanation that makes parsimony more of an issue. (Is God superfluous?) And evolution does, in the least, remove the argument from design from the table. (Is belief then too difficult to justify?)]
On the matter of language... I guess you found out that using "Creationism" or "Intelligent Design" to mean only that God is responsible for Creation (and not to refer to the crazy pseudo-science) is just simply begging for misunderstanding. In today's language, the specific pseudo-scientific theories are all that the words refer to. I think most today speak of "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creationism" in order to keep things clear.
Well, I agreed with you except on: "Evolutionists tend to take the closed-minded view that, because evolution happened, it must have happened entirely spontaneously and creationism of any sort must therefore be false."
I guess it depends on what you mean by "evolutionists." Most people who accept evolution are also religious. I believe the rate in the US is 40-50%, which by simple force of numbers requires atheists to be far outnumbered. Perhaps you mean just those who promote an exclusively materialistic account. (I would certainly argue that an exclusively materialistic account fits all the known scientific facts.)
But I would like it to be clear one way or the other, if you wouldn't mind responding.
"Also, the burden of proof argument is not a solid argument by any means, merely the basis of our own scientific method."
Scientific method? The burden of proof has been a fundamental part of logical debate and philosophy since the ancient Greeks. It continues in these areas because it's a necessary, pragmatic rule--not just some arbitrary inconvenience. Now, if you can imagine some new system where those who make claims of possessing new knowledge don't have to justify their claims and it reliably produces new knowledge then I'd like to hear it. (If you can, I think that'd be great. It would make my philosophy classes a hell of a lot easier!)
That nasty thing's giving me huge differences in my times and accuracies depending on which keys and hands I'm using. Three left hand fingers on 123 are score suicide.
It seems to be more a test of one's affinity to the input method than a test of reflexes.
Wasn't it essentially that motto that once gave us the CISC architecture ...?
No. I admit I'm no expert, but this is my understanding of it. CISC has several very good reasons (at the time) behind it:
1) Keep the code footprint as small as possible, since memory (disk and RAM) was expensive.
2) Try to factor out the most common "overhead" instructions (i.e. load and store) which many thought were actually crowding out the important code.
3) Make compiler writing easier (but not necessarily easier to optimize for speed).
4) Ease assembly language programming (but not necessarily optimization). And, yes, this does involve implementing a few common functions in hardware.
When the hardware changed (with memory becoming much less expensive) and the software changed (with far fewer actually writing in assembly) and people's needs changed (with speed becoming more important than just getting the program to fit on the computer), RISC grew to dominate.
Well, not to accuse any culture of having an unusual history... there is a connection between reproductive strategy and penis size in the animal kingdom.
/Not to say there is a real size difference or that this is how it happened.
Promiscuous creatures tend to have large penises. Big schlongs (especially with the shape of the penis head) can remove some competitor's man-juices while insuring ideal placement of his own; and greater numbers of sperm increase his chances of reproduction, rather than some of the other guys working the same womb.
In contrast, creatures that force females into harems have smaller dicks. Males beating each other to gain alpha-male status is where all the pressure is at for these guys. The size of the penis and testicles atrophy to almost the minimum necessary in order to reproduce under nearly ideal (read: sole access to the female) conditions.
While gorillas developed huge upper bodies to do the beating, human beings may have developed culture to do the same thing (kings and the wealthy get lots of women, etc.).
You haven't been making your case. Frankly, I really suspect you're purposefully avoiding it. You continue to ignore all mention of process and methodology and focus on how "unlikely" but "possible" Intelligent Design's claims are. To do this is to fail to engage what Doc Ruby and myself are saying.
For example, Doc Ruby initially responded with, "[Intelligent Design is] fake science because it doesn't include all the evidence and data when explaining phenomena." And you ignored it. You wrote on some other point. But this one is the core!
And now I wrote some 9/10ths of my previous post on methodology and you comment on only the conclusion. We've both been trying to get the point across that science is both falsifiable claims and process. If people are not engaged in the scientific process but are still claiming to be doing science, then they are doing "fake science." It doesn't matter that their claims could, in principle, be turned into a science that might be found true or false. The point is that they are not now doing any science with their claims right now.
It's the same as doing bad math. You may have a real math problem before you, but if you aren't following any of the relevant mathematical rules, you're doing "fake math." It doesn't matter that someone else might be able to solve it. Your attempt should be judged faulty and non-mathematical.
"Irrelavent. People being (allegedly) stupid or evil does not change the truth of a concept itself."
Irrelevant. What people are supposedly doing is acting out truth-discovering methodology.
Unreliable methods (like fraud, denial, and fallacious reasoning) may be right by extremely unlikely accident, but there is no reason to believe so for any particular case. What Creation Scientists and Intelligent Design advocates are doing isn't even really a process of discovery or valid justification. Reliable methods (like science) give much more reason to believe they have discovered the truth.
When one is facing off against the other, I know where I'm placing my bets.
"Science has still not (yet) given a convincing account of the orgin of the first cell(s), and evolution requires the existence of a population for natural selection to operate on, so the answer will require scientific theory beyond neo-Darwinian natural selection alone."
I agree that "fist life" is a problem with many clues and many ideas but, yet, no conclusive answer. I think it raises an interesting question: should abiogenesis be considered part of the theory of evolution? Currently it isn't, but all the proposed models I know have strong evolution-like mechanisms.
From what little I think I do know about the current state of research, many rocks have pore-like structures that can cause simple fat molecules to form bubbles, or proto-cell membranes. I think one of the questions they are facing is how the escalation from a simple (and short lived) proto-cell to an increasingly robust, modern cell works. Rocks also have regular structures that can select only left-handed or right-handed molecules. The molecules themselves are hypothesized (?) to be able to replicate and evolve right out of chemistry. I don't think anyone's shown this part in a lab.
I think it's fascinating work. But, yeah, early stuff.
But did it really take a large social movement questioning evolution itself to bring this to light? There were already scientists just beginning work on the problem.
"Theology isn't the answer, but neither is disingenuously trying to act like everything in evolutionary thory has been sewn up since Darwin."
I don't think that's what they're doing. It's one thing to say that the case is basically closed that evolution happened. I agree with that much. It's another to say that evolution has solved every problem to which it applies and there are no more questions to answer. But I don't think that's even being said. I don't think I've ever seen it.
Far from that depiction, I have read many biologists (I think even PZ Myers) propose that exposing people to the real debates in evolutionary biology will help people understand what about it is confirmed and what is debatable; and that scientists don't pretend to have all the answers all the time, but they are trying to find out.
"From most of the responses here, I see an outright dismissal of the possibility of ID, because of "overwhelming proof"."
/Well, that's my product placement for the day. ;-p
On the contrary, the arguments for the theory of Intelligent Design have been dismissed because they have been found to be faulty, but this has no bearing on the possibility of a God. I would remind you to never confuse the idea that there is a God with the crank ideas of a few academics in Seattle.
"What about the concept of entropy and the Laws of Thermodynamics? Without outside influence (in their natural states), systems move from order to disorder. Under Big Bang theory, we have a cosmic explosion that has gradually become more and more ordered while eons and eons have passed. Am I somehow "unscientific" for questioning Big Bang theory on this basis?"
Yes, as others have said, you are unscientific for questioning Big Bang theory on this basis. Thermodynamics isn't about order, even though it so often seems to be in daily life. It's actually about the amount of usable energy available.
What's really interesting about thermodynamics and the order in the universe is how the order is the result of the thermodynamics! For example, by starting with little more than the conservation of energy, one can derive the principle of least action. This, in turn, can be turned into a powerful form of Newtonian Mechanics. With just Newtonian Mechanics, one can roughly understand how planets and solar systems form (minus the nuclear fire of the stars). All this just from thermodynamics.
One book I've been thinking of getting for the past week is "Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life". It's a popularization (and a little bit of philosophical extension) of the well-known fact that, far from being a problem, the second law of thermodynamics is the driving force behind biological evolution, and even economics. The books says, even life's origin.
"You misunderstand the definition of "fact". The Big Bang is a reasoned inference based on the collection of data which support a specific theory of origins."
Yes. And? As are all facts! Do you have your own concept of "fact"? Please share it!
You've given very few clues, such as "The data are the facts used to reason for a Big Bang." I suspect you're saying that there are some things that are theory-less (to be called facts) and some things that are theory. This is a distinction that has long been abandoned in the philosophy of science. But as it is, I don't think I have enough to really know what you're talking about for sure. I've already given you my usage, which I believe is common enough in science. A fact is any small "t" truth.
"If you still wish to insist that the Big Bang is a fact, then allow me to ask one further question: from where did this cosmic egg come?"
(I'm unsure if I should let language of "cosmic egg" pass. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but it brings to my mind the idea that there was some kind of pattern, kept very small, waiting to be released. In contrast, the singularity that the Big Bang involves is almost a formless point of energy.)
There are guesses for where this singularity came from, but I fail to see what that has to do anything. I don't think answering that question is strictly part of the Big Bang theory. (But I could be wrong.) And yours still isn't a question about the Big Bang as much as it's a question about all models of a non-eternal universe. Frankly, you don't seem to have doubted the Big Bang so much as you want to investigate even earlier before it!
Now, going outside established science, some have said that a huge and extremely rare quantum fluctuation could have created the universe. Some have suggested that, from what little we can tell about the laws of physics, it could not not have happened. (Yes, I too would wonder where those laws come from.) Others, myself included, don't think we can really know what rules apply when there are no rules or what kind of causes there might be outside of causation. I suspect some very stange things can happen and that our reasoning, based on the universe as it is, does not apply.
"I expect to be respected for questioning a theory that has become an assumption of many who refuse to look at the evidence."
I've got to ask you to say more on this, to be clear. More evidence for the Big Bang?--or more evidence that God was invoved in it? I think it's well understood that the singularity requires some kind of explination and is not taken for granted.
I think people do see what hasn't been explained about the orgin of the singularity and do recognize it as such. But this is not itself (without some kind of positive argument for God, rather than "How else can you explain it?") evidence of God. Many prefer honest ignorance to a God of the gaps.
"I have recently come to the conclusion that Creationism is scientific (it's falsifiable and has made predictions) while ID isn't"
I agree. I was arguing that Creation Science can be in principle a real science just a few weeks ago in my philosophy of science class. After all, like you said, it does make falsifiable claims: the earth is young, all life was created at approximately the same time, there was a worldwide flood that killed all but two of most (7 each of some clean) creatures, and so on. Of course, each one of these falsifiable claims has been falsified. But something doesn't have to be true to be scientific. (I admit that it is nit-picking.)
The important difference that keeps Creation Scientists from being real scientists is that science is not just scientific claims, but a scientific process. That claims are falsifiable is only important because these are the claims that the process can use. Creation Science, as it is actually done, is missing the honesty and methodology of science.
In fact, Creation Science is probably the best example of how ad hoc adjustments can be made to save any claim, no matter how consistently and how thoroughly it fails. They actually even explain the lack of evidence for one Biblical miracle with several more non-Biblical ones! The entire enterprise is, admittedly, an exercise in reasoning from a conclusion. As such, while it is a science in principle, it fails to be a science in practice.
"Since when is it a fact that the entire known universe started as an miniscule "cosmic egg" that exploded into everything?"
Since the evidence piled up became so overwhelming that it became perverse to believe otherwise. Without a series of incredible--and extremely unlikely--future discoveries bringing doubt upon the theory, belief otherwise must either be dishonest or purely a matter of blind faith taxed to its extreme.
And personally, I find it interesting how William Lane Craig uses the Big Bang in his version of the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God.
"Intelligent design similarly interprets available facts (e.g., the notion of irreducible complexity) and attempts to coordinate them within a unified theory of origins."
Except Intelligent Design has more problems than any conventional scientific theory. To be honest, it has been thoroughly disproved several times over. That it hasn't been abandoned is proof that its proponents either aren't open to reason or aren't concerned with truth.
Basically, the challenge it presents is shallow and weak. If Irreducible Complexity were understood as most do (that there is no evolutionary path for something), it's clearly and provably incorrect. Investigation into the evolution of the bacterial flagella, the blood clotting system, the immune system, and Behe's other examples have all filled in the picture on how these things evolved. As Behe saw in the recent trial, much of this has already made it into textbooks.
If it's understood as Behe put it (that there no evolutionary path that always maintains the function we see now), it's true but also irrelevant and not a challenge to evolution. Evolution doesn't require that this happen.
And finally, Dembski's "Explanatory Filter" relies on Behe to throw out evolution as a likely natural cause. One must have already rejected Evolution for it to work. That is without even going into how its nothing more than a mathematic version of the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. At it's simplest it's this: Do you know how this thing could come about naturally by law or chance? No? Then it was designed.
"Neither camp can prove their theory to a scientific certainty (as much as either side wants to believe they can)"
Maybe I don't follow this right. Are you squaring Intelligent Design against the Big Bang? As far as I can tell, there is no position or argument in ID that requires anyone to reject the Big Bang.
"but each should be allowed to make their arguments. Let the arguments be tested and challenged in the public sphere, and learn from the debate."
As is happening. Conferences are held, books are written, talks are given, papers are published, websites serve up evidence and arguments... and nobody has ever tried to stop this.
Of course, some want Intelligent Design to be given a free pass to be included in public school classrooms, bypassing the long, hard process everything else is subject to. That's not debate in the public sphere -- that's giving into all demands but requesting negotiations continue. It's absurd!
"My computer truncates integers you insensitive clod."
Integers don't need truncation, you linguistically imprecise clod!
P.S. I don't know a single atheist or agnostic that isn't familiar with Pascal's wager.
The problems with the argument are long-known and generally accepted as a refutation. Simply put, the basic assumption of the argument, that there is a simple binary choice between belief and nonbelief, is unfounded. Working through the math with the multiple possible gods of various natures and various possible reward systems that can not be excluded a priori, the argument fails to mark any action as being strategically preferred. Further, many believe that a moral God would frown upon such a basis for belief, perhaps considering such calculations as atheism.
"... something in there obviously ruffled your feathers. You immediately attacked my character and said to me that, "you have no idea what you're talking about.""
I think what it was is obvious: he, like many, doesn't like to be accused of relying on faith. I think he also doesn't like others telling him that his personal ideas on religion are completely different from how he understands them. (It's like someone telling you that you actually don't believe in God, despite what you think.) It is a little presumptuous to do so...
""believing that there is no god" and "not believing that there is a god" are absolutely equivalent statements."
Absolutely not. Ignorance of the concept of God, the agnostic position (which he claims to hold), and failure of religious faith defaulting to atheism all fall under simply "not believing". It's a simple, often tentative, and fairly meek claim, equivalent to "I have no reason to believe." It's another step--one many are not willing to take--to make the stronger claim and set it in stone that "I believe there is no god". Both are claims of nonbelief, but the philosophical baggage of one path (and some agnostics would say, arrogance) is greater than the other.
Further nobody (no atheist I've ever known, including myself) believes anything like your analogy. It was a poor denial of the very mechanization of nature that has been a contributing factor in so much modern disbelief. Almost all of nature (save a few examples like the mind, for which we have many good clues) are fairly well understood in terms of law-like determinism. The question for many is not "How could this or that come about without God?", because the very existence of the answer is so often what causes the doubt; the question is, "What place does God have, with everything physical that we see being understood so well without Him? Is God superfluous?"
"Sure, intelligent design is a lame concept, but if any of you have taken Philosophy 101, you can't argue with the leap of faith. Sooner or later you have to believe in something--whether it's your own conclusions or a supreme being."
If you're a foundationalist, which, if you make in past PL101, you might not be. Coherentism seems to be the current fashion.
"... and with support like Richard Dawkins, it is no wonder so many people "believe in" creationism or ID over evolution. Based on some of his comments from The Root of All Evil, he comes across as a raving atheist fundamentalist."
Agreed. I'm an atheist, but that program really didn't fit me at all. I was turned off by his nauseating arrogance, I didn't at all agree with his treatment of the liberal Anglican, and his focus on religous pathology unjustly spread the blame around far enough even to anger any believer even in a healthy frame of mind.
Sometimes people join a fight simply because there is someone to oppose, not because they have anything worth defending. Dawkins was making that a reality for fundamentalism. I have no doubt that atheism's ranks shrank (or at least, failed to grow) as a result of that program; and a few more Christians may have been made, having seen this shallow and pitiful example of atheism.
"you were meant to extrapolate the analogy to something that is not easily observed and a set of events that are highly impracticle to reproduce"
His answer to the thought experiment was explicit about proper extrapolation and didn't involve any reproduction. The observations involved were analogous those in real evolutionary science. Did you even read it?
I thought it was complete, proper, sound, funny... perfect!
"You might also want to have a look at Carnap."
And then I say "Quine" and we're all back where we started.
This is just nitpicking, but spontaneous generation really isn't part of the theory of evolution -- and it's probably not even what you're talking about.
Spontaneous generation is the theory that fairly complex life (like mice, maggots, and bacteria) can appear fully formed from non-life, most often decaying matter. This is also sometimes called Aristotelian pathogenesis. It's a theory that Pasteur famously disproved.
As you surely know, what a naturalist account for life's origin would require is actually a relatively slow (compared to spontaneous generation, there is nothing "spontaneous" about it) and gradual process that spends time passing through an ambiguous and gray area between life and non-life, such as the ambiguity found when trying to classify any virus as living or nonliving. In general, the modern terminology is "origin of life" or "abiogenesis" but not spontaneous generation.
"By random chance? Do you realize the complexity of the molecules needed by a cell to be sensitive to light? How would these be randomly made?"
First, nothing in evolution is completely random. That's the point of evolution. Second, two kinds of neurons that exist in primitive brains are entirely by accident light sensitive. (By "accident" I mean that they didn't form by selection for light sensitivity. That cells that function like neurons would be light sensitive is not at all unlikely. In that sense, it is not very accidental.) These cells are the rhabdomeric and ciliary cells. If these cells come close enough to the skin to be exposed to light, they can function as early eyes. (Of course, I suppose this is easier in primitive organisms that don't yet have skulls.)
Interestingly, most animal's eyes are based on rhabdomeric cells (with ciliary cells remaining embedded in the brain), but all apes and a some other creatures are the other way around.
See this article for a summary.
"What about the other proteins in our DNA - afterall, that's all DNA holds, a map of proteins - how did the DNA magically mutate, time after time after time, to create these proteins which are so vital to our survival?"
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. "other" proteins? If you want an explanation of where amino acids and other components of DNA come from, that's not necessarily a question that falls under evolution. If you want to know how DNA came to have the information encoded in it, that would be a question that falls under evolution.
Of course, the answer to the second question is that they didn't magically mutate time after time. The number of failed and thrown away mutations may outnumber the successful mutations (the information) we carry in our DNA by several orders of magnitude.
"Does it use the premise that an eye is a good thing? If so, how is this valid? A cell which can see light slightly better than another does NOT always imply that cell will have a higher chance of living. Sometimes, perhaps, but 100 million (or however many mutations were necessary to create our eyeball) in a row?"
First question: Yes and no.
The premise that vision is advantageous is true of many, but not all, environments and niches. Since it is true of some, it is a valid assumption to work with in the evolution of the eye. (But you are right that light sensitivy is not guaranteed to be an advantage. In fact, some species have eyes that have atrophied genetically because eyes were no longer any help in dark caves or deep underwater. If it is an advantage depends entirely on environment.)
Now, the eye probably didn't take 100 million mutations since we only have around 20,000 genes. (Of course, there can be more mutations that genes.) An estimate was made in the paper Nilsson, D.-E. and S. Pelger, 1994. A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences, 256: 53-58. The conclusion was that they eye could evolve in 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.
But is there any specific point you can pick out that causes you trouble?
1) Neurons become exposed to light.
2) They a copied, and thus a light-sensitive patch forms.
3) A depression forms.
etc. (several links on this process were posted in one of the parents.)
"Can strawman arguments be presented in Socratic form?"
I suppose so. A Socratic question is, by definition, always a little bit leading. One could ask someone he is engaged in debate with, "How can random chance create complex life?" which could be considered a Socratic strawman (strawman because evolution doesn't suppose that), rather than a rhetorical, question about evolution; if in the context of one's entire strategy in the debate to be one of questioning the other's claims like this, in order to "teach" him that he's wrong.
But I wasn't saying that the argument is a valid form simply because it's Socratic. (That was just an aside, recognizing how it was being presented. And I suppose that a stronger case could be that that it's simply rhetorical.) It had premises and a conclusion that taken together can have a valid deductive form.
And I said it wasn't a strawman because a strawman argument is one in which a purposefully flawed argument or position is attacked instead of a genuine one. But Microsoft or IE's development wasn't replaced with something exaggerated to be knocked down. Instead, Mozilla (and other projects) were made to look unrealistically good!
This super-positive image of Mozilla was just based on a single flawed premise that "smaller software companies can patch all of their bugs serious or minor." (Italics mine.) But there are no software companies that patch all of their bugs; at least none that were shown.
One might even argue that this whole situation is an apples/oranges comparison because of the different development, bug fixing, and bug reporting models. Any useful comparison between IE and Mozilla bug-patching would have to be more careful and more detailed.