Yeah, he probably spent all of his time on Kingdom of Hyrule. Look up "Mushroom Kingdom" - it should be in the text. You can probably skip all the "warp zone" stuff, though.
That's why the best video-drinking-games have negative feedback -- i.e. the winner drinks. Losing for a bit and then making a sudden comeback can be a very useful strategy. Plus, you can decide how much you're willing to drink. If you want to limit yourself to 5 shots, you play to 6 matches (assuming the house rules don't force you to drink after you win the final match).
Wow dude, you're a real genius. Glad you're here to help all the rest of us dumbasses work toward happiness and enlightenment, 'cause what we were missing was somebody who could come up with solutions real quick without thinking.
It doesn't have to, but it can be interpreted that way. If you've ever debated with the "anti evolutionist" crowd, you'll know to be careful with your choice of words. They're not really interested in coming to a conclusion, only in waving their hands and trying to shut out anything that would cause them to question their preconceived ideas.
One of their favorite ways to get out of the entire discussion is to claim that the scientific study of the physical universe is just another "belief system," and therefore on equal ground with religion. Don't give them that opening by being loose with the word "belief." When I say belief, I mean something with insufficient evidence that is taken on faith to be absolutely true. You won't find that in science - even our scientific theories that do have a ton of evidence aren't taken as absolutely true. In fact, we assume that they are *not* absolutely true, which is why we still bother to study the subject. If scientists were believers, they wouldn't bother doing new research.
How about if we solve the real problem, which is overpopulation? Everybody wonders why "we can't have any fun anymore" when the answer is staring us in the face. When I was 16, I could drive on the freeway for 20 miles and encounter maybe 10 other cars. You know what? Those cars were considerate. They didn't tailgate, they didn't just hang out in the passing lane when they weren't passing. Driving was fun. Now I spend nearly my entire commute cussing at the constant traffic that surrounds me.
How about all of these people bitching about the government telling them what to do with their property, or laws about where you can go, what natural resources you can use, and what you can shoot? Sorry, but with the population that we have now we *need* those laws. I don't like it any better than the bitchers do, which is why I hate population growth - it spoils the enjoyment of those of us already occupying the planet. If we had a 1920s level population, then we could all speed around in unsafe cars and stomp on whatever we wanted out in the bushes and it wouldn't be much of a problem. Not so with the population that we have today.
Your 10 second universe thing is still a natural cause in the sense that it is materialistic.
No, it is not materialistic. It proposes a mechanism that is outside of the physical universe that we interact with. It could be, say, a deterministic computer that generates the random universes. Even if that computer physically exists somewhere, if we can't interact with it from our universe then from our perspective it is supernatural, just like a God that exists outside of our physical universe.
It's only a non sequitor if there are more possible options than the two we're talking about.
Um, so evolutionary theory and ID are the only two *possible* explanations for the existence of life? That's crazy talk. Supernatural explanations alone are infinite in number. When you're talking about things outside the material world, *anything* is possible.
OK, your paragraph about "odds" makes some sense. No, we can't prove a theory, but we can look at multiple theories and say which one fits observational evidence better. Good. *My* point is that there is a heap of observational evidence in support of evolution, which is why it is the widely agreed upon explanation for how life changes over time. There also happens to be 0 (zero) observational evidence in support of ID. None. If you found some ancient, buried alien spacecraft with an advanced biology lab, then you would have a starting point.
So do you put your faith in countless violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics at odds so low we can't begin to comprehend them?
OK, first off nobody is violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Overall entropy is increasing, but entropy can most certainly decrease locally. See here under the heading, "Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" for a quick explanation. Secondly, what makes the odds of beneficial mutations so low? Do you have some figures on mutation rates, number of organisms mutating, generation time, possibility of beneficial mutations, etc? Have you ever seen how quickly bacteria can evolve into different strains? Assuming that you do have some data to base your decision on, and assuming that you conclude that evolution isn't likely to have produced life as we know if over the period of time that we think it has been working, then do you really think that it is *more* likely that an intelligent being from outside our universe had a detailed hand in it? Really? If I were to doubt evolution (which I certainly don't) then I would expect to find another materialistic explanation. Not only because searching for materialistic explanations has been so successful in the past, but also because it's the only space that I have the ability to search. The set of non-materialistic (supernatural) explanations is out of bounds, because I have no way of discriminating between the possiblities. Either stick to the material world, or base your understanding on faith. If we discover phenomena that don't have materialistic explanations, then I'll be happy to just not know the answer. It's better than picking a *possible* answer and believing it without any evidence.
I think I'm moving away from the critical point here, though. The point is, if we're talking about science, you can't call something a theory unless it has some evidence and makes some testable predictions. ID has no evidence. ID makes no predictions that can be tested in order to falsify it (name one test I could do that could produce a result that refuted ID). ID is *not* a scientific theory. It's a conjecture that is certainly *possible*, but we're not in a position to ever confirm or deny that conjecture. You can believe in it if you want, but you can't call it a scientific theory without redefining what science is (a la Kansas, the laughingstock of the educated world). The reason why science as we know it is more useful than science as defined by Kansas is left as an exercise for the reader.;)
It just so happens that positive evidence for ID comes from showing that natural processes could not account for some specific system based on the odds of the particular configuration of materials needed for that system to be functional, that intelligence was required to make that system work, which by consequence is evidence against the naturalistic evolution of that system.
That, my friend, is a non sequitor. Your logic does not follow. Not having a naturalistic explanation does *not* imply design by an intelligent being. Look seriously at my 10 second proposal. Do you deny that this explanation is possible? Do you deny that it has the exact same evidence that ID does? Here's my argument: A) Complex life exists B) we can't explain it with naturalistic processes Therefore C) the universe takes on a random configuration periodically. What's the problem? See it? It's the same problem that ID has. Evolution and ID are not the only two explanations. Lack of evolution absolutely does not imply design. How can you possibly disagree with that statement?
...intelligence was required to make that system work
THAT statement right there is the one that I'm expecting you to back up with some data.
I was going to delve into your telephone scenario, but I think we would start getting a little deep into physics. Unless you really want to go there, I think it would be a little bit too involving. Suffice to say that, as far as I know, all of the information that we interact with, including the design of my watch and the structure of my brain and the shape of the continents, is the result of the crystallization of matter and energy according to the laws of physics. Low entropy at some point in the early universe allowed matter and energy to clump together. Since then, even though overall entropy has been increasing, that energy has allowed complex structures to form throughout the universe. My brain is one of those complex structures, and so is my watch. Your question asked where the information in your telephone came from, my answer is that the universe is self organizing when supplied with energy.
Does this satisfy your idea of a scientific test?
I'm not sure I understand what the test is exactly. Can you give a specific setup and tell me how you would interpret the results?
Desperate that there not be any evidence? Hardly. I don't just discount ideas offhand, even when they seem ridiculous on the surface. Why? Because being wrong doesn't win many arguments, so I'm always trying to criticize my own position. Don't assume that I haven't given ID fair consideration, even though I'm pretty sure that the concept is meaningless. Are you able to look at it objectively? Think about your "evidence" one more time:
Consider, if there hasn't been time for something to naturally develop, then it stands to reason that there is some force encouraging it.
OK, fine. Assuming (let's not forget that this is just an assumption) that there hasn't been time for something to develop according to current theory, then it stands to reason that there is something at work that we don't understand. That is a reasonable statement. It is, however, something else entirely to actually propose an explanation. Are you with me so far?
So far we haven't talked about ID at all. We've just established that we can't explain something. Now, you could present ID as an explanation, but you're going to have to back it up with something. Did you read my "alternative" explanation in my previous post? Here's another one: "You see, every 22 seconds the entire universe takes on a random configuration. The one we're in is almost infinitely unlikely to occur, but since the universe has been doing this for eternity it was bound to happen eventually."
Do you see my point? There are an infinite number of explanations. We have to sift through them. The 22 second conjecture, however, cannot be tested. There's no way to see if it is true. Therefore, we cannot consider it as a potential theory. I, personally, cannot see any possible way to test ID. Neither have I ever heard *anyone* else propose a real way to test it. Have you? I've seen fake tests, tests like "put a bunch of bacteria in a dish and see if they evolve flagella" and such. Of course, you see the flaw in the test. It's a test of evolution, and you won't learn anything about ID regardless of the result.
..when you combine this with other aspects... a case begins to appear.
A case for what? A case for something besides evolution? OK, that's a reasonable assertion. A case for ID? What makes you pick ID? Where is the *positive* evidence? I can't say that I think evolution is a good explanation (or even a possible explanation) just because I've never seen God! I have to say, look at these fossils, look at this bone structure, look at this DNA, look at these correlations -- I have to have some evidence in favor of evolution before I can expect anyone to listen to me. Where is the evidence in favor of ID? How can you say it is more likely than the 22 second repeating universe?
but to say there's no evidence demonstrates a desperation that I think inappropriate.
It looks like my position sits on a pretty solid logical foundation, which means I have no need to be desperate. Will you concede at this point that evidence against evolution is not the same thing as evidence for design? Once you accept that, will you admit that you've never heard of any "evidence" for ID that wasn't just pointing out a supposed weakness in evolution? Be honest with yourself, because if you don't it's too easy to jump to conclusions based on your existing biases.
To believe that something is true is to not question it.
And unfortunately that is a common mistake made by humans. We cling to romantic ideas and to that which we are familiar with. Our hard wired emotions and ancient, leftover thought patterns are always there to confuse us. They are what give us the true human experience, they are what give us fears and desires and everything that makes the world real for us. They are also, however, obstacles that must be overcome if we want to study something objectively.
Just as your vision system fools you when you look at an optical illusion, it's easy to see the workings of the universe as you want them to be. Luckily we have a wonderful invention called Science. It's a methodology that forces us to be objective, and it has allowed us to gather a huge amount of knowledge and to discover amazing insights into the workings of the universe that we are a part of.
According to current theory as I understand it, all of the information in the current universe (including the design of my watch) can be traced back to low entropy in the early universe. Where that low entropy came from is a topic of debate, but I guarantee you that we'll never have a scientific theory that relies on supernatural effects of any kind. It's pretty obvious that such a theory could never be tested (anything subjectable to testing is, by definition, a part of the natural universe) and can therefore never be distinguished from alternate theories.
The topic of what is "outside the universe" or what "came before the universe" is simply outside the bounds of science. Science is a tool for modeling the material world - it is useless outside of our physical boundaries. Even if you found evidence of information that had no source inside of the universe, that doesn't give you any ability to say where it came from or how. You would simply have to admit that you did not know. Look at all of the "evidence" for ID - it's nothing but attacks on evolution. I know you've probably heard that before, but it's true. Also note that attacking evolution does *nothing* to support ID. Even if we were absolutely sure that complex life forms could not have arisen as a result of evolution, then what would we have? Nothing. We just wouldn't know the answer. You could step up and say, "An Intelligent Creator must have made it!" but you wouldn't be able to back that up with any evidence. I could just as easily say, "The universe takes on a random configuration every 10 seconds, and it just happened to hit this one. It was a one in a gigillion shot, but this has been going on for eternity so it was bound to happen." I would have just as much evidence as you would -- none.
but that doesn't mean that we can't test theories that involve non-material causes.
How, exactly? Can you come up with a hypothetical example?
You need to look at your "evidence" a little closer.
The "youngness" of the earth has caused many to completely dismiss geo-natural causes for the origins of life (lookup Francis Crick - Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of DNA).
That is an argument against evolution. How does it imply an intelligent creator?
given our current understanding of natural selection/mutation, there hasn't been time for the development of life as we know it.
That is an argument against evolution. It makes no positive case for an intelligent designer.
Again, there's evidence in the fossil record of periods of great explosions of life, times when many new species formed in very short periods of time.
Yet again, you're not making a case for ID, you're weakening the case for evolutionary theory. Even if you reduce it to nothing, you will then have nothing. ID can't just be the lack of evolution, it has to have evidence of its own.
This is all evidence for ID.
No, it absolutely is *not*.
Okay, here's an example that may change your perspective. I'm proposing my own explanation for how life originated. My explanation is that there are an infinite number of universes -- a full set. There exists one of each possible configuration of the most fundamental particles in the universe. All possible universes exist, and therefore our universe, which has complex organisms, *has* to exist. Nobody designed it, it just is.
Now, my evidence that this is true is twofold. A) Complex entities exist. B) There hasn't been enough time for them to have evolved.
There you go. My explanation is absolutely possible, and it has the exact same evidence as ID. What do you do? Are they both right? If not, how do you pick the better explanation?
Of course, the answer is that you can't. Neither of these proposals have any positive evidence in their favor. They are possible, but no physical evidence implies that either one is true. Do you agree?
Are you serious? I'm pretty sure that if anyone had evidence that our universe was created on purpose, both you and I would have heard about it.
I'm not trying to set up a strawman, I'm attacking ID as I've heard it presented by others. So far, nobody has presented any evidence in favor of ID, even when pressed to present some. Have you ever heard of any?
But, are you saying that no matter how much evidence there is, we shouldn't look at that evidence, because there's no way to prove the hypothesis?
I don't understand where you got that from. Just because we can't prove something doesn't mean we can't pick a "best" theory. That theory is chosen on the merits of its being able to stand up to scrutiny via testing. In other words, the more evidence, the better the theory. No theory is perfect, which is why they're constantly modified and replaced.
It's only out of bounds if you believe that God is not needed and that science can explain everything without him.
I should have been more clear -- it's out of the bounds of science. Science may or may not be the best way to look at the world, but it is by definition confined to the materialistic.
Thanks for the interesting quote, by the way. We are physical creatures living in a physical world, and that is the reason why science, as the study of the physical world, has been so successful.
Except one very important one [universal truth]. That everything can be explained by materialist means.
No, I would disagree. Science does not claim that everything can be explained by materialist means. Such a claim would involve the immaterial world as well as the material, which puts it outside the bounds of science. Science makes no claims about absolute reality, only about that which we can physically measure.
The belief involved is right under your nose. The very assumption that life was "designed" is a belief. I'm not talking about belief that the creator is God, I'm talking about belief that there was a creator at all.
Yes, it is *possible* that there was a creator. However, there are also a lot of other possible explanations. To pick out the "designer" explanation without any evidence and without any way to test it, requires belief.
Say, for example, you just look at two possibilities for why life exists. On the one hand, you have the possiblity that it was created by an intelligent designer. On the other hand, you have the possibility that there are an infinite number of universes representing every possible configuration of matter (therefore, our configuration has to exist). Now, I'm pretty sure that there is no test you can do to determine which of these explanations is more accurate. Without such a discriminator, you can't include either one in your model of the universe unless you take it on faith. That is what makes ID unscientific. Scientific theories have to be testable, or you can't distinguish the more accurate ones from the less accurate ones.
Is there a test you can do to see if life was designed? The ID folks don't seem to be able to come up with one, or if they have they're apparently keeping it a secret.
ID does not require a supernatural creator. Us humans may create life ourselves one day. That would not make us supernatural.
A creator that is a part of our physical universe could certainly be described by a scientific theory -- if you had some evidence to start from. The existence of unexplained complexity (not that we have found any examples) does not constitute evidence. You could make up an infinite number of untestable explanations that have no evidence, but they're all worthless until you can somehow filter them. How do you weigh the relative validity of ID when there are no proposed tests to see if it holds up under scrutiny?
Ha! You fool. We're not talking about proof, we're talking about science. You want me to modify my model of the universe to include ID? Then show me some evidence. As far as I know right now (no, I can't "prove it" any more than I can "prove" any statement about the universe) ID is untestable. If you think it is testable, then show me how. If you think that my model would be more accurate if it included untestable theories, then tell me why.
Your blind faith in our current understanding of the universe is the same foolishness that has the creationists so confused. When you say that "gravity is an absolute truth" what exactly do you mean? Obviously you can't mean the Newtonian theory of gravity, as that was superceded by the Theory of Relativity.
I wouldn't exactly trust Relativity to be the final word, either, since QM (and its incompatibilities with Relativity) seems like a pretty big hint that there is a deeper theory required.
See, the problem is not just knowing an absolute truth, it is knowing that you know an absolute truth. In order to really stake a flag on it and say, with absolute certainty, "This fact about the universe is absolutely true," you have to rigorously *prove* the underlying theories. How do you do that, when there are always limits on how "deep" we can look? If you think our ability to probe the universe is unlimited, then you're implying that the universe itself is unlimited -- in which case we'll never reach the bottom.
Ultimately, you have to just be practical and work with what you know. Evolution, for example, is by far the best (and really the only) explanation that we have for human origins. Does that mean that you would believe in evolution even if someone came up with another theory that fit the evidence better? I don't care how unlikely that may seem - if it were the case then we would have to change our perspectives. Science is based on theories that we know are only approximations of reality, but we're constantly improving those approximations. That's what makes science so exciting -- we're exploring the universe. Not just physical space, but its inner workings.
In order to keep making progress, though, we have to avoid certain pitfalls. One of them is taking our theories as gospel. You can get stuck for a long time when you never reanalyze the ideas that you take for granted -- all of them probably have mistakes.
I guess I missed the memo that said science makes a worldview assumption. Theories should be based on evidence, not evidence and a particular worldview. A theory doesn't need to be materialistic to be testable.
There was no memo, because the woldview isn't an assumption -- it's forced by the need for evidence. Evidence is, by definition, materialistic. Can you give an example of a non-materialistic yet testable theory? Oh wait, you already tried to. Let's analyze it.
Your proposal is that some being called God created the universe. You insist that there is evidence for this, but I think I must have missed it. The only two things that you mentioned were A) the theory that the universe had a beginning and B) "irreducible complexity".
Let's start with the beginning of the universe;). The thing a lot of people don't get about the big bang is that it was (theoretically) not only the beginning of space, but the beginning of time as well. There was no time before the big bang and therefore, scientifically, nothing could have happened there. In order for your creator to have done anything "before" the big bang, he would have to operate outside of our universe. This is certainly possible, but I don't think that there is any evidence that this is true. So, contrary to your initial claim, it looks like the big bang is evidence against the creator.
Now, "irreducible complexity" (I'll just call it IR). This one has a couple of problems. First off, if IR exists, what would it imply? It would imply that the theory of evolution is insufficient to explain where these IR entities came from, right? OK, where do we go from there? We try to come up with a better theory, of course! Is "Intelligent Design" a better theory? No. In fact, it's not a theory at all, which I'll show in a moment. Secondly, regarding IR, all of the examples of "irreducibly complex" entities have so far been explained using evolutionary theory. ID people keep trotting out the bacterial flagellum and other examples, but keep forgetting that the flagellum is known to be made up of parts that were useful for other functions at earlier points in the evolution of bacteria. So not only does IR not support ID, but IR doesn't even seem to exist.
Back to Intelligent Design, there really is no theory here. It proposes an explanation that is completely untestable. The only "evidence" for ID is the existence of the universe, which also happens to be evidence for an infinite number of proposals. How do you weed through them all? I know! Lets only bother to look at the ones that are testable via our interactions with the material world! Let's call those ones, "scientific" hypotheses. From those, we'll try to find the ones that best fit the evidence, and we'll call those "scientific theories". Hmm, seems to be a pretty good way of creating an abstract model that represents reality. You got a better idea?
Well, if you're looking for the reason why I create a model of reality in my brain and then base my decisions on the presumed accuracy of that model, it's obviously because that's how human brains evolved to work. It's pretty effective, even if it seems mysterious to us in some ways.
I suppose you could call the fact that the biological brain "trusts" itself to be right a kind of "faith" -- but on a conscious level I try to remain skeptical of everything, especially my own assumptions.
No, my cowardly friend -- I was only talking about the explanations that are untestable. There are an infinite number of possible explanations that are untestable, so the first thing we do is disregard those. Now we can start sifting through the ones that we can analyze. Get it?
Yes, it is possible that our universe was created on purpose. Yes it is possible that we could find evidence that our universe was created on purpose.
No, we do not currently have any evidence that our universe was created on purpose. No, "Intelligent Design" is not a scientific theory.
What does ID say, that because such and such a structure has a certain amount of complexity, it must have been designed? Says who? I say that there exist an infinite number of universes, one in each possible configuration. Because every possible universe exists, ours *has* to exist, no "designer" required. How do you distinguish between my hypothesis and ID? How do you pick the one that's the most accurate? Answer: you can't. They're not scientific conjectures, because they're untestable. They are also, therefore, useless.
As for archeology, we actually have evidence that there were living organisms around at the time that the "objects identified as tools" were found, and even evidence that those organisms made and used those tools. ID has no evidence, we can't test it, and it therefore falls into the huge category of "unprovable conjecture."
If science makes no claims about anyone's beliefs then why all the dispute between darwinian evolution and ID? It's self-evident that both darwinian evolution and ID can't both be true.
There really is no dispute among scientists. Science doesn't claim to know the truth, but it does pick the most reliable theory from among the ones that we've thought of. That's why a scientific theory has to be testable -- there are an infinite number of untestable theories, but we can't really pick a "most likely" candidate from among them, because we have no criteria for doing so. In the case of ID vs Evolution, it's no contest. Evolution is a well supported theory with lots of observational evidence in its favor, and ID is an untestable conjecture. It's not even science, much less a contender for our leading theory. Evolution isn't scientifically "true", it's just the most well supported theory we have. It's also being constantly modified as we understand the process better -- in a way it's always being replaced by new theories that are only slightly different.
Should science make the assumption that a materialistic worldview is true and all others are not?
That's what science is -- the study of the material world. You can have a different worldview, but that's not science.
Nope, not trying to be a dickhead. Just trying to be realistic.
Let's look at your brilliant theory. I suppose it's testable, and therefore scientific. So say we do the experiment and I'm killed by the truck. Score a point for your theory. However, you can hardly say that you've "proven" your theory. You have a sample size of one!
So, you say (I assume), well we can look at the physical makeup of the body, use some newtonian physics to model the truck hitting the body with such and such an amount of force, and... hmm, how can we prove that it would kill me? I guess we could model all of the molecules in the body and show that they will change arrangement in such a way as to prevent me from surviving... wait, now the theory is going to need to be generalized to cover all of the possible relative orientations of body vs truck...
OK, for simplicity well specify a certain orientation. Now, we're going to model the movement of all of these molecules for the purpose of *proving* that your theory is true. How do we do that? I guess we might as well jump to QM, which is the most accurate model that we have of the physical universe.
Oh, wait, nobody has proven QM to be true! Shit, I guess we'll have to do that first...
Thank you for the interesting post. I still maintain my position, though. When you say that "As for faith, when you act on your assumptions, believing them to be basically correct, that is faith" you fail to recognize that I do not take it on faith that my assumptions are basically correct. They are assumptions. I act as if they are true, but at no time am I ever fooled into thinking that they actually are true. I pretend that they are true in order to make decisions, but that is all. If I were to take my assumptions on faith, then I might fail to notice evidence that my assumptions were wrong.
I guess how you interpret my position comes down to how you define the terms, but I balk at the terms "faith" and "belief", because to me they represent blinders that become invisible once you put them on. If you fail to question your assumptions about reality, you'll soon be wandering off into a world that exists only in your own mind.
Too bad you posted as a damn AC so you'll never learn why you're wrong.
I operate in this physical world that I seem to occupy by basing my decisions on assumptions that I make about reality. The reason that they are assumptions and not beliefs is that I also assume that my assumptions are either incomplete or incorrect. To believe that something is true is to not question it. For me, everything is questionable, and this is how science sees the world. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is taken on faith. Like I said before, science has nothing to do with belief -- it has everything to do with assumptions (theories), and with finding out what's wrong with our assumptions so that we can improve them. No, this will never lead us to absolute truth, but only a fool would ever expect to discover it anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Super Tequila Fighter 2 Turbo, anyone?
One of their favorite ways to get out of the entire discussion is to claim that the scientific study of the physical universe is just another "belief system," and therefore on equal ground with religion. Don't give them that opening by being loose with the word "belief." When I say belief, I mean something with insufficient evidence that is taken on faith to be absolutely true. You won't find that in science - even our scientific theories that do have a ton of evidence aren't taken as absolutely true. In fact, we assume that they are *not* absolutely true, which is why we still bother to study the subject. If scientists were believers, they wouldn't bother doing new research.
How about all of these people bitching about the government telling them what to do with their property, or laws about where you can go, what natural resources you can use, and what you can shoot? Sorry, but with the population that we have now we *need* those laws. I don't like it any better than the bitchers do, which is why I hate population growth - it spoils the enjoyment of those of us already occupying the planet. If we had a 1920s level population, then we could all speed around in unsafe cars and stomp on whatever we wanted out in the bushes and it wouldn't be much of a problem. Not so with the population that we have today.
OK, your paragraph about "odds" makes some sense. No, we can't prove a theory, but we can look at multiple theories and say which one fits observational evidence better. Good. *My* point is that there is a heap of observational evidence in support of evolution, which is why it is the widely agreed upon explanation for how life changes over time. There also happens to be 0 (zero) observational evidence in support of ID. None. If you found some ancient, buried alien spacecraft with an advanced biology lab, then you would have a starting point.
OK, first off nobody is violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Overall entropy is increasing, but entropy can most certainly decrease locally. See here under the heading, "Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" for a quick explanation. Secondly, what makes the odds of beneficial mutations so low? Do you have some figures on mutation rates, number of organisms mutating, generation time, possibility of beneficial mutations, etc? Have you ever seen how quickly bacteria can evolve into different strains? Assuming that you do have some data to base your decision on, and assuming that you conclude that evolution isn't likely to have produced life as we know if over the period of time that we think it has been working, then do you really think that it is *more* likely that an intelligent being from outside our universe had a detailed hand in it? Really? If I were to doubt evolution (which I certainly don't) then I would expect to find another materialistic explanation. Not only because searching for materialistic explanations has been so successful in the past, but also because it's the only space that I have the ability to search. The set of non-materialistic (supernatural) explanations is out of bounds, because I have no way of discriminating between the possiblities. Either stick to the material world, or base your understanding on faith. If we discover phenomena that don't have materialistic explanations, then I'll be happy to just not know the answer. It's better than picking a *possible* answer and believing it without any evidence.I think I'm moving away from the critical point here, though. The point is, if we're talking about science, you can't call something a theory unless it has some evidence and makes some testable predictions. ID has no evidence. ID makes no predictions that can be tested in order to falsify it (name one test I could do that could produce a result that refuted ID). ID is *not* a scientific theory. It's a conjecture that is certainly *possible*, but we're not in a position to ever confirm or deny that conjecture. You can believe in it if you want, but you can't call it a scientific theory without redefining what science is (a la Kansas, the laughingstock of the educated world). The reason why science as we know it is more useful than science as defined by Kansas is left as an exercise for the reader. ;)
I was going to delve into your telephone scenario, but I think we would start getting a little deep into physics. Unless you really want to go there, I think it would be a little bit too involving. Suffice to say that, as far as I know, all of the information that we interact with, including the design of my watch and the structure of my brain and the shape of the continents, is the result of the crystallization of matter and energy according to the laws of physics. Low entropy at some point in the early universe allowed matter and energy to clump together. Since then, even though overall entropy has been increasing, that energy has allowed complex structures to form throughout the universe. My brain is one of those complex structures, and so is my watch. Your question asked where the information in your telephone came from, my answer is that the universe is self organizing when supplied with energy.
I'm not sure I understand what the test is exactly. Can you give a specific setup and tell me how you would interpret the results?So far we haven't talked about ID at all. We've just established that we can't explain something. Now, you could present ID as an explanation, but you're going to have to back it up with something. Did you read my "alternative" explanation in my previous post? Here's another one: "You see, every 22 seconds the entire universe takes on a random configuration. The one we're in is almost infinitely unlikely to occur, but since the universe has been doing this for eternity it was bound to happen eventually."
Do you see my point? There are an infinite number of explanations. We have to sift through them. The 22 second conjecture, however, cannot be tested. There's no way to see if it is true. Therefore, we cannot consider it as a potential theory. I, personally, cannot see any possible way to test ID. Neither have I ever heard *anyone* else propose a real way to test it. Have you? I've seen fake tests, tests like "put a bunch of bacteria in a dish and see if they evolve flagella" and such. Of course, you see the flaw in the test. It's a test of evolution, and you won't learn anything about ID regardless of the result.
A case for what? A case for something besides evolution? OK, that's a reasonable assertion. A case for ID? What makes you pick ID? Where is the *positive* evidence? I can't say that I think evolution is a good explanation (or even a possible explanation) just because I've never seen God! I have to say, look at these fossils, look at this bone structure, look at this DNA, look at these correlations -- I have to have some evidence in favor of evolution before I can expect anyone to listen to me. Where is the evidence in favor of ID? How can you say it is more likely than the 22 second repeating universe? It looks like my position sits on a pretty solid logical foundation, which means I have no need to be desperate. Will you concede at this point that evidence against evolution is not the same thing as evidence for design? Once you accept that, will you admit that you've never heard of any "evidence" for ID that wasn't just pointing out a supposed weakness in evolution? Be honest with yourself, because if you don't it's too easy to jump to conclusions based on your existing biases.Just as your vision system fools you when you look at an optical illusion, it's easy to see the workings of the universe as you want them to be. Luckily we have a wonderful invention called Science. It's a methodology that forces us to be objective, and it has allowed us to gather a huge amount of knowledge and to discover amazing insights into the workings of the universe that we are a part of.
The topic of what is "outside the universe" or what "came before the universe" is simply outside the bounds of science. Science is a tool for modeling the material world - it is useless outside of our physical boundaries. Even if you found evidence of information that had no source inside of the universe, that doesn't give you any ability to say where it came from or how. You would simply have to admit that you did not know. Look at all of the "evidence" for ID - it's nothing but attacks on evolution. I know you've probably heard that before, but it's true. Also note that attacking evolution does *nothing* to support ID. Even if we were absolutely sure that complex life forms could not have arisen as a result of evolution, then what would we have? Nothing. We just wouldn't know the answer. You could step up and say, "An Intelligent Creator must have made it!" but you wouldn't be able to back that up with any evidence. I could just as easily say, "The universe takes on a random configuration every 10 seconds, and it just happened to hit this one. It was a one in a gigillion shot, but this has been going on for eternity so it was bound to happen." I would have just as much evidence as you would -- none.
How, exactly? Can you come up with a hypothetical example?Okay, here's an example that may change your perspective. I'm proposing my own explanation for how life originated. My explanation is that there are an infinite number of universes -- a full set. There exists one of each possible configuration of the most fundamental particles in the universe. All possible universes exist, and therefore our universe, which has complex organisms, *has* to exist. Nobody designed it, it just is.
Now, my evidence that this is true is twofold. A) Complex entities exist. B) There hasn't been enough time for them to have evolved.
There you go. My explanation is absolutely possible, and it has the exact same evidence as ID. What do you do? Are they both right? If not, how do you pick the better explanation?
Of course, the answer is that you can't. Neither of these proposals have any positive evidence in their favor. They are possible, but no physical evidence implies that either one is true. Do you agree?
I'm not trying to set up a strawman, I'm attacking ID as I've heard it presented by others. So far, nobody has presented any evidence in favor of ID, even when pressed to present some. Have you ever heard of any?
I don't understand where you got that from. Just because we can't prove something doesn't mean we can't pick a "best" theory. That theory is chosen on the merits of its being able to stand up to scrutiny via testing. In other words, the more evidence, the better the theory. No theory is perfect, which is why they're constantly modified and replaced.Thanks for the interesting quote, by the way. We are physical creatures living in a physical world, and that is the reason why science, as the study of the physical world, has been so successful.
No, I would disagree. Science does not claim that everything can be explained by materialist means. Such a claim would involve the immaterial world as well as the material, which puts it outside the bounds of science. Science makes no claims about absolute reality, only about that which we can physically measure.Yes, it is *possible* that there was a creator. However, there are also a lot of other possible explanations. To pick out the "designer" explanation without any evidence and without any way to test it, requires belief.
Say, for example, you just look at two possibilities for why life exists. On the one hand, you have the possiblity that it was created by an intelligent designer. On the other hand, you have the possibility that there are an infinite number of universes representing every possible configuration of matter (therefore, our configuration has to exist). Now, I'm pretty sure that there is no test you can do to determine which of these explanations is more accurate. Without such a discriminator, you can't include either one in your model of the universe unless you take it on faith. That is what makes ID unscientific. Scientific theories have to be testable, or you can't distinguish the more accurate ones from the less accurate ones.
Is there a test you can do to see if life was designed? The ID folks don't seem to be able to come up with one, or if they have they're apparently keeping it a secret.
Prove it? What the hell are you thinking?
I wouldn't exactly trust Relativity to be the final word, either, since QM (and its incompatibilities with Relativity) seems like a pretty big hint that there is a deeper theory required.
See, the problem is not just knowing an absolute truth, it is knowing that you know an absolute truth. In order to really stake a flag on it and say, with absolute certainty, "This fact about the universe is absolutely true," you have to rigorously *prove* the underlying theories. How do you do that, when there are always limits on how "deep" we can look? If you think our ability to probe the universe is unlimited, then you're implying that the universe itself is unlimited -- in which case we'll never reach the bottom.
Ultimately, you have to just be practical and work with what you know. Evolution, for example, is by far the best (and really the only) explanation that we have for human origins. Does that mean that you would believe in evolution even if someone came up with another theory that fit the evidence better? I don't care how unlikely that may seem - if it were the case then we would have to change our perspectives. Science is based on theories that we know are only approximations of reality, but we're constantly improving those approximations. That's what makes science so exciting -- we're exploring the universe. Not just physical space, but its inner workings.
In order to keep making progress, though, we have to avoid certain pitfalls. One of them is taking our theories as gospel. You can get stuck for a long time when you never reanalyze the ideas that you take for granted -- all of them probably have mistakes.
Your proposal is that some being called God created the universe. You insist that there is evidence for this, but I think I must have missed it. The only two things that you mentioned were A) the theory that the universe had a beginning and B) "irreducible complexity".
Let's start with the beginning of the universe ;). The thing a lot of people don't get about the big bang is that it was (theoretically) not only the beginning of space, but the beginning of time as well. There was no time before the big bang and therefore, scientifically, nothing could have happened there. In order for your creator to have done anything "before" the big bang, he would have to operate outside of our universe. This is certainly possible, but I don't think that there is any evidence that this is true. So, contrary to your initial claim, it looks like the big bang is evidence against the creator.
Now, "irreducible complexity" (I'll just call it IR). This one has a couple of problems. First off, if IR exists, what would it imply? It would imply that the theory of evolution is insufficient to explain where these IR entities came from, right? OK, where do we go from there? We try to come up with a better theory, of course! Is "Intelligent Design" a better theory? No. In fact, it's not a theory at all, which I'll show in a moment. Secondly, regarding IR, all of the examples of "irreducibly complex" entities have so far been explained using evolutionary theory. ID people keep trotting out the bacterial flagellum and other examples, but keep forgetting that the flagellum is known to be made up of parts that were useful for other functions at earlier points in the evolution of bacteria. So not only does IR not support ID, but IR doesn't even seem to exist.
Back to Intelligent Design, there really is no theory here. It proposes an explanation that is completely untestable. The only "evidence" for ID is the existence of the universe, which also happens to be evidence for an infinite number of proposals. How do you weed through them all? I know! Lets only bother to look at the ones that are testable via our interactions with the material world! Let's call those ones, "scientific" hypotheses. From those, we'll try to find the ones that best fit the evidence, and we'll call those "scientific theories". Hmm, seems to be a pretty good way of creating an abstract model that represents reality. You got a better idea?
I suppose you could call the fact that the biological brain "trusts" itself to be right a kind of "faith" -- but on a conscious level I try to remain skeptical of everything, especially my own assumptions.
No, we do not currently have any evidence that our universe was created on purpose. No, "Intelligent Design" is not a scientific theory.
What does ID say, that because such and such a structure has a certain amount of complexity, it must have been designed? Says who? I say that there exist an infinite number of universes, one in each possible configuration. Because every possible universe exists, ours *has* to exist, no "designer" required. How do you distinguish between my hypothesis and ID? How do you pick the one that's the most accurate? Answer: you can't. They're not scientific conjectures, because they're untestable. They are also, therefore, useless.
As for archeology, we actually have evidence that there were living organisms around at the time that the "objects identified as tools" were found, and even evidence that those organisms made and used those tools. ID has no evidence, we can't test it, and it therefore falls into the huge category of "unprovable conjecture."
Let's look at your brilliant theory. I suppose it's testable, and therefore scientific. So say we do the experiment and I'm killed by the truck. Score a point for your theory. However, you can hardly say that you've "proven" your theory. You have a sample size of one!
So, you say (I assume), well we can look at the physical makeup of the body, use some newtonian physics to model the truck hitting the body with such and such an amount of force, and... hmm, how can we prove that it would kill me? I guess we could model all of the molecules in the body and show that they will change arrangement in such a way as to prevent me from surviving... wait, now the theory is going to need to be generalized to cover all of the possible relative orientations of body vs truck...
OK, for simplicity well specify a certain orientation. Now, we're going to model the movement of all of these molecules for the purpose of *proving* that your theory is true. How do we do that? I guess we might as well jump to QM, which is the most accurate model that we have of the physical universe.
Oh, wait, nobody has proven QM to be true! Shit, I guess we'll have to do that first...
Um, how do you suggest we proceed?
I guess how you interpret my position comes down to how you define the terms, but I balk at the terms "faith" and "belief", because to me they represent blinders that become invisible once you put them on. If you fail to question your assumptions about reality, you'll soon be wandering off into a world that exists only in your own mind.
I operate in this physical world that I seem to occupy by basing my decisions on assumptions that I make about reality. The reason that they are assumptions and not beliefs is that I also assume that my assumptions are either incomplete or incorrect. To believe that something is true is to not question it. For me, everything is questionable, and this is how science sees the world. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is taken on faith. Like I said before, science has nothing to do with belief -- it has everything to do with assumptions (theories), and with finding out what's wrong with our assumptions so that we can improve them. No, this will never lead us to absolute truth, but only a fool would ever expect to discover it anyway.