You could save yourself some trouble if you knew how often the IC argument has been refuted, though I don't suppose it will hurt anyone if we go through it yet again...
I wasn't aware of any problems with the irreducible complexity argument, but just in case you are correct, I will look into it more before presenting it. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone.
As for the difference between creation and evolution, I suppose it is a just matter of definition of the terms. It is silly to debate that. 'Guided' and 'unguided' are mutually exclusive antonyms as far as I can tell.
You may have missed my point about the carbon analogy, but that's okay. I really liked what you had to say about the definition of natural and supernatural, and how are you supposed to distinguish between them anyway? One question though..
Because science should not be a route to a philosophy of materialism, but simply a route to testable explanation, wherever that route leads.
Do you honestly believe that modern science is not establishing a route to a philosophy of materialism? From what I can see it is for the most part. Just some thoughts.;)
Where science goes wrong is this. It starts with the assumption that the metaphysical doesn't exist and should not be considered in their investigation. That in and of itself is not a problem, as long as they are clear about that assumption when they give their conclusions. But they don't do that.
Umm, most grown-up scientist-type people assume that people understand what science is when they give their conclusions. Supernatural hypotheses cannot be considered in a scientific investigation, insofar as they are not falsifiable.
Good point, I think most good scientists do have this well understood. But the vast majority of people do not really have this issue understood I'm afraid. And the media does not make it clear because they are usually run by this crowd.
If it's not possible to prove that the supernatural exists, it's not possible to disprove naturalism. But that doesn't mean that there is a flaw in science.
I agree completely, as long as science isn't used to mislead the public. But people get the strong impression from science that it disproves supernatural reality. Non-falsifiable findings cannot do that. The public needs to be educated about this better.
Naturalism vs. supernaturalism is a metaphysical stance, and in that sense non-falsifiable. But specific naturalistic theories certainly are falsifiable.
True, but all naturalistic theories that I have seen to prove evolution are non-falsifiable, at least at our level of technology and time to record evolutionary change. Any hope to overcome this problem is a matter of faith in the future of science to deliver. I fail to understand why this faith is better than faith in the supernatural. I see them on equal par if I were to remain philosophically honest. Incidently, if it is correct that all theories to explain naturalistic evolution are currently non-falsifiable, then it remains correct to say that naturalistic evolution is unproven so far.
In principle, supernatural theories can be falsifiable too, if you want to put constraints on what the supernatural agent can/will do.
And that shifts the premise and allows discussion that is otherwise forbidden. That is a very interesting study.;)
But the only time people do that is when they know a priori that the constraints will be compatible with the evidence, making the reasoning circular.
Also true that this happens to an overwhelming degree, but I have found it a mistake to say that this is always the case. I regularly see some predictable and invokable things that naturalists would find hard to explain without calling me an outright liar. (Of course calling me a liar doesn't convince me of anything as long as I am confident of the functionality of my senses and the sanity of those around me who are present.) But to say, "There is some natural explanation for it which we cannot figure out yet" is no different than saying, "There is a supernatural explanation for it which we do not understand."
What happens when you include an omnipotent agent into your theory? Then literally anything is possible -- there is no data that can't be accounted for ("God made it that way"), and nothing new can be predicted (both A and not-A can be accounted for, depending on God's whim). You don't have a theory. "God did it" is a non-explanation, as far as illuminating our knowledge of anything.
That is, unless it were possible to learn the supernatural constraints that you mentioned and put them into practice. In that case, something useful can come of it.
Very good honest post, I can totally relate with everything they said. Too bad it was anonymous. This person should get slashdot points.;)
If something has odds of 1 in that number, it is considered impossible...fundamental pillar of evolutionary theory, attractive because one can always simply require the disbeliever to roll the dice a trillion more times or so.
This is an interesting point. No matter how unlikely something becomes, it always becomes possible because there could have always been more time, maybe the universe is infinitely old, maybe there are infinite universes, etc. The issue becomes philosophical, not scientific. It takes faith to consider the possibility of an infinite universe just as much as it takes faith to believe that some god did it. Neither have scientific evidence. Both are used to explain the unknown into a point of view. Both require faith, so which faith is better and why? That is what this is all about.
I know of atheists who are evolutonists and I have heard them argue like that. Granted, they don't become published when they do, but some do. The point I was making is that people on both sides of the issue can become quite religious, so pointing out the fact that some creationists are being religious does not make the entire creationist position invalid. The same can be argued about some evolutionists. Straw Man and Ad Hominem arguments should always be avoided. That's all I was trying to illustrate.
My problem is this: Creationists are often brought up in the media when they say stupid things. When they say something intelligent, that is also reported, but the ideas are discriminated against a priori because it does not support a naturalistic point of view. Evolutionists say stupid things also, which is rarely brought up in the media because evolution is the most accepted point of view among scientists and there is no need to report stupid things. What you end up with is a population of people who are exposed to creation being a stupid idea and evolution being the obvious explanation of our existance.
I'm not saying one point of view is better than the other, but I am suspicious that a legitimate voice is not being heard. People hate me for wanting a fair discussion and assume that I am a creationist, but that is what gives them away.;)
Well, this is closer to biological engineering from a creative human force. And it wasn't done from raw materials. Here is what the article says,
"Using genetic code as the recipe and carbon-containing chemicals as ingredients, researchers have made infective poliovirus entirely from scratch. This is the first time that a working biological entity has been made using chemistry alone...They put this synthetic virus genome into "cell juice" - a mixture of protein-building molecules and catalysts - and watched the virus assemble itself."
All the mechanisms for virus production were in the test tube. It is funny that the article says that they made the virus "entirely from scratch". It certainly is great research though.
About my discussion of naturalism above, that is not flamebait. I have seen and heard time and time again evolutionists agree that naturalism is non-falsifiable. But they continue to use it anyway because it suits them. And that is their prerogative.
Well, that is true. There is a good reason for it. Most creationists aren't scientists, nor are they good philosophers, and they are trying to defend the existance of God. (They shouldn't be hated and they aren't evil, just not very bright, yet trying the best they can to spread good to the world.) Good arguments get diluted and the best sources may become hard to find. The mistake is made to assume that these good arguments don't exist, and that happens just as often. As soon as I finish posting on slashdot I will look for citations from scientific literature about this and show you.
I don't see the word "proves" anywhere in that quote.
I never said the word "proves" either. Instead of picking apart the english language, focus on my premise: They are taking this way further than they should.
And the fact that the major building blocks of life AWKI can be built from lifeless matter is exactly what convinces most scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.
Carbon is a major building block of life. Would the discovery of carbon on the earth and in the rest of the universe convince most scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos? There is a much larger step in complexity between amino acids and functional proteins than between carbon and amino acids, and I am talking many orders of magnitude. So it is not much different to get excited about finding carbon than it is to get excited about finding amino acids. So I say that it shouldn't convince them of anything. At most it should be an interesting footnote. I thought good scientists were skeptics.
Science works under the assumption that nature behaves the same elsewhere as it does here, so it follows that in a big universe, interesting stuff that happens here will also happen elsewhere, with high probability.
True, everyone should accept that assumption. Where science goes wrong is this. It starts with the assumption that the metaphysical doesn't exist and should not be considered in their investigation. That in and of itself is not a problem, as long as they are clear about that assumption when they give their conclusions. But they don't do that. The process of scientific investigation cannot lead to a conclusion that defies naturalism. Any clues that do are discriminated against by default. Naturalistic science is non-falsifiable, just as much as any other religion. It becomes another foolish "my god is better than your god" debate, except that most people are brainwashed into thinking that the scientific conclusions are made by an unbiased source. Any challenge made to the establishment of naturalism is automatically invalid because those creationists are just religious and trying to defend their god. But so are the naturalists, sometimes without realizing it!;D
Please list some of the details that you think cast doubt on it..
I want to avoid a complicated mess, so I will restrict myself to the presentation of irreducible complexity. We can discuss other areas later. Give me some time to write it up. (This takes time, that is why I said it was beyond the scope of this post.)
> So, if evolution in its strictest sense does turn out to be false, the only alternative is creation.
non sequitur
> (Even God guided evolution can be thought of as a form of creation to a point.)
God-guided chemstry, god-guided weather, god-guided planetary orbits, and god-guided nuclear fission make a lot of sense too.
I knew I was getting myself into trouble without explaining this better. First of all I didn't intend to separate the two sentances. Parenthesis are intended to supplement an idea in the previous sentence, so don't treat them as separate thoughts. Let me break what I meant down for you:
1. Either the supernatural intervened in the origin of things, or it didn't.
2. Evolution in its strictest sense, the way it is treated by mainstream scientists in the technical literature, is completely unguided and godless.
3. Creation can be defined as the origin of things from a guided process.
4. By definition, either 2 and 3 make up the entire universe of what is possible and they are mutually exclusive possibilities.
5. Therefore it is not non sequitur to say that 3 is the only alternative if 2 isn't true.
6. I take the blame for the misunderstanding. I failed to explain myself better.
> Outlining all of this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post.;)
Providing supporting details is outside the scope of creationism altogether.
Yes, and it's not fair for you to assume that this is where I am coming from. I enjoy arguing evidence for evolution as much as I enjoy arguing evidence for creation. I believe people are intellectually dishonest if they don't treat all knowledge fairly, despite their personal religious discoveries. When I say that outlining this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post, I mean it.;)
No ones says it "proves" anything, except that amino acids can be made from lifeless matter.
Are you sure that's all they are saying?
The slashdot article said, "For its fifty-year commemoration, Miller is interviewed today and reflects on what Carl Sagan called 'the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.'"
It looks like they are going much further than saying "amino acids can be made from lifeless matter."
I guess what I interpreted to mean, "You didn't back up your claim" was different than what you thought that meant. He did back up his claim, he just didn't provide any references to it. Hope that clears it up.;)
I personally take the position that it can be well shown that evolution is largely inconclusive. People can use it as a theoretical model to understand a lot of things, but I have kept my eyes on too many of the details to say it can be said true for sure. So, if evolution in its strictest sense does turn out to be false, the only alternative is creation. (Even God guided evolution can be thought of as a form of creation to a point.)
Outlining all of this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post.;)
"Believers in Atheism know that evolution has already been proven by science. Even those who search for an explanation other than evolution will, in fact, die and cease to exist and their attempts to find 'God' will be futile."
With reasoning like that, some evolutionists also find it easy to dismiss evidence.
Both sides of the issue have religious components. What we need are people who can be honest about what they think when they explore the issue. I believe there are intellectually honest people on both sides of the issue.
The production of amino acids on the early earth is neccessary for spontaneous generation, but amino acids are extremely simple compared to proteins and cellular structures. One would expect amino acids whether the spontaneous generation of life happened or not.
Saying that the existance of amino acids on an early earth proves spontaneous generation is almost like saying the existance of carbon and water on a planet proves the existance of life on that planet. Inconclusive!
Slashdot Mirror
You could save yourself some trouble if you knew how often the IC argument has been refuted, though I don't suppose it will hurt anyone if we go through it yet again...
I wasn't aware of any problems with the irreducible complexity argument, but just in case you are correct, I will look into it more before presenting it. I wouldn't want to mislead anyone.
As for the difference between creation and evolution, I suppose it is a just matter of definition of the terms. It is silly to debate that. 'Guided' and 'unguided' are mutually exclusive antonyms as far as I can tell.
You may have missed my point about the carbon analogy, but that's okay. I really liked what you had to say about the definition of natural and supernatural, and how are you supposed to distinguish between them anyway? One question though..
;)
Because science should not be a route to a philosophy of materialism, but simply a route to testable explanation, wherever that route leads.
Do you honestly believe that modern science is not establishing a route to a philosophy of materialism? From what I can see it is for the most part. Just some thoughts.
Where science goes wrong is this. It starts with the assumption that the metaphysical doesn't exist and should not be considered in their investigation. That in and of itself is not a problem, as long as they are clear about that assumption when they give their conclusions. But they don't do that.
;)
;)
Umm, most grown-up scientist-type people assume that people understand what science is when they give their conclusions. Supernatural hypotheses cannot be considered in a scientific investigation, insofar as they are not falsifiable.
Good point, I think most good scientists do have this well understood. But the vast majority of people do not really have this issue understood I'm afraid. And the media does not make it clear because they are usually run by this crowd.
If it's not possible to prove that the supernatural exists, it's not possible to disprove naturalism. But that doesn't mean that there is a flaw in science.
I agree completely, as long as science isn't used to mislead the public. But people get the strong impression from science that it disproves supernatural reality. Non-falsifiable findings cannot do that. The public needs to be educated about this better.
Naturalism vs. supernaturalism is a metaphysical stance, and in that sense non-falsifiable. But specific naturalistic theories certainly are falsifiable.
True, but all naturalistic theories that I have seen to prove evolution are non-falsifiable, at least at our level of technology and time to record evolutionary change. Any hope to overcome this problem is a matter of faith in the future of science to deliver. I fail to understand why this faith is better than faith in the supernatural. I see them on equal par if I were to remain philosophically honest. Incidently, if it is correct that all theories to explain naturalistic evolution are currently non-falsifiable, then it remains correct to say that naturalistic evolution is unproven so far.
In principle, supernatural theories can be falsifiable too, if you want to put constraints on what the supernatural agent can/will do.
And that shifts the premise and allows discussion that is otherwise forbidden. That is a very interesting study.
But the only time people do that is when they know a priori that the constraints will be compatible with the evidence, making the reasoning circular.
Also true that this happens to an overwhelming degree, but I have found it a mistake to say that this is always the case. I regularly see some predictable and invokable things that naturalists would find hard to explain without calling me an outright liar. (Of course calling me a liar doesn't convince me of anything as long as I am confident of the functionality of my senses and the sanity of those around me who are present.) But to say, "There is some natural explanation for it which we cannot figure out yet" is no different than saying, "There is a supernatural explanation for it which we do not understand."
What happens when you include an omnipotent agent into your theory? Then literally anything is possible -- there is no data that can't be accounted for ("God made it that way"), and nothing new can be predicted (both A and not-A can be accounted for, depending on God's whim). You don't have a theory. "God did it" is a non-explanation, as far as illuminating our knowledge of anything.
That is, unless it were possible to learn the supernatural constraints that you mentioned and put them into practice. In that case, something useful can come of it.
Very good honest post, I can totally relate with everything they said. Too bad it was anonymous. This person should get slashdot points.
If something has odds of 1 in that number, it is considered impossible...fundamental pillar of evolutionary theory, attractive because one can always simply require the disbeliever to roll the dice a trillion more times or so.
This is an interesting point. No matter how unlikely something becomes, it always becomes possible because there could have always been more time, maybe the universe is infinitely old, maybe there are infinite universes, etc. The issue becomes philosophical, not scientific. It takes faith to consider the possibility of an infinite universe just as much as it takes faith to believe that some god did it. Neither have scientific evidence. Both are used to explain the unknown into a point of view. Both require faith, so which faith is better and why? That is what this is all about.
Evolutionists don't argue like that.
;)
I know of atheists who are evolutonists and I have heard them argue like that. Granted, they don't become published when they do, but some do. The point I was making is that people on both sides of the issue can become quite religious, so pointing out the fact that some creationists are being religious does not make the entire creationist position invalid. The same can be argued about some evolutionists. Straw Man and Ad Hominem arguments should always be avoided. That's all I was trying to illustrate.
My problem is this: Creationists are often brought up in the media when they say stupid things. When they say something intelligent, that is also reported, but the ideas are discriminated against a priori because it does not support a naturalistic point of view. Evolutionists say stupid things also, which is rarely brought up in the media because evolution is the most accepted point of view among scientists and there is no need to report stupid things. What you end up with is a population of people who are exposed to creation being a stupid idea and evolution being the obvious explanation of our existance.
I'm not saying one point of view is better than the other, but I am suspicious that a legitimate voice is not being heard. People hate me for wanting a fair discussion and assume that I am a creationist, but that is what gives them away.
Well, this is closer to biological engineering from a creative human force. And it wasn't done from raw materials. Here is what the article says,
"Using genetic code as the recipe and carbon-containing chemicals as ingredients, researchers have made infective poliovirus entirely from scratch. This is the first time that a working biological entity has been made using chemistry alone...They put this synthetic virus genome into "cell juice" - a mixture of protein-building molecules and catalysts - and watched the virus assemble itself."
All the mechanisms for virus production were in the test tube. It is funny that the article says that they made the virus " entirely from scratch". It certainly is great research though.
About my discussion of naturalism above, that is not flamebait. I have seen and heard time and time again evolutionists agree that naturalism is non-falsifiable. But they continue to use it anyway because it suits them. And that is their prerogative.
Well, that is true. There is a good reason for it. Most creationists aren't scientists, nor are they good philosophers, and they are trying to defend the existance of God. (They shouldn't be hated and they aren't evil, just not very bright, yet trying the best they can to spread good to the world.) Good arguments get diluted and the best sources may become hard to find. The mistake is made to assume that these good arguments don't exist, and that happens just as often. As soon as I finish posting on slashdot I will look for citations from scientific literature about this and show you.
I don't see the word "proves" anywhere in that quote.
;D
I never said the word "proves" either. Instead of picking apart the english language, focus on my premise: They are taking this way further than they should.
And the fact that the major building blocks of life AWKI can be built from lifeless matter is exactly what convinces most scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.
Carbon is a major building block of life. Would the discovery of carbon on the earth and in the rest of the universe convince most scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos? There is a much larger step in complexity between amino acids and functional proteins than between carbon and amino acids, and I am talking many orders of magnitude. So it is not much different to get excited about finding carbon than it is to get excited about finding amino acids. So I say that it shouldn't convince them of anything. At most it should be an interesting footnote. I thought good scientists were skeptics.
Science works under the assumption that nature behaves the same elsewhere as it does here, so it follows that in a big universe, interesting stuff that happens here will also happen elsewhere, with high probability.
True, everyone should accept that assumption. Where science goes wrong is this. It starts with the assumption that the metaphysical doesn't exist and should not be considered in their investigation. That in and of itself is not a problem, as long as they are clear about that assumption when they give their conclusions. But they don't do that. The process of scientific investigation cannot lead to a conclusion that defies naturalism. Any clues that do are discriminated against by default. Naturalistic science is non-falsifiable, just as much as any other religion. It becomes another foolish "my god is better than your god" debate, except that most people are brainwashed into thinking that the scientific conclusions are made by an unbiased source. Any challenge made to the establishment of naturalism is automatically invalid because those creationists are just religious and trying to defend their god. But so are the naturalists, sometimes without realizing it!
Please list some of the details that you think cast doubt on it..
;)
;)
I want to avoid a complicated mess, so I will restrict myself to the presentation of irreducible complexity. We can discuss other areas later. Give me some time to write it up. (This takes time, that is why I said it was beyond the scope of this post.)
> So, if evolution in its strictest sense does turn out to be false, the only alternative is creation.
non sequitur
> (Even God guided evolution can be thought of as a form of creation to a point.)
God-guided chemstry, god-guided weather, god-guided planetary orbits, and god-guided nuclear fission make a lot of sense too.
I knew I was getting myself into trouble without explaining this better. First of all I didn't intend to separate the two sentances. Parenthesis are intended to supplement an idea in the previous sentence, so don't treat them as separate thoughts. Let me break what I meant down for you:
1. Either the supernatural intervened in the origin of things, or it didn't.
2. Evolution in its strictest sense, the way it is treated by mainstream scientists in the technical literature, is completely unguided and godless.
3. Creation can be defined as the origin of things from a guided process.
4. By definition, either 2 and 3 make up the entire universe of what is possible and they are mutually exclusive possibilities.
5. Therefore it is not non sequitur to say that 3 is the only alternative if 2 isn't true.
6. I take the blame for the misunderstanding. I failed to explain myself better.
> Outlining all of this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post.
Providing supporting details is outside the scope of creationism altogether.
Yes, and it's not fair for you to assume that this is where I am coming from. I enjoy arguing evidence for evolution as much as I enjoy arguing evidence for creation. I believe people are intellectually dishonest if they don't treat all knowledge fairly, despite their personal religious discoveries. When I say that outlining this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post, I mean it.
No ones says it "proves" anything, except that amino acids can be made from lifeless matter.
Are you sure that's all they are saying?
The slashdot article said, "For its fifty-year commemoration, Miller is interviewed today and reflects on what Carl Sagan called 'the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.'"
It looks like they are going much further than saying "amino acids can be made from lifeless matter."
I guess what I interpreted to mean, "You didn't back up your claim" was different than what you thought that meant. He did back up his claim, he just didn't provide any references to it. Hope that clears it up. ;)
I personally take the position that it can be well shown that evolution is largely inconclusive. People can use it as a theoretical model to understand a lot of things, but I have kept my eyes on too many of the details to say it can be said true for sure. So, if evolution in its strictest sense does turn out to be false, the only alternative is creation. (Even God guided evolution can be thought of as a form of creation to a point.)
;)
Outlining all of this thought with exhaustive examples would be well beyond the scope of this post.
That article could have just as easily said,
"Believers in Atheism know that evolution has already been proven by science. Even those who search for an explanation other than evolution will, in fact, die and cease to exist and their attempts to find 'God' will be futile."
With reasoning like that, some evolutionists also find it easy to dismiss evidence.
Both sides of the issue have religious components. What we need are people who can be honest about what they think when they explore the issue. I believe there are intellectually honest people on both sides of the issue.
David Pesta
The production of amino acids on the early earth is neccessary for spontaneous generation, but amino acids are extremely simple compared to proteins and cellular structures. One would expect amino acids whether the spontaneous generation of life happened or not.
Saying that the existance of amino acids on an early earth proves spontaneous generation is almost like saying the existance of carbon and water on a planet proves the existance of life on that planet. Inconclusive!
David Pesta
B.S. Biochemistry
A google for "stanley miller" racemized gives 5 results, all for Creationists' pages.
Dude it's in the scientific literature too. Creationists pick up on it and put it on their sites.
And like your post, without proof to back up your claim, you too are wrong.
Did you not read his post?
1. The amino acids broke down as fast as they were made.
2. Were completely racemised at formation.
3. No evidence of a reducing atmosphere exists.
Where did he fail to backup his claim?