I'd like to see where it says "must be" a result of Design, rather than "are likely to be".
I'm sure you're not deliberately just creating a Straw Man here, so go ahead and link their words on this crucial distinction.
"Are likely to be" is all that's necessary for -evidence- of ID, and -evidence- is the most that can be provided on this from either stance. "Proof" is not necessary and the expectation of this are not something that I'd expect them to claim by a logically-forcing claim of "must". More likely it's just another example of something entirely made-up that they claim, that they explicitly absolutely do not.
As a general statement, though, whatever the IDEA Center may say, no, there is no reason to state that there aren't different metaphysical categories with respect to design, and precisely as how I could claim that a Ford Mustang was designed and Henry Ford was not designed, from an atheist stance, I can claim that biological entities are designed that their creator is not. Any problem with this actually doesn't exist on any level, and although they make this exact same distinction in metaphysical nature every single day, it's mere empty claim there is a problem with it specifically when we address theistic notions.
On "starting the chain", I don't see at all why this is in any way definitional to ID. Design -at any point- is within the scope of ID, not only as a model of origins. This has been pretty consistently maintained by the people who I've seen as heavily-involved, as far as I've seen. Are you sure you haven't just once again repeating what is entirely made-up as representative of their position, that simply and verifiably isn't?
Oh, none. You just threw the words "logical fallacy" -themselves- in there, -applying to a premise- hoping that would make some kind of sense or have some kind of validity, somewhere, according to some hopeful definition of what a logical fallacy is, held by anyone anywhere, ever.
It doesn't.
As for the "just an outright lie instead" part of your post, link these "multiple times".
Then, you stipulate the bible is invalid because -it itself- states exceptions. Either your interpretation is incorrect, or the document you are referencing to make your point is invalid.
Either way, you're wrong, on your own terms.
The only valid interpretation is "120 years", stated with the accuracy stated, as allowing for exceptions to the rule created for the maker's preferences per the maker's preferences. There is no other theologically (or even logically) possible stance here.
As stated,.000001% of people living to outside of this scope of time would pose a very large issue for my worldview, yes, and I've have to do some serious reanalysis.
If it happens, I will do so. Until then, it hasn't, and I'll be going with what the evidence says.
And, well, simply entirely everything I said about this "120 years" issue is entirely accurate, both from a theological and mathematics perspective. I'm not sure if you're hoping to peer-pressure me into saying completely correct things are suspect despite them being completely correct and unrefuted, or what, but that approach tends not to work well with me. I mean, if you had a counterargument, you'd present it, right? This vague "I disapprove" stuff is just admission of failure on your part as you deny it.
No, it absolutely does not refer to a supernatural creator exclusively, much as you might want to create a Straw Man to fit the argument you have.
An extraterrestrial being doing genetic engineering a million years ago on Earth would absolutely fall in the scope of ID.
I know it's very standard here to just make up what others "really mean" for your convenience apart from what the clear words are, and what the clear content at hand is, but try to avoid this standard rhetorical device for a moment.
If a supernatural being did biological design, I am interested. If a non-supernatural extraterrestrial being did biological design, I am interested. So should anyone of -genuine- scientific curiosity and integrity, as opposed to people simply panicking at allowing any discussion or investigation of something that -could be interpreted- as something their feelings don't like.
It's really that simple. "Design" means, what the word says. What it says, and specifically what it says. There are multiple further possibilities within that rubric, but to replace the general concept with a particular stance according to one's Straw-Man seeking whims, is just intellectually dishonest. That's really all there is to it.
Overwhelmingly, the facts that exist agree with me.
You can hope it was otherwise, but one -possible- outlier of billions, going by a criterion not stated, absolutely agrees overwhelmingly with the specification given.
Additionally, however you might hope that a broad-brush Ad Hominem of "ID" means one point is directly germane to another, it simply isn't, once you learn your basic logical fallacies.
My other post, stating that we need different terminology that "common descent" (as a directly, clearly designed biological entity is -not- standard descent), remains fully valid--as fully valid as you already know it is.
I just addressed this in another post. Sorry, there are a dozen different ways that Saint Jeanne is -not- a viable refutation. You can read my other post for why, if you like.
As for "120 years, no exceptions"... no. You don't get to make up what the text says, and what the text intends is demonstrated by what its written context is and states.
One female is claimed to have lived above 120 years, and if "120 years" didn't express what two significant digits does as a matter of basic math, that could be an issue, if the text was clearly inclusive of what it doesn't specify, males.
However, Saint Jeanne, assuming a single exception out of billions, further assuming females, further assuming the claim is provable, is still comfortably within what "120 years" means for any form of measurement so expressed--that is, a value ending at what would within the scope of what is expressed by the value given and the significant digits specified. That means, 124 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, if writing it that way would have served any purpose. If "120 years, 1 month" were intended, there would have been no reason not to express it as such. However, like "12.000" and "12" do -not- propose the same accuracy in a stated value, for any scientific measurement, there is no reason to assume it here. Similarly, I have no issue concluding that "144000" in Revelation could specify 144103 to be specific to a degree not stated.
In any case, it shouldn't be too difficult to provide a strong counterargument to my point, as soon as.0000001% of people of these billions live over the age specified when going by the interpretation absolutely most generous to my opposition.
Obviously, God can determine and make his own exceptions. The entire history of Judaism did not miss what you hope to be a contradiction a few paragraphs apart.
Nonetheless, we have clear, quantifiable evidence of what the case is -outside- of such stated exceptions.
Billions of cases, in fact.
As far as what is more probable, setting aside your vastly wrong (and intentionally wrong) description, theism is more probable by virtue of being a fact. The fact I personally know it to be a fact through direct empirical means, is not altered by anything you do, or do not know.
In general, on any given topic, you not knowing something does not give you the psychic ability to know nobody else on the planet does either. Claims like this are -always- epistemologically invalid.
So, your contention is that "descent" incorporates not only standard reproductive descent, but anything that involves or is derived from or uses standard reproductive descent in any way?
This is a definition that then specifies nothing. Modification of any DNA at any point by any means whatsoever would then be "descent", which, by applying to any possible conceivable scenario, describes or explains or differentiates nothing.
Again, need better terminology. I'd like to see some proposed.
You can read it yourself, and google the age of the oldest living man. As well as the age at which all these billions of people die off, statistically.
And, you need to learn probability. Only one guess was made, only one guess was possible, given that the specific number was codified in a document that has persisted over those thousands of years. "Eventually get something right" is totally inapplicable to this case, not as a matter of theology, but as a matter of how probability and reality work, anywhere.
Right... and your concern is for the integrity of scientific pursuit, and not blatantly redefining basic words to whatever you need to in order to tell yourself you can exclude things your bias says you don't like...
Seriously, "creationism" aside, stop damaging science and basic valid usage of terms. No, you aren't championing science against "creationism", you are simply harming science and accomplishing nothing.
Well, to be fair, one of those nomadic tribesmen did nail the statistical upper-bound of lifespan of man for the next few thousands of years, across billions of future people, with one try, with no internet to use for research, and no medical training.
Feel free to apply science to produce a more accurate number, though. Next 4000 years, oldest living man, starting with massive advantage to you in terms of baseline knowledge available to reference to make your prediction.
Oh, yeah, to parallel the situation in terms of the seriousness of falsely speaking "on behalf of science", you in kind agree to be put to death if your prediction is refuted at any point in the future.
Go!
P.S. "Which is epistemologically valid to acquire knowledge, science or X?" Is a False Dichotomy Fallacy. Could be both, and more besides.
Are we stating that only events in the far past can be included to apply to common descent based on, well, what the words simply mean? Because there's no question there's been Design of living creatures, the only question is whether Design has occurred only recently.
No, really. Absolute proof common descent is false, and Design (in the abstract) is true. Just click on any of the jpg's. It's right there.
Now, the question is, what more nuanced terminology is necessary to describe the principle of "common descent" in this age of genetic engineering? Because it being false on the face of it, if unqualified as terminology, isn't ever going away.
Why not be consistent in your reasoning and state that it's immoral to cut any more of the umbilical cord than is absolutely necessary at birth? It is also part of the baby's body. Sure, it might (also) cause health risks to have people with two-feet-long "belly buttons", but who are we to make that decision on somebody else's behalf?
Oh, that's right, parents. Like they make decisions for a broad range of medically-recommendable actions like this, including surgery. Being that the child is incapable of making the decision, and all.
The reason why they latter category doesn't is because it'd be an inaccuracy based on an argument that is an absurdity.
"I just believe in one less political party than you do" doesn't compel a Democrat to automatically be an anarchist or entirely apolitical. It is, in fact, quite possible that the person has actually made the effort to evaluate the various political parties, and the preponderance of argument or personal experience leads them to conclude -this- party is best. Same with religions. Semantic games with categories really doesn't change this.
As you are replying to a Catholic link, it should be noted here that for those who consider scripture, rather than a human hierarchy, to hold primacy in matters of correct Christian doctrine (e.g. Protestants)--that searching for a prohibition of suicide there will come up empty.
So, overestimating to the advantage of your position, about 1% similar concepts, 99% totally different.
You can't be serious that a mention of a rib, somewhere in all the writings describing these hundreds of utterly different aspects to all these "gods", with that rib -not even related to humans-, means Genesis was "stolen" from this, can you?
In that case, Moby Dick was clearly plagiarized. There are millions of earlier writings that use the word "whale" somewhere.
Nice handwaving.
I thought maybe -you- were going to make a real argument, showing a strong direct plagiarism, along with the actual documents that -prove- that writing from the other mythos preceded historically. I'm not going to do your work for you by hunting through a link.
Yeah, I know, Post Hoc Propter Hoc, but I'm trying to give your argument at least a hearing before crushing it by calling out all your logical fallacies.
That Genesis wasn't the first account of human origins matters not even in the slightest, most vague way to the question of its validity. Einstein's Theory of Relativity wasn't the first writing in physics, either. Yay. That can't be all you've got here.
Without those, you are giving neither me nor the general reader any opportunity to evaluate for themselves what they'd consider "coincidental" versus "correlation but not causation" versus real "plagiarism".
Since you haven't, I have to assume that's exactly what you intend to do.
People used to have ideas related to Physics in the distant past. Does this mean there is no accurate Physics? Ah, no.
This is really a very common argument, and I've seen it stretched to absurdity--one such web page ended up saying Jesus was exactly like Thor--which is simply absurd on its face for anyone knowing anything about Judeo-Christianity or Asatru.
That's why your intimation that elements were copied (before we even get to the fact that, like Physics, it would matter not in the least anyway) needs to be backed. They only way to back your argument is through...
Primary. Source. Documents.
That's how we differentiate plausible historical claims of this type from people making stuff up and putting it on their MySpace page.
...and if He did, he would make Moses irrelevant to his own existence, in terms of personally contributing to learning any of his own understanding. This would be a greater loss than a gain, therefore not a positive. I understand you'd insist on looking at it from a secular perspective though, so in that case, it would be a greater loss than a gain, therefore not a positive action.
Just saving time by indicating the more-common forms of double-standards your positions have between "religion" and "absolutely any other topic I discuss".
As for your further point, feel free to start the discussion with quoting your primary source documents that you feel demonstrate some kind of plagiarism, beyond the vague correlations like "people thought there were gods" that would demonstrate, well, nothing whatsoever.
Both of these are -always- a necessity for claims like yours, like simple citation, but go ahead and catch up on the requirements of baseline honesty in argument. Without those, your argument is just hot air.
I don't mind you directly obviously lying about the quality of discussion in this case or others, because you have no worthwhile response, but I do worry about my grammar being criticized.:p
It's in quotes because a fallacious argument likely should not be considered an actual "argument", much "not-X", where "X" is anything, is nothing specific at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to see where it says "must be" a result of Design, rather than "are likely to be".
I'm sure you're not deliberately just creating a Straw Man here, so go ahead and link their words on this crucial distinction.
"Are likely to be" is all that's necessary for -evidence- of ID, and -evidence- is the most that can be provided on this from either stance. "Proof" is not necessary and the expectation of this are not something that I'd expect them to claim by a logically-forcing claim of "must". More likely it's just another example of something entirely made-up that they claim, that they explicitly absolutely do not.
As a general statement, though, whatever the IDEA Center may say, no, there is no reason to state that there aren't different metaphysical categories with respect to design, and precisely as how I could claim that a Ford Mustang was designed and Henry Ford was not designed, from an atheist stance, I can claim that biological entities are designed that their creator is not. Any problem with this actually doesn't exist on any level, and although they make this exact same distinction in metaphysical nature every single day, it's mere empty claim there is a problem with it specifically when we address theistic notions.
On "starting the chain", I don't see at all why this is in any way definitional to ID. Design -at any point- is within the scope of ID, not only as a model of origins. This has been pretty consistently maintained by the people who I've seen as heavily-involved, as far as I've seen. Are you sure you haven't just once again repeating what is entirely made-up as representative of their position, that simply and verifiably isn't?
Then call me on it, if I do. I'll be here.
And which logical fallacy would that be?
Oh, none. You just threw the words "logical fallacy" -themselves- in there, -applying to a premise- hoping that would make some kind of sense or have some kind of validity, somewhere, according to some hopeful definition of what a logical fallacy is, held by anyone anywhere, ever.
It doesn't.
As for the "just an outright lie instead" part of your post, link these "multiple times".
Then, you stipulate the bible is invalid because -it itself- states exceptions. Either your interpretation is incorrect, or the document you are referencing to make your point is invalid.
Either way, you're wrong, on your own terms.
The only valid interpretation is "120 years", stated with the accuracy stated, as allowing for exceptions to the rule created for the maker's preferences per the maker's preferences. There is no other theologically (or even logically) possible stance here.
As stated, .000001% of people living to outside of this scope of time would pose a very large issue for my worldview, yes, and I've have to do some serious reanalysis.
If it happens, I will do so. Until then, it hasn't, and I'll be going with what the evidence says.
And, well, simply entirely everything I said about this "120 years" issue is entirely accurate, both from a theological and mathematics perspective. I'm not sure if you're hoping to peer-pressure me into saying completely correct things are suspect despite them being completely correct and unrefuted, or what, but that approach tends not to work well with me. I mean, if you had a counterargument, you'd present it, right? This vague "I disapprove" stuff is just admission of failure on your part as you deny it.
No, it absolutely does not refer to a supernatural creator exclusively, much as you might want to create a Straw Man to fit the argument you have.
An extraterrestrial being doing genetic engineering a million years ago on Earth would absolutely fall in the scope of ID.
I know it's very standard here to just make up what others "really mean" for your convenience apart from what the clear words are, and what the clear content at hand is, but try to avoid this standard rhetorical device for a moment.
If a supernatural being did biological design, I am interested. If a non-supernatural extraterrestrial being did biological design, I am interested. So should anyone of -genuine- scientific curiosity and integrity, as opposed to people simply panicking at allowing any discussion or investigation of something that -could be interpreted- as something their feelings don't like.
It's really that simple. "Design" means, what the word says. What it says, and specifically what it says. There are multiple further possibilities within that rubric, but to replace the general concept with a particular stance according to one's Straw-Man seeking whims, is just intellectually dishonest. That's really all there is to it.
Overwhelmingly, the facts that exist agree with me.
You can hope it was otherwise, but one -possible- outlier of billions, going by a criterion not stated, absolutely agrees overwhelmingly with the specification given.
Additionally, however you might hope that a broad-brush Ad Hominem of "ID" means one point is directly germane to another, it simply isn't, once you learn your basic logical fallacies.
My other post, stating that we need different terminology that "common descent" (as a directly, clearly designed biological entity is -not- standard descent), remains fully valid--as fully valid as you already know it is.
I just addressed this in another post. Sorry, there are a dozen different ways that Saint Jeanne is -not- a viable refutation. You can read my other post for why, if you like.
As for "120 years, no exceptions"... no. You don't get to make up what the text says, and what the text intends is demonstrated by what its written context is and states.
One female is claimed to have lived above 120 years, and if "120 years" didn't express what two significant digits does as a matter of basic math, that could be an issue, if the text was clearly inclusive of what it doesn't specify, males.
However, Saint Jeanne, assuming a single exception out of billions, further assuming females, further assuming the claim is provable, is still comfortably within what "120 years" means for any form of measurement so expressed--that is, a value ending at what would within the scope of what is expressed by the value given and the significant digits specified. That means, 124 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, if writing it that way would have served any purpose. If "120 years, 1 month" were intended, there would have been no reason not to express it as such. However, like "12.000" and "12" do -not- propose the same accuracy in a stated value, for any scientific measurement, there is no reason to assume it here. Similarly, I have no issue concluding that "144000" in Revelation could specify 144103 to be specific to a degree not stated.
In any case, it shouldn't be too difficult to provide a strong counterargument to my point, as soon as .0000001% of people of these billions live over the age specified when going by the interpretation absolutely most generous to my opposition.
Keep an eye on it... we shall see.
Obviously, God can determine and make his own exceptions. The entire history of Judaism did not miss what you hope to be a contradiction a few paragraphs apart.
Nonetheless, we have clear, quantifiable evidence of what the case is -outside- of such stated exceptions.
Billions of cases, in fact.
As far as what is more probable, setting aside your vastly wrong (and intentionally wrong) description, theism is more probable by virtue of being a fact. The fact I personally know it to be a fact through direct empirical means, is not altered by anything you do, or do not know.
In general, on any given topic, you not knowing something does not give you the psychic ability to know nobody else on the planet does either. Claims like this are -always- epistemologically invalid.
So, your contention is that "descent" incorporates not only standard reproductive descent, but anything that involves or is derived from or uses standard reproductive descent in any way?
This is a definition that then specifies nothing. Modification of any DNA at any point by any means whatsoever would then be "descent", which, by applying to any possible conceivable scenario, describes or explains or differentiates nothing.
Again, need better terminology. I'd like to see some proposed.
Genesis 6:3.
You can read it yourself, and google the age of the oldest living man. As well as the age at which all these billions of people die off, statistically.
And, you need to learn probability. Only one guess was made, only one guess was possible, given that the specific number was codified in a document that has persisted over those thousands of years. "Eventually get something right" is totally inapplicable to this case, not as a matter of theology, but as a matter of how probability and reality work, anywhere.
Right... and your concern is for the integrity of scientific pursuit, and not blatantly redefining basic words to whatever you need to in order to tell yourself you can exclude things your bias says you don't like...
Seriously, "creationism" aside, stop damaging science and basic valid usage of terms. No, you aren't championing science against "creationism", you are simply harming science and accomplishing nothing.
Well, to be fair, one of those nomadic tribesmen did nail the statistical upper-bound of lifespan of man for the next few thousands of years, across billions of future people, with one try, with no internet to use for research, and no medical training.
Feel free to apply science to produce a more accurate number, though. Next 4000 years, oldest living man, starting with massive advantage to you in terms of baseline knowledge available to reference to make your prediction.
Oh, yeah, to parallel the situation in terms of the seriousness of falsely speaking "on behalf of science", you in kind agree to be put to death if your prediction is refuted at any point in the future.
Go!
P.S. "Which is epistemologically valid to acquire knowledge, science or X?" Is a False Dichotomy Fallacy. Could be both, and more besides.
FTFA: "A creationist member of the review panel released a list of Holt's supposed errors involving evolution and common descent."
Thing is, common descent is provably scientifically false at this point.
Fluorescent cats: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/photogalleries/wip-week59/ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316592,00.html
Are we stating that only events in the far past can be included to apply to common descent based on, well, what the words simply mean? Because there's no question there's been Design of living creatures, the only question is whether Design has occurred only recently.
No, really. Absolute proof common descent is false, and Design (in the abstract) is true. Just click on any of the jpg's. It's right there.
Now, the question is, what more nuanced terminology is necessary to describe the principle of "common descent" in this age of genetic engineering? Because it being false on the face of it, if unqualified as terminology, isn't ever going away.
Why not be consistent in your reasoning and state that it's immoral to cut any more of the umbilical cord than is absolutely necessary at birth? It is also part of the baby's body. Sure, it might (also) cause health risks to have people with two-feet-long "belly buttons", but who are we to make that decision on somebody else's behalf?
Oh, that's right, parents. Like they make decisions for a broad range of medically-recommendable actions like this, including surgery. Being that the child is incapable of making the decision, and all.
The reason why they latter category doesn't is because it'd be an inaccuracy based on an argument that is an absurdity.
"I just believe in one less political party than you do" doesn't compel a Democrat to automatically be an anarchist or entirely apolitical. It is, in fact, quite possible that the person has actually made the effort to evaluate the various political parties, and the preponderance of argument or personal experience leads them to conclude -this- party is best. Same with religions. Semantic games with categories really doesn't change this.
Protip: The Secret Cow Level in Diablo II begins where you find the DNA sequence for "adds rights".
As you are replying to a Catholic link, it should be noted here that for those who consider scripture, rather than a human hierarchy, to hold primacy in matters of correct Christian doctrine (e.g. Protestants)--that searching for a prohibition of suicide there will come up empty.
Sorry you didn't enjoy my Reductio Ad Absurdum. Maybe next time.
So, overestimating to the advantage of your position, about 1% similar concepts, 99% totally different.
You can't be serious that a mention of a rib, somewhere in all the writings describing these hundreds of utterly different aspects to all these "gods", with that rib -not even related to humans-, means Genesis was "stolen" from this, can you?
In that case, Moby Dick was clearly plagiarized. There are millions of earlier writings that use the word "whale" somewhere.
Nice handwaving. I thought maybe -you- were going to make a real argument, showing a strong direct plagiarism, along with the actual documents that -prove- that writing from the other mythos preceded historically. I'm not going to do your work for you by hunting through a link. Yeah, I know, Post Hoc Propter Hoc, but I'm trying to give your argument at least a hearing before crushing it by calling out all your logical fallacies. That Genesis wasn't the first account of human origins matters not even in the slightest, most vague way to the question of its validity. Einstein's Theory of Relativity wasn't the first writing in physics, either. Yay. That can't be all you've got here.
Primary. Source. Documents.
Without those, you are giving neither me nor the general reader any opportunity to evaluate for themselves what they'd consider "coincidental" versus "correlation but not causation" versus real "plagiarism".
Since you haven't, I have to assume that's exactly what you intend to do.
People used to have ideas related to Physics in the distant past. Does this mean there is no accurate Physics? Ah, no.
This is really a very common argument, and I've seen it stretched to absurdity--one such web page ended up saying Jesus was exactly like Thor--which is simply absurd on its face for anyone knowing anything about Judeo-Christianity or Asatru.
That's why your intimation that elements were copied (before we even get to the fact that, like Physics, it would matter not in the least anyway) needs to be backed. They only way to back your argument is through...
Primary. Source. Documents.
That's how we differentiate plausible historical claims of this type from people making stuff up and putting it on their MySpace page.
...and if He did, he would make Moses irrelevant to his own existence, in terms of personally contributing to learning any of his own understanding. This would be a greater loss than a gain, therefore not a positive. I understand you'd insist on looking at it from a secular perspective though, so in that case, it would be a greater loss than a gain, therefore not a positive action.
Just saving time by indicating the more-common forms of double-standards your positions have between "religion" and "absolutely any other topic I discuss".
As for your further point, feel free to start the discussion with quoting your primary source documents that you feel demonstrate some kind of plagiarism, beyond the vague correlations like "people thought there were gods" that would demonstrate, well, nothing whatsoever.
Both of these are -always- a necessity for claims like yours, like simple citation, but go ahead and catch up on the requirements of baseline honesty in argument. Without those, your argument is just hot air.
I don't mind you directly obviously lying about the quality of discussion in this case or others, because you have no worthwhile response, but I do worry about my grammar being criticized. :p
It's in quotes because a fallacious argument likely should not be considered an actual "argument", much "not-X", where "X" is anything, is nothing specific at all.
Like "a-theism". See the "Reification Fallacy".
Okay, admitted. I like my double-quotes.