Supernatural information supplier

Hey Ooook,Why do I feel like I am walking right into a sucker punch? But hey it won't be the first. Yes, if the protein product is producing a function which is new to the organism, I agree that it would look very much like new information from the little I know.

Hey NosyNed, thanks for the reply. In it you say:"Research so far shows that there may be simpler mechanisms that can also support an evolutionary process. We haven't demonstrated that with a great deal of firmness yet. "We don't know" is hardly a good basis on which to step out into the supernatural."Are you referring to the RNA hypothesis?We are already standing firmly in the supernatural. I think this is why the dialogue between creationists and evolutionists is so tedious. We (creos, as you put it) aknowledge the supernatural upfront and then approach the issue from a top-down perspective. The evolutionist throws out the supernatural a priori, defines the discussion and science as only from and about the natural, and then the slam-dunk is complete before the game begins. I think we need to start from scratch and define knowledge and how humans get knowledge and then proceed from there. So I will be interested to see what Ooook has to say, but I will most likely be spending what time I have for this in a couple of other threads.Thanks Ned, and Merry Christmas!This message has been edited by dshortt, 12-23-2004 04:03 PM

Well, we've had a number of attempts at getting someone to define other ways for gettting knowledge about the natural world. So far nothing has come from that.If we put the supernatural in right up front then why would we do any research. We already know the answer don't we? God did it. End of story.If we examine the success of this approach over history we find that it has always failed. That is another good reason for figureing that it just might be the wrong approach yet again.Science isn't defined as dealing with all knowledge. It has proved to be very good at learning about the natural world and how it works. You have a better way: describe it and show how it works better.and a Merry Christmas to you.

Not only research, why would we do any math. Whats 2+2? Whatever number God wants it to be. If I'm travelling at 100km/hr and accellerate at 50 m/s² what is my velocity after 10 seconds? Whatever velocity God wants me to be travelling at. If we put the supernatural right up front we'd have no science whatsoever.This message has been edited by DrJones*, 12-23-2004 05:22 PM

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*not an actual doctor

Hey Ned,

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If we put the supernatural in right up front then why would we do any research. We already know the answer don't we? God did it. End of story.

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This is the fallacy of the excluded middle once again. The possibility of ID does not imply that all events are the product of ID. Medical science, for example, remains a very uselful discipline whether or not there are instances of miraculous cures. Biological research would continue, just with the shifted focus of giving up their dogmatic materialism and unproductive hypotheses like the prebiotic soup. But abandoning bad ideas is a gain, not a loss.

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Science isn't defined as dealing with all knowledge.

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What knowledge, in your estimation lies outside of science?Dennis

You seem to suggest that it would be wrong to give up on research and say "goddidit" then you say:
"unproductive hypotheses like the prebiotic soup."In other words (as I read it anyway) "give up". How is this not inconsistant. We will get to a good answer to the origin of life if we keep going. The line between in the boundary of science and not moves. Science itself has some fuzzy edges. The process may start with very wild speculations and the opponents of those may legitimately cry "That not science, it's fantasy!". However, these wild thoughts may allow the generation of some testable hypothoses.Then there are technological issues. The m-theory stuff may in principle be testable but the technology may be out of reach so it will stay on the fringes (at best) for a long time.Anything for which there is no possibility of independent evidence being available (a purely supernatural god for one) would always remain outside of the perview of science. Anything inherently (or contrived to be) unfalsifiable would also be.It seems that all of ID as currently set up is outside of science in fact.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-26-2004 12:05 AM

Hey Ned,

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How is this not inconsistant. We will get to a good answer to the origin of life if we keep going.

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Science should also be willing to recognize deadends. The prebiotic soup theory is known to be nothing like the conditions most likely to have been present on the early earth. I guess it really does come down to a matter of faith. You would prefer to put your faith in men and the ability of science to pierce what I believe is unknowable by purely naturalistic means. Origins is everything because origins is where the supernatural meets the natural. How will we ever get beyond the laws of chemistry and physics to fully recognize what happens on the "other side" when a universe, a life, or a human "pops" into being.And naturalism is a falsifiable religion, I believe. Check out my threads in Darwinism, education, materialism's fatal flaw and Emotions, conciousness outside of the Brain? where I have pretty well shown the fatal flaw in naturalistic logic. So how much longer should we put our faith in an illogical religion?Only when a dogmatic naturalistic philosophy has taken over the halls of science would anyone look at the evidence of fortuitous coincidences from space research and the evidence of a language of some sort being used to code for the intricacies of microbiology and say, "these things can be explained in purely naturalistic terms. There is nothing here to suggest the supernatural." We know a code when we see one, we know a miracle when we see one, and the universe supporting life is a miracle and DNA is a code.Dennis

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Symphonies, art, relationships, this website, the ability to reason (though admittedly flawed at times), and love lead me to believe mankind is special.

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I agree that homo sapiens is an amazing species because we are so good at adapting our environments to suit ourselves as well as being good at making tools to allow us to survive in many different environments. This has made us quite dominant and quite destructive to the Earth and other species.We also have self-consciousness, which only a few other species have.However, all species are special for various reasons. We can't fly like birds, hold our breath for long periosd under water like whales, run very fast like cheetahs, etc.They are special, just for different reasons.

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God's purpose for animals is limited. As you can see, he made what he cares about most, to be able to survive the easiest.

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Bacteria?Maybe beetles?

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People just aren't stupid enough to think that there is no God,

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Well, when the insults start coming out, you know mike has no response.

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and that humans have all the answers through accumulative knowledge,

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Why are you repeating this, mike, after I have repeatedly shot you down?Who is claiming to "have all the answers":1) The religious person who says "I know how God did everything in nature--see, it says so in this book, and the parts I don't agree with in this book I will reinterpret to my liking", or2) The scientist who says "There is a lot we don't know, and may never know about nature, like how life first started, so we can't really say."Which person is claiming to know it all, mike?

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas Jefferson

Which receipe of soup? If one is wrong does that mean, again, you say give up? "Is known to be nothing like..." -- odd thing for you to say, you happen to know what the conditions were like? You see, there you go again, unknowable eh? No wonder you're a fan of the supernatural explanation. Your kind of thinking would have us still locked in the ignorance of the dark ages; praying that the plague would pass our door. And what means would you use to determine how life arose on earth in the first place? We now know that the zap-poofing of complete modern animals described in the Bible is wrong. It doesn't describe the receipe of the pre-biotic soup. Where will you get that receipe then? Please supply links to the posts in those threads where you define religion in such a way that methodological (not philosophical) natural ism is a religion.Supply the link to where you show the fatal flaw in the logic please. I don't recall you doing so.Your last paragraph doesn't seem relevant to me. I don't know what you are getting at there. I'll drop in on the "code" and meaning discussion again and see where it is at.

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that surely to dismiss everything as answered by science completely - is arrogant aswell.

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Again...Which is the arrogant one?:1) The religious person who says, each and every time they are confronted with some phenomena that we do not understand, and even some that we do understand, "God did that. See, it says so right here in this book, and I feel it to be so, as well. No evidence will ever convince me otherwise. My belief is set in stone, unchanging, forever.", or2) The science-minded person who says, when confronted with some phenomena we do not understand, "Gee, that's a puzzle. I have no idea how that works. Let's study it and try to figure it out, but if we cannot manage to do that, then I guess we won't know the answers to everything."Which person is arrogant, mike?

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only I've never heard you defend God at all.

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Why do you think god needs defending?

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Function would be adding a body part or some structure that enhances the creature at some level. Sorry I haven't been around long enough to have seen any of these examples.

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Function can also be taking away some body part or structure that makes the species more reproductively successful.Horses, for example, lost multiple toes in favor of one big one because it was more efficient on the plains they moved to compared to the forest they used to live in.There are still vestigial tarsal bones that articulate with the knee joint but just taper away to nothing.

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It is a tuff question, and one I struggle with (why are there scorpions and fire ants); also, and this is another tuff one, if we are right, then malaria, tapeworms and birth defects may be the least of our worries. But to say that these things are evidence that there is no creator

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Hold on, that's not the point.The point is that you and mike and others claim that every single thing in the universe was created, AND that this creator is a loving, benevolent god.Sure, there might be a Creator Of Everything, but he sure ain't loving and he sure ain't benevolent.He sure seems to be random and indifferent.

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is to ignore all of the beauty and order we find, which if this were a universe born out of chaos, should not be present.

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It most certainly does not mean we have to ignore beauty and order.Why do you think it does?Why also do you think that beauty and order would no be present if our universe was born out of chaos?Also, why do you think our universe was born out of chaos?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 12-27-2004 07:31 AM

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"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."--Thomas Jefferson