The Greater Miracle

The evidence is in spectra from galaxies ten billion light years away. Though red shifted, they are identical to spectra seen in the lab. That is most parsimoniously explained if the physics, and, therefore, chemistry then is the same as it is now. Electrons captured and released photons then as they do now. Water formed then as it does now. Amino acids formed then as they do now.As you assert, it is unreasonable to assume life emerged of a piece. But the reasoned assumption then turns to life having begun simply; not life having been created by the most complex being possible.Proto-life would likely have been a humble affair: no marching bands or horns triumphant. Just a common bit of chemistry. Some bit of chemistry that effected its environment it a way that increased the likelihood that it would happen again before being rent. Whole cells were a few hundred million baby steps down the road.

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

Quite simply, it proves no such thing nor makes the futile attempt. It is not possible to prove a guiding force isn't responsible for the whole kit and caboodle.It is not, however, faith that causes me to discount that possibility. I don't believe it because there is no demonstrably valid reason for me to believe it. And if I cannot reject a hypothesis on those grounds what grounds are there that would allow rejection of any other non evidentially contradicted hypothesis? Is there a tea pot at L5?Even if the reasoning behind the rejection is erroneous, a la RAZD, that there is a reason places the rejection beyond the bounds of faith. Not all assumptions are equally valid. Isaac Asimov wrote of a man he passed on a street corner one morning. The man stood with hands in pockets, smoking a cigarette, next to a bucket of masonry tools and a lift of brick. Several hours later he again passed the man still with hands in pocket, smoking a cigarette, next to a bucket of masonry tools, but there was now a wall rather then the lift.Resist if you can that the story is the one you tell of an intelligent agent, and tell me; are the two assumptions, that the wall was built by the man; or, the wall self-assembled, equally valid? If you agree that they are not then it behooves you to toss out the "we both make assumptions" argument and begin to establish why your assumption are the more valid. For the reason expressed in the first half of this post I would contend that your assumption is not only the less valid but altogether invalid.You may be right, but you're short on evidence. Edited by lyx2no, : Grammar and typos.

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

What I believe is immaterial. That that is what the evidence points toward is material. That there is no evidence indicating intervention by a super being may or may not be material; that is up to the super being. If you feel the weakness of your argument can be circumvented by misusing words go to town, but don’t expect me to be able to suss your meaning if you go too far off the reservation. You see, I don’t argue that your arguments are weak because they're founded on faith. I argue that they are weak because they are not founded on evidence. Deep down I take it on faith that I am not an elaborate computer program whose every bit of data is spoon fed by a nerd who can’t get a girlfriend so he entertains himself with my reactions to his input; wherein, what this guileful, quintessential dork (GQD) wants me to know is all I can know. But I could be wrong. I don’t reject them as insufficient evidence, I reject them as non evidence. There was something I was reading a while back if anyone knows fill me in please about an apologist for the Vatican defending the awful treatment of Bruno or Galileo over the issue of geocentrism because it does look like the Sun goes round the Earth from here. And his antagonist asked, What would it like if the Earth went round the Sun? Your evidence suffers a kindred defect. Natural history looks like it was directed by an omnipotent, intelligent agent. That’s not amazing. All possible natural histories look like they were directed by an omnipotent, intelligent agent. That’s because an omnipotent, intelligent agent could make it look any way he wanted it to. But what would natural history look like if it unfolded naturally? We’d find all kinds of restrictions. And what do we find? All kinds of restrictions; like nested hierarchies. So you’ve said; but why? Because you have real arguments somewhere that you dare not devulge because you’d have to kill me if you did, or because you have a psychological investment in the idea that you’re currently rationalizing? Alas, imagination is not perennially oblivious. Evolution is a fact, it was never a theory. The Theory of Evolution is a theory and will never be a fact. Except that you are not interpreting evidence; you are ignoring it. The greater part of the evidence is well bellow the threshold of casual observation. Have you ever noticed that human chromosome #2 looks just like it would if chimp chromosomes #13 and #14 fused. Why would an intelligent agent do that? It doesn’t serve a purpose. They function excellently as separate units. He’d be able to discern those things because he’d notice that there are no indications of past or ongoing forces shaping the individual parts or causing the parts to arrange themselves in their relations to each other. It’s safe to assume an outside agent was necessary to do that. He'd then be able to note things like the molded parts having ribs, saving materials with a minimal loss of strength, and conclude we're parsimonious. We, on the other hand, can see the parts of a tadpole being constructed in situ, and not seeing any teeny-tiny mechanics can conclude that it’s either a natural process or magic. If it's a natural process we could look more deeply for chemical reactions that we'd not expect based on what we know about chemistry. If magic we could conclude that the magician was not very parsimonious because it used all kinds of wasteful behind the scenes stuff that would go unnoticed by the casual observer. Yes. That they both conclude that we shouldn’t run with sissors is hardly surprising. The Jews were no less prone to stumbling then the Shakyans. Edited by lyx2no, : Spelling.

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

Then how do you pick and choose? If water can bond on its own, evaporate on its own, condense on its own and fall to the ground on its own. And do it all over again on its own, why couldn't the information in DNA increase on its own, which requires thousands of times less local decrease of entropy then a single rain drop?

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

Yes, it is as good as any but that just show the worth of your other complaints. As you've been told a few time in the last dozen posts no one claims memes to be a scientifically established theory (or even hypothesis). They're an idea that could give cause for thought.

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It is far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them, as barbarians, to behave like civilized men. Spock, Mirror Mirror

And yet you repeat it as an evidence for your silly notion that science is replete with whimsy. Why don't you pop on over to a university library and see how often The Selfish Gene was cited in a scientific paper. Let me know what you find. Not to anyone who isn't doing your their best to blur the lines. But to help you out a bit: don't use popular science books from the "science" section of Barnes & Noble as your primary study of science. Your pretense that you're merely considering all sides of the "debate" is getting a bit long in the tooth. Every time someone corners you you retreat to some such statement as the above. It is clear that you have a set position. Why don't you put it to the table (In the proper venue, of course. Not a science forum.) for examination. It will die a lot quicker that way.

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It is far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them, as barbarians, to behave like civilized men. Spock, Mirror Mirror

You'd be more correct in this if you'd have said it the other way round, but even then not wholly. Why is it not valid to not believe in miracles because there is no evidence of such things?A car zipping down the road a 40 mph hits a little girl who bounces off the front bumper and skids into the curb. She then gets up with little more then scrapes and bruises to hop, skip and jump another day. This is not a miracle. It is an unexpected result. One that can easily be attributed to our ignorance of all the interactions involved. If, however, the car tunnels through the car girl at the quantum level leaving her standing unscathed you now have something you can objectively investigate as a miracle. There is an even larger component of ignorance, but the scale of the unlikeliness is off the charts.But while the former is not unheard of, the latter never happens. The likelihood of our ignorance always exceeds the unlikelihood of the event. To adjudge an event a miracle it is necessary to first determine how daft we're not.

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It is far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them, as barbarians, to behave like civilized men. Spock, Mirror Mirror