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Author | Topic: Biological Evidence Against Intelligent Design | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I want you to consider why you think some wholly unevidenced designers as reasonable whilst condemning others as "ridiculous". Despite them being evidentially identical. Personal bias due to my worldview. ![]() Yet we cannot prove that evolution occurs by means of random mutations. I think the nylon eating bacteria going back and forth shows just that (in its specific case).
We cannot disprove the claim that there is in fact some undetectable entity directing evolution to some planned end. Yet these two propositions are mutually exclusive. I'm not totally convinced that they are mutually exclusive, but I'll accept it for discussion.
So if we consider natural selection by means of random mutation to be almost certainly true then conversely we must also consider evolution by non-random directed supernatural guidance to be almost certainly false. Yes, I've agreed to this already. That some designers can be ruled out with contrary evidence. Not in the sense that we KNOW it, but that we're not considering it as an explanation. But also, not all designers, nor a designer in general, has been ruled out.
We are all defacto atheists (yes the dreaded 6 on the Dawkins scale) regarding a supernatural designer that is guiding evolution along some sort of pre-planned script. So I ask you — Are we all pseudoskeptics with regard to the undetectable designer continually guiding evolution? No, not for that specific designer.
Are we teaching our kids to be pseudoskeptic defacto-atheists towards the logical possibility that there is in fact a supernatural guiding hand behind every genetic mutation? Are we unjustified in teaching evolution by means of natural selection and random mutations as a scientific truth? No, Yes.
The idea that we must directly disprove something before we can consider it refuted to all practical and scientific intents and purposes is nonsensical, impractical and not even applied consistently by those who advocate such a stance. Frankly it is a fucking stupid argument.
Fuck yeah. I'm not making that fucking argument. ![]() Take the nylon eating bacteria for example; can't we make the mutation rise and fall with the selective pressure and doesn't that mean that the designer would have to be there causing the mutation every time the experiment is performed, and wouldn't that be ridiculous enough to disbelieve? Why is it any more ridiculous than any other supernatural intervention? Who decides what is ridiculous and what is not? What objective criteria do we apply to determine "ridiculousness"? I think as we get into more specifics, we allow for more ridiculousness... like a designer with a purple mustache. I don't have an objective criteria for determining ridiculousness, its just a gut reaction.
Maybe its a terminology issue, but I think that you are ruling them out. Not comparing actual likelihoods. Well you are wrong. I can only say that I don't believe in evidential certainty so many times. I see what you're saying now and your point is taken. Know that I wasn't refering to certainty of its non-existence, just that we're not considering it as an explanation and we're believing that it doesn't exist:
quote: We know the nylon eating bacteria's mutation arises randomly so we can rule out a designer actively controlling it, its not a matter of it being less likely to be true. How can you know this with absolute certainty? How can you completely rule it out? You haven't disproved it! Its not about absolute certainty and completely ruling things out... just assume that I'm never talking about that.
You have found a highly evidenced mutually exclusive and superior alternative. But that isn't disproof. It seems that is you and not me who is the actual pseudoskeptic here. I would say this possibility was desperately unlikely to the point of uterly irrelevant. But in a philsophical sense I would still say it was a possibility. Defacto atheist. 6 on the Dawkins scale. But not a pseudoskeptic.
Yes, its ruled out. That's fine, one more specific designer has been considered and rejected. Now, my point was that you can't use that against a designer in general. Bluejay phrased it well:
quote: To which you rplied:
In a thread about biological evidence we are not going to be able to refute anything other than the role of a designer in biological processes. But that doesn't mean that the "principle behind a whole suite" of related hypotheses cannot be a more generic form of the same arguments. Which takes me back to my original claim:
quote: although, we can use evolution to rule out some specific designers, or aspects of them.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 384 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
The idea that we must directly disprove something before we can consider it refuted to all practical and scientific intents and purposes is nonsensical, impractical and not even applied consistently by those who advocate such a stance. Frankly it is a fucking stupid argument. Fuck yeah. I'm not making that fucking argument. Thank fuck for that. I thought that was the whole point of the Pseudoskepticism and logic thread. I also thought you subscribed to that argument. I am truly delighted to hear that this is not the case.
Its not about absolute certainty and completely ruling things out... just assume that I'm never talking about that. Likewise.
That's fine, one more specific designer has been considered and rejected. One more? Surely an acceptance of evolution by natural selection and random mutation has ruled out the entire class of designers that are interfering in the biological process? In fact if we accept the modern Darwinian synthesis as scientific fact what biology related role remains for a designer to fill? Abiogenesis of some sort? Isn't this elimination of specific roles for designers the very definition of a god of the gaps argument? Do you think the god of the gaps argument is evidentially and logically sound?
Now, my point was that you can't use that against a designer in general. I'm not even attempting to do that.
Now, my point was that you can't use that against a designer in general. The fact that evolution or biological evidence alone cannot refute a designer in general doesn't mean that this cannot be done by considering evidence more generally. The same thinking regarding mutually exclusive evidenced alternatives and not needing to actually disprove the disprovable to refute it to all practical intents and purposes can be applied to evidence more widely to refute the role of a designer more generally. But that is another discussion. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Thank fuck for that. I thought that was the whole point of the Pseudoskepticism and logic thread. I also thought you subscribed to that argument. I am truly delighted to hear that this is not the case. Well you definately missed my point... I've looked at some of my posts from that thread. And I see the same points over again. And I think you're still making the same mistake. When I say that evolution cannot rule out a designer, you go into specifics about a designer that can be ruled out. But you can't extrapolate that to a designer in general. My first post in that thread, Message 41:
quote: You said you're not making that argument. But it looks like you are, again in this thread, but with evolution and against a designer. ***
quote: quote: Isn't this elimination of specific roles for designers the very definition of a god of the gaps argument? I don't think so. Its a hierarchy with sub-sets. You're refuting a sub-set but saying nothing about the whole or parts that aren't in the sub-set.
Now, my point was that you can't use that against a designer in general. The fact that evolution or biological evidence alone cannot refute a designer in general doesn't mean that this cannot be done by considering evidence more generally. The same thinking regarding mutually exclusive evidenced alternatives and not needing to actually disprove the disprovable to refute it to all practical intents and purposes can be applied to evidence more widely to refute the role of a designer more generally.
Let me know when you get around to doing that. ***And just for fun, take a look at this reply from that thread, Message 54:
quote: I just said the same thing in this thread. Hey, at least I'm being consistant ![]()
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 3017 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined:
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Hi, Straggler.
Straggler writes: Yet we cannot prove that evolution occurs by means of random mutations. We cannot disprove the claim that there is in fact some undetectable entity directing evolution to some planned end. Yet these two propositions are mutually exclusive... Stop there: this is the part that I asked you to explain before, but you didn't explain it this time. We both know that there's no reason to think something that was created cannot evolve. Furthermore, we both also know that, e.g., transgenic bacteria (which are clearly designed in some sense of the word) can evolve after they've been altered, and can be altered by design after millions of years of evolution. So, clearly the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Proving that things evolve does not prove that there have been no aspects of design along the way. It could very well be the case that future scientists, with much better genomic tools than us, will come to recognize non-random insertions or alterations to the genome, and will have accumulated enough knowledge to ascribe these anomalies to a guided process. While I doubt that this will be the case, we do not currently have the evidence or the technological capability to make such a determination, so it is best to consider positive evidence for evolution to simply be positive evidence for evolution, and not to be negative evidence against ID. In the interim, the only evidence we have against ID is an absence of evidence for ID, which, while certainly a valid, logical reason to not bother supporting ID, is also a valid, logical reason to consider this thread's approach impotent. This is why a "more generic form" of those same arguments will not refute the concept behind the ID movement. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Modulous Member (Idle past 304 days) Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
This is kind of the point of my argument: ID is not a single hypothesis. And I think this is where the confusion rolled in. ID is an American-based politico-religious movement that uses teleological language as a methodology to giving them a wedge to get their ideologies about the weaknesses of naturalism as a way to usher people back into the Christian Faith. It relies on misinformation and all those other things I mentioned. It can be refuted by pointing those things out. Teleology, on the other hand, covers all arguments from design. The strong version of teleology was crushed by evolution. The weak version of teleology is essentially indistinguishable from saying 'or something else'.
I have no idea what your 'inferential heuristic' is meant to be. A heuristic that governs how one makes inferences. Oh well, with that cogent explanation I understand the kinds of thing you were talking about exactly ![]()
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Modulous Member (Idle past 304 days) Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
When I say that evolution cannot rule out a designer, you go into specifics about a designer that can be ruled out. But you can't extrapolate that to a designer in general. What do you mean by 'designer in general'? My uncle is a graphic designer - and I'm sure we'd all agree there is a lot of evidence for the position that designers exist. So what are these 'designers in general' you speak of? By keeping it vague, you make it unfalsifiable, and thus you are essentially asking for the unfalsifiable to be falsified. I suspect that in your mind you are thinking of a 'meta-designer': Clearly, the earth got its spherical shape not from explicity design and intervetnion, but through the laws of physics that also dictate how apples move on the surface of the sphere (and elsewhere!). The eye likewise can be explained through the actions of certain laws. But the laws themselves need to be explained, therefore a designer designed the laws so that they would do the things they do (either on purpose or as an interesting experiment or whatever). I'm reasonably sure this hypothesis belongs in the unfalsifiable camp. Since you are say you are not making that argument - I'd like to know what you are trying to say.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
So what are these 'designers in general' you speak of? By keeping it vague, you make it unfalsifiable, and thus you are essentially asking for the unfalsifiable to be falsified. I'm not asking for it to be falsified, I'm saying that it cannot be.
Since you are say you are not making that argument - I'd like to know what you are trying to say. Did I say that? I'm saying that you can't use evidence for evolution against a designer (unless you get into the specifics of the designer).
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Modulous Member (Idle past 304 days) Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I'm not asking for it to be falsified, I'm saying that it cannot be. So you're saying that it is possible to imagine an unfalsifiable designer? Oh.
I'm saying that you can't use evidence for evolution against a designer (unless you get into the specifics of the designer). Yes - you can't use the evidence for evolution against an undefined something. But that's a trivial point isn't it? However - I think we can safely use evolution to refute the argument from design, which is what I think we're basically talking about in this thread. We obviously can't use it to refute a celestial being that designs the front cover of playing card boxes that never manifest in our universe, nor can we use it to refute Armani. I don't think anyone here is under the delusion that we can.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I'm under the impression that ID's designer is undefined so any amount of evidence for evolution is not going to be against ID, its not falsifiable.
People have also brought up example of terrible design but that doesn't do it either. I think this thread is a big fail.
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Modulous Member (Idle past 304 days) Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I'm under the impression that ID's designer is undefined so any amount of evidence for evolution is not going to be against ID, its not falsifiable. ID's designer? It is defined enough as being the entity that has directly interceded on various occasions to help evolution bridge alleged uncrossable valleys in the fitness landscape. Since it can be shown that the valleys are not uncrossable, this refutes the argument that suggests that such a designer is necessary for life to have evolved to its present state and only leaves 'it is possible that a designer interceded...' at which point, if we are including all of those things that cannot be ruled out, means generating a long list: Life has got where it is because it has evolved, or an intelligent designer did it according to some design, or an intelligent being did it for the lulz and without any plan, or an unintelligent being did it out of 'instinct' or some natural process x that has yet been described, or grand natural process y which evolution is merely a simplification for is responsible, or.... So basically the ID argument (and indeed teleology) boils down to 'evolution did it or something else did'. I think we all agree it is impossible to prove the non-existence of an undefined entity (and indeed - it is impossible to prove most defined entities as non-existing, unless they are defined to be logically contradictory or 'non existant' is otherwise explicitly or implicitly part of the definition.) But it is possible to refute the teleological argument in general using biological evidence by showing how once the necessity clause is removed (by having a viable alternative) - the whole thing comes crashing down to insignificance. So if you agree it is possible to refute an argument, I think teleology (and by extension ID) has been successfully refuted. ID can be further refuted by showing how the biological claims it makes are simply false.
I think this thread is a big fail. In my opinion, the OP is a small fail, and only stylistically. It is in principle setup to be similar to RAZD's Silly Design Institute (I used the url tag ![]() Still - I think some interesting meta-discussions have spawned off about the principle of refuting ID. Edited by Modulous, : added 'in my opinion' to the fail comment at the end - it should be implicit from the tone, but it could have been viewed as an absolute claim and attempted refutation of CS's opinion of big fail - which it wasn't intended to be.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 3017 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
Modulous writes: ID is an American-based politico-religious movement that uses teleological language as a methodology... Teleology, on the other hand, covers all arguments from design. I see what you're getting at. It's always been my custom to treat science much more tentatively than most scientists do. I'm always hesitant to consider any "God of the gaps" argument defeated or refuted, particularly when the reason for dismissing it is because there is evidence for another process with which the gap-argument could very easily coexist. If an argument is that literally everything has a teleological origin, then Darwinism defeats that argument pretty soundly. But, if the argument is only that teleology plays a role in the origin of things, and does not have to be the only process involved, that is an entirely different concept to work with, and does require much more extensive refutation to defeat. Naturally, it depends on how much teleology is involved in the particular model being discussed. And, I see no reason why an argument that is 90% stochastic processes and 10% teleology (such as some variants of Old Earth Creationism) couldn't be called "Intelligent Design." -----
Modulous writes: The weak version of teleology is essentially indistinguishable from saying 'or something else'. I can accept that. But, I think, in this case, this is a given, though: since the alternative is "stochastic, unguided processes," then "something else" is invariably teleological. -----
Modulous writes: Bluejay writes: Modulous writes: I have no idea what your 'inferential heuristic' is meant to be. A heuristic that governs how one makes inferences. Oh well, with that cogent explanation I understand the kinds of thing you were talking about exactly ![]() I was pretty proud of it myself. ![]() Okay, so I completely misread the intent behind that sentence... My bad. I was referring to Occam's razor. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I'm under the impression that ID's designer is undefined so any amount of evidence for evolution is not going to be against ID, its not falsifiable.
ID's designer? It is defined enough as being the entity that has directly interceded on various occasions to help evolution bridge alleged uncrossable valleys in the fitness landscape.
Well, I think your right. That's good logical deduction from the premises of ID. I tend to think of ID in more of the philosophical sense rather than the quasi-scientific/political sense. But one of the problems I have is that ID doesn't even really make any claims like that. I have no clue what they think of how the entity goes about directly interceding or if they even say that it does (we can deduce it from other claims but they don't come out and say it). Or on how many occasions this has happened. All they ever really DO, is try to show how something couldn't have evolved. And in that sense, showing how it actually could have evolved does defeat their arguments. But I still don't think that is evidence against there being a designer. Although, looking back, this thread is about evidence against ID, not evidence against a designer, so I think I was taking the wrong approach from the beginning.
But it is possible to refute the teleological argument in general using biological evidence by showing how once the necessity clause is removed (by having a viable alternative) - the whole thing comes crashing down to insignificance. Right again. So even though we haven't refuted a designer, it has at least been reduced to insignificance. And that's kinda how I'm seeing it. I believe that god created us via evolution, but when I study evolution I don't have god in there with any significance, and his presence isn't necessary to understand it.
So if you agree it is possible to refute an argument, I think teleology (and by extension ID) has been successfully refuted. I think you're right. For the quasi-scientific/political sense of ID, it has been refuted. Maybe not in the philosophical sense, but that isn't really something that's possible to be refuted so it doesn't really matter anyways.
I think this thread is a big fail. In my opinion, the OP is a small fail, and only stylistically
I think I was looking at it wrong, in that a designer hasn't been refuted, but really ID, itself, has. I used the url tag ![]() Ha! ![]()
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Straggler Member (Idle past 384 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
This is why a "more generic form" of those same arguments will not refute the concept behind the ID movement. The more generic arguments against ID that I am talking about involve considering the evidence that supports the conclusion that the very concept of an intelligent designer is a human construct. The evidence that is mutually exclusive to (but which cannot disprove) the existence of a designer. The evidence that suggests that when faced with the appearance of design mankind’s natural inclination is to invoke a designer of some sort. The evidence that suggests that we are psychologically predisposed to seeing patterns, meaning and intent in nature where none exists. The evidence that shows we are prone to taking our own ability to create, design and consciously act out our intentions, and to project this onto inanimate objects and mindless physical processes. The anthropological evidence that suggests that all cultures invoke the supernatural to deal with aspects of mortality and to explain seemingly inexplicable natural phenomenon. The historical evidence that shows the various gods have been first amalgamated and then beaten into the dark shadows of ignorance until all that remains are the deistic gods under consideration here. Gods that are nothing more than gods of the gaps. But those arguments are beyond this thread.
Proving that things evolve does not prove that there have been no aspects of design along the way. If we accept evolution by means of natural selection and random mutation what biological role is left for any designer? Surely that is the question posed in this thread?
This is why a "more generic form" of those same arguments will not refute the concept behind the ID movement. If you get beyond the need to disprove the undisprovable and recognise the evidence in favour of the conclusion that that the very concept of an intelligent designer is a human construction then the generic form of those aguments makes perfect sense. If one is determined to cling onto ones designer on the basis that it cannot be disproved then one is really only different in terms of scale to a creationist in terms of denial of evidence.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 384 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
When I say that evolution cannot rule out a designer, you go into specifics about a designer that can be ruled out. But you can't extrapolate that to a designer in general. My argument in this thread is that biological evidence precludes rational belief in a designer that is involved in biological processes. My argument against a designer in general is the evidence in favour of the conclusion that humans have created the very concept of a supernatural designer. That we are prone to invoking supernatural designers wherever we see the appearance of design. It is not simply refuting individual designers and extrapolating that conclusion in the way you are suggesting. But - again - that is not the topic of this thread.
You said you're not making that argument. But it looks like you are, again in this thread, but with evolution and against a designer No. It is you who is essentially making a god of the gaps argument. Do you think the god of the gaps argument is evidentially and logically sound? In this thread I have simply restricted myself to showing that acceptance of the modern Darwinian synthesis precludes notions of a designer that are inconsistent with that. Despite them being irrefutable in a logically disprovable sense. In effect showing that scientific refutation and logical disproof are not the same thing.
Let me know when you get around to doing that. If you consider evolution by natural selection and random mutation to be evidenced and thus true beyond all reasonable doubt, then conversely you must consider any mutually exclusive alternatives to be false beyond all reasonable doubt. I simply apply the same probabalistic thinking to evidence in favour of the very notion of a supernatural designer being either a human invention or a real entity. But - again - that isn't the topic of this thread. But - again - the thinking, logic and form of evidence remains the same in either case. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
That actually clears up your position a lot for me, thanks.
I don't really have anything to add on the topic right now though. I just thought I let you know that I read and understood you.
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