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Author Topic:   So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)
Percy
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Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 241 of 396 (616947)
05-25-2011 8:50 AM
Reply to: Message 240 by dwise1
05-24-2011 10:06 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
dwise1 writes:
Buddhists are pretty flexible, but what about the Unitarian students?
The Unitarians merged with the Universalists about a half century ago, and most Unitarian churches are now Unitarian/Universalist. The few services I've been to in merged churches contain no recognizably Unitarian elements. In other words, at least in my part of the country, the northeast, Unitarianism seems to be dead, so when I speak for the Unitarians I may be speaking for a religion that no longer exists, but anyway...
The Unitarians are pretty flexible, too. Sunday School classes taught about all religions, but of course the main focus was on the foundation of modern Christianity. While Unitarians would have no objection whatsoever to teaching evangelical views on science in sociology or perhaps history, they would definitely object to teaching them in science class as if they reflected legitimate views within science.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by dwise1, posted 05-24-2011 10:06 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 242 by dwise1, posted 05-25-2011 11:58 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 242 of 396 (616967)
05-25-2011 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 241 by Percy
05-25-2011 8:50 AM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
I discovered UUism in 1991 and also discovered that I had been one for the previous 30 years. I've heard that the old-time Unitarians weren't very comfortable about the merger with the Universalists back in 1961. And while the religion seeks inspiration from many sources, truthfulness and honesty are also important, so "creation science" and ID are not popular.
In saying that the Buddhists are pretty flexible, I was talking about the reaction to having somebody else's religion being taught to you by the state. By my understanding, being a Buddhist does not exclude you from also being of another faith, so from the Buddhist perspective one can be both a Christian and a Buddhist.
However, I also understand that the Gautama Buddha had advised against believing in the gods, because that will only distract you away from the path to Enlightenment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 241 by Percy, posted 05-25-2011 8:50 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 243 of 396 (617031)
05-25-2011 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 233 by marc9000
05-22-2011 3:43 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
quote:
So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work?
That’s the question from THIS THREAD, which I answered above. Your dishonest lack of reference to the question I was answering above speaks volumes.
No, you have not answered that question. Your repeated attempts to avoid answering it speaks volumes.
quote:
Please, do this for me. Tell me how religion could possibly be integrated into science
That’s from the OTHER THREAD. Doesn’t it make sense that I should address that one in the other thread? If this thread could help enlighten you on it that’s fine, but this is the rabbit hole you sent me down. If you want a specific answer to the other question, why shouldn't it be kept in the other thread?
Now you are just plain lying. In the other thread, you said that the question was not on-topic and that it should be moved to another more appropriate thread and I agreed. Now that we have done just that, you are trying to claim that the question needs to be moved back to the topic where we both agreed it was not on-topic!
Stop your weaselling and answer the question!
Your attempts to confound and confuse aren't fooling as many people as you think.
Your attempts to confound and confuse aren't fooling anyone. Just answer the question! If you are unable to answer the question, then simply admit it and give the reason. A little basic honesty, please!
This thread's question was about (your term) supernatural based and how it should work, and the other is a when are you going to stop beating your wife type of question. I don’t advocate integrating religion into science.
What other question? Both are the same question Stop trying to weasel out and answer the question!
And just what do you call wanting to have religion injected into the chemistry and English curricula?
dwise1 writes:
I really shouldn't need to paint a picture for you, so I'll just repost, again, from the OP, Message 1:
So you repost something from this thread, while mixing it with the question from the other thread?
I reposted what had brought us here as well as the OP question, since I have to constantly remind you what the question is that you keep avoiding. Stop trying to weasel out and answer the question!
Let's stay on this thread's topic. I understand your c/p about how science is supposed to work, I've seen it many times, and the double standards that go along with it, concerning abiogenesis and ID.
What "double standards"? The fact that ID and creationism can't be considered science because they don't do science? And please, not more of your bullshit!
But this question leads to another question of you;
dwise1 writes:
The task before Beretta and any other ID advocate is to prove that ID will not kill science.
Wouldn’t a better place to start be for evolutionists to prove that ID would kill science, if it were admitted to the public scientific realm? Is the Wedge Document — written by one man — all you’ve got?
That "one man" who happens to be Phillip Johnson, spokesman for the Discovery Institute, speaking for the Discovery Institute? IOW, he was not acting on his own as you try to imply.
Yet again, I must repeat what I have already written.
Message 1 -- emphasis added:
quote:
Here is basically how science currently works. We observe the natural world and form hypotheses to try to explain what we observe. Then we test those hypotheses by using them to make predictions and then either conducting experiments or making further observations. Those hypotheses which prove correct are kept and subjected to further testing, while those that don't pan out are either examined for what's wrong with them and they either get discarded or a correction is attempted which is then subjected to further testing. Out of this process we develop a bundle of hypotheses which are used to develop a theory, a conceptual model of the natural phenomena in question and which describes our understanding of what that phenomena are and how they operate. That theory is used to make predictions and it is tested by how good those predictions are; thus the theory undergoes further testing and refinement and correcting. And that testing is not performed solely by the developers of the theory, but also by other members in the scientific community who have a vested interest in finding problems in that theory because they may be basing their own research on that theory -- if that theory turns out to be wrong, then they want to know that before they start their own research based on it.
Now, an extremely valuable by-product of all this hypothesis building and testing is questions. In science, the really interesting and valuable discoveries are the ones that raise new questions. Because questions help to direct our research. Because by realizing what we don't know and what we need to find out, we know what to look for and we have some idea of where to find it. Without those questions, science loses its direction and gets stuck.
Science cannot use supernaturalistic explanations, because they don't explain anything. We cannot observe the supernatural either directly or indirectly; we cannot even determine whether the supernatural even exists. Supernaturalistic explanations cannot be tested and hence cannot be evaluated nor discarded nor refined. They cannot produce predictions. They cannot be developed into a conceptual model that could even begin to attempt to descibe a natural phenomena nor how it works. And supernaturalistic explanations raise absolutely no questions and so provide absolutely no direction for further research. "Goddidit" explains nothing and closes all paths of investigation. Supernaturalistic explanations bring science to a grinding halt.
. . .
ID's goal is to reform science to be based on supernaturalistic explanations, or at the very least to include them. It is the inclusion of supernaturalistic explanations that will kill science.
Message 27:
quote:
Specifically pertinent to the question is the line of questioning regarding ID's goal of requiring science to include supernaturalistic explanations, specifically the "explanation" of "Goddidit". Specifically:
Exactly how do they intend science's methodology of hypothesis building and testing to function with the requirement that it include "Goddidit"?
Just how exactly are we supposed to test "Goddidit", as the current methodology requires?
Just exactly how is "Goddidit" supposed to raise new questions which help to direct new research, something that science depends very heavily upon and which is readily and amply provided by the current methodology?
Just how exactly is "Goddidit" supposed to not serve as show-stopping dead-end to all scientific investigation?
Just how exactly is "Goddidit" supposed to not kill science?
Message 180
quote:
Exactly! If they want science to use supernaturalistic explanations and hypotheses, then they absolutely must offer some kind of guidelines for doing so. Science has been so incredibly successful and productive by not incorporating the supernatural, how is it supposed to function and continue to be productive after being forced to incorporate the supernatural? I contend that it cannot and that incorporating the supernatural will kill science.
Even besides the ultimate outcome, ID's imposition of the supernatural on science would present the more immediate need for a supernatural-based scientific method. I've already described the basic methodology of hypothesis building, testing, and refinement leading to theory development. And I've already pointed out that supernaturalistic hypotheses cannot work because we have no means whatsoever of observing, measuring, or detecting anything that's supernatural, nor can we even possibly determine whether the supernatural even exists. Without the ability to test a supernaturalistic hypothesis, the methodology screeches to a halt.
Now, could an ID advocate please describe how the scientific method could successfully use and test a supernaturalistic hypothesis. Or describe how the ID literature describes the scientific method successfully using and test a supernaturalistic hypothesis? And if no ID advocate can even begin to offer such a description, then why advocate the incorporation of the supernatural in science?
Or another bit of scientific methology: the controlled experiment. In a controlled experiment, the experiment is run multiple times (very often in parallel, such as in testing the responses of bacteria to different substances). You want to test the effects of a particular factor, so you run the test incorporating that factor and you also run the identical test without that factor (this is the control group). Then you compare the results of the two sets of tests to determine the effects of that factor.
So, how do you run a controlled experiment to test the effects of some supernatural factor? First, how do you ensure that the test group does have that supernatural factor applied to it? And, more importantly, how do you ensure that the control group does not have the supernatural factor applied? And how do you determine which supernatural factor is (or is not) being applied?
A possible solution that comes to mind are to use magical invocations, preferably combined with the sacrificing of the right animals to the right gods/spirits. Though how then are we to know the right invocations and the right choices of gods and sacrificial offerings?
Or you could simply pray fervently that your experiment will work. I'm sure that that approach is very widely used, especially in school, though its effectiveness is extremely doubtful.
Or, to ward off the supernatural factor from the control group, you could draw a pentagram on the floor with salt and place the control group within it. At least that's what's done in cheesy movies.
This is very important, because if you cannot control your experiments, then you cannot do science.
Here’s how Dembski describes what Intelligent Design can do; . . .
Yeah, the same "Wizard of Odds" who gave us that deceptive travesty you opened with. Let's look at it:
quote:
Intelligent Design continues to look for function where nonteleological approaches to evolution attribute clumsiness or incompetence.
YASA (yet another strawman argument) misleading and deceptive description of evolution.
Nor is actual evolutionary theory (as opposed to ID's ridiculous strawmen) at any loss to examine a trait's functionality. Science can already do the job while ID not only has nothing more to offer, but rather wants to detract from science's ability to do its job.
quote:
Because Intelligent design adds rather than removes tools from the biologists tool chest (supplementing material mechanisms with intelligent agency) intelligent design can subsume present biological research.
What tools does it add? The ability to propose supernaturalistic hypotheses that are untestable. As well as closing the door on further research by claiming to have found the answer, "goddiddit". As well as preventing any future research on this "already answered" question, since that research would be characterized as a direct attack against God (by the time ID has seized the power it seeks, it can then drop all its pretenses of just talking about some undefined Designer).
quote:
Even efforts to overturn the various criteria for detecting design are welcome within the intelligent design research program. (That's part of keeping the program honest)
What criteria for detecting design? What are they? That is the other side of my question: just how are we supposed to detect or determine design? It's been asked on this forum repeatedly, but IDists (Dawn Bertolt specifically, who claims to know the answer) have not only refused to answer, but even claim that they do not need to provide the answer.
If you know just exactly how we are supposed to detect and determine design, then do please provide it. Oh yeah, that's right! You'll just do everything you can to weasel out of that question too.
quote:
Intelligent Design can also function as a heuristic for guiding research, inspiring biologists to look for engineering solutions to biological problems that might otherwise escape them.
Huh? How? Since ID closes the door on future research, how could it possibly guide future research anywhere except into the ground?
And just how is ID supposed to in any manner add to finding engineering solutions that normal science could not? Science has been doing that job just fine and with great success long before ID came along wanting to muck everything up.
Will that kill science?
Yes, as I already explained. Dembski's platitudes are meaningless and raise all the same questions and problems that I have been providing all along. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all. Just how the hell is IDist science supposed to work?
Why all the conspiracy theories?
Project much?
How will anything like that prevent atheist scientists from doing what they’ve always done?
Never mind the scientists who are atheists. What about all the other real scientists -- who far outnumber scientists who are atheists -- ? The "findings" of the new breed of ID "scientists" will be completely useless for them to work with. And with certain areas of research deemed closed by ID, such that trying to reopen those areas would be dealt with as an attack against God, how could real scientists continue to operate as before.
ID seeks to fundamentally change the nature and operation of science. And those changes will render science inoperative. So then, yes, that would kill science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 233 by marc9000, posted 05-22-2011 3:43 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:43 PM dwise1 has replied

marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 244 of 396 (617364)
05-27-2011 11:12 PM
Reply to: Message 234 by Coyote
05-22-2011 4:02 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
Your example throws 25 at a time, repeating endlessly, until you get 25 sixes. Don't plan on doing anything else for a few centures.
The way evolution actually works is akin to throwing those 25 dice and then rethrowing only those that are not sixes.
"Rethrowing only those that are not sixes"? How was that decision made? Who made it, nature? Nature can't plan for future function. I looked at Dawkins book that dwise1 instructed me to, and am not convinced that cumulative selection is a single event, but a summary of events, a lot of one-step-at-a-time events. It looked more like atheism, than it did testable, repeatable, observable science.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 234 by Coyote, posted 05-22-2011 4:02 PM Coyote has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 246 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-27-2011 11:42 PM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 248 by dwise1, posted 05-27-2011 11:57 PM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 252 by Coyote, posted 05-28-2011 12:20 AM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 258 by Scienctifictruths, posted 05-30-2011 10:53 AM marc9000 has not replied

marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 245 of 396 (617366)
05-27-2011 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 236 by Percy
05-22-2011 5:09 PM


You didn't say anything about how ID works as a science. You made an argument against evolution.
The phrase as a science wasn’t in the O/P. Since it’s not, I took the question to apply at least as much to philosophy, or education. For example, the PAH World Hypothesis ‘works’ in that it’s a point of interest for atheists, but it doesn’t scientifically work one bit better than ID does.
Your argument against evolution just repeats the ancient creationist misapplication of probability to their own caricature of evolution. Evolution is change over time. No one in science thinks that life or species come about in sudden events. That's why they call it evolution instead of "sudden poofing."
Their own caricature is often asking questions, or thinking about things that atheists prefer not to think about. Life is complex, the cell has information, and biological systems are orderly. And, life is fragile.
Scientists are not atheists. Scientists come from all religions, countries and cultures. It is true that some scientists are atheists.
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quote:
The question of religious belief among US scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever almost total.
The TOP natural scientists (leaders, political activists) are atheists, "almost total".
quote:
As we compiled our findings, the NAS issued a booklet encouraging the teaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing source of friction between the scientific community and some conservative Christians in the United States. The booklet assures readers, "Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral"[5]. NAS president Bruce Alberts said: "There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists." Our survey suggests otherwise.
If most evolutionists are religious people, they fall in line behind the atheist leaders, there is plenty of evidence that their religion becomes secondary to them.
Evolution is not unguided. The environment provides some pretty severe constraints to the path evolution can follow.
A constraint is not a guide. Constraining something doesn’t guide it. Evolution is complex order, achieved with no purpose.
Fallacious arguments will not inspire any successful "exploration of different paths in biology."
And they won’t successfully shout down ID.
Michael Behe and others have not described any such paths. If you think they have then describe them for us here.
quote:
Behe; To decide borderline cases of design will require the experimental or theoretical exploration of models whereby a system might have developed in a continuous manner, or a demonstration of points where the development of the system would necessarily be discontinuous.
Future research could take several directions. Work could be undertaken to determine whether information for designed systems could lie dormant for long periods of time, or whether the information would have to be added close to the time when the system became operational. Since the simplest possible design scenario posits a single cell — formed billions of years ago — that already contained all information to produce descendant organisms, other studies could test this scenario by attempting to calculate how much DNA would be required to code the information (keeping in mind that much of the information might be implicit) If DNA alone is insufficient, studies could be initiated to see if information could be stored in the cell in other ways — for example, as positional information. Other work could focus on whether larger, compound systems (containing two or more irreducibly complex systems) could have developed gradually or whether there are compounded irreducibilities.
This is from Darwin’s Black Box, so it’s about 15 years old, and reams of paper have been piled up by the scientific community to shout it down. So I’m sure you have many sources on how to refute it. I’m not a scientist, so I’ll look at your response the same as any parent of a science student would, to see if I detect actual science in it, or if I detect atheism. As Dembski points out, many evolutionary biologists are satisfied with a very undemanding form of ability or capacity — namely conceivability. So long as they can conceive of a Darwinian or other material pathway to irreducible complexity, material mechanisms trump design. Behe and the ID community, by contrast, require a much more demanding form of ability or capacity in assessing whether the Darwinian mechanism, and material mechanisms generally, can produce irreducible complexity.
There's also the A.C. McIntosh paper on top-down or bottom-up development, another path that has been described.
No one controls science. This is reflected in the incredible amount of bad research that manages to find its way into technical journals and conferences.
I don’t see how that proves anything. What does bad mean? The immediate, incredible amount of hostility and rage towards Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" is a very strong indicator of who controls science.
It makes no sense to argue that ID science isn't supernatural, and then argue that exploring naturalistic explanations won't work.
ID, as a challenge to some aspects of evolution, or as a scientific inquiry of its own, doesn’t focus on any characteristic of the supernatural, it only attempts to determine whether certain features of the natural world exhibit signs of having been designed by an intelligence. This intelligence could be E.T. or a telic principle immanent in nature or a transcendent personal agent.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 236 by Percy, posted 05-22-2011 5:09 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 250 by ZenMonkey, posted 05-28-2011 12:05 AM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 251 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2011 12:10 AM marc9000 has not replied
 Message 253 by Percy, posted 05-28-2011 8:45 AM marc9000 has replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 246 of 396 (617367)
05-27-2011 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:12 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
"Rethrowing only those that are not sixes"? How was that decision made? Who made it, nature?
Only in the anthropomorphic sense that nature "decides" that things should fall down rather than up.
Nature can't plan for future function.
Hey, you said something true.
I looked at Dawkins book that dwise1 instructed me to, and am not convinced that cumulative selection is a single event, but a summary of events, a lot of one-step-at-a-time events.
Hence the word "cumulative".
It looked more like atheism, than it did testable, repeatable, observable science.
Apart from being testable, observable, repeatable, and science, and having nothing to do with atheism, yeah. Good point.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 244 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:12 PM marc9000 has not replied

marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 247 of 396 (617368)
05-27-2011 11:43 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by dwise1
05-25-2011 4:06 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
And just what do you call wanting to have religion injected into the chemistry and English curricula?
You know I never said or implied that. I'm done with you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 243 by dwise1, posted 05-25-2011 4:06 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 249 by dwise1, posted 05-28-2011 12:02 AM marc9000 has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 248 of 396 (617369)
05-27-2011 11:57 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:12 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
Yeah, when I read Dawkins' description of his WEASEL program, I couldn't believe it. So I wrote my own -- necessary, because Dawkins only described it but offered no code listing. Besides, I think he did it in BASIC, because mine written in Pascal succeeded within a few minutes rather than take the entire lunch hour as his did.
But even though I saw it for myself, I still didn't believe it. So I analyzed the mathematics of the probabilities. Interestingly, it turns out that it becomes more improbable for every step and path to fail than it is for at least one to succeed.
Ian Musgrave also experimented with Dawkins' WEASEL and collected programs written by others which he has posted on his "Almost Like a Whale" website at http://health.adelaide.edu.au/...m/Musgrave/essays/whale.htm. My analysis of my MONKEY program is at http://health.adelaide.edu.au/.../Musgrave/essays/monkey.txt.
And there's nothing atheistic about it. It's just natural.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 244 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:12 PM marc9000 has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 249 of 396 (617370)
05-28-2011 12:02 AM
Reply to: Message 247 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:43 PM


Re: Bumped for marc9000 again, as he tries to reneg
dwise1 writes:
And just what do you call wanting to have religion injected into the chemistry and English curricula?
You know I never said or implied that.
No, it was quite clear that you were implying that. If you did not imply that chemistry students must be taught about God being the source of those properties and reactions that they're studying, then please reveal and explain to us the completely different idea that you now claim that you were promoting instead.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 247 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:43 PM marc9000 has not replied

ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 250 of 396 (617372)
05-28-2011 12:05 AM
Reply to: Message 245 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:41 PM


marc9000 writes:
Evolution is complex order, achieved with no purpose.
True. What's your problem with that?
ABE: Maybe a better way of saying that is that evolution is a process by which complex order can emerge without a predetermined outcome.
Edited by ZenMonkey, : No reason given.

Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric
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-Steven Colbert
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 245 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:41 PM marc9000 has not replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 251 of 396 (617373)
05-28-2011 12:10 AM
Reply to: Message 245 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:41 PM


The phrase as a science wasn’t in the O/P.
I think when it is asked "how ID's supernatural-based science is supposed to work", it is implicit that the question is how it should work as science, and not as a gardening implement, a dietary supplement, or a device for mechanically peeling bananas.
Their own caricature is often asking questions, or thinking about things that atheists prefer not to think about. Life is complex, the cell has information, and biological systems are orderly. And, life is fragile.
Instead of lying about what atheists think about, you could always ask some of them.
The TOP natural scientists (leaders, political activists) are atheists, "almost total".
It is interesting that the people who know most about the natural world are the least inclined to attribute it to God; but surely it is not on-topic here for you to supply arguments in favor of atheism.
If most evolutionists are religious people, they fall in line behind the atheist leaders, there is plenty of evidence that their religion becomes secondary to them.
Which for some reason you have neglected to supply.
A constraint is not a guide. Constraining something doesn’t guide it.
Your fiddling about with words may have obscured the point in your eyes, but is hardly likely to make anyone else less able to grasp the point.
And they won’t successfully shout down ID.
You inadvertently told the truth!
To decide borderline cases of design will require the experimental or theoretical exploration of models [...] Future research could take several directions.
Come back when IDers are writing about their research in the past and not the future tense.
What does bad mean?
It is hard to know with you whether you are dishonestly feigning incomprehension or whether you are genuinely confused.
The immediate, incredible amount of hostility and rage towards Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" is a very strong indicator of who controls science.
Yeah. Scientists. Who know pseudoscientific crap when they see it.
ID, as a challenge to some aspects of evolution, or as a scientific inquiry of its own, doesn’t focus on any characteristic of the supernatural, it only attempts to determine whether certain features of the natural world exhibit signs of having been designed by an intelligence. This intelligence could be E.T. or a telic principle immanent in nature or a transcendent personal agent.
No, not really. If scientists determine that the answer is no, then surely that is not ID. You might as well define flat-Earthism as an attempt to determine whether the Earth is flat.
As enough has been said about IDer's shameful equivocations on the subject of religion, I need not add to it here. Especially since you have already spent enough time not answering the actual question.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 245 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:41 PM marc9000 has not replied

Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 252 of 396 (617374)
05-28-2011 12:20 AM
Reply to: Message 244 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:12 PM


All at once vs. cumulative
marc9000 writes:
Your example throws 25 at a time, repeating endlessly, until you get 25 sixes. Don't plan on doing anything else for a few centures.
The way evolution actually works is akin to throwing those 25 dice and then rethrowing only those that are not sixes.
"Rethrowing only those that are not sixes"? How was that decision made? Who made it, nature? Nature can't plan for future function. I looked at Dawkins book that dwise1 instructed me to, and am not convinced that cumulative selection is a single event, but a summary of events, a lot of one-step-at-a-time events. It looked more like atheism, than it did testable, repeatable, observable science.
The model a lot of creationists use would have hundreds or thousands of changes occur all at once, hence the huge odds against such an occurrence.
But nature works by lots of little changes, i.e., cumulative changes--and natural selection. If any of those changes are seriously deleterious the individuals who carry them are eliminated from the gene pool. If those changes are favorable, the individuals who carry them are more likely to be around to foster the next generation.
Over time this adds up, and virtually all the descendants will be from those with the favorable changes (the sixes).
So the model I proposed to you, throwing only those dice that are not sixes is more accurate than the creationist model requiring all changes to be made in one shot.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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 Message 244 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:12 PM marc9000 has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 253 of 396 (617383)
05-28-2011 8:45 AM
Reply to: Message 245 by marc9000
05-27-2011 11:41 PM


marc9000 writes:
The phrase as a science wasn’t in the O/P. Since it’s not, I took the question to apply at least as much to philosophy, or education.
What we're wondering is how one does supernatural ID science. Your example of evolution being wrong because life couldn't possibly have come together as a single event is a well known creationist caricature, and we are in complete agreement with you that life or species coming about in single events is wildly improbable. But neither abiogenesis or evolution proposes any such thing.
Your Behe quote provides no clues about how supernatural ID science might work. What he proposes is just standard science and are precisely the kinds of things science already looks for. What Behe really wants is different answers, supernatural answers.
A couple random off-topic notes:
  • I am not an atheist, many scientists are not atheists, many non-scientists are atheists. Acceptance of the theory of evolution cannot be equated with atheism. A far, far higher percentage of creationists are conservative Christians than scientists are atheists.
  • The constraints of the environment guide the path of evolution. This is why thick fur evolves in cold climes rather than hot.
About this:
ID, as a challenge to some aspects of evolution, or as a scientific inquiry of its own, doesn’t focus on any characteristic of the supernatural, it only attempts to determine whether certain features of the natural world exhibit signs of having been designed by an intelligence. This intelligence could be E.T. or a telic principle immanent in nature or a transcendent personal agent.
You're quoting from Dembski's book The Design Revolution. That's what he says for public consumption. What he really believes he saves for believers, for instance here in a talk before the group Focus on the Family:
Dembski writes:
"I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God."
But anyway, if you, unlike Dembski, truly believe that ID has no supernatural component and is just science seeking answers like all other science then I think that's fine. But as I mentioned earlier about Behe, the real problem ID has with standard science isn't its methods but its answers. ID wants science to accept supernatural answers.
There's really no difference between us if the only answers you're willing to accept are naturalistic ones like aliens and "telic principles in nature" and so forth. But if you're demanding that supernatural answers be allowed then we must ask, "How does one do supernatural ID science?"
AbE: If there's really no supernatural component in ID then you might want to let Intellen know over in the Who designed the ID designer(s)? thread where he states unequivocally, "Jesus Christ is the sole Intelligent Designer."
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Add a paragraph at the bottom.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 245 by marc9000, posted 05-27-2011 11:41 PM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 254 by tesla, posted 05-28-2011 12:01 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 255 by marc9000, posted 05-29-2011 7:27 PM Percy has replied

tesla
Member (Idle past 1593 days)
Posts: 1199
Joined: 12-22-2007


Message 254 of 396 (617391)
05-28-2011 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 253 by Percy
05-28-2011 8:45 AM


Topic clarity?
What we're wondering is how one does supernatural ID science.
I do not think that Creationism is science. My belief is that without scientist accepting the potential of a supreme consciousness that dictated the laws of nature: scientists will blind themselves from potential discoveries.
I believe this way because it is a potential truth.
But...Supernatural science already exists. It is mostly for entertainment these days. Like ghost hunters etc. there is still research being done on psychic ability. The findings so far show that those who believe they can see a card they cannot, have a greater success rate at their guesses than those who don’t.
There has to be a natural explanation as to why. We just haven’t asked the right questions, or we are not currently able to see what makes this possible.
Anyways, that’s my take on this topic.

keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

This message is a reply to:
 Message 253 by Percy, posted 05-28-2011 8:45 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 255 of 396 (617569)
05-29-2011 7:27 PM
Reply to: Message 253 by Percy
05-28-2011 8:45 AM


What we're wondering is how one does supernatural ID science.
The same exact way that billions-of-years-ago-naturalism is done as science. Show me something the PAH World Hypothesis can do, and I believe I can show you something comparable that ID can do. Show me something that ID can’t do, and I believe I can show something comparable that the PAH World Hypothesis can’t do. I’m not talking about volume of research, (one is politically blocked by the courts and the other is not) I’m talking about basic one on one comparisons.
Your example of evolution being wrong because life couldn't possibly have come together as a single event is a well known creationist caricature, and we are in complete agreement with you that life or species coming about in single events is wildly improbable. But neither abiogenesis or evolution proposes any such thing.
Not a single event, but single steps. The cumulative selection claim enters the philosophical realm. It’s made, or trickily implied, to be a single event, but that ‘s not what it is, it’s a summary of events that still all happen one step at a time, and there are a lot of them.
I never claim "evolution is wrong because", if evolution is defined as change over time. There is a big difference between "change over time" and "Genesis is wrong".
Your Behe quote provides no clues about how supernatural ID science might work. What he proposes is just standard science and are precisely the kinds of things science already looks for.
But it doesn’t look for everything equally/hard enough. Naturalists gloss over complexities that may inspire more and more questions about naturalism.
What Behe really wants is different answers, supernatural answers.
For some things there are only two answers, supernatural ones, or atheistic ones. The point where philosophy enters science. There will always be disagreement on just where that point is, but there should be a way to balance an exploration of the answers. The accusations of godidit, that settles it, stop looking aren’t as ridiculous as they’re made to look. There really should be a point where public money shouldn’t be wasted on scientific searches for proof of atheism.
I am not an atheist, many scientists are not atheists, many non-scientists are atheists. Acceptance of the theory of evolution cannot be equated with atheism. A far, far higher percentage of creationists are conservative Christians than scientists are atheists.
Maybe scientists overall, but not biologists. The link I showed earlier broke it down — biologists had the lowest rate of belief of all divisions of scientists.
You're quoting from Dembski's book The Design Revolution. That's what he says for public consumption. What he really believes he saves for believers, for instance here in a talk before the group Focus on the Family:
Dembski writes:
"I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God."
If there is no double standard, what he personally believes means absolutely nothing, compared to what he proposes in The Design Revolution. I’ve been referred to Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker recently on these forums, to explain cumulative selection to me. Surely I don’t have to remind you what Dawkins personally believes. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize winner, said anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization. I’m told that is in no way associated with what he did to earn his Nobel Prize. Why are the personal opinions of Phillip Johnson and everyone at the Discovery Institute made central to motives of Intelligent Design? Why aren’t the motives of Dawkins and Weinberg of today, or Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Dobzhansky, etc. of yesterday, similarly associated with evolution?
But anyway, if you, unlike Dembski, truly believe that ID has no supernatural component and is just science seeking answers like all other science then I think that's fine.
Dembski thinks that too — I believe he makes it clear in The Design Revolution. Why don’t you allow him separation from his personal beliefs like you do Dawkins, Weinberg, and countless other leading atheists of today?
But as I mentioned earlier about Behe, the real problem ID has with standard science isn't its methods but its answers. ID wants science to accept supernatural answers.
Methods are all that should matter. Answers are always subject to rejection. After all, current science is loaded with atheistic answers, and the majority of the U.S. population still rejects them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 253 by Percy, posted 05-28-2011 8:45 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 256 by jar, posted 05-29-2011 7:33 PM marc9000 has not replied
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