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Author | Topic: Is there a legitimate argument for design? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 10077 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Evolution could have found a better way to allow for more anti-bodies and viral resistance than to make 2 different sets of organs, separate hormone levels, etc. Huh? What does sexual reproduction have to do with anti-bodies and viral resistance?
There are the standard evolution talking points, but the complexity of nature is too much to LOGICALLY discount a designer. Where is the evidence and testable mechanisms needed to logically include a designer in a scientific theory? Perhaps you should read up on cosmic teapots:Russell's teapot - Wikipedia Where did natural selection get it's intelligence? Begging the quesiton. First, show that natural selection has intelligence.
Where did the intelligence come from to make the different sexes? The same type of intelligence that fluids use to put the hotter fluids on top of the colder fluids.
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 376 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined:
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Any similarity between a designed thing and the appearance of design in nature proves that designers take their clues about how to design things from nature, not that nature was designed.
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taiji2 Member (Idle past 3489 days) Posts: 124 From: Georgia, USA Joined: |
What is the nature of an idea?
Do ideas exist in a materialist sense? Is the question: "Do ideas really exist?" one that should be answered scientifically or philosophically? Why? If ideas do exist, are the ideas we have today what they are as the result of evolution (I mean evolution in the sense it is debated by evolutionists on this forum, not a more general meaning that might be found in common use)? If so, was this evolution the gradual change over eons, existing today at a higher level of complexity only because of chance mutations that were more likely to cause the family tree of ideas ideas to survive? If evolution is pertinent to ideas, what was the earliest scientifically validated idea in the "idea fossil record" (for want of a better analogy). Are there any missing links in the "idea family tree" of evolution, or are there scientifically verifiable examples through time of the evolution of ideas from the simple to the complex with no macro-evolutionary jumps?
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jar Member (Idle past 421 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Huh?
I mean evolution in the sense it is debated by evolutionists on this forum, not a more general meaning that might be found in common use HUH? What does that even mean? Of course ideas evolve from earlier ideas and as knowledge increases.
What is the nature of an idea? Do ideas exist in a materialist sense? Is the question: "Do ideas really exist?" one that should be answered scientifically or philosophically? Does that even deserve discussion beyond moments of sheer boredom?Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2133 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
James Burke tracked how ideas flow in his TV series, "Connections."
See if you can find that somewhere.Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge. Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1 "Multiculturalism" does not include the American culture. That is what it is against.
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jar Member (Idle past 421 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Another example that is easy to find is found in the Bible. We can see how the "Great Commission" evolved over time in The evolution of the Great Commission over time..
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9
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Welcome, taiji2. We're always glad to see new members.
Frankly, I don't want to take an extended survey. I think you probably mean to lay the groundwork for discussing your own ideas, but you'd get better responses by just saying what you think about the legitimacy of arguments for design. OTOH, me and jar and Coyote are registered curmudgeons, though jar and I are right more often, while Coyote is merely always Right. "If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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What is the nature of an idea? Do ideas exist in a materialist sense? Is the question: "Do ideas really exist?" one that should be answered scientifically or philosophically? Why? I guess it should be answered philosophically, because it's that sort of question. We all know that there are ideas: Pythagoras' theorem is an idea, anarcho-syndicalism is an idea, "aliens kidnapped and probed me last Tuesday" is an idea; we know that people have these ideas. So the question seems to be: what do we want "really exist" to mean?
If ideas do exist, are the ideas we have today what they are as the result of evolution (I mean evolution in the sense it is debated by evolutionists on this forum, not a more general meaning that might be found in common use)? Not many of them. But perhaps there are some. Perhaps we are hard-wired to have some ideas. For example, most of us have the idea that (some) people are nice to look at, they're pretty, they're sexy, etc. Presumably if we were a species of super-sentient purple slime warthogs, we'd find purple slime warthogs sexy and go about grunting "Look at the slime on that. Wow, she's so warty and purple!" The sight of a pretty girl would fill us with disgust because she's so dry and unslimy and has no warts. Or perhaps, to take another example, the idea that the world consists of objects embedded in three-dimensional space is an idea that's built in to us. It's hard to say, because we can't raise a baby on an eleven-dimensional Mbius strip and see if the baby would get the hang of it. But it's surprising what ideas are not built in. Studies on babies suggest, for example, that when they are young they find it more surprising to see a shadow move along with the object that casts it than to see the shadow sit where it is when you move the object. They have to learn this basic fact about everyday objects. This is strange, but apparently true. Nonetheless, some ideas may be hard-wired. Then there is a sort of gray area where ideas might not be hard-wired, but perhaps a tendency to acquire them is. For example, language is not hard-wired, but a human child will naturally and easily acquire language even in cultures where there is no specific effort made to teach children to talk. The same is not true of (for example) cats. Language is not hard-wired, but there is something in our brains that makes us all linguists and grammarians ... perhaps the abstract idea of a noun is hard-wired into all of us, just waiting for us to acquire actual instances. But certainly we get most of our ideas by thinking, by learning from experience, or by listening to other people with ideas. I did not inherit Pythagoras' theorem in any biological genetic sense, and so this has nothing to do with "evolution in the sense it is debated by evolutionists on this forum, not a more general meaning that might be found in common use". --- Like Omnivorous, I think that you're trying to work round to something, and I think you should actually get to the point instead of asking questions. The Socratic method doesn't work so well unless, like Socrates, you've got Plato to write the answers for you. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
HUH? What does that even mean? He means, did ideas literally evolve, in the strict biological sense of "evolve", not in the metaphorical sense that you're using when you write:
Of course ideas evolve from earlier ideas and as knowledge increases.
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taiji2 Member (Idle past 3489 days) Posts: 124 From: Georgia, USA Joined: |
Omnivorous,
Thank you for your response and your welcome. I am responding to you as you are the only initial responder to my opening questions who came out of the gate with any civility. Unless given the reason to do otherwise, I will choose to ignore any future comments by jar. He/she came out of the gate with insults and dismissal and I cannot conceive how entertaining dialogue with him/her will ever help me get answers to questions on Intelligent Design which is the title of this thread. Coyote offered some resources to look at and I will. quote:I am not trying to be argumentative, but I truly don't know what you mean here. I was not aware I had asked for any sort of survey, brief or extended. I simply asked questions which, having read the thread prior, had not been asked and answered. quote: If you are implying I am all set to argue a corpus of doctrine that encompasses "my own ideas" and come to a definitive conclusion, my response is no, I really have no firm beliefs that cannot be changed with sufficiently plausible explanation. I do have questions on the subject which have come to mind as a result of having read past posts on the thread. If it is not correct to continue the thread with questions that have not been asked and answered, just tell me and I will exit peacefully. My final response to you is that having read the prior posts in the thread, I am aware I am in a discussion with some very clever people. Were I to return to school, I might be sitting in a classroom with some of them the teacher. I do not consider myself particularly clever. I therefore enter this forum with some trepidation. I am perfectly willing to sit in the classroom of this discussion and be taught by scholars and scientists. If I cannot ask questions which I think are pertinent to the discussion, however, I have no problem staying out of school.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Thank you for your response and your welcome. I am responding to you as you are the only initial responder to my opening questions who came out of the gate with any civility. Was I uncivil, or did you start composing this post before I'd posted mine?
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taiji2 Member (Idle past 3489 days) Posts: 124 From: Georgia, USA Joined: |
No Dr. Adequate, you were not uncivil. On the contrary. I want to study your response closely. I will be away from the computer for a while, but will get back to you later this evening.
Thanks for responding. You seemed included because your response came while I was composing my response to the first three senders.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I do have questions on the subject which have come to mind as a result of having read past posts on the thread. Sure, but since you're posting questions about the rather abstruse subject of whether ideas "really exist" on a thread on the topic "Is there a legitimate argument for design?"you must somehow have come to the belief that your questions, and the answers, are relevant to the topic of the thread. Omnivorous and I are interested to know what the relevance is.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9
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taiji2 writes: quote: I am not trying to be argumentative, but I truly don't know what you mean here. I was not aware I had asked for any sort of survey, brief or extended. I simply asked questions which, having read the thread prior, had not been asked and answered.
quote: If you are implying I am all set to argue a corpus of doctrine that encompasses "my own ideas" and come to a definitive conclusion, my response is no, I really have no firm beliefs that cannot be changed with sufficiently plausible explanation. I do have questions on the subject which have come to mind as a result of having read past posts on the thread. If it is not correct to continue the thread with questions that have not been asked and answered, just tell me and I will exit peacefully. No, taiji2, I don't mean to imply anything untoward or accuse you of any sort of duplicity. It's really a practical matter. The problem is that you posed roughly 10 questions, any one of which might warrant a lengthy reply, and you didn't tie any of them to the topic of the thread. You would have better luck at stimulating discussion if you posed one question, related how it connected to the topic, and then gave at least a brief suggestion of your answer to the question. If you have a question about the contents of a prior post, use the Reply button below that post and raise that question. One last bit of advice: let your skin thicken a little. We can get a little rough and tumble here. You'll see exchanges between members that appear to reveal bitter hostility, when in reality, those two members may be quite friendly and respectful. Don't confuse sharp, aggressive questioning of your arguments with a personal attack. Stick around. It's fun. Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given."If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Is the question: "Do ideas really exist?" one that should be answered scientifically or philosophically? To expand on my answer, let's imagine a conversation between Alice and Bob:
Bob : Does an idea, for example the idea of a vegetable, really exist?
Alice : Sure. We both have the idea of a vegetable. You know what a vegetable is, so do I.
Bob : I admit that. But does the idea really exist? Does it have substance, is it materially instantiated?
Alice : Sure, here's a book on vegetables which contains the definition of the word "vegetable". Also here's a dictionary. The idea is instantiated in ink on paper.
Bob : I admit that. I never denied that there were material things in which the definition is given. But does the idea really exist?
Alice : Well, yes. I mean, ideas are things in people's minds, yes? And you have the idea of a vegetable in your mind, yes? So the idea exists.
Bob : I admit that I have the idea in my mind. But does it really exist? You're going in circles now, I've already conceded that we both know what a vegetable is.
Alice : Well, you have the idea materially instantiated in your brain. There is an association of neurons which gives you the idea of a vegetable, and without this you would not have this idea.
Bob : Well, I've never been completely convinced by the materialist concept of the mind. How do we know that this is true?
Alice : Because people can have micro-strokes that deprive them of the idea of a vegetable. Here are some references.
Bob : OK, I admit that. Thanks for the references.
Alice : So, you admit that ideas really exist?
Bob : No, that's just like the argument from the dictionary. I admit the existence of a physical substratum on which my ability to grasp the idea of a vegetable is dependent. That is not to say that the idea of a vegetable itself really exists.
Alice : So what are you getting at?
Bob : Well, you must admit that the idea of a vegetable is not a thing like this chair, or this jar of marmalade, that we can simply point to, weigh, measure, subject to chemical analysis?
Alice : I admit that.
Bob : So you admit that ideas don't really exist?
Alice : No. Look, by that criterion we would have to say that inflation doesn't exist. And yet the prices of goods have risen.
Bob : I admit that. But ... --- So what are they arguing about? They agree as to matters of fact. They agree that (a) they have the idea (b) the idea is defined in the dictionary (c) Bob has the idea as a result of a certain arrangement of neurons in his brain (d) an idea is not something you can weigh, point to, or subject to chemical analysis. Actually, they agree on all the facts. Their point of disagreement, then, is on when it is appropriate to say that something "really exists". This is a philosophical dispute. The school of philosophy that I belong to says that they should realize that they agree as to every matter of fact and stop arguing. If they must argue, I would tend to side with Alice, because if an argument is about how language should be used, then unless there's a really good reason otherwise it should be resolved in favor of the way that language actually is used. Perhaps you disagree. But it is certainly a philosophical dispute rather than a scientific one, since it does not turn on any matter of fact.
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