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Author Topic:   So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 5 of 396 (436956)
11-28-2007 9:43 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Larni
11-28-2007 3:17 AM


Bumped 'cos they're Stumped
Larni writes:
You know that the oft promised evidence won't be provided, don't you?
If it does I'll buy you a hat and we can go to dinner.
If it does, I'll eat the hat, then I'll marry him.
I expect we'll get the "nothing complex can exist" argument.
This goes: Nothing above a certain undefinable level of complexity can exist without a designer designing it, therefore, the inevitably complex designer can't exist, therefore nothing complex can exist.
Or the "if it has a superficial appearance of design, then it could be designed" argument.
Incidentally, why should the proposed designers of life be invisible?
Why wouldn't invisible designers just design invisible things?
And why always design within the parameters of evolutionary possibility? What's wrong with doing a rabbit in the Cambrian, as Haldane (I think) once put it.

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 Message 7 by bluescat48, posted 11-28-2007 12:49 PM bluegenes has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 11 of 396 (437041)
11-28-2007 4:25 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by bluescat48
11-28-2007 12:49 PM


Re: Bumped 'cos they're Stumped
bluescat48 writes:
Or to go further,why does this designer, after many millions of years, just deletes 3/4 of his designs? What, did he run out of room on his hard-drive and deleted them to free up space?
Of course, good point, and Lithodid-Man's elaboration on it, as well.
But I just wanted to make a technical point. I think we should say designers, not designer, because the statistical chances of there being only one entity involved are so slim. The I.D. people should do this, as well. Use of the singular is a sure giveaway of people from monotheistic cultures trying to stick their God in a science classroom, and they claim not to be doing that.
So, picture lots of busy elves, a bit like Santa's, and you get the picture.
(Sorry, Dwise1, just trying to keep you entertained while you wait...and wait.....and wait.......)

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 Message 12 by dwise1, posted 11-28-2007 4:45 PM bluegenes has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 13 of 396 (437045)
11-28-2007 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by dwise1
11-28-2007 4:45 PM


Re: Bumped 'cos they're Stumped
dwise1 writes:
You know, that would explain a lot!
Yes. All the apparent indecision, but also the obvious variety in taste and method.
I like to think that I, personally, was designed by a female designer, the expression of her dreams, but I may be flattering myself.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 20 of 396 (437205)
11-29-2007 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Beretta
11-29-2007 8:04 AM


Re: Well yes -what would we teach....???
Beretta writes:
Instead of seeing evolution when we look at the fossils in the rocks, we could look at the possibility that most of the fossils formed in one big disaster and that most of the fossils show catastrophe and rapid destruction rather than hundreds of millions of years of slow death.
The chances of a flood arranging the fossils so that those from one apparent epoch are never found with those of another apparent epoch are less than one in a trillion.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 170 of 396 (481089)
09-09-2008 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by Admin
09-08-2008 7:09 PM


Back to topic, then.
Percy writes:
Expressing this in my own words, the topic of this thread is how a science based upon the Discovery Institute's wishes to abandon methodological naturalism would work.
The answer is that it wouldn't, and already doesn't. The O.P. describes I. D. as superstition based, and it is, of course, inspired and informed by religion. Because it's a religious movement, it already shows the symptoms of being one. No agreement on a coherent theory can possibly be reached, because the decisions that have to be made are not evidence based, they are theological, and as with theology, different people can make up different things.
But, at least the religions usually have some text to argue over, which members of the religion, however much they disagree, all regard as some sort of set of guidelines. I. D. doesn't even have that.
So, how can the I. D. people come to an agreement on what the designers design, let alone questions like "how" and "why". Do they design at the level of species, or genus, or family, or order, or class, phylum, kingdom or domain. Or does the designer just tinker with features that are above a certain undefinable level of complexity, or perhaps just design the original life form and set the evolutionary ball rolling?
When we think about this, it becomes clear that there's no real criteria on which to make decisions, so how will I. D. advocates do so?
Prayer? Employ self-appointed living prophets?
So, it will not work as "science". Methodological naturalism has become science not because of metaphysical naturalism, but because it (M. N.) works. It was common for scientists like Newton to employ a "God of the Gaps" to do things like nudge his planets into their orbits, but increasing knowledge has closed so many gaps that that approach is now regarded as silly, and it requires evidence for the existence of the non-natural for science to move away from pure methodological naturalism.
That's what I'd like to see the I. D. people working on. They could learn a lesson from people like mediums and ghost hunters, and go out searching for evidence of the supernatural which would establish it as part of a reality that science should consider.
An I. D. advocate who doesn't own a Ouija board is an I. D. advocate who is not showing serious interest in real I. D. research.
(I've forgotten the thread, but I once suggested something like that to I. D. supporter Randman, and he came out with a photograph with a wispy looking piece of smoke that could've been a ghost, making me laugh. At least he tried to show real evidence. ).

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 Message 171 by Buzsaw, posted 09-09-2008 7:52 PM bluegenes has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 172 of 396 (481187)
09-09-2008 10:05 PM
Reply to: Message 171 by Buzsaw
09-09-2008 7:52 PM


Re: Back to topic, then.
Buzsaw writes:
The dilema for us is that our evidences are segmented in the thread topics to the extent that the big picture of all the corroborated evidences is forgotten. Our opponents divide and conquer, so to speak in order to make it easier for them to undermine the isolated pieces of the puzzle as insufficient. You take a dozen pieces of the puzzle box and try to make sense of them for a picture and you get nothing worth looking at.
No, I don't think your problem is to do with the threads. After all, we do have threads in which the topic is evidence for I.D., or for creationism, or whatever.
What I was saying in the post above is that I. D., like the world's many theistic religions, will not be able to agree on what the exact role of the designer/god is, and what he has created, when, and how.
Think about it. What is the I. D. theory? How much designing and how much evolving goes on? Will you agree with all other EvC I.D. creationists on questions like that? And the age of this planet?
Secular mainstream science will have nothing to do with anything that hints of a higher intelligence existing in the universe than we have here on this little speck in the vast universe called Planet Earth.
It would have to, if there were evidence. A higher intelligence in this universe is quite possible, considering its scale, but there's no evidence for it yet.

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 Message 171 by Buzsaw, posted 09-09-2008 7:52 PM Buzsaw has replied

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 Message 173 by Buzsaw, posted 09-09-2008 10:46 PM bluegenes has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 174 of 396 (481240)
09-10-2008 5:30 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by Buzsaw
09-09-2008 10:46 PM


Re: Back to topic, then.
Buzsaw writes:
The majority of fundamentalist ID creationists don't agree that the species evolved. I am among the majority on that count.
The majority of creationists are young-earthers, and most of those agree that some degree of evolution goes on. The AiGenesis type creationists currently believe that speciation happens within kinds.
Here start the problems. We're talking about I.D. on this thread, which could just be used as another expression for creationism, but a lot of the self-described I.D. types are old earthers who believe in quite considerable amounts of evolution, and some believe in common descent.
Over all, there are massive divisions, and you will never be able to agree, because you're all basing your views ultimately on religious Faith, not empirical evidence, so you just all make up stuff in your own minds.
One of the basic problems is that evolution can be observed happening on a small scale, so the I.D. people, if they're claiming that evolution is not the complete story of life on earth, have to decide what its limits are.
So, here's a question for you, to illustrate the problem. Do all of the Felidae share a common ancestor? If "yes", why can't all mammals descend from a common ancestor. If no, do the cats who can produce offspring share a common ancestor? If no, do all leopards share a common ancestor?
Then, how do you make your decisions about these things? (Be scientific, please )
{ABE}BTW, I'm bluegenes, as in the picture, not a pair of pants, as in your last two posts.
Edited by bluegenes, : addition

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 Message 177 by Buzsaw, posted 09-11-2008 9:45 PM bluegenes has replied

bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 178 of 396 (481667)
09-12-2008 3:02 AM
Reply to: Message 177 by Buzsaw
09-11-2008 9:45 PM


Thread is about supernatural based "science".
Buzsaw writes:
Too much of what I would need to say relative to my science POV would not be acceptable as science here, so I'll pass on that, since sudden creation ID arguments entail the supernatural.
Look at the topic title and you'll see that we're not on a hard science thread but in "Theological Creationism and ID" -> "So Just How is ID's Supernatural..." (etc.).
So, you could attempt an explanation of how your "science" works, but my point is that you can never reach agreement with other I. D. people, because all of you are just making stuff up, which means an inevitable fragmentation of the "movement'.

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