Is A Materialist View Less Parsimonious?

Well, we can find intermediate forms and we can observe the evolutionary processes of reproduction, variation, and selection. Adding a hypothetical God into the mix is not parsimonious, because that is adding one more thing which we don't need.

Suppose we are on the African savanna. Our guide points out footprints in the dirt and says: "These are the footprints of a lion; these of a zebra; these of a wildebeest ..."

"Wait," you say, "wouldn't it be more parsimonious to suppose that they're all the footprints of one single animal with many kinds of feet that no-one has ever seen."

No, it's not more parsimonious, because we already know that lions and zebras and wildebeest exist. You are conjecturing that we should add one more thing to our picture of the world in order to explain our observations --- one more hypothetical thing that we don't need, since we can explain things just fine in terms of known, non-hypothetical entities.

So your conjecture is exactly the sort of thing that the principle of parsimony is meant to prevent people from doing.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

One wag said it succinctly: In the beginning there was either God or Dirt. What say you?

Here's a photograph of dirt.

Your turn.

Perhaps we could discuss your gross ignorance of evolution, anatomy, and the difference between homology and analogy on another thread.

All that aside, we can observe lots of intermediate forms, whereas we have never observed God make an organism by magic, or indeed anyone doing anything by magic. Creationists imagine a whole class of events of which we have never observed a single instance, having a cause of a kind which we have never ever seen operate. And this, according to you, is parsimonious?

Now can you just show us how that dirt could create itself into a sand castle on it's own?

No, which is why I never claimed that such a thing has happened.

Now can you show me a talking snake?

1. You have to SHOW my ignorance, by providing reasoning, or it is an ad-hominem attack that diverts attention on to the arguer instead of my arguments.

I fear that this would be off-topic; but surely you must be aware, without my proving it, that you have spent little or no time studying the topics of which you discourse so glibly.

2. The term, "magic" here is used as a question-begging-epithet, meaning you are simply calling something miraculous, "magic".

I don't know what you mean by "question-begging", but yes, magical and miraculous do seem to be pretty much synonyms. A miracle is either God doing magic on his own account or it's magic done by someone to whom he has deputed his magical powers.

I could use the same word for abiogenesis or the "magic" brains evolution must have to come up with all of the brilliant intelligent design in life.

You could; and you would be lying.

Now, instead of whining about my choice of words, how about you respond to the substance of my post? I notice that you were unable to do that.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Put up or shut up. If I have misunderstood a topic, prove your claim or STAND DOWN from the ad-hominem, diversionary tactic. Mike the wiz is not on trial here, and as soon as you make the topic about mike the wiz, is as soon as you have lost the debate.

Mike, I do not need to "prove" to you that you have not studied, for example, the anatomy of the platypus. You know that you have not. You'd remember if you had.

But that can be regarded logically, simply as a statement of ignorance. I can simply argue that the development of the embryo in the womb is no less miraculous in it's wonder, just because it is natural.

And by the same token, you could call it "magical", too.

But I was using the terms "magic" and "miracle" in the strict, literal sense of supernatural feats. Unless you have a naturalist materialistic take on God, I don't see why you're objecting.

As for the substance of your post, what was it?

That creationism appeals to mechanisms of a kind we have never witnessed to produce zillions of results of a kind that we have never seen; and that this is not parsimonious.

Would you like to answer this point, or would you like to evade it with self-pitying whining and irrelevant drivel?