Evolution and Probability

Since biological systems don't contain information in the sense referred to by "information science", why would it?How come when Creationists do these probability exercises, they never try to figure out the odds of an infinitely-powerful god existing? Those odds seem much, much lower to my mind than evolution.

You're looking at it from the wrong direction in time. We're sitting here, looking at a pile of fallen dominoes. We know exactly what mechanisms exist that would cause one falling domino to make the next fall, too (random mutation + natural selection). The pattern of fallen dominoes suggests they were in a line before they fell. If natural law is sufficient to knock over all the subsequent dominoes, why assume that it's insufficient to knock over the first one?Anyway, I think your whole method is wrong - this is science, not math. We don't deduct from known principles - science hasn't worked like that since Aristotle. What we do is make observations and generalize models to explain them, models that make testable predictions, which we then test.

Well, this is kind of true - although I think that there is a similarity - the mechanism of the origin of life is more likely to be a mechanism that we see operating today - a natural process of some kind - than a mechanism that we've never seen operate - the Hand of God.

I stand by my words. If God has ever acted, then he only acts in ways indistinguishable from natural law and random chance, and in that situation, is it even possible to say that he's acted at all? Nope. Furthermore to entertain the idea that god has acted, it's necessary to know that god exists, and we can be reasonably sure that a moral god who can act in this universe does not, in fact, exist.You may make the "ineffability" argument, that god is non-understandable, but if he is, then he's irrelevant to rational inquiry into the universe, as his actions cannot be modeled. And to all appearances we live in an orderly universe, at least until you get to the small scales. (Even there, though, it follows its own laws.) But most importantly, god must be understandable to be moral. If god is incomprehensible, we would be unable to share his morals, and that would make the Bible et. al. useless.In any case god, apparently, isn't required to construct accurate models of phenomenon in the universe. I feel comfortable saying that the Hand of God does not operate because there's no need for it to for things to proceed according to natural laws.

No, not really. It's born out by study after study. For instance there was a study just recently that compared the convalescence of heart patients (I think) of various faiths. For some of the patients, they set another person of their faith to pray for them as often as possible. For others, nobody was assigned to pray for them.Guess what? There was absolutely no difference in recovery time between the two groups. There was no way to get God to intercede for any of the patients.This happens all the time. On a controversial topic like gay marriage, if you ask 100 people, you're likely to get 100 opinions. Now, if you take another 100 people, and ask them to go home for a week and pray until they know God's will on the subject of gay marriage, you would expect them to all come back with the same answer, if it were possible to have god talk to you. Instead you get 100 contradictiory opinions.Apparently there's no way to get God to do anything, and there's no way to know his will on any subject. People can't even decide what the Bible means. It's not just assertion. It's fact. If God acts, he doesn't act in a way distinguishable from random chance. If he did, there would be statistical evidence. Sure. The God you're talking about is both moral and powerful, in that he knows how to act morally, and is able to do so. Right?It's trivial to prove this god doesn't exist, given the absence of god's intervention in the world. Morally injust stuff happens all the time, and as much of it happens to Christians as happens to anybody else. A God who could do something about that but doesn't is powerful but immoral, just as you would be immoral if you had the chance to prevent a murder but didn't. A God who wants to do something about it but can't is moral but powerless. Those are the only two kinds of god consistent with the evidence - a lack of god's action in the world. Already your analogy fails. Dogs are not moral entities. Humans are. If god is to be assumed to be moral, the only way we could know that is if we ourselves are moral. If we both are moral then we have that in common, at least.God can't both be moral and incomprehensible at the same time, not if humans are assumed to be moral, too. Now, if you assume that humans have no moral sense, that's fine - god can then be as incomprehensible as you like - but you have to realize that contradicts the Bible. That's not a problem for me but it may be for you. True. However historically they've always become more accurate the more we take God out of them. I'd say that's a pretty significant trend. Because if they were different, we'd ask why they were that way. You're asking me "why am I here?" and I'm answering "because wherever you go, there you are." Ultimately it doesn't matter why the laws are the way they are. They are, so that's good enough. To the contrary, I can. Because the alternative means proposing the existence of entities whose existence can't be confirmed or denied in any way. What's the point of that? What's the difference between my model that explains everything naturally, and yours that explains the same things, but adds untestable chocolate sprinkles? The difference is, I don't waste my time with the stuff that I can't know exists, and wouldn't matter if it did. Ockham's Razor, basically.

Then he chooses to reveal nothing. If that's the case, how can we know god exists? If he won't do anything, why does it matter if he exists or not?The only kind of god that can exist is one who doesn't matter. So why bother? Not even close. My life philosophy is "Know the difference between what you know you know, and what you only think you know." What I know about the physical world falls into the first category. What I think about God falls into the second.The difference between me and believers is that believers don't know that they don't know about God, and as a result, they try to effect social change based on the fallacious position that they know what god wants. And apparently there's no difference between things that happen with God's will and things that happen without god's will.If I cast a handful of pennies in front of you, and you noted the random pattern that they made, and I said "behold! it was my will that they fall into that exact configuration" wouldn't you think I was full of crap? (I hope you would.)What's the difference, then, between me saying that and God saying that? If God's will can't ever not be done, how is it meaningful? It seems suspect to me that God is revealing one will to one person, and a totally different, contradictory will to another person. Surely one God would have one will, right? Can you? I think that the current controversy in the Episcopailean Church shows the opposite of that. If anything the vast doctrinal differences between Christian denominations shows that in fact you can get any interpretation you like out of the Bible. Did they? Do you know for sure? Says you. They say the same thing about you. Who am I to believe?How about none of you? "Hating the sin" is a little inconvenient when we're talking about whether or not it should be a legal behavior. After all, you may hate a "sin" that I'm committing. But I don't think it's a sin at all. When it comes to making laws, then, who decides?It's not Christians hating sins that scare me. It's the ones that feel the need to do something about it. That's all right. Just to get it on the table, let's just say that I believe the universe is finite in both time and space, and that causality arguments don't apply because causality is not a phenomenon that extends beyond the scope of the universe. I'd figure out a way to stop them both without killing. God should have no problem with this if he's as smart as you say. I submit to you that if you really believe this, you have not experienced love. When you love, the last thing you would want is to contemplate the idea that the object of your love is free to, at any moment, tell you to stuff it. Love is not about freedom. You don't even get to choose to fall in love. Love compels. We get them from ourselves, by agreement. Morals are democratic. Morals aren't just what we are willing to do or not do - they're what we're willing to have done to us. Yes, that's a cherished American philosophy, and the definition of a moral being - one who puts morals above his own personal interests. God cannot be a moral entity, as I assume you believe him to be, unless he's bound by his own morals. Otherwise he's a tyrant. Well, if we're not, who is? When we developed language and culture. Pretty simple, really. You can't have morals unless you have a way to communicate them. I submit to you that you are wrong - children are as moral as adults. It's just that they've internalized a set or morals from a different set of peers - other children. The process of maturity is not so much the aquisition of morals in general, but rather, the specific morals that we associate with adulthood. But don't you think it's appropriate, at some point, to say "hey, God, why this and not that?" and expect an answer? Otherwise how do you know that God is just and moral?If God's so beyond our moral comprehension, as you say, how do you determine the difference between a moral god and a tyrant god? Your own personal hope that the universe is not run by a bad guy doesn't count.I assume you agree that it's immoral to blindly serve an immoral authority. So explain to me how you determine the difference between a moral god and an immoral god. I can only think of judging his actions. You clearly disagree. What then is your method? Just taking his word for it? If I can't model it and examine it, how can I know about it? More importantly, how can I know that I know, and that I'm not just fooling myself? What would that be, exactly? What other method not only lets you know stuff, but also lets you know that you know it?I realize that "there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreampt of in my pholosophy." However science is the only process we have that's at all able to let us know what those things are in a way that's distinguishable from fooling ourselves.

Crap - Dinker, we really ought to take this to another thread. If you have a response, why don't you start a new thread for it - I'll be sure to find it.