Is fully secularized science an intellectual dishonesty?

[Mallon]

You have never seen a supernatural being? For one thing, I have just shown you that a human being IS a supernatural being.

You did? Where? What makes a human supernatural? Humans may be spiritual, certainly, but they are entirely natural.
(If you are referring to your bit about the human soul, see below.)

Again, you are trying to create artificial dichotomies as to exclude the Hand of God as a scientific theory.

Not at all. The hand of God is excluded from science because there is no way to test such a notion. And rightfully so -- God tells us not to put Him to the test (Deut 6:16). Think about it: as Christians, should there be any way of testing for God's actions? Should there be a time when we can say, "Yes, God did this" or "No, God wasn't involved here"? NO! As Christians, we are confident that God is involved in EVERYTHING! Therefore, there exists no test for the actions of God since God is involved in all aspects of His creation.

Well duh - but those differences are not probative for your point, that is to say, those differences don't exclude a Creator as a possible theory of origins.

I never meant to exlude a Creator as a possible explanation of origins. As an EC, I believe in a Creator, too. I just don't pretend that such a belief is scientific.

The main difference is that a human body is a far more sophisticated piece of machinery than any pot, which gives me all the MORE reason to believe that it involves the hand of a Creator.

"Humans are complex, therefore God" is a logical fallacy. It's an appeal to ignorance.

Further, the argument I gave supports a creator because it suggests a soul. Why would a human body have such capability - free will as an unpredictable physical force - unknown to other inanimate objects? Apart from a soul? Then we have to ask, HOW did this soul get into the human body, if not by some intelligent Hand?

I won't disagree with you about the existence of a soul, but again, that's not a scientific concept. It's a spiritual one. If you disagree, I would like to know how you might test for the existence of a soul. Can you measure it somehow?

 

[theFijian]

Boy am I impressed when somone challenges my conclusion without addressing the underlying logic involved.

You presented no logic so what do you expect? You made an odd claim and expect it to stand without any supporting evidence or logic. How is the agency of free-will a supernatural force? Is this some form of easten mysticism?

Who said anything about denying the existence of God? Stop refuting a conclusion that I haven't stated, as a further pretense of refuting me. Instead, address yourself to the arguments and conclusions which I raised. Anyone can create a strawman and knock it down.

The argument you presented is that the supernatural should be included in science, how do we test the supernatural?

 

[JAL]

It seems to me that your whole argument is just a rephrasing of Paley's "watchmaker" analogy.
Here's why it fails:
When an archaeologist comes across a piece of pottery in the earth, they do not assume that it evolved from other pottery because we know from first-hand experience that humans make pottery. The same analogy does not carry over to the creation of life because:
(a) Unlike pottery, life is dynamic. It breeds, it undergoes mutation, it competes for resources. Pottery, of which we know its origins, is nothing like biological life.
(b) We have never seen a supernatural being poof life into existence. So what is it about science that would ever lead us to believe that this is a viable option?

Physics purports to be an effort to identify and analyze the forces at work in our universe. The fact that it never identifies what moves the human body – it conspicuously neglects to mention the supernatural nature of human motility – casts doubt on its intellectual integrity.

You only confirm my suspicions of intellectual dishonesty when you try to dismiss my argument as “nothing more than the old watchmaker argument.” Clearly, that’s not an evenhanded evaluation because my treatise added some substantial content to that argument. Fact is, I don’t know of any thinker, other than myself, who has advanced my argument that humans are supernatural beings by nature, i.e. that human motility is driven by the kind of supernatural force typically associated with God’s own strength.


Moreover, your attempt to discredit the watchmaker argument does not comport well with Scripture. The watchmaker argument is, “I see the appearance of design, which suggests the possibility of a designer.” The problem with discrediting this argument is that doing so discredits Paul himself, who was one of the pioneers of the watchmaker argument. In Romans 1, starting at verse 18, he argues that all men – deep down – know of God’s existence by virtue of what they see in nature. God has designed men such that when they see the pottery (the elements of the natural realm), they are led to posit God as the potter who molded the clay, the intelligent designer. In my own words, I would say that that the knowledge of God is stamped on the conscience of all men. The mention of conscience in Romans 2, therefore, seems to be an extension of the watchmaker argument already provided in Romans 1.


The issue here is methodological consistency. In other words the real question at issue is not whether God exists or even whether He molded the clay. Rather, the question I am raising is whether creationism is a scientific hypothesis. To admit that one is being genuinely scientific” to postulate the possibility of a human potter is to admit that it is scientific to postulate the possibility of an intelligent designer of the natural realm. Conversely, if you claim that intelligent design is unscientific, then consistency would dictate that it is equally unscientific to postulate a human being as the designer of ordinary pottery. In a nutshell, you cannot have your cake and eat it too – either we must admit that intelligent design is a scientific hypothesis or we must deny it altogether to the doom of archaeology.

You cannot JUSTIFIABLY ignore the implications of an argument merely because you don’t like what it implies. Instead you are obligated to invalidate the underlying logic.


You claim that one difference between a pot and an organism is mutation, and by this you evidently mean random mutation. But can you really prove that it is random? Can you really prove that the mutations are not the work of a providential hand? I don’t think you can. You could perhaps argue, “Some of the mutuations are harmful and therefore non-providential.” But such an argument is potentially too short-sighted, for there may be, in the long run, considerable providence latent within a SEEMINGLY detrimental mutation.

Furthermore, the argument I gave provides evidence for a soul which casts further doubt on a wholly naturalistic, non-intelligent schema. Why so? Because the mutations may be driven by a physical force (the soul as free will) whose intelligent exercises alter the DNA. This too would be a kind of intelligent design. Sound implausible? Consider the immune system which is well known to be adaptable. In other words the specific list of invaders that it deems harmful and therefore attacks is subject to change within a single lifetime, because it intelligently REMEMBERS the current list. What we have here, then, is a supposedly “biological” process – arguably driven by an intelligence! Wikipedia states of the immune system, “Throughout the lifetime of an animal these memory cells will “remember” each specific pathogen encountered, and are able to mount a strong response if the pathogen is detected again.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunity_(medical)

 

[Mallon]

You only confirm my suspicions of intellectual dishonesty when you try to dismiss my argument as “nothing more than the old watchmaker argument.” Clearly, that’s not an evenhanded evaluation because my treatise added some substantial content to that argument. Fact is, I don’t know of any thinker, other than myself, who has advanced my argument that humans are supernatural beings by nature, i.e. that human motility is driven by the kind of supernatural force typically associated with God’s own strength.

So, you come up with this wacky, untestable idea that the reason why I can walk is because God is magically pushing me from behind, and then accuse everyone who disagree's with you "intellectually dishonest"? Boy, you've really shown your true colours here.

Moreover, your attempt to discredit the watchmaker argument does not comport well with Scripture. The watchmaker argument is, “I see the appearance of design, which suggests the possibility of a designer.” The problem with discrediting this argument is that doing so discredits Paul himself, who was one of the pioneers of the watchmaker argument.

Not at all. Romans 1:20 is a favourite verse of mine, but I doubt very much that Paul was making a scientific statement when he said "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities... have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made". Do you really think he was referring to Irreducible Complexity or Specified Complexity or some other form of Intelligent Design mumbo-jumbo? I seriously doubt it. I think he was speaking of the same awe-inspiring experience we've all come to appreciate when we observe the sun set or look up at the stars at night. That's not the kind of experience you can measure with science.

To admit that one is being genuinely scientific” to postulate the possibility of a human potter is to admit that it is scientific to postulate the possibility of an intelligent designer of the natural realm. Conversely, if you claim that intelligent design is unscientific, then consistency would dictate that it is equally unscientific to postulate a human being as the designer of ordinary pottery.

Not at all. Because as I've mentioned before, and as you've failed to address, we know a priori how pots are made and who makes them. The same is not true of life.

You claim that one difference between a pot and an organism is mutation, and by this you evidently mean random mutation. But can you really prove that it is random? Can you really prove that the mutations are not the work of a providential hand?

Here's the point: I cannot prove that seemingly random mutations are not the work of a providential hand. Nor can I prove that they are the work of a providential hand. So believing that God has a hand in the mutations that bring about variation is just that: a belief. It does not stem from science, which is why science doesn't consider the hand of God as having any explanatory power. You're just proving my point.

In other words the specific list of invaders that it deems harmful and therefore attacks is subject to change within a single lifetime, because it intelligently REMEMBERS the current list. What we have here, then, is a supposedly “biological” process – arguably driven by an intelligence! Wikipedia states of the immune system, “Throughout the lifetime of an animal these memory cells will “remember” each specific pathogen encountered, and are able to mount a strong response if the pathogen is detected again.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunity_%28medical%29

Cell memory is no mystery, so you cannot chalk it up to some supernatural intelligence that God has blessed B and T cells with. Cell memory operates according to the predictable laws of nature. Honestly, pick up a biology textbook and read a chapter about vaccinations and immunity.

 

[JAL]

First, we should note that the pioneering scientists were all theists; furthermore, none of them ever had to invoke a deus ex machina in their physical theory. One can hardly accuse Newton of having an antitheist "scientific agenda"!

Two VERY annoying elements of this argument. First of all it PRETENDS to refute me by addressing an argument that was NOT my argument – in fact I explicitly STATED that was not my argument. I stated that I was NOT arguing that evolutionary science denies theism. Secondly, your claim that pioneering scientists such as Newton did not have an anti-theistic agenda is extremely misleading, for it is a fact well documented that they DID have an anti-supernaturalistic agenda (though not an anti-theistic one). It is well documented, for instance, that Descartes, the father of modern mathematics and arguably the father of modern science, advanced blatantly circular arguments intended to divest nature of all suspected supernatural forces and agencies. So determined was he in this effort that he denied that animals are living beings, he claimed they are purely mechanistic devices which have no soul or consciousness and feel no pain. Anyone who has owned a pet for any length of time should realize immediately that this is the very PINNACLE of intellectual dishonesty implemented as an impetus to a scientific agenda.

Secondly, I think we should lecture you on how useful evolution is. For example: Knowledge of evolutionary relationships or phylogeny allows for effective predictions about the unstudied characteristics of species. These include the presence and biological activity of an organism's venoms. To date, most venom bioprospecting has focused on snakes, resulting in six stroke and cancer treatment drugs that are nearing U.S. Food and Drug Administration review. Fishes, however, with thousands of venoms, represent an untapped resource of natural products. The first step involved in the efficient bioprospecting of these compounds is a phylogeny of venomous fishes. Here, we show the results of such an analysis and provide the first explicit suborder-level phylogeny for spiny-rayed fishes. The results, based on

1.1 million aligned base pairs, suggest that, in contrast to previous estimates of 200 venomous fishes, >1,200 fishes in 12 clades should be presumed venomous. This assertion was corroborated by a detailed anatomical study examining potentially venomous structures in >100 species. The results of these studies not only alter our view of the diversity of venomous fishes, now representing >50% of venomous vertebrates, but also provide the predictive phylogeny or "road map" for the efficient search for potential pharmacological agents or physiological tools from the unexplored fish venoms.
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/97/3/206 (emphases added)

I don't know about you, but a roadmap for finding potential drugs sounds pretty important to me.

Already addressed, and also misleading. The presumption of large-scale – even small-scale – evolution is not necessary to reach such conclusions. Advances in the various areas of science are hardly dependent on whether or not we presume an ape to lie somewhere in human ancestry. Useful studies in biology, genetics, and other areas can be conducted without this presumption. Another problem with your reply is that, here too, you seem to be replying to an argument I haven’t advanced (how convenient) - and thus a strawman. It is as though I had stated, “Evolutionary theory has no plausibility, nor is it scientific or useful.” That wasn’t my argument. Rather it was, “The attempt to dismiss creationism as an unscientific theory is methodologically self-contradictory because the very notion of a human being is just as supernatural as intelligent design theory.” Even animals betray a degree of free will and thus a supernatural element in their behavior.

I like how you tried to discount evolution, though, and it bears repeating:
Evidence for a common ancestor is not conclusive because God may have creationally applied genetic templates in ways that SEEM evolutionary.
So, in other words, nature for all scientific intents and purposes looks evolutionary, even if it might not be?

Yes, to a person who is reading the evidence with tainted spectacles (a warped doctrine of God), the evidence might SEEM to favor evolution. For more details, read post# 338 on this thread:
http://foru.ms/t6268865&page=2

Next you attempt to debunk a THIRD argument which I did NOT advance (is anyone else seeing a pattern here?) You attempt to debunk creation ex nihilo which is NOT what was I defending. I was talking about the manipulation of matter (by the supernatural force of free will, for example the possibility of divine intervention in speciation, altering the DNA. You argue:

Suppose you came to my house and saw a new chair. "Wow, that's a nice chair! When did you buy it?" you ask.

"I didn't buy it. I went to sleep last night and when I woke up, it appeared in my living room!" ……

Yes you see the chair, which is evidence of design, and hence you postulate that I as, the homedesigner, purposed to strategically and aesthetically position it within my home. Yes your reasoning here is very much in support of intelligent design.

You continue:

At this point, there is no evidence by which I can distinguish between T1 (I bought the chair) and T2 (the chair poofed into existence)…I hope the point is clear. Science is about falsifiable theories.

When a scientist sees a pot, he postulates that a hand formed and shaped it. How is this scientific theory falsifiable? And how can it be proven? He draws a conclusion based on what seems probable to him – and the creationist does the same thing.

Theory A: A scientific phenomenon explains the evidence we have.
Theory L: Loki left all the evidence supernaturally….

In real life, nobody lives on Loki hypotheses…I might believe, for example, that there isn't actually something wrong with my car: when I turn the key, Loki prevents my engines from starting. Nobody actually believes that in real life, hence mechanics still earn a living. And so on and so forth. Really, nobody lives their lives without naturalism. Isn't it hypocritical to pay your naturalist mechanics for espousing naturalism in what they do, and then turn and lambast your naturalist scientists for espousing naturalism in what they do?

You are making probability-arguments based on EXPERIENCE. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as we are not excessively dogmatic (and so long as we candidly admit the supernatural elements and intelligent design involved therein) . I am not 4 billion years old. Large-scale evolution makes long-term projections that have NOT been experienced. Hence the probability is orders of magnitude lower. Therefore we must be orders of magnitude less dogmatic in our assertions. Heck, the courts aren’t even sure “whodunit” last week much less what happened a million years ago. The problem is that science books express evolutionary theory in a fully dogmatic tone.

Now, JAL, you yourself acknowledge that evolutionary patterns permeate life.

I am willing to concede small-scale evolution as a reasonable conclusion – though tentative - suggestive that the Intelligent Designer built adaptability into His creatures. I am also open to the possibility that Intelligent Design is the driving force even behind small-scale evolutions.

If intelligent design does not make falsifiable predictions that are distinct from evolution, what scientific good does it do anybody?

Remember, scientific theories have “evolved” (pardon the pun). It is not as though the scientific theories of today are those advanced yesterday. In the same way, creationistic theories should be subject to revision. If we put a little thought into it – a little revision – there is no reason why we can’t come up with creationistic theories equally falsifiable, as I proposed on the other thread. Consider the following two theories.
(1)Is the available empirical data consistent with evolutionary theory?
(2)Is the available empirical data consistent with a Creator who manipulates DNA in ways that SEEM evolutionary?
These two theories would be evaluated by the same sort of tests because they address the same question, namely, does the empirical data seem to follow transitional patterns, REGARDLESS of whether the cause of the transition (mutuation) is the hand of God or random changes/chance? Since the two theories involve the same sorts of tests, they must be regarded as equally falsifiable.

 

[JAL]

So, you come up with this wacky, untestable idea that the reason why I can walk is because God is magically pushing me from behind, and then accuse everyone who disagree's with you "intellectually dishonest"? Boy, you've really shown your true colours here.

THAT is how you read me? Could re-read the opening post please? If I were arguing that God pushes the human body, how could humans be blamed for murder? That’s absurd – and certainly was not my argument. No the argument is that the human hand is, in essence, SELF-propelling. The sheer exertion of free will moves the human hand as to, for example, stab someone as an act of murder. (This is not to deny that muscular energy contributes to the motion, but free will is the decisive force in that motion, otherwise we couldn’t blame someone for murder). The argument is simple and, as far as I can see, irrefutable.

Not at all. Romans 1:20 is a favourite verse of mine, but I doubt very much that Paul was making a scientific statement when he said "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities... have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made". Do you really think he was referring to Irreducible Complexity or Specified Complexity or some other form of Intelligent Design mumbo-jumbo? I seriously doubt it. I think he was speaking of the same awe-inspiring experience we've all come to appreciate when we observe the sun set or look up at the stars at night. That's not the kind of experience you can measure with science.

Your attempt to dissociate intelligent design from this passage isn’t convincing. The force of this passage (and others) is so strong that, historically, only a few theologians (probably fewer than my fingers) have even TRIED to object to the doctrine of General Revelation, the doctrine that all men inevitably posit the existence of the Intelligent Designer in virtue of the way that God designed their minds and the world around them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_revelation


Again, Paul’s words, which you cited, were these: "Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities... have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made".

To begin with, notice how Paul begins the argument, “Since the CREATION of the world” (note he didn’t say, since the EVOLUTION of the natural order). He then goes on to say that God’s existence is clearly manifest from that creation. How is it manifest? Does one conclude, “Look at all this wondrous nature. Must be that God evolved it!” No. Paul is talking about a revelation plain to all men in all generations, prior to the theory of evolution. CLEARLY, what Paul is saying is that the human reaction is, “Look at all this wondrous nature. There must be a CREATOR” – and his usage of the term “creation” is evidentiary to this point. Therefore this one passage is, in itself, sufficient biblical warrant for rejecting the theory of evolution out of hand. At the very least, it lends substantive support to the watchmaker argument. Your silly attempt to deprecate the value of this passage in the debate clearly proceeds from the bias of a preconceived scientific agenda, it is not a fair, evenhanded treatment of the passage.

Not at all. Because as I've mentioned before, and as you've failed to address, we know a priori how pots are made and who makes them. The same is not true of life.

We don’t KNOW the origin of a pot. We really don’t know much of anything (see my signature). We typically form opinions based on probabilities, in turn based on experience. When that experience is lacking (as with large scale evolution) – when we cannot witness the events firsthand, in this case for lack of lifespan longevity – the probability declines. Hence excessive dogmatism is inappropriate.

Here's the point: I cannot prove that seemingly random mutations are not the work of a providential hand. Nor can I prove that they are the work of a providential hand. So believing that God has a hand in the mutations that bring about variation is just that: a belief. It does not stem from science, which is why science doesn't consider the hand of God as having any explanatory power.

Again, science often deals with probabilities, not only with proofs. And as for explanatory power, again, what are we trying to prove? A dubious conclusion of dubious value. That’s why I stated in the OP, consider the following two statements:
(1)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Water boils raised to a certain temperature.
(2)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Somewhere in my ancestry lies an ape.
On a daily basis, water is very useful. On a daily basis, proposition #2 is USELESS. It is a dubious conclusion of dubious value. Hence there is no NEED to be excessively dogmatic about it.

Cell memory is no mystery, so you cannot chalk it up to some supernatural intelligence that God has blessed B and T cells with. Cell memory operates according to the predictable laws of nature. Honestly, pick up a biology textbook and read a chapter about vaccinations and immunity.

No. It’s not immediately clear that the concept of “cell memory” is reducible to mechanistic explanations (although scientists have so brainwashed you to believe). For one thing, the idea that cerebral memory is purely mechanistic was effectively debunked by Merleau Ponty in his most most famous book, “The Phenomenology of Perception.” Indeed, to presume that cell memory is purely mechanistic is as naive as presuming that mechanism explains human motility – a common presumption among science-minded people like yourself which I EASILY debunked in the OP.

Fact is, it is difficult to speak of “memory” without reference to “consciousness” and, as I showed in the OP, consciousness supernaturally transcends ordinary mechanism.

 

[JAL]

You presented no logic so what do you expect? You made an odd claim and expect it to stand without any supporting evidence or logic. How is the agency of free-will a supernatural force? Is this some form of easten mysticism?

Free will isn't supernatural? Ok, open your physics book and tell me which of the natural forces therein are responsible for human motility. Pick anyone you like. Let's suppose that you say, "It's gravity. That's the natural force responsible for human motility."

Well, in that case I am not to be blamed for murdering someone. Is it my fault gravity is in place? It is it my fault that it moved my body?

Pick any natural force - and I'll use the same argument against it. Therefore, since free will is evidently NOT one of these natural forces, it is best characterized as a supernatural force.

The argument you presented is that the supernatural should be included in science, how do we test the supernatural?

The supernatural is ALREADY included in science. The human body is a supernatural phenomenon, as I have shown. I am only asking for logical consistency, but all you want is dogmatism, apparently.

As for testtability, we approach the issue the same way we approach the pot, for which we postulate an intelligent designer as a possible theory of origins.

 

[JAL]

"Humans are complex, therefore God" is a logical fallacy. It's an appeal to ignorance.

That's like calling it a logical fallacy to state, "The pot is complex, therefore an intelligent human designer."

It's not a question of fallacy, but of probability and plausibility. Like it or not, the complexity of human beings DOES increase the probability and plausibility of creationism. This in itself doesn't "prove" the theory, but nor have we "proven" the theory of evolution. Is the theory of evolution therefore "a logical fallacy"? I would never stoop to that kind of argument - not intentionally anyway - because it is pretty much empty rhetoric. ANY argument can be called a logical fallacy if the conclusion isn't apodictic.

So stop making fake arguments (empty rhetoric) , and stick to some real ones?

 

[JAL]

I won't disagree with you about the existence of a soul, but again, that's not a scientific concept. It's a spiritual one. If you disagree, I would like to know how you might test for the existence of a soul. Can you measure it somehow?

Science-minded people love to keep using the word "measure" in this sort of debate in false pretense that it proves their point. "If you can't measure it, it is not science." Hence they spew out this term in all kinds of inappropriate contexts to cloud the debate in a sort of fog of ambiguity.

Again, science isn't always about proofs, and it isn't always about measurements. It's often about probabilities. A theory should be considered scientific if it has some probability (plausibility) based on the empirical evidence at hand. For example, as early as 500 B.C. the Greeks formulated atomic theory - a theory that matter consists of clusters of small particles which could not be further subdivided into smaller particles. They theorized that two forces – a force of attraction and a force of repulsion (what we might call nuclear forces) - are responsible for how the matter around us is presently clustered. At that time, they had no ability to “measure” these forces, nor the instrumentation to isolate, identify, detect such a particle or “measure” its weight. But this does not make the theory unscientific.


Again, let’s go back to the pot. What the heck do you want to me “measure”? What do I have to “measure” before postulating an intelligent designer of that pot? Must I first find THE individual who made THAT PARTICULAR POT and measure his weight? Until then, is it unscientific for me to postulate an intelligent designer? How absurd. Yet you keep spewing out this fake argument that “What cannot be measured is not science.”

Or again, consider an apparently alien spaceship. Do I have to be able to “see” and “measure” the alien before the theory of a possible alien becomes “truly scientific”? How absurd.

 

[shernren]

Two VERY annoying elements of this argument. First of all it PRETENDS to refute me by addressing an argument that was NOT my argument – in fact I explicitly STATED that was not my argument. I stated that I was NOT arguing that evolutionary science denies theism. Secondly, your claim that pioneering scientists such as Newton did not have an anti-theistic agenda is extremely misleading, for it is a fact well documented that they DID have an anti-supernaturalistic agenda (though not an anti-theistic one). It is well documented, for instance, that Descartes, the father of modern mathematics and arguably the father of modern science, advanced blatantly circular arguments intended to divest nature of all suspected supernatural forces and agencies. So determined was he in this effort that he denied that animals are living beings, he claimed they are purely mechanistic devices which have no soul or consciousness and feel no pain. Anyone who has owned a pet for any length of time should realize immediately that this is the very PINNACLE of intellectual dishonesty implemented as an impetus to a scientific agenda.

Already addressed, and also misleading. The presumption of large-scale – even small-scale – evolution is not necessary to reach such conclusions. Advances in the various areas of science are hardly dependent on whether or not we presume an ape to lie somewhere in human ancestry. Useful studies in biology, genetics, and other areas can be conducted without this presumption. Another problem with your reply is that, here too, you seem to be replying to an argument I haven’t advanced (how convenient) - and thus a strawman. It is as though I had stated, “Evolutionary theory has no plausibility, nor is it scientific or useful.” That wasn’t my argument. Rather it was, “The attempt to dismiss creationism as an unscientific theory is methodologically self-contradictory because the very notion of a human being is just as supernatural as intelligent design theory.” Even animals betray a degree of free will and thus a supernatural element in their behavior.

Yes, to a person who is reading the evidence with tainted spectacles (a warped doctrine of God), the evidence might SEEM to favor evolution. For more details, read post# 338 on this thread:
http://foru.ms/t6268865&page=2

Next you attempt to debunk a THIRD argument which I did NOT advance (is anyone else seeing a pattern here?) You attempt to debunk creation ex nihilo which is NOT what was I defending. I was talking about the manipulation of matter (by the supernatural force of free will, for example the possibility of divine intervention in speciation, altering the DNA. You argue:

I'm sorry, but the title of your thread is "Is fully secularized science an intellectual dishonesty?", and not "I think humans are supernatural, therefore they did not evolve". You can hardly fault me for not answering your OP when your OP itself has nothing to do with the title of your thread!

Anyway.

Yes you see the chair, which is evidence of design, and hence you postulate that I as, the homedesigner, purposed to strategically and aesthetically position it within my home. Yes your reasoning here is very much in support of intelligent design.

When a scientist sees a pot, he postulates that a hand formed and shaped it. How is this scientific theory falsifiable? And how can it be proven? He draws a conclusion based on what seems probable to him – and the creationist does the same thing.

You are making probability-arguments based on EXPERIENCE. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as we are not excessively dogmatic (and so long as we candidly admit the supernatural elements and intelligent design involved therein) . I am not 4 billion years old. Large-scale evolution makes long-term projections that have NOT been experienced. Hence the probability is orders of magnitude lower. Therefore we must be orders of magnitude less dogmatic in our assertions. Heck, the courts aren’t even sure “whodunit” last week much less what happened a million years ago. The problem is that science books express evolutionary theory in a fully dogmatic tone.

Only because I have seen other homeowners do it before. The hypothesis of human design for humanly-designed objects is reasonable because we have seen humans design such objects before. We know what pots look like, and we know what different civilizations' pots looked like; therefore we can reasonably tell what is designed and what is. As it is, "design" is not always obvious; for example, is this designed?

Only if you know that plenty of Mesolithic flint blades like these have been discovered. But have you ever seen the Intelligent Designer design life before? Do you know what his design criteria are? What were his creative constraints? Scientists can say something about the raw material available to a civilization, about its cultural influences and aesthetic preferences. Do you know what the Intelligent Designer's favorite color is?

In fact, I have never seen an example of a unified intelligent design that incorporates multiple nested hierarchies. Life manifests the objective twin nested hierarchies of morphology and genetics. However, human designers never design multiple objects in objective nested hierarchies; there is always provision for macroscopic swappable modules, etc. Human designers incorporate multiple redundant backups for mission-critical systems in multi-system objects; the last time I checked, humans have one heart, one brain, and one liver, and most cells have only one nucleus.

We can duke out design preferences all day long: for everything you show me in life that looks designed, I can show you characteristics that don't look anything like anything humans ever designed.

I am willing to concede small-scale evolution as a reasonable conclusion – though tentative - suggestive that the Intelligent Designer built adaptability into His creatures. I am also open to the possibility that Intelligent Design is the driving force even behind small-scale evolutions.

Well, human evolution is pretty small-scale. We share more than 90% of our genome with chimps; the best estimate of our speciation is only a few million years ago. That's less than 1% of our planet's lifetime thus far.

Remember, scientific theories have “evolved” (pardon the pun). It is not as though the scientific theories of today are those advanced yesterday. In the same way, creationistic theories should be subject to revision. If we put a little thought into it – a little revision – there is no reason why we can’t come up with creationistic theories equally falsifiable, as I proposed on the other thread. Consider the following two theories.
(1)Is the available empirical data consistent with evolutionary theory?
(2)Is the available empirical data consistent with a Creator who manipulates DNA in ways that SEEM evolutionary?
These two theories would be evaluated by the same sort of tests because they address the same question, namely, does the empirical data seem to follow transitional patterns, REGARDLESS of whether the cause of the transition (mutuation) is the hand of God or random changes/chance? Since the two theories involve the same sorts of tests, they must be regarded as equally falsifiable.

Is that what you really want included in textbooks? "Life was actually intelligently designed to look like it had evolved"?

 

[Mallon]

Not sure why I'm arguing with you anymore, JAL. So far you've admitted to being a dummy, claimed that science is in the business of providing proof (it's not), implied that a theory's scientific merit is derived from how useful you find it on a daily basis (it's not), confused facts and theories (water boils at 100 degrees = fact, common ancestry = theory), implied that most scientists are brainwashed (we're not), and ascribed human attributes to T cells. These aren't the words a man familiar with science or the philosophy of science. You can deny evolutionary theory all you want, and push for the scientific acceptance of ID 'til you're blue in the face (in spite of Dover), but I doubt it will change anything. Evolutionary theory is still winning out. In the eyes of science, your arguments make little more sense than those espoused by these folks (and I don't waste my time debating them).

 

[sfs]

That's like calling it a logical fallacy to state, "The pot is complex, therefore an intelligent human designer."

Right. That's because that's also a fallacious argument.

It's not a question of fallacy, but of probability and plausibility. Like it or not, the complexity of human beings DOES increase the probability and plausibility of creationism.

Well, I'll like it if it's true, but I'm not about to take your word for it. Please present your calculations of the relevant probabilities.

 

[sfs]

Free will isn't supernatural? Ok, open your physics book and tell me which of the natural forces therein are responsible for human motility. Pick anyone you like. Let's suppose that you say, "It's gravity. That's the natural force responsible for human motility."

Well, in that case I am not to be blamed for murdering someone. Is it my fault gravity is in place? It is it my fault that it moved my body?

Pick any natural force - and I'll use the same argument against it. Therefore, since free will is evidently NOT one of these natural forces, it is best characterized as a supernatural force.

I'm afraid you haven't actually demonstrated anything here, except possibly the uselessness of the word "supernatural". Human motility is caused by chemical energy driving myosin in muscle fibers. Muscles move in response to nerve impulses from the brain (mostly). Those nerve impulses arise out of a complex set of other nerve impulses which are determined physically by the structure of the brain in question, its exact physical state, and various inputs from the external environment (with possibly a bit of quantum indeterminacy thrown in). As far as has been determined so far, all of it proceeds in accordance with the laws of physics quite nicely, and requires no supernatural input, at least in any conventional sense of "supernatural".

 

[sfs]

Suppose that the only force moving my hand upward were the muscular energy resulting from the metabolism of food. In this case you could only blame my last meal, you could not rightly blame me or be angry with ME. See the point?

No, I don't see your point. We can blame anyone or anything we like for anything, or for nothing. I frequently blame my computer for fouling things up, even though it is clearly a deterministic machine. There's not a lot of use in blaming a computer, however -- but there is quite a bit of use in blaming a human, since computers simply ignore blame, while humans are wired or trained to care about such things.

 

[sfs]

And as for explanatory power, again, what are we trying to prove? A dubious conclusion of dubious value. That’s why I stated in the OP, consider the following two statements:
(1)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Water boils raised to a certain temperature.
(2)[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Somewhere in my ancestry lies an ape.
On a daily basis, water is very useful. On a daily basis, proposition #2 is USELESS.

Rubbish. Please don't pontificate about things you don't understand. Proposition #2 is highly useful, and I use it (and related variants of it) pretty much every day in my work. Just because you don't do genetics is no reason to pretend it doesn't exist.

(Responding to another post of yours, yes, I could also do my work by assuming that evolution didn't really happen, but that everything in biology looks exactly as though it had. Similarly, I could also cook spaghetti by assuming that water doesn't really boil when raised to a certain temperature, but only acts like it does because it is intelligent and is pretending. I could make many such similar assumptions, but they all strike me as completely insane. If everything in nature looks like life evolved, then the simplest and best reason is that it did evolve. It's certainly the only scientific conclusion.)

It is a dubious conclusion of dubious value. Hence there is no NEED to be excessively dogmatic about it.

I'm not dogmatic about it. The evidence for common descent is overwhelming, but could all have been faked by a sufficiently devious and powerful intelligence -- no question about that. And if that's what you want to believe, by all means do so. I just object to all of the people who tell me that the evidence isn't strong, or who pretend there is some better explanation (better than "rigged to look exactly like evolution") available.

 

[gluadys]

Science-minded people love to keep using the word "measure" in this sort of debate in false pretense that it proves their point. "If you can't measure it, it is not science." Hence they spew out this term in all kinds of inappropriate contexts to cloud the debate in a sort of fog of ambiguity.

Again, science isn't always about proofs, and it isn't always about measurements. It's often about probabilities.

Probabilities are measurements.

 

[JAL]

I'm sorry, but the title of your thread is "Is fully secularized science an intellectual dishonesty?", and not "I think humans are supernatural, therefore they did not evolve". You can hardly fault me for not answering your OP when your OP itself has nothing to do with the title of your thread!

The title of my OP has nothing do with the OP?

The title involved the secularization of science, by which I mean the attempt to divest it of the supernatural. I then argued that this cannot be done, because human beings are themselves supernatural. By what distorted logic could you possibly conclude that there is no connection between the title and the content?

 

[JAL]

Not sure why I'm arguing with you anymore, JAL. So far you've admitted to being a dummy, claimed that science is in the business of providing proof (it's not), implied that a theory's scientific merit is derived from how useful you find it on a daily basis (it's not), confused facts and theories (water boils at 100 degrees = fact, common ancestry = theory), implied that most scientists are brainwashed (we're not), and ascribed human attributes to T cells. These aren't the words a man familiar with science or the philosophy of science. You can deny evolutionary theory all you want, and push for the scientific acceptance of ID 'til you're blue in the face (in spite of Dover), but I doubt it will change anything. Evolutionary theory is still winning out. In the eyes of science, your arguments make little more sense than those espoused by these folks (and I don't waste my time debating them).

Sorry Mallory, but if my calling myself a dummy is ground for dismissing my claims, you should at least be able to demonstrate the abiility to understand my simplistic arguments. Problem is, your last post was such a blatant misunderstanding of my position (I honestly can't believe you read me as stating that God pushes the human body), that I cannot take this dismissal seriously.

How can I take seriously your dismissing my conclusions if you cannot demonstrate any ability to understand my simplistic arguments?

 

[JAL]

Only because I have seen other homeowners do it before. The hypothesis of human design for humanly-designed objects is reasonable because we have seen humans design such objects before. We know what pots look like, and we know what different civilizations' pots looked like; therefore we can reasonably tell what is designed and what is. As it is, "design" is not always obvious; for example, is this designed?

Let me just repeat what you said. “DESIGN IS NOT ALWAYS OBVIOUS.” This statement does just as much to refute evolutionary dogmatism as to support it. If design is not always obvious, then we cannot dogmatically insist, “Based on the empirical evidence, speciation is obviously not a work of design.” I for one don’t PRESUME either creation or evolution. I have formed an opinion, but I am not excessively dogmatic in that opinion, for it would be intellectually dishonest for me to presume to know the truth of origins in light of the evidence available to both sides of the debate.

But have you ever seen the Intelligent Designer design life before?

Again, if I traveled to some distant planet and found some device evidently not of human origin, I would postulate the potter (alien intelligent life) as a high probability, REGARDLESS of whether I had actually SEEN the alien, or seen HOW the alien designed it.

Is that what you really want included in textbooks? "Life was actually intelligently designed to look like it had evolved"?

What I want to see in the textbooks is intellectual honesty. When a textbook, for example, posits gravity in a dogmatic fashion – even when the very inventor of the theory, Isaac Newton, admitted it to be absurd - this is intellectual dishonesty. In the same way, when the authors pretend to KNOW that the only factor in natural origins is evolution (and thereby the exclude the possibility of intelligent design) this is intellectual dishonesty.

Guess what (see my signature), I don’t even pretend to KNOW that Jesus is Lord. That is my opinion, I hold to it, but it would be intellectually dishonest for me to be excessively dogmatic about it.


Fact is, the watchmaker argument is plausible because the human body has much in common with modern machines. It has a very complex cooling system, fuel intake system, a fuel combustion system, a water pump, an air-intake system – all of which are EXCEEDINGLY more complex than an automobile or a watch. To reply (as Mallory did), “But there are differences between pots and biological life, because biological life reproduces” only ADDS to the complexity of that machinery. I would be very impressed by a computer which builds other computers , for example, and thus would be even MORE inclined to postulate a designer. Is such a watchmaker argument fully probative? I don’t believe so, but it’s pretty damn plausible – deny it all you want if it makes you feel better.

 

[JAL]

I'm afraid you haven't actually demonstrated anything here, except possibly the uselessness of the word "supernatural". Human motility is caused by chemical energy driving myosin in muscle fibers. Muscles move in response to nerve impulses from the brain (mostly). Those nerve impulses arise out of a complex set of other nerve impulses which are determined physically by the structure of the brain in question, its exact physical state, and various inputs from the external environment (with possibly a bit of quantum indeterminacy thrown in). As far as has been determined so far, all of it proceeds in accordance with the laws of physics quite nicely, and requires no supernatural input, at least in any conventional sense of "supernatural".

If the decisive factor in human motility is the laws of physics, then there is no real culpability for murder. Hitler, therefore, was no outrage, his actions are not reprehensible, he is rather just a fine example of the laws of physics at work. There is no reason for us to consider his behavior morally repugnant. After all, he is not the one who put the laws of physics in place, right?

Oh, I GUESS we do have a morally culpable bing - God. Sicne it was God who put these laws in place - laws which you claim are responsible for Hitler's behavior - then evidently HE is the morally repugnant being that I was looking to blame.

Your position is absurd. It contradicts everything written in the Bible about divine goodness and human culpability - it litierally contradicts the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And it also contradicts how you would parent a child. Would you punish a child for laws of physics beyond his control? No. But would you punish a child for deliberate transgressions? Yes.