De novo genes and the "no new information" argument

[SelfSim]

If you define 'dead' as the permanent cessation of life, you can't 'come back' from the dead by definition ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Its kind of a creepy reality, but I reckon I'm getting more and more like my parents as I age.
Is that rebirth of a type of mindset?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Its kind of a creepy reality, but I reckon I'm getting more and more like my parents as I age.
Is that rebirth of a type of mindset?

I kind of agree - but for me it's an increasing recognition that, in the calmer waters beyond the turbulent years, I increasingly recognise my parents in my patterns of behaviour (including retrospectively). Whether I absorbed them at an early age, or they're genetic predispositions, or they're a mixture of the two, I don't know.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

I think there ought to be a third option for an event that occurs not in contradiction with physics. But is still abnormal and seemingly impossible due to a limited understanding of the limits in which physics may operate.

This being an event that if witnessed, we might guess that it defied physics based on our current understanding of physics, and we may call it a miracle, but in actuality, the event occured in conformance with physics in ways that we have yet to understand.

What if there was a way in which someone could actually come back from the dead for example. Though maybe the conditions have to be just right. Right in ways that we currently couldn't clearly define.

They're called "debunked miracles". Crying statues would be an example.

 

[FredVB]

I also mean the various forms of supernatural interference some believers propose, such as Satan & his minions, angels, etc.

Eyewitness testimony is one rung above hearsay, and so the second-lowest reliability of evidence - it gives us ghosts, alien visitations, mermaids, Loch Ness monster, big foot, etc., etc. Hearsay and recalled eyewitness testimony is further subject to unconscious biases, distortion, embellishment, exaggeration, etc.

As I said before, you can claim literally anything you can imagine as a creator and religions throughout history have indeed managed a wide variety of creation claims or myths. There's as much evidence to support any one of them as any other, i.e. ziltch, nada, none, and they're all special pleading that their creators don't need a beginning or a creator themselves.

Alternatively, you can simply admit that we don't know how it all started and it might just be that there's always been stuff...

In speaking of there being necessarily the Creator, I am not making an argument in that for which religion is right. There is the great basis that there is the Creator of the existence we know. Any religion with their god is still having that basis there is the Creator. From this, almost any god might be that, it would be up to taking a good critical look at any for concluding which one is it.

If we do not know how this all started that does not explain how there could not be the Creator. Necessary existence has to be the explanation. Stuff we find is not that.

Why is there a basis to believe those? What is the basis?

Testimony, but no real evidence?

"According to the Innocence Project , 358 people who had been convicted and sentenced to death since 1989 have been exonerated through DNA evidence. Of these, 71% had been convicted through eyewitness misidentification and had served an average of 14 years in prison before exoneration."

Now, tie that testimony up with religious fervor and peer pressure, and you've got something that nobody should accept at face value.

We can see how this fervor and peer pressure can make even those most pious change their story - their testimony - over time to prop up the claim of a 'miracle' which they had not offered initially.

So from what you all say basis for court decisions should never be trusted. Right? If so I will want to hold you to that.

Yes miracles can be faked, and must have been faked in instances. I think more of the resurrection of Christ for such a miracle, with an empty tomb left, and many witnessing him risen, as he had said he would be when that was not believed before, and many putting their lives on the line, independently from one another saying they know they had seen him appearing to them, in the environment hostile to them.

With so much to that I could not dismiss it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... From this, almost any god might be that, it would be up to taking a good critical look at any for concluding which one is it.

So how would you go about doing that? On what grounds would you base your critical look and come to a conclusion?

If we do not know how this all started that does not explain how there could not be the Creator. Necessary existence has to be the explanation. Stuff we find is not that.

Nor does it explain how there could be a creator. If 'necessary existence' is meaningful, the only thing we know that necessarily exists is the universe itself.

 

[inquiring mind]

From this, almost any god might be that, it would be up to taking a good critical look at any for concluding which one is it.

So how would you go about doing that? On what grounds would you base your critical look and come to a conclusion?

In a sense, the same way you base yours… speculation. Yes, speculation. Non-spiritually speaking we know nothing about God or His ways and processes, beyond our inspired, heartfelt speculation. For example, you reason that dust and debris circling the sun eventually came together to form the earth ‘on its own’ because randomness is the limit of your understanding and is all you want to consider, and so you speculate it is so. The physical possibility of such a process makes sense, but the difference in our speculation is that it is not random, and that as it is often said, God did it or influenced it. And so we conclude, but you can’t prove it was random and we can’t prove that God did it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

In a sense, the same way you base yours… speculation. Yes, speculation. Non-spiritually speaking we know nothing about God or His ways and processes, beyond our inspired, heartfelt speculation. For example, you reason that dust and debris circling the sun eventually came together to form the earth ‘on its own’ because randomness is the limit of your understanding and is all you want to consider, and so you speculate it is so. The physical possibility of such a process makes sense, but the difference in our speculation is that it is not random, and that as it is often said, God did it or influenced it. And so we conclude, but you can’t prove it was random and we can’t prove that God did it.

Speculations are no grounds on which to draw conclusions.

I think you misrepresent the scientific position. The process of planetary formation is not random. We reason that dust and debris circling the sun eventually came together to form the Earth because we have well-tested laws of physics that describe how matter behaves at those scales. Initially, the proposal was entirely theoretical, and we developed model simulations that show how planets form from protoplanetary disks that broadly corresponded to our observations of the solar system. Subsequently, we discovered examples of planets forming elsewhere in the cosmos that matched our theoretical understanding and the simulations, providing evidential support for them.

The evidence we have indicates that gas and dust and the laws of physics are sufficient to account for planets like Earth. OTOH we have no evidence whatsoever that a God of gods exist outside of human imagination, and plenty of evidence that humans are predisposed to invent fanciful origin stories, particularly, but not restricted to, stories involving anthropomorphic deities.

Proof is strictly reserved for formal systems like logic and mathematics. Science works to abductive criteria for explanations, where 'beyond reasonable doubt' is generally as good as it gets.

 

[inquiring mind]

Speculations are no grounds on which to draw conclusions.

I think you misrepresent the scientific position. The process of planetary formation is not random. We reason that dust and debris circling the sun eventually came together to form the Earth because we have well-tested laws of physics that describe how matter behaves at those scales. Initially, the proposal was entirely theoretical, and we developed model simulations that show how planets form from protoplanetary disks that broadly corresponded to our observations of the solar system. Subsequently, we discovered examples of planets forming elsewhere in the cosmos that matched our theoretical understanding and the simulations, providing evidential support for them.

The evidence we have indicates that gas and dust and the laws of physics are sufficient to account for planets like Earth. OTOH we have no evidence whatsoever that a God of gods exist outside of human imagination, and plenty of evidence that humans are predisposed to invent fanciful origin stories, particularly, but not restricted to, stories involving anthropomorphic deities.

Proof is strictly reserved for formal systems like logic and mathematics. Science works to abductive criteria for explanations, where 'beyond reasonable doubt' is generally as good as it gets.

I said the theory (process) made good sense. So, again, show us where God had no part in it, or that randomness is conclusive.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I said the theory (process) made good sense. So, again, show us where God had no part in it, or that randomness is conclusive.

I don't need to. Matter, energy, and the laws of physics are sufficient.

It's just a question of parsimony and evidence. Why propose an unnecessary and unknown influence - particularly one for which there is no evidence whatsoever? You can propose a god, or magic, or aliens from another dimension, or some motivational teleology and agency of matter itself - all equally without evidence... and all unnecessary.

 

[inquiring mind]

I don't need to. Matter, energy, and the laws of physics are sufficient.

It's just a question of parsimony and evidence. Why propose an unnecessary influence - particularly one for which there is no evidence whatsoever? You can propose a god, or magic, or aliens from another dimension, or some motivational teleology and agency of matter itself - all equally without evidence... and all unnecessary.

Or, you can propose it randomly happened... but in regard to proof both are speculating (my point), regardless of the after-the-fact evidence in science.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Or, you can propose it randomly happened... but in regard to proof both are speculating (my point), regardless of the after-the-fact evidence in science.

You can propose what you like, but the evidence indicates that the Earth formed from existing matter under the influence of gravity and electrostatic forces.

All rational attempts to explain how things behave in the universe depend on after-the-fact evidence, i.e. observation. An important feature of scientific theories is that they are testable, i.e. they make predictions that can be tested. The science behind the formation of the Earth has been tested in numerous ways and at various scales and broadly corresponds with what we observe.

These scientific models are useful because they have explanatory and predictive power; i.e. they give us understanding and insight into the structure and behaviour of the planet, its history, and how we can expect it to behave, they have specificity and scope, as they also help unify the information we've gleaned about the planet in other ways, and so give us a more integrated understanding, they broadly answer more questions than they raise, and they are consistent with our existing body of knowledge. These are some of the characteristics of a good explanation.

OTOH, speculative hypotheses based on fanciful imaginings are not testable, have no explanatory or predictive power, have no specificity or scope, give us no new understandings or insights into the planet, don't help unify our knowledge with other related fields, raise more questions than they answer. They act more like labels covering a lack of knowledge and understanding. An 'explanation' that can explain anything at all is no explanation at all, and the inexplicable is not an explanation.

As usual at this point, I'll ask whether you can give any argument or provide any evidence that would make the 'God' hypothesis a better explanation, by reasonable criteria, than the 'Magic' hypothesis?

 

[inquiring mind]

You can propose what you like, but the evidence indicates that the Earth formed from existing matter under the influence of gravity and electrostatic forces.

Yes, appears that way. But, that it was random… nothing conclusive, only speculation.

All rational attempts to explain how things behave in the universe depend on after-the-fact evidence, i.e. observation. An important feature of scientific theories is that they are testable, i.e. they make predictions that can be tested. The science behind the formation of the Earth has been tested in numerous ways and at various scales and broadly corresponds with what we observe.

True, but has nothing to do with whether it was random… or not.

These scientific models are useful because they have explanatory and predictive power; i.e. they give us understanding and insight into the structure and behaviour of the planet, its history, and how we can expect it to behave, they have specificity and scope, as they also help unify the information we've gleaned about the planet in other ways, and so give us a more integrated understanding, they broadly answer more questions than they raise, and they are consistent with our existing body of knowledge. These are some of the characteristics of a good explanation.

True, but has nothing to do with whether it was random… or not.

OTOH, speculative hypotheses based on fanciful imaginings are not testable, have no explanatory or predictive power, have no specificity or scope, give us no new understandings or insights into the planet, don't help unify our knowledge with other related fields, raise more questions than they answer. They act more like labels covering a lack of knowledge and understanding. An 'explanation' that can explain anything at all is no explanation at all, and the inexplicable is not an explanation.

No, a speculative scientific hypotheses in regard to randomness vs. creation has nothing to do with the predictive power of the process thereafter.

As usual at this point, I'll ask whether you can give any argument or provide any evidence that would make the 'God' hypothesis a better explanation, by reasonable criteria, than the 'Magic' hypothesis?

And, as usual what argument do you have that would make any understanding we have regarding post existence conclude randomness… beyond scientific speculation of course.

 

[Estrid]

It would be a terrif help to creationists' understanding if they'd
drop " random" and "speculation" from use, that is misuse.

 

[inquiring mind]

It would be a terrif help to creationists' understanding if they'd
drop " random" and "speculation" from use, that is misuse.

Well, it seems more favorable than terms like 'accidently' and ' best guess.'

 

[Estrid]

Well, it seems more favorable than terms like 'accidently' and ' best guess.'

Not really.
I'm not trying to play a semantics game,
this something about very basic understanding.

 

[inquiring mind]

Not really.
I'm not trying to play a semantics game,
this something about very basic understanding.

Sorry, I don’t know how it could be any simpler. I’ve tried to draw a line between pre and post existence, agreed that the post-scientific theory on how the earth formed is reasonable. All I disagreed with is how it started. Even if the process is conclusive in post-existence, it cannot be extended backwards into pre-existence as randomly happening without speculation. I have also said that non-spiritually speaking (leaving faith out of it), neither can creation. God had a hand in the process that brought it all together, or He didn’t. My speculation is one way and yours is another. Science will not be able to answer that question for you. It’s actually pretty simple.

 

[Estrid]

Sorry, I don’t know how it could be any simpler. I’ve tried to draw a line between pre and post existence, agreed that the post-scientific theory on how the earth formed is reasonable. All I disagreed with is how it started. Even if the process is conclusive in post-existence, it cannot be extended backwards into pre-existence as randomly happening without speculation. I have also said that non-spiritually speaking (leaving faith out of it), neither can creation. God had a hand in the process that brought it all together, or He didn’t. My speculation is one way and yours is another. Science will not be able to answer that question for you. It’s actually pretty simple.

The grim spectre of "random" yet again.

 

[VirOptimus]

Sorry, I don’t know how it could be any simpler. I’ve tried to draw a line between pre and post existence, agreed that the post-scientific theory on how the earth formed is reasonable. All I disagreed with is how it started. Even if the process is conclusive in post-existence, it cannot be extended backwards into pre-existence as randomly happening without speculation. I have also said that non-spiritually speaking (leaving faith out of it), neither can creation. God had a hand in the process that brought it all together, or He didn’t. My speculation is one way and yours is another. Science will not be able to answer that question for you. It’s actually pretty simple.

Science doesnt deal with god(s).

 

[Estrid]

Science doesnt deal with god(s).

Would if there were evidence.

 

[VirOptimus]

Would if there were evidence.

No really, if god(s) where part of physical reality they wouldnt be god(s) any more. God(s) are per definition meta-physical.