Design...actual or not and why?

Oncedeceived · May 27, 2015

mnorian said:
+1000; You got it right here Once. People of this world wont even look at the evidence of God's great design for the physical world; so how can they be expected to look at the evidence for the spiritual world?

2 Corinthians 4:4New King James Version (NKJV)

4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

While I agree, I just want them to realize that they won't even support their own positions with evidence. They believe they have all this evidence but then when asked they just post links for a general view of evolution.

mnorian · May 27, 2015

Loudmouth said:
Before you accuse us of ignoring it, why don't you present it?

I'm not that kind of Christian:

Quote Bible. org:

"My personal opinion and practice is to avoid debates. Winning or losing tends to depend on the skillfulness of the debater, and not on the evidence. Paul speaks about avoiding the worldly "wisdom" and, in simplicity, preaching Christ (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). Paul depends upon the Holy Spirit to convict men of the truth (1 Corinthians 2). In 2 Corinthians 2:17 and 4:2 Paul speaks, once again, about avoiding worldly methods of communication. (Some, of course, would differ with me in my opinion that debating is a worldly/fleshly method.) "

Loudmouth · May 27, 2015

Oncedeceived said:
While I agree, I just want them to realize that they won't even support their own positions with evidence. They believe they have all this evidence but then when asked they just post links for a general view of evolution.

How are the nested hierarchies not evidence for evolution?

Oncedeceived · May 27, 2015

HitchSlap said:
You have previously admitted that I did not state what you claimed I did. Rather than ask for clarification, you made an assumption in error. I asked you to correct it. You did not. I reported your post.

Let me see here. I posted that you didn't say what you didn't say.

Oncedeceived said: ↑
I did...

You never said: "Which means that due to our evolutionary past we should expect and do see a mind that can't be reliable in making truth statements or recognizing the difference between true beliefs and false."

Then I asked for clarification:

Oncedeceived said: ↑
Did you not say that evolution has provided the ability of the mind to create myths?
HITCH SAID: Either show where I said this: "Which means that due to our evolutionary past we should expect and do see a mind that can't be reliable in making truth statements or recognizing the difference between true beliefs and false."

Or retract.

Which I did by saying you had not said that. And I asked for confirmation again:

ONCE SAID: What you said implied that their are beliefs that were created by the evolutionary model that provide false beliefs instilled within the mind. Is that not true?

Moving on.

Oncedeceived · May 27, 2015

Ok I will not be on here for at least three hours as I am returning home from being out of town.

SteveB28 · May 28, 2015

Interest

Oncedeceived said:
Yes, very simple and totally too simple.

You are lumping everything together and asserting nature did it. To see a pattern in the sand and equating it to the inner workings of the cell for instance is a category error.

Interesting. So perhaps you might correctly arrange the categories for me. Please give an example of something that is simple enough to be considered 'undesigned'. And then an example of something that is too complex to be considered 'undesigned'.

SteveB28 · May 28, 2015

Wha

SkyWriting said:
A watchmaker must be pretty motivated to build a watch. It takes time and patience.
What is motivating natural selection? What is motivating nature to do anything?
When I pull a weed in the garden, it quickly fades to nothing.
What is fighting my efforts?

What is motivating nature to build the Himalayas?

SteveB28 · May 28, 2015

And I ask one further question, Madam Oncedeceived :

You make a grand assumption - that your opponents agree that there is an appearance of design in nature. I see no such appearance. Can you convince me that there is such an appearance? Not the design itself, but how do you determine that there is an appearance of design?

DogmaHunter · May 28, 2015

Oncedeceived said:
I don't know what you would consider abundant. There are at least 26 of the constants of the universe that must be almost exactly as they are for life to exist on earth.

And a gazillion and 1 things had to happen which lead to the development of humans. Change any one of them and humans would have never existed.

Such hindsight is entirely unimpressive.
Obviously, we live in a universe that can sustain our type of life (and everything required for it). This is entirely unsurprising.

What would be surprising, is if we lived in a universe which could NOT sustain our type of life, but does so anyway.

Add to that the 100's of just right elements including distance from the sun, location in the galaxy, liquid water and so many other factors that are requirements for life on earth just to exist in the universe. WE then move to the requirements for life to even begin on earth which we still don't even understand let alone explain. The millions and millions of complex workings in cells and the mechanics of a life form can hardly be anything but abundant.
Here is just the workings of a single cell.

"Complexity" is also something that will not impress me.

The question: So my question to non-believers is what do you attribute that design to and why?

When did "appearance of design" become "actual design"?
There is no design to attribute to anything. There is an APPEARANCE of design. And I attribute that to our faulty intuition and, in case of living things, to evolution.

What evidence do you feel explains this obvious appearance of design?

Human psychology, biology, chemistry, physics,.......

Natural selection for the fine tuning of the universe?

You know very well that I was speaking of living things.

As far as in life, evolution then evolution is not specific enough, please be specific.

I didn't say "evolution then evolution". That's what you turned it into.
In living things, evolution is the explanation for why life looks and works the way it does.

The evidence for evolution is easy enough to find. You don't need me to point it out.
It's pointed out to you enough on these forums already. Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

What evidence do you feel explains the appearance of design in life forms?

Evidence doesn't explain things.
Theories explain things.
Evolution is the theory that explains why life looks the way it looks.
The evidence for that theory is so overwhelming that I really wonder how it is possible that we are having this conversation in the 21st century.

Explain?

Evolution by natural selection is a process that "molds" species to fit into their niche. It's a process that inevitably results in specialisation. It makes species better at what they do and more entrenched in their habitat.

Evolved creatures appear designed to us pattern-seeking homo sapiens, because this process leads to high specialisation.

Our intuition / psychology makes us draw that conclusion. This is just one of many instances where our intuition and psychology simply fails us.

JasonClark · May 28, 2015

Oncedeceived said:
While a life form fits into the environment as if it were designed to be there, it doesn't hit on the design I was speaking about. The universe and its fine tuning and the biological design of the parts of the organism as well as the organism itself are what I was describing.

Was the hole designed to fit the water in it or did the water just fill the hole that was there?

We are all here because we breath the gases that make up the air, all the people who were designed to breath other gases didn't make it so it's just us.

People who live in the high Andes (some even above 15,000 feet or 4,572 m.) have about 20 percent more blood than a lowlander. They have 60 percent more, by weight, of hemoglobin (which absorbs oxygen), and their red blood cells are larger, meaning a greater surface area for oxygen absorption.
How did that happen? were they designed to live in high mountains or did they evolve so they could live in high mountains?

DogmaHunter · May 28, 2015

Oncedeceived said:
As far as looking naturally evolved, you are looking back in time and explaining what you see.

...and testing it.
What else do you propose to do?
Read a bronze age book instead of actually studying reality?

Evolution may be claimed to explain "everything " without a Creator

Evolution explains biological diversity and that's it.

but that is a claim that is not substantiated

First and foremost, it's a claim I never made.

when there are things we simply don't know we can't assume anything about it.

There are many claims, that is why we seek truth. That we know there is truth is to admit the false exists.

Assertion.

Assertion?
No... fact.

Big bang theory, stellar formation theory, planetary formation theory, evolution theory, plate tectonic theory, atomic theory,....

All of this explains why the universe looks the way it does.
Does it explain everything? Off course not. There is plenty that we still don't know. Which is why we still train scientists and why scientists continue to study the universe and everything it contains.

That's the only way to achieve results. What else do you propose, if not scientific study?

What specifically are you citing? How do these theories show design is merely appearance and not actual?

Explain in evolutionary terms how we have rational minds?

??

I have no idea what this "in evolutionary terms" is supposed to mean.

Then explain exactly that, explain exactly how we exist as rational, intelligent beings that can comprehend the workings of the universe. How did consciousness arise exactly through evolutionary means.

What did I claim it was?

You claimed/implied that evolution theory can't explain why humans and/or intelligence exists. This is simply not true.

If we are a product of evolutionary processes are thought processes are determined by what was advantageous for our survival.

Yes. And we have a lot of psychological baggage because of that.
For example, humans are extremely prone to the cognitive error of the false positive. Which, ironically, is most likely the source of our tendency to be superstitious (and thus religious).

The false positive is advantagous for survival. It makes people run away when the wind makes a bush produce some sound, because they will assume a dangerous predator is hiding in the bush. Those who want to second guess and check out what the sound was will die if it actually IS a dangerous predator.

This is just one example of course, but it illustrates the point nicely.

Our entire being is overloaded with such evolutionary baggage.

How do we comprehend the universe's workings, how from our evolutionary past would this capability arise?

I already explained this to you on multiple occasions...
In humans, higher intelligence benefits the survival and reproduction rates of the ENTIRE tribe.

How in an evolutionary physical world did thoughts arise?

It's called a brain.

Why?

[quot]
What survival advantage would lead to comprehending the universe?[/QUOTE]

You don't see how a tribe of intelligent humans would thrive better then a tribe of less intelligent humans?

DogmaHunter · May 28, 2015

HitchSlap said:
And the samurai crab.

I thought I'ld amuse myself a bit with this thing....

It's how our brains are wired once....
We look for patterns and we find them. Even when they aren't there.

SteveB28 · May 28, 2015

Your humorous pictures underline my previous question to Ms Oncedeceived. I see no 'appearance' of design. What I see in those, the 'bunny' cloud, the ripple patterns in sand AND the operations of human cells is an opportunity for human beings to let loose their powers of imagination, coupled with the trait you mentioned earlier - the eagerness to find cause when none is present.

lewiley · May 28, 2015

Maybe all you need to create a universe is a big explosion and time. Gravity would form some patterns and there would be a appearance of design. Gravity and Hydrogen and a couple of billion years and just like magic you have a universe, but it's not that simple.
What if gravity is too strong everything collapses. If it's not strong enough all the subatomic particles drift away and you never get Hydrogen. How much can the gravitational constant vary and still have everything work? The tolerance is 1 in 10 to the -51st power. that's 1 with 51 zeroes after it. You also need the universe to be smooth or you just have black holes. The tolerance for this is also about the same, 10 to the 51st power. This is just 2 of about 13 things that have to be just as finely tuned.
These things point to either a designer or multiple (almost infinite) cycles of universes until one works.

bhsmte · May 28, 2015

Loudmouth · May 28, 2015

lewiley said:
Maybe all you need to create a universe is a big explosion and time. Gravity would form some patterns and there would be a appearance of design. Gravity and Hydrogen and a couple of billion years and just like magic you have a universe, but it's not that simple.
What if gravity is too strong everything collapses. If it's not strong enough all the subatomic particles drift away and you never get Hydrogen. How much can the gravitational constant vary and still have everything work? The tolerance is 1 in 10 to the -51st power. that's 1 with 51 zeroes after it. You also need the universe to be smooth or you just have black holes. The tolerance for this is also about the same, 10 to the 51st power. This is just 2 of about 13 things that have to be just as finely tuned.
These things point to either a designer or multiple (almost infinite) cycles of universes until one works.

Or it points to another non-deistic mechanism that we don't know about. The problem with the strong anthropic principle is that it is fundamentally an argument from ignorance. "We don't know how a universe with these values could come about on their own, therefore God". Our own human biases tend to overlook the flaws of an argument from ignorance since we attach emotions to our beliefs that can be immune to logic and reason.

HitchSlap · May 28, 2015

lewiley said:
Maybe all you need to create a universe is a big explosion and time. Gravity would form some patterns and there would be a appearance of design. Gravity and Hydrogen and a couple of billion years and just like magic you have a universe, but it's not that simple.
What if gravity is too strong everything collapses. If it's not strong enough all the subatomic particles drift away and you never get Hydrogen. How much can the gravitational constant vary and still have everything work? The tolerance is 1 in 10 to the -51st power. that's 1 with 51 zeroes after it. You also need the universe to be smooth or you just have black holes. The tolerance for this is also about the same, 10 to the 51st power. This is just 2 of about 13 things that have to be just as finely tuned.
These things point to either a designer or multiple (almost infinite) cycles of universes until one works.

Meh, arguments from big numbers and false dichotomies only impress the faithful. I wonder why that is?

Loudmouth · May 28, 2015

HitchSlap said:
Meh, arguments from big numbers and false dichotomies only impress the faithful. I wonder why that is?

You don't need much justification for a belief that you already hold through faith.

bhsmte · May 28, 2015

Loudmouth said:
You don't need much justification for a belief that you already hold through faith.

It is fun to watch the denial and confirmation bias though.

HitchSlap · May 28, 2015

Loudmouth said:
You don't need much justification for a belief that you already hold through faith.

Which makes it all the more humorous that they feign even caring about the facts.

Design...actual or not and why?

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