Falsifiability

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not debating that you must accept the premise that God working in time and space is plausible. Certainly we all have our own pet rules of epistemology that guide us. I'm just saying that rationally, it is clear that all creation and ID understanding of origins is predicated on believe in a Supreme Being. That logically and reasonably goes to cause.

Sorry, but it is highly ironic to use a phrase such as "logically and reasonably" when discussing ID and creationists. Now we can understand why the real world threatens their beliefs, but that does not make their beliefs logical nor reasonable.

 

[Sanoy]

Physics and chemistry being real...is agreed upon. But how do you go from the human-developed fields of physics and chemistry, to a god?

The rainbow I gave you earlier was a accident of my thumb. I didn't mean anything by it.

Physics and Chemistry make no claim to what is real, it only describes what is happening. The fact that I can exhaustively describe a rock, doesn't mean it is really there.

I'm not going from physics and chemistry to God. I am postulating God to go from analytic truths about how the external world behaves to synthetic truths about how the world behaves. You need a premise to be reasonable in traversing that gap.

 

[Speedwell]

The rainbow I gave you earlier was a accident of my thumb. I didn't mean anything by it.

Physics and Chemistry make no claim to what is real, it only describes what is happening. The fact that I can exhaustively describe a rock, doesn't mean it is really there.

I'm not going from physics and chemistry to God. I am postulating God to go from analytic truths about how the external world behaves to synthetic truths about how the world behaves. You need a premise to be reasonable in traversing that gap.

If you can make an ontological claim about God, what is to stop anyone else from making an ontological claim about observable phenomena?

 

[TBDude65]

I'm not debating that you must accept the premise that God working in time and space is plausible. Certainly we all have our own pet rules of epistemology that guide us. I'm just saying that rationally, it is clear that all creation and ID understanding of origins is predicated on believe in a Supreme Being. That logically and reasonably goes to cause.

But creation and ID being predicated upon a god, does not mean they are valid nor factual about reality. They can be internally logical within theology, but that doesn't make them fact about reality

 

[TBDude65]

The rainbow I gave you earlier was a accident of my thumb. I didn't mean anything by it.

Physics and Chemistry make no claim to what is real, it only describes what is happening. The fact that I can exhaustively describe a rock, doesn't mean it is really there.

I'm not going from physics and chemistry to God. I am postulating God to go from analytic truths about how the external world behaves to synthetic truths about how the world behaves. You need a premise to be reasonable in traversing that gap.

Why do postulations about a god provide explanatory power about facts about reality?

 

[mark kennedy]

But creation and ID being predicated upon a god, does not mean they are valid nor factual about reality. They can be internally logical within theology, but that doesn't make them fact about reality

Nor is the assumption that all adaptive evolution can be explained by natural law, when clearly it often isn't.

 

[TBDude65]

Nor is the assumption that all adaptive evolution can be explained by natural law, when clearly it often isn't.

What is it that you dispute with respect to how biological evolution occurs and is demonstrated?

 

[Sanoy]

If you can make an ontological claim about God, what is to stop anyone else from making an ontological claim about observable phenomena?

Nothing. You can postulate anything you want so long as the premise let's you rationally traverse the gap, meaning that if the premise is true, the conclusion follows about reality.

 

[Speedwell]

Nothing. You can postulate anything you want so long as the premise let's you rationally traverse the gap, meaning that if the premise is true, the conclusion follows about reality.

If you want to. I refer you to my old philosophy professor.

 

[mark kennedy]

What is it that you dispute with respect to how biological evolution occurs and is demonstrated?

The molecular basis for the evolution of the human brain from that of apes.

 

[Sanoy]

Why do postulations about a god provide explanatory power about facts about reality?

I'm not talking about explanatory power. I am talking about the traversal from the analytic to the synthetic. God is the only premise that I know of that can rationally allow that conclusion to follow.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The molecular basis for the evolution of the human brain from that of apes.

That is pretty much a nothingburger. Why do you think that human evolution cannot be explained?

 

[TBDude65]

The molecular basis for the evolution of the human brain from that of apes.

Why is that something you take issue with? I mean the specifics. What "molecular basis" are you referring to? Are you asking for what natural selection could have selected for that would have had a genetic relation to brain development among our ancestors?

 

[TBDude65]

I'm not talking about explanatory power. I am talking about the traversal from the analytic to the synthetic. God is the only premise that I know of that can rationally allow that conclusion to follow.

I think I still need a more specific example. To me, that gives the best perspective of what you are saying.

Let's take an agreed upon chemical fact, the periodic table. Can we agree on this as a fact about our reality? If so, how do the facts of the periodic table become better (or more sufficiently explained or enhanced in any way) through the assumption of a connection to a god?

 

[Speedwell]

I'm not talking about explanatory power. I am talking about the traversal from the analytic to the synthetic. God is the only premise that I know of that can rationally allow that conclusion to follow.

In other words, if God exists, then observable phenomena are objectively real--an analytic statement in your terminology. But I really don't see how that gets you anywhere.

 

[mark kennedy]

Why is that something you take issue with? I mean the specifics. What "molecular basis" are you referring to? Are you asking for what natural selection could have selected for that would have had a genetic relation to brain development among our ancestors?

You asked for it:

Homo habilis that would have lived. 2.5–1.5 mya with a cranial capacity of ~600 cc. The next link would have been Homo erectus with a cranial capacity of ~1000cc. KNM-WT 15000 (Turkana Boy) would have lived 1.5 mya and the skeleton structure shows no real difference between anatomically modern humans. The skull while smaller then the average cranial capacity of humans but close to twice that of his ancestors of 2 mya.

That means for our ancestors to have evolved it would have required a dramatic adaptive evolution of the size just under 2 mya sandwiched between two long periods of relative stasis. One such gene would have been the HARf regulatory gene involved in the early development of the human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks. With only two substitutions allowed since the common ancestor of the of 310 mya the divergence between humans and chimpanzees indicates 18 substitutions as early as 2 mya. (Nature, vol. 443, no. 7108, pp. 167-172 September 14, 2006)

That's just one example, there are others. One thing is certain, mutations are the worst explanation possible. These highly conserved genes simply don't respond well to mutations.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why do postulations about a god provide explanatory power about facts about reality?

Because God is real.

 

[Sanoy]

I think I still need a more specific example. To me, that gives the best perspective of what you are saying.

Let's take an agreed upon chemical fact, the periodic table. Can we agree on this as a fact about our reality? If so, how do the facts of the periodic table become better (or more sufficiently explained or enhanced in any way) through the assumption of a connection to a god?

Think of it in the analogy of the Brain in a vat thought experiment. Or perhaps it might be easier to see this using a more modern example like the matrix. In the matrix there is a periodic table, which explains much about the world in the matrix but may or may not explain anything at all about the real world outside the matrix. The level of explanatory power says nothing about whether something is real or not

 

[Sanoy]

In other words, if God exists, then observable phenomena are objectively real--an analytic statement in your terminology. But I really don't see how that gets you anywhere.

Somewhat mangled but yeah. It gets you a rational reason to hold to the external world as reality. A rational reason for ones beliefs about the world is a good thing to have and shouldn't be trivialized.

 

[46AND2]

Somewhat mangled but yeah. It gets you a rational reason to hold to the external world as reality. A rational reason for ones beliefs about the world is a good thing to have and shouldn't be trivialized.

er...but isn't god analytic in your explanation? You are not really creating a rational reason for one's belief about the world, your simply trading one analytic truth for another.