Natural selection v Intelligent design

[stevevw]

Winning the lottery. Suppose that a sufficient number of players each purchase one ticket and by way of distributing the tickets, every possible combination has been accounted for. Should the hundreds of millions of non-winners rush the stage to apprehend the cabal of scheming lottery attendants for finely tuning the outcome of the lottery when the winner is announced?

I dont understand what you are trying to say here. To me it sounds more like an argument like the multiverse. They say that our special finely tuned universe (or winning lottery ticket) is just one of a million or billion or whatever the size of the equation you want. So it accounts for that one special universe or ticket by saying that its just one of many and that all have the same chance of being special. It just happens to be the one that was picked.Even though ours is just right for life there will be others that are pretty close as well.

Smaller lotteries are held at say a footy club in a meat raffle for example. Only 100 tickets are sold and bought by 100 different people. But each person still is 100/1 to win. It doesn't matter that enough people buy every combination. Because its still based on random luck. But if there were many factors that pointed to one particular number being the one that was going to win beyond luck then you would be starting to object (hey there's something going on here and its rigged). But all the variables of time, circumstances and physics seemed to point to this one number above all numbers being the one and it was inevitable that this one particular number would win. Thats how the fine tuning of the universe for life works.

Or, if gambling isn't your thing: imagine a string of 150 numbers, 0-9. In the digits following the decimal in Pi, I can find exactly that string of 150 numbers. Surely, you won't try to convince us that Pi was finely tuned to hold precisely your string of 150 numbers. Or maybe you will, and I'll have another sip of turpentine.

Who put the 150 numbers there in the first place.Why those particular 150 numbers. What factors are causing those 150 numbers to be the ones more than others. If there were 100 or more factors that precisely predicted those 150 numbers then wouldn't you begin to wonder that something was favoring those numbers more than others.

You don't get to go on a tirade expressing how "fine-tuned" things are. If the universe is fine-tuned for life, we would expect to find it readily. Our lottery winner's ticket wasn't "fine-tuned" to secure the jackpot.

I don’t state how fine tuned things are. The scientists who do the math’s do. I am only repeating what they have said themselves. The lottery ticket isn't fined tuned because it is picked randomly. There isn't a bunch of conditions forcing any particular number/s to be picked. But if there was you would then be saying its rigged to end up picking that particular number. Hence the intervention of someone and not just blind luck. That is the fine tuning argument. Here are some non religious scientists of which there are many that accept the fine tuning of the universe.

Dr. Dennis Scania, the distinguished head of Cambridge University Observatories:
If you change a little bit the laws of nature, or you change a little bit the constants of nature—like the charge on the electron—then the way the universe develops is so changed, it is very likely that intelligent life would not have been able to develop.

Dr. David D. Deutsch, Institute of Mathematics, Oxford University:
“The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly.

Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world’s most famous cosmologist)
“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life”.

So these scientists aren't religious and are not pushing any agenda. They just say it like it is.

No, it being a rare event counts on all of those things working together. You don't to look back and marvel at a rare outcome and work backwards to figure out how some supernatural hand guided all of those unlikely events to line up accordingly.

You have to calculate through a set of parameters whether something is chance and random or not. To do this you need to go back over and determine why something happened. Were there controlling factors that point to the outcome being what it was or was it from mere coincident and a random situation? Scientists have looked at the 100s of factors that all add up to the universe being finely tuned for life. In other words there are too many factors that all need to be just right at the same time for it to happen. To many that it goes beyond random chance. This is not my conclusions this is the scientists conclusions.

Says... who? Says you? Says a handful of academically irrelevant and substantially bankrupt design proponentsists?

No even main stream scientists say the same. It is what it is. The fine tune argument isn't a creationist or ID argument. It is one from main stream science that has just been observed. But your reaction is typical from some who cant handle the facts and want to attack it or undermine the maths or blame it on a religious ploy.
phys.org is a mainstream science site. They go into the issue and detail how mainstream science sees it.
When science and philosophy collide in a 'fine-tuned' universe
http://phys.org/news/2014-04-science-philosophy-collide-fine-tuned-universe.html

"I don't know how this could have come together by way of odds of luck, chance, rarity, coincidence, etc.; therefore, there must have been an outside intelligent force." This is the full-bodied apparition of an argument from ignorance. "I don't know, therefore...".

First off no one has stated that there must be a God because the universe if fined tuned for life. We have to get past the acknowledgement of the facts as they are first which you seem to want to avoid. Its like if you admit that there is fine tuning then you are admitting there's a God. But no one is asking that.

Secondly its the scientists who are arguing from ignorance as you call it because they are the ones saying it, not me. It doesn't matter if you dont know why it happens. It matters that it happens beyond a point of assessing it be be just luck that everything fell into place. Even if you could explain why each particular condition happened it still doesn't explain why so many of them happened to be all working just right to create the conditions for life. Here is a paper talking about random chance in nature verses design qualities.
Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064506000224

 

[stevevw]

Ah, so you've hit the next level in handing out demotions: First, it was God The Almighty Creator, and then it becomes The Intelligent Designer, and now it is just the "Meddler".

I dont think Ive personally made any statements about it being anything in particular that has caused our universe to be so finely tuned. I have just repeated the words of scientists who make these statements. Like I said it isn't an argument from religion which makes the finely tuned universe for life. Its the calculations that scientists had come to that pointed to it being finely tuned. So its the science and not the personalities or agendas behind it.

We've seen you try and substantiate that claim, and you've failed every single time. I've been watching the thread long enough to catch onto what you've been doing.

OK fair enough, but I seem to be the only one backing up what I say with support from the science. So it seems more the other way around. AS I have posted in the lost post some links supporting what mainstream scientists have said about the fine tuned universe for life I dont need to say much more.

That's the point of science: provide good explanations.

No not always good explanations. Some are just as far fetched as what they claim about religion. Appealing to a multiverse as part of an explanation why ours might be so fined tuned is a pretty extreme way to explain what away the fine tuning of life. They would rather consider billions of other universes that have many different crazy things going on in other dimensions like some science fiction movie then accept that there is just one universe that is just right for us. So they are quite willing to consider far fetched ideas in the name of science but not if it has anything to do with a creator God or an intelligent agent.

I'm perfectly content with settling on a single universe (which hates us more than it could bear to keep us alive) with billions of planets in this galaxy alone with one happening to produce life by way of chemistry.

Thats good. I agree there is only one universe and its ours which has created life and its our location in the vast unlimited universe that is just right for life.

You're getting ahead of yourself: You haven't actually demonstrated that the universe is finely tuned for anything.

I dont have to the scientists have already done that for me as I have posted the evidence already.

So you invoke the infinitely more complex intelligent designer, ahem, "meddler"? You're a puddle that wakes up one morning and says "good thing this pothole is exactly as deep and as wide and is the shape it is, or else I wouldn't exist!"

No I havnt invoked anything. I am just saying that the scientists are willing to go to great lengths to include all sorts of far fetched ideas to explain why it might be. Yet if someone even mentions a intelligent influence or agent that may have some bearing on things its all hell breaks loose. So scientists can include crazy ideas if its them that are using it and they call it science. More like science fiction. But they are allowed to appeal to these crazy ideas because if they dont they will then have to consider ID. But what is wrong with including ID as one of the possible ideas and explanations.

But please stop talking about a system being "finely tuned" until you address how you discern something that is finely tuned (particularly on the scale you keep using: a single planet within the entire expanse of space so far as we have peered with various telescopes) from an outcome that is tremendously rare yet inevitable.

I have included links with all my posts even going back a fair few pages explaining why scientists say things are fine tuned. You just havnt read them. There are 100s of constants that all seem to be just right for life in our part of the universe. These constants seem to be just right to even allow the universe to exist. The slightest change in these constants and things would be very different. It would be a different universe and world which may have no life of strange life. Here are some more links for support.
Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/
The Coherence Of An Engineered World
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/114/19279

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... I am just saying that the scientists are willing to go to great lengths to include all sorts of far fetched ideas to explain why it might be. Yet if someone even mentions a intelligent influence or agent that may have some bearing on things its all hell breaks loose. So scientists can include crazy ideas if its them that are using it and they call it science. More like science fiction. But they are allowed to appeal to these crazy ideas because if they dont they will then have to consider ID. But what is wrong with including ID as one of the possible ideas and explanations.

There's nothing wrong with it per-se, but ideas that are derived from the best current scientific models, and therefore have at least indirect evidence behind them, naturally take precedence. If and when there is some plausible supporting evidence for ID, it will be seriously investigated. So far, every claim of ID (particularly irreducible complexity) that has been investigated has turned out to lack evidence or be unconvincing - generally because a plausible natural history has been elucidated.

But if evidence of intelligence activity were to be discovered behind the origins or organization of life, etc., don't expect the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent deity as the intelligence to appear at the top of the rankings of plausible hypotheses to explain such evidence. There are other naturalistic explanations, that have already been suggested, that would be considered more plausible, and so more interesting - mainly because they would be more likely to be testable, to provide avenues for investigation, to lead somewhere.

 

[stevevw]

There's nothing wrong with it per-se, but ideas that are derived from the best current scientific models, and therefore have at least indirect evidence behind them, naturally take precedence. If and when there is some plausible supporting evidence for ID, it will be seriously investigated. So far, every claim of ID (particularly irreducible complexity) that has been investigated has turned out to lack evidence or be unconvincing - generally because a plausible natural history has been elucidated.

But if evidence of intelligence activity were to be discovered behind the origins or organization of life, etc., don't expect the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent deity as the intelligence to appear at the top of the rankings of plausible hypotheses to explain such evidence. There are other naturalistic explanations, that have already been suggested, that would be considered more plausible, and so more interesting - mainly because they would be more likely to be testable, to provide avenues for investigation, to lead somewhere.

I find it funny how we see many elements of design in life. Even evolutionists like Dawkins class evolution as the appearance of design. But the increasing complexity of our DNA with the discovery of junk DNA having function. This makes it harder to explain how such great complexity can be created by mutations which are basically errors and harmful. Add the expanding universe which is ever increasing and getting faster and faster which goes against how we calculate things. Add to this the magical world of quantum physics which points to there being something more than the material world in operation.

Add to this the fine tuning for life and you begin to wonder how far can someone pretend that there isn't something much more than just material and naturalistic forces creating everything. In the past evolutionists wanted to make out life was so simple so that they could justify how a self creating natural process could make life. But as time has gone we have discovered things are much more complex.

Tests show that a naturalistic process couldn't have created this complexity by chance. So now they claim that nature has design ability and can create designed things. They have to because its there and they keep adding more capability to nature all the time. Even time itself is made into a God. But all they are doing is making Gods creation of nature the God itself. They would rather bypass God and give things powers beyond their capabilities than acknowledge the creator.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I find it funny how we see many elements of design in life. Even evolutionists like Dawkins class evolution as the appearance of design. But the increasing complexity of our DNA with the discovery of junk DNA having function. This makes it harder to explain how such great complexity can be created by mutations which are basically errors and harmful. Add the expanding universe which is ever increasing and getting faster and faster which goes against how we calculate things. Add to this the magical world of quantum physics which points to there being something more than the material world in operation.

Add to this the fine tuning for life and you begin to wonder how far can someone pretend that there isn't something much more than just material and naturalistic forces creating everything. In the past evolutionists wanted to make out life was so simple so that they could justify how a self creating natural process could make life. But as time has gone we have discovered things are much more complex.

Tests show that a naturalistic process couldn't have created this complexity by chance. So now they claim that nature has design ability and can create designed things. They have to because its there and they keep adding more capability to nature all the time. Even time itself is made into a God. But all they are doing is making Gods creation of nature the God itself. They would rather bypass God and give things powers beyond their capabilities than acknowledge the creator.

This has been addressed REPEATEDLY.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This has been addressed REPEATEDLY.

And ignored repeatedly.

 

[stevevw]

This has been addressed REPEATEDLY.

And you havnt addressed the posts that were linked about the limits of mutations to be able to create new function.

 

[stevevw]

This has been addressed REPEATEDLY.

I dont ignore anything. I have heard your replies and disagree and so do many others.

 

[Loudmouth]

Its all about the large amounts of parameters that are being met that are so specific that make fine tuning of life so impressive.

The same fine tuning is needed for the Face on Mars and the Red Eye on Jupiter.

We are not just talking about the particular face shape or particular storm in the ones on Mars.

I am talking about those things.

We can make out figures in clouds or landscapes and any of these can have the same significance you want to place of the face on mars.

And they have the same significance as life on Earth. All three took the same level of fine tuning.

We know why these things happen and we understand that though we may see different shapes in natural surroundings we know its the result of processes that can happen anywhere in the universe including earth. In fact in some ways the big red spot on Jupiter is basically a hurricane or cyclone for which earth has many as well.

It takes a ton of fine tuning for the universe to produce a planet capable of producing the exact storm we see on Jupiter.

 

[Loudmouth]

And you havnt addressed the posts that were linked about the limits of mutations to be able to create new function.

Of the DNA differences between chimps and humans, which could not be produced by the observed processes of natural mutagenesis?

 

[Foxhole87]

Steve didn't explain how he discerns rare events from finely-tuned outcomes.

Did anyone pick up anything in that post before I go into a long response to his nonsense?

Because I sure didn't see anything. It probably has to do with the turpentine.

 

[stevevw]

The same fine tuning is needed for the Face on Mars and the Red Eye on Jupiter.

how, I went through and showed you that its not the same. The face on mars comes under general patterns in landscapes or nature that may resemble design. Its not just about that face as another different mound of dirt or cloud in the sky or face on a piece of toast come under the same conditions. So the face on Mars becomes common in among all the different shapes people see in nature. The storm is the same. There are similar storm shapes on other planets so its not so unique. But life on earth in this little pin point of the universe is special. There is not life anywhere else in the entire universe.

I am talking about those things.

Those things are not unique. Shapes in nature that look like design are common.

And they have the same significance as life on Earth. All three took the same level of fine tuning.

no they didn't. Life including all life which covers every form is unique to earth. Shapes in nature that may look like faces or animals or whatever in all forms happen all over the place including all the universe. There is not fine tuning of shapes on Mars because shapes that look like human design happen everywhere. If you want to home in on a particular one off shape then you are now changing the criteria. Thats like homing in one one individual life rather that all life. There fore you are not comparing like for like.

It takes a ton of fine tuning for the universe to produce a planet capable of producing the exact storm we see on Jupiter.

Not to the level of how life is special and unique to our little spot on earth in an unlimited universe. It took many conditions to be just right for it to happen and those many conditions made it just right for earth. But a storm like that on Jupiter can happen in many parts of the universe. If you want to single out the one storm on Jupiter than you are now changing the criteria similar to what you are doing with the face on Mars. But you have to look at the conditions that make that storm on Jupiter and what parameters are needed to produce that storm. Those same parameters will produce similar storms on many other planets including earth. All it is is a cyclone thats red instead on clear like on earth.

Here are some other figures and features that show the face on mars is just one of many and is not fine tuned. Heres another face on Mars.

Heres Mahatma Gandhi’s face on Mars.

Heres a picture of a storm on earth

 

[quatona]

Shapes in nature that look like design are common.

Bingo.
Now you just have to explain how you get from "looks like design" to "is design".

 

[stevevw]

Bingo.
Now you just have to explain how you get from "looks like design" to "is design".

The examples of the face on Mars and the storm on Jupiter were used as examples of fine tuning. The face looks like a face but is not really. Up close it looks like a mound of dirt. So there isn't any fine tuning or design there in the first place. But it was more to do with there was a natural feature that resembled a human design in nature was it fine tuned to look that way similar to how the universe is fine tuned for life on earth. I was saying there is a big difference in that the face on Mars or any feature that resembles a design happens anywhere and is not fine tuned. People see designed figures or features in many things like clouds, ink blotches, and even the famous piece of toast which was claimed to have the face of Mary on it.

So there's no comparison. Fine tuning for life is based on many physical constants that are all very precise and if there was even the slightest change then life would happen. So may things had to all be just right at the same time and point to the same place to allow life to exist on earth. Sometimes you will have a couple or a few things come together to create something but there is a line that is crossed which then makes it unlikely it was an accident for it to happen. So a certain level of calculations have to be met to say it has the qualities of design and possible there was some meddling that has caused it to turn out that way.

 

[stevevw]

Steve didn't explain how he discerns rare events from finely-tuned outcomes.

Did anyone pick up anything in that post before I go into a long response to his nonsense?

Because I sure didn't see anything. It probably has to do with the turpentine.

There are certain things that even a rare event cannot do. It seems to me that meeting the many physical constants that make life possible on planet earth is one of them. These are very precise conditions which have to be in place at the same time and in many cases pointing to the same small place in an unlimited universe. A a rare event that happens to look like design wouldn't have that level preciseness. The odds are just to great that it goes beyond chance or accident to acknowledging that something had to have had some controlling influence to ensure that this was the outcome rather than the many other possibilities.

That is why some scientists like to use the multiverse idea as a way to address the fine tuning argument. By appealing to many universes it makes our finely tuned one just one of many and adds the chance factor back in. But if there is only one universe the chances of it being the exact one perfect for life from a random accident such as the big bang is highly unlikely.

 

[quatona]

The examples of the face on Mars and the storm on Jupiter were used as examples of fine tuning. The face looks like a face but is not really. Up close it looks like a mound of dirt. So there isn't any fine tuning or design there in the first place.

So when painter paints a picture that looks like a car but is not really that´s not design?

I say the universe is fine-tuned for that thing on Mars, and human faces look like it but are not really.

 

[stevevw]

So when painter paints a picture that looks like a car but is not really that´s not design?

Well yes because that wasn't his design intention and is more likely an accident. But that would have to be determined. Because if something looks like it is a car it normally wasn't intended to be a car so it will not be very defined. It may look like a car from a certain angle or some see it as a car and others dont. If it is fairly defined to look like a car then you have to ask whether the painter was really painting a car. There has to be a certain line where you say when is a car a car and thats what was intended. I guess thats what has to be established by investigating all the criteria that show design or random chance.

 

[quatona]

Well yes because that wasn't his design intention and is more likely an accident.

How do you know it wasn´t his design intention?

But that would have to be determined.

Exactly. But when you claim that "life" is designed and fine-tuned you are simply presupposing that it was intended. Circular reasoning.

 

[Loudmouth]

how, I went through and showed you that its not the same. The face on mars comes under general patterns in landscapes or nature that may resemble design.

The face on mars is only made by one pattern. The amount of fine tuning needed for a universe capable of producing our solar system with Mars and the geologic fine tuning to produce the face on Mars is equal to the fine tuning needed for life.

Its not just about that face as another different mound of dirt or cloud in the sky or face on a piece of toast come under the same conditions.

Then life is just another chemical reaction out of trillions that happen in the universe. No need for fine tuning.

Life including all life which covers every form is unique to earth.

The exact geologic formation I have shown you is unique to Mars.

 

[stevevw]

How do you know it wasn´t his design intention?

I guess thats where you need to investigate the criteria for what constitutes design and what doesn't. This has been done in a number of papers. But as I stated before there must be a line between what is designed and what isn't. If the picture looks very much like a car then it would be hard to believe that the maker didn't see that and realize what they had done. How can you make something look so much like a car when you didn't mean to. If he is choosing the brush strokes then he is choosing what its going to look like. When is a car not a car.

Like I said if it turns out that others may see a car in what he has done its going to be in their minds so the picture is going to be ambiguous and not clearly defined. If it is clearly defined as a car then how can the artists say he didn't realize he was painting a car.. That would be dishonest or he would lack artistic insight. But if the artist threw his paint up in the air and it came down and happened to paint a car that would be luck and not intentional. But we know that this is unlikely so chance and accident dont normally create something that is clearly designed. It may look a bit like it but we would also see that it could be many other things as well and it would be up for interpretation.
Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064506000224
The Coherence Of An Engineered World
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/114/19279

Exactly. But when you claim that "life" is designed and fine-tuned you are simply presupposing that it was intended. Circular reasoning.

No the first point is life is fine tuned and there are too many conditions which have been met to say its a product of chance or accident. So the odds have been assessed as too great for a random accident being able to fluke that result. It would be like throwing a bunch of letters up in the air and them coming to write out a paragraph of intelligent and meaningful words. The natural extension of this is there may be qualities of design and it has the hallmarks of something that is controlling the outcome. So nothing is circular reasoning but it is a logical extension.
New cosmology paper by skeptical scientists lends support to the fine-tuning argument
http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...ts-lends-support-to-the-fine-tuning-argument/