it probably also created that burning strawman too.RFHendrix said:Come to think of it I think that time must have asembled all the chemicals together to make that old rusty truck I pass each day on the way to work.
the absurdity of what? the earth being billions of years old? well there is a whole different debate, and there are lots of threads on it.I'm sure there was no forcing involved. In other words; atheism is based on absurdity.
It's recently been done.RFHendrix said:If you agree that this is an information problem then you should have no problem demonstrating that intelligent communication can take place on a computer without the aid of an intelligent programmer. That is the problem as I have stated several times.
What "force"? Put the amino acids together in a "soup", and the chemistry happens. No direction from the humans at all. When you put oxygen and hydrogen together and add a spark, you get a chemical reaction to form water. Did you make the water? Do you think hydrogen and oxygen won't form water when you aren't around? Same principles here.Forcing chemicals (or words and letters etc.) to direct themselves further as a result of the initial intelligent intervention rather proves my point that it is not posssible without such intervention.
Again, been done. You simply aren't looking for the data.Now we have several decades of attempts to produce artifical intelligent communication WITH the aid of intelligent programmers and have so far only succeded in proving my point. Why don't you try one without the intelligent input? Until you can, your objections are groundless.
Dawkins did not select. He did set a "goal", but then, so does the environment. The environment does set the immediate "goal" for natural selection. So that wasn't out of bounds for duplicating what nature does. The "program" was simply the algorithm of selection. That is, he duplicated what goes on in nature with 1) random generation of letters for the initial sequences, 2) preserving the selected sequences (inheritance), and 3) the introduction of variation into the next generation (recombination and mutation). IOW, anything he set up is what is present in the natural system.Your defense of Dawkins shows your complete misunderstanding of the problem (or an attempt to purposely mislead). I will give you the benefit of the doubt because I don't know you so please tell me how Dawkins proved anything except his own intelligent intervention in either his biomorphs or METHINKS... experiment. He programmed and he selected and he set a goal. What exactly didn't HE do???
1. Have you ever run a chemistry experiment? It is impossible to "make chemical wriggle and squirm". Instead, you put them together and they react or they don't. You can't reach in to each molecule and physically shove it toward and make it react with another molecule.Making chemicals to wiggle and squirm and reproduce with the aid of an intelligent being directing is not creating a genetic code along with the associated machinery of translation without intelligetn input. Fox's experiments did not produce a genetic code and the associated logical communication necessary for real life.
Oh, that's easy! You do know that William Dembski has shown that information arises from selection, don't you? See No Free Lunch.Again, give me the proof that you have overthrown several thousand years of human experience and produced meaningful information and communication without intelligent input.
If you are arguing (as you say) against atheism in your book, why do you accept the basic statement of faith of atheism and have anything "natural" be without God? Have you read the Fontispiece to Origin of the Species? I suggest you do.RFHendrix said:The nylon bug and "glitches" in the program:
If God was involved in the creation of life or at least in the initial programming of it. (I speak for the sake of argument.) Then there is no reason to think that he abandoned his creation to the forces of nature.
Here is where you get very vague about how the new gene in the nylon bug arose. It is a random scrambling of existing sequences by an insertion mutation. God was conspicuous by His absence as a direct cause of this mutation. How can you identify that God reached down and with His "fingers" moved those wiggling and squirming chemicals such that a new nucleotide was inserted in that gene at that place? If not, if it was indeed due to what you call "natural forces", then how can we tell that similar events were also not natural? Now you have to go thru each and every event and falsify the natural. Have you done that?A new food product (nylon) is like a new destructive virus that invades a healthy organism. All possibilities are not allowed for necesarily but many are, including those that the organism has not encountered previously. Adapting to a new source of food may or may not require "planning" depending on the organism and the capability it has to adapt and survive in new environments.
So He continues to intervene? Big whoop. Why would science care? Science is the study of the physical universe. If the physical universe is shaped by gaps between members of the universe as God directly intervenes, then that is what happens and that is that.The reason that science does not want to consider God in creation is obvious to me. It creates too many possibilities for his ocntinued intervention by natural or supernatural means.
Unfortunately, that last is not Biblical. Whatever god it is, that "continued intervention" as ID says is not the God of the Bible.That is one reason why I believe the God of the Bible fits so perfectly, i.e., the cursed earth, the battle of good and evil, the corruption of creation and the continued intervention of God into natural processes.
Where does God claim to hide evidence and purposely deceive people.RFHendrix said:I will answer the basic problem I think you have with the God of the Bible:
1. He didn't do things the way you think he should have. Well that is where my statement about one of the aspects of God (... not only a God of pleasentries..) comes in. He never claims to be like us and to think like us. He also claims to hide evidence and purposely deceive people.
Well, now you just denied ID! You're on a roll. ID claims that we can find God without direct revelation. We can look in general revelation (the universe) and detect God. Now you say we can't. There goes ID!There is no solution to the problem of finding God without a direct revelation from God initially.
WHOA! Two separate concepts here!2. I didn't prove that the God of the Bible created life: No, and I didin't intend to. Evidence supports theism because of the nature of information and the entirety of nature. Meaning does not come from the laws of physics with or without the aid of natural selection. Meaning comes from intelligent value judgments.
Not "plan ahead", but simply react to problems posed at the moment.The laws of physics are only tools, and to assert that they form opinions and think about solutions to problems is absurd. However you look at it materialistic evolution claims that the laws of physics are able to think and plan ahead.
Since that "adaptation" you admit is a new design and a new feature that wasnt' there before, you have now falsified your position in your quote that you need intelligence for new information. You just cut your own argument off at the knees.RFHendrix said:If intelligence is indicated in the formation of the code and it's associated machnery and corruption is a fact of life then why would it be difficult to believe that the nylon bug either adapted to it's new environment naturally through selection
Your answer is in chemistry, not physics. Not all chemical combinations or sequences of amino acids in proteins are allowed. Thus selection comes into play right at the beginning with forming proteins or RNA by non-intelligent chemistry. Whenever there is selection, there is the creation of information. So we get new information in thermal proteins and in RNA made by chemical reactions. That's the starting point. The rest comes in steps as that initial chemical information is added to by natural selection.Your summary (above) leaves us with the same question that Fox, Kaufman et al leaves us with. Everyone simply says; "Well here is how we find the letters, and here is how we put them together, and here is how we did it in the lab so now let's just wait for a few million years and naturally a language will come forth..." Where is it? The essential question is ignored and we are in the same place as the plastic letters are in after they have been filtered naturally. We may have order or patterns but not a language.
Again, the problem can be solved with a computer (if it can be solved) as it is an information problem. The laws of physics cannot think unless they have in fact ben interjected with intelligence.
But it can also be a fair demonstration. For instance, if you know the chemicals are present and you know what the energy source is. Then all you are doing is simulating in the lab what happens in nature.RFHendrix said:Someone asked about "forcing" chemicals:
I am talking about the gathering of specific chemicals and putting them together in one place and subjecting them to various forms of energy etc. This is how you make plastic for example. Forcing is done by intelligent beings (humans) so it is often not a fair demonstration of a supposed natural condition.
Too bad you missed all my latest posts before this retreat. Oh well, I'm sure they will benefit others here.RFHendrix said:Well folks, it has been 12 days. I really do have to attend to other business so I will have to bow out of this thread.
Notto showed this claim to be false. You do make such a claim in your book.1. My book is about theism and atheism with personal opinions interjected. I do not claim that it is pure science and I make that distinction in the book.
Changed your thesis from the book, haven't you? You were telling us that God could not have used the natural processes because such processes cannot yield life.2. It is my thesis that God created life however he chose, with or without the aid of natural processes that we observe today.
How does one "inject intelligence" into a chemical?I generally argue from the turf of materialists but I do not believe that evidence supports the idea that all that God is needed for is to somehow interject intelligence into some chemicals that formed naturally.
On the contrary, your paragraph above says physics can do just that. If you allow God any way to create life, then the laws of physics become one of the ways.3. The laws of physics cannot create intelligence.
Shell game. Life arose thru chemistry. Human intelligence arose thru evolution by natural selection. You want natural selection to be a necessary part of chemistry. Separate processes.If mankind evolved like some assert that he did then that is evidence that there is an intelligent force in the universe. Evolution cannot be expected to arise out of thin air because of the spontaneous self assembly of chemicals and then create intelligence.
Yes, we can. Each of us makes our own meaning. However, because we can get meaning on our own does not mean we did. Two separate concepts.If we begin with the laws of physics we cannot end up with meaning to anything.
Atheism does not inevitably lead to nihilism.Even Peter Singer calls our existence meaningless because he does not believe in God.
That you have what you deny: a route to the genetic code that does not involve direct manufacture of the code by a direct intervention of God. It means that chemistry rules, and you do not know whether God is involved in chemistry or not. Science won't tell you because of limitations in science.4. If there is discovered to be a natural affinity of certain codons to certain amino acids that matches the existing genetic code then what has that proved?
Here you are!. You are saying that God directly manufactured the genetic code and assigned the triplet code to the amino acids. The evidence says the triplet code evolved by natural selection.I am asserting that intelligence has been interjected into the universe, especially the universe of life. God originated the language of life and assigned meaning to the chemicals symbols.
Your whole book is asserting that you do know what God did and how. It's way too late to try to back off of that now.5. Finally, I dont know what God did or how he did anything.
I agree that atheism is a personal belief. However, your arguments don't show that. You picked the wrong way to fight that battle. And are doing great harm to the theism you say you want to support.I am simply showing the absurdity of trying to assert that he did nothing. Atheism is based on personal belief.
Not at all. You have really hung theism out to dry.The book is intended to show that atheism is not the default position. I think I have proved my point.
RFHendrix said:No my argument is based upon available evidence and the knowledge of where that evidence leads. I can just as easily say that abiogenesis is based an argument from ignorance. Here is the basis for my argument:
1. DNA contains information and the source of that information is unknown. Life is known to be a biological information based machine.
2. There exists in the world an intelligent source of information, i.e the human mind. This has been empirically proved and confirmed in several thousand years of human history and experimentation. There has never been even one verified example where information or intricate interactive machinery came into being without intelligent input.
Speculation: Perhaps the information within DNA and the associated machinery of life came into being by way of the laws of physics? Or perhaps there is an intelligent source of information within the universe?
Because there is no known instance where information or intricate interactive machinery arose by way of the laws of physics that hypothesis is entirely speculation without any empirical basis whatsoever. On the other hand, it has already been proved that information and machinery comes into being by way of an invisible intelligent mental source that uses the laws of physics as tools to manifest that reality.
Conclusion: Belief in an intelligent mental source within the universe is a rational deduction based upon facts and evidence.
And all those are merely setting the environment. It's what the environment does in nature. Now, do you want to claim the environment is intelligent?RFHendrix said:Lucas,
I knew this would happen after I left so I couldnt resist checking back on this thread.
1. Post 202:
Thanks for the link but I guess you did not read it yourself. Did you even see the intelligent intervention in the programming, or do you simply pretend that it did it on its own to deceive the unwary reader who may not check out your proofs? Did you read this:
The five major preparatory steps for the basic version of genetic programming require the human user to specify
(1) the set of terminals (e.g., the independent variables of the problem, zero-argument functions, and random constants) for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(2) the set of primitive functions for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(3) the fitness measure (for explicitly or implicitly measuring the fitness of individuals in the population),
(4) certain parameters for controlling the run, and
(5) the termination criterion and method for designating the result of the run.
When a watchmaker designs a watch, doesn't he know how it works? Doesn't he know, before he puts in each gear, what that gear will do? Well, in this situation that is not the case. Thomspson doesn't know how the chip works! How can he have designed.Again, the proof is in the pudding and your pudding is intelligently designed. I never questioned the ability of a computer to manipulate the input of an intelligent programmer, now did I?
"nevertheless I didnt plan the animals " Dawkins had to tell the computer how to duplicate natural selection. But to "design" you have to plan the design ahead of time. Dawkins didn't do that. Who's doing the distorting?You said: Dawkins did not select."
But he said (page 65) ...it was I that programmed the computer, telling it IN GREAT DETAIL WHAT TO DO, nevertheless I didnt plan the animals that evolved. And (page 60) The role of the HUMAN EYE was limited to selecting...
But life isn't the genetic code. Fox's experiments produced life. Living organisms. Your claim was "Fox's experiments did not produce a genetic code and the associated logical communication necessary for real life."You said (still in post 202): No one said Foxs experiment produced a genetic code.
Exactly my point, no one has in spite of the exaggerated claims and eloquent titles of scientific papers that would seem to indicate that they have solved the problem.
I didn't say you were opposed to Dembski. I merely said that Dembski offers the solution to your problem. The origin of all information, including your information systems, arises from selection.You said: Dembski has shown that information arises from selection
Another attempt to twist my words. I already said several times on this thread that the problem is the origin of the information system )complete with the rules of grammar etc.) is the problem. You evade the issue by pretending that I am opposed to Dembski. I am not.
Why not? This is simple denial without explanation. Give the detailed explanation how they do not solve the problem. Chemistry to get information to begin with and then variation and selection to increase it.Your checkers game and GAs do not solve the problem and neither does Fox.
Please show how this is irrelevant. Since you wrote the book, I presume you are in a position to cut and paste the relevant portions for me. Or do you need the royalties that badly?Read my book. You obviously have not or you would know the answers to your irrelevant questions. You strain at gnats.
You said:
How can you identify that God reached down and with His "fingers" moved those wiggling and squirming chemicals such that a new nucleotide was inserted in that gene at that place? If not, if it was indeed due to what you call "natural forces", then how can we tell that similar events were also not natural? Now you have to go thru each and every event and falsify the natural. Have you done that?
Well, half the thread says intelligent input -- my half!Intelligent intervention must be inferred in most cases just as you cannot prove that a machine is not typing this response. The entirety of the system implies design just as the entirety of this thread implies intelligent input.
How is ID different from special creation? It does say that species or parts of species have to be specially created (made) by deity in their present form. Remember, even IDers like Behe trace ID back to William Paley, who advocated special creation.You are also ignoring history. After all, God directly intervening to cause a world-wide Flood that caused geological features was the prevailing scientific theory from 1700-1831. Also, ID was the prevailing scientific theory from 1800-1859. ID is the same as Special Creation, which was the theory that Darwin falsified in Origin of the Species.
That is why I refer to modern science because it refuses to consider God even when ID is indicated. And ID is not the same as special creation, but argue semantics with someone else.
Congrats. Destroyed Christianity. I'll give it up.I will answer this one question about the nature of God:
Ez:14:9: And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
2Thes:2:11: And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Thes:2:12: That they all might be ****** who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
1Kgs:22:23: Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.
Sorry, but ID does claim in places to be able to find God. Also, there is your statement above: "That is why I refer to modern science because it refuses to consider God even when ID is indicated." You do equate God with ID, don't you?You said:
Well, now you just denied ID! You're on a roll. ID claims that we can find God without direct revelation. We can look in general revelation (the universe) and detect God. Now you say we can't. There goes ID!
No, there goes your intellectual honesty. ID claims that we can find evidence of intelligent design. Christianity is based upon supernatural revelation of the nature of God and his judgment and love. You havent even bothered to read the preface of my book evidently, but you still form your conclusions based on a lack of evidence.
Still two separate concepts. Meaning can be obtained without an intelligent "creator". After all, natural selection has the information in life for a specific purpose: surviving the competition and producing offspring. But that isn't what you call "meaning", is it?WHOA! Two separate concepts here!
1. Information.
2. Meaning. As in a "meaning of life".
No, just the extension of the word meaning which is applicable to the topic of this thread. Extending the concept results in a meaning to life, that is, the meaning and reason that the creator gave the information in life for a specific purpose.
How did natural selection come into existence by the laws of physics?You said:
Not "plan ahead", but simply react to problems posed at the moment.
The laws of physics produced intelligence according the theory of evolution. I have been told repeatedly on this thread that we are the result of chemical reactions that are the same as water and hydrogen and oxygen reacting together. Well what laws dictate these reactions? Answer; The laws of physics. Now how did natural selection come into existence apart from the laws of physics?
LOL!! Now who's playing semantic games? You are trying to argue the existence of a deity and still equating evolution with atheism. Nope. Ain't gonna play that false game. What I am claiming is that there is no "gap" in the material processes such that some "supernatural" ID has to directly manufacture components.You assert that these laws create intelligence by use of natural selection but that is only an evasion. If natural selection creates meaning and intelligence then natural selection is not natural.
The laws of chemistry. DUH!You said:
Your answer is in chemistry, not physics.
Well what laws does chemistry follow?
Doesn't appear that you did. Otherwise you would know the references I posted refute your position. You didn't list any of them in your book. Why not?You said:
So we get new information in thermal proteins and in RNA made by chemical reactions. That's the starting point. The rest comes in steps as that initial chemical information is added to by natural selection.
Now, you claim that there has been no work on how you get the genetic code. That is wrong.
Again, you twist my words. I did not say that there was no work on how you get the genetic code. I studied the work on code origin before I wrote the book.
Not "just wait a few million generations", but have natural selection working.The beginnings of the code that are supposed to prove that if we just wait a few million generations we will have a complete language are like saying that if we can only make the gears we can eventually assemble a watch that tells perfect time. Where exactly is the result???
I did. Your claim was "1. My book is about theism and atheism with personal opinions interjected. I do not claim that it is pure science and I make that distinction in the book."Notto showed this claim to be false. You do make such a claim in your book.
Why dont you read what I said?
Why didn't you quote the relevant passage from the book? That would have been easy enough for you to do, right?Changed your thesis from the book, haven't you? You were telling us that God could not have used the natural processes because such processes cannot yield life.
I specifically said that God does use natural processes as he sees fit.
Then what did you say? You castigate me for not reading it "right", but then don't tell me what the correct reading was.You said:
Here you are!. You are saying that God directly manufactured the genetic code and assigned the triplet code to the amino acids. The evidence says the triplet code evolved by natural selection.
Again, I DID NOT SAY what you assert I said.
I did. But the strawman is "where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding". Proteins alone won't produce a system of coding. You need the other half: RNA or DNA.napajohn said:again simply put the question is what process can you show where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding whereby something else that developed can mechanically translate this information into something that is not only self replicating but into the mechanisms that we see today..Evolutionists..just answer the question!!!
I wanted to compliment you on how deftly you managed to distract the discussion and duck the issue.RFHendrix said:You said: Dembski has shown that information arises from selection
Another attempt to twist my words. I already said several times on this thread that the problem is the origin of the information system )complete with the rules of grammar etc.) is the problem. You evade the issue by pretending that I am opposed to Dembski. I am not. Why dont you read the thread?
well what was the issue then? the reason that we mention strawmen so often is because creationists use them so often, there is no getting round that fact. I if you noticed, I was actually demonstrating a method by which information could form, however he never really addressed it properly.napajohn said:RFHendrix, you'll never get an honest answer with evolutionists..if you ask them a hard question that they can't answer, the issues become one of a strawman argument or your bias for special creation or whatever...again simply put the question is what process can you show where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding whereby something else that developed can mechanically translate this information into something that is not only self replicating but into the mechanisms that we see today..Evolutionists..just answer the question!!!
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