Why are there still apes?

[AV1611VET]

Now all you have to do is demonstrate the presence of design.

Reminds me of this oldie but goodie:

Here's a good example to illustrate the fact that something can indeed be "out there" beyond empirical detection:

• Suppose you were reduced to a fish in a pond with other fish. You all can communicate and are very intelligent. You know what you know now, but the other fish don't. They know nothing beyond "that barrier" they grew up under --- (the pond's surface).

How would you convince your fish friends the Taj Mahal exists?

 

[Shemjaza]

What I am trying to establish is that Apes (and humans) still exists by d(D)esign. As far as I understand, it doesn't matter very much if Intelligent Design is different from Creation, at least for this discussion

My point was that intelligent design is not distinct from Creationism.

You were conflating Intelligent Design with Theistic Evolution that are not typically presented as the same position.

To demonstrate your point you would need to present some objective method of detecting, measuring and distinguishing design from non-design. Then if you want to project a particular conclusion you would have to present a method by which the designer acts on the design and some way of detecting evidence for that designer.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Reminds me of this oldie but goodie:

Here's a good example to illustrate the fact that something can indeed be "out there" beyond empirical detection:

• Suppose you were reduced to a fish in a pond with other fish. You all can communicate and are very intelligent. You know what you know now, but the other fish don't. They know nothing beyond "that barrier" they grew up under --- (the pond's surface).

How would you convince your fish friends the Taj Mahal exists?

Old but not good. It's just the old elitist 'special knowledge' trope dressed up. It's a bait-&-switch analogy that begs the question by suggesting that something that everyone knows exists is analogous to something ill-defined and unsubstantiated. Replace the Taj Mahal in the analogy with Bigfoot, faeries, the Loch Ness monster, or any other unsubstantiated entity and it loses its superficial patina of credibility as an argument.

 

[AV1611VET]

Old but not good. It's just the old elitist 'special knowledge' trope dressed up. It's a bait-&-switch analogy that begs the question by suggesting that something that everyone knows exists is analogous to something ill-defined and unsubstantiated. Replace the Taj Mahal in the analogy with Bigfoot, faeries, the Loch Ness monster, or any other unsubstantiated entity and it loses its superficial patina of credibility as an argument.

You can change it to anything you want, but the fact remains, you can't explain how you would explain to the other fish that the Taj Mahal exists.

Think about it:

Changing the Taj Mahal to Big Foot just makes it harder on you to explain.

 

[Shemjaza]

Reminds me of this oldie but goodie:

Here's a good example to illustrate the fact that something can indeed be "out there" beyond empirical detection:

• Suppose you were reduced to a fish in a pond with other fish. You all can communicate and are very intelligent. You know what you know now, but the other fish don't. They know nothing beyond "that barrier" they grew up under --- (the pond's surface).

How would you convince your fish friends the Taj Mahal exists?

It would be very difficult to justify the existence of the Taj Mahal, but you would be able to work to demonstrate that your knowledge of a world outside the pond wasn't a dream, lie or delusion.

Perhaps you could show that you can make out details of things on beyond the edge. Perhaps you could experiment with air bubbles from churning up your tail.

A very difficult but purely physical barrier is very different barrier from a literally undetectable and undefinable spiritual barrier.

 

[AV1611VET]

Perhaps you could show that you can make out details of things on beyond the edge. Perhaps you could experiment with air bubbles from churning up your tail.

Remember though: all the fish are very intelligent.

Anything you can do, they can do too.

You are just in possession of a snippet of Truth that they don't have access to.

 

[Shemjaza]

Remember though: all the fish are very intelligent.

Anything you can do, they can do too.

You are just in possession of a snippet of Truth that they don't have access to.

That's the problem. We haven't been able to demonstrate the existence of a supernatural realm.

Proving to the fish that there is a whole world full of humans and buildings wouldn't prove to the fish that I used to be one and that there's a building called the Taj Mahal, but it would certainly give them evidence that it might be worth investigating.

Likewise proving that there was a supernatural element to our world and that souls exist and have a destination beyond life would not prove that Jesus Christ was our Lord and Savior... but it would certainly be a start.

 

[AV1611VET]

Likewise proving that there was a supernatural element to our world and that souls exist and have a destination beyond life would not prove that Jesus Christ was our Lord and Savior... but it would certainly be a start.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you on this.

I believe if Jesus came back and did everything He did during His first advent on Earth, they would call for His crucifixion.

Only today, they would probably think He was an alien from another planet here to put our hospitals and churches out of commission.

 

[Shemjaza]

Unfortunately I have to agree with you on this.

I believe if Jesus came back and did everything He did during His first advent on Earth, they would call for His crucifixion.

Only today, they would probably think He was an alien from another planet here to put our hospitals and churches out of commission.

Also many who are not Christian would believe... and I suspect many who are currently Christian would disbelieve.

Also some would believe he was a space alien and that he was their Lord and Savior.

People believe some very funny things without any evidence... bringing actual evidence into the equation would magnify that.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You can change it to anything you want, but the fact remains, you can't explain how you would explain to the other fish that the Taj Mahal exists.

Think about it:

Changing the Taj Mahal to Big Foot just makes it harder on you to explain.

Obviously it's harder to explain something ill-defined, unsubstantiated and for which there's no evidence - that's the point; and if your audience considers the claim implausible, they can reasonably apply Hitchen's razor.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Unfortunately I have to agree with you on this.

I believe if Jesus came back and did everything He did during His first advent on Earth, they would call for His crucifixion.

Only today, they would probably think He was an alien from another planet here to put our hospitals and churches out of commission.

Change "they" for "we" and I think you're right. Only those with a weird biblical view would call for crucifixion. It disappeared as a common form of execution 1500 years ago, although the Japanese used it to kill some Christians for a while. Furthermore, progressive societies no longer espouse capital punishment. And most educated people now would listen politely and decide if he was genuinely who he claimed to be.

 

[doubtingmerle]

What I am trying to establish is that Apes (and humans) still exists by d(D)esign. As far as I understand, it doesn't matter very much if Intelligent Design is different from Creation, at least for this discussion

I am still trying to figure out how you think we came into existence. As near as I can tell, you are opposed to those who say there was a 1 week creation event sometime in the last 10,000 years. You are opposed to those who say we evolved over many millions of years. But those are the only two ideas on the table on this thread. Do you care to put your option on the table for our consideration?

Below is a chart of various known hominids. How do you think all these species came into existence?

 

[James A]

We see the small scale changes all the time. We have clear physical explanations for small changes. We've even seen single celled organisms operate as colony organisms... a necessary step to increased complexity.

This, again, talks about the operation. What I am concerned about is the cause.

Explain the implication.

No object can escape a universal cause unless acted upon by an external agent. Thus, the early life surviving the hostile environment proves the involvement of an intelligent mind

Across the range of life there's more then just asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction with two sexes. There are also species who sexually reproduce, but are all effectively both sexes. There are species who reproduce in different ways in different circumstances.

What I'm saying is that there are clear transitional stages from the two seemingly different positions you describe.

Also, can you explain how it shows the involvement of an intelligent mind?

post #628

What sort of "natural agents" mutated the primitive bacteria, presumably unisex, into complex male and female with organs which complement each other? Not to mention, their instinct to live together and reproduce.

Additionally, why would those "natural agents" give male birds shining feathers, male humans facial hairs and different voice from females?

Humans are the smartest, most technological species to ever walk the Earth, but I know of no demonstrable trait that doesn't have an analogue in the animal kingdom.

Animals do have life, a metaphysical property, which cannot be a natural part of their physical life by definition.

Additionally, we know living beings are pre programmed to protest their own life so, the instinct of mothers animals risking their own life to protect their children cannot be termed "natural".

An important start point would be evidence of an Intelligent Designer the mechanism by which it operates.

Evidence would be "order" or "discipline". Natural agents by definition cannot induce order.

It strikes me as incredibly disingenuous to use your personal incredulity about the effectiveness of evolution or chemistry to abandon them as explanations... they to accept an entity with unknown or unknowable ability as any kind of explanation.

Abandon? I don't deny Science. And I know that Science cannot answer the ontological question we are talking about.

All temperatures and environments of the Earth has life in it... the dark depths of the ocean, inside the rocks of the mantle, it even survived on the outside of our space craft.

Life grows and replaces itself... especially when there aren't any competitors.

If the primitive forms of live always exists then why have we seen the origin of life only once? The primitive life form in the early earth not only survived but progressed to complex forms.

 

[James A]

What are you talking about? Scientific formulae are not based on infinities, cause/effect or any of the metaphysical ideas you claim. And yes, I am sure I want to call some of them tenuous - you do know, for instance, that causality has been violated?

Scientific formulae are based on Philosophy ( Logic and Mathematics). Philosophy is based on our understanding of the world functions in a uniform way.

To put this in a simple way, we don't care if a coffee cup is missing but we do care if a dining table is missing. We don't care about the spider in our garage as long as it doesn't talk. We are living in a uniform world; not a bizarre world like Alice's wonder land so, our scientists spends time on creating mathematical models.

We are living in this world with certain assumptions and one of them, relevant to this discussion, is order cannot come from natural agents; certainly, not to the level of complexity we see in the species.

But that's beside the point - your claim is that God is the default position, but you have failed to explain why. Even if causality, infinities etc were definitive, that would still not require God.

I thought we agreed to do a-posteriori analysis?

What metaphysical object interacted with the grass outside my window to make it green?

Not sure what is meant here. Deductive conclusions are universal truths

e.g.

a) all bachelors are unmarried
b) John is a bachelor
c) John is unmarried

This is a universal truth because #c is derived deductively, based on definitions. There cannot be any counter examples.

Similarly, physical object cannot posses metaphysical properties natively is a universal truth.

At best, your point serve as circular reasoning

 

[James A]

I think you'll find that it is neither provable nor falsifiable in general.

But the specific and testable propositions of ID to date have been shown to be false, and ID is generally considered to be pseudoscience by the scientific community, particularly since it has no theoretical scientific foundation. We already have a demonstrable natural explanation for the diversity of life, and research into the natural origin of life is making good progress.

What Science established is the operation and timelines and what I am trying to prove is that there is pre design behind the diversification of life ( thus we see Apes and humans by design).

 

[Hans Blaster]

Not sure what is meant here. Deductive conclusions are universal truths

e.g.

a) all bachelors are unmarried
b) John is a bachelor
c) John is unmarried

This is a universal truth because #c is derived deductively, based on definitions. There cannot be any counter examples.

Similarly, physical object cannot posses metaphysical properties natively is a universal truth.

At best, your point serve as circular reasoning

Scientific "truths", or better conclusions, are *inductive* not *deductive*.

Science does not seek "universal truths" and makes no claims that such things even exist.

Just a helpful bit of info from a local, neighborhood ape.

 

[James A]

Arguments from incredulity are a kind of argument from ignorance. When you find yourself wanting to make one, it's worth considering learning about the topic so that you understand why people who spend their careers studying it disagree with you. If you remain unconvinced, you should then be able to make a cogent argument against it.

And do you mind addressing the main point of my previous post - would anyone try to come up with a Scientific formulae in a chaotic world like Alice's wonderland?

You really should make an effort to learn something about the subject before attempting to criticise it.

I did not "criticize" anything. I am comfortable with theistic evolution. It is the claim of no predesign that I disagree with.

It would take a hypothesis that is better than the explanations currently available; i.e. that is testable, makes fruitful predictions, provides an understanding of the underlying mechanisms, unifies with existing knowledge, is simple (Occam's Razor), coherent, consistent, and doesn't invoke the inexplicable - you can't explain the unexplained with the inexplicable.

Looks like you already defined how the "intelligent mind" should function and rejecting everything that doesn't fit. (Isn't this what dogma means?)

Do you want to reconcile your post with the concept of Dark energy and dark matter, something which our 94% of our Universe consists of?

Simple life on Earth today thrives in the conditions you've mentioned. We know that the building blocks of life are generated in those conditions. There's nothing to suggest intelligence, and plenty to suggest the lack of it - including the many mass extinction events through Earth's history.

I dont deny the primitive life surviving the early earth. What I meant was the survival and its progress to advanced life shows the involvemnt of a supernatural agent.

This is gibberish. But I can tell you that the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that entropy never decreases in a isolated system, doesn't apply to open systems like the Earth, which orbits a source of low entropy energy called the sun.

While my post sounded like the Second Law, I did not use the term. What I meant was a simple thing we observe. For example, if we leave our house opened, we will find more disorder compred to leaving it closed. More natural agents work on a object, more disorder it undergoes but we believe natural agents (?) worked consistently for hundreds of thousands of generations resulted in the mutations.

 

[Hans Blaster]

To put this in a simple way, we don't care if a coffee cup is missing but we do care if a dining table is missing. We don't care about the spider in our garage as long as it doesn't talk. We are living in a uniform world; not a bizarre world like Alice's wonder land so, our scientists spends time on creating mathematical models.

How does this demonstrate the logical consistency of things?

The coffee drinker cares if the cup of coffee goes missing.
We may care if the dining table goes missing, but a missing dining table doesn't say anything about the consistency of logic or physics. Dining tables do go missing.

There's nothing in logic that says a spider couldn't talk. We don't know of talking spiders on modern Earth, and we don't expect to find them, but that isn't an aspect of the consistency of physics or logic.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Natural agents by definition cannot induce order.

Why not?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Do you want to reconcile your post with the concept of Dark energy and dark matter, something which our 94% of our Universe consists of?

The only connection between dark matter, dark energy, and apes is that apes discovered both. Neither are relevant to the topic here.