Why I do not accept evolution part one

[coffee4u]

Here is a list of fraudsters from the biological and medical sciences.
Here is another list of fraudsters in physics and astronomy.

All these fraudsters have one thing in common; they are Christians.

Where do you get the idea that they are all Christians?

List of scientific misconduct List of scientific misconduct incidents - Wikipedia

More fraud Royal Statistical Society Publications

Fraud and hoaxes in science - PubMed

It's easy to find.

 

[pitabread]

Origin of Life and dark matter research are just two pointless pursuits, along with everything to do with evolution.

Evolution is an applied science that has already yielded benefits. Just because you can't understand it doesn't invalidate it.

 

[sjastro]

Where do you get the idea that they are all Christians?

List of scientific misconduct List of scientific misconduct incidents - Wikipedia

More fraud Royal Statistical Society Publications

Fraud and hoaxes in science - PubMed

It's easy to find.

I thought the sarcasm would have been blindingly obvious; the message is science is not about being institutionalized fraud.
These Christians can think for themselves and believe in a process which is the very antithesis of faith; experiment and observation which is an expression of skepticism.
Science is about skepticism and scientists whether they be Christian, from other religions or atheists share this common idea.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Evolution is an applied science that has already yielded benefits. Just because you can't understand it doesn't invalidate it.

And of course dark matter is used as starship fuel.

 

[Kylie]

And of course dark matter is used as starship fuel.

I believe they switched to whale oil.

 

[Aussie Pete]

You're making promises *you* can't keep. We'll see how it turns out.

Not *my* promises. They are God's promises. They always come to pass.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Anticipation is always done by conscious minds. Anticipation has zero meaning when there is no conscious observer around to form a conclusion of: anticipation.
No .. its always a cognitive inference (a conclusion) being made by a human observer (as is: 'an evolutionary process' also).

OK.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Yet both arrangements of bricks are the product of intelligent design. Your test for "design" is useless.

Yet you obviously know which pattern is designed and which is not don't you?

Because the pattern in the random pile is not in itself designed, regardless of whether or not it was put their by an in intelligent designer, (it could be a collapsed wall) you see the distinction?

You could scatter rocks randomly on the beach v write 'HELP'
both were the product of your intelligence, but only one contains the definitive fingerprint of specifying information by design.

It still works, that's what makes 'information' the more objective measure

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Yes .. So what?
Each of the three emboldened terms above are what either you, or some other human mind naturally does.
What's so 'profound' about that?

Depending on context.

if we see 'I love Susan' written with rocks on the beach, we know it was intelligence, it's not too profound (unless you are Susan maybe)

if SETI detects a few anomalous amplitudes in a certain frequency - somebody found that profound enough to write 'WOW' beside it -

if we find the entire fabric of the universe and biology permeated with specifying information... our acceptance of the implication, largely depends on how 'profound' we perceive that implication to be.
To some the idea of an intelligent designer violates a personally held law of methodological naturalism- literally beyond acceptability.

To others is comes as no surprise whatsoever, information is a common tool of creative intelligence, why would God not use it?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

There's a risk here of a circular or tautological definition of anticipation - i.e. anticipation as done by conscious minds is unique to conscious minds.

There's a good argument to be made that anticipation can be applied more widely - consider the leaves of a Venus Fly-trap that anticipate the arrival of a fly to trigger their closure, or the structure of a cactus that anticipates long periods of drought, etc.

What the various forms of anticipation have in common is conditioned 'learning' or programming of various sorts - the persistent effects of past experience of the environment preparing the anticipator for similar future conditions. In the case of the plants I mentioned, it's a evolutionary process; in the case of higher animals it's a cognitive process. But there is a variety of intermediate forms of anticipation.

I agree- semantics often fog the debate as words can mean different things.

To be clear I AM talking about conscious anticipation. We agree, flowers do not consciously open in anticipation of a bee collecting pollen- they merely REACT to past cause and effect (be that their intelligent design or Darwinian evolution) There is no intention required on the part of the flower

Conscious anticipation is an entirely distinct phenomena from this, because it is not bound to merely react to the past, it can create entirely new things from a conscious anticipation of the consequence.
hence 'creative intelligence'

That's where specifying information comes in, text in a book cannot exist by unconscious cause and effect, it requires conscious anticipation to exist. So too with an airplane- beyond the intuitive recognition of a man-made object- it is ultimately the 'intent' described in it's design information, that would tell an alien unfamiliar with it, that it was an intelligent design.

Arguably nothing could ever exist without consciousness, otherwise you are left with the paradox of an infinite regression of cause and effect, with no creative power to ever establish itself

 

[pitabread]

if we find the entire fabric of the universe and biology permeated with specifying information...

The problem with applying this to the entire universe, you no longer have a point of comparison.

With everything else you describe, there is a comparison involved. For example, with the rocks spelling out "Susan", what you're really doing is using pattern recognition based on pre-existing knowledge and comparing that pattern to the surroundings.

You can't do that with the entire universe.

All you're really doing is just invoking an arbitrary philosophy about the nature of the universe.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The problem with applying this to the entire universe, you no longer have a point of comparison.

With everything else you describe, there is a comparison involved. For example, with the rocks spelling out "Susan", what you're really doing is using pattern recognition based on pre-existing knowledge and comparing that pattern to the surroundings.

You can't do that with the entire universe.

All you're really doing is just invoking an arbitrary philosophy about the nature of the universe.

I think you get right to the crux of the matter here

"no longer have a point of comparison"? of course we don't, we never did, that's the point.

The universe and life in it is a sample of 1. We can't possibly compare it to anything else can we?- which is why mere comparisons, intuition, familiarity is a useless measure in determining the ultimate nature/ origin of the universe- whether that leads a person to design or materialism- is hopelessly subjective

We need the most objective possible measure: phenomena which occur by virtue of conscious anticipation of a future consequence v those which occur through reaction to past events, can be determined where there is enough specifying information- because this can only exist through conscious anticipation of the future consequence- of what that information will specify.

A unique fingerprint of phenomena unique to a conscious mind- no subjectivity required

 

[pitabread]

We need the most objective possible measure: phenomena which occur by virtue of conscious anticipation of a future consequence v those which occur through reaction to past events, can be determined where there is enough specifying information- because this can only exist through conscious anticipation of the future consequence- of what that information will specify.

Leaving aside the fact that I'm not sure what you're suggesting is even valid to begin with (I don't think what you're suggesting is in fact objective), anything you're applying to the entire universe a whole there is no measure. You're just making a grand pronouncement about the nature of the universe.

Remember when I said there was a dead end to these discussions? This is it.

 

[Speedwell]

Yet you obviously know which pattern is designed and which is not don't you?

Because the pattern in the random pile is not in itself designed, regardless of whether or not it was put their by an in intelligent designer, (it could be a collapsed wall) you see the distinction?

You could scatter rocks randomly on the beach v write 'HELP'
both were the product of your intelligence, but only one contains the definitive fingerprint of specifying information by design.

It still works, that's what makes 'information' the more objective measure

Yes, but that won't do you any good. All that test gives you is the ability to sometimes conclude that design is present. What you need is a test that will allow you to distinguish between an apparently random scattering of rocks that were distributed by natural causes and another was scattered by intention.

 

[Speedwell]

Arguably nothing could ever exist without consciousness, otherwise you are left with the paradox of an infinite regression of cause and effect, with no creative power to ever establish itself

Another argument from another school of metaphysics altogether which has nothing to do with ID.

 

[Astrophile]

It looks like most of the main stars in the cluster are late B stars. I'm not well read in astrobiology, but those don't sound like good candidates for life formation anyway. There does seem to be a star (HD 23514) that is a closer solar analog with possible signatures of current planet formation.

B and A-type stars, such as the brighter stars of the Pleiades, have life-spans of only hundreds of millions of years, certainly too short a time for complex life to evolve even if it is long enough for life to get started. Although HD 23514 is a closer solar analogue, analogy with the history of life on Earth suggests that complex life will not evolve on its planets within the next billion years.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Yes, but that won't do you any good. All that test gives you is the ability to sometimes conclude that design is present. What you need is a test that will allow you to distinguish between an apparently random scattering of rocks that were distributed by natural causes and another was scattered by intention.

Which this does in this case. I suppose it's not entirely impossible, that 100 bricks dumped from a loader, would happen to stack as a 10 x 10 wall... but this tells you it's not the most likely explanation (again aside from any intuitive recognition you might have of a man made wall)

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

osdqorwwmfdjbgkriokjandlryovnfbeod

we both know which certainly contains information which specifies something

For all I know, the 2nd line means something very rude in Norwegian... but I can't conclude any creative intelligence from this pattern of letters-

i.e., of course you can get a false negative, any digital stream of bits from a DVD may look entirely random- but seeing a single frame of output confirms it is not...

While false positives get extremely improbable very quickly as the quality and quantity of information increases.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Evolution is an applied science that has already yielded benefits. Just because you can't understand it doesn't invalidate it.

for example?

 

[pitabread]

for example?

On example is it serves as foundational basis for comparative genomics methodologies: Comparative genomics - Wikipedia

This in turn has commercial application in fields like medicine and agriculture. For example: Scientists pinpoint gene linked to fat in cow’s milk

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Leaving aside the fact that I'm not sure what you're suggesting is even valid to begin with (I don't think what you're suggesting is in fact objective), anything you're applying to the entire universe a whole there is no measure. You're just making a grand pronouncement about the nature of the universe.

Remember when I said there was a dead end to these discussions? This is it.

in terms of 'we may never know'? I agree- we are talking about something 'beyond the borne from which no traveler returns'

That does not mean we are at a complete loss to try to deduce a least improbable explanation- as Darwin attempted to do for life. Understandably the hierarchical digital information systems/ symbolic code conventions/ software architecture in DNA were not part of his deduction. In his day, Newton's laws were still 'immutable' & self replicating cells were mere blobs of ' protoplasm' assumed to operate by some relatively simple chemical process

apples fall from trees and information falls from a conscious mind

there is no comparison needed for these observations, the instructions contained in DNA is not simply 'like' (specifying) information, it absolutely objectively is.