Why Is Darwinism So Dangerous? (5)

[bhsmte]

Life is full of disappointments.



Try on this for size.....

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Joh 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Joh 1:5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Joh 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
Joh 1:7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
​

Lot of truth in those few verses. What do you think?

You can think there is truth in those verses, knock yourself out. For those that don't feel the collection of stories has the same level of credibility as you, probably not so much.

 

[DerelictJunction]

Life is full of disappointments.

Try on this for size.....

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Joh 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Joh 1:5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Joh 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
Joh 1:7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
​

Lot of truth in those few verses. What do you think?

Yet none of that mentions the mechanism by which the Word made everything. It could have been done using natural processes that the Word created. This has been brought up before so I expect you will dismiss it out of hand. You haven't let evidence spoil your baloney. Why risk an original thought?

 

[justlookinla]

You can think there is truth in those verses, knock yourself out. For those that don't feel the collection of stories has the same level of credibility as you, probably not so much.

K

 

[justlookinla]

Yet none of that mentions the mechanism by which the Word made everything. It could have been done using natural processes that the Word created. This has been brought up before so I expect you will dismiss it out of hand. You haven't let evidence spoil your baloney. Why risk an original thought?

It mentions the 'someone', not the 'somehow'.

Do you agree with the passage?

 

[Oncedeceived]

I have to preemptively make fun of you, in case I forget to later

 

[PsychoSarah]

I am messing with you, by claiming to mess with you. Inception! ... This is why online communication has so many misunderstandings.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I am messing with you, by claiming to mess with you. Inception! ... This is why online communication has so many misunderstandings.

Are you dreaming?

 

[DerelictJunction]

It mentions the 'someone', not the 'somehow'.

Do you agree with the passage?

Agree with the passage? In what way? I agree that one possibility is that a super being was the creator of everything, I just don't agree there is significant enough evidence for me to believe it.

Regarding someone vs somehow, they are two different subjects.

Edison is said to have made the incandescent light bulb a workable device. How he did it is recorded in his laboratory notes.
The someone is Edison
The somehow is the process, all the trials and errors, performed in the lab.

The Bible says that all things were "created" by the Word. The Bible does not say, in John, how that was accomplished. You said yourself that it does not mention the somehow.
You believe the someone was the Word, as stated in the Bible.
The scientific evidence indicates that the somehow is through natural laws and processes. There is no conflict because the scientific investigation is trying to answer the question of how and does not address the question of who. The scientific conclusions cannot suggest a cause that was not investigated and the evidence does not point to.
If you have seen scientific evidence that indicates an intelligent designer, please present it.

 

[Oncedeceived]

We've been discussing just that.

3rd June 2014, 09:12 AM
Atheos canadensis

Junior Member


Originally Posted by Oncedeceived

Bring up the entire conversation for me to address it. I know what I meant and what I presented to show that. I am not going to go back and find the conversation due to time elements. I am not retracting until that time. If it that important to you then you should be the one that goes back and finds it.
​

Bah. You posted her work as a response to bhsmte requesting real science to back up the DI's arguments about fine tuning. None of the papers posted supported that.

I went back to get the post and bhsmte's posts didn't go back that far. I couldn't find it. It is a dead issue.

That is exactly what you asked for and what you got.
​

Oh come now, Once. That's silly and dishonest. I've lost count of how many times I wrote some variation of "Address the analogy and the point about parsimony". The entire purpose of bringing up an analogy is to illustrate a point. It is therefore evasive and dishonest to pretend that I never asked you to address the point of the analogy.

Really? Silly and dishonest? I have answered your analogy. I even said I would accept the analogy for the purpose of the discussion and then you call me dishonest. That is out of line and you need to apologize.

How would acing a test improve fitness to the extent of survival? I doubt that you can present any evidence for that.[

With the above analogy I really doubt that having answered questions accurately after studying could increase fitness to the extent of survival.
/QUOTE]

Did you even read the quote to which you posted this as a response? I'm not saying acing the test increases fitness, I'm saying acing the test is analogous to increasing fitness. The point of the analogy, which you seem to have given yourself permission to ignore (transparent evasion), is that accurately perceiving the questions (analogous to accurate faculties) would be far more likely to result in acing the test than inaccurately perceiving the questions (analogous to inaccurate faculties). In the same way, accurate faculties are much more likely to increase fitness than inaccurate ones. Please supply a counterargument to this if you disagree.

So now I am evading. IF you continue to question my motives there is no reason to continue this conversation. I said that we could for the sake of the argument claim that accurately perceiving the environment would give an organism an advantage for survival. That wasn't good enough for you. I don't know why, I was for the sake of argument giving into your point to show that your point is irrelevant to the discussion.

The counter argument as been presented repeatedly, yet you ignore it or claim that the Laws of Logic which would be necessary to accurate perception are not an evolved product. You have agreed that they are not an evolved product. If they are not an evolved product they are a priori to our perception of our environment accurate or not.

Once again, you have no evidence to show that ME can produce anything. Is it more parsimonious to conclude that a mindless process devoid of intelligence or purpose would produce anything of intelligence and purpose or for an Intelligent agent providing an inherent intelligence in the process?
​

It is when we have identified processes that don't have any empirical evidence of being intelligently guided. Assuming for the sake of argument that evolution is a unguided by God, can you explain why its mechanisms (e.g. natural selection) could not operate? Address this question with the following example, just so it sin't so abstract. Organisms with better immune systems are less prone to disease and death and therefore produce more offspring, causing the genes for superior immune systems to proliferate. Where is an intelligent guiding force required in that system?

The issue is not that natural selection is not a component in the processes that God uses in His creation. It is not an issue of whether He tinkers with that creation or leaves it to take care of itself. Without the inherent intelligence and the laws of logic man could not accurately perceive his environment. ME would not have intelligence to provide to organisms, and the laws of logic being transcendent to man would be necessary to develop or codify them in the first place.

It seems to me that the difference is in how that genetically based intelligence is shown in the genome or lack therein vs that which is structurally associated with intelligence or genes acted upon by other factors such as epigenetics.
​

Could you rephrase this? I don't understand what you are saying.

It doesn't matter. It was a very insignificant side issue that is not even important to the conversation.

I have shown that inaccurate faculties could be selected for. If the man and lion analogy is carried through to him surviving and passing on his genes.
​

Surviving to reproduce is not the same thing as being selected for. Being selected for means that you reproduce more successfully than other members of the population. It is unrealistic to claim that the guy who actively seeks out lions would have more success than the lion-avoiding members of the population would. In other words, you have shown that it is possible to reproduce despite deleterious traits, not that inaccurate faculties would be selected for. And again, your analogy illustrates incomplete information and poor conclusions, not inaccurate faculties.

I can agree. It really isn't that significant to our discussion anyway.

You are using two sets of circumstances that change the question substantially. In the case of humans being able to perceive their environment accurately vs. a jelly fish. Are you willing to make your argument for humans or do you wish to make a general sweeping statement?
​

It makes no difference. Either accurate faculties are the same thing as intelligence, as you claim, or they aren't. Jellyfish (or snails or flies etc.) possess accurate faculties but are not intelligent. Therefore your conflation fails. You have yet to refute this.

No, there is sensory faculties that allow an organism to successfully work within their environment or there are humans that use their intelligence to accurately perceive their environment. Are you wanting to equate the faculties of the jelly fish to the human's ability?

You have not provided a definition that works with reality on the laws of logic. You seem to be all over the place in their origin and their meaning. Like I said in my last post, you have failed to show me evidence for evolution to be a mindless process. It can hardly make your case if you presuppose the conclusion you wish to prove.
​

See above.

That is completely false. The current theory does not incorporate supernatural elements due to it being a study of the natural world.

What? Will you elaborate on this, I am not sure what it has to do with my statement.
​

Because supernatural elements are not testable. Invisible, intangible influence cannot be investigated scientifically

Again, I am not sure what you are getting at.

You have made the claim that ME produces accurate faculties. You have yet to show that the process of evolution is mindless and why it is not more parsimonious to conclude a mind behind the process than no mind when trying to persuade me of accurate perception when it take a mind to do so.
​

Seems like you're still trying to conflate accurate faculties with intelligence. You haven't justified this.

So Jelly fish perceive the universe and understand the language of it? Can they do abstract mathematics that explain the workings of it. That is what is being discussed. How human beings have this ability. You are the one that either has to explain how the same faculties that give the jelly fish success in its environment equates to man's ability to understand the universe and language of it abstractly.

How do you observe an apple being something it is not?
​

You don't. You observe it being red. From this you conclude that it is not blue (or any other colour). More importantly, do you understand the distinction I made between the reality of the universe (let's call them physical laws), the formal codifications of that reality (Laws of Logic) and the means by which we perceive that reality (accurate faculties)? You seem to refer to all three of these as laws of logic, which is sloppy. If you could use the terminology I just outlined, that would be really helpful in keeping things clear.

Laws of Logic are not physical laws. They are laws of concepts. Laws of the mind. How do physical laws create laws of the mind?

You seem to be saying that they are brute facts that we form codifications for based on observation, yet that is not explaining the laws of logic, as one must have them a prioi to observe anything to make sense of it.
​

From this I infer that when you say "laws of logic" you are talking about accurate faculties. Faculties like the ability to connect cause and effect or respond to stimuli. These are evolvable traits. Such faculties are the expected result of evolution. I refer you to the parsimony argument of the test analogy and urge you to finally make a substantive response.

Then you are incorrect. The laws of logic are not about our faculties at all. They exist outside of ourselves. They are not dependent on us to exist. They are true whether mankind exists or not. They are not about our accurate faculties.

I mean the transcendent properties of the laws of logic outside of, beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.
​

Can you give me an example? Because it seems like you're just talking about accurate faculties while referring to them as transcendent.

You seem to be the one confused. You claim on one hand that the laws of logic are the same as the physical laws of the universe or brute fact that we discover and codify. Then you claim that they evolved as accurate faculties in us. What are you claiming because I am totally confused by your differing explanations for them.

That which is beyond physical human observation is not evolvable.
​

Doesn't address what I said. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Perhaps when you provide an example of your transcendent laws of logic it will become clearer.

Let's take the three I've given before:

Law of Identity states that something is what it is and is not what it is not. For example, a rock is a rock and not a frog.
Law of non-contridiction means that something cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way. In other words, two contradictory statements cannot both be true.
Law of excluded middle which says that a statement is either true or false. “We are here” is a true statement. “The planet Mars is in my pocket” is not a true statement.


These laws of logic are true regardless of man and his faculties. They exist on their own. We have discovered them but they existed prior to our being and would continue if we did not. We did not come to these conclusions from our physical observations they are concepts of the mind. They existed before life on earth existed.

If the universe has a basic reality of logic which is of the mind, then you prove my point.

Which presupposes logic is of the mind, which presupposes the universe is a property of the mind. You prove my point. Thank you.
​

Nice try. This is merely semantic slight of had. Which is why I have clarified the terminology above. Laws of logic (like Non-contradiction) are formal codifications of Physical laws or reality. Our faculties have been evolved in the framework of that reality. Your semantic games are come perilously close to being the Fallacy of equivocation. In the future you should being more specific, ideally by using the terminology I have outlined.

But you are begging the question.

You can not observe an apple simultaneously being red and not blue.
​

This sounds like nonsense. Please elaborate.

Lets leave the apple since you are having trouble there. Let us move to truths. The laws of logic are laws of truth. The law of non-contradiction is the law that no truth can ever be false. The law of non-contradiction is the law about propositions the primary bearers of truth-value. They are truths about propositions and the truth-value between them. The knowledge of the Laws of Logic gives us the ability to infer from the truth-values of some propositions the truth-values of other propositions.

 

[justlookinla]

Agree with the passage? In what way? I agree that one possibility is that a super being was the creator of everything, I just don't agree there is significant enough evidence for me to believe it.

Ok.

Regarding someone vs somehow, they are two different subjects.

Edison is said to have made the incandescent light bulb a workable device. How he did it is recorded in his laboratory notes.
The someone is Edison
The somehow is the process, all the trials and errors, performed in the lab.

The Bible says that all things were "created" by the Word. The Bible does not say, in John, how that was accomplished. You said yourself that it does not mention the somehow.
You believe the someone was the Word, as stated in the Bible.
The scientific evidence indicates that the somehow is through natural laws and processes.

No it doesn't.

There is no conflict because the scientific investigation is trying to answer the question of how and does not address the question of who. The scientific conclusions cannot suggest a cause that was not investigated and the evidence does not point to.
If you have seen scientific evidence that indicates an intelligent designer, please present it.

It's been presented by individuals much smarter than me.

 

[bhsmte]

Agree with the passage? In what way? I agree that one possibility is that a super being was the creator of everything, I just don't agree there is significant enough evidence for me to believe it.

Ok.



No it doesn't.



It's been presented by individuals much smarter than me.

If the people smarter than you have failed in presenting objective evidence for design, where does that put those who are not as smart?

 

[justlookinla]

Agree with the passage? In what way? I agree that one possibility is that a super being was the creator of everything, I just don't agree there is significant enough evidence for me to believe it.

If the people smarter than you have failed in presenting objective evidence for design, where does that put those who are not as smart?

They haven't failed. The effort continues in spite of the resistance from the Darwinist creationist camp.

 

[Loudmouth]

They haven't failed. The effort continues in spite of the resistance from the Darwinist creationist camp.

creationism: the belief that God created all things out of nothing as described in the Bible and that therefore the theory of evolution is incorrect.
Creationism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Want to try again?

 

[DerelictJunction]

No it doesn't.

It looks like you responded to this sentence.

The scientific evidence indicates that the somehow is through natural laws and processes.

And replied with "nuh-uh!", which persuaded no-one toward your point of view.
You also ignored much of my post which points out that the Bible doesn't describe the process only the designer. So the process could be anything. Science has investigated and has significant and abundant evidence that the process was evolution. Your reply? "Nuh-uh!" How adult of you.

It's been presented by individuals much smarter than me.

This must be in reply to:

If you have seen scientific evidence that indicates an intelligent designer, please present it.

Rather than following your lead, I will be a little more verbose in my reply.
Nuh-uh! While it is easy to find someone much smarter than you who has presented the proposal that there is an intelligent designer, their "evidence" typically consists of God-of-the-Gaps and Incredulity arguments. Those are not really evidence.

 

[bhsmte]

They haven't failed. The effort continues in spite of the resistance from the Darwinist creationist camp.

What is this; "resistance" you speak of in the scientific community?

Could it have anything to do with; no objective test to determine ID? Could it be they have no workable theory? Could it be ID is not falsifiable?

Real science will reject the above qualities each and every time, as well it should, otherwise it wouldn't be science, now would it?

One of the resident ID smart guys, Behe, himself acknowledged in open court, if ID was considered science, astrology would also be considered science.

They got exposed, because they have no real science. They can keep trying though, no one is stopping them.

 

[DerelictJunction]

They haven't failed. The effort continues in spite of the resistance from the Darwinist creationist camp.

The fact that the effort continues means that it has not succeeded. That would mean it has failed...thus far.

 

[justlookinla]

The fact that the effort continues means that it has not succeeded. That would mean it has failed...thus far.

It's hasn't failed in the sense that there isn't evidence for it. Some just aren't accepting it.

 

[justlookinla]

creationism: the belief that God created all things out of nothing as described in the Bible and that therefore the theory of evolution is incorrect.
Creationism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Want to try again?

cre·a·tion
krēˈāSHən/Submit
noun
1.
the action or process of bringing something into existence.

 

[DerelictJunction]

It's hasn't failed in the sense that there isn't evidence for it. Some just aren't accepting it.

Point me to it...a link perhaps?

 

[bhsmte]

It's hasn't failed in the sense that there isn't evidence for it. Some just aren't accepting it.

No question, the scientific community doesn't accept what the ID community deems as evidence as support of ID, you are correct.