Why Would An Agnostic Doubt the Theory of Evolution

[Dizredux]

Are you arguing that nested hierarchies cause common descent?
Or are you claiming that common descent causes nested hierarchies?

Logical syllogisms do not necessarily deal with cause. Didn't you say you taught logic at the university level?


Dizredux

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Sure lots of things about humans seem sub-optimal. Dios mío humans come with two lungs, when you only need one. They come with six eye muscles, when you only need four.

Of course by this argument you can demonstrate that no V8 engine is designed. After all, cars run just fine on 4 cylinders. In fact, 3 cylinder cars work well, too. I refuse to believe, therefore, that the Dodge Challenger was designed. It must have occurred naturally through millions of years of natural selection.

Poor examples. I see better ones have been mentioned. External testes are a good example of sub-optimal design. Plenty of animals have internal testes that work perfectly well with none of the many problems associated with external testes. I can give you the numbers if you like.

Yeah, sure. How terrible that humans eat and breathe through the same hole. Lots of other creatures don't do that.

On the other hand, they don't talk either. It turns out that if you design a windpipe so that you can eat and breathe at the same time, it's hard to talk with it.

It's a horrible handicap to have to stop talking when I eat, but somehow I've managed to survive 41 years under this terrible handicap.

Of course the claim you've made also refutes natural selection. Had it been such a horrible handicap, why did I evolve thus?

Doesn't actually address the fact that one would expect an IDer (particularly considering that relatively few people use that term without meaning God) to design a system where eating at the same time as breathing is not potentially fatal. And of course it does not refute natural selection, as has been pointed out; such a suboptimal but generally functional design fits perfectly with what one would expect of natural selection.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

No, I'm just unconvinced by logical fallacies.

You see, you have a theory (let's call that T) and you have observations (let's call those O) such that:

T => O
Then you find the observations (O).
Then you conclude that T is true.

In reality you have only committed a logical fallacy.

But of course you know that we are really concluding that T is more likely to be true.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Wrong. Every time I cross the intersection when the light turns green it's because I'm convinced that an invisible tailgating truck will mow me down unless I move forward immediately.

False. If simply making things up (even if it is intended, as I assume this was, as a joke) is the only way you can avoid conceding your constant use of parsimony, then you have some conceding to do.

There's a history of aneurysm in my family. I take vitamin C, 500 mg three times a day. You see, my ancestors used to make vitamin C in their livers, but somehow I picked up a bad gene and I don't make hardly any so I have to supplement it.

Now someone will accuse me of believing in scientific studies. Actually, though, the cost of taking vitamin C is small whereas the potential gain is large.

P.S. The last time I went to the Peruvian health care facility I sat for 6 hours waiting for my son to be attended to. Simply because there is zero cost in terms of Nuevos Soles Peruanos does not mean that there is no cost.

Again you've sidestepped the point I was making. If anything you've strengthened it. You know there is a history of aneurysms in your family so you have even more reason to assume that your headache is signalling such an affliction. But you don't. Why? If not because you know aneurysms are rare then why? Your opportunity cost doesn't explain anything. You view waiting six hours or lost wages as a steep price because you know it is actually pretty unlikely that you have an aneurysm. You are parsimoniously assuming that it is more likely that your headache is just a headache. If you knew for a fact that you were experiencing the beginning of an aneurysm I'm sure you would regard six hours as a minor sacrifice, even if you're losing wages.

And what about the footsteps in your house? There would be no real cost to calling out "Who is there?" beyond perhaps some minor embarrassment when your girlfriend answered. But I bet you don't do that because you know that it is more likely to be your girlfriend than a home invader.

What about the possibility that one day when your girlfriend comes home she is really a murderous doppelganger? Again the cost of finding out would be low. Just asking a casual question to which only the real woman knows the answer ("Do you remember the name of that place we went blah blah blah?") would suffice. But I bet you don't test your girlfriend this way whenever she has been out of your sight because you know it is very unlikely that a murderous doppleganger has taken her place.


You also didn't respond to the point that parsimony should be considered a good way to approach things because everyone does it and it generally works out pretty well, not merely because everyone does it.

 

[biggles53]

Oh I am sure there could be other reasons.

Dizredux

And surely, the most obvious response to all of Z's objections is........


.................IT WORKS.....!!

This method of collecting, analysing and testing evidence that we call the scientific method, has produced some very real results...!

Or does he consider it just a happy coincidence that the volume of human knowledge has exploded exponentially since we started utilising this system of enquiry...?

 

[Dizredux]

And surely, the most obvious response to all of Z's objections is........


.................IT WORKS.....!!

This method of collecting, analysing and testing evidence that we call the scientific method, has produced some very real results...!

Or does he consider it just a happy coincidence that the volume of human knowledge has exploded exponentially since we started utilising this system of enquiry...?

I suspect he knows all of this. He seems to be having a lot of fun playing word and logic games.

Dizredux

 

[Zosimus]

Why does life fall into a nested hierarchy while cars do not? Why would life fall into a nested hierarchy if it was intelligently designed?

Your argument seems to be that unless I can explain nested hierarchies (to your satisfaction) that I should believe in common descent.

Well then, unless you can explain causes of the big bang (to my satisfaction) I require you to believe that Allah caused it.

 

[Zosimus]

So do you think panspermia is just an alternative to Darwinian evolution, or do you think there is more evidence in its favour?

Neo-Darwinism: The Current Paradigm. by Brig Klyce

 

[Zosimus]

Other mammals eat and breathe through separate holes and still manage to produce sound so it shouldn't be too difficult.

My claim doesn't refute natural selection. Nature selects the traits that give an animal an advantage in reproducing.That trait doesn't necessarily need to be the optimal solution to dealing with the pressures.

Any designer worth his salt would always design to optimal standards, otherwise he wouldn't be much of a designer

As you can see at Toyota to recall nearly 6.5 million vehicles for steering, other faults | Reuters we can easily prove that Toyota cars were not designed (according to your logic).

As you can also see at Babel's Dawn: The Human Larynx

"The larynx works like a valve, opening and closing to let air pass. When it is shut, food can pass into the esophagus at no risk to the lungs. The best place for such a seal is right at the top of the trachea so that no food or drink accidentally goes even a little ways down it, but humans have a second use for the valve. We work it like a musical instrument shaping the sounds made by passing air as we speak. The musical valve works best if we pull it a bit down into the trachea so that the air wave shaped by the larynx can resonate before leaving the mouth.

"At birth the human larynx is in the normal, animal location, enabling babies to nurse without risk of choking. The larynx typically begins to move lower at about three months of age and reaches its final position by age four. People familiar with children’s speech will notice that the start of the relocation is also when infants start to coo. The end is about the time the children finally become clearly intelligible to well-meaning strangers. The lowered larynx lets humans produce a much wider variety of sounds, particularly vowel sounds, than apes can generate."
------------
Seriously do you even bother to Google your arguments before you make them to ensure they cannot be easily refuted by anyone with an Internet connection?

 

[Zosimus]

We would be more than happy to consider them if ID proponents were able to construct them. At this point, all they have are religious beliefs.

You are saying that we shouldn't consider hypotheses at all. None of them. You are worse than any of us.

At least I don't engage in straw man arguments.

 

[PsychoSarah]

At least I don't engage in straw man arguments.

You might by accident.

 

[Zosimus]

Logical syllogisms do not necessarily deal with cause. Didn't you say you taught logic at the university level?


Dizredux

You are right that logical syllogisms do not necessarily deal with cause, but in this case the cause is at the crux of the controversy. Neo-Darwinism claims that the variety of life that we see before us is CAUSED by the processes outlined in the Modern evolutionary synthesis.

As such the cause is very much at the heart of the controversy. It is claimed that nested hierarchies are caused by and therefore proof of common descent.

As such, common descent implies (at least theoretically... I have yet to see anyone document it) nested hierarchies. As such we can say that common descent is (at least theoretically) empirically sufficient for nested hierarchies.

That's not the same as saying that common descent is true and it certainly does not mean that nested hierarchies imply common descent.

 

[Zosimus]

Poor examples. I see better ones have been mentioned. External testes are a good example of sub-optimal design. Plenty of animals have internal testes that work perfectly well with none of the many problems associated with external testes. I can give you the numbers if you like.




Doesn't actually address the fact that one would expect an IDer (particularly considering that relatively few people use that term without meaning God) to design a system where eating at the same time as breathing is not potentially fatal. And of course it does not refute natural selection, as has been pointed out; such a suboptimal but generally functional design fits perfectly with what one would expect of natural selection.

Why stop there? Bats refute intelligent design because they don't have prehensile tails. Humans have prehensile hands. They work much better than do bat tails.

Whales refute intelligent design because they don't have gills. Sharks have gills. They work great.

Humans refute intelligent design because they don't have shells. Tortoises have shells. They work great.

Honda Civics, similarly, refute the idea that Hondas are designed cars. They don't have four-wheel drive. Plenty of cars have four-wheel drive and they never have problems when driving off-road. Honda Civics, therefore, must have evolved through millions of years of natural selection.

 

[Zosimus]

But of course you know that we are really concluding that T is more likely to be true.

Theory: The Christian God exists and has created an orderly universe.
Observations: The universe is extremely orderly.

Therefore every time you see something orderly happen in the universe, it doesn't PROVE that the Christian God exists, it just makes it more likely.

Do you agree?

If not, then why should I agree with your claim?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Theory: The Christian God exists and has created an orderly universe.
Observations: The universe is extremely orderly.

Therefore every time you see something orderly happen in the universe, it doesn't PROVE that the Christian God exists, it just makes it more likely.

Do you agree?

If not, then why should I agree with your claim?

The universe is not orderly at all, I am not sure what you have been looking at, but the universe is pretty chaotic.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Why stop there? Bats refute intelligent design because they don't have prehensile tails. Humans have prehensile hands. They work much better than do bat tails.

Whales refute intelligent design because they don't have gills. Sharks have gills. They work great.

Humans refute intelligent design because they don't have shells. Tortoises have shells. They work great.

Honda Civics, similarly, refute the idea that Hondas are designed cars. They don't have four-wheel drive. Plenty of cars have four-wheel drive and they never have problems when driving off-road. Honda Civics, therefore, must have evolved through millions of years of natural selection.

Funny. Just a couple posts ago you claimed to not to use strawman arguments. And you again failed to address the actual point being made which is that an IDer (God) should be expected to produce optimal designs. Optimal design is not defined, as your strawman argument suggests, as chimaeras with well-adapted traits from other animals.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

As you can see at Toyota to recall nearly 6.5 million vehicles for steering, other faults | Reuters we can easily prove that Toyota cars were not designed (according to your logic).

No, we can easily see from this that Toyota cars were not designed by an omnipotent, omniscient creator God.

As you can also see at Babel's Dawn: The Human Larynx

"The larynx works like a valve, opening and closing to let air pass. When it is shut, food can pass into the esophagus at no risk to the lungs. The best place for such a seal is right at the top of the trachea so that no food or drink accidentally goes even a little ways down it, but humans have a second use for the valve. We work it like a musical instrument shaping the sounds made by passing air as we speak. The musical valve works best if we pull it a bit down into the trachea so that the air wave shaped by the larynx can resonate before leaving the mouth.

"At birth the human larynx is in the normal, animal location, enabling babies to nurse without risk of choking. The larynx typically begins to move lower at about three months of age and reaches its final position by age four. People familiar with children’s speech will notice that the start of the relocation is also when infants start to coo. The end is about the time the children finally become clearly intelligible to well-meaning strangers. The lowered larynx lets humans produce a much wider variety of sounds, particularly vowel sounds, than apes can generate."
------------
Seriously do you even bother to Google your arguments before you make them to ensure they cannot be easily refuted by anyone with an Internet connection?

And again you haven't actually addressed the argument. There is no reason that God could not design a system whereby eating and breathing isn't potentially fatal. He could easily design a system that allowed us to talk, eat and breath without potentially fatal consequences. Your quote has not addressed this argument at all.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Theory: The Christian God exists and has created an orderly universe.
Observations: The universe is extremely orderly.

Therefore every time you see something orderly happen in the universe, it doesn't PROVE that the Christian God exists, it just makes it more likely.

Do you agree?

If not, then why should I agree with your claim?

As Sarah notes, your claim of order is questionable. But ignoring that, yes. I agree with the argument. Creationists and evolution proponents are making the same general type of argument, but the substance of those arguments are very dissimilar. The evidence increasing the probability of evolution being true far outweighs the arguments endeavouring to promote the probability of creation being true and evolution being false.

 

[Zosimus]

False. If simply making things up (even if it is intended, as I assume this was, as a joke) is the only way you can avoid conceding your constant use of parsimony, then you have some conceding to do.



Again you've sidestepped the point I was making. If anything you've strengthened it. You know there is a history of aneurysms in your family so you have even more reason to assume that your headache is signalling such an affliction. But you don't. Why? If not because you know aneurysms are rare then why? Your opportunity cost doesn't explain anything. You view waiting six hours or lost wages as a steep price because you know it is actually pretty unlikely that you have an aneurysm. You are parsimoniously assuming that it is more likely that your headache is just a headache. If you knew for a fact that you were experiencing the beginning of an aneurysm I'm sure you would regard six hours as a minor sacrifice, even if you're losing wages.

And what about the footsteps in your house? There would be no real cost to calling out "Who is there?" beyond perhaps some minor embarrassment when your girlfriend answered. But I bet you don't do that because you know that it is more likely to be your girlfriend than a home invader.

What about the possibility that one day when your girlfriend comes home she is really a murderous doppelganger? Again the cost of finding out would be low. Just asking a casual question to which only the real woman knows the answer ("Do you remember the name of that place we went blah blah blah?") would suffice. But I bet you don't test your girlfriend this way whenever she has been out of your sight because you know it is very unlikely that a murderous doppleganger has taken her place.


You also didn't respond to the point that parsimony should be considered a good way to approach things because everyone does it and it generally works out pretty well, not merely because everyone does it.

What I was trying to point out (and you obviously missed) was the multiple silly assumptions that your claims are based on. Let's just look at the doppelganger assumption. You think that I should worry that my girlfriend has been taken over by a doppelganger. Personally, I would be far more worried that my wife might find out.

Let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that my wife might have been taken over by a doppelganger. Why should I assume that a simple question like "Where did we first meet?" would permit me to detect whether the creature in question really was my wife? Perhaps the doppelganger has ability to answer such simple questions as well as my wife could.

Why should I assume that said doppelganger has murderous intentions? Perhaps it only wishes to obtain genetic material from me through interchange of sexual fluids for the purpose of producing more doppelgangers? The doppelganger might also have the added bonus of being able to change shape at will. Maybe I could request that it take the shape of Giuliana Rengifo and then I would probably enjoy the experience immensely.

If the doppelganger really were murderous, taking the shape of my wife (assuming it would also take on my wife's strength) seems rather foolish. I would easily be able to overpower it. Or, on the other hand, if it had not my wife's strength but rather super strength then even knowing that it was a doppelganger would not help me as it would easily be able to overpower me. In fact, by detecting it as a doppelganger, might I not just as easily make it feel that its cover had been blown and that I was a threat that needed elimination?

Your claim that I think about and solve all of these problems through the use of parsimony is overdone, I think.

 

[Zosimus]

The universe is not orderly at all, I am not sure what you have been looking at, but the universe is pretty chaotic.

Just because you don¡'t see the order doesn't mean it isn't there. Female logic is a mystery to me, but that doesn't mean there is no logic there.