Why Would An Agnostic Doubt the Theory of Evolution

[Sofaman]

Do you like my pet Lion?

 

[Oncedeceived]

We can also show that the lottery has the "appearance of design", in that the Powerball lottery has been designed so that specific people win.

Let's do the simple math. Let's say that the odds of winning the Powerball are 1 in 150 million. For each drawing we have 150 million people buy a single ticket, and for each drawing there is a single winner. Again, this is just to keep the math simple.

Let's say that John, Susan, and Ralph are the last 3 winners of the Powerball lottery. Using the design argument, we can only conclude that the Powerball lottery had to be intelligently designed in order for those specific 3 people to win due to the astronomical odds of them winning. The odds of those 3 people winning are 150 million to the 3rd power, or 1 in 3,375,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. According to ID proponents, that is fine tuning.

No, incorrect. Sure a ticket is going to win. 100% probability that someone is going to win, perhaps even more than one person will win the same lottery game. However, if that someone needs to be Sam Harris of Norton, Kentucky and no other person in the world then we see the problem. Yeah, anyone can win the lottery but if that person has to be Sam Harris of Norton, Kentucky we begin to see the necessity of some intervention. That is how our life supporting universe is in the "lucky" universe scenario. Any ole universe might luckily come into existence by pure chance (which by the way has been considered extremely extremely unlikely) but for our life supporting universe it is like Sam Harris, the necessity of intervention seems more plausible.

 

[Loudmouth]

I never felt it looked that much like a pig in the first place.

Are you saying that I am delusional?

However, do you equate the precise constants of the universe to fluffy clouds? Do you equate DNA and its complexity to fluffy clouds?

How do you equate the precise shape of cloud to the fluffy universe? Do you equate the complexity of the precisely shaped cloud to fluffy DNA?

I can load questions, too.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, incorrect. Sure a ticket is going to win. 100% probability that someone is going to win, perhaps even more than one person will win the same lottery game.

The same applies for evolutionary pathways.

 

[Oncedeceived]

The same applies for evolutionary pathways.

Explain?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Are you saying that I am delusional?

I do. However, the cloud pig is not the issue of delusion.

How do you equate the precise shape of cloud to the fluffy universe? Do you equate the complexity of the precisely shaped cloud to fluffy DNA?

I didnt you did.

I can load questions, too.

That is debatable.

 

[Loudmouth]

Explain?

ID proponents like to calculate the odds of specific features evolving, and showing how the chances of that specific feature evolving is very improbable. They then claim that this gives life the appearance of design.

This is no different than only calculating the odds of the winners actually winning. They leave out all of the evolutionary pathways that did not occur. As long as life does not go extinct, there will always be winners in evolution just as there are going to be winners in the Powerball lottery if millions of people keep playing.

 

[Loudmouth]

I do. However, the cloud pig is not the issue of delusion.

What do you mean?

The cloud has every indication that it was designed. How do you explain the appearance of design in that cloud?

 

[Zosimus]

You're right, neither can proven. They are both faith based belief systems.

I couldn't agree more!

 

[Loudmouth]

I couldn't agree more!

I guess you missed that whole evidenced-based science stuff that the theory of evolution has behind it?

Or are you once again claiming that the scientific method is faith?

 

[Zosimus]

How can one know anything?

You have a very strong form of agnosticism. It is skepticism taken to the point of ridiculousness.

I mean, why would you trust a burning bush that is speaking to you and not the vast amounts of scientific data for evolutionary theory and common descent? If a burning bush started speaking to me, I would immediately think I was hallucinating or delusional.

Why? Because of inductive reasoning. No bush has ever spoken to me before, so it is reasonable to be skeptical of talking bushes.


Your epistemological framework is baffling...

You would more quickly believe a talking bush than well-defined and well-documented scientific evidence...???

No, your logical argument is baffling.

First you say that I am supremely skeptical because I don't accept the results of logical fallacies. All right, if that makes me skeptical so be it.

On the other hand, when I say that I would be solidly convinced by a burning bush and someone saying, "Zosimus. Take off your shoes." I mean once I cleaned the crap out of my shorts, I would take anything and everything said very, very seriously. Really! I wouldn't have given God half of the talk back and refusal that Moses did.

So now you say that I'm too gullible. Which is it? Am I an extreme skeptical or too gullible? You go on to say that since I've never seen a burning bush before, that I should doubt it and assume that I was hallucinating it.

Perhaps I should ignore every new student who comes to see me. After all, I've never seem him or her before, therefore I might well be hallucinating the experience. Perhaps I should run around disbelieving every new experience.

What's that? The restaurant has a new dressing? Impossible -- I've never seen that dressing before. I must be hallucinating it.

 

[Zosimus]

Alright, so perhaps saying you think they're both "wrong" is incorrect, but I'm guessing you're at least doubtful about either theory. Do you have a view about the origins of life that's different from either creationism or Darwinism?

Panspermia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Oncedeceived]

ID proponents like to calculate the odds of specific features evolving, and showing how the chances of that specific feature evolving is very improbable. They then claim that this gives life the appearance of design.

Except it is not the ID proponents that claim it looks designed. Francis Crick is not an ID proponent and yet he says:

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.

— Francis Crick

What Mad Pursuit (1990), 138.


]

 

[Zosimus]

Lack of evidence of a designer, a plausible explanation of why objects appear to be designed without the need for a designer, the fact that within those objects, if they were designed, there is evidence of sub-optimal design.

The key word in what I said is appear. Do you believe everything you see. David Copperfield made an Elephant disappear on stage. Is it delusional to believe that all might not have been as it seemed?

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.

 

[Oncedeceived]

No, your logical argument is baffling.

First you say that I am supremely skeptical because I don't accept the results of logical fallacies. All right, if that makes me skeptical so be it.

On the other hand, when I say that I would be solidly convinced by a burning bush and someone saying, "Zosimus. Take off your shoes." I mean once I cleaned the crap out of my shorts, I would take anything and everything said very, very seriously. Really! I wouldn't have given God half of the talk back and refusal that Moses did.

So now you say that I'm too gullible. Which is it? Am I an extreme skeptical or too gullible? You go on to say that since I've never seen a burning bush before, that I should doubt it and assume that I was hallucinating it.

Perhaps I should ignore every new student who comes to see me. After all, I've never seem him or her before, therefore I might well be hallucinating the experience. Perhaps I should run around disbelieving every new experience.

What's that? The restaurant has a new dressing? Impossible -- I've never seen that dressing before. I must be hallucinating it.

 

[Loudmouth]

First you say that I am supremely skeptical because I don't accept the results of logical fallacies. All right, if that makes me skeptical so be it.

You don't accept the findings of science because you have declared the scientific method to be a logical fallacy. That goes way beyond any normal level of skepticism.

 

[Oncedeceived]

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.

Oh my goodness!!!!! One more time.

 

[Loudmouth]

You reject the scientific method as well?

 

[Sofaman]

Panspermia is not an alternate to evolution. It is an alternative to Creationism, ID and abiogenesis.

 

[Loudmouth]

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.

Do cars fall into a nested hierarchy? Nope.

Do cars have an engine that never turns over, is never fed gas, and supplies zero power or function?