Why Would An Agnostic Doubt the Theory of Evolution

[PsychoSarah]

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.

Excuse me? FEMALE LOGIC?! How dare you!? Who would look at black holes sucking up matter and light, the constant movement apart of the universe, things crashing into each other and blowing up, and consider that orderly? My gender has nothing to do with it.

 

[Zosimus]

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.

I'm sorry, you seem to have me confused with someone else. I'm agnostic, remember?

Simply claiming that something MIGHT have been designed by an intelligent being does not imply that said being is omniscient, omnipotent, or even benevolent. Maybe design flaws are really part of the design. Maybe it amuses the being to think that a certain percentage of people will choke and die while eating a Big Mac. Maybe the being is pretty smart, but overlooks certain things just as Toyota designers did not anticipate everything. Maybe a more perfect system could have been designed, but it would have required the creation in question to consume 20 percent more food, a drawback that would have outweighed the benefit of the refined design.

I think you are assuming far too much not only about me but also about the design process.

 

[Zosimus]

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.

Your posts are very important to us. Please stay on the line. Your post will be answered in the order in which it was received.

 

[Zosimus]

Excuse me? FEMALE LOGIC?! How dare you!? Who would look at black holes sucking up matter and light, the constant movement apart of the universe, things crashing into each other and blowing up, and consider that orderly? My gender has nothing to do with it.

If you are female that has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with sex.

Black holes do not exist.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

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.

And again you have avoided addressing the point of my post. All you have done in fact is to highlight my point. I don't think you should be worried that your wife is a murderous doppleganger for the same reasons that you don't. There are any number of reasons that you shouldn't expect your wife to be a murderous doppleganger and that's why the thought doesn't even occur to you. You are using parsimony to assume that your wife is really your wife.

And back to the car example (you failed to give a straight answer last time). You drive through the intersection with the green light without considering the possibility that there is a silent, invisible truck speeding towards you. Why do you not consider this possibility? Because you know it is extremely improbable. I don't feel like retyping the other examples you ignored, so I'll just repost them. Please try directly addressing both of them this time.

"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."

I'm not proposing that you stop and think through the probability that your wife is a doppleganger or that those footsteps are an intruder. That's my entire point: you use parsimony all the time without even thinking about it and it works really well.

 

[PsychoSarah]

If you are female that has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with sex.

Black holes do not exist.

I don't even know how to respond to this as it makes no sense. You might not view black holes in conventional physics terms, but there are large masses sucking up matter nevertheless, we can see that happening with telescopes.

 

[Loudmouth]

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

It is up to you to decide what you believe in. I am pointing out that the evidence is consistent with the observed mechanisms of evolution, with nested hierarchies being one of those pieces of evidence.

If you don't think that evidence being consistent with natural mechanisms is compelling evidence for those natural mechanisms, then that is your choice. If this is the case, then I really wonder how you get through each day without dying.

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

And there is the bait and switch. We have evidence for evolution. You have no evidence that Allah did anything. The two are not comparable.

Also, nowhere did I argue that since you can't produce an explanation that my explanation must be right. Instead, I have demonstrated that the evidence is consistent with evolution independent of any claim you have made.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

I'm sorry, you seem to have me confused with someone else. I'm agnostic, remember?

Simply claiming that something MIGHT have been designed by an intelligent being does not imply that said being is omniscient, omnipotent, or even benevolent. Maybe design flaws are really part of the design. Maybe it amuses the being to think that a certain percentage of people will choke and die while eating a Big Mac. Maybe the being is pretty smart, but overlooks certain things just as Toyota designers did not anticipate everything. Maybe a more perfect system could have been designed, but it would have required the creation in question to consume 20 percent more food, a drawback that would have outweighed the benefit of the refined design.

I think you are assuming far too much not only about me but also about the design process.

You'll note that in the post to which you are responding I specified that I was talking about God because that is the IDer that people are almost always talking about. I'm well aware of your agnosticism. You have repeatedly said that you consider creationism to be on equal footing with evolution (and have in fact sometimes indicated that you would be more inclined to accept the former) and that is the claim I am disputing here.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Your posts are very important to us. Please stay on the line. Your post will be answered in the order in which it was received.

Can't tell if this is an unnecessary placeholder for a real argument or if it is a way to avoid providing a real argument.

 

[Loudmouth]

Simply claiming that something MIGHT have been designed by an intelligent being does not imply that said being is omniscient, omnipotent, or even benevolent. Maybe design flaws are really part of the design. Maybe it amuses the being to think that a certain percentage of people will choke and die while eating a Big Mac. Maybe the being is pretty smart, but overlooks certain things just as Toyota designers did not anticipate everything. Maybe a more perfect system could have been designed, but it would have required the creation in question to consume 20 percent more food, a drawback that would have outweighed the benefit of the refined design.

I think you are assuming far too much not only about me but also about the design process.

Let's review what the intelligent designer would have needed to do.

First, the designer would have to make it so that all junk DNA produced the expected nested hierarchies that evolution would produce.

The designer would also have to hang around for 3.5 billion years and design life so that it looks like evolutionary transitions have occurred, such as fish to tetrapods, tetrapods to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to mammals, etc. On top of that, the designer would have to do the same thing for morphology that the designer did for DNA. You have to make sure that morphology produces a nested hierarchy for absolutely no reason other than to make it look like life evolved . . . over 3.5 billion years.

So what designer would spend 3.5 billion years designing life to exactly mimic evolution?

 

[Zosimus]

And again you have avoided addressing the point of my post. All you have done in fact is to highlight my point. I don't think you should be worried that your wife is a murderous doppleganger for the same reasons that you don't. There are any number of reasons that you shouldn't expect your wife to be a murderous doppleganger and that's why the thought doesn't even occur to you. You are using parsimony to assume that your wife is really your wife.

And back to the car example (you failed to give a straight answer last time). You drive through the intersection with the green light without considering the possibility that there is a silent, invisible truck speeding towards you. Why do you not consider this possibility? Because you know it is extremely improbable. I don't feel like retyping the other examples you ignored, so I'll just repost them. Please try directly addressing both of them this time.

"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."

I'm not proposing that you stop and think through the probability that your wife is a doppleganger or that those footsteps are an intruder. That's my entire point: you use parsimony all the time without even thinking about it and it works really well.

On the contrary, the thought that my wife might be a doppelganger never even occurred to me. Now I'm hoping that she is one.

I never hear footsteps in my house. Of course, I'm almost never there.

You think that every time I have a headache I should go to the hospital to ensure that it's not an aneurysm. Why should I think the hospital could help me? Why should I think that I might not die before my six hour wait was up? Why should I think that they would even see me? Might they not just take one look at me and say, "Uh-huh... headache... Take two of these and call me in the morning."

Please, think before you type. Thanks.

 

[Zosimus]

I don't even know how to respond to this as it makes no sense. You might not view black holes in conventional physics terms, but there are large masses sucking up matter nevertheless, we can see that happening with telescopes.

If black holes existed, we would observe Hawkings radiation.
We do not observe Hawkings radiation.
Therefore black holes do not exist.

 

[Zosimus]

It is up to you to decide what you believe in. I am pointing out that the evidence is consistent with the observed mechanisms of evolution, with nested hierarchies being one of those pieces of evidence.

If you don't think that evidence being consistent with natural mechanisms is compelling evidence for those natural mechanisms, then that is your choice. If this is the case, then I really wonder how you get through each day without dying.



And there is the bait and switch. We have evidence for evolution. You have no evidence that Allah did anything. The two are not comparable.

Also, nowhere did I argue that since you can't produce an explanation that my explanation must be right. Instead, I have demonstrated that the evidence is consistent with evolution independent of any claim you have made.

What evidence do you have for evolution? Oh that's right... nested hierarchies.

If (evolution) then (nested hierarchies).
(Nested hierarchies).
Therefore (evolution).

This is a classic example of the "affirming the consequent" logical fallacy.

Do you have any evidence that DOESN'T involve logical fallacies?

Do you ever get tired of making logical fallacies?

Do you ever get tired of insisting that logical fallacies are good evidence?

 

[Loudmouth]

If black holes existed, we would observe Hawkings radiation.
We do not observe Hawkings radiation.
Therefore black holes do not exist.

Can you please point to the experiments that would have definitively observed Hawking radiation if it was there?

 

[Loudmouth]

What evidence do you have for evolution? Oh that's right... nested hierarchies.

Yep, the very pattern of shared and derived features that we observe evolutionary mechanisms producing in modern populations.

This is a classic example of the "affirming the consequent" logical fallacy.

And once again, you reject the scientific method when it produces conclusions you don't like.

Good luck with that.

 

[PsychoSarah]

If black holes existed, we would observe Hawkings radiation.
We do not observe Hawkings radiation.
Therefore black holes do not exist.

We see matter getting sucked up, that happens. It doesn't really matter what is doing it in the context of the discussion, the fact that it happens makes the universe less orderly than you suggest.

 

[Zosimus]

Can you please point to the experiments that would have definitively observed Hawking radiation if it was there?

No, but you can start looking at Has Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Radiation Been Verified? New Lab Research Says "Yes"

 

[Zosimus]

Yep, the very pattern of shared and derived features that we observe evolutionary mechanisms producing in modern populations.



And once again, you reject the scientific method when it produces conclusions you don't like.

Good luck with that.

I reject logical fallacies regardless the conclusions they produce whereas you accept logical fallacies when they produce conclusions you like and refuse to accept them when they produce conclusions you don't like.

Piensa el ladrón que todos son de condición.

 

[Loudmouth]

I reject logical fallacies regardless the conclusions they produce whereas you accept logical fallacies when they produce conclusions you like and refuse to accept them when they produce conclusions you don't like.

Piensa el ladrón que todos son de condición.

You reject the scientific method.

Good luck with that.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, but you can start looking at Has Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Radiation Been Verified? New Lab Research Says "Yes"

Here is another one for you, from the days of Isaac Newton.

If gravity is true, then Mercury should not have a precession in its orbit.

Mercury's orbit does have a precession.

Therefore, gravity is false.

Do you agree with that or not?