Dallas Theological Seminary last month published an interview with the eminent Evangelical Anglican theologian Alister McGrath on subjects from atheism and apologetics to classical liberalism and Ludwig Feuerbach.
Here’s what he had to say about American apologetics:
A lot of American apologetics is still angled toward to a modern, rather than a postmodern context—I’m thinking of its concern with propositional correctness. I accept that; that’s a very important part of apologetics. But apologetics is also relational. It’s how you become the right kind of person. It’s how you find something you can rely on. It has to do with ethics. It has to do with imaginative visions of the world. Without losing its strengths, can American apologetics embrace these areas as well? I think it can and it will.
Intelligent Design:
It is right to say there is a degree of complexity in nature that can’t be accounted for in any natural mechanism. . . . But I get worried that the Intelligent Design movement sometimes is a bit like the “God in the Gaps” approach. In effect, you say, “Look, you can’t explain this—that’s God.” Take Michael Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box (1996), which often says “We can’t explain that by science, therefore . . . ” But actually, fifteen years later, some would say that we can now explain some of that.
and classical liberalism:
[Classical] liberalism, as I understand it, is an ethos of tolerance. It is an ethos of saying, “This is what you think; this is what I think, but we can get on together in a civilized way that enriches us and our society.” . . . I fully accept that we should work hard to get on with each other. Yet as a matter of principle, we have to say sometimes, “This is just wrong. We can’t allow this. We need to do something about this.” In effect, classic liberalism makes toleration its normative foundation. Therefore, it finds itself in a difficult situation where it has to tolerate that is intolerable.
The entire interview is available on the Dallas Theological Seminary website.
h/t Trevin Wax
January 15th, 2013 | 1:21 pm
The proper formulation should be “You can’t explain it, therefore you should admit that you are holding an opinion,” not “You can’t explain that-that’s God.” It is rather irritating when an argument is misinterpreted and the phrase “God of the Gaps” is sloganeering. I do not remember anyone specifically arguing that Theism is proven by unexplainability. I do remember it being argued that it is presumption to assume that philosophical materialism is axiomatic.
January 15th, 2013 | 1:41 pm
It is right to say there is a degree of complexity in nature that can’t be accounted for in any natural mechanism. . . .
His take on intelligent design is rather confusing. He wants to keep the notion of “irreducible complexity,” but apparently he doesn’t want to point out anything that is irreducibly complex, for fear a natural explanation may be found sometime in the future.
For intelligent design to stand as the discipline its proponents make it out to be, it simply has to point out instances of things in nature that could not have come about without a “designer.” If it can’t do that and do it convincingly, it is a religious belief. It is, in effect, anti-science. The working assumption in science is that nature can be explained without resorting to the supernatural. That doesn’t mean that science can’t reach the point where it can’t go any further. But to have as a working assumption that certain things can’t be explained gives proponents of intelligent design a vested interest in declaring they have reached dead ends.
It seems a lack of faith to assume that God was incapable of designing a universe in which even the most complex structures were capable of evolving.
January 15th, 2013 | 2:07 pm
I do not remember anyone specifically arguing that Theism is proven by unexplainability.
jason taylor,
But that is what Intelligent Design is all about. As I understand it, adherents do not necessarily insist that the “intelligent designer” is the Christian God, but they all seem to believe him (or her, or it) to be. The argument is that X is too complex to have arisen by purely natural processes, so an Intelligent Designer necessarily is responsible for the existence of X. But I don’t believe any believer in Intelligent Design claims that maybe human beings were brought into existence by one of many gods, or by an advanced intelligent species who themselves evolved naturally. If there are any believers who adhere to Intelligent Design who are not Christians, I have not heard of them.
January 15th, 2013 | 2:36 pm
Irreducible complexity is a valid concept. It simply means that given some system of ‘simple’ rules, there are some states of the system that are completely impossible to arrive at just from those rules.
For example, chess has a set of simple rules. The number of possible chess games is huge. But given that huge number of possible chess games, there are almost certainly some configurations of the chess board that could not happen from two players applying the standard rules. Should cross a board with that configuration, you may be able to say it could not have been generated by two simple chess players who left off in the middle of a game.*
Where creationists go wrong is that they forget the proof. Just because you can’t imagine such a chess game doesn’t mean you have proven it’s not possible. To do that would require some mathematical reasoning and demonstration.
Needless to say, the possible configuration of atoms permitted by chemistry dwarf the number of possible chess games. To assert that a particular configuration could not possibly have arrived from only the system’s rules requires proof, which ID advocates have failed to ever offer.
* Intelligence may be part of the explanation or maybe not. Perhaps the players were playing a chess variant so the configuration was part of a simple system, just not the simple system of standard chess rules.
January 15th, 2013 | 2:52 pm
The argument is that X is too complex to have arisen by purely natural processes, so an Intelligent Designer necessarily is responsible for the existence of X..
Note this requires establishing the following as reasonable assumptions:
1. No intelligence of any type could arise from any natural processes. (Or if one could it could not alter matter in such a way as to be responsible for X arising)
2. ALL natural processes are fully known and their consquences have been worked out.
#2 pretty much destroys ID as a viable scientific mission. It’s not enough to say natural selection couldn’t have produced X. Natural selection is but one type of natural process and even confining onesself to natural selection its limits have not been fully worked out. Consider for a moment that only about 4% of the matter/energy in the universe consists of the ‘normal stuff’ we study in high school physics and chemistry. Clearly there are many natural processes we have barely begun to understand hence it would be impossible to say whether or not such processes could produce any given X.
January 15th, 2013 | 3:36 pm
I just read the very curious article on “God of the gaps” in Wikipedia. The article mentions no one who actually holds such a view, that is that lack of scientific explanation proves a God. The term originated in Christian thinkers who criticized the approach that claims God is excluded from natural phenomena that have scientific explanation. Yet, it has been turned around to make that very argument by those who don’t believe in God, e.g. Dawkins.
I guess I should not be surprised. There are a number of atheists who contend that the Bible must be interpreted literally word-for-word if it is the word of God, even though the number of Christians who claim that is relatively small. Those that do so claim, in the Christian fundamentalist case wind up with Young Earth Creationism and in the atheist case wind up with, they think, a strong case against God. I understand why the YEC get there, even if I disagree with them. I have no idea why those atheists believe that proves anything.
As an aside, I don’t find McGrath’s take on ID at all confusing. He makes the same arguments as did those Christians who first used the term “God of the Gaps”. I suspect his claim that there are things in nature not explainable by science to be David’s stumbling block, even though McGrath makes no claim that science took him there. By science, we have no idea whether such things exist.
January 15th, 2013 | 4:01 pm
I get worried that rigid methodological naturalism sometimes is no more than a blind, irrational faith in the creative power of mindless chance combined with the laws of physics. This blind faith amounts to a “Naturalism of the Gaps” which insists that, no matter how counter-intuitive the assumption is that a given phenomenon is merely the accidental result of mindless processes, one must assume that is the case.
The simple fact is that it is virtually impossible for some phenomena to have come about mindlessly and accidentally in the limited time and with the finite probabilistic resources we have to work with in our 13.7 billion-year-old Universe.
Take a look at the information at:
The Magis Center of Reason and Faith — “Explaining the harmony among Faith, Physics and Philosophy”
Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D., has provided a wealth of information that I will sum up this way: It is so unlikely that the Universe would mindlessly and accidentally be fine-tuned such that it could support life, and so unlikely that lifeless matter would then mindlessly and accidentally assemble itself into a single-celled, reproducing life form consisting of nanotechnology the functional complexity of which is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch, that it is simply irrational to deny that currently the best explanation for these things is that an intelligent agent was involved in bringing them about.
January 15th, 2013 | 4:09 pm
Why is it so hard to get the argument for intelligent design correct? Hint: The argument is NOT: X is too complex to have arisen by purely natural processes, so an Intelligent Designer necessarily is responsible for the existence of X..
January 15th, 2013 | 4:12 pm
“The working assumption in science is that nature can be explained without resorting to the supernatural.”
I think that this is where there are misunderstandings of both the Christian view and the nature of the search for truth. I would say rather that the working assumption of science is that nature can be explained, period. If a set of observations eventually leads towards a conclusion of intelligent design, then what of it? Will this conclusion be perpetually dismissed? There are ample examples of scientists who refused to do so.
By stating that otherwise one has to ‘resort’ to the supernatural is to assume that God is somehow an anomaly, in conflict with the physical universe in which he finds himself interacting… and that reaching a theistic view of creation is somehow de facto an error. That’s a base assumption that the scientist need not make if he or she wants to remain completely open to answers.
January 15th, 2013 | 5:42 pm
Interesting comments so far, but almost all are conflating Intelligent Design with religion and creationism.
The claim that living things show empirical evidence of having been designed is scientific. It is based on what we know about the capabilities of natural forces and their inability to produce more than a token amount of functional information. Naturalists may appeal to yet unknown processes that could produce information-rich biological systems, but that is only wishful thinking at present. We actually know quite a lot about natural forces that operate within our scale of existence.
Intelligent Design advocates have offered significant evidence (I hesitate to use the word “proof”), including detailed mathematical analyses, that complex, functional systems or information are many orders of magnitude beyond the capability of undirected natural forces to develop, even given all the probabalistic resources of an entire universe. It really is not an issue of what one can or can’t imagine could happen.
Intelligent Design does not make any claim about the identity of the intelligence that would be involved in the origin of such things as living organisms. The fact that many or even most advocates identify it as the Christian God is irrelevant to the field.
I suggest you browse http://www.intelligentdesign.org for more information. Those folks can speak for their field much better than I can.
January 15th, 2013 | 5:53 pm
From Mr Nickol:
“It seems a lack of faith to assume that God was incapable of designing a universe in which even the most complex structures were capable of evolving.”
I could agree with that. But after checking my possible assumption, I study the way our universe operates and find that complex, functional structures just do not arise on their own. Instead, the opposite occurs. Complex things (that already exist) break down, chemical processes follow the path to maximum entropy, energy dissipates, and things eventually reach equilibrium.
So as a matter of faith, I must agree that God *could* design a universe in which things could naturally evolve into greater complexity and function, but that does not seem like the kind of universe He has actually created.
January 15th, 2013 | 7:06 pm
But after checking my possible assumption, I study the way our universe operates and find that complex, functional structures just do not arise on their own.
DennisM,
Aren’t you begging the question? To most scientists, it appears complex, functional structures did indeed arise on their own. This is what the theory of evolution says. Questions of how the first life arose from non-life are unanswered, but from there on, the vast majority of scientists believe that evolution (largely by natural selection) accounts for all life on earth today.
Complex things (that already exist) break down, chemical processes follow the path to maximum entropy, energy dissipates, and things eventually reach equilibrium.
In a closed system, but the earth is not a closed system. There is nothing at all in the known laws of nature that precludes local decreases in entropy.
January 15th, 2013 | 7:57 pm
I just read the very curious article on “God of the gaps” in Wikipedia. The article mentions no one who actually holds such a view, that is that lack of scientific explanation proves a God.
The first was probably Issac Newton. When he put forth his work on gravity, he was accused of atheism because God didn’t have to intervene to keep the planets moving about their orbits. His response was since the most minor turbulence might would cause the planet’s to become unstable in their orbits and either fly away from the sun or plunge into it, God had to constantly ‘nudge’ the system to keep it stable the same way the space shuttle or station periodically ‘adjusts’ its orbit. At the time it sounded good until working out the mathematics it was discovered you could achieve orbits with very long stability, at that point betting the farm on ‘God the nudger’ started to look silly. Creationists opted to double down on a losing strategy and chase the gaps deeper and deeper.
harry
This blind faith amounts to a “Naturalism of the Gaps” which insists that, no matter how counter-intuitive the assumption is that a given phenomenon is merely the accidental result of mindless processes, one must assume that is the case.
What exactly does this mean, a ‘mindless process’? I mean imagine an egg that falls in boiling water….that could be a person mindfully making breakfast or maybe an egg accidently fell from a nest into a hot spring. Either case the egg becoming hard boiled is a pretty natural process but given a hard boild egg how do you determine if it was produced mindfully or mindlessly?
DennisM
The claim that living things show empirical evidence of having been designed is scientific. It is based on what we know about the capabilities of natural forces and their inability to produce more than a token amount of functional…
January 15th, 2013 | 8:00 pm
DennisM
The claim that living things show empirical evidence of having been designed is scientific. It is based on what we know about the capabilities of natural forces and their inability to produce more than a token amount of functional information
What *exactly* do we *know* about such capabilities? Please review my previous comment about it, the best IDers have done is attempt to find gaps in but one natural process. At the end of the day all their ‘proofs’ ended up being along the lines of “I can’t think of a chess game that produced this board configuration, therefore a chess game could not have produced this”.
January 16th, 2013 | 5:40 am
David Nickol wrote “If there are any believers who adhere to Intelligent Design who are not Christians, I have not heard of them”
I can name four non Christians who support intelligent design as a viable alternative theory. David Berlinski a non practicing Jew. Bradley Monton atheist and Thomas Nagel atheist. Even Einstein believed in a higher power, i.e. a universal architect. The late Phillip Skell of the National Academy of Science who also supported ID (as far as I know never professed to be a Christian.
I also know that several hundred of scientist who signed the Dissent from Darwin list were not theist. Although the list had more to do with being critical of the modern synthesis than anything else, one can say they did support the Discovery Institute by signing the list which was created by the same organization.
ID is not based on God of gaps or ignorance. It is based on what we do now know and while irreducible complexity has received its fair amount of criticism it has not been refuted scientifically. It never cease to amaze me how some arbitrarily claim that a non teleological origin is the automatic default position of science. Those who accuse other of using the GOG’s argument are really just using promissory paradigme, i.e. (just trust us, someday science based the axiom of methodological materialism will answer these questions)
What you would call God of the gaps, another on the tail end can call Darwinism of gaps.
ID is a scientific construct as recognized by the many science journals that now publish articles by ID theorist. Park Center at MIT is also now using design theory in systems biology. In other words they are viewing the cell using the same design theory created for complex engineered systems like space shuttles and advanced electrical systems and applying them to cell biology and are producing great results based on a…
January 16th, 2013 | 9:29 am
A mindless process is one that has no particular purpose because it was not begun by an intelligent agent, nor is it directed by an intelligent agent.
When dispassionate mathematics indicates that the odds of mindlessly arriving at massive functional complexity by chance — which is not to be confused with arriving at functionless intricacy — is one in a virtually infinite number, then reasonable people assume that a phenomenon exhibiting such functional complexity is not a mindless accident.
January 16th, 2013 | 9:34 am
JDD –
One issue is that the ‘supernatural’ never seems to actually explain anything. A supernatural ‘explanation’ always seems to boil down to ‘an unknowable something did something in an unknowable manner’. And there’s a long history of scientists finding something they didn’t understand, and giving up and assuming it was supernatural. Later scientists didn’t give up and figured it out. (My favorite example here.)
So far as I can see, saying “this is supernatural” actually means “science will never find an explanation for it”. Can you propose a counterexample?
January 16th, 2013 | 9:50 am
BTW, harry and I have gone around such questions before. several times, in fact.
I’ll just say that the case isn’t quite the slam-dunk harry portrays it as.
January 16th, 2013 | 9:57 am
ID is not based on God of gaps or ignorance. It is based on what we do now know and while irreducible complexity has received its fair amount of criticism it has not been refuted scientifically.
The job of IC is to assert itself scientifically, not enjoy a presumption of correctness until it’s refuted. IC advocates offer not methods, no tests, no predictions nothing that the dispassionate observer can use to test it’s validity. There’s only one person I know whose even come close to providing this, and that’s myself in the above example of chess boards. And the chess board problem I presented shows why irreducible complexity may be a valid concept but ID advocates haven’t even begun to make a serious case for why it applies to evolution.
A mindless process is one that has no particular purpose because it was not begun by an intelligent agent, nor is it directed by an intelligent agent.
So say you’re climing a ladder and tip a bit sideways causing lots of loose coins in your pocket to tumble out. Their landing heads or tails would be a mindless process because you had no purpose in directing it to happen. But if you toss a handful of coins on the ground because you have a bet over how many heads you’ll get, that process has a particular purpose that was directed by you, an intelligent agent.
Now suppose I come upon some coins on the ground. What about their formation is supposed to tell me that they got there either from the first mindless process or the second intelligent one?
January 16th, 2013 | 10:11 am
THEMAYAN –
Not exactly. But every single proposed example of ‘irreducible complexity’ in nature that’s been proposed so far has been refuted – as in, shown to be evolvable. The bacterial flagellum. The vertebrate immune system. The clotting cascade. The eukaryotic cilium. Etc.
“Irreducible complexity” can’t be disproven as such. It’s possible we might find something in biology that could not have evolved. But we never have found anything, despite people looking for one. At the moment, ID remains a hypothesis in search of any evidence, a solution in search of a problem.
January 16th, 2013 | 10:23 am
and Thomas Nagel atheist. Even Einstein believed in a higher power, i.e. a universal architect. . . .
THEMAYAN,
My understanding is that Nagel commends proponents of Intelligent Design for asking good questions, but he is not himself a believer in Intelligent Design. Einstein’s references to God or the gods or “the old one” were, he said clearly, not a belief in a personal God. It is certainly anachronistic to bring him into a discucssion of Intelligent Design. My own sense, having recently finished the Walter Isaacson biography of Einstein is that he would have wanted nothing to do with Intelligent Design.
Nagel is very definitely an atheist. Are you claiming an atheist can believe in Intelligent Design? Isn’t the whole point of Intelligent Design that you can’t have an intelligent design without an intelligent designer? For an atheist, who or what would that be?
January 16th, 2013 | 10:29 am
All of this points me back to Aquinas. The point of creation is not complexity, or whether or not such complexity could arise by this or that process. The point is purpose in non-purposeful things. For example, there is a purpose to the clotting mechanism of blood. If there is a purpose in a non-intelligent mechanism, then there is an intelligent cause undergirding it.
This applies to virtually everything in nature, not just “irreducibly complex” things. The question then is not “are there irreducibly complex mechanisms in nature?” but rather “does nature reveal purpose?” For Aquinas (and most other people, I suspect), the answer is quite obviously yes.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:06 am
Although it is extremely unlikely if not virtually impossible that it could actually happen, for functionally complex software to accidentally come about, you need to first have a functioning computer and operating system. In the same way, for it to be even possible for life to mindlessly and accidentally come about, you first need a Universe that is fine-tuned to support life. That happening accidentally is like a laptop PC coming about accidentally. Consider some excerpts from the Magis Center of Reason and Faith web site I mentioned previously:
January 16th, 2013 | 11:06 am
Caig, I think, makes a good point about the theological dead end that ID/IC generates. When people like harry assert we can somehow measure some natural processes and find them ‘mindless’ while others can measure as ‘mndful’ we essentially are asserting a non-infinite God…a God whose only focused on a limited set of ‘important things’ while other less important things are allowed to just work themselves out without his care.
This runs smack up against the difference between Greek paganism and Christian monotheism. The former assumed a set of gods who were essentially finite entities….yes they had superpowers beyond regular humans but they were still not infinite.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:29 am
In the same way, for it to be even possible for life to mindlessly and accidentally come about, you first need a Universe that is fine-tuned to support life.
Or life will fine tune itself for whatever universe it’s in. What are the odds out of all the printed books in the world a collection of, say, 1000 books will all be in Arabic? Well if you’re in a small bookshop in Egypt the odds are pretty good, but a Barnes and Noble in the US the odds would be much smaller. Clearly all the world’s books weren’t put into one big bag and the bookshop plucked out 1000 at random and just happened to come up with ones in the language of most of its customers. The odds of that happening would indeed be very tiny. But bookstores which sold books customers couldn’t read couldn’t survive, ones that did would.
Likewise a universe with slightly different constants would indeed look radically different from our own. Say instead of galaxies, stars and planets it would look like one giant milky bath of particles and energy. But how do you know life and even intelligence couldn’t exist out of those ‘rules’ and ‘constants’? You’d have to do be able to simulate the universe from the largest to smallest scales and work out all the consquences of of its physics and chemistry. This would be analgous to computing the set of all possible chess games, which is actually an easier thing to do than simulate an entire universe at all levels of detail.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:38 am
Craig Payne –
Take a look at Daniel Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”. Also look into the philosophical discussions about ‘derived’ and ‘original’ intentionality.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:39 am
harry -
The very first link in my comment of January 16th, 2013 | 9:50 am addresses that very idea.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:42 am
More from the Magis Center of Reason and Faith:
So, for the moment, let’s assume we just got miraculously lucky in mindlessly arriving at a Universe capable of supporting life, what are the odds of lifeless matter then accidentally assembling itself into the nanotechnology of life?
January 16th, 2013 | 12:37 pm
Who says you need a 150 amino acid functional protein? Why not a 15 one? Remember if there’s no other living things around even a pretty dysfunctional living cell has the whole world to himself to multiply over and over and over.
Let’s also remind ourselves how probability works. To calculate probability you need:
1. The # of ways its possible to ‘win’.
2. The # of all possible ways things could turn out.
3. Make a fraction of #1 / #2.
For example, odds of someone winning the lottery tonight?
1. # of different tickets brought.
2. # of total possible ticket combinations.
How many atoms in the Universe? Unknown when you consider the full extent of the Universe (not just the portion we can see) may in fact be infinite. How many possible ways for various atoms to combine? Possibly not infinite but still more than all possible chess games, which we can’t even calculate.
January 16th, 2013 | 12:43 pm
Also something I suspect is always missing from these supposed probablity calculations; chemistry.
Take a bag full of 1000 red balls and 2000 small yellow balls. Mix then toss it on the ground. Of all the different ways they can come out, what are the odds they will all come out in triplets of one red and two yellow balls? Very slim.
But take a bag of 1000 Oxygen atoms and 2000 Hydrogen atoms and the odds of 1000 water molecules resulting from the process are much higher. Why? Because chemistry says atoms are inclined to combine in some ways and not in other ways, they aren’t just different colored balls being mixed up in a big bag.
Since I’m pretty sure no one has managed to calculate all possible chemical combinations it’s perplexing to hear any claim that someone knows the odds of any complex compound forming from numberous interactions of a huge array of atoms.
January 16th, 2013 | 12:57 pm
Recall that the probability of producing a single 150-amino-acid functional protein by chance stands at about 1 in 10^164.
harry,
Dueling quotes. This is from Francisco Ayala’s review of Stephen C. Meyer’s book:
January 16th, 2013 | 12:58 pm
[Ray Ingles] “Not exactly. But every single proposed example of ‘irreducible complexity’ in nature that’s been proposed so far has been refuted … It’s possible we might find something in biology that could not have evolved. But we never have found anything, despite people looking for one.”
I would say rather, we never have found anything that doesn’t have a theory worked up for how it evolved. Evidence that it actually evolved that way is another thing entirely and this is hardly a ‘refutation’ of including a designer in the equation.
I want to write carefully here because I’m not objecting to the possibility of something evolving; the discussion is whether that precludes a designer.
There is an argument that goes, because a hypothesis has been suggested that could explain a phenomena, *that must be the explanation for that phenomena.* I’ve long found this to be an extremely weak and unsubstantiated line of explanation from many scientists, and I say this as an engineer with a science background and education. Isn’t this line of reasoning fraught with the same complaints leveled against some variations of ID? For example, a method is posited in which the eyeball could develop. Well, then – that must be it. I find the same attitude in any number of biological theories that claim to have shown a way in which something could have formed by mere chance – and then (with zero fossil record, among other deficiencies) effectively shelve the question as another mystery solved by science. In the next breath is a demand for empirical evidence for God.
January 16th, 2013 | 1:05 pm
From yet another previous go-around with harry:
“How exactly does [Meyer] know every other sequence is ‘nonfunctional’? Research today on how ‘sparse’ the functional space of proteins might be doesn’t support that – many sequences can support the same function, at varying levels of effectiveness. Especially when the fact that variations can be co-opted to perform different, novel functions is taken into account, this model is hopelessly inadequate.”
Or here (harry’s repeated that quote rather often):
“Meyer fudges definitions quite a bit. He picks a specific function and estimates about sequences performing that specific function. He ignores the possibility of other sequences performing different functions, as if every other conceivable sequence is of no utility whatsoever.
See, for example, here for a more accurate model of protein evolution.”
January 16th, 2013 | 1:12 pm
Indeed David, or to put it more briefly (since that seems to be the trend these days)
Chemistry != chance
There’s a linguistic slight of hand going on here, we start taking about ‘mindless natural processes’ and then swap that with ‘mindless chance’. Chance might be mindless, natural processes might be mindless but natural processes are not just chance. Hydrogen and Oxygen doesn’t combine into water by chance.
January 16th, 2013 | 1:20 pm
[Ray Ingles] “One issue is that the ‘supernatural’ never seems to actually explain anything.” … A supernatural ‘explanation’ always seems to boil down to ‘an unknowable something did something in an unknowable manner’….So far as I can see, saying “this is supernatural” actually means “science will never find an explanation for it”.
Ray, I don’t agree that that’s what saying “this is supernatural” actually means. The Christian points out that God would be unknowable and the manner in which that “something” acted unknowable only unless that something chooses to share it with us! From the Christian perspective, it also seems that “super”natural is sometimes translated as “unreal.” And yet we’re positing that the “real” answer includes a “super”natural component.
I come at this from perhaps an interesting and unique perspective, (or perhaps not,) in that as a Catholic I really have no trouble with evolution as a mechanism and quite frankly it doesn’t bother or occupy me much. I am not a 6-Day Creationist and I find no threat from the idea that God created through physical principles and over time. I am bemused however – and frustrated, to some extent – by the way in which different aspects of evolutionary thought are all lumped into one – conflating the micro-adaptions within one species that Darwin observed with charts of a fish becoming an iguana becoming an ape. But the most intriguing thing that I continue to wonder about is the question of the fossil record. If we indeed take (chaotic) evolution as the means through which the eye developed over many iterations and steps, then – where are the iterations, where are the steps?
I hope it’s clear what I’m getting at: I would expect to see an abundance of fossil records, over many millenia, over every species that has eyes – of every iteration. Of every iteration that went nowhere…
January 16th, 2013 | 1:34 pm
I find the same attitude in any number of biological theories that claim to have shown a way in which something could have formed by mere chance . . .
JDD,
The theory of evolution does not claim things form by “mere chance.” Natural selection is not “mere chance.”
January 16th, 2013 | 2:13 pm
[David Nickol] “The theory of evolution does not claim things form by “mere chance.” Natural selection is not “mere chance.”
I already mentioned the problems with locking down what particular strain of evolution one is talking about.
But it’s clear what I meant by “mere chance.”
January 16th, 2013 | 2:37 pm
Hi, Ray,
Even if I agreed with your disputation of Meyer’s assertion, it is still like blindly selecting 150 Scrabble pieces and then checking to see if that sequence of letters spelled anything meaningful. How many times do you suppose you would have to try that before you accidentally came up with 150 letters that spelled out any meaningful phrase or sentence at all?
Let’s say Meyer is way, way off and producing a single 150-amino-acid functional protein by chance does not vastly exceed the most optimistic estimate of the probabilistic resources of the entire universe. Let’s say it only takes a tenth of the probabilistic resources of the entire universe — we are still talking about a single functional protein. Life is vastly more functionally complex than any configuration of ten 150-amino-acid functional proteins, yet we have used up all the probabilistic resources of the entire universe just getting just ten such proteins. If a tornado happens to drive a nail into a board, that does not mean it is reasonable to conclude that it also constructed a finished house.
January 16th, 2013 | 3:21 pm
JDD –
Did you read the links I gave?
Just how much of a study have you done of such things? Note that genetics offers a separate window from fossils on ancestry and development.
We’ve learned a whole bunch in the last few decades from genetics, as I said. But fossils give great information along these lines, too. See this discussion I had with harry; search for the word ‘ossicles’. It’s a wonderful illustration of how – and how we know – theropod dinosaurs developed into modern mammals. It also illustrates – in the kind of finely-graded steps you’re asking for – exactly how an ‘irreducibly complex’ mechanism evolved.
January 16th, 2013 | 3:22 pm
JDD –
Eyes are soft tissues, y’know. There are fossils that show eyes – we know trilobites used a different kind of lens than modern animals, for example – but we also can deduce a huge amount about how eyes evolved from the patterns of common ancestry. Which, again, genetics has recently confirmed and clarified to a remarkable degree.
January 16th, 2013 | 3:25 pm
harry –
In the link I just gave to JDD:
“Ah, yes. Deja vu all over again. Like I’d never addressed your ‘Scrabble’ analogy ever before. Tell ya what, just for fun – the mark of a real debater is that you can summarize your opponent’s position in such a way that they agree they’ve been fairly represented. I’ve addressed the problems with your ‘Scrabble’ analogy at least three times before. Can you fairly summarize my response?”
That discussion also specifically addresses the ‘tornado’ analogy, too. If you’re not going to come up with any new material, I don’t see why I should have to.
January 16th, 2013 | 4:29 pm
Even if I agreed with your disputation of Meyer’s assertion, it is still like blindly selecting 150 Scrabble pieces and then checking to see if that sequence of letters spelled anything meaningful. How many times do you suppose you would have to try that before you accidentally came up with 150 letters that spelled out any meaningful phrase or sentence at all?
DNA doesn’t spell out anything ‘meaningful’ in this sense. If you found the text of the Bible encoded in DNA then we’d have a real mystery on ou rhands.
To properly flesh out your analogy, imagine pulling 75 two letter combinations. Compare to how many times those two letter combinations appear in words. The top 15 combinations stay out, the rest go back in the bag. Pull another set of two letter combinations. The ten of the top two that appear most often with one of the original top 15 stay, rest go back in the bag. Multiple passes will zero in on 150 meaningful words much faster than just randomly putting 150 letters together.
January 16th, 2013 | 4:42 pm
From Mr Nickol: “Aren’t you begging the question?”
How can that be? I granted your possibility that God could have constructed a universe such that increasing complexity and function just occurred by itself. It is after looking at the way our actual universe operates that I find a lack of any such behavior. Instead, I find that things dissipate and decay instead of growing into increasing capabilities. That’s the observation. It conflicts with what we’d need to find if the self-developing universe existed.
If anyone is begging the question, it is those who assume that because we have complex, information-bearing biological systems today, that they must have arisen by natural processes so we will discount the design option and trust that a natural process will someday be discovered. That was a legitimate argument, perhaps, when Charles Darwin first proposed his famous theory, but in recent decades especially it is becoming more and more untenable because of our knowledge of the extreme, information-based complexity of living organisms.
[Nickol] “… the earth is not a closed system. There is nothing at all in the known laws of nature that precludes local decreases in entropy.”
That is true only to a limited degree. One might achieve a temperature gradient or some other high vs low energy difference, but nothing of significant function will occur. It’s not just an open system that is required. To build the sophisticated machines of biology requires controlled application of forces and materials according to detailed instructions (ie, information). An open or closed system makes no difference in that regard.
January 16th, 2013 | 5:04 pm
Hi, Ray,
There are some readers who haven’t read our previous discussions, which I am happy for them to look at, so thanks for providing links to them. I do not share your apparent confidence that your previous remarks settled the issues in question.
Can you summarize my argument regarding the impossibility of the contents of biological memory “evolving” such that it contains the appropriate digital information to direct cellular processes in instantiating functioning protein machines necessary for metabolism and reproduction in the absence of those processes? Can you summarize my argument regarding the impossibility of cellular processes that are directed by the contents of biological memory evolving before biological memory contains useful information instead of gibberish?
While you are at it, why would any such thing as biological memory have evolved at all? How does it enhance survivability before it contains information instead of gibberish?
January 16th, 2013 | 5:18 pm
“Note that genetics offers a separate window from fossils on ancestry and development.”
I’m not an expert on how fossils are obtained – nor genetics. Point considered that perhaps the eye isn’t the best example of looking for a fossil record – although I suspect that even the tougher structures around the eye itself should show design iterations as the softer structures modified from one stage to the next.
But are you claiming that we have a genetic record of all the iterations of the eyeball – or just a genetic model of how it could have happened?
January 16th, 2013 | 5:48 pm
[Ray] I did manage to find the link you mentioned on ‘ossicles’ and the like. (A new Scrabble word, to be sure ;)
“It also illustrates – in the kind of finely-graded steps you’re asking for – exactly how an ‘irreducibly complex’ mechanism evolved.”
But ‘finely-graded’ appears to be a severe overstatement, and speaks to the curiousness of evolutionary findings I spoke of earlier. Again, I don’t have any problem with God using a mechanism. It’s the lack of a tremendously rich and blanketed fossil record, that one would expect from chaotic evolution without a designer, that really puzzles me and is highlighted by the pages at your link. Every time I read an excited statement about finding ‘another example,’ of an mid-step, I think to myself, ‘Why do we not find 10,000 examples of that iteration, and 10,000 of the next?
I would expect to see an abundance of fossil records, over many millenia, over every species that has eyes – of every iteration. Of every iteration that went nowhere. Of every iteration that went somewhere for awhile, then went nowhere. And then of every step along the way with greater number of the more robust, successful, steps. That’s what chaotic, non-directed evolution would suggest we would discover for evidence, right? This gradual fossil record should contain literally millions upon millions of examples, from single-cell to homo sapiens and all other creatures-with-eyes. I have to say it’s one thing that keeps me thinking that I must also keep open the possibility that the eye was *not* created through a chaotic evolutionary process, or even through an evolution that a designer “allowed” or “directed” as an iterative process – but was rather designed outright and diversified in discrete stages.
January 16th, 2013 | 6:45 pm
From Boonton: “What *exactly* do we *know* about such capabilities?
We know the kind of results they produce, and we know that they do not produce patterns containing functional information of any significant amount. Every case in which they might seem to do so turns out to have the information already included in some way. There are no known exceptions to this rule.
Boonton: “At the end of the day all their ‘proofs’ ended up being along the lines of “I can’t think of a chess game that produced this board configuration, therefore a chess game could not have produced this”.”
That is just not accurate. It might be better to say “the only known cause for functional information of any kind is an intelligence. Undirected, natural processes never produce it. This thing contains a high degree of functional information, therefore an intelligence was somehow involved in its origin.” The website I mentioned earlier probably has a better summary.
January 16th, 2013 | 6:46 pm
From Ingles: ” A supernatural ‘explanation’ always seems to boil down to ‘an unknowable something did something in an unknowable manner’.”
It is not necessary to decide whether the explanation you seek is supernatural. It’s probably premature, too. The thing that is indicated by identifying an object or system as designed is that an intelligent agent was involved in its origin, and that leads to other possibilities about the object’s purpose and directions for further research.
Whether the intelligent agent is God, humans, spirits, space aliens, or something else, will require other means to learn, and it isn’t part of Intelligent Design considerations.
January 16th, 2013 | 6:48 pm
From Nickol: “Isn’t the whole point of Intelligent Design that you can’t have an intelligent design without an intelligent designer? For an atheist, who or what would that be?”
Trying to identify the intelligent designer is another subject entirely, once the presence of design in the object or system is identified. Of course an atheist can accept it. A good example is Richard Dawkins, who rejects the idea of a deity such as the Christian’s God but admitted it was reasonable to propose an extremely advanced race of aliens that designed earthly life.
January 16th, 2013 | 7:51 pm
Anyone who has actually had to write a computer program that functions and does not crash or end up in an infinite loop knows that there are a thousand ways for it go wrong for every one that actually performs ANY function. Fir a living cell to function it must have (a) a container that can discrimniate between admitting substances that the cell needs and those that can harm it, (b) a set of functional machinery that can convert energy plus raw materials into useful products, and (c) a computer program that contains ALL of the instructions for how to create ALL of the components of both the container and the operating machinery, and NOT extraneous components that serve no purpose in the cell, AND is capable of reproducing itself and the rest of the cell. All three aspects of the cell are mutually dependent. All three must be present in order for the other two to exist and operate.
A DNA helix is a list of computer code. Random digits will interfere with the functioning of the cell. THAT is why the impacts of radiation or chemicals can cause the death of the cell or loss of functions needed to live. Only a very small subset of the large number of all possible DNA code strings will produce a DNA program that can create useful proteins and a useful cell membrane. The chance of the DNA string being assembled through random chance is much smaller than is possible in any reasonable time frame. And remember that the DNA striong needs to be assembled successfuly in a very short time in order to create both the cell membrane and the proteins that service and protect the DNA. All of it has to happen correctly at the same time. There is no human experimenter playiing with random strings of DNA in a laboratory. The DNA string has to work the first time in order to even continue to exist long enough to make a second attempt. Boonton is carrying out his thought…
January 16th, 2013 | 11:07 pm
From Boonton: “Suppose I come upon some coins on the ground. What about their formation is supposed to tell me that they got there either from the first mindless process or the second intelligent one?”
Suppose that when I look at those coins on the ground, I notice that they are all arranged in the outline of a smiling face.
Such an arrangement is surely possible. It is only one of countless possible arrangements that could have happened. Yet that particular arrangement leads me to doubt your story that they just fell upon the ground. Why do I reach that conclusion?
If you can answer that, then you are close to understanding why evidence for design in something indicates an intelligence as the thing’s cause.
January 17th, 2013 | 6:34 am
DennisM
Please define what exactly you mean by ‘functional information’.
Also you seem to be reasoning by analogy here….you’re saying something like ‘living things are like machines, machines are only caused by intelligence humans therefore life must be caused by intelligent superhumans (i.e. gods or God)’….leaving aside the theological problem this leads too, God is NOT quite analgous to humans….reasoning by analogy is an exceptionally weak form of argument and hardly a proof of anything.
JDD
If you’re such a student of fossils then why so much focus on the evolution of the eye? Certainly you are aware that the eye developed hundreds of millions of years ago and soft tissue structure is exceptionally unlikely to be captured in fossilization. I think you are overestimating just how many fossils one would expect to see.
January 17th, 2013 | 7:03 am
Suppose that when I look at those coins on the ground, I notice that they are all arranged in the outline of a smiling face.
First the analogy is flawed. We don’t find ‘smiley faces’ in DNA. The fantastic ‘information’ we find is information that promotes the reproduction of the DNA…which is exactly what natural selection would predict.
It’s well known that purely natural processes will produce things like this, hence the mini-industry of people who discover odd looking potato chips, images of the Virgin Mary in their burnt toast, water stains etc. In fact there was an occult and pagan practice of hepatomancy which entailed finding patterns in the entrails of sacrificed animals.
Isn’t it interesting as ID/IC advocates try to get more and more sophisticated in their scinetific arguments the image of God they seem to be implying grows more and more primitive.
January 17th, 2013 | 7:42 am
Thinking about it, the response to my coin question illustrates just about everything that’s wrong with ID.
First, the question was dodged. Coins drop accidently (mindlessly) or on purpose as part of a game (mindfully). Whether or not the coins form a smile doesn’t alter the fact that there’s no test or measurement you can do to determine the cause of the coins falling. This demonstrates conclusively that the set of results of mindfull acts and the set of results from mindless acts at least overlaps. To assert that X* could not have been the result of a ‘mindless’ act, one must show all that they can talk intelligently about all possible X’s that result form mindless acts and show that X* is not in that set. In other words, back to chess games and boards again.*
Second, the question of probability is dodged. The absolutely best way to do probability is to figure out every combination that qualifies as looking like a smile, then divide that over every combination possible. The second best way would be sampling….drop coins 50,000 times and see how many smile-like configurations come out.
Have IDers been able to do the calculation? No. Have they created hundreds of millions of ‘sample earths’ stocked with various heavy and light elements and observed all reactions over a few billion years? No. Ergo any time they say anything along the lines of ‘what are the chances’ they are doing nothing more than making up numbers.
* Keep in mind the theological problem with saying God produces ‘mindful’ acts and other things are ‘mindless’….or ‘intelligent’ versus ‘non-intelligent’ or ‘purposeful’ versus ‘random’. If the traditional Christian view of God is true, that he is an infinite entity upon which all depends but from which he depends on nothing, then you cannot divide the world up between ‘Designed’ and ‘Nondesigned’…
January 17th, 2013 | 7:43 am
….unless your designer is something other than God.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:16 am
From Boonton: “you seem to be reasoning by analogy here….you’re saying something like ‘living things are like machines …”
No, it’s not analogy. It is identifying the presence of information at a level that is far beyond what can be produced by undirected forces of nature. In all our experience, the only source we know that can generate information in significant quantities is an intelligence, a mind. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose a mind as the source of information in living organisms. I challenge you to find even one exception where undirected natural processes created more than a trivial amount of information. Snowflakes, crystals, and etc are trivial amounts — just the repeated iteration of simple sequences.
Boonton: “First the analogy is flawed. We don’t find ‘smiley faces’ in DNA.”
Again, that was not an analogy. That was an example (your example) of a way in which one could know that the pennies did not just accidentally spill to the ground. If I found those pennies arranged in an accurate, unambiguous drawing of a smiley face, I would know (to be technically correct, I would be extremely confident) that they had been placed that way intentionally, that their pattern did not occur from an accidental spill.
I was going to use a more elaborate pattern for my example, one such as you could easily find in DNA, but I settled on the simple smiley face, because it was quicker. The principle is the same, and when you can explain to me why I knew the pennies were not spilled, then I’ll be willing to discuss this issue further with you.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:37 am
Raymond Takashi Swenson –
I actually write computer programs for a living. But while molecular biology is like computer programming in some ways, it is very different in other, important ways.
Way back when I was in college, I read about a system called Tierra. It modeled evolution on a computer, and the programs were very like modern programs, but with differences. Two differences in particular were critical:
1. The ‘CPUs’ in the model had only 32 opcodes, with no operands. (RISC with a vengeance!) Note that this is on the same order of magnitude as the number of amino acids used in living things.
2. Programs didn’t have to ‘jump’ to a specific address. Instead, they had ‘markers’ (made of no-ops) that would ‘seek out’ complementary markers. Note that proteins and nucleic acids and so forth interact by complementary surfaces.
These two changes from standard computer architecture, alone, were enough to allow meaningful evolution in the system. You would see parasites, immunity, predator-prey cycles, social cooperation, optimization, etc. I know this for a fact, because I read the papers, re-implemented the system from scratch, and watched as the little critters developed tricks and optimizations that I didn’t program in – because they surprised and puzzled me!
You can read about it, and download it and try for yourself, here. Or read about Tierra or its successor, Avida.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:38 am
[Boonton] “If you’re such a student of fossils then why so much focus on the evolution of the eye? Certainly you are aware that the eye developed hundreds of millions of years ago and soft tissue structure is exceptionally unlikely to be captured in fossilization.”
I think you are either out of sequence, or else didn’t read my reponse to Ray.
[Boonton] “I think you are overestimating just how many fossils one would expect to see.”
Do you mean with regard to the eye alone, or with regard to every complex structure? Either way, *why* do you think this?
January 17th, 2013 | 9:38 am
“I think you are either out of sequence…”
Heh. Unintentional genetics joke.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:46 am
harry –
I asked you first. How about you answer me, and then I’ll answer you. But I’ll take as many months to do it as you took to answer my question. Sound fair? :-)
Answered here, March 22nd, 2012 | 3:33 pm. Since you keep posting the same stuff without modification, even when I reply in detail, you can hopefully understand why I don’t want to invest too much time anymore in the merry-go-round.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:01 am
JDD –
Can you quantify exactly what would qualify as ‘finely graded’ to you? A lot of people joke – in a ‘ha ha only serious’ kind of way – that each time a new fossil is found that fills in a gap (e.g. Tiktaalik), all it does is create two new gaps. “Sure, you’ve found something between A and C, but where’s the fossil between A and B, huh?”
Dude, just how often do you think living things fossilize, anyway?
Let me give you an example. You know the Coelacanth, the ‘living fossil’ fish? The modern version is not, in fact, identical to the ancient one. One big difference – the only fossils we have are river-dwelling fish, and the modern version lives in the deep ocean.
Probably there were ocean-dwelling coelacanth back a few million years ago, too, and the fossils we have are cousins of the ancestors that became the modern coelacanth. But things don’t fossilize well in the deep ocean.
Consider, just for a moment – how many humans living today are going to leave fossils that could be discovered a million years from now?
January 17th, 2013 | 10:10 am
JDD –
I’m claiming that the genes we find today are good evidence concerning how it did happen. Consider how books used to be copied by scribes – who sometimes made mistakes, which were copied by other scribes. Documents can be put into ‘family trees’ by comparing those typos. This is not controversial at all, even with the Bible.
Copy-with-modification naturally leads to ‘family trees’. (Fun fact: Linnaeus, who invented the “kingdom, phyla, genus, species, etc.” classification scheme for living things, tried to do the same thing for minerals. But minerals don’t form from copy-with-modification, and a ‘nested hierarchy’ just didn’t work and never caught on.)
The ‘family trees’ we construct with genes today match – to a ridiculously precise degree – the ‘family trees’ we’ve made from fossils. Using those family trees, we can trace how eyes evolved – and how many times.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:11 am
Do you mean with regard to the eye alone, or with regard to every complex structure? Either way, *why* do you think this?
Both, have you studied what exactly it takes to create a fossil? Esp. ones that go back millions of years? An exceptional number of things have to go right to get a fossil and even then when you’re talking about millions of years there’s almost no chance that any biological material is preserved. The fact that we have any fossils at all to give us random snapshots of individual life forms that lived is remarkable.
But while were’re on the subject, would IDers like to define for us what exactly they are talking about? Are they talking about abiogenesis, the very first living thing ever to exist on earth? In that case questions about how the eye developed are besides the point. You’d have ID creating the first cell then evolution doing the work thereafter. In that case you wouldn’t be talking about missing fossils as support for your theory.
Or are you talking about evolution itself….some ID agent periodically ‘helping’ the process along say by ‘nudging’ the system towards new milestones like creating an eye. (Think of the movie 2010 where the monolith appears in early human history to nudge us towards toolmaking). If that’s the case you should have developed a theory that spells out the limits of evolution which should be able to yield testable predictions.
Instead these arguments seem to take on a kitchen sink quality. One thread talks about abiogensis, then we jump to some mishmash on information or entropy, then it’s trying to pick apart evolutionary narratives, then its asking how could X have developed thru billions of steps.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:50 am
DennisM –
Most things don’t reproduce with occasional errors, though, right? You want an interesting thought-experiment, just read the “Prologue” of “Code of the Lifemaker”. It’s not all that long.
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200203/0743435265.htm
(Of course, some versions of ‘theistic evolution’ look a lot like this, come to think of it.)
Anyway, see what I wrote to Mr. Swenson above.
January 17th, 2013 | 12:08 pm
JDD –
But can you produce a counterexample? Something explained scientifically but considered to be supernatural anyway?
It’s an article of faith that human intelligence, human self-awareness, is fundamentally unknowable. Once a part of that is explained, well, it’s no longer considered part of the ‘mystery of what it is to be human’.
People once thought that no ‘mechanism’ could ever be made to play chess. The game was thought to be too subtle, too complex, to require too much ‘intelligence’ for a ‘machine’ to play it. This was an article of faith for Edgar Allen Poe when he wrote his famous essay on Maelzel’s Chess Player: “It is quite certain that the operations of the Automaton are regulated by mind, and by nothing else. Indeed this matter is susceptible of a mathematical demonstration, a priori. The only question then is of the manner in which human agency is brought to bear.” But now we have Deep Blue, and yet no one thinks that Deep Blue is actually a mind. It’s a truism in the Artificial Intelligence field that “A.I. is whatever we can’t do yet.”
So far as I can see, the “supernatural” is the same thing as “stuff science hasn’t explained yet”. Again, do you have a counterexample?
January 17th, 2013 | 5:16 pm
From Ingles: “Most things don’t reproduce with occasional errors, though, right?”
That’s not really an issue. The occasional errors introduced in reproduction have the same effect, but may take longer due to the robust capabilities of living things. Organisms still deteriorate as errors accumulate. We don’t see totally new functions develop as a result of errors or damage in genomes.
Consider all the scrolls and books copied with accumulating errors. One can trace the tree of descendant copies, as you wrote, but is there ever any hint of a new story evolving?
I’ve never worked with the evolution simulators you described. (Would you count the old “Life” game of interacting binary squares?) I noted that they are systems with the mutating and replicating functions already implemented, and programmed to generate evolving functions. I’ll leave it to others to discuss their details, but I wonder if they are generating anything greater than what was originally programmed into them.
Mr Baen’s Prologue was an interesting diversion, (seriously!) but it’s still just a fantasy story. I am actually more interested in the essay by Edgar Alan Poe that you mentioned. I’m not sure what point you are getting to with that discussion, so I’ll avoid comment on it for now.
January 17th, 2013 | 6:05 pm
[Ray] “But can you produce a counterexample? Something explained scientifically but considered to be supernatural anyway?”
You’re working from your own premise, but I think you’ve exactly touched on the core issue I stated before: Ray, I don’t believe there is an either/or conflict between the two. If God created the cosmos – and of course this is my position – then what we discover in it through means of scientific inquiry *just doesn’t conflict* with a supernatural design. Biochemistry and physics are the tools, God is the toolmaker. At the very least, I’d expect you’d allow that is a consistent position.
I hope you understand that I’m not trying to be glib. This may be a gulf between us, but it is still a very straightforward position of the Christian who has a proper understanding of the faculties of reason and the tools and ends of science. My ‘counterexample’ is ‘everything’ (without the ‘anyway’ at the end of your phrasing,) and I don’t believe there’s anything to ‘counter.’
January 18th, 2013 | 8:08 am
Intelligence is a known reality. As such it is entirely legitimate for science to consider whether or not it was a causal factor in a given phenomenon coming about. For example, archaeologists do this when they make a distinction between a random formation and arrangement of stones and stones shaped and configured such that they comprise an intelligently designed ancient wall or street, or when they assume that a single stone is an intelligently designed sculpture and not one that just happened to erode into the shape of a human body.
Atheists don’t have conniption fits about science acknowledging that intelligence was a causal factor in phenomena coming about — unless the subject is the origin of life. Their vehement objections then spring from their atheistic religious beliefs, not from relentlessly objective, religion-neutral science.
When mathematics dispassionately reveals that it is, for all practical purposes, virtually impossible for the Universe to have mindlessly and accidentally fine-tuned itself for life, and for lifeless matter to have then mindlessly and accidentally assembled itself into the most sophisticated nanotechnology known to science — life — atheists muster up their huge, blind, unfounded faith in the creative power of the combination of chance and the laws of physics and begin their gainsaying conniption fits, the arguments of which are as persuasive as insisting that maybe the inscription on the Rosetta Stone was merely the product of erosion.
Everyone knows that there are limits to what mindless, lifeless matter can be reasonably expected to assemble itself into. Sophisticated nanotechnology based on digital information is beyond those limits.
January 18th, 2013 | 8:35 am
DennisM –
That’s exactly the point, though, of the cases I’ve pointed to – like the ossicles. Please, look at that case. You may find your preconceptions and intuitions challenged.
Or the particular form of artificial life that Tierra-style simulations display. They very specifically are not “programmed to generate evolving functions”. I know – in my own simulation, at least two different ‘tricks’ evolved that I know I didn’t program in – because I they surprised me at first and I didn’t understand them!
Replication with occasional errors, plus natural selection, really is a game-changer.
January 18th, 2013 | 8:43 am
JDD –
So… a scientist with access to the proper theories and equipment would have been able to predict the Resurrection?
Why does the Catholic Church require, when examining miracles, that there not be a good scientific and/or medical explanation?
January 18th, 2013 | 10:28 am
Systems like Tierra in no way provide evidence of the possibility of “meaningful evolution” taking place mindlessly and accidentally. This is because the intelligently designed software used requires an intelligently designed environment in which to execute (a computer with an operating system), just as life coming about and “executing” required a Universe fine-tuned such that life was a possibility.
Ray, when a system like Tierra is found running accidentally created software on a computer and operating system that also came about accidentally you will have a point.
January 18th, 2013 | 10:38 am
harry –
Only when the mathematical model actually matches reality. Consider precipitation. If you do the math yourself, you’ll find that rain is impossible.
Water vapor in the air simply will not condense into rain. The tiny droplets don’t merge, don’t form into a raindrop heavy enough to fall out of the sky. You can expect maybe one raindrop every few million years. Thus, rainstorms never happen, it’s straightforward to demonstrate mathematically.
Except that model doesn’t take into account dust. Water can nucleate onto dust and then form droplets big enough to fall. Even that isn’t the full story, but it’s enough to show that models need to be validated. I’ve already pointed to problems with the models you use, so…
January 18th, 2013 | 11:14 am
Hi, Ray,
Oh. Because one might forget to take dust into consideration when calculating the possibility of rain taking place, one should assume that the math of Penrose, Hoyle and others must not be valid. Yeah, right.
January 18th, 2013 | 11:32 am
harry -
Check the link I gave to “the full story” in my previous comment. They modeled raindrop formation on a computer. Therefore, raindrop formation must take intelligent intervention. That is your conclusion, right?
I’ll note that this is why I’ve come to conclude that arguing with you is like riding a merry-go-round. It goes from fine-tuned-universe, to protein formation and abiogenesis, to the relations of models to the world, and then back to the fine-tuned-universe as if I’d never addressed that before. See the links I posted in the second comment I made above.
January 18th, 2013 | 12:31 pm
Indeed, anyone who argues that since all computer simulations are designed by intelligence humans therefore they can’t say anything about non-intelligently designed systems is just wasting time playing semantic games.
January 18th, 2013 | 1:00 pm
You have handily defeated your strawman. Congratulations.
Unlike your strawman, I never stated that just because an event was modeled by software it must require intelligent intervention to take place otherwise.
Nonetheless, it is just silliness to claim that intelligently designed processes that require an extremely fine-tuned, intelligently designed environment in which to execute, demonstrate that ever-increasing functional complexity can come about mindlessly.
In the real world matter inexorably tends towards its most likely state — which is not functional complexity but its very opposite: functionless disorder. We all know that things tend to fall apart, not self-assemble, and that significant functional complexity coming about always involves the activity of an intelligent agent. That is why we didn’t expect to find things possessing the functional complexity of, say, television sets strewn about the Martian landscape.
January 18th, 2013 | 1:34 pm
[Boonton] “The fact that we have any fossils at all to give us random snapshots of individual life forms that lived is remarkable.”
What? Remarkable in terms of… a number of conditions having to be just right? Careful where you argue next ;) In any case, that seems to be in contradiction with Ray’s textbook link which goes to some length to downplay the gaps in the fossil record. I have to say you’re the first to tell me that fossils are difficult to make and THAT’s the reason why chaotic evolution isn’t backed up by expected physical evidence. And remember, you’re talking to someone who is fine with the idea of evolution as a mechanism – I just want to see chaotic, undirected evolution defended on the merits and frankly I find it really light in some *empirical* areas.
Because this still misses one of my points – that where the ‘conditions were right’ for fossil creation, (low tectonic activity, rapid sediment coverage, etc,) why don’t we find 10,000 fossils of one iteration, then 10,000 of the next and so on. Those “snapshots” should be a lot more like town photos than individual portraits, and they should cover generations, not just a weekend family gathering.
January 18th, 2013 | 1:35 pm
[Ray - Jan 16th] “But every single proposed example of ‘irreducible complexity’ in nature that’s been proposed so far has been refuted – as in, shown to be evolvable.”
“Has been refuted”? Even the papers you’ve linked to don’t claim this! In fact, the Introduction of the first one states,”However, the origins of this remarkable device have hardly been examined. This article will *propose* a detailed model…” and a brief reading reveals a number of instances of “such and such mechanism must be posited,”…
This is what drives me nuts – and AGAIN I say this as a Catholic who of course doesn’t have any trouble with discovering the mechanism. At the end of the day, I am not looking for proof of God here. I am delving into a conversation that I have observed for some time as being deficient in answering a few critical areas, and indeed the atheistic answers often approximate the same argument patterns and conversation cues as they criticize when offered by theists. I can’t help but notice that it looks like you’ve just found a link to this “Panda” page, and then a few links from that page. You’ve found someone who’s created a theoretical model, and that eases your mind. No need to continue to consider any signs that the model may be designed. As long as there’s a statistical chance when you divide by lots and lots of years, then you’ll assume that a) that chance event happened and b) you’re looking at THAT chance event. There is no need for you to consider anything else.
It reminds me of Haldane’s Error.
You’ve asked me how many discrete steps I would accept. I’d say somewhere above the “11 separate stages” that you were satisfied with regarding ossicles.
January 18th, 2013 | 1:36 pm
I agree with Boonton that it’s difficult to lock down exactly what we’re discussing. I thought that DennisM did a good job of trying to refocus things back in to the basic question: Does something show signs of design?
It seems to me that chaotic evolution (without a designer) settles on the absolute most difficult path, the most narrow of mathematical margins and pooh-poohs questions about physical evidence and fossil gaps over spans of millions of years. In other contexts, I daresay some posters on this board would be raising claims of animosity towards empirical evidence and of dodging the tough questions.
Acceptance seems to often boil down to:
There’s an extraordinarily large number of chances – of course we (the cosmos) eventually got it right.
Why is that “of course eventually” not still staggering, and why is it a “case closed” moment for those who don’t want to allow the possibility of a designer?
Where you see order, you can expect to find an ordering principle. Where you find an ordering principle, you can expect to find an ordering agent. To me this seems the most logically straightforward foundational argument possible, while the probability arguments *based on the objective math* must rest on – no, scratch that, must rather make a mad dash – to the margins of plausibility – and must resort to phrases like “we haven’t found it yet, but we know we will discover and understand it eventually” – phrases which in other contexts would be derided and despised.
January 18th, 2013 | 1:43 pm
Harry -
There’s a long history of scientists building models that leave out a critical factor and reaching incorrect conclusions with correct math. Take William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), and his detailed, mathematically-rigorous, and thoroughly incorrect estimate of the age of the Earth.
If the assumptions of the model are wrong or incomplete, the conclusions will almost certainly be incorrect. I’ve pointed out problem assumptions (and I’m hardly the only one) with the estimates you refer to, but if you don’t want to deal with them, there’s little I can do about it.
January 18th, 2013 | 3:13 pm
Ray,
The math is so conclusive that atheists have resorted to multiverse theory in response to it, as though theorizing about the existence of countless non-anthropic universes makes our anthropic Universe coming about mindlessly more plausible. It doesn’t.
It takes much more faith to believe in countless unobservable, undetectable universes than it does to believe in one intelligent agent whose existence is easily inferred from the evidence.
January 19th, 2013 | 8:33 am
In the real world matter inexorably tends towards its most likely state — which is not functional complexity but its very opposite: functionless disorder. We all know that things tend to fall apart, not self-assemble, and that significant functional complexity coming about always involves the activity of an intelligent agent.
Start with a large cloud of mostly hydrogen but some rock, dust, heavy elements etc. The laws of motion will say the cloud will most likely spin as gravity pulls most of the material towards the center. Nothing more complicated than Newton’s equations will also tell us that smaller clumps will likely form with those in unstable orbits either getting expelled or combined into larger clumps. Go forward in time a bit and what was a huge disorderly cloud is now a very well defined star with planets in nearly perfectly stable orbits, some with rings around them so well designed they look like they were drawn by Euclid himself.
Self-assembly? Yes
Complexity? Yes
Functional? Yes
Disorder? No
I have to say you’re the first to tell me that fossils are difficult to make and THAT’s the reason why chaotic evolution isn’t backed up by expected physical evidence.
One has to have a reason to expect evidence. There’s no baby pictures of Abe Lincoln. I wouldn’t expect there to be as he was born before photography. But the theory that Abe was once a baby is quite valid despite the lack of *unexpected* physical evidence.
So with that in mind tell us how many fossils do you *expect* to have if evolution is true?
January 20th, 2013 | 12:33 pm
Boonton,
Given the laws of physics, matter configuring itself according to those laws is inevitable, so solar systems will be formed from cosmic debris. You say this formation and/or its result is functional. Not so. Functionality makes something happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Or are you saying that the purpose of cosmic debris is to make solar systems? There can be no such thing as “purpose” without an intellect having an intention. If cosmic debris and the laws of physics had an intelligent creator who intended them to bring solar systems about, then I would agree that there is functionality in the formation of solar systems from cosmic debris. If there is no intelligent creator, then solar systems arising from the laws of physics applied to cosmic debris is merely an inevitability without function. Again, functionality makes something happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
It was not inevitable that functional laptop computers would be formed from cosmic debris. Having significant functional complexity bringing about events which wouldn’t happened otherwise, they exist only because of the intentions of intelligent agents. Life consists of massive functional complexity. It, too, only exists because of the intentions of an intelligent agent.
Most people would agree that it would be absurd to insist that an ancient statue dug up by an archaeologist was not really a statue at all, but merely the product of mindless erosion accidentally fashioning a stone into the exact shape of a human body. Many do not see the absurdity in claiming that the first actual, living, thinking instance of a human being – not a mere statue of one – was an accident, even though humanity eventually emerging from cosmic debris is far, far more unlikely than the statue doing so. That this is the case testifies to the very real power of…
January 21st, 2013 | 7:25 am
YOu’re misdefining function here with purpose. I bake a cake for my dinner party, but I burn it. Clearly I had a purpose in baking, but the burnt cake serves no function. We are in the woods fighting, I pick up a broken tree limb on the ground and hit you with it. The tree didn’t grow the limb with the purpose of providing me with the function of a club.
If there is no intelligent creator, then solar systems arising from the laws of physics applied to cosmic debris is merely an inevitability without function
Clearly you, like me, are using the solar system for the function of providing us a place to live whether or not it arose from an intelligent creator.
It was not inevitable that functional laptop computers would be formed from cosmic debris. Having significant functional complexity…
Your definition here is circular. You define function as purpose which just confuses the argument becuase most people define function as something that gets a particular job done. The tree limb functions as a club because in that context it does its job. But otherwise it’s just litter on the forest floor. By your definition the laptop isn’t functional if it has no purpose. If it’s in a home because some hoarder just randomly collects stuff, then it has no purpose and is not functional
January 21st, 2013 | 7:30 am
The math is so conclusive that atheists have resorted to multiverse theory in response to it,…
What math? Again you keep switching all over the place. You’re telling us that the universe’s parameters were fine tuned for life. Yet they weren’t according to you. Life is so unlikely that even with our ‘fine tuned universe’ something else was needed for abiogenesis…to make a single living cell. But then that’s not sufficient either, a single cell can’t evolve into complex animals with organs like eyes…again ID is needed. If the intelligent designer was a finite entity (like visitors in a UFO) this might make sense but if it was an infinite entity wouldn’t the most simple act be to create a life bearing universe at some level *outside* the parameters of the universe’s physics?
And you’re wrong. Multiverses were proposed not to save atheism but in the 50′s as a way to read quantum physics in a way that didn’t require chance and to break the ‘fuzziness’ of Schroedinger’s cat paradox.
January 21st, 2013 | 8:29 am
Harry -
I just got done pointing out the flaw in the way you characterize the argument. Computer simulations do replication plus occasional errors faster than biological systems, so we can test it more easily. The same way we can test theories of raindrop formation faster on a computer than by waiting for rainstorms.
That’s one possibility. I’ve pointed to another, quoting Einstein to you at least twice before – “Did God have any choice in creating the universe?” Please demonstrate that the fundamental constants you refer to can take on different values…
January 21st, 2013 | 8:39 am
JDD -
Can you point to a problem with the model? Did you read about the model, and find out what confirming evidence has been found since it was proposed? (Can you list one example?)
That’s the thing. I see a lot of people saying, “unless you can replicate a process that took billions of years in a lab in an afternoon, I won’t accept it”. They ignore all the evidence, and more importantly they ignore how it all hangs together. That’s what drives me nuts.
We’ve found more since that article was written. Can you give me a number? Alternatively, can you point to a specific gap – say, before or after Yanoconodon – that you think is ‘too much’ for evolution to bridge without intelligent guidance, and explain why?
Or is this just, “I don’t want to believe it, so I won’t investigate it?”
January 21st, 2013 | 2:22 pm
That’s a probability if not a certainty.
Yes. He did.
Multiverse theorists assume that they do in other universes. Ask Stephen Hawking why that is.
Quite frankly, atheism’s creation myth, and atheism itself is in big trouble. Its religious dogmas were once mistaken for science; they are now being seen for the far fetched religious beliefs that they really are. Good luck defending your religion, Ray. You will need it. It must be tough always having to make the virtually impossible appear to be probable for the sake of atheism’s doctrines.
January 22nd, 2013 | 9:18 am
Harry -
I think you misunderstand. I was saying that multiverses were a possibility. I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to call multiverses a ‘certainty’.
Do you mean, “Yes, Einstein said that,” or “Yes, God had a choice”? If the latter, how do you know? I addressed this before – in our first conversation, in fact.
“We could imagine a world where everything was the same except water froze at 37 degrees Celsius… but you couldn’t actually have such a world. The nature of nuclear and electromagnetic forces would have to change too far to allow ‘everything else’ to remain the same… So no, it’s not clear that you could have a coherent universe at all if fundamental constants were different. Until and unless we can run more than thought-experiments about it, we can’t know that.”
Funny – you’re saying the unit charge of the electron can vary, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, for the sake of your theist doctrine.
January 22nd, 2013 | 8:35 pm
Reasons for the ‘multiverse’ hypothesises
1. An interpretation of quantum theory, not related to atheism. (curiously Einstein’s assertion that ‘God does not play dice with the universe’ implies the original multiverse hypothesis was actually probably a bit friendlier to theists than atheists).
2. Recognition of the question of what lies beyond the visible universe.
3. The question of either what caused the big bang.
4. The fact that since string theory implies multiple dimensions beyond what we can see and measure there’s little to rule out the possibility of multiple universes living ‘right next to each other’.
5. The question of gravity’s ‘missing energy’. Since gravity is much weaker than the other forces, one hypothesis is that some of its force ‘leaks’ into alternative universes.
None of these hypothesis and takes on multiverse are needed to ‘save’ atheism in any form. Nor would they preclude theism if they are true either.
January 22nd, 2013 | 9:09 pm
Ohhh another motivation for ‘multiverse hypothesis’….the fact that some theories seem to imply you could ‘create a baby universe’ by such things as creating a singularity or ‘inflationary expansion’ may randomly happen. If universes can spawn off of this one then it stands to reason that this universe too might have spawned off some other one.
January 23rd, 2013 | 1:47 am
Those who have been reading this discussion might be interested in listening to Fr. Robert Spitzer speaking on the anthropic principle. There is a video on YouTube that can be found by entering:
spitzer anthropic
as your search on the YouTube web site. In the results there will be a video with a length of 58:28 to which you can listen instead of listening to it in four parts, which will also be in the search results.
January 23rd, 2013 | 7:09 am
So here’s what I’m tracking so far from the IDer set:
1. Universe was ‘fine tuned’ for life from its beginning.
2. Universe is not naturally sufficient for life. So to get life started something had to create it.
3. Life is not naturally sufficient for more complex life….so something like the ‘eye’ couldn’t evolve from cells.
4. Complex life is not sufficient for intelligent life, hence you can’t get evolution of man.
And we can infer ‘purpose’ out of all of these.
Problem if you’re creator is going to be God you have to consider infinite power combined with purpose. If you went thru twenty cakes in your kitchen before finally baking a decent one, I’d say you had a purpose but weren’t a very good cook.
Design at any point from 2-4 would then imply a designer who is NOT God. Design at point 1 means you need to stop talking about evolution, Darwinism etc.
If you want to say God had some other purpose in creating life other than creating life, then you’re saying you cannot objectively detect purpose from observation. For example, if you say that God wanted it to seem like he wasn’t involved with life’s evolution when he really was, then you’re either unable to read God’s purposes or you’re saying his ability is finite and you’re able to see through a ruse he sets up.
The only real question we are left is what is ID worse at; science or theology?
January 23rd, 2013 | 7:28 am
As for the notion that multiverse theory is an atheistic response to mathematics revealing how unlikely our anthropic Universe is, Google up:
multiverse anthropic atheism
You will find articles where atheists deny that is the case, articles where atheists are claiming multiverse theory is the logical choice for atheists, like:
http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=79744
and articles quoting Cardinal Christoph Schönborn as saying:
You will find many other articles where believers and atheists take a stand on the issue one way or the other. It will become obvious that the notion that multiverse theory is an atheistic response to the discovery of the astounding precision of the fine-tuning of our Universe such that life was a possibility is not a new idea, and that some atheists recommend multiverse theory as the “logical choice” for atheists.
January 23rd, 2013 | 8:31 am
What I am saying is that multiverse theory is a desperate response by atheism to what mathematics dispassionately reveals to us about how exceedingly unlikely it is that our anthropic Universe came about mindlessly.
To deny that there is an affinity between atheism and multiverse theory similar to the affinity between atheism and Darwinism is just closing one’s mind to the obvious.
By the way, I do not deny that life as we know it today could be the result of intelligently directed biological processes that took place over millions of years. What I deny is that lifeless matter could have mindlessly and accidentally assembled itself into living, digital information-based, ultra-sophisticated nanotechnology light years beyond that which the best minds of modern science know how to build from scratch. That is a bit much for mindless, lifeless matter to accomplish considering the fact that matter inexorably tends to functionless disorder, not ever-increasing functional complexity, and considering how far fetched the notion is that mindlessness can somehow arrive at massive quantities of precise, highly complex digital information.
January 23rd, 2013 | 10:38 am
harry -
The fact that you didn’t originate the notion doesn’t automatically mean it’s correct, though.
Which, again, doesn’t mean that the only motivation for the idea is atheism.
January 23rd, 2013 | 10:46 am
harry -
Yes, you’ve been saying that. What you haven’t been doing is supporting it.
You haven’t even supported the idea that our ‘anthropic universe’ is unlikely. At most, all you can say is that if some parameters in our physical models were ‘free’ parameters, then the universe we see would be a narrow slice of the possible configurations.
But (a) you can’t show those parameters are or even could be variable, and (b) when it comes to universes we have a sample of exactly one, which make statistical analysis a trifle difficult.
The fact that some atheists like it is no argument that it’s false. And other atheists – me, for example – tend to doubt that the physical constants you worry about are anything but constants.
January 23rd, 2013 | 12:59 pm
Let’s also note that multiverse theory does NOT equal Darwinistic theory. That the two seem to be used interchangeably indicates we are only pretending to be talking about science here.
Likewise talking about ‘cosmological ID’….in other words talking about the universe itself being designed rather than life forms inside our universe being designed is likewise not discussing ID. If a designer, whether it be God or an alien, created a single living cell and set it on a primitive earth to multiply and then left the scene for a few billion years, that would in no way contradict anything in either Darwin’s theory or modern evolutionary theory.
January 24th, 2013 | 5:12 am
The point is that if the values of “those parameters” were the slightest bit different, the rise of the complexity required for anything like life would be impossible. (Here is where some cannot resist the urge to point out the blatantly obvious, which is that we shouldn’t be surprised, since we do exist, to find that the values of those parameters are such that our existence is possible. Duh!)
To say we can’t show that their values “are or even could be variable” entirely misses the point. They are not variable in our Universe. That is why they are called constants. That we can’t show that they have different values in another universe is obvious. The point is that we don’t have any reason to believe that they couldn’t have taken on different values in our Universe, yet they just happen to have the extremely precise values needed for the complexification of matter.
Listen to Fr. Spitzer’s remarks on the anthropic principle I mentioned previously.
January 24th, 2013 | 7:41 am
The point is that if the values of “those parameters” were the slightest bit different, the rise of the complexity required for anything like life would be impossible.
I find about 69-70 degrees is a comfortable room temperature. Even as low as 65 and it feels cold, 75 hot. Yet in terms of the types of temperatures we find in the universe, the range goes from maybe -458 degrees to millions. Given such huge swings, it’s pretty amazing there’s a place where the temp. can be kept in such a narrow range of just 5-6 degrees.
But this is of course absurd. We know there’s plenty of living things on earth who are adapted to be very comfortable in environments that are much colder or hotter than 70 degrees. It’s not so much that Earth fine tuned itself for my comfort, I’m fine tuned to be comfortable on what Earth has to offer.
Leaving aside the problem of knowing whether or not there’s any ability for the universe’s parameters to be ‘set’, there’s little you can say about the possible ‘rise of complexity’ required for life. It’s easy to say with different parameters anything like earth based life would be impossible, but you can’t speak about life in that universe unless you can simulate all the possible physics and chemistry of that alternative universe on the micro and macro scale.
In fact lets note that we are only familiar with the chemistry of the 4-5% of matter in our own universe and have little idea what and how ‘dark matter’ is and works.
January 24th, 2013 | 10:13 am
harry -
And the counterpoint is that we don’t have any reason to believe they could have taken on different values. We don’t know why they have those values.
However, I’ve pointed out that things we considered ‘singular constants’ before have turned out to be the logical consequence of more fundamental parameters. The freezing point of ice depends on the ratios of mass and charge between electrons and protons, which in turn depends on the ratio of the strong and weak nuclear forces.
So it’s a live possibility that the ‘constants’ we see are the logical consequence of more fundamental phenomena, which may well be the way they are because they can’t be otherwise (like 2+2=4).
So, you’re free to have a favorite hypothesis about this, and a pet opinion. But you cannot claim that others are irrational for not sharing your opinion.
January 24th, 2013 | 8:58 pm
Let’s also note there’ s a problem with reasoning by analogy here. The charge is we can infer design because we are familiar with things designed by intelligent humans like watches, coins arranged in a smilely fact, and so on.
Problem, humans are by definition finite and God is by definition infinite. To charge you can infer design by studying the designs of humans implies design by an infinite entity would look like design by a finite one.
As any engineer will tell you, human design is marked by dealing with limits. Materials can only take so much force before they break, energy can only be stored so efficiently, different values like weight and fuel economy are in conflict with each other etc. An infinite entity, though, is not constrained by limits.
This would mean that design by God or a god would almost certainly NOT look like the familiar designs of humans. IDers, though, seem to have forgotten one of the core concepts of monotheism, namely that there’s a huge difference between an Infinite God and a God who is merely more powerful than humans. Or as any mathematician will tell you there’s a world of difference between a really big number and true infinity.
Open question: Who is harmed more by ID? Science or Faith?
To those who think ID is an ally to religion in the supposed ‘war’ between the two, beware you have been warned.
January 25th, 2013 | 9:00 am
And the more “fundamental phenomena” just might be the “logical consequence” of even “more fundamental parameters” and so might those be and so on and so on. The further back we go the more “logical” the combination of the most fundamental cosmological parameter values had to be, which is all the more evidence for an ultimate Logos. For example, one could explain an explosion in a lumber yard assembling a finished house by saying that if we just understood why all the parameters involved had the precise values they did we would see that the house being assembled was inevitable. The parameters having precisely the required values would prove a mind must have put some thought into the values of the parameters, not that it was a lucky, mindless accident.
The Big Bang creating a low-entropy, anthropic Universe was much more unlikely than an explosion in a lumber yard assembling a finished house. To deny that somebody must have put a lot of thought into it might be based on just not wanting to believe that is the case, but not on reason.
January 25th, 2013 | 9:41 am
There can be no genuine conflict between true science and true religion because the natural and the supernatural have the same Author, yet ID is essential to religion, certainly at least to the Catholic variety:
“If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with *certainty* from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: *let him be anathema.*”
– Vatican Council I, can. 2 § I
“… The existence of God the Creator can be known with *certainty* through his works, by the light of human reason …”
– Catechism of the Catholic Church, #286 (Cf. Vatican Council I, can. 2 § I)
“The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is *concrete and immediate*; God cares for all, from the *least things* to the great events of the world and its history. The sacred books powerfully affirm God’s *absolute sovereignty* over the course of events …”
– Catechism of the Catholic Church, #303
“And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any *secondary causes.* This is not a “primitive mode of speech”, but a profound way of recalling *God’s primacy and absolute Lordship* over history and the world …”
– Catechism of the Catholic Church, #304
January 25th, 2013 | 9:49 am
That God always was and is in complete, continual control of everything (except our free will) right down to the last interactions between the most fundamental units of matter, is and always has been the orthodox Catholic belief, as is the belief that objective human reasoning regarding His creation leads us to knowledge of His existence. This belief is incompatible with the idea that the Universe and the life within it can be explained as a mindless accident. The idea that nature is a purposeless, mindless accident is incompatible not just with Catholic belief, but with reason itself as well.
January 25th, 2013 | 12:59 pm
You are confusing philosophical arguments for the existence of God, which go back thousands of years, with ID, a modern day pseudo-science which claims to be able to measure God by comparing cells to watches.
January 26th, 2013 | 8:45 am
If God is absolutely sovereign over the course of *all* events (chance is the invention of finite minds), as orthodox Catholicism has always taught, then His creation has been intelligently designed. This is why the Universe is intelligible, which is what makes natural science possible.
Newton, a deeply religious man, who is considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived, insisted that “this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” For Newton, discovering the design that brought forth the order of the cosmos proved, rather than challenged, the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent creator.
So, ID is not the “modern day” pseudo-science. ID is not new. What is new is science perverted by atheistic materialism. It is the “modern day pseudo-science” which denies the existence of all immaterial, incorporeal realities even though nature loudly testifies to their existence. Newton, who practiced true science, heard this testimony. Modern, atheistic pseudo-science places its hands firmly over its ears and keeps shouting loudly that there is no God in the hope that nobody else will hear nature’s compelling testimony either. That isn’t working.
January 28th, 2013 | 9:45 am
harry –
Does ’2+2=4′ depend on anything more fundamental? Could 2+2=fish? You keep missing the point – you keep assuming those parameters could have been different when you cannot possibly know that. You can imagine a world where water freezes at 274 Kelvin, yet everything else is the same… but you can’t actually have such a world.
How do you know the ratio of the mass of the electron to the proton could be anything but what it is? Tell me that and I’ll agree you have an argument. Until then, all you have is an opinion.
January 28th, 2013 | 9:50 am
harry –
I’ve pointed you to this essay before, which tackles exactly that quote of Newton’s head-on. But I’ll quote from it now:
A century later, the French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace confronted Newton’s dilemma of unstable orbits head-on. Rather than view the mysterious stability of the solar system as the unknowable work of God, Laplace declared it a scientific challenge. In his multipart masterpiece, Mécanique Céleste, the first volume of which appeared in 1798, Laplace demonstrates that the solar system is stable over periods of time longer than Newton could predict. To do so, Laplace pioneered a new kind of mathematics called perturbation theory, which enabled him to examine the cumulative effects of many small forces. According to an oft-repeated but probably embellished account, when Laplace gave a copy of Mécanique Céleste to his physics-literate friend Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon asked him what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. “Sire,” Laplace replied, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”
January 28th, 2013 | 4:09 pm
A comment seems to be trapped in moderation. Let me hit it briefly:
1. Harry’s assertions have to become heresy on one side or the other. ID asserts that it can tell the difference between designed things and non-designed things. An infinite God, though, means nothing can be non-designed. That means either ID has to assert God is finite and limited in his powers, or everything is designed therefore ID can’t tell the difference between a designed and non-designed thing. If ID is correct, then the designer is not God. If God exists, then ID can’t be correct unless God is more like a finite person than in infinite God.
2. Newton was deeply religious. That’s about all the good you can say about him. As a theologian he had rejected almost all the major insights of Christian thinkers who came before him by centuries. Newton tossed out the Trinity, the Divine nature of Christ and lots of other Christian insights on religion and brought in numerology and cheesy efforts to calculate the date of the world’s end. If he didn’t have his mathematical and scientific accomplishments and had only to rely upon his religious work, he would been forgotten as a very low ranking religious thinker..probably unknown even to the most obscure historian of religion. The God of the Gaps is not a God serious ly religious people should aspire towards.
January 29th, 2013 | 12:32 pm
Wow, still at it.
Harry, thank you for the Catechism references, and Fr. Robert Spitzer “anthropic principle” link – I think I’ve possibly heard that before, but I’ll listen again.
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