• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

What would refute creationism?

leroy

Well-Known Member
It means that Specified Complexity is also a failure.

Specified Complexity is useless in maths, and it is even more useless in biology.
If you are willing to reject SC just because it is not supported by robust math, go ahead, would you reject all claims that lack robust mathematical support?............or do you make exceptins with stuff that that contradict your view?

... which of these points do you deny?
1 Yes I agree there is no robust math supporting ID (nor evolution by natrual selection)

2 the lack math is not a big of a deal

3 one can say that something is too improbable to have occurred by chance, even if you dont know the exact probability (ERVs woudl be an example)
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
No we agreed that SC is not grounded in robust math

That SC is a useless concept is your own personal unsupported claim
Actually, it is not my own personal claim. It is the claim of pretty much all of science.

What you now seem to be saying is that despite the fact that Dembski's SC cannot be supported by the math, you are still going to use it as if it has value in a legitimate discussion. Much like using the ether to argue about chemistry.

Is that sound?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Actually, it is not my own personal claim. It is the claim of pretty much all of science.

Maybe, but you haven’t support it


What you now seem to be saying is that despite the fact that Dembski's SC cannot be supported by the math, you are still going to use it as if it has value in a legitimate discussion. Much like using the ether to argue about chemistry.

Is that sound?
Yes I would argue that a concept can be valid even if it is not supported by robust math

Do you disagree? Would you reject all the concepts that lack mathematical support?
 

gnostic

The Lost One
No we agreed that SC is not grounded in robust math

That SC is a useless concept is your own personal unsupported claim
No, SC is useless because the explanations are weak and unfalsifiable (untestable).

Maths isn’t the only place it failed. It failed in the whole Scientific Method. That’s not an opinions.

It failed to be falsifiable, so that disqualified SC from being a hypothesis (which is the 1st half of Scientific Method - the formulation of the hypothesis).

And it failed to be tested. Testing the hypothesis, is the 2nd half of Scientific Method. There are no testable evidence, and there are no original experiments, that support SC.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
How did you determine that, "SC is likely to be caused by a mind" ... ?

If you're saying something is "likely" then you would have had to do some math somewhere. Where is it?

And how did you determine that something, anything, is specifically complex? I think this thread demonstrates that the idea is at the very least, mathematically unsound.
From what I am reading, SC has been concluded to be valueless in the discussion. Pretty leaving the argument of intelligent design empty and without even the pretense of a basis.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Maybe, but you haven’t support it
I have supported it. You have supported it for me. Others have offered support. What else to do you need? How many times does McCoy have to say "He's dead Jim"?


Yes I would argue that a concept can be valid even if it is not supported by robust math

Do you disagree? Would you reject all the concepts that lack mathematical support?[/QUOTE]What does my agreeing with your general question give you in support of a question on the specific topic of Dembski's SC? That seems like a tactic to me and I thought you were putting yourself in the position that is above those sorts of things.

Dembski's SC is a useless concept that isn't supported by math and has been identified as an argument from ignorance. Anything that only applies to gaps in our knowledge is arguing from ignorance. A point that you have conceded more than once on this thread.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
If you are willing to reject SC just because it is not supported by robust math, go ahead, would you reject all claims that lack robust mathematical support?............or do you make exceptins with stuff that that contradict your view?

... which of these points do you deny?
1 Yes I agree there is no robust math supporting ID (nor evolution by natrual selection)

2 the lack math is not a big of a deal

3 one can say that something is too improbable to have occurred by chance, even if you dont know the exact probability (ERVs woudl be an example)
Where in all of this have you shown us that evolutionary theory doesn't have the support of mathematics and is on the same level as Dembski's SC?

I must have missed those many, many posts.

Were those posts to be named later also where you showed that a failed basis in math is not big deal and again, that it is the same for the theory of evolution?

Your defense seems to have gone from supporting the OP to trying to poke holes in the existing science.

Don't you think that is always where these discussions seem to go? I wonder why that is.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Where you making a relevant point? Apart from the point that responded to ? care to explain that point?
Apart from the fact that this illustrates evidence against your claim that you do not ignore what others post, the points stand and remain unanswered by you.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
It failed to be falsifiable, so that disqualified SC from being a hypothesis (which is the 1st half of Scientific Method - the formulation of the hypothesis).
SC is just a pattern with specific characteristics, if something with those characteristics

1 was caused by a non-mind then ID would be falsified

2 if the pattern lacks some of those specific characeristics, it would be “not SC” and therefore the design inference would be falsified,

You yes we are talking about a testable and falsifiable concept.

For example something could seem to be SC (given the current evidence) and then future evidence could show that in reality it is not SC. (there it is falsifiable)
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
SC is just a pattern with specific characteristics, if something with those characteristics

1 was caused by a non-mind then ID would be falsified

2 if the pattern lacks some of those specific characeristics, it would be “not SC” and therefore the design inference would be falsified,

You yes we are talking about a testable and falsifiable concept.

For example something could seem to be SC (given the current evidence) and then future evidence could show that in reality it is not SC. (there it is falsifiable)
What you suggest is a very common pattern exploited by creationists. There is a gap in our knowledge and creationism is used to fill that gap until new evidence is discovered that actually fills the gap.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Where in all of this have you shown us that evolutionary theory doesn't have the support of mathematics and is on the same level as Dembski's SC?

I must have missed those many, many posts.

Were those posts to be named later also where you showed that a failed basis in math is not big deal and again, that it is the same for the theory of evolution?

Your defense seems to have gone from supporting the OP to trying to poke holes in the existing science.

Don't you think that is always where these discussions seem to go? I wonder why that is.
You didn’t answer my question, do you reject all the models that lack robust mathematical support? Or do you only reject those that contradict your view.

For example one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favor of evolution (common ancestry) is ERVs the argument is “humans and chimps share many ERVs in the same spot, which is unlikely to have happened by chance” (therefore common ancestry is the best explanation)…………..of course nobody has a mathematical model that shows exactly how unlikely is it, but it is still a good argument, despite the absence of robust math supporting the argument.

In other words my claims are

1 yes I agree that Demski lacks robust mathematical models supporting his view

2 this is not a big of a deal, (many valid theories/hypothesis/models etc. also lack robust mathematical support.)


If you disagree with me on point 2 then you would have to drop evolution and many other well accepted scientific stuff
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
What you suggest is a very common pattern exploited by creationists. There is a gap in our knowledge and creationism is used to fill that gap until new evidence is discovered that actually fills the gap.
Maybe but the point of the comment that you are responding to is to show that ID is falsifiable

So ether refute that point or agree with it, please when you respond to my comments try to address the actual point in such comment.

Your Gaps accusation has to be justified,
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
You didn’t answer my question, do you reject all the models that lack robust mathematical support? Or do you only reject those that contradict your view.

For example one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favor of evolution (common ancestry) is ERVs the argument is “humans and chimps share many ERVs in the same spot, which is unlikely to have happened by chance” (therefore common ancestry is the best explanation)…………..of course nobody has a mathematical model that shows exactly how unlikely is it, but it is still a good argument, despite the absence of robust math supporting the argument.

In other words my claims are

1 yes I agree that Demski lacks robust mathematical models supporting his view

2 this is not a big of a deal, (many valid theories/hypothesis/models etc. also lack robust mathematical support.)


If you disagree with me on point 2 then you would have to drop evolution and many other well accepted scientific stuff
That poster did actually answer your question.
This is why conversing with you is so very difficult.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Apart from the fact that this illustrates evidence against your claim that you do not ignore what others post, the points stand and remain unanswered by you.
In that comment you said that you don’t know what would falsify “nature did it” and then you simply explained why is it that you don’t know it.

If you made a different point, I honestly miss it, I dint ignore it on purpose.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
No we agreed that SC is not grounded in robust math

That SC is a useless concept is your own personal unsupported claim

It is not unsupported.
You're the one proposing SC and have spend 10+ pages showing us how it is a useless concept and in fact just fallacious.

Fallacious concepts aren't useful, other then to serve as examples of useless concepts.

You proposed it. If you think it is useful, show us an instance where it was useful and yielded reliable results.

Won't be holding my breath
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
3 one can say that something is too improbable to have occurred by chance, even if you dont know the exact probability (ERVs woudl be an example)

The probability of sharing exact ERV's without common ancestors where the initial infection took place, is rather easy to calculate.

Simplisticly put:

About 3000-ish known ERV's in the genome.
About 3 billion potential insertion spots.

Sharing an ERV without common ancestry: 1 in 3000*3 billion.
Sharing 2 ERV's without common ancestry: 1 in (3000*3 billion)²
Sharing 3 ERV's without common ancestry: 1 in (3000*3 billion)³
etc

You can further refine this calculation by also taking into account "hot spots", where insertion is more likely then in other spots, based on statistics etc.
 
Top