Putting God's Design In Perspective

shunyadragon said:

Neither of the above is assumed by science. Science does not consider the universe originating from (philosophical) nothing, and whether our physical existence is eternal and/or infinite is unknown.

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So, science just says "wer here, thats it"?

If thats what they say, dang, whats the point of doing science then?

Actually yes, it is a philosophical assertion.

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Glad you said that. Very good. You deserve an A for that

Science has determined the step by step evolution of the flagellum since Behe made this claim.

I will cite the scientific reference next. It is likely been cited before.

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Yes, whats the step by step process?

Or heck, anything really. Like ourselves even. What came first, my heart or lungs? You see the problem?

leroy said:

I mean, “show to me that evolution is true, but you can’t use any argument for evolution until you establish a priory that evolution is true”

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I did not read this correctly when I first read your post, but my previous statements addressing this still stand. You want proof of evolution.

I would say first and foremost that science is not about providing proofs. Even in something as solid, longstanding and supported as the theory of evolution is, it must remain contingent in theory. There is always the chance that new information could falsify the theory. Predictably, this new information would need to be established as something in the physical world that would not be explained by the existing theory and not merely claims that God, a designer or irreducible complexity did it.

There exists a large and growing body of evidence produced by multiple different disciplines in science, that is best explained by the theory of evolution and does not require appeal to a deity or other supernatural cause to explain it.

Dan From Smithville said:

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why do you say you believe in God but debate like you dont?

Timothy Spurlin said:

When I was religious I tried to prove the Christian god was real. I prayed to God, I ask God to reveal itself, God remains hidden. Therefore I'm became an Atheist.

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Oh boy.....well, sorry to burst your bubble, but i did the same thing and gauss what? God DID reveal himself to me. So, you converted to atheism for nothing. Come back to Gods camp.

If you want to prove a god exist, you need objective evidence that is testable.

What objective evidence do you have a god exist? If science could prove that a god exist, how do you know which god it is that humans worship?

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NDEs reveal God exists. Hows that?

leroy said:

Obviously

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If they grew it using intelligence, theyed be proving our case rather then there own.

viole said:

A QM event is inherently random. Under controlled conditions (experimental evidence of Bell's theorem).

QM, one of theories with the best experimental success, by far, expects not reducible inherently random events happening at fundamental level.

Now what?

Ciao

- viole

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Translation? I dont understand

Dan From Smithville said:

The randomness is still there, but it comes from the tosser, not the coin.

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The physics still play in the tosser, not just the coin.

Jollybear said:

So, science just says "wer here, thats it"?

If thats what they say, dang, whats the point of doing science then?

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Scientist don't say either.

Yes, whats the step by step process?

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In the oven and on the way

Or heck, anything really. Like ourselves even. What came first, my heart or lungs? You see the problem?

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No, this is nonsense.

shunyadragon said:

Scientist don't say either.

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What does scientists say then? If they dont say God made it, or nothing, or that it always existed, nor that wer just here and we dont know why, then what does science say?

In the oven and on the way

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Sounds good. Its smellin good, lol

No, this is nonsense.

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Heart, lungs, brain, intestines? Its like asking the classic question, what came first the chicken or egg.

All parts need to be in place at the same time. Each part cant evolve one part at a time over long periods otherwise the whole thing will die before it gets off the ground.

Jollybear said:

Oh boy.....well, sorry to burst your bubble, but i did the same thing and gauss what? God DID reveal himself to me. So, you converted to atheism for nothing. Come back to Gods camp.



NDEs reveal God exists. Hows that?

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NDE's are just the brain starving for oxygen. Ndes are subjective, coming from the mind.

Edit

leroy said:

Ok if the “steps” where not achieved in one generation then these “steps” are not really steps right? …. I mean this is semantics but a “step” by definition has to be something that can be achieved at once

The claim is falsifiable, all you have to do is grow a flagellum in a lab (or at least part of it) if things like antibiotic resistance has been observed to evolved in a lab, and we even can identify the “steps” why can’t you do the same with flagellums?

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Flagellum evolve over millions of years in response to natural selection not grown in labs.

Jollybear said:

What does scientists say then? If they dont say God made it, or nothing, or that it always existed, nor that wer just here and we dont know why, then what does science say?


All parts need to be in place at the same time. Each part cant evolve one part at a time over long periods otherwise the whole thing will die before it gets off the ground.

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Your question answer concerning the evolution of the flagellum

Source: Biologists Trace Evolution of Bacterial Flagellar Motors | Biology | Sci-News.com

Biologists Trace Evolution of Bacterial Flagellar Motors

Bacteria use molecular motors just tens of nanometers wide to spin a tail (flagellum) that pushes them through their habitat.

Like human-made motors, these nanoscale machines have distinct ‘stator’ and ‘rotor’ components that spin against each other. The structure of these motors determines their power and the bacteria’s swimming ability.

Previously, Imperial College researcher Morgan Beeby and co-authors looked at these motors and discovered a key factor that determined how strongly bacteria could swim.

They found that the more stator structures the bacterial motor possessed, the larger its turning force, and the stronger the bacterium swam.

Despite these differences, DNA sequence analysis shows that the core motors are ancestrally related. This led the team to question how structure and swimming diversity evolved from the same core design.

Now, in new research published in the journal Scientific Reports, Dr. Beeby’s team was able to build a ‘family tree’ of bacterial motors by combining 3D imaging with DNA analysis.

This allowed them to understand what ancestral motors may have looked like, and how they could have evolved into the sophisticated motors seen today.

The scientists found a clear difference between the motors of primitive and sophisticated bacterial species. While many primitive species had around 12 stators, more sophisticated species had around 17 stators. This, together with DNA analysis, suggested that ancient motors may also have only had 12 stators.

“This clear separation between primitive and sophisticated species represents a ‘quantum leap’ in evolution,” the authors said.

“Our study reveals that the increase in motor power capacity is likely the result of existing structures fusing. This forms a structural scaffold to incorporate more stators, which combine to drive rotation with higher force.”

© Copyright Original Source

shunyadragon said:

Flagellum evolve over millions of years in response to natural selection not grown in labs.

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But if you could grow them in a lab, it would be an example of evolution and not design.

I took a few geology courses as an undergrad. Time well spent. I learned a good deal and they fun classes.

leroy said:

All I am saying is that one can compare intelligent design vs. any other potential explanation for the fine tuning of the universe, and see which alternative is better according to objective criteria commonly accepted in science, like explanatory power, explanatory scope, parsimony, predictive power, less ad hoc, consistency with previous knowledge etc.

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The multiverse hypothesis is capable of accounting for fine tuning without invoking an intelligent designer, meaning that the latter, hypothesizing an intelligent designer, is a gross violation of Occam's Razor and parsimony.

Ask yourself this: Why would a god need to finely tune the physical constants of a universe in order for the universe to work unless that god was being restricted by laws that transcended it? How could such an entity be called a omnipotent if its choices were constrained to very narrow limits? It's a godless universe that requires laws in order to run unmonitored, not one run by a god..

Why would a god need to finely tune the laws of nature unless it is being restricted by some other laws beyond its control? And who created the laws that govern the necessity for that god to fine tune the laws of nature? If these laws dictated the nature of that god's creation, then how could it be called omnipotent? How could it be called god if its creation could only be created in one kind of way?

If the laws of nature could only be one kind of way to permit life, and the universe runs all on its own, then what does it need with a god? Because if that's the case, that god didn't actually design anything. It merely followed a set of instructions imposed on it by nature.

{Adapted from }

leroy said:

the burden proof is on the guy who claims that flagellums can evolve by the process of natural selection.

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That's not the claim. The claim is that there is no known mechanism that would prevent the evolution of flagella in environments where they would confer a selective advantage to the organisms possessing them, and that until this process can be shown to be impossible without an intelligent designer, it is by default possible. If you want to say that naturalistic, unguided evolution as Darwin described didn't occur because it couldn't, then the burden of proof is on you.

Skwim said:

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Up until relatively recently people considered our solar system and the stars above (whatever they were) to be thee center of god's creation. Eventually some of the dots in the sky were recognized to be planets that revolved around our earth, as did the Sun, all of which made up our solar system. This was corrected when it was confirmed that the Earth and these other planets went around the Sun. Some time later it was discovered that the stars were just like our sun: our Sun was a star. With better equipment, astronomers then found that some of the other "stars" were actually great "clouds" of light, which they called nebulae. Further investigation revealed that these nebulae were actually tremendous accumulations of stars, which they termed galaxies. (The term "nebula" has since been changed to denote great clouds of interstellar dust and other ionized gasses.) And there are trillions of these galaxies. So our "universe" went from being a solar system, to include the vast reaches of space, But the structure of our universe doesn't end there. The gravity between galaxies has drawn them into enormous clumps, which in turn form galaxy superclusters---our Milky Way galaxy is part of the Laniakea supercluster. Moreover, the distances between all these elements of the universe are enormous, which are denoted in light years; the distance light travels in one year. The closest spiral galaxy to us is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is two million light years away.

To give you an idea of how immense the universe is,

"Right now, the observable universe is thought to consist of roughly:

10 million superclusters
25 billion galaxy groups
350 billion large galaxies
7 trillion dwarf galaxies
30 billion trillion (3×10^22) stars, with almost 30 stars going supernova every second"
source​

Within the Milky Way galaxy our star is 1 among 100-400 billion other stars.

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And:

So, the question is, "Why"? Why did god bother with it all? While the existence of our plant and the life on it depend on the configuration of our solar system, they don't depend on the existence of neighboring stars, the Milky Way, other galaxies, galaxy superclusters or any other far reaching structures of the universe.

Of course, I don't expect any answer to be more than speculation, but I am looking to see how one squares the enormity of the universe, both in size and content, with the contention that it was all designed by god.

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Most Christians would say god made the universe so immensely vast just to glorify himself. Funny how god's ego is so big, huh?

Hubert Farnsworth said:

Most Christians would say god made the universe so immensely vast just to glorify himself. Funny how god's ego is so big, huh?

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Based on what most christians would say that?

Jollybear said:

You defined objective as existing outside the mind. The issue is though, you cannot presupose God does not exist without first testing this. Otherwise, thats bias, and bias is the OPOSITE of objective.

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Either we apply a basic test of some sort of evidence or reasoning in order to take an idea seriously or we have to treat all claims the same: fairies, vampires, alien abductions, invisible pink unicorns, everything.

For the sake of sanity, the default position is to reject an unsupported claim unless we have some reason to take it seriously.

You are also talking as if there is only one god claim. In fact humans have, and do believed in thousands of different gods. At least most of them are untrue.

Jollybear said:

But, you may say, how can we test that which we dont see? Well thats where the tests got to be creative.

We cant see wind, gravity, light (no, we dont see light, we see what it shines on). We dont see atoms, we dont see other peoples dreams, we can only see brain waves firing off, we dont see feelings or emotions, ect.

Its no different with God.

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Where is this objective test that's like gravity and atoms? If an objective test exists, why don't all the people who investigate god(s) agree?

leroy said:

Obviously

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Oh, THERE you are! I was wondering where you'd scampered off to avoid the tough stuff:

I also note that creationist essays on the subject (Haldane's 'dilemma') rarely if ever mentioned these papers:


Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA Vol.71,No.9,pp.3716-3720,
September 1974

An Analysis of the Cost-of-Selection Concept
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/71/9/3716.full.pdf


Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci.USA
Vol.71,No.10,pp.3863-3865,October 1974

Solutions to the Cost-of-Selection Dilemma
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/71/10/3863.full.pdf


and:


You and your sources appear to put mathematical models above actual evidence when it suits them (funny how the same folks are typically dismissive of climate change mathematical models).

What I NEVER see in such essays are an accounting of WHY they claim x-number of mutations is too few - i.e., I NEVER see any explanation as to how they know it is too few. I NEVER see an accounting of how many mutations they know it would take to get B-trait from A-trait in an ancestor.

This is the fail of ALL of these proclamations, from ReMine to Sanford to creation dot com. They merely seek to argue via big numbers with no actual rationale.



You need to explain how you determined that 500,000 mutations IS too few. All I see are assertions.


The case has already been made.

If creationists want to counter it using models and assertions, they will only impress and convince those that do not understand the biology.

Here is why I am very confident that such a large number of beneficial mutations is NOT needed to produce the relatively minor phenotypic changes we see between extant chimps and humans as derived from a common ancestor:

1. These arguments seem to imply that any particular trait is brand new and thus must be accounted for by some large number of mutations. This exposes the multi-level ignorance of those making them.
Look at the generic mammal body type - what specific trait does a human have that, say, a lemur or a dog does not? All human traits are essentially variations on a theme, not brand new. Developmental tweaks are all that is actually needed, not some suite of new beneficial mutations to get, say, the human shoulder joint from an ancestral primate shoulder joint.
There is the case of familial achondroplasia (dwarfism) - a single point mutation causes alterations in limb proportion (to include all muscle/nerve/soft tissue/etc. changes), joints, facial features, etc. All from a single point mutation. I am not saying that this is beneficial or adaptive, I am merely explaining that some huge number of mutations is NOT needed to produce relatively large-scale phenotypic changes. THIS is what your Haldane's dilemma-spewing creationist sources can't or won't understand or mention - usually because THEY don't know this, or because they don't want their target audience to know about it.

2. These arguments imply that some huge number of beneficial mutations MUST HAVE BEEN required for this transition to take place. Given that we know that single point mutations can affect multiple body systems and overall morphology, other than a desire for it to be so, what do these Haldane's dilemma types present that actually supports their position?
I've read ReMine's book - he offers nothing in that regard. I've read more recent treatments of it - more of the same.
I mentioned that a creationist once claimed that just to get the changes in the pelvis for bipedal locomotion a million mutations would have been required. Do you think he provided a million 'changes' that had to have been made? Nope. He could not provide A SINGLE example, but as is is the way of the creationist, he merely insisted that he was correct.


My argument against such claims are 1. that there is no argument (see the Ewen's quote); 2. that the arguments are based on ignorance of developmental biology; 3. that they are premised on the argument from awe (big numbers).


As an aside - I came across a discussion of Haldane on this very forum from 2014 where ReMine himself showed up to pat himself on the back - see, he posted under a false name and ONLY ever posted in that thread. He has a history of doing that.

Dan From Smithville said:

Snowflakes. Trees. Mountains. Seashells. Insects. Puppies.

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Sure and many alternatives for “natural design” have been proposed as an explanation for the fine tuning of the universe, feel free to select your favorite and explain why is it better than design.

Sure. Archaeologists have to determine if something is the result of natural processes or if it was man made. We have evidence that man designs things. That is not really in question. What you are saying is that the existence of man made things corroborates the existence of overarching intelligent designer. This is the watchmaker argument that was refuted long ago.

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Well pretend that we go to another planet and find some archeological artifacts, ¿would it be fair to infer intelligent design even if the existence of Aliens has not been established a priori?

leroy said:

Sure and many alternatives for “natural design” have been proposed as an explanation for the fine tuning of the universe, feel free to select your favorite and explain why is it better than design.

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Postulating a designer to explain things like complexity or "fine-tuning" gets you nowhere. It isn't an explanation for those things, it just moves the problem somewhere else. Instead of "why this complex, ordered, fine-tuned universe?", we just have "why this complex, ordered, fine-tuned designer?" It's actually a step in the wrong direction.