Chance vs Intelligent design

[an anarchist]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

 

[danieldemol]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

Natural selection tends to be somewhat of a blind guide to the development of life, so it is not entirely down to chance.

I dont believe in intelligent design for a number of reasons, but I believe that where human intelligence has done a much better job than an allegedly all-knowing intelligence did would probably be the main reason.

In my opinion.

 

[an anarchist]

but I believe that where human intelligence has done a much better job than an allegedly all-knowing intelligence did would probably be the main reason.

I'm struggling to grasp what you are getting at. Can you elaborate a bit more?

 

[danieldemol]

I'm struggling to grasp what you are getting at. Can you elaborate a bit more?

As an example consider the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN).

'The RLN gets its name “recurrent” because it travels in the opposite direction to the nerve it branches from, and “laryngeal” because its function is to innervate most muscles of the larynx. So basically, this nerve travels all the way down towards the heart, just to make a U-turn and come back up to the neck. When, instead, it could leave the skull and go straight to the larynx. It doesn’t seem like a clever design, so why does it happen?'

Source: The “Unintelligent Design” of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve

There are other examples as well.

In my opinion.

 

[Brian2]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

"Chance", what is chance that it can do anything?

 

[an anarchist]

"Chance", what is chance that it can do anything?

It can also do nothing. Which it does most of the time

 

[Heyo]

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

"Design" implies intervention. E.g. injecting a living cell into primordial Earth. While that is possible it 1. only pushes abiogenesis back to the aliens who did it and 2. it is not what the ID crowd means. They mean multiple, periodic interventions. They don't say how these interventions happened (magic?) and for many (not all) changes we have evidence that they could have happened without intervention, just by applying the laws of physics and a bit statistics.

 

[an anarchist]

"Design" implies intervention. E.g. injecting a living cell into primordial Earth. While that is possible it 1. only pushes abiogenesis back to the aliens who did it and 2. it is not what the ID crowd means. They mean multiple, periodic interventions. They don't say how these interventions happened (magic?) and for many (not all) changes we have evidence that they could have happened without intervention, just by applying the laws of physics and a bit statistics.

Recapping to make sure i understand
Chance makes more sense from a scientific view point is what you are saying?

 

[exchemist]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

I think the point is that, for some reason, there is an underlying order in the universe. This order is at least partially captured in our "laws" and theories of physics, and hence of chemistry and hence of biology and the other natural sciences, which account for what we observe in nature.

So called "intelligent design", a notion invented by a dead American lawyer for social engineering purposes, proposes that there have been miraculous interventions in nature from time to time, to overrule the workings of this order. Unsurprisingly, there is neither any evidence of this nor need for it.

The question, though, is why there is this order. Science can't answer that.

 

[Heyo]

Recapping to make sure i understand
Chance makes more sense from a scientific view point is what you are saying?

Yes, and more than that, design makes no sense scientifically as long as there is no way proposed how the intervention occurred and how the hypothesis could be falsified.

 

[loverofhumanity]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

Right down to every atom, cell and seed, the universe is extremely finely tuned that it all has to be in perfect measure for life to exist at all.

 

[RestlessSoul]

“Even if there is one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
- Stephen Hawking

And by what miracle, or if you prefer, by what statistical improbability, did conscious beings emerge in our corner of the universe, capable of constructing those models? By what mysterious process did the universe become alive to, and aware of, itself? If it really all happened by chance, then maybe chance is the name we should we apply to God; in which case Einstein was wrong (about that) and God really does play dice.

 

[exchemist]

Recapping to make sure i understand
Chance makes more sense from a scientific view point is what you are saying?

Be a bit careful when using the term "chance". It has connotations of an absence of order. That is not what science says at all.

When I studied statistical thermodynamics, which is foundational to chemistry, I was amazed and delighted by the way that chance, operating subject to the laws of physics, quite naturally gives rise to just about the whole of physical chemistry*, from bulk properties to processes (temperature, heat capacity, pressure of gases, rates of reaction, electrochemistry......the list goes on and on.)

So it's important not to overlook the ordered framework of nature that chance operates within. For instance, creationists often stupidly suggest that Darwin's theory of evolution claims the variety of life we observe is due to blind chance (the "tornado in a junkyard", causing self-assembly of a Boeing 747 and all that). That's bulls***. Evolution requires chance variations, yes, but then - and creationists deliberately leave this bit out - natural selection. It's that which was Darwin's crucial insight. Nature can act as an animal breeder, selecting which variants to breed from. So it's quite false to suggest it is just "chance".

* For the science-minded, it is astonishing how many equations in physical chemistry have got kT in them somewhere, i.e. Boltzmann's constant x absolute temperature. (Or else RT, which is just the macro level equivalent.) Whenever you see this, you can be sure the equation arises from statistical thermodynamics.

 

[Heyo]

“Even if there is one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
- Stephen Hawking

And by what miracle, or if you prefer, by what statistical improbability, did conscious beings emerge in our corner of the universe, capable of constructing those models? By what mysterious process did the universe become alive to, and aware of, itself? If it really all happened by chance, then maybe chance is the name we should we apply to God; in which case Einstein was wrong (about that) and God really does play dice.

 

[Brian2]

It can also do nothing. Which it does most of the time

When does chance do anything?

 

[Brian2]

Sometimes you hear people say that there is no evidence of design in the universe, but that is a lie, as evidence of design is all around us if we have eyes to see it.
Sometimes you hear people say that there is no need of a designer but that is a product of not having eyes to see the design and it is a lie from a scientific perspective since science cannot say that all this could have happened by itself.
It is interesting to consider that by "all this" I mean this sentence also. This sentence happened by chance when we look at the big atheist picture. I know an atheist would say that is BS because we know that a human with at least a smidgen of intelligence types this sentence. But that is not looking at the big picture. With atheism the big picture is that this sentence happened by chance.

 

[Heyo]

Sometimes you hear people say that there is no evidence of design in the universe, but that is a lie, as evidence of design is all around us if we have eyes to see it.
Sometimes you hear people say that there is no need of a designer but that is a product of not having eyes to see the design and it is a lie from a scientific perspective since science cannot say that all this could have happened by itself.
It is interesting to consider that by "all this" I mean this sentence also. This sentence happened by chance when we look at the big atheist picture. I know an atheist would say that is BS because we know that a human with at least a smidgen of intelligence types this sentence. But that is not looking at the big picture. With atheism the big picture is that this sentence happened by chance.

When you have no criterion for what is designed, you either see design everywhere or nowhere.

 

[ChristineM]

When does chance do anything?

You cross the road safely, chance sees to your survival.

 

[Brian2]

When you have no criterion for what is designed, you either see design everywhere or nowhere.

And when you see design nowhere then you are saying that chance produced this sentence and the computer I am using.
But you have a criterion for human design you say, but the big picture is that chance produced this universe and everything in it, including humans and their intelligence and so all the things they invented,,,,,,,,,,,, even if you want to deny it, that is what it comes down to.
Intelligence invents and makes things, chance does not and cannot do that.

 

[Brian2]

You cross the road safely, chance sees to your survival.

Chance things happen to us all, but is everything by chance?