Chance vs Intelligent design

[George-ananda]

No, it is not the sort of "evidence" that is of any use. It may justify more research, but it is nowhere near enough to justify a belief. A belief based upon such weak evidence is irrational.

Do you understand that there are different levels of evidence? Some cannot be considered in certain circumstances. For example hearsay is not allowed in a court of law. But hearsay can be enough to justify an investigation by the police. They would need stronger evidence than that to charge someone, but if someone tried to bring up hearsay in a court of law the judge would shut him down.

The point is that you do not have enough evidence to justify a belief.

it is food for consideration. There are other types of evidence too. From the accumulation one can make a judgement that something is likely (not proven).

 

[Brian2]

What is your answer when questioned who created that statue?

I would say Michelangelo.

 

[Brian2]

Agree on infinite regression, and agree we don't have an explanation using natural causes, or supernatural causes either for the same reason (infinite regress) that you cite.

What I said was "Given the existence of the universe though, natural causes seem to be doing pretty well as an explanation", by which I meant that natural causes are doing well in other areas.

Incidentally, I don't think that rules out god/s so long as you don't insist that they must have created the universe, be eternal, and so on. A god could (logically) be part of the universe, having been created at the same time, or developed over a period of time, or whatever.

If I were looking for a god, I would look inside the universe, now. Anything else would be of little consequence anyway.

A God who is unchanging and not part of the universe does not need time to exist.
But in most areas there is no need to invoke a God to say how things work. That the universe runs logically and how it runs can be worked out or tested to find out, is supposed to be why science took off in the West with the belief in a rational designer, creator whose works we can investigate. That is what the Christian scientists of hundreds of years ago thought when they investigated the workings of things.
A God (?) who was created at the same times as the universe (by what, by whom?) or which developed over time, or whatever, would not be much of a God, especially if it is controlled by the same natural forces that we are controlled by.

 

[Brian2]

Yes humans can be pretty adapt at willful destruction.

As part of a job my wife loves the initial ripping out of the old or quickly putting paint on a wall and leaving me to fix up the mistakes. She gets a sense of achievement and a feeling of being useful by doing those jobs that can be done quickly. Sigh.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Eyewitness Evidence is evidence (not proof) to me. Get it?

I get it. I got it the first time also.

I'm informing you that it's not reliable evidence.
It's the type of evidence that leads to false beliefs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

it is food for consideration. There are other types of evidence too. From the accumulation one can make a judgement that something is likely (not proven).

Yes, just like I said before.


1. You don't recognize how unreliable testimony is as evidence
2. you don't consider the argument ad populum a fallacy


This is how you are pretty much guaranteed to end up with false beliefs.

The 2 together isn't even sufficient to rationally justify belief in ordinary claims (like "I was at burger king last night and saw barrack obama waiting in line").

And here you are saying that you even consider it sufficient to justify believe in extra ordinary claims (like "I was at burger king last night and saw Michael Jackson's ghost waiting in line").


I'm sorry you don't seem to understand these basic points.


There's not much else I can add here.... If you feel like bad evidence + a logical fallacy is sufficient to justify belief in extra-ordinary claims, go right ahead....
But don't expect most people to be impressed by it. Also don't expect to hold reliable beliefs, for that matter.

 

[Heyo]

I would say Michelangelo.

And I would agree. But you said previously that god created everything.

That the universe runs logically and how it runs can be worked out or tested to find out, is supposed to be why science took off in the West with the belief in a rational designer, creator whose works we can investigate. That is what the Christian scientists of hundreds of years ago thought when they investigated the workings of things.

The "watchmaker" in which deists, and many scientists were and are basically deists, believe. God created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, everything else is a cascade of events ruled by the laws of nature.

 

[Alien826]

A God who is unchanging and not part of the universe does not need time to exist.

Do you see that you just described a god that exists for zero time and does nothing?

But in most areas there is no need to invoke a God to say how things work. That the universe runs logically and how it runs can be worked out or tested to find out, is supposed to be why science took off in the West with the belief in a rational designer, creator whose works we can investigate. That is what the Christian scientists of hundreds of years ago thought when they investigated the workings of things.

Yes.

A God (?) who was created at the same times as the universe (by what, by whom?) or which developed over time, or whatever, would not be much of a God, especially if it is controlled by the same natural forces that we are controlled by.

Yes, I've heard that a lot. My point is that everything that effects us happens in this universe, and that includes any actions of "god". Does how the universe might or might not have been created make any practical difference to how you relate to god? If you pray and get some kind of response, does it matter where the response originated? If god's powers only extended to things that effected us, that is in this universe, and did not extend to being able to do all kinds of weird stuff in some other supernatural realm, would you even know? I agree you might have to attribute some kind of power we don't yet understand in some cases.

I'm not actually suggesting this is true, but I do think that theists get themselves into all kinds of logical problems when debating with atheists when they insist on all these omni attributes of god that cannot be demonstrated. And they don't need to, when they could just stick to what they do know, and admit ignorance about the rest of it. I'd respect that certainly. I end with an analogy I have used in the past.

Imagine you have no knowledge of electricity. You have a device with a screen, to which a cord is attached, with an odd looking set of pins at the end. You notice that the pins fit nicely with an outlet on the wall, so you plug them in to it. Immediately, moving pictures appear on the screen of the device and you hear voices and music. At this point, you may wonder what exactly it is in the wall outlet, and make up all kinds of fanciful explanations, but the one thing you know for sure is that the TV (as you decide to call it) works when plugged in and not when it isn't. And that's all you need to know to enjoy an evening of entertainment.

 

[George-ananda]

Yes, just like I said before.


1. You don't recognize how unreliable testimony is as evidence
2. you don't consider the argument ad populum a fallacy


This is how you are pretty much guaranteed to end up with false beliefs.

The 2 together isn't even sufficient to rationally justify belief in ordinary claims (like "I was at burger king last night and saw barrack obama waiting in line").

And here you are saying that you even consider it sufficient to justify believe in extra ordinary claims (like "I was at burger king last night and saw Michael Jackson's ghost waiting in line").


I'm sorry you don't seem to understand these basic points.


There's not much else I can add here.... If you feel like bad evidence + a logical fallacy is sufficient to justify belief in extra-ordinary claims, go right ahead....
But don't expect most people to be impressed by it. Also don't expect to hold reliable beliefs, for that matter.

A quantity, quality and consistency of eyewitness evidence considered in combination with all other types of evidence and argumentation can affect my understanding of reality.

The end result of your position ends with 'don't believe anything without physical proof' even though you don't seem to see that's where your argument ends.

You may follow your approach, but I feel it impoverishes what we can know and relies too much on our limited physical instrumentation (Scientism might be the word some use for that). Science should actually use that approach but I, a thinking individual, considers everything in forming my personal views.

 

[gnostic]

A quantity, quality and consistency of eyewitness evidence considered in combination with all other types of evidence and argumentation can affect my understanding of reality.

The end result of your position ends with 'don't believe anything without physical proof' even though you don't seem to see that's where your argument ends.

You may follow your approach, but I feel it impoverishes what we can know and relies too much on our limited physical instrumentation (Scientism might be the word some use for that). Science should actually use that approach but I, a thinking individual, considers everything in forming my personal views.

The purposes of testing and analyzing stage of Scientific Method, are to provide more than enough information to reach objective conclusion, to mitigate biases as much possible from subjective...

• ...personal views/opinions,
• personal beliefs (such religions), and
• personal preferences.

Eyewitnesses accounts (anecdotes) are not reliable as “evidence”, because they tends to be biased.

Take for instance, geocentric model of planetary motion, people held on to belief that the Earth was fixed and stationary, while the sun and planets moved around the earth, from Bronze Age (c 3100 to c 1050 BCE) in Egypt and in Sumer and later in Babylonia, all the way to the end of the Italian Renaissance (1580).

Even though heliocentric model was first postulated by Aristarchus of Samos as early as mid-3rd century BCE), very few recognized its worth. Versions of heliocentric model were also postulated during the Golden Age of Islam and in India, but it didn’t receive much traction in Islamic astronomy and in Indian astronomy, so it remained unpopular.

It was so unpopular that the 13th century Persian astronomer, Najm al-Din recanted his own model.

In India, it had weird system that mixed heliocentric and geocentric models together. Nilakantha Somayaji wrote in 1501, that planets not were orbiting around the Sun, they were also orbiting around the Earth too. So it wasn’t a true heliocentric model.

The problems with popularity and with personal preferences, have always been biases.

To take the biases out of the any scientific endeavors, it required more information that can can be provided through evidence and experiments.

The early uses of telescopes, by Galileo, then Kepler and Newton, were able to cut through the geocentric model and verify the heliocentric model. The later two astronomers (Kepler & Newton) were able to correct Copernicus’ circular orbits with the more accurate elliptical orbits.

Natural Sciences and Physical Sciences have been stories of correcting past errors and updating, of discoveries and more updating, all dependent on the getting the evidence and it’s data, when it come.

If you want more personal views, then you should get out of Physical Sciences and Natural Sciences, and venture into Social Sciences, like psychology or therapy, or worse, philosophies, and more worse, religions, mysticism and spirituality.

 

[George-ananda]

The purposes of testing and analyzing stage of Scientific Method, are to provide more than enough information to reach objective conclusion, to mitigate biases as much possible from subjective...

• ...personal views/opinions,
• personal beliefs (such religions), and
• personal preferences.

Eyewitnesses accounts (anecdotes) are not reliable as “evidence”, because they tends to be biased.

Take for instance, geocentric model of planetary motion, people held on to belief that the Earth was fixed and stationary, while the sun and planets moved around the earth, from Bronze Age (c 3100 to c 1050 BCE) in Egypt and in Sumer and later in Babylonia, all the way to the end of the Italian Renaissance (1580).

Even though heliocentric model was first postulated by Aristarchus of Samos as early as mid-3rd century BCE), very few recognized its worth. Versions of heliocentric model were also postulated during the Golden Age of Islam and in India, but it didn’t receive much traction in Islamic astronomy and in Indian astronomy, so it remained unpopular.

It was so unpopular that the 13th century Persian astronomer, Najm al-Din recanted his own model.

In India, it had weird system that mixed heliocentric and geocentric models together. Nilakantha Somayaji wrote in 1501, that planets not were orbiting around the Sun, they were also orbiting around the Earth too. So it wasn’t a true heliocentric model.

The problems with popularity and with personal preferences, have always been biases.

To take the biases out of the any scientific endeavors, it required more information that can can be provided through evidence and experiments.

The early uses of telescopes, by Galileo, then Kepler and Newton, were able to cut through the geocentric model and verify the heliocentric model. The later two astronomers (Kepler & Newton) were able to correct Copernicus’ circular orbits with the more accurate elliptical orbits.

Natural Sciences and Physical Sciences have been stories of correcting past errors and updating, of discoveries and more updating, all dependent on the getting the evidence and it’s data, when it come.

If you want more personal views, then you should get out of Physical Sciences and Natural Sciences, and venture into Social Sciences, like psychology or therapy, or worse, philosophies, and more worse, religions, mysticism and spirituality.

I agree with much of what you say. I agree with physical science being conservative on what it states.

However, I am not doing physical science but addressing the question 'all things considered what is most reasonable to believe?'. In doing that I believe the human experience has shown that there are certainly dramatic things beyond the current understanding of physical science. And I consider those claiming clairvoyant psychic insight into what is allegedly beyond the physical senses and instruments of science.

From all that I decide what is most reasonable to me. If you only think science is important and not my 'consider everything approach' then that might be what some call 'Scientism'.

 

[gnostic]

I agree with much of what you say. I agree with physical science being conservative on what it states.

However, I am not doing physical science but addressing the question 'all things considered what is most reasonable to believe?'. In doing that I believe the human experience has shown that there are certainly dramatic things beyond the current understanding of physical science. And I consider those claiming clairvoyant psychic insight into what is allegedly beyond the physical senses and instruments of science.

From all that I decide what is most reasonable to me. If you only think science is important and not my 'consider everything approach' then that might be what some call 'Scientism'.

Personal views are fine, George, and it is great for everything else that have nothing to do with “nature”. For instances, it’s great for creativity in art, craft and music, good for social events, and having views on political views.

But this topic is about “Chance vs Intelligent Design”, in relation to there being life on Earth, out of the countless numbers of galaxies in the universe (the topic of the thread & the OP).

So it is about “Earth” and “life”, which are relevant to Natural Sciences, particularly the sciences of astronomy, Earth science and biology.

Anyway, I think biology, especially in Evolution, is relevant to diversity of life, after life started.

So the questions are -

Is it life the results of chance that the right chemical processes occurred billions of years ago?

Or did life began by intelligence of higher being, which ID referred to as Designer?​

The Designer reminds me of the same primitive superstition in belief in a deity, commonly referred to as “God”, and sometimes known as the Creator.

So basically Designer is just another name for God, which creationists try to hide behind a new name or title, the Designer.

Intelligent Design is just same form as creationism, in which Christian creationists invented at political “think tank” - the Discovery Institute.

The cofounders of the Institute are both politicians - politician Bruce Chapman & economist George Gilder.

The Intelligent Design was invented by its senior members, Phillip E Johnson, who is a former law professor and preacher, with the help of Stephen C Meyer, a former geology of oil company.

None of these men are qualified as biologists or in biology-related fields.

Like other creationism, Intelligent Design isn’t falsifiable, so it does even qualify as being a hypothesis, and there are no evidence to support the existence of this Designer any more than there being “evidence” for gods, angels, demons, spirits or fairies.

All the Discovery Institute did, is to create a new myth, which they called Intelligent “Designer”.

What we do have evidence of - scientific evidence - are every single organisms are made of -

• “one cell” (eg unicellular microorganisms, in the Bacteria domain and Archaea domain),
• or “many cells” (eg multicellular organisms, like those species of the Animalia kingdom, Plantae kingdom, and Fungi kingdom.

And in every cells are a number of organic matters, biological compounds or biological macromolecules, such as -

• proteins (especially responsible for tissues for multicellular organisms, and for metabolism)
• nucleic acids (DNA or RNA)
• carbohydrates
• lipids

And in each these compounds are more biochemical molecules. And if you break down these molecules and compounds further, you get atoms.

The points being physics and chemistry are involved in biological life, AND THERE ARE NO EVIDENCE THESE NATURAL LAW TO LIFE BEING CONTROLLED OR DESIGNED BY OUTSIDE FORCE LIKE THIS DESIGNER!

Intelligent Design isn’t science, and it isn’t biology. Evolution is biology. We currently don’t know how life came to be, but there is a model for the origin of life, a hypothesis called Abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is an ongoing research, that have basis in chemistry and physics, unlike Intelligent Design which have a god that they have renamed to Designer.

Sure, you can express and reject sciences if you want, in favor of your personal beliefs and preferences, but sciences aren’t about what you “like” or “dislike”.

I am trying to stick to the topic of this thread, but I do get “sidetracked”, when everyone (including me) go off tangent.

Btw, Evolution and Abiogenesis is about life in general, and not just simply about human life. If you want to talk about human social behaviour, then you should try Social Sciences or Humanities.

 

[George-ananda]

Personal views are fine, George, and it is great for everything else that have nothing to do with “nature”. For instances, it’s great for creativity in art, craft and music, good for social events, and having views on political views.

But this topic is about “Chance vs Intelligent Design”, in relation to there being life on Earth, out of the countless numbers of galaxies in the universe (the topic of the thread & the OP).

So it is about “Earth” and “life”, which are relevant to Natural Sciences, particularly the sciences of astronomy, Earth science and biology.

Anyway, I think biology, especially in Evolution, is relevant to diversity of life, after life started.

So the questions are -

Is it life the results of chance that the right chemical processes occurred billions of years ago?

Or did life began by intelligence of higher being, which ID referred to as Designer?​

The Designer reminds me of the same primitive superstition in belief in a deity, commonly referred to as “God”, and sometimes known as the Creator.

So basically Designer is just another name for God, which creationists try to hide behind a new name or title, the Designer.

Intelligent Design is just same form as creationism, in which Christian creationists invented at political “think tank” - the Discovery Institute.

The cofounders of the Institute are both politicians - politician Bruce Chapman & economist George Gilder.

The Intelligent Design was invented by its senior members, Phillip E Johnson, who is a former law professor and preacher, with the help of Stephen C Meyer, a former geology of oil company.

None of these men are qualified as biologists or in biology-related fields.

Like other creationism, Intelligent Design isn’t falsifiable, so it does even qualify as being a hypothesis, and there are no evidence to support the existence of this Designer any more than there being “evidence” for gods, angels, demons, spirits or fairies.

All the Discovery Institute did, is to create a new myth, which they called Intelligent “Designer”.

What we do have evidence of - scientific evidence - are every single organisms are made of -

• “one cell” (eg unicellular microorganisms, in the Bacteria domain and Archaea domain),
• or “many cells” (eg multicellular organisms, like those species of the Animalia kingdom, Plantae kingdom, and Fungi kingdom.

And in every cells are a number of organic matters, biological compounds or biological macromolecules, such as -

• proteins (especially responsible for tissues for multicellular organisms, and for metabolism)
• nucleic acids (DNA or RNA)
• carbohydrates
• lipids

And in each these compounds are more biochemical molecules. And if you break down these molecules and compounds further, you get atoms.

The points being physics and chemistry are involved in biological life, AND THERE ARE NO EVIDENCE THESE NATURAL LAW TO LIFE BEING CONTROLLED OR DESIGNED BY OUTSIDE FORCE LIKE THIS DESIGNER!

Intelligent Design isn’t science, and it isn’t biology. Evolution is biology. We currently don’t know how life came to be, but there is a model for the origin of life, a hypothesis called Abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is an ongoing research, that have basis in chemistry and physics, unlike Intelligent Design which have a god that they have renamed to Designer.

Sure, you can express and reject sciences if you want, in favor of your personal beliefs and preferences, but sciences aren’t about what you “like” or “dislike”.

I am trying to stick to the topic of this thread, but I do get “sidetracked”, when everyone (including me) go off tangent.

Btw, Evolution and Abiogenesis is about life in general, and not just simply about human life. If you want to talk about human social behaviour, then you should try Social Sciences or Humanities.

I think what happened is that the conversation went a little off-topic to general belief in the paranormal and supernatural as opposed to the initial 'Chance vs. Intelligence' design debate during my conversation with other posters. And then you commented to me on my somewhat off-topic conversation.

So, lets bring it back on topic between you and me 'Chance vs. Intelligent Design'. I'll keep our debate alive by choosing 'Intelligent Design' meaning intelligent intent is in the universe (and not necessarily the Abrahamic God).

Why? The mindboggling complexity of something like DNA. Now I know that argument can be argued to a stalemate, but I will also add the claimed psychic input of many clairvoyant masters that discuss Nature Beings/Spirits on a higher plane working with the elements of the lower planes.

So, my opinion on this is an 'all things considered' personal opinion and not one of science which can't really address the things that form my beliefs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

A quantity, quality and consistency of eyewitness evidence considered in combination with all other types of evidence and argumentation can affect my understanding of reality.

Doubling down on unreliable testimony and argument ad populum.
Secondly, what "other types of evidence"?

The end result of your position ends with 'don't believe anything without physical proof'

No. It ends with "don't believe anything without proper evidence".

Testimony + numbers doesn't equal proper evidence. It equals unreliable evidence coupled with a logical fallacy.

You may follow your approach, but I feel it impoverishes what we can know and relies too much on our limited physical instrumentation (Scientism might be the word some use for that). Science should actually use that approach but I, a thinking individual, considers everything in forming my personal views.

Ow look... a silly accusation of "scientism" just because I don't consider unreliable evidence + a logical fallacy to be a sufficient justification to accept mega-extra-ordinary claims.
Sounds like we can add an ad hominin to the list.

Good grief...............

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think what happened is that the conversation went a little off-topic to general belief in the paranormal and supernatural as opposed to the initial 'Chance vs. Intelligence' design debate during my conversation with other posters. And then you commented to me on my somewhat off-topic conversation.

So, lets bring it back on topic between you and me 'Chance vs. Intelligent Design'. I'll keep our debate alive by choosing 'Intelligent Design' meaning intelligent intent is in the universe (and not necessarily the Abrahamic God).

Why? The mindboggling complexity of something like DNA.

It has already been pointed out multiple times, in this thread alone, that "complexity" is by no means an indicator of design.

Now I know that argument can be argued to a stalemate, but I will also add the claimed psychic input of many clairvoyant masters that discuss Nature Beings/Spirits on a higher plane working with the elements of the lower planes.

Silly claims without evidence.

So, my opinion on this is an 'all things considered' personal opinion and not one of science which can't really address the things that form my beliefs.

Disagree.

This rather seems just another cliché case of confirmation bias flowing from a priori unjustified beliefs.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Science has not eliminated the need for God anywhere as the originator of things, and this goes double for those areas that God claims to have done, create everything and give life.
At least a powerful being has a chance of originating things but chance alone has no chance.

We've been over this. Somebody needs to demonstrate the need to include god(s) in scientific explanations of the universe.

 

[Brian2]

We've been over this. Somebody needs to demonstrate the need to include god(s) in scientific explanations of the universe.

We have been over this surely. Science is limited. It cannot eliminate God or the need for God. Theology is not a discipline of science and evidence for God is not scientific evidence. There is no burden of proof on theology unless theology is a science and was able to show God and spirit and the supernatural exist scientifically.
For people who reject other sorts of evidence and reject faith and claim science and only science, to these people God and spirit and the supernatural need to be shown scientifically or rejected. But that is wanting science to do what science cannot do. It is scientism and is a religious type of faith in science and the ability of humanity.

 

[Brian2]

And I would agree. But you said previously that god created everything.

It is obvious that I did not mean that God created what humans have created. However what God put into the universe and into us enabled us (and animals) to make things.

The "watchmaker" in which deists, and many scientists were and are basically deists, believe. God created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, everything else is a cascade of events ruled by the laws of nature.

You say "deists" without knowing that.
You say that everything else is a cascade of events ruled by the laws of nature but you don't know that.
So you believe those things.
God could very well have done the things that He said He has done and be working in the universe now to accomplish things. Science would not know whether something is done by God or not and science cannot say.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We have been over this surely. Science is limited. It cannot eliminate God or the need for God.

It also can't eliminate graviton pixies or the need for graviton pixies.
There's an infinite number of unfalsifiable things that science can't eliminate.
It's kind of a silly tautology to say that an unfalsifiable thing can't be falsified, in fact.

Theology is not a discipline of science and evidence for God is not scientific evidence. There is no burden of proof on theology unless theology is a science and was able to show God and spirit and the supernatural exist scientifically.

Why should anyone care about theology?

For people who reject other sorts of evidence and reject faith and claim science and only science, to these people God and spirit and the supernatural need to be shown scientifically or rejected. But that is wanting science to do what science cannot do. It is scientism and is a religious type of faith in science and the ability of humanity.

Wait... did you just say that not believing extra-ordinary things on the count that they have no verifiable evidence, is "scientism"?

I smell an ad hominin, and a rather strange one at that. One in the category of "not even wrong".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You say that everything else is a cascade of events ruled by the laws of nature but you don't know that.

We don't "know" that in the sense of absolute certainty, idd.
But as a model, it fits all the evidence.

Your model fits no evidence.

So you believe those things.

Justified by the evidence.

God could very well have done the things that He said He has done and be working in the universe now to accomplish things.

So could undetectable pixies.
How do you propose to test for that, and how do you propose to tell the difference between your god and my pixies?

Science would not know whether something is done by God or not and science cannot say.

Yes, science can't say anything about unfalsifiable things that have no detectable manifestation anywhere.

The only thing it can say about such things, is that they look exactly like non-existing things.