Just Accidental?

[Deeje]

You're just improvising now. You have no evidence for these claims.

Its called assumption and speculation....you know, the kind science uses about its fossil evidence when it hasn't got any proof.
Are you suggesting that science doesn't improvise?

I don't get your point. That you've got conflicting data? Why is that relevant to this discussion? When did the engineer to which you refer say that?

You mentioned putting a man on the moon.....I was responding to that claim.

I don't know if you mean the world, but you've been talking about NASA's budget, so I'll assume that you are referring to America.

America was not, and is not, the only nation interested in the moon. There could be minerals and ores to pillage. First in best dressed?

Who owns the moon?

Billions of dollars getting to the moon is cheap. Every billion is about $3 per American. I would have been happy to pay several thousand dollars for that myself.

What a pity that human beings can't put aside $3 to feed the starving millions who go to bed hungry every night.
Would that $3 provide clean water so that millions of children would not die every year due to preventable infections from contaminated water? You seem to have very narrow view of the world.

It was one of America's two crowning achievements for which it will always be remembered, the other being its Constitution.

I think you need to view your country through the eyes of the rest of the world...it ain't so rosy, ya know. America makes claims about how great it is.....I can't see that it ever was in the important areas. Human governments never seem to work for the good of the people...though some are more expert at pretending than others, apparently.

Man's motive to get to the moon was part strategic (Cold War).

I think most people saw it as a "beat the Russians" thing. America had to do it first, but there are a lot of unanswered questions about how or if they really did. I am not convinced, personally. That is just my opinion though. I saw an Australian movie called "The Dish" and it opened up a lot of possibilities regarding the moon landing. I'll leave it at that.

I was also part just being man and producing ever greater engineering marvels just to show i can be done and to learn what can be learned doing it.

But there is another potential benefit: Man needs to permanently colonize space to preserve humanity if a life extinguishing event occurred on earth. It might be self-inflicted or natural.

Self-inflicted seems to be the more likely scenario, given man's track record.....I wonder who would make it off the planet alive? Certainly not the common folk.

 

[Deeje]

Is this supposed to be your god producing animals?

I think its amazing that people who believe that life just accidentally 'poofed' itself into existence can ridicule the possibility of an Intelligent Designer, using materials that he himself created, fashioning his creatures into the final models before his ultimate creation of man.....the only creatures on earth who were endowed with the Creator's qualities. There are no creatures on this planet like us.
If we all started in the same 'soup', why are there no other beings who 'evolved' with the same abilities that we have? Animals have many features in common, yet man alone is endowed with a level of intelligence that no other creature possesses. Is it just another fluke? "Just accidental"?

Or can you tell us a little more about the design and creation process? There's an estimated 8.7 million species on the planet today and an estimated 99% of all species that have existed are extinct. Can you give us an estimate on how many different animals or species your god designed and created over a period of 4 billion years?

That would take me into the realms of supposition and suggestion. I know that scientists have no problem relying on those things when real evidence is actually lacking, so would you like me to tell you a story....of how it "might have" or "could have" taken place?

It might take a few pages....

 

[ArtieE]

I think its amazing that people who believe that life just accidentally 'poofed' itself into existence

Abiogenesists don't say life accidentally "poofed" itself into existence. They say it evolved.

Edit: Welcome | Center for Chemical Evolution

 

[Deeje]

Abiogenesists don't say life accidentally "poofed" itself into existence. They say it evolved.

Edit: Welcome | Center for Chemical Evolution

What science has in this video is a hypothesis......do we understand what a hypothesis is?

Here is the definition......"HYPOTHESIS.....a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation."

There is that word again.....SUPPOSITION.

Do we know what supposition is?....."a belief held without proof or certain knowledge."

These are not facts and science is grasping at straws in trying to turn this hypothesis into reality....to turn supposition into fact. It only works on those who have accepted science's suggestions as truth.
Suggestions are not facts and never will be.
Supposition is only what someone "thinks" might have happened. It isn't proof that it did.

 

[ArtieE]

Supposition is only what someone "thinks" might have happened. It isn't proof that it did.

Never said it was. Just posted the video to show that abiogenesists don't say life accidentally "poofed" itself into existence like you said, they say it evolved. Surely theists must have produced some videos showing in more detail how they suppose their god designed and created animals? At least they must have an hypothesis? You know, a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation?

 

[Derek500]

That would take me into the realms of supposition and suggestion. I know that scientists have no problem relying on those things when real evidence is actually lacking, so would you like me to tell you a story....of how it "might have" or "could have" taken place?

It might take a few pages....

Actually, hypotheses are the first steps in scientific enquiry. "Might have" or "could have" are essential first steps in scientific enquiry. Science doesn't just consist of a collection of facts. That's called nature. Not science yet.

The tests for "might have" and "could have" are the next steps to be called science.

It seems like you're a bit confused about the words "nature" and "science". Formulate hypotheses. To be tested. That's science.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The lack of fossil evidence is no excuse to make up what they can't prove. To make predictions and then interpret the fossil evidence to fit the prediction is very dishonest IMO.

So which is it? A lack of fossil evidence or a misinterpretation of fossil evidence? We have fossils, and we have the only reasonable interpretation of them: Biological evolution.

The theory of evolution accounts for the fossils we have seen. It's not about what still waits to be found.

The theory explains why we find a series of fossils that range from more older bones that are very chimplike and slightly humanlike to more recent ones that are very humanlike and slightly chimplike. It predicted that we would find them.

No other hypothesis predicted that, and no other hypothesis can explain those hominan fossils apart from proposing that they were planted in the ground with just the right radiodating characteristics by a deceptive intelligent designer to make it look like we evolved from lower apes, one that then went to work doing the same thing to the DNA in the tree of life.

Does that describe the Christian god? Is He a trickster god that wants to hide from us with a deception that makes it appear that He had no part in our appearance on earth?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

you can randomly tweak a parameter that governs hair and beak length

The scientific community disagrees with you. It considers the theory correct and the evidence in accord with it.

Some of them do perhaps

But they mostly disagreed with Galileo, Lemaitre, Planck also

Science is a method, not an opinion, the whole point is NOT having to take someone's word for it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The scientific community seems pretty content with the theory. The theory says that we all have evolutionary ancestors since the first population of cells began evolving.

that's it? 'they' are content with it , so it must be right? 'they' were pretty content with Piltdown man for 40 years-

being 'content' with an idea is not a reliable method of finding truth, if anything it's a red flag

What is your purpose arguing against this theory? To convince rational skeptics to abandon evolutionary theory? You don't have a good enough argument. The scientists have an excellent one. You can't compete simply by making arguments from incredulity and god of the gaps arguments. The theory isn't undermined by claims that it seems unlikely, nor is it weakened by any gaps in knowledge.

?
evolution is quite literally an argument from the gaps, every time a crucial piece of evidence like piltdown man is debunked, the 'missing link' retreats back into the shadows once again


ID science accepts the direct empirical scientific evidence of the fossil record, with no need to embellish it, it proposes known mechanisms for solving the core problems, we can't attribute the same scientific rigor to Darwinism, Big Foot or astrology

Why would we abandon a theory that unifies so many observations, proves a mechanism to account for them, makes predictions about what can and cannot be found that have never been contradicted by evidence, and has been used to our benefit in fields such as medicine and agriculture?

almost exactly what was said about classical physics, only that was far more directly observable, testable, repeatable, i.e. scientific than Darwinism

And similarly, progressing beyond this Victorian age understanding in both cases, does not require discarding anything that's actually scientific

We keep all the fossils, all the practical genetic research, and we continue to recognize the demonstrable adaptation- micro-evolution and it's limits, just as apples still fall from trees according to superficially simple laws - but this cannot be extrapolated to account for all physical reality.

Why would we turn that in for an unsupported, unfalsifiable idea that can do none of those things? Because religious people object to its implications and tell us that they just don't see how it's possible and list the things we haven't observed or can't yet explain?

You're the one that keeps bringing up philosophical implications, which also impeded scientific progress beyond static/ eternal/ steady state and classical physics, which were previously held to make God redundant by many.

When you are not trying to make God redundant, you are free to follow the evidence wherever it leads, a coincidence that Lemaitre and Planck were skeptics of atheism?

 

[metis]

that's it? 'they' are content with it , so it must be right? 'they' were pretty content with Piltdown man for 40 years-

That's simply not true as many questioned it on different grounds, including the possibility that it was an aberration. As time went on, some felt it could be a fake, and one of those was Louis Leaky.

evolution is quite literally an argument from the gaps, every time a crucial piece of evidence like piltdown man is debunked, the 'missing link' retreats back into the shadows once again

Absolutely false.

ID science accepts the direct empirical scientific evidence of the fossil record, with no need to embellish it,

Logically false as ID posits a creator-god that simply has not and cannot be verified in any way.

 

[metis]

Now, hang on...weren't you just telling me that I was judgmental?

If you reread what I wrote, you'd see that I qualified my statement, therefore I didn't judge you. You, otoh, have defied Jesus' and Paul's teachings about not judging others, and now you post what is so disingenuous above, blaming me for what I didn't do. Have you no shame?

Speaking generally allows for exceptions metis...even you know that.

As for John 3:16....have you ever really examined that scripture? Not just the first part.....but all of it?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
What does this verse really say metis?

So, what did I post that supposedly was wrong about John 3:16? And what "exceptions" do you include that is not being referred to in that verse? [see below]

Just saying that you have a belief in Jesus, doesn't make you a Christian. (James 2:19) You have to back up what you say by how you live. (James 2:17) Do you think people should be told the truth....or is it better to let them believe whatever they like? What would Jesus do?

I would suggest that if one has a belief in Jesus, as John 3:16 clearly states, that they will do what Jesus taught-- unlike what you and your fellow JW's do when you and they go around judging others while falsely claiming that you and they are not. You and they are playing "God" and defying what's written in the scriptures that you claim to believe in, thus "bearing false witness".

 

[gnostic]

ID science accepts the direct empirical scientific evidence of the fossil record, with no need to embellish it, it proposes known mechanisms for solving the core problems, we can't attribute the same scientific rigor to Darwinism, Big Foot or astrology

You are joking, aren't you, Guy?

By positing a "Intelligent Designer" being involved in "Design" such as those fossil record, without ever providing evidences for the existence of this "Designer", ID adherents are indeed embellishing and speculating, and worse of all, it does so through propaganda, never using scientific method or subjecting their works to peer review.

ID is not science, because they cannot provide empirical evidences for the Designer being involved.

The Discovery Institute don't provide empirical evidences for ID because it is not science organisation, never have been. And they cannot provide a single empirical evidence to support that any Designer was ever involved in the "designing" of life or anything else.

And this is because Intelligent Design itself is not science.

The very few qualified scientists that are members of Discovery Institute, have not presented any of their ID works before peer review, because their papers even failed to meet even the most requirements of scientific "hypothesis", because they are never falsifiable, never testable.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation that should contain prediction(s) for testing purpose. If you cannot test a statement or the prediction, then it is not falsifiable...and if it is unfalsifiable, then it is untestable and unscientific.

Science required that any statement - be they "theory" or "hypothesis" - to be "testable".

If you can't test a statement, then it isn't science.

Science should be able to answer 2 essential questions:

1. WHAT?
2. HOW?

Any hypothesis or theory will need to provide explanation to inquire those two questions to any field a scientist is inquiring or investigating about. They need to explain the following -

WHAT it is?
HOW does it work or function?​

When you can answer these 2 questions, then you could ask the following:

HOW such knowledge can be use? (relating to possible practical application)​

You don't know to ask WHY question, because the WHAT & HOW will lead to such answer.

As to the WHO question. This question is irrelevant, especially in hard science.

(Hard science is anything to do with natural science, like physics, chemistry and biology, and that would include engineering and technology, medicine, geology, astronomy, etc.

Soft science is social science, like psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, etc.

It is possible to mix hard and soft together, like in archaeology, where you can use anthropology to understand the culture of people, and use hard science to date sites and ancient or prehistoric artefacts, or biology to examine human remains or forensic to investigate how a person died.)

Intelligent Design is pseudoscience because they can never provide any test to this imaginary "Designer".

Adherents posited that (A) life is "designed", and (B) that such "design" would require a Designer, but these are both speculations. What creationists cannot seem to grasp, that you cannot make such claims without evidences, and like I have said before, there are no more evidences to the Designer than there are for demons, fairies, leprechaun, ghouls, vampires and alien abductions.

Discovery Institute (DI) never use science, scientific method or peer review; instead they preferred to use misinformation, propaganda, PR.

Scientists, like Michael Behe is a disgrace as biochemist, becoming a mouthpiece for DI.

 

[Deeje]

Never said it was. Just posted the video to show that abiogenesists don't say life accidentally "poofed" itself into existence like you said, they say it evolved.

They can "say" whatever they like...it doesn't mean that their suggestions are correct. They have no real evidence to back up a thing they say. "This is what we think might have or could have happened" is not the same as saying "we can prove that this is true". How much of what science claims to be true is taken on trust? How much do you trust what they say? Isn't that trust based on "faith"?You are convinced....so are we.

Surely theists must have produced some videos showing in more detail how they suppose their god designed and created animals? At least they must have an hypothesis? You know, a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation?

I don't know how you envision God, but you obviously don't see him the way I do. I don't see him as some kind of celestial magician, 'poofing' things into existence. As a Creator, I see an infinite, indescribable being with unlimited power and ability to carry out any desire. Rather than an instantaneous production, I see a slow and deliberate crafting of his works over time. The creative "days" were not 24 hours long, science can at least tell us that much....but I don't think its quite as long as they claim.

The Creator's primary attributes are "love, justice, wisdom and power". Some of his creations demonstrate a little of those qualities individually, but only humans can possess them all in balance. Only humans are 'made in the image of God' capable of reflecting his attributes, though not perfectly at present.

Justice, for example, is strongly inbuilt in us humans, but lacking in the animal kingdom. Wisdom is demonstrated in many species, but not cognitively....it is programmed as instinct. Humans alone can demonstrate wisdom by evaluating actions before they are taken and make decisions based on imagined outcomes. We can also make unwise decisions, which invariably leads to disaster. (we can all make a long list of those) Power is something many large animals can demonstrate...whales, gorillas, elephants etc.....man is no match for their sheer physical strength, but there is no justice or wisdom except in the way they are programmed to exercise their power in their own environment.

Then we have the Creator's cardinal quality of LOVE. Animals can show affection and even attachment, but not the kind of love that humans are capable of.

The "evidence" we have for creation is just the same as you have, but interpreted in a vastly different way. We see Intelligent Design everywhere, but all you see is a series of fortunate accidents.
Its all in the way we want to see it.

 

[Deeje]

Actually, hypotheses are the first steps in scientific enquiry. "Might have" or "could have" are essential first steps in scientific enquiry. Science doesn't just consist of a collection of facts. That's called nature. Not science yet.

And, you know, I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that evolutionary science is taught as if it were 100% proven. We know that a hypothesis cannot become truth unless it is proven. Evolution is not provable. Intelligent Design fits all the scenarios put up by science.

Teach it as a theory....I have no problem with that either.....just don't tell school children that it is a fact, when it clearly isn't.

The tests for "might have" and "could have" are the next steps to be called science.

I see that you identify as a "Christian", so you obviously try to combine creation with science....so do we. But we don't sell out to evolutionary science as if it must be true and the Bible must be false because it isn't written "scientifically". Are you a theistic evolutionist by any chance?

I see that position as a weak compromise.....one I could never make and still explain the intentions of my Creator and his Christ towards human beings. Did he just start life and leave us? Is the Bible unnecessary when we have science to tell us how it all happened?

It seems like you're a bit confused about the words "nature" and "science". Formulate hypotheses. To be tested. That's science.

On the contrary, I am not confused at all. What is "nature"? Perhaps you can give me a definition.
Then give me a definition of "science" and tell me how one connects to the other. Then tell me how a Christian fits God into the big picture presented by the Bible. Either Genesis is wrong...or evolution is. They can't both be right.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Actually, hypotheses are the first steps in scientific enquiry. "Might have" or "could have" are essential first steps in scientific enquiry. Science doesn't just consist of a collection of facts. That's called nature. Not science yet.

The tests for "might have" and "could have" are the next steps to be called science.

It seems like you're a bit confused about the words "nature" and "science". Formulate hypotheses. To be tested. That's science.

Derek, I see that you identify as a Christian. Then you should take Jesus' words as he said them, @ Matthew 19:4-6, quoting from Genesis 2:24.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What a pity that human beings can't put aside $3 to feed the starving millions who go to bed hungry every night. Would that $3 provide clean water so that millions of children would not die every year due to preventable infections from contaminated water? You seem to have very narrow view of the world.

You don't seem to understand my view of the world. I only assume responsibility for what I do and can do. Think globally, act locally.

I think you need to view your country through the eyes of the rest of the world...it ain't so rosy, ya know. America makes claims about how great it is.

I am an American, but not its champion.

you can randomly tweak a parameter that governs hair and beak length


Some of them do perhaps

But they mostly disagreed with Galileo, Lemaitre, Planck also

Science is a method, not an opinion, the whole point is NOT having to take someone's word for it.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Science is a method, not an opinion, the whole point is NOT having to take someone's word for it.

That's not the point of science. Science exists to understand nature so that we may use that understanding to improve our lives.

Science is more than a method. It also is a community of individuals putting that method to work to accumulate a warehouse of useful knowledge, and that body of knowledge..

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

that's it? 'they' are content with it , so it must be right? 'they' were pretty content with Piltdown man for 40 years-

being 'content' with an idea is not a reliable method of finding truth, if anything it's a red flag

Not at all. If you have a more useful idea,propose it.

evolution is quite literally an argument from the gaps, every time a crucial piece of evidence like piltdown man is debunked, the 'missing link' retreats back into the shadows once again

Is this going to be your principle argument against science - it's debunking of the Piltdown man hoax?

ID science accepts the direct empirical scientific evidence of the fossil record, with no need to embellish it, it proposes known mechanisms for solving the core problems, we can't attribute the same scientific rigor to Darwinism, Big Foot or astrology

What is ID science?

almost exactly what was said about classical physics, only that was far more directly observable, testable, repeatable, i.e. scientific than Darwinism. And similarly, progressing beyond this Victorian age understanding in both cases, does not require discarding anything that's actually scientific

I'm going to go with the scientists on what constitutes good science. The priests haven't given us much of value yet.

We keep all the fossils, all the practical genetic research, and we continue to recognize the demonstrable adaptation- micro-evolution and it's limits, just as apples still fall from trees according to superficially simple laws - but this cannot be extrapolated to account for all physical reality.

What's microevolution? Still looking for a definition from the religious community.

You're the one that keeps bringing up philosophical implications, which also impeded scientific progress beyond static/ eternal/ steady state and classical physics, which were previously held to make God redundant by many.

Science impeded scientific progress? There is nothing about the Steady State hypothesis that impeded science. It was simply wrong. Science disproved it, but it was never an impediment.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

They can "say" whatever they like...it doesn't mean that their suggestions are correct. They have no real evidence to back up a thing they say. "This is what we think might have or could have happened" is not the same as saying "we can prove that this is true".

But your standard for belief is far less than that.

How much of what science claims to be true is taken on trust? How much do you trust what they say? Isn't that trust based on "faith"?You are convinced....so are we.

The proof is in the pudding. What has science done for us and what has supernaturalism done for us?

Justice, for example, is strongly inbuilt in us humans, but lacking in the animal kingdom. Wisdom is demonstrated in many species, but not cognitively....it is programmed as instinct. Humans alone can demonstrate wisdom by evaluating actions before they are taken and make decisions based on imagined outcomes. We can also make unwise decisions, which invariably leads to disaster. (we can all make a long list of those) Power is something many large animals can demonstrate...whales, gorillas, elephants etc.....man is no match for their sheer physical strength, but there is no justice or wisdom except in the way they are programmed to exercise their power in their own environment. Then we have the Creator's cardinal quality of LOVE. Animals can show affection and even attachment, but not the kind of love that humans are capable of.

I don't experience any of that from Christianity. Its models of justice and wisdom are far from mine.

 

[metis]

Here is the definition......"HYPOTHESIS.....a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation."

Are you aware that the concept of theistic causation does not even rank as a scientific hypothesis? In order to be classified as such, there must be some objective evidence to suggest that it's conceivable.

For example, if I say the world is coming to an end tomorrow, you ask me why I believe as such and I respond that I just think it is, this is not a hypothesis from the scientific perspective-- it's just a guess, and that's all. Proponents of theistic causation can provide no objectively-derived evidence that any deity created the universe 17+ billion years ago. However, this does not mean nor imply that there could not have been a creator-god(s).

BTW, later today I'm thinking of starting a thread that deals with John 3:16 probably entitled "Joe & Jane Schmoe and 'Salvation'". I'll mention your name with a @ so that you can hopefully join in the discussion.