You're welcome.

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

Just read a piece today...Is Your Life A Computer Simulation? - ABC Queensland - Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)... That our observation of the universe could support the claim that the whole thing is a computer simulation running somewhere

I noted that the professor being interviewed sort of dismissed the theory with an easy to understand (and non-valid) argument so typical of the five minute attention span media world we live in today. One can not help but worry that this sort of quick and easy to understand style of concept development and dismissal is getting more and more into the scientific processes.

"Why hasn't the program ever been reset or rebooted?" - as we would ever notice if it was, come up with a better argument or admit it could be true.

When some people in here are wanting to dismiss a theory because of the origin of the theory, like saying creationism and intelligent design is a ploy to reintroduce a cristian god or whatever, then they are not really looking at the theory and the argument, instead wearing conspiration theory glasses whenever they are moving out of their philosophical comfort zone.

ID doesn't require a God in the Christian sense, ID could simply be that someone created a very advanced self-replicating cell with the ability to accept random program variations as a means of evolving.

Gazillions of pico-verses could at any time be existing inside a much bigger -verse where eternity is just a blink of an eye, if we accept that the concept of time is very much related to size, it is easy to see how larger entities could easily exist without us having the ability to observe it, because any movement or other evidence would bee too slow for us to ever observe within the short timeframe of human history or even the history of our solar system.

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

When some people in here are wanting to dismiss a theory because of the origin of the theory, like saying creationism and intelligent design is a ploy to reintroduce a cristian god or whatever, then they are not really looking at the theory and the argument, instead wearing conspiration theory glasses whenever they are moving out of their philosophical comfort zone.

I dismiss creationism because it has no credible scientific evidence. In fact, there is much evidence directly to the contrary.

RE: ID not requiring god is an ADMITTED semantic game played by creationism supporters to trick the science illiterate public into thinking its a viable alternative to evolution.

Direct question to you: How is that a conspiracy theory if that is literally the stated mission and goal of the people who founded the intelligent design movement?!?

If you believe that the origin is supernatural but does not require god then you do not believe in intelligent design!

Further more, I argue that attributing anything to a supernatural power that can't be proven, and then weighing that equally against facts that can be proven is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Everyday we learn more about the origins of humans, and everyday that evidence points... without exception.... to evolution.

 

[brian maddox]

Re: You're welcome.

Whats wrong with admitting that ultimately we are small beings in a giant universe that we ultimately know very little about? Even our best guesses are relatively un-formed ideas. The pursuit of those ideas is admirable, as it promotes intelligent thought. But it shouldn't create these silly high-grounds that we occupy...

The entire reason scientists research the universe is because we KNOW that ultimately we currently know very little about it. Our best guesses are NOT un-informed ideas, as they can be proven through scientific test. You can even do the tests yourself and come up with the same conclusions. This is not the case with creationism (or any other religious idea on the origin of humans).

We know exponentially more about the universe (ando ourselves) now, than we did 5 years ago. We will know exponentially more in the next 5 years.

i hate to nitpick as i'm actively choosing to watch this discussion from the sidelines, but Chris used the word un-formed, not the word un-INformed. Obviously these are very different things. I only bring this up as an example of how the smallest misunderstanding in one of these discussions can lead us down an unproductive rabbit trail. It shows the importance of really listening to what someone is saying, rather than projecting on to their words what we expect them to say.

It's not my intention to call anyone out on this, so Mike i hope you don't take it that way. I'm sure this was just a little oversight. But i thought it was a good example of things we need to be careful of so these discussions don't devolve [see what i did there?] into a situation where we are no longer having a discussion and are instead talking past one another.

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

i hate to nitpick as i'm actively choosing to watch this discussion from the sidelines, but Chris used the word un-formed, not the word un-INformed. Obviously these are very different things. I only bring this up as an example of how the smallest misunderstanding in one of these discussions can lead us down an unproductive rabbit trail. It shows the importance of really listening to what someone is saying, rather than projecting on to their words what we expect them to say.

It's not my intention to call anyone out on this, so Mike i hope you don't take it that way. I'm sure this was just a little oversight. But i thought it was a good example of things we need to be careful of so these discussions don't devolve [see what i did there?] into a situation where we are no longer having a discussion and are instead talking past one another.

Whoops! Good catch. I edited my original post.

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

I would be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that the majority of people who argue about these topics haven't done any of the following:
1) Read The Bible (or any other religious text) from cover to cover in great detail
2) Engaged in any form of theological study or training
3) Read the Origin of Species
3) Engaged in any form of tertiary (or higher) scientific study in the areas of evolutionary biology or astrophysics.

So, considering that you almost certainly need to have done at least 2 (if not all 4) of the above in order to have any kind of well-informed opinion on the matter, isn't it better to hold onto our opinions loosely?

Especially considering it turns out we're all in the Matrix anyway... 8)~~

I guess education serves us well in the sense that it enables the vast majority in any field to have the same points of reference, share the same thoughts and mentally live inside the same box :razz:

If we're all in the Matrix, will any of us be allowed to express that without being censored or moved into a reality that is specificly designed to convince us that any such notion is just silly?
Am I the only conciousness in this simulation, and if I interact with other conciousnesses, do they exist inside the same reality or a different version of the reality?
Is what I know everything there is to know, and knowledge only a consequence of my own thought process?
Does the universe only exist as a consequence of me observing it?

 

[Andrew Broughton]

Re: You're welcome.

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

I dismiss creationism because it has no credible scientific evidence. In fact, there is much evidence directly to the contrary.

Creationism is admittedly a very narrow "ideology" with all the typical conspiracy theory explanations for facts, like God planted the dinosaur bones to test our faith and so on.

RE: ID not requiring god is an ADMITTED semantic game played by creationism supporters to trick the science illiterate public into thinking its a viable alternative to evolution.

Direct question to you: How is that a conspiracy theory if that is literally the stated mission and goal of the people who founded the intelligent design movement?!?

If you believe that the origin is supernatural but does not require god then you do not believe in intelligent design!

ID as a concept isn't invalidated by the goals of those who invented the term. When certain states chose to use the word Democratic in their name, they didn't invalidate the concept of democracy, they just hijacked and misused the word. When the Nazis decided to apply some Darwinism to their ideology and decided to give nature a helping hand, Darwinism didn't suddenly become null and void because of the motivation behind that particular application of the theories.
One problem of Darwinian evolutionism without an intelligently designed mechanism is that it is too slow. Statistically the rate of evolution over the last 400-600 million years is either extremely improbable or too fast by a very significant factor. Only fairly cataclysmic events at a rate of several per millennium or some mechanism or rule that we have yet not discovered would give us numbers that adds up.
Since the Darwin model at the moment suffers from being statistically improbable, it is by scientific definition not proven. I'm not suggesting that Darwin was wrong, far from it, just that Darwin doesn't explain everything.

Further more, I argue that attributing anything to a supernatural power that can't be proven, and then weighing that equally against facts that can be proven is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Everyday we learn more about the origins of humans, and everyday that evidence points... without exception.... to evolution.

Supernatural or yet to be xplained natural, same thing really. Electricity was supernatural untill it was explained.

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

ID as a concept isn't invalidated by the goals of those who invented the term. When certain states chose to use the word Democratic in their name, they didn't invalidate the concept of democracy, they just hijacked and misused the word. When the Nazis decided to apply some Darwinism to their ideology and decided to give nature a helping hand, Darwinism didn't suddenly become null and void because of the motivation behind that particular application of the theories.

That is my point. You (or proponents of intelligent design that don't involve god) are the hijacker(s) misusing the phrase!

One problem of Darwinian evolutionism without an intelligently designed mechanism is that it is too slow. Statistically the rate of evolution over the last 400-600 million years is either extremely improbable or too fast by a very significant factor. Only fairly cataclysmic events at a rate of several per millennium or some mechanism or rule that we have yet not discovered would give us numbers that adds up.
Since the Darwin model at the moment suffers from being statistically improbable, it is by scientific definition not proven. I'm not suggesting that Darwin was wrong, far from it, just that Darwin doesn't explain everything.

What? You are making many statements and I would be VERY interested in seeing the scientific data to back them up. Please link me to them.

(This is a very tired ID argument.... it has been debunked many times by many evolutionary biologists....)

Supernatural or yet to be xplained natural, same thing really. Electricity was supernatural untill it was explained.

The opposite is actually true. Electricity was NEVER supernatural, but our perception of it was. Until we conducted the science to explain it in a scientificly rational and repeatable way.

Taking everything in your life that you don't understand and attributing it to a higher power is an amazingly complex way to live your life.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: You're welcome.

I "believe" I'll have a beer....

You can't drink all day if you don't start early....

JR

PS: Just kidding (about the beer this early), but seriously does anybody think people are listening with open minds, when they are so busy defending one position or the other. Where is Dave Stevens to point out that we are flogging a dead horse?

 

[Matt Tudor]

Re: You're welcome.

I appreciate that you infer that I have not researched my opinion. :lol: The irony does not escape me.

The issue is not black and white. I am certainly open to other theories. Not believing in a christian idea does not make me close minded.

However, I take offense when people try to put intelligent design/creationism on the same playing field as evolution. As if they are equally researched/proven.

Intelligent design should NOT be taught in school because they are not directly comparable. I don't wish to be insulting, but creationism is a christian origin-myth. Thats all. It has no place in secular schools. To me it is no less correct or incorrect than the native american origin story.

If you have any evidence of creationism there are many scientists looking to disprove evolution, the problem is they just keep finding evidence which supports it!

I disagree about your comment that it shouldn't be taught in schools. Weather there is physical evidence available to back it up or not, Creationism is believed by enough people that it merits discussion. Personally I think the curriculum that allows an instructor to present evolution as one explanation for life, and Creationism as the primary competing understanding (notice I specifically did not use the term "theory") will be a step towards creating a well-rounded open-minded student.

Not to banter semantics, but I also question weather Intelligent Design is necessarily a Christian belief. It's my understanding that Muslims believe Allah created the Universe, I think Jewish faith says God created the Universe, and there have been people throughout history (Greeks, Romans, native peoples around the globe) that have believed in a variety of gods that created all or part of the world.

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

I disagree about your comment that it shouldn't be taught in schools. Weather there is physical evidence available to back it up or not, Creationism is believed by enough people that it merits discussion. Personally I think the curriculum that allows an instructor to present evolution as one explanation for life, and Creationism as the primary competing understanding (notice I specifically did not use the term "theory") will be a step towards creating a well-rounded open-minded student.

You don't think that children get enough of it in churches?

It could be taught in literature classes, or history classes, but NOT science classes. And it certainly should not be framed as a viable "rival theory" to evolution.

And if it was taught it would need to be taught alongside all the other popular origin myths.... like the native american ones, the muslim ones, the buddhist ones etc etc etc

Not to banter semantics, but I also question weather Intelligent Design is necessarily a Christian belief. It's my understanding that Muslims believe Allah created the Universe, I think Jewish faith says God created the Universe, and there have been people throughout history (Greeks, Romans, native peoples around the globe) that have believed in a variety of gods that created all or part of the world.

"Intelligent Design" as a phrase/political movement is EXACTLY christian belief. It would take you less than 10 minutes of research to confirm this for yourself.

If you are trying to have a belief that does not include the christian form of god/creationism... or perhaps substitutes another god (e.g. allah) then you are NOT arguing for "Intelligent Design". If you use the phrase "intelligent design" to mean such a thing, then you are hijacking the term to mean something it doesn't.

And even then if you are arguing for ID or something similar but lacking a specific christian god... it still lacks any scientific evidence which would make it a viable alternative scientific theory to evolution.

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

That is my point. You (or proponents of intelligent design that don't involve god) are the hijacker(s) misusing the phrase!

I'll be happy calling it something else; NoDSHIT, ExTED, or whatever (NonDivineSuperHumanIntelligentTechnology, ExtraTerrestrialEvolutionaryDevice) depending on the specific direction you woul like to take the concept.

What? You are making many statements and I would be VERY interested in seeing the scientific data to back them up. Please link me to them.

(This is a very tired ID argument.... it has been debunked many times by many evolutionary biologists....)

Much of my knowledge and education predates the universe, sorry - the internet, (imagine that) and these are concepts I haven't dwelled on for decades, so no links I'm afraid. Then again, from your second statement I imagine you must be familiar with the argument. I know that biologists have proven many things by watching bacteria evolve in certain directions by manipulating their environment and prodding their little petrie dishes ( disproving divine intervention by using the very same to force creatures to evolve in a certain way, irony anyone??). I can disprove the existence of Ausralians by demonstrating that walking upside down is impossible, but you are free to not accept my proof if you have reason to believe that my logic is flawed.
We know for a fact that some races of dogs and cows, strains of bacteria and plants were created by our "divine" intervention. We don't doubt that pitbull terriers and streptomycin-resistent bacteria could have existed even if we didn't manipulate nature into producing them, but we also know their existence would have been highly improbable if we hadn't created them. And since we in fact know that we indeed did create them by our manipulation of their environment or their breeding conditions, we don't have to argue about how their actual existence came to be.

The opposite is actually true. Electricity was NEVER supernatural, but our perception of it was. Until we conducted the science to explain it in a scientificly rational and repeatable way.

Taking everything in your life that you don't understand and attributing it to a higher power is an amazingly complex way to live your life.

A lot depends on your definition of supernatural. If God, our Designers, the Creators, the Hearders of Earth or whoever showed up and explained their existence to us, they or it would no longer be considered supernatural because they or it would be within the realm of our understanding or knowledge.

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

I'll be happy calling it something else; NoDSHIT, ExTED, or whatever (NonDivineSuperHumanIntelligentTechnology, ExtraTerrestrialEvolutionaryDevice) depending on the specific direction you woul like to take the concept.



Much of my knowledge and education predates the universe, sorry - the internet, (imagine that) and these are concepts I haven't dwelled on for decades, so no links I'm afraid. Then again, from your second statement I imagine you must be familiar with the argument. I know that biologists have proven many things by watching bacteria evolve in certain directions by manipulating their environment and prodding their little petrie dishes ( disproving divine intervention by using the very same to force creatures to evolve in a certain way, irony anyone??). I can disprove the existence of Ausralians by demonstrating that walking upside down is impossible, but you are free to not accept my proof if you have reason to believe that my logic is flawed.
We know for a fact that some races of dogs and cows, strains of bacteria and plants were created by our "divine" intervention. We don't doubt that pitbull terriers and streptomycin-resistent bacteria could have existed even if we didn't manipulate nature into producing them, but we also know their existence would have been highly improbable if we hadn't created them. And since we in fact know that we indeed did create them by our manipulation of their environment or their breeding conditions, we don't have to argue about how their actual existence came to be.



A lot depends on your definition of supernatural. If God, our Designers, the Creators, the Hearders of Earth or whoever showed up and explained their existence to us, they or it would no longer be considered supernatural because they or it would be within the realm of our understanding or knowledge.

I think NoDSHIT has a nice ring to it.... I think he non-divine part is unnecessary.... :lol:

We don't doubt that pitbull terriers and streptomycin-resistent bacteria could have existed even if we didn't manipulate nature into producing them, but we also know their existence would have been highly improbable if we hadn't created them.

Ah! But you are missing the point as to WHY they are highly improbable!

Much of my knowledge and education predates the universe, sorry - the internet, (imagine that) and these are concepts I haven't dwelled on for decades, so no links I'm afraid.

In other words, once again, there is no scientific evidence or mathematics to back up the conjectures.

There are many papers published on this argument, here is a relatively short one: http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/dhb-probability.pdf

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

"Intelligent Design" as a phrase/political movement is EXACTLY christian belief. It would take you less than 10 minutes of research to confirm this for yourself.

Having a look at Wikipedia, where most people do their "rescearch" nowadays, the English language article is clearly very biased compared to what is written in other languages, and the article, though fairly informative, is clearly in the spirit of dismissal based on the origin of the concept rather than its philosophical merit.
In that frame of mind, I would like to warn christians against a couple of the most widely used books to teach calculus in unversities because their authors are muslim and buddhist :razz:

 

[drew gandy]

Re: You're welcome.

I remember one day in science class as a youngster. My teacher had 3 flasks of liquid on a table at the front of the class. One of them was dark and murky looking, one was more of an amber color and the last one was completely clear.... except for the little black "bugs" in the glass. I found a description on the web of the scenario that I was presented with.

Students are lead into believing there is a 'new technology' for cleaning up dirty water. The Sewer Slugs are a new breed of insect found in the year XXXX. Scientists were amazed to find that a tiny breed of creature actually uses and processes pollution in water. The bugs have no legs or fins of any kind, but can somehow move about in the water! Once a group of sewer slugs are 'released' into dirty or polluted water, they will clean the water to a drinkable level within days.​

​

The 3 different flasks were filled with various soda pop beverages and the "bugs" were raisins. We were told that the clear liquid was started a few days ago, the amber one a day ago and the darkest one was just started before class. We as the class were supposed to figure out how these bugs did what they did. Ultimately it was shown that what we thought we were seeing wasn't really what was happening.


Mike, I don't understand your attitude about keeping Intelligent Design (tm) out of the classroom. Here's why:

A) Since ID is so full of holes then it will be shown for what it is when presented along side real science.

B) Since ID is not accepted in the science community as a valid theory then the science teachers (valid members of the science community) will ensure that ID is shown to be a flimsy excuse for science.

C) These young minds will have a chance to learn about scientific principles by comparing good science with bad and end up growing into decision makers who can see through these kinds of smoke screens.

I may or may not be a proponent of ID but if I were/are, I would be opposed to having it taught by science teachers who will most certainly exercise their bias (towards real science) and teach the Creationism (tm) with a glib cynicism that will, if anything, reinforce the truth of evolution.

 

[Phil Lewandowski]

Re: You're welcome.

"Intelligent Design" as a phrase/political movement is EXACTLY christian belief.

Hi Mike,

I just wanted to make a clarification because this was said a couple of posts ago as well. This is actually not true. If you read my post #65 on page two, it could help to shed a little light. Modern C/ID only came around quite recently. The Christian faith that finds its way back to the originator, Jesus, is of course the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church denies any sort of modern C/ID and confirms it as quite off the mark. It must always be faith and reason with no ultimate contradiction between the two and a wedge must not be forced between the two.


One of my favorite quotes on this comes from Blessed JPII:
"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."

It focuses in on the dynamism that takes place through all of reality--it is never either/or--it will always end up being a both/and in some way. That is why both Pope JPII and current Pope Benedict XVI continue to reinforce that evolution is at the point where it holds much more weight than a "theory." In other words, it is pointing toward an actual truth of reality. As I mentioned earlier, there is still much to be sorted out with evolution, but I don't believe one can rationally deny that some sort of physical evolution is taking place.

---

In my humble opinion, I think the more interesting question is the one that as physics and cosmology continues to move full-steam ahead has gotten a lot of attention lately--Why is there something rather than nothing? This is a very interesting question because it does not deal directly with creation ex nihilo, but rather deals in this very moment right now. All physical beings within space-time, including space-time itself, need not exist right now. There is nothing by their very nature that makes their existence necessary. So the question becomes why do we exist at all right now? A person realizes that this is the most basic and fundamental of questions that needs to be answered. This then leads to the distinction of essence and existence. Where an essence is somethings "whatness" i.e., treeness, dogness, Hamletness. This is simply what something is by its very nature. But that something having this "whatness" does not require that is has "thatness." Thatness is existence. Obviously treeness and dogness has existence, but Hamlet most definetely has an essence, specifically that character in Shakespeare's play. And we can entertain a picture of Hamlet in our mind and reason about Hamlet's decisions within the play, but none of this means that Hamlet actually exists. In fact, he doesn't.

So again we come to the point of, what in this very moment is responsible for the existence, the "thatness", of every single existent thing? I will leave it open-ended as this is always a good question to contemplate as we are dozing off tonight! (This is also a specifically philosophical answer we are looking for, not a theological answer.)



Take Care,
Phil

 

[Per Søvik]

Re: You're welcome.

In other words, once again, there is no scientific evidence or mathematics to back up the conjectures.

No, in other words I can't give you a link to my 30 year old notebooks currently providing nourishment for the multilegged cellolouse digesting creatures that evolved after humankind invented paper.

There are many papers published on this argument, here is a relatively short one: http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/dhb-probability.pdf

There are statistical methods and there are ill-informed exercises in maths with no regard for known chemical processes, cause - effect, etc.
Using probability on snowflakes, one would instantly realize that there must be some mechanism causing the snowflakes to form in the manner they do, one would then investigate that mechanism and realize that the ice crystals form based on the properties of water molecules and can be categorized by the conditions they were formed under. The random variation that we observe after all known mechanisms are accounted for tally with what we can calculate, and there is no need for us to look for further mechanisms to explain the existence and variation of snowflakes.
Similarly, since chemistry is a known mechanism, we obviusly have to account for that before we do apply any combinatorics to calculate the probabilities. It is only when all known mechanisms, including evolution as we know it, are accounted for we can arrive at a number representing the probability of any given evolutionary step within a defined timeframe. Silly maths by people that don't understand probability and the mechanisms involved can easily be dismissed.
Similarly I could demonstrate to you that a few so-called scientific facts, particularly in medicine where statistics is constantly being misused to support reschearch papers, are based on flawed assumptions about processes, cause-effect and the dynamics of any system.

Statistics have shown there are mechanisms of evolution we don't yet understand, not even evolution scientists deny this, that is why they are still rescherarching. As long as we don't know what these mechanisms are, we are free to speculate about the nature of these mechanisms ~~:smile:

 

[John Norris]

Re: You're welcome.

For those of you interested, here's a great clip of Robert Sapolsky's classroom lecture at Stanford on religion, rationality and irrationality, etc.

Professor Sapolsky Explains the Origin of Religion Part 1/2 - YouTube

 

[Mike Brown]

Re: You're welcome.

Hi Mike,

I just wanted to make a clarification because this was said a couple of posts ago as well. This is actually not true. If you read my post #65 on page two, it could help to shed a little light. Modern C/ID only came around quite recently. The Christian faith that finds its way back to the originator, Jesus, is of course the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church denies any sort of modern C/ID and confirms it as quite off the mark. It must always be faith and reason with no ultimate contradiction between the two and a wedge must not be forced between the two.


One of my favorite quotes on this comes from Blessed JPII:
"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."

It focuses in on the dynamism that takes place through all of reality--it is never either/or--it will always end up being a both/and in some way. That is why both Pope JPII and current Pope Benedict XVI continue to reinforce that evolution is at the point where it holds much more weight than a "theory." In other words, it is pointing toward an actual truth of reality. As I mentioned earlier, there is still much to be sorted out with evolution, but I don't believe one can rationally deny that some sort of physical evolution is taking place.

---

In my humble opinion, I think the more interesting question is the one that as physics and cosmology continues to move full-steam ahead has gotten a lot of attention lately--Why is there something rather than nothing? This is a very interesting question because it does not deal directly with creation ex nihilo, but rather deals in this very moment right now. All physical beings within space-time, including space-time itself, need not exist right now. There is nothing by their very nature that makes their existence necessary. So the question becomes why do we exist at all right now? A person realizes that this is the most basic and fundamental of questions that needs to be answered. This then leads to the distinction of essence and existence. Where an essence is somethings "whatness" i.e., treeness, dogness, Hamletness. This is simply what something is by its very nature. But that something having this "whatness" does not require that is has "thatness." Thatness is existence. Obviously treeness and dogness has existence, but Hamlet most definetely has an essence, specifically that character in Shakespeare's play. And we can entertain a picture of Hamlet in our mind and reason about Hamlet's decisions within the play, but none of this means that Hamlet actually exists. In fact, he doesn't.

So again we come to the point of, what in this very moment is responsible for the existence, the "thatness", of every single existent thing? I will leave it open-ended as this is always a good question to contemplate as we are dozing off tonight! (This is also a specifically philosophical answer we are looking for, not a theological answer.)



Take Care,
Phil

Hi Phil,

I am making a distinction between teleological arguments (which go back thousands of years and span religions) vs the Intelligent Design theory promoted initially by the Discovery Institute. The common usage of the term "Intelligent Design" refers to the more modern "god of the gaps" argument. :razz: Please clarify further if I am still misunderstanding you.

No, in other words I can't give you a link to my 30 year old notebooks currently providing nourishment for the multilegged cellolouse digesting creatures that evolved after humankind invented paper.


There are statistical methods and there are ill-informed exercises in maths with no regard for known chemical processes, cause - effect, etc.
Using probability on snowflakes, one would instantly realize that there must be some mechanism causing the snowflakes to form in the manner they do, one would then investigate that mechanism and realize that the ice crystals form based on the properties of water molecules and can be categorized by the conditions they were formed under. The random variation that we observe after all known mechanisms are accounted for tally with what we can calculate, and there is no need for us to look for further mechanisms to explain the existence and variation of snowflakes.
Similarly, since chemistry is a known mechanism, we obviusly have to account for that before we do apply any combinatorics to calculate the probabilities. It is only when all known mechanisms, including evolution as we know it, are accounted for we can arrive at a number representing the probability of any given evolutionary step within a defined timeframe. Silly maths by people that don't understand probability and the mechanisms involved can easily be dismissed.
Similarly I could demonstrate to you that a few so-called scientific facts, particularly in medicine where statistics is constantly being misused to support reschearch papers, are based on flawed assumptions about processes, cause-effect and the dynamics of any system.

Statistics have shown there are mechanisms of evolution we don't yet understand, not even evolution scientists deny this, that is why they are still rescherarching. As long as we don't know what these mechanisms are, we are free to speculate about the nature of these mechanisms ~~:smile:

The difference is that proponents of creationism/ID are attributing the unknown mechanisms are god (which, IMO, is intellectually lazy and dishonest), while scientists continue to research, test, and question.

There are many mechanisms that we used to attribute to god, but now understand and can calculate.

Evolution is merely a framework which ties all of these mechanisms which we now understand together and the evidence all startlingly tells us we are researching in the right direction.


There is a difference, in my opinion, is that one is testing the facts and asking what conclusions can we draw, the other is assuming the conclusion and looking for facts to support it.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: You're welcome.

Blah blah blah.

blah blah blah.

I believe I'll have another beer, (it's now after beer o'clock).

JR