Baloney. Argue with all the other scientists that support it. Look design doesn't confirm there is a God, but it sure proves it to anyone who understands probabilty. You people are so fixed that you can't even accept the possibility of a God. I accept the possibility that there may not be one, just like there is the possibility I can hit the lottery. but you people refuse to even acknowledge a possibility. That's fundementalist athiesm.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Except Meyer's arguments are flawed. He has failed to show that life can't evolve through natural means. I could care less if people believe in a creator and design, but I object to pseudoscientific explanations, especially ones with declared political motivations, like the Discovery Institute.
Real scientist publish research that stands up to criticism, they don't publish books from a private press. The Discovery Institute self-publishes all its "science", its dishonesty is a disgrace not only to science but to religion as well.
It is not merely atheist scientist who reject the style of ID promoted by the Discovery Institute, the vast majority of scientist reject it, and many of those scientist are religious.
Even physicist and religious philosopher Stephen Barr, who has dedicated his life to promoting theological naturalism, rejects ID http://www.firstthings.com/onthesqua...lligent-design
Last edited by OrphanPip; 02-19-2010 at 10:05 PM.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Try to stay civil, okay?Originally Posted by Virgil
It's really got less to do with probability than with affirming the consequent. It's the logical fallacy where you paint a target around the arrow sticking out of the wall. ID theorists talk about an attribute such as 'irreducible complexity' or 'complex specified information,' and assert that this attribute is prima facie evidence of the intentional activity of a designing entity.
However, this doesn't follow logically. The very things that the ID people claim are evidence of design (like DNA or the bacterial flagellum) in fact represent disconfirming evidence of the design hypothesis. That is, the very existence of 'irreducible complexity' in DNA can't be used to support the major premise 'irreducible complexity is evidence of design' without demonstrating that DNA was in fact designed by an intelligent agent.
I don't refuse to acknowledge the possibility of a God. However, I refuse to accept arguments for His existence if they lack logical coherence. And if the argument simply panders to the human bias for seeing intent where there is none, that's not convincing either.
Regards,
Istvan
"It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil."
— Sam Harris
First of all it depends what one means by intelligent design. There are several definitions out there, and people conveniently pick the one that is not scientifically oriented to knock down as a strawman.
Second, he is under no obligation to prove that "can't evolve through natural means." He proved it was highly unlikely that it can't, and the preponderance of probility was toward a creator. And even there we have a conflict of definitions. Natural means is God!
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Where was I uncivil? Your language of ridicule is in almost every other post. You are the uncivil person here. I can find a list of people here who detest your arrogance.
I asked you a number of times. What are your scientific qualifications? What is your education? What makes you such an expert that your arrogance has to come through in every post?
Last edited by Virgil; 02-19-2010 at 11:05 PM.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
In science you do have an obligation to show a testable alternative or disprove the current explanation. ID has no interest in science. Meyer parades the idea of abiogenesis being improbable, but he doesn't even do that honestly. First of all you have to presume you have knowledge of how abiogenesis occurred to make a claim to its probability, which he certainly doesn't have. Thus, what you get is the terms for calculating the probability are created out of Meyer's own mind, there's no objective science going on here. The most he could claim is that the specified form of abiogenesis that he is attacking is improbable given the assumptions he makes.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
God-of-the-Gaps arguments always take this form. Certain events happened so long ago in history (like the emergence of life, or the evolution of the bacterial flagellum) that reconstructing the circumstances billions of years later is by definition speculative. But not all forms of speculation are equally valid.
A scientific approach to speculation involves the formation of testable hypotheses using known processes. This is the cumulative nature of empirical evidential inquiry: build on what we know, and try to expand our knowledge in a responsible, comprehensible manner.
The "intelligent design" perspective, however, fetishizes the unknown by characterizing science's current inability to explain these events as a flaw in naturalistic science itself. These quotes are from Meyer's "Signature in the Cell" website:
Meyer is the first to bring the relevant data together into a powerful demonstration of the intelligence that stands outside nature and directs the path life has taken.
The signature in the cell is that of the master programmer of life.
Meyer illuminates the mystery that surrounds the origins of DNA. He demonstrates that previous scientific efforts to explain the origins of biological information have all failed, and argues convincingly for intelligent design as the best explanation of life’s beginning.
As you stated, this is not science. However, it's not truly challenging the naturalistic basis of science. ID neither explains the origin of biotic life, nor what's lacking in materialistic scientific inquiry that makes it unable to account for this staggeringly unlikely event. ID is just a philosophical shell game, completely lacking in scientific merit.
Regards,
Istvan
"It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil."
— Sam Harris
This is really a good argument and convincing about the existence of God
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
I have better things to do than to carry on this endless argument. I am not a fundementalist. I don't come to a literature forum and spend 80% of my time proseltizing.
All I have to say is look up Anthony Flew.
Last edited by Virgil; 02-20-2010 at 10:15 AM.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
The reason why there is only one Earth known to man is that it's an accidental presence--an exception among billions of uninhabitable planets circling around 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. The odds of an intelligent designer creating billions upon billions of galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars each and then putting life on one tiny and insignificant planet only to watch it destroy itself over and over again are astronomical on an almost comically multidimensional scale.
If every creation must have a creator, then one must inquire into the design of this creator, for he also cannot exist without having been conceived by an even more eloquent designer ...ad infinitum. Else, if the complexity of a creation can far surpass that of its designer, which is quite apparent in the process of evolution, then this creator is but an insignificant prehistoric artifact.
The need to believe and worship is more of a socio-psychological aspect of our evolution than a proof of divinity.
This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't.
These arguments you are displaying have been debated before and one of the answers that I came across and has convinced me is that it makes logical sense that it has to be only one Creator at the beginning. Because if every creator has his creater then when we will stop? At some point there has to be a Creator, a starting point an uncreated Creater.
The main issue of this conversation is about the existence of God, and why do I belive in God, not how does God exist. I cannot tell you something I don't know, nobody knows. We have no knowledge of many things in the Universe... it is perfectly natural that we don't know how God exist. Any scientist will tell you that the more you study, the more you learn how much we don't know.
It has never been established that we are the only creatures in the Universe. Nobody knows! The argument that you made that our existence is an accidental one, because we may be the only ones in the Universe is a weak one.
I would agree that the need to worship is a socio-psychological aspect, however I would prefer to use the word "instinct".We need to ask ourselves where does this instinct come from and who placed it there?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
William Shakespeare
How appropriate, convincing and convenient that there be a single creator of a creation mired with infinite intriguing possibilities! The point of my statement is to separate logical and rational arguments from the fallacy of faith--to annul the unholy marriage of belief and knowledge. If you are perfectly content with the idea of believing in an entity founded on a flawed a priori judgment, then your ontological arguments are already beyond any form of logical criticism.
Quit using lack of knowledge as a proof of verifiable existence. Your assumptions that life exists above and beyond this planet and that there must be a single point of failure, which you so affectionately call creator, are not a scientific validation by any stretch of imagination. It is also entirely possible that you and I are bio-mechanical bots in a simulated game of life, programmed by a handful of nerds from another dimension--in line with Nick Bostrom's simulation argument.
Schizophrenics were taken very seriously in ancient times.
Last edited by Satan; 02-23-2010 at 05:43 AM.
This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't.
I love this quote in support of your argument:
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, eh ?Schizophrenics were taken very seriously in ancient times.
The New Testament Apostle Paul was correct in saying (in his Second Epistle to Timothy in chapter 2) :Adieux.23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.
24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
tailor
who am I but a stitch in time
what if I were to bare my soul
would you see me origami
7-8-2015
I saw a great debate between Anthony Flew and Thomas B Warren. Flew did not impress me that much. BTW...who are you posting this in response to?
I still don't understand why people cannot allow others to hold their beliefs. It is okay to comment to someone's opinion, but to sit and argue back and forth the way that some do...it's nonsense.
Les Miserables,
Volume 1, Fifth Book, Chapter 3
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
"My suggeston is that you will step out from your hut in magnificient winter-night. And then, when you look up to the skies ans all those stars, try to say; "There´s no God." Without feelin´ yourself as a fool."
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