Philosophy Discussion Forums

Meleagar wrote:Don't blame me just because I ask you to appropriately support your assertions; if you're going to assert that a process is random (unintelligent) or natural (unintelligent), then be prepared to support your assertion.

Now who is mischaracterizing whom? I have stated several times how I'm supporting my assertion, and not just by citing the existence of mutations and selection. You simply want me to support it in another way, a way in which most useful theories cannot be tested yet. That your test cannot be done yet does not imply that the theory is invalid, since, again, basic correlation is the primary means of evidence, not full-scale statistical modeling.

Meleagar wrote:What I request is the stochastic model that would support the claim that the pertinent mutations are, in fact, random (uninteligent) and that the selection process is, in fact, natural (unintelligent).

I have given you this. The calculations made are based on unintelligent selective forces and unintelligent mutations; those sorts of mutations anticipate changes to DNA at the rate observed in real DNA. Isn't this what you wanted, just for a specific population?

Meleagar wrote:But we both know there is no such analysis or model, because the characterizations of "random" and "natural" are not based on science, they are based solely upon materialistic ideology.

Materialism/Idealism has nothing to do with it. Science is simply only about the material/phenomenal/empirical.

Meleagar wrote:

As I've already said, I don't think an overall picture would be feasible, even in this way, because the variables (rate of mutation, type of mutations, strength of selection, rate of reproduction, population size, size of genome, etc. etc.) are unknown for too many periods.

Then you have no business characterizing the mutations necessary to generate novel, functioning biological features as "random", much less asserting that it is a scientific fact. If you cannot show them to be random (unintelligent), how can one assert that it is a scientific fact?

Seriously? This is not complicated. How about this:

Every gerbil we've witnessed is pulled downward towards the earth. We do not know the exact weight of every gerbil we've witnessed. Therefore, we cannot calculate the average influence of gravity on gerbils. Therefore, the theory that gerbils are influenced by gravity is not scientific, since we cannot guarantee that gravity would cause the gerbils to be pulled downward as much as they were.

Meleagar wrote:

No, again. We cannot find any cause besides unintelligent ones.

How do you know they are unintelligent? Also, just because you cannot find an intelligent cause doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and if it does and is rigging the system, then it renders your other unintelligent commodities insufficient.

How do I know what aren't intelligent? Toxic chemicals? Radiation? Viruses? Proteins? Further, of course we cannot absolutely rule out an intelligent cause. Especially not an intelligent cause that is not defined in a falsifiable manner. Once again, this is inductive reasoning, not absolute demonstration.

Meleagar wrote:You mean, it is your primary assumption. You have zero evidence that your mutational causes are unintelligent.

No... I'm pretty sure that if we can irradiate DNA, then witness mutations as a result--while keeping a control--we know radiation is the cause of that mutation. Are you telling me that radiation is intelligent? Or that most radiation is caused by intelligent things?

Meleagar wrote:Inductive reasoning is gathering facts and from those facts inferring a conclusion. You have presented no facts from which one can infer that the mutation and selection process necessary to acquire novel, functioning biological features can be appropriately characterized as unintelligent.

... You haven't addressed even half of the facts I've presented, much less explained how they lend no evidence to my position.

Meleagar wrote:Since we don't know how intelligence might have gamed the roulette wheel, the only way to tell if the outcomes of the roulette wheel have been fixed is by comparing what an unintelligent system should produce to what the system in question is actually producing.

Fine. I've given you an example of this already.

Meleagar wrote:

Alun wrote:Citation?

In the other thread.

Hyperlink please.

JPhillips wrote:Sorry, you rely on faith just as much as I do. Faith is the basis for all scientific inquiry. You have more faith in the conjecture of scientists than I do.

See, that's where you're wrong. Faith is not the basis for scientific inquiry. Faith supercedes even Belief, because to have Faith requires no evidence, Belief, at least, asks for proof. There is a subtle distinction.

When it comes to science, all inquiry starts with an observation. In Darwin's case, this observation was that individuals amidst a broader class displayed adaptations unique to their environment and circumstances. When compiled with the fossil record, we find that Natural Selection is a scientific fact. Not even the boldest Creationist would dispute that species develope selective advantages to cope with unique circumstances.

So under review, we find a chain of adaptations that leads us to believe that species have slowly evolved over time to change, even completely, under the pressure of constant strains on their survival.

The "leap of faith" occurs when we attribute these changes to a supernatural force with some abstract design scheme.

So while you may be correct in the sense that your assesment of the facts, as with mine, is a construct of a belief system, I wonder who is actually acting upon faith?

Alun wrote: Now who is mischaracterizing whom? I have stated several times how I'm supporting my assertion, and not just by citing the existence of mutations and selection. You simply want me to support it in another way, a way in which most useful theories cannot be tested yet. That your test cannot be done yet does not imply that the theory is invalid, since, again, basic correlation is the primary means of evidence, not full-scale statistical modeling.

If it is an intrinsic part of the theory that the pertinent forces involved are completely unintelligent, then it must be able to provide evidence. You've provided no evidence whatsoever that the primary forces involved are unintelligent. Also, you are mistaken in your assertion that it cannot be modeled; many have, and have concluded that the processes in question cannot be unintelligent (or non-teleological).

I have given you this. The calculations made are based on unintelligent selective forces and unintelligent mutations; those sorts of mutations anticipate changes to DNA at the rate observed in real DNA. Isn't this what you wanted, just for a specific population?

The "calculations" you provided are based on selective forces and mutative rates and positions that are assumed to be unintelligent. IOW, you assume that the selection is unintelligent, you assume that the mutations are unintelligent; you observe them in action, compute them, and then say that your outcomes match your input. You have not vetted your input as unintelligent; you only assume that it is.

As I've already said, I don't think an overall picture would be feasible, even in this way, because the variables (rate of mutation, type of mutations, strength of selection, rate of reproduction, population size, size of genome, etc. etc.) are unknown for too many periods.

And yet, many have made just such an analysis.

Every gerbil we've witnessed is pulled downward towards the earth. We do not know the exact weight of every gerbil we've witnessed. Therefore, we cannot calculate the average influence of gravity on gerbils. Therefore, the theory that gerbils are influenced by gravity is not scientific, since we cannot guarantee that gravity would cause the gerbils to be pulled downward as much as they were.

This example demonstrates how you do not comprehend the nature of the challenge before you. Nobody is claiming that gravity doesn't exist, or that gravity doesn't affect every falling gerbil; what is being challenged is the capacity of gravity by itself and without intelligent aid to arrange falling gerbils in London into a complete, functioning sentence that means something, like "The Gerbils, they are a-fallin', fallin' all over London town."

How do I know what aren't intelligent? Toxic chemicals? Radiation? Viruses? Proteins? Further, of course we cannot absolutely rule out an intelligent cause.

I'm not asking you to absolutely rule anything out; I'm asking you to support your assertion that the process is factually unintelligent.

Humans use all of the things you listed intelligently; just because "things exist that cause mutations" doesn't mean they are not directed intelligently, or that the mutations they cause are not filtered according to an intelligent goal. The claim you are supposed to be supporting isn't that mechanisms or tools exist that generate the mutations in question; but that those mutations which generate successful, functioning, novel biological features can be produce from random mutations - i.e., not guided by intelligence. Humans purposely cause mutations all the time using the very things you list.

If a hammer hits someone's head, is it a random event because the hammer is unintelligent? If the ball lands on number 17 100 times in a row, is it an unintelligent outcome because the wheel and the ball are unintelligent?

Unfortunately, you don't seem to be programmed to be able to grasp this nature of the challenge before you.

Especially not an intelligent cause that is not defined in a falsifiable manner. Once again, this is inductive reasoning, not absolute demonstration.

Your "inductive reasoning" so far is nothing more than affirming the consequent, and your job here is not to falsify intelligent cause, but to support unintelligent cause; to do that all you have to show is that your process falls within expected probabilisitic parameters by examining the actual outcomes (targets) against the possible outcomes (search space) and figuring in your sorting or searching process and explaining were it got its information about the search.

Two papers by Dembski & Marks in the link to my other post below outline this issue.

No... I'm pretty sure that if we can irradiate DNA, then witness mutations as a result--while keeping a control--we know radiation is the cause of that mutation.

If you try real hard, you might be able to see the problem in your example above. "Radiation causing a mutation" either occurs unintelligently, or intelligently (or both). Which is the case in your example above?

Are you telling me that radiation is intelligent? Or that most radiation is caused by intelligent things?

I'm saying that until someone runs a probabilistic analysis of the results, we don't know.

... You haven't addressed even half of the facts I've presented, much less explained how they lend no evidence to my position.

Brute facts are entirely irrelevant to the challenge before you; the challenge is for you to support your characterization of those facts as unintelligent and capable of obtaining the results you claim are achieved under your unintelligent characterization. You have as yet offered not only zero evidence or argument about the actual challenge before you, you have as yet not even shown that you understand the challenge itself.

Fine. I've given you an example of this already.

No, you haven't.

Alun wrote: Hyperlink please.

Post #43 in this thread: http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.p hp?t=2818&start=30

Meleagar wrote:

athena wrote:Many people here seem to have no understanding of science.

Other than casting a general aspersion towards those you apparently disagree with, I don't really see how this contributes to the debate in a positive way.

I gave scientific evidence that supports the theory of evolution and clears up some misunderstanding in post 25. That post was ignored. Others have provided far better arguments in favor of science, and those who understand science not, are not responding to scientific fact, but are playing word games. It is really pointless to engage in this exercise in futility.

Meleagar, "You've provided no evidence whatsoever that the primary forces involved are unintelligent". The evidence is being provided. You just don't know enough about science to see it. However, I am not sure there is no intelligence involved, it just isn't an intelligence that we think of a brain and intelligence. It is not a Zeus like God creating things. There are universal laws that restrict what can and can not happen, but within these restrictions is room for chance. Life on earth can not exist on Mars or the moon, unless we create the conditions necessary for that life on Mars and the moon. We are as the gods, because we do have the capability. No magic involved, just science.

athena wrote: I gave scientific evidence that supports the theory of evolution and clears up some misunderstanding in post 25. That post was ignored.

That post doesn't address the issue at hand. Nobody is saying "evolution doesn't occur", meaning that living organisms don't evolve over time; the question is what is actually the primary cause of such evolution: intelligent, or non-intelligent causation?

Others have provided far better arguments in favor of science, and those who understand science not, are not responding to scientific fact, but are playing word games.

Nobody is arguing "against science"; what is being argued is if there is any scientific evidence that supports the characterization of evolution as a completely unintelligent process. The only "word game" being played here is by you in your attempt to conflate "science" with a particular, materialistic characterization of evolution, which as yet no one has supported via evidence.

It is really pointless to engage in this exercise in futility.

Then why are you doing so?

Meleagar, ... The evidence is being provided.

No, it isn't. What is being provided are brute facts that when one applies radiation to a genome, or when one observes the copying process, a mutation can occur. Nobody is arguing that these things do not happen. Nobody is arguing that X number of mutations do not occur in X amount of time. Nobody is arguing that selection doesn't affect outcomes to some greater or lesser degree.

The argument is not against the brute facts, but in how they are interpreted or characterized. When one applies radiation to a genome and it mutates, it is an incomplete answer to say that the radiation caused it, just as it is an incomplete answer to say that a hammer caused your head to hurt when I was the one that threw the hammer at it.

The question isn't if mutations occur, or what tools or mechanisms generate it, but if the resulst can be best described as the result of intelligent or unintelligent processes.

You just don't know enough about science to see it.

No, you've just failed to comprehend the nature of the challenge.

No magic involved, just science.

Nobody here has appealed to any magic, as far as I know.

Meleagar wrote:

Alun wrote: Hyperlink please.

Post #43 in this thread: http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.p hp?t=2818&start=30

Thank you.

Meleagar wrote:Alun argues that no statistical analysis is possible; that is definitely true because there is no meaningful model of natural selection as a sorting agent. However, since natural selection is no longer regarded as the dominant "selector" of biological diversity by many (if not most) evolutionary biologists:

In the decades since its introduction, the neutral theory of evolution has become central to the study of evolution at the molecular level, in part because it provides a way to make strong predictions that can be tested against actual data. The neutral theory holds that most variation at the molecular level does not affect fitness and, therefore, the evolutionary fate of genetic variation is best explained by stochastic processes. This theory also presents a framework for ongoing exploration of two areas of research: biased gene conversion, and the impact of effective population size on the effective neutrality of genetic variants. - Neutral Theory: The Null Hypothesis of Molecular Evolution
By: Laurent Duret, Ph.D. (Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, Université Claude Bernard, France. ) © 2008 Nature Education

So you're mischaracterizing this--and I doubt you are unaware of this, since all of what I'm about to say is also in the opening paragraph of the wikipedia page on the topic. Genetic drift has indeed been found to be central at a molecular level--but that doesn't mean natural selection isn't playing a crucial role in evolution. In fact, most evolutionary biologists agree that genetic drift strengthens the theory of evolution by natural selection. In the source I cited measuring DNA change as compared to theoretical selected mutations, genetic drift is accounted for--and is in fact fairly important to making the theory successful.

Meleagar wrote:The "calculations" you provided are based on selective forces and mutative rates and positions that are assumed to be unintelligent. IOW, you assume that the selection is unintelligent, you assume that the mutations are unintelligent; you observe them in action, compute them, and then say that your outcomes match your input. You have not vetted your input as unintelligent; you only assume that it is.

We have applied the forces themselves in experimental conditions. I do not understand what it is you're trying to tell me: Do you think the Intelligence is pointing a microscopic laser pointer at particular base pairs? Or that toxins are guided by an invisible hand to the right protein or the right gene? If not, then we know that radiation and toxins destroy or mutate without discretion.

Further, we understand quite a lot of the copying errors that proteins make. They are all a function of chemistry. Do you think chemistry is intelligent? Regardless, biology is not making statements about whether chemistry is secretly unnatural--forgive us if we assume that we can call chemistry a natural process.

Meleagar wrote:

As I've already said, I don't think an overall picture would be feasible, even in this way, because the variables (rate of mutation, type of mutations, strength of selection, rate of reproduction, population size, size of genome, etc. etc.) are unknown for too many periods.

And yet, many have made just such an analysis.

Who, and with what assumptions? If you're referring to, e.g., Dembski again, then I can already tell you his assumptions are plainly wrong.

Meleagar wrote:Nobody is claiming that gravity doesn't exist, or that gravity doesn't affect every falling gerbil; what is being challenged is the capacity of gravity by itself and without intelligent aid to arrange falling gerbils in London into a complete, functioning sentence that means something, like "The Gerbils, they are a-fallin', fallin' all over London town."

No, I just don't think we've got enough evidence that gravity would really let gerbils behave the way they do--we need a complete statistical analysis.

Meleagar wrote:

Are you telling me that radiation is intelligent? Or that most radiation is caused by intelligent things?

I'm saying that until someone runs a probabilistic analysis of the results, we don't know.

Do you know the major source of radiation? I do. The sun. I think the sun is unintelligent; am I assuming too much? Should I run a stochastic analysis on that?

Meleagar wrote:

Fine. I've given you an example of this already.

No, you haven't.

Yes I have. That's as good as it gets. If you're claiming that radiation, toxins, or proteins might be intelligent, then I cannot help you. I cannot understand why we shouldn't call these forces "natural."

Alun,

I appreciate your time, but I'm not interested in adressing the same misapprehensions and fallacies ad infinitum.

When I've said that mutative agents like toxins or radiation would be tools intelligence uses to manipulate results, and then you ask me if those tools are intelligent, or if the sources of those agents are intelligent (the sun), then should I ask you if the source of water is intelligent when humans utilize it for their purposes (a dam or water wheel)?

Or, should I conclude that you are just deliberately obfuscating the issue?

Or, should I believe that you don't have free will and keep reiterating the same fallacies and misapprehensions over and over because a long sequence of cause and effect has programmed you to believe that those responses are appropriate and logical?

Once again, I appreciate your time, but we have, I believe, explored the limits of your programmed response framework on this matter.

There's no way to tell step by step how evolution took it's place. We, as humans, do not have enough information regarding the topic, and thus cannot possibly give a step by step analysis on how evolution took it's place.

Anyways, early hominids didn't evolve from monkeys. That's like saying you evolved from your brother or sister. Your mother and father (in this case, early primates) created you (humans) and your sister (monkeys known as today) I apologize if I'm not explaining it right. It'll be a lot easier if I were to have a paper and a pen, and show you.

When I've said that mutative agents like toxins or radiation would be tools intelligence uses to manipulate results, and then you ask me if those tools are intelligent, or if the sources of those agents are intelligent (the sun), then should I ask you if the source of water is intelligent when humans utilize it for their purposes (a dam or water wheel)?

(Meleagar)

You just moved the goal posts. Your source of intelligence has receded beyond the more immediate causes such as the sun and chemistry. Your source of intelligence is in retreat and has now taken up the deist position which is metphysically beyond the positions of Drs Dembski and Behe.

Belinda wrote:
You just moved the goal posts. Your source of intelligence has receded beyond the more immediate causes such as the sun and chemistry. Your source of intelligence is in retreat and has now taken up the deist position which is metphysically beyond the positions of Drs Dembski and Behe.

No, I haven't. Your post above is, like Alun's, all straw man and a fundmental, apparently intractable misapprehension of the challenge.

Let's look at the roulette wheel example. I say I want evidence that the roulette wheel isn't fixed by an intelligent agent; you and alun tell me you've seen the roulette wheel operate and that it isn't fixed, because you see no recognizable intelligent agents sticking the ball in the slots.

I rightly respond that your observations cannot be evidence against design or for unintelligent process, because just observing the ball landing wherever it lands is not enough to make your case. That the wheel operates and is comprised of physical materials, and that the ball lands in slots is not being challenged.

Alun asks if the wood, metal or paint that the roulette wheel is made of is intelligent, which is a ridiculous question, but I go ahead and respond that no, such materials would just be the tools of the agent. In fact, the roulette wheel is so functionally complex and made up of so many parts that any "gaming device" an agent might use (if they used one that was a material solid and could be located) would probably not be recognizable as a gaming device (a device that fixes the outcomes of the wheel), and that they only way to see if the wheel was fixed was by analyzing outcomes of where the ball lands.

Alun then asks if the source of wood, paint and metal is intelligent. What am I to make of that question? Is Alun being deliberately obtuse? Do you and he really think that is a meaningful question?

When you say that my definition of intelligence, or deliberate design, has been moved beyond chemistry, how am I supposed to react to that? Can one determine whether or not an interacting chemical system is intelligent by examining the materials involved? If I was presented with a slide of chemicals reduced from the tissue of the brain of Einstein, should I be able to determine if those chemicals were intelligent by examining them?

Of course intelligence is "beyond chemistry" because it cannot be evidenced via chemistry. It cannot be evidenced via a brute examination of the materials involved. If I examine a selection of swatches of materials taken from a roulette wheel, how would I determine that the roulette wheel was, or was not, fixed?

The goal post hasn't been moved; you're just now, apparently, becoming aware of where it has been the whole time. It hasn't been moved to any "deistic" position because scientific and logical techniques are used all the time to discern if an intelligent agent is responsible for an event or a phenomena. No "god" required or even presumed.

Forensic investigators must determine if an event was a crime or an accident; if someone died by the intentional planning of another, or if they died by natural causes or an acident. You can't get a meaningful answer by asking the question if the knife is intelligent, or if the metal of the gun is intelligent, or if fire is intelligent; you can't get the answer by asking if the ore mine is intelligent, or the tree that the wood came from planned the whole thing, or if the match or faulty electrical outlet are diablolical agents: those are nonsensical questions.

You get the answer to the question via an examination of the probabilities involved in the necessary arrangement and pattern of materials and processes involved and the final result produced, and comparing that against what might occur via unintelligent processes, and against what other intelligent agents are known to have done in the past.

Note that when a forensic investigator reaches a conclusion of arson or murder, they don't have a motive or an identity of any suspects; they make a finding of "cause by intelligent design", although not in those words, not by examining the properties of chemicals or by tracking the materials to their origin and then asking if the trees or the match or the metal for the bullets were intelligent.

You and Alun and others are, apparently, so deeply entrenched in your materialist assumptions that you don't even recognize them as assumptions, nor do you comprehend it when the those intractable assumptions command you to ask if radiation, toxic chemicals, or the wood of the roulette wheel are intelligent, or if their sources are intelligent, and then when I actually take time to answer such incoherent questions you accuse me of "moving the goal post".

Can you see intelligence, Belinda? Not the results of intelligence, but intelligence itself? Can it be observed in the intrinsic properties of carbon, water, calcium, wood, metal, air?

Try to apprehend the real challenge here, Belinda.

Meleagar wrote:When I've said that mutative agents like toxins or radiation would be tools intelligence uses to manipulate results, and then you ask me if those tools are intelligent, or if the sources of those agents are intelligent (the sun), then should I ask you if the source of water is intelligent when humans utilize it for their purposes (a dam or water wheel)?

The problem is that now you're stuck saying the possible intelligence has no empirical effect, and therefore is not relevant to science. When we apply radiation randomly, as it would be applied by the sun, it causes mutations. Same for protein copying errors; we can generate them artificially. We can explain them in neutral chemical terms. This level of mutation--the 'unintelligent' level--along with reproductive selection, which can likewise be reproduced artificially and arbitrarily, has been shown to generate new genetic code at the same rate as we observe in the wild. Hence even if intelligence is causing the proteins, the radiation, or the environment to act this way or be distributed as they are, they'd act that way even without the intelligence. It really is as simple as that.

To mutilate your example, it is possible that rain is really coming from a massive invisible ocean pump in Antarctica, which desalinates the water, and then it is transported by giant invisible planes which sprinkle the water in localized areas, making exactly the same phenomena as we would see if rain really were natural condensation from atmospheric water vapor. But who cares? Such a possibility doesn't add anything to our understanding of rain. In fact, it only 'obfuscates' it.

I have no interest in ruling out the possibility of intelligence having some role in the nature of the world or of life; I only have an interest in explaining--in predicting. If you want to consider how intelligence could play a role, but produces no change in phenomena, that's fine, but don't ask us to teach it to children as if it's some controversy over empirical theory. It isn't. The phenomena can be fully and most simply explained with the theory as is.

Meleagar, it looks to me now that I may have misunderstood you and had assumed your goal posts to be closer together than you had seen them placed as quite far apart all along.

I understand that you and Alun and I agree that intelligence is not in the paint, the chalk,the chemistry , or the evolution of species.

It is nevertheless anthropomorphic to ascribe intelligence, (or intention, or purpose), to the great What Is. Such anthropomorphism is a deist's solution for someone fighting a rearguard action against modernity.Probably the old deists or a few of them were cynics who claimed design without really believing it. It has little pragmatic value anyway.

Your example of the roulette wheel is like Paley's watch. The thing is to discover what sort of being has intentions or purposes. To assume that intention or purpose inheres in anything other than humans and perhaps a few other mammals, or octopuses or whatever,that is a supernatural order of being, is an act of faith. Evidence of purpose is in the scientific and atheist communinty based upon the axiom that there is no supernatural order of being. If you start your investigations by assuming, in the absence of metaphysical evidence, that there is a supernatural substance, (you call it 'intelligence') then you are pretty well bound to the theory that you demonstrably have faith in.

JPhillips wrote:I am been trying to get a handle on how man evolved from a cell to a creature with complex organs that are interdependent on each other. Can someone help me? First there was an atom that turned into a single cell amoeba. After this what are all the life forms that existed up to man. In other words, don’t start with the monkey. Get me to the monkey from the single cell. Name all the life forms between the amoeba and man. Then maybe this whole thing will make more sense to me. Otherwise, if there is no evidence of these life forms then there is no evidence for evolution. You can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. To think otherwise is to believe in silly fairy tales.

Nothing is this opening statement is an invitation to discuss religious ideas. The opening statement begins with a misconception of evolution. Humans did not evolve from monkeys, but monkeys, apes, and humans all have a common ancient, as is the chicken related to dinosaurs. The question is about science, not about ideas of god.

However, within nature there appears a form of intelligence as there are universal laws which were first discovered as man dappled in math. At the quantum physic level, these laws change and with this science, so does our understanding of a predetermined fate, change. At the quantum physic level things are not so predictable.

I made my comment about the lack of scientific understanding, to see if the thread could become a scientific discussion. Perhaps this thread should be moved to forum about religion if that is what everyone is debating?

I do not agree with this statement, "that intelligence is not in the paint, the chalk,the chemistry , or the evolution of species". The laws of the universe are expressed in all things, and that is what makes science so fascinating.

Why would an intelligence be supernatural and not natural? We are of nature and think ourselves to be intelligent. The study of universal laws is the study of nature and that is the only thing we can study. It is more intelligent to stay with what we can study, than argue about something we can not study, and put this thread in religion if it is not about science.

athena wrote: Why would an intelligence be supernatural and not natural? We are of nature and think ourselves to be intelligent. The study of universal laws is the study of nature and that is the only thing we can study. It is more intelligent to stay with what we can study, than argue about something we can not study, and put this thread in religion if it is not about science.

Just because something might be currently considered outside of the realm of the scientific method to study doesn't mean it is "supernatural", only that it might be affecting the world in a way that can currently only be assessed by the results.

You can't see gravity, but you can observe and quantify its results.

The term "supernatural" is just a means to remove the subject from consideration. I don't know that anyone is claiming that intelligence is "supernatural".

Belinda wrote:I understand that you and Alun and I agree that intelligence is not in the paint, the chalk,the chemistry , or the evolution of species.

The first thing that must be done is establish that the results appear to be best described by intelligent design. For example, we might be able to establish that a Pekingese is best described as a product of ID if they can only continue as a sub-species if they are deliberately cordoned off from other dogs and interbred by intelligent agents with the goal of keeping the subspecies distinct. Then we might look for ways in which an intelligence might cordon off the species, etc.

It is nevertheless anthropomorphic to ascribe intelligence, (or intention, or purpose), to the great What Is.

Just because it is anthropomorphic doesn't mean it is logically or scientifically invalid, any more than it is improper to apply "earth-morphism", or to take commodities we know to exist on earth (vulcanism, water erosion) and then use those models to explain phenomena we find on other worlds. There's nothing scientifically invalid about taking a known commodity like human intellect, and establishing quantifiable criteria for recognizing similar product elsewhere.

Such anthropomorphism is a deist's solution for someone fighting a rearguard action against modernity. Probably the old deists or a few of them were cynics who claimed design without really believing it. It has little pragmatic value anyway.

You can debate the merits of the argument and the facts, or you can try and negatively characterize the motives of those who are debating you. I'm sure you realize which is the more proper effort.

Your example of the roulette wheel is like Paley's watch. The thing is to discover what sort of being has intentions or purposes. To assume that intention or purpose inheres in anything other than humans and perhaps a few other mammals, or octopuses or whatever,that is a supernatural order of being, is an act of faith.

Straw man. Please argue against the arguments that are actually presented. You and others insist on taking the ID-Darwinism argument into theism and the supernatural. I have never said that ID is the product of god or any supernatural being. Humans use it all the time; are we supernatural? We know ID exists in the universe because humans employ it. We know ID generates recognizable and quantifiable characteristics in phenomena.

If we find X on an alien world that appears to be a derilect, abandoned spaceship, are we forbidden from a finding that it was intelligently designed, and appears to be a spaceship, because it would be "antrhopomorphizing the great What-is"? Of corse not.

It seems to me that such straw man arguments are only made and continually revisited because a straightforward, logical assessment of ID theory cannot be refuted or rebutted.

The rest of your post stems from your straw man argument about the "supernatural". Are you incapable of debating ID without continually and erroneously inserting the supernatural and deism or theism?

Alun: When you can post something that is a response to my actual posts and my actual arguments, instead of your incoherent straw man reconstructions of them, I'll respond.

Scene: Roswell, New Mexico. A couple of policemen have just seen fiery object in the sky zig zag through the air and then crash. When they arrive, what would appear to an ID theorist to be a crashed spaceship is in the ground, smoking fumes and leaking liquids, and what appears to be two injured alien astronauts are a few meters away, not really humanoid but wearing what would appear to be (to an ID theorist) space suits.

However, the two policemen are Darwinist Materialists who don't anthropomorphize the great "what-is", nor are they interested in assessing the possibility that intelligence might be behind some of the unfamiliar phenomena they come across. Let's pick up their conversation as they arrive on the scene:

Policeman 1: Wow, look at that. That's the weirdest looking meteorite I've ever seen.

Policeman 2: Well, it might be some kind of super-secret test jet.

P1: Whoa, taking quite the leap there, aren't you? I've never seen anything like it, so until the military says it's theirs, then we gotta assume it's a naturally ocurring meteorite.

P2: You're right, of course. What are those things over there? They're moving.

P1: Gah, those things are ugly. Must be some kind of mutated dog or goat that got into someone's laundry and ran through a junkyard.

P2: What are those bizarre noises they're making?

P1: Sounds like a rabid dog. Look out! They're headed over here. They might bite us.

As the two creatures approach making gestures, the two police decide it's better to kill the poor, mutated goat-dogs rather than risk being attacked, so they shoot them.

P1: Well, nothing more to see or do here, I guess. Nobody got hurt. Let's move on.

P2: Shouldn't we call the air force?

P1: Why?

P2: Oh, that's right. Nothing to assume here other than unintelligent, natural processes. Let's go.

The OP posits a question whose answer lies in an argument that the evolution of life can be explained by undirected material forces from naturally occurring chemical reactions. That end requires a congruent explanation of that causal "event", which would still leave the question of causation and whether that cause requires an intelligent rational or can suffice with unintelligent rationals.

This is Darwinism which works to advance the idea that it is unnecessary to consider any intelligent causation to the progression of life since it only concerns itself with the physical mechanics of that progression, that life in its current manifestation, from single celled organisms to plants, reptiles, birds, mammals and man, are the results of a continual undirected progressive process which from a single organism which evolved from the force of natural stresses effecting natural internal processes of life's determination to survive, regardless of natural conflagration and extreme or moderate fluxes attributable.

The challenge here is what if Darwinism is wrong? What if all the apparent diversity of life is not the product of a single event or the progression from a single biological organism? What if there is a natural mechanism which prods life forward and as we observe the mechanisms of life's processes we miss or set aside any possible evidence which suggests such a hypothetical? Does the evidence allow for multiple and separate causal mechanisms? Does the evidence necessitate designed utility? Should the discussion include directed necessity or is random, undirected necessity enough?

Unfortunately Darwinism has been seized by an anti-God, atheist and secularist agenda which takes the evidence and observations, no matter how definable or inconclusive and manipulates any data towards material ideologies. Doing so does a disservice to science and more so philosophy which should concern itself with the meaning of man and reality regardless of where such deliberations lean.

Since life sciences are the only sciences which have been deliberated in courts then it is more likely to determine that Darwinism, in any manifestations, has consequences other than that of scientific pursuits, and such determinations have been recognized by Darwinist who diligently and purposely argue against any challenges to Darwinistic ideologies in order to maintain material causes to the perpetuation of life deliberately excluding any teleological principles to that perpetuation. In this Darwinist are discriminatory towards any critique which shows the faults inherent in material evolution and attempts to present it as fact rather than just one possible paradigm of existence.

Those who portend the nonexistence of God should not fear those, or any science, which attributes a causal account of existence to God, by reason of deliberate necessary mathematical and probabilistic principles in the nature of design, if the evidence and observation of unintelligent causation and principles are so imperturbable.

To this Darwinism is just one facit of a fatalistic condemnation of the nature of man in that it minimizes mans status in the hierarchy of life, of being, as an intelligible process of moral and ethical growth. That man can set his sights on a greater existence than those demeaned by undirected material processes. The uncharacterized judge of oneself rather than universal objectivity and goal inspired humanity.