Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[EricPH]

Public ignorance of elementary science must be addressed by any developed country that claims to be democratic.

The creation of the universe and life is not elementary, science does not have the answers. Evolution is still work in progress and incomplete. The algorithm that requires random mutation cannot be explained, you said that the human body is designed but has no designer.

This thread asks for evidence of intelligent design. The complexity of the eye lens gives me every reason to say, I believe it had to be intelligently designed. When you read about the evolution of the eye lens, the explanation do not include the words, this is how it happened. Rather the explanation is full of phrases like, could have, possibly, murky evidence, and probability.

Legitimate questions arise, and this leads people like me asking lots of uncomfortable questions, which are not answered.

[EricPH]

The fact that you think natural selection is totally random precludes sensible conversation about this.

"Natural Selection" is Not random. I have never said this.

If you cannot be bothered to do the very most rudimentary research about evolution before criticising it, then you are just wasting people's time.

In order for evolution to work, genes need to mutate randomly, Not natural selection. Where does the word "Random" fit in the following sentence to make evolution possible?

We need to know how the eye lens evolved from a light sensitive patch over 1800 incremental steps.

[Sy Borg]

1800 incremental steps over a billion years. That averages to one mutation every 550,000 years. That is not fast.

You do realise that a billion is not at all like a million, don't you? A million seconds is about 12 seconds, a billion seconds is about 31 years. People vastly underestimate the alienness of deep time to us beings who live our lives in terms of decades and centuries.

[EricPH]

1800 incremental steps over a billion years. That averages to one mutation every 550,000 years. That is not fast.

Where is your evidence that the eye lens evolved over a billion years? Apparently, It only needed about 364,000 years according to papers I have read on the subject. That's one mutation every 200 years, or roughly one mutation every two hundred generations. The paper only described how a single eye lens might develop, but most species have two or more.

I see you have dropped the word random from your quote, does this mean there was nothing random about each incremental step? Attention to detail is important when you are trying to understand design.

[Sy Borg]

1800 incremental steps over a billion years. That averages to one mutation every 550,000 years. That is not fast.

Where is your evidence that the eye lens evolved over a billion years? Apparently, It only needed about 364,000 years according to papers I have read on the subject. That's one mutation every 200 years, or roughly one mutation every two hundred generations. The paper only described how a single eye lens might develop, but most species have two or more.

I see you have dropped the word random from your quote, does this mean there was nothing random about each incremental step? Attention to detail is important when you are trying to understand design.

Prokaryotes were detecting light long before eukaryotes.

You see, natural selection would be called random changes if it was random. However, those entities that can persist, or whose genes persist, will logically predominate. There was no deliberate change to my language, that is just your opportunistic bias, looking (in vain) for chinks in my argument or approach.

Mt attention to detail means apportioning value to the learning done in the last two thousand years rather than disregarding it in favour of an Iron Age book that blended history, politics and mythology, and in poetic and metaphorical language that is too often mindlessly taken literally. Hence you wish to discredit evolution in favour of creationism (aka ID), although sophisticated theists see evolution as God's method.

[Belindi]

Public ignorance of elementary science must be addressed by any developed country that claims to be democratic.

The creation of the universe and life is not elementary, science does not have the answers. Evolution is still work in progress and incomplete. The algorithm that requires random mutation cannot be explained, you said that the human body is designed but has no designer.

This thread asks for evidence of intelligent design. The complexity of the eye lens gives me every reason to say, I believe it had to be intelligently designed. When you read about the evolution of the eye lens, the explanation do not include the words, this is how it happened. Rather the explanation is full of phrases like, could have, possibly, murky evidence, and probability.

Legitimate questions arise, and this leads people like me asking lots of uncomfortable questions, which are not answered.

You have no understanding of science, have never been taught science, and you have the gall to condemn what you are completely ignorant about.

[Sy Borg]

Public ignorance of elementary science must be addressed by any developed country that claims to be democratic.

The creation of the universe and life is not elementary, science does not have the answers. Evolution is still work in progress and incomplete. The algorithm that requires random mutation cannot be explained, you said that the human body is designed but has no designer.

This thread asks for evidence of intelligent design. The complexity of the eye lens gives me every reason to say, I believe it had to be intelligently designed. When you read about the evolution of the eye lens, the explanation do not include the words, this is how it happened. Rather the explanation is full of phrases like, could have, possibly, murky evidence, and probability.

Legitimate questions arise, and this leads people like me asking lots of uncomfortable questions, which are not answered.

You have no understanding of science, have never been taught science, and you have the gall to condemn what you are completely ignorant about.

We have the odd situation today with people who have no interest in science trying to use science to disprove science.

Alas, the lack of curiosity shows. Just as one cannot effectively do science without genuine curiosity, one can't effectively do theism without genuine faith.

[Belindi]

There is little difference between pantheism and theism. God-or-Nature created the heavens and the Earth.The trouble with theism is people appropriate particular ideas about God in order to secure for themselves political powers. It's impossible that Nature be partial to any human ideology.

Christianity has the edge over other religions because Jesus Christ is a man as well as God; that is why JC is a more credible link between the Absolute and the temporal than any holy book or charismatic prophet. I just wish some Christians did not believe it necessary to demolish a scientific theory in order to make God credible. And the converse for unbelievers; I wish some unbelievers did not think it necessary to demolish God in order to make
a scientific theory credible.

How could nature create universe?

The definition of nature is that which created and creates the universe and stuff. Now if you want to say "But God created nature" go ahead and I'll not object.

This is how Charles Darwin phrased it:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Origin of the Species, 1872 (from the Preface to the last edition before Darwin’s death).

The Creator is nature, not a deity.

[Charlemagne]

How could nature create universe?

The definition of nature is that which created and creates the universe and stuff. Now if you want to say "But God created nature" go ahead and I'll not object.

This is how Charles Darwin phrased it:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Origin of the Species, 1872 (from the Preface to the last edition before Darwin’s death).

The Creator is nature, not a deity.

Is that what Darwin said?

“Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” (from the Autobiography of Charles Darwin)

[EricPH]

There was no deliberate change to my language, that is just your opportunistic bias, looking (in vain) for chinks in my argument or approach.

Why would you need to argue if you have real evidence. Why do I have to agree with your argument? Am I not allowed to think differently?

[Belindi]

There was no deliberate change to my language, that is just your opportunistic bias, looking (in vain) for chinks in my argument or approach.

Why would you need to argue if you have real evidence. Why do I have to agree with your argument? Am I not allowed to think differently?

Your thoughts are free. You may think what you like. If you choose to remain ignorant you are free to do so. You don't merely "think differently" your thinking is insufficiently wide or sceptical. I doubt if you even know the meaning of scepticism.
It's ridiculous that anyone stubbornly choose to remain ignorant.

[EricPH]

The Creator is nature, not a deity.

There is no real evidence to show how the universe came into existence by natural causes.

We know very little about our own galaxy, we have a microscopic understanding about the galaxies that exist today. there could be a hundred billion, or maybe two trillion. We may have a small understanding of what happened 13.7 billion years ago, but there is no evidence going back 20 or 50 billion years.

Science is work in progress. Like previous generations, we shall go to our graves with no hard evidence for the big questions. The most we can claim is opinions, arguments and beliefs.

[3017Metaphysician]

Public ignorance of elementary science must be addressed by any developed country that claims to be democratic.

The creation of the universe and life is not elementary, science does not have the answers. Evolution is still work in progress and incomplete. The algorithm that requires random mutation cannot be explained, you said that the human body is designed but has no designer.

This thread asks for evidence of intelligent design. The complexity of the eye lens gives me every reason to say, I believe it had to be intelligently designed. When you read about the evolution of the eye lens, the explanation do not include the words, this is how it happened. Rather the explanation is full of phrases like, could have, possibly, murky evidence, and probability.

Legitimate questions arise, and this leads people like me asking lots of uncomfortable questions, which are not answered.

You have no understanding of science, have never been taught science, and you have the gall to condemn what you are completely ignorant about.

We have the odd situation today with people who have no interest in science trying to use science to disprove science.

Alas, the lack of curiosity shows. Just as one cannot effectively do science without genuine curiosity, one can't effectively do theism without genuine faith.

...and curiosity itself, confers no Darwinian/biological survival value (when instinct is all you need to survive). In other words, science itself has no survival value. Knowledge of gravity is not necessary to evade falling objects in the jungle. So, the paradox for you is to reconcile your need for science. (Or at least you keep hanging your hat on science itself, for some strange reason.)

Keep trying SB!

[Belindi]

The Creator is nature, not a deity.

There is no real evidence to show how the universe came into existence by natural causes.

We know very little about our own galaxy, we have a microscopic understanding about the galaxies that exist today. there could be a hundred billion, or maybe two trillion. We may have a small understanding of what happened 13.7 billion years ago, but there is no evidence going back 20 or 50 billion years.

Science is work in progress. Like previous generations, we shall go to our graves with no hard evidence for the big questions. The most we can claim is opinions, arguments and beliefs.

Some opinions, arguments, and beliefs are better than other opinions, arguments, and beliefs. One of the standards by which we evaluate opinions, arguments, and beliefs is that we don't propose needless hypotheses.

Whether God created nature or nature created itself matters little to our civilisation and maybe much of life on Earth, which within the next fifty or so years will cease to exist.

[3017Metaphysician]

The Creator is nature, not a deity.

There is no real evidence to show how the universe came into existence by natural causes.

We know very little about our own galaxy, we have a microscopic understanding about the galaxies that exist today. there could be a hundred billion, or maybe two trillion. We may have a small understanding of what happened 13.7 billion years ago, but there is no evidence going back 20 or 50 billion years.

Science is work in progress. Like previous generations, we shall go to our graves with no hard evidence for the big questions. The most we can claim is opinions, arguments and beliefs.

Some opinions, arguments, and beliefs are better than other opinions, arguments, and beliefs. One of the standards by which we evaluate opinions, arguments, and beliefs is that we don't propose needless hypotheses.

Whether God created nature or nature created itself matters little to our civilisation and maybe much of life on Earth, which within the next fifty or so years will cease to exist.

Please share your revelation about the end of existence Belindi!