|
Author
|
Topic: The Immaterial Cause for Complexity in Nature
|
AnaxagorasRules
Member
Member # 4079
|
posted 25. February 2007 16:16
quote:
The real argument is about whether there WAS a designer or not. My position is of course there WAS and there may HAVE BEEN several for all we know. There is not a shred of tangible evidence for a living God nor is there need for one.
I would start off by asking why does a lack of evidence that evolution is going on now have to be a litmus test for the presence of a living God?
[ 25. February 2007, 16:39: Message edited by: AnaxagorasRules ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Matt Connally
Member
Member # 3076
|
posted 25. February 2007 16:16
John,
quote:
The real argument is about whether there WAS a designer or not. My position is of course there WAS and there may HAVE BEEN several for all we know. There is not a shred of tangible evidence for a living God nor is there need for one.
Evolutionary Theory assume the absence of a Designer. After all, IF we ask that question, “Might there be or have been (a) god(s)?” then Darwinism assumes a loud and clear “no”. Within the context of the theory, even if there was/were god(s) he/she/it/they either had nothing to do with the design of life or made it look like they had nothing to do with it—both of which are totally meaningless apart from therapeutic escapism.
Many scientists beg to be found neutral on the subject, but it is absurd to deny they this is a good, rational question: might there be or have been (a) god(s)?
quote:
"The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God."
Albert Einstein
"The idea of a personal god is quite alien to me and seems even naive."
ibid
"To assume the existence if an unperceivable being...does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."
ibid
"God is dead."
Friedrich Nietzche
None of those is a scientific argument, much less an argument against the existence of God.
quote:
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
Intelligent Design is an entirely coherent theory; therefore, a past evolution is very deniable.
IP: Logged
|
|
AnaxagorasRules
Member
Member # 4079
|
posted 25. February 2007 16:20
quote:
You don't produce a scientific meaning by lengthy unproductive discussions about the conventional or politically acceptable meaning of a term. In science, terms like competition are defined by scientists in the context of non-trivial predictive theories. Formal scientific definitions are developed by scientists formulating and testing predictive theories. Such definitions must satisfy formal scientific requirements and they must make it possible for serious competent scientists to communicate reliably.
LifeEngineer, when I said that the abstract terms are settled upon by covention, I meant by convention by scientists. I thought that the context made that clear. A consensus of scientists would have been a better phrasing.
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 25. February 2007 17:30
Matt Conally
There is as yet no evolutionary theory. Theories are hypotheses that have received support. There are only a couple of utterly failed hypotheses, Lamarckism and Darwinism and as yet untested ones like the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypotheses (PEH) and the Semi-meiotic Hypothesis (SMH) both of which are in complete accord with what we REALLY know about the mechanism of organic change, a mechanism, in my opinion, no longer in operation.
Just remember that it is not only me with whom you differ but some of the finest biologists of their day, all of whom have been cynically ignored by the atheist Darwinian establishment and not one of whom was either a religious fanatic or a Darwinian worshipper of the Great God Chance.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
IP: Logged
|
|
AnaxagorasRules
Member
Member # 4079
|
posted 25. February 2007 19:10
LifeEngineer, maybe it was this quote that caused you to think that I thought abstract scientific terms should be arrived at by general convention:
quote:
Hot by convention, cold by convention; sweet by convention, bitter by convention. In reality, the atoms and the empty. (Democritus)
Given the short preamble to that quote, I can see where you might have thought I was referring to a mass public convention. To put that quote a little more in perspective, Democritus was far from a local yokel. He was in that first group of ancient pre-socratic scientists who tried to make sense of the world without ascribing its makeup and origin to the doings of anthropomorphic gods.
In fact, it is amazing how, given how new natural philosophy/science was in the Greek world in the 6th century BC, Democritus came so close to the truth as he did. My only beef with him is that he ignored motion, never denying it but never taking it into account. Personally, I think that he, following Parmenides and Anaxagoras (overlapping), might have finally tipped the scale of credulity over, to the point where ordinary people just couldn't accept the radically new teachings anymore. The masses, who were still slicing the throats of bulls in sacrifice to Zeus, and whose cosmology was contained in Homer and Hesiod, could make no sense of the new philosophy of men like Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Zeno, Anaxagoras and Democritius. They were rediculed and made fun of by the emerging sophists, who began to shift thought toward a more understandable humanistic focus. And thus the battles between the sophists and their arch-enemy Socrates, who chose to die rather than renounce his belief in ideals. Plato picked up the sword, and finally Aristotle brought the world back into focus, and natural science was reborn. And science, 2200 years later, finally realizes that Democritus and Axaxagoras, the atomists, had been on to something.
The fight goes on. But one of present day combatants has castrated himself.
Who is more eager to see evidence of design? The ID proponent who, like an orphan that wants to see a sign of his parents, makes an all out effort to find evidences of design, or the Darwinian, who must deny design outright or attribute it to random accidents? Which side will be more prone to want to delve deeper and deeper? The Darwinians are facing multiple attacks from nearly every branch of science except for straight biology and mumbo jumbo psychology. They are becoming like everybody's redheaded stepchild, getting beat mercilessly, and their only response is to cry out in petulance. Now even the philosphers are devising logical tests bases on probabilities that will arm scientists with benchmarks for empirical testing of the presence of design.
Meanwhile the Darwinian biologist is becoming increasingly fearful of looking into his microscope...because all it ever shows him is evidence of design, design, design!
[ 25. February 2007, 19:20: Message edited by: AnaxagorasRules ]
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 25. February 2007 22:27
"Upon reading books on philosophy, I learned that I stood there like a blind man in front of a painting. I can only grasp the inductive method...the works of speculative philosophy are beyond my reach."
Albert Einstein
Amen
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
IP: Logged
|
|
AnaxagorasRules
Member
Member # 4079
|
posted 26. February 2007 02:16
quote:
For example, at any one time does the moon have an exact, objective mass regardless of whether we are able to translate that mass into English and into kilograms?
Without the moon, that mass does not exist.
If you think about it, much of what you wrote is very close to the point I'm making. I do not dispute that immaterial things work in the medium of material things AND are objectively observable. However, I DO also include the basic quantities of measurement as being immaterial - they are objectively observable only with respect to specific instances of material things.
I use a very strict definition to describe whether a thing exists or not. A thing materially exists if it has a dimension (is a form a matter) and is independent.
By independent I mean the following. Let's look at mass, for example. A material thing to exist must have mass. If it has no mass then it does not exist. So which one is independent? The mass or the thing? Well, what makes more sense? The moon's mass, or mass's moon? Obviously, the mass is the attribute of the moon and not the other way around. And likewise for the moon's other attributes.
Most things that exist are mixtures. For example, a human being is chemically a heterogeneous mixture. We possess basic quantities such as mass, temperature, dimensions, and are composed of various organs and body parts. You, Matt Connally exist, and have your own specific measurements and your own specific body parts. Your mass is meaningful only in terms of you. To say that your mass exists independently of you is very close to the platonic view.
I just say that Matt Connally exists because he has a dimension, and therefore he will have mass. I don't say that Matt Connally exists and Mass exists, and that an instance of Mass exists inside Matt Connally.
Even the standards, the SI standards themselves, are not some disembodied quantities floating in a dimensionless platonic realm.
The meter is the distance traveled by a ray of electromagnetic (EM) energy through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 (3.33564095 x 10-9) second. The kilogram is defined as the mass of a particular international prototype made of platinum-iridium and kept at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. One second is the time (time defining time) that elapses during 9.192631770 x 109 cycles of the radiation produced by the transition between two levels of Cesium 133.
So yes, even the standard quantities are defined in terms of specific instances of matter. Platinum-iridium in the case of mass, and Cesium 133 for time...admittedly very small bits of matter. Light is used to define the meter.
I'll admit that my litmus test for existence ends up excluding quite a lot of things that people commonly think of as real. Be as it may, I have no problem seeing mass and length and time as abstract nouns that only have meaning when they are attached to things that acutally do exist (i.e. matter).
That's why I have no problem dealing with the immaterialness of competition, and also its observibility.
Light is a special case. I'm not sure if anyone really understands what light is.
We may not be meaning the same thing when we use the word objective. I mean strictly the opposite of subjective. By objective I mean that the thing being observed is perceivable by others, not just me.
[ 26. February 2007, 12:54: Message edited by: AnaxagorasRules ]
IP: Logged
|
|
John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
|
posted 26. February 2007 07:34
Intelligent Design is most certainly not a theory. Neither is it an hypothesis. It is not even an "inference" as Dembski would have us believe. It is an obvious characteristic of every living thing which must be accepted as a starting point for any hypothesis concerning the mechanism for both ontogeny and phylogeny. It is only the mechanism that has ever been in question for both phenomena which are manifestations of the same reproductive continuum. Only ontogeny remains. With that I bid farewell to this thread.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
IP: Logged
|
|
LifeEngineer
Member
Member # 3446
|
posted 26. February 2007 08:42
Quote: I’m not following you here. Is not competition is a fundamental aspect of Evolutionary Theory? According to that theory, if organisms did not compete they would not evolve.
Theories, models, and abstract concepts are created by scientists in an attempt to explain certain features of the real world. The abstract concept of competition is, as you suggest, a fundamental feature of modern evolutionary theory(MET).
The abstract concept of competition as used in various METs is well defined. There are clear examples of behavior that meets the general or popular concept of competition in the real world, but this is not really the same as the abstract scientific concept of competition as used in METs.
It should be obvious, but probably isn't, that the abstract scientific concept of competition can be clearly defined and widely accepted theories can be formulated using the abstract concept, but the theories are false and the well defined scientific concept of competition does not properly or accurately describe the type of selection process actually operating in evolutionary change processes.
The existence of 1) a theory or set of theories, 2) a well defined concept such as competition and 3) some evidence that something like competition exists, does not constitute sufficient scientific evidence that competition is an accurate descriptive property of the force of selection operating in evolutionary change processes.
In order for competition to be 'a real property or characteristic of evolutionary selection', it must be incorporated into a testable predictive theory and that theory must successfully withstand testing against alternative theories using alternative abstract properties.
Specifically, the question to be address is whether the selection operating in evolutionary change processes is best characterized by 'survival of the fittest competition' or 'intelligent altruism (the goal of survival of a diverse set of life forms).
The actual experimental evidence overwhelmingly supports intelligent altruism rather than the competition concept.
IP: Logged
|
|
LifeEngineer
Member
Member # 3446
|
posted 26. February 2007 09:11
Quote: LifeEngineer, when I said that the abstract terms are settled upon by covention, I meant by convention by scientists. I thought that the context made that clear. A consensus of scientists would have been a better phrasing.
Concensus among competent scientists may describe the end result of a hard science proces of developing formal definitions, but it does not accurately describe the actual process of developing scientific definitions.
Consider the specific subject of competitive selection versus intelligent selection being discussed here. Both concepts recognize that selection operates to promote a general goal of survival. The abstract concepts- competitive selection versurs intelligent selection- however, differ with respect to time frame. Competitive selection suggests or predicts that evolutionary selection will favor the short term benefits or interests of the individual. Intelligent selection suggests or predicts that actual evolutionary selection will favor the long terms interests of the overall survival of life forms.
A group of hard science scientists will readily recognize the differences between competitive selection and intelligent selection. They will be able to agree on definitions that allow them to develop hard science testing to determine which concept and which type of theory best describes evolutionary selection.
However, when this type of hard science definition and analysis is presented to evolutionary biologists, they are unable and/or unwilling to accept or recognize it.
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic