It Starts With Ideas
As we have discussed many times, evolution is the most influential scientific theory in areas outside of science, for evolution carries a message that goes far beyond biology. And what is that message? As Peter Singer succinctly put it, “Darwin’s theory undermined the foundations of that entire Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe.” That may sound abstract, but its implications couldn’t be more real. This underlying metaphysic of evolution permeates our culture and, from abortion clinics to war machines, is now baked into our thinking. It transcends the political spectrum with both the right and the left finding ways to replace those “certain unalienable Rights” with their own ideas of how a species that evolved by chance should be treated. At the extreme there is, as this documentary explains, “The War on Humans.”
Religion drives science, and it matters.
Thanks Dr. Hunter :)
ReplyDeleteAs does Dogma and doctrine. Evolution is rife with both.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the 'new atheists' are so adamant in defending darwinism - they can't play GOD if society still believes in the true GOD. They want to implement things like eugenics, and population control and set themselves up as the ultimate judge on what is 'best' for society/humanity, however they are woefully underqualified for the job.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the majority believe in a god, they don't believe in the God. To borrow a quote from Highlander: "There can be only one".
DeleteLet's try a different tack. Let's see where Methodological Naturalism leads: The only thing we can know is natural, i.e. what we can observe with our five senses. So whatever we think we know is simply chemicals in our brain responding to stimuli. So we really have no control over what we think. There is no mind. Just a chunk of meat we call a brain. We also have no control over what stimuli we are subjected to. So despite what the savant Dawkins claims mechanical determinationism rules the day, that's just his meat responding to stimuli. Maybe evolutionary can explain why he would think that. Probably to prevent him from falling into despair, moving to Switzerland, and euthanizing himself. Why are Darwinist even here defending evolution? Because they have no choice as the meat rules. You may say in a huff "I have free will" and not come back, but that's just the meat talking. I have no choice but to oppose it as the meat rules. Now at some point someone's meat will decide that all of us poor deluded religious folks are holding back evolution, as our simian meat is defective. So we'll have to be exterminated, sterilized, our children taken away, or institutionalized. Maybe some combination of those solutions. Don't say it won't happen, as it already has several times. Hitler was not a good Catholic schoolboy. Now I've heard too many times that Religion and Darwinian evolution can coexist. That's absurd. If one is correct the other must be wrong. Besides, ideas like virus' refuse to stay in a box. They bleed across disciplines. So now we need a basis for morality. But Darwinism is not equipped to provide one, it excludes any objective morality. Nature is not intrinsically good. Mans law won't work because it is totally an artificial construct and subject to the whims of whoever is in power. There is a reason the savant Dawkins titled his book "The Selfish Gene", because man is inherently selfish, Darwinian models of man particularly so. If naturalism is true then my imperative is to kill you, take your goods, kill your offspring, and rape your wife so that my genes are the ones passed on. Now you may exclaim "that's not science" but as we know the viral ideas cross disciplines. That's why Darwinism leads to atheism, or religious worldviews hardly different form atheism. Besides, we see it in nature. The question is why we don't see it more. Scientist may think they can keep things compartmentalized, but they are deluding themselves, life doesn't work that way. I can say the Taliban is evil because I have a grounded concept of evil. The naturalist doesn't. If a naturalist claims to believe in a transcendent morality, or a transcendent anything, he's just being inconsistent. Positing some sort of Deist god doesn't help, that's a kid with an ant farm. No transcendent morality and you get what we saw in the last century. Think about it. Of course this may all be moot. A Creationist has pretty well proven free decay theory. So the earths magnetic field will weaken to the critical point and the solar wind will blast away our atmosphere. Our simian meat will be dead. Nature won't care, it never does. Welcome to Oceania.
ReplyDeleteSo much to unpack
DeleteLet's try a different tack. Let's see where Methodological Naturalism leads: The only thing we can know is natural, i.e. what we can observe with our five senses.
Wrong, it leads to the ability of certain kind of knowledge to be testable by limiting it to what can be tested. Nature. Unless you have a method to test things outside of nature?
Science does not preclude the acquisition of knowledge thru other means.What do you propose?
So whatever we think we know is simply chemicals in our brain responding to stimuli. So we really have no control over what we think
DeleteSorry does not follow, we can choose which stimuli to respond to, external or internal. Psychoactive drugs can demonstrate that experimentally. Why are you a dualist? Believe in the immaterial mind? How does the immaterial interact with the material?
There is no mind. Just a chunk of meat we call a brain.
But the configuration of that meat is what is important, after all a Porsche 911 is just plastic and metal .
We also have no control over what stimuli we are subjected to.
Sure we do, listen to music, close your eyes, eat a piece of pie.
Why are Darwinist even here defending evolution? Because they have no choice as the meat rules. You may say in a huff "I have free will" and not come back, but that's just the meat talking.
DeleteHoping for some interesting stimuli probably, or at least that is what the configuration of my brain tells me. But make your point why that is not true with some actual evidence. Why does brain damage affect the personality, the memory, the "I", why does physical damage affect the immaterial?
Now at some point someone's meat will decide that all of us poor deluded religious folks are holding back evolution, as our simian meat is defective. So we'll have to be exterminated, sterilized, our children taken away, or institutionalized. Maybe some combination of those solutions. Don't say it won't happen, as it already has several times.
The Crusades come to mind, darn that time travelllin Darwin. Might check if some of the folk who advocated sterilization were not god fearing,
I have no choice but to oppose it as the meat rules. Now at some point someone's meat will decide that all of us poor deluded religious folks are holding back evolution
Poor religious folk, any diminishment of their hegemony is persecution.
Hitler was not a good Catholic schoolboy
DeleteNo,he wasn't. But Germany was a Christian nation,
Now I've heard too many times that Religion and Darwinian evolution can coexist. That's absurd
And yet millions of Catholics disagree.
If one is correct the other must be wrong.
Since all religions do not believe the same things that seems obviously false.
Besides, ideas like virus' refuse to stay in a box. They bleed across disciplines
True, so?
So now we need a basis for morality. But Darwinism is not equipped to provide one, it excludes any objective morality.
It does not confirm or deny and objective morality since neither are living organisms which reproduce with variation and are subject to evolutionary mechanisms
First let me clarify the previous ,it does not confirm or deny that objective morality exists since objective morality is not a living organism which reproduces with variation,subject to evolutionary mechanisms. It does not measure morality.Back to the coal mine...
DeleteIf naturalism is true then my imperative is to kill you, take your goods, kill your offspring, and rape your wife so that my genes are the ones passed on
All I can say it is a good thing that some people have religion because the only thing apparently that keeps them from running amuck is the fear of God.
Humans require other humans to survive generally, you have less chance of being eaten by a bear etc. And generally participation in a group requires some conformance to norms of behavior, depending on your place in the hierarchy. And generally the killing raping other in group members is frowned on.
It is bad for the general morale.So if your selfish gene whispers in your ear kill/ rape the chances are it doesn't get to round two as often as the guy who follows the rules and confines his kill/raping to those outside the group.
So what have we learned? If genes actually make us have specific behaviors, then the gene for in group good behavior,and out group bad behavior will be selected for.
And a little known fact, those same genes make people write down those norms in the form of " Commandments" , viewed as objective within the group, but not applicable to those outside the group in real estate matters.
Do you watch "Games of Thrones"? Groups within groups within groups and Dragons.It is all there.
"Zombieland" also demonstrates that groups have better survival and greater chance for reproduction when in a world filled with blood thirsty naturalists. Plus Bill Murray
On a scale of one to five how helpful has this been?
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DeleteAssumes all religions are true. You'd certainly have to prove that.
DeleteSo you concede some religions are false,prove your's is not one of them.
I'm sure false religion can get along with it just fine.
The Catholic religion traces its roots to Christ, upon this rock,are you saying Christianity is a false religion?
And the truth is evolution and religion are totally incompatible.
No true Scotsman .
Besides again, the issue is not numbers. The Issue is truth. And the truth is evolution and religion are totally incompatible. Now mind you I talking about theistic religion. Darwinian religion is of course compatible with itself.
DrHunter agrees there,though he requires religion to be such a broad category that anything you do could be one.
. If we are more then that shut up and plant the turnips.
DeleteWhat does that mean?
Religious hegemony? Where have you been, under a rock? I haven't seen any "religious hegemony", And I've been around a while. That's as ahistorical as it is naïve.
That is interesting to me since it is so obviously wrong, just curious how many states require someone to be an atheist to hold office? None, How many require you to be a theist? 8 . Hegemony. Christians head every branch of federal government. Every state government. Hegemony
Sorry, I'd just returned from a pain procedure and was not all there apparently.
DeleteWrong, it leads to the ability of certain kind of knowledge to be testable by limiting it to what can be tested. Nature. Unless you have a method to test things outside of nature?
Science does not preclude the acquisition of knowledge thru other means. What do you propose?
Then tell scientist to stay within their limits and quit trying to tell us evolution is true. Examine what you can know now and quit making unfounded claims about the past. You want to examine if evolution is true, fine. But don't enforce it with dogma and having a conniption fit because a long scientific paper drew the conclusion that things look designed. Stop teaching our children that evolution is a fact and using false proofs. Allow real examination of the claims. You don't even have to mention God, just evaluate the claims fairly. Stop telling them in evolutionary biology classes that Darwin proves there is no God. Stop denying that this is where Darwin leads. Read Lyell's letters and Darwin's and you know it was a religious enterprise, not a purely scientific one. So disclose this. Stop running to the press and making sensational claims. Demand that science journalist actually know some science. Use the money to do real science and stop using public funds to prop up a theory that doesn't seem to fit the facts. Stop pulling bait and switch tactics, like trying to sever biogenesis from evolution. They are inextricably linked. Nothing to select from and evolution is a moot point. Denounce in the strongest terms fools like the ones in the video. That would be a start.
Sorry does not follow, we can choose which stimuli to respond to, external or internal. Psychoactive drugs can demonstrate that experimentally. Why are you a dualist? Believe in the immaterial mind? How does the immaterial interact with the material?
It does follow if your biology is all there is. Chemicals in the brain respond to stimuli, the sum of that stimuli that results in your apparent choice is an illusion. Stimuli flood your senses that you did not choose. Cause and effect. Evolutionist when they're honest admit this. You may think you chose something, but you have no basis to believe this. So it's inconsistent. That's why evolutionist borrow from a grounded worldview. If as you claim psychoactive drugs, which I'm not even sure you could prove such a thing as all you've done is alter the brain chemistry, demonstrate choice independent from chemistry, all you've done is confirm a grounded worldview.. Lighting up regions of the brain doesn't really make the case. those often light up in response to other stimuli, or no stimuli. The results are inconclusive. If true you've merely proven that a brain is more than chemistry, which you shouldn't expect. It doesn't require dualism. I expect the brain to be more than chemistry. But the system is integrated. It's called the soul, and the only one who could separate the soul from the body is God. But you don't have to believe that, it's theology. But a mind is more than an organ.
But the configuration of that meat is what is important, after all a Porsche 911 is just plastic and metal.
Still cause and effect.
Sure we do, listen to music, close your eyes, eat a piece of pie.
That's just an illusion, your chemicals drive you in a evolutionary paradigm. To suggest otherwise is naive.
Hoping for some interesting stimuli probably, or at least that is what the configuration of my brain tells me. But make your point why that is not true with some actual evidence. Why does brain damage affect the personality, the memory, the "I", why does physical damage affect the immaterial?
DeleteWho said it did, the body is a material housing for the soul. We are more than a body. I know that the soul is transcendent. The body will be replaced with a better one. You don't have to accept that, it's theology. I do know it's true. It's been revealed.
The Crusades come to mind, darn that time traveling Darwin. Might check if some of the folk who advocated sterilization were not god fearing,
That only means man is what is describe him as, a wretch. He can corrupt anything. Besides, you have a pretty naive view of the Crusades. You would have to examine it in it's context and not make anachronistic inferences about it. Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist, so of course we celebrate her.
Poor religious folk, any diminishment of their hegemony is persecution.
I don't know where you've lived, but I haven't seen any hegemony, and I've been around a while.
No, he wasn't. But Germany was a Christian nation
??? How can you say that. Was it a theocracy?? God certainly separated the wheat from the chaff there. Those who opposed the Nazis died. The chaff went along with it, and sometimes collaborated. Just because I call myself a Buick doesn't make me a car.
And yet millions of Catholics disagree.
So what? doesn't make them right. And it is certainly not dogma. That only proves they are as inconsistent as a Darwinist who thinks his religion provides him free will..
Since all religions do not believe the same things that seems obviously false.
That would assume they're true religions, but that can't be true. They make different claims, and most are exclusive. Darwinism is obviously false and it's a religion. It left science behind years ago.
True, so?
So what you posit on the basis of inadequate, missing and contrary evidence does in reality have consequences. Bart Ehrman posits missing documents all the time. He claim to be "skeptical" and "scientific".
It does not confirm or deny and objective morality since neither are living organisms which reproduce with variation and are subject to evolutionary mechanisms.
That's a textbook definition. It is not reality. So you might tell it's adherents to quit claiming there isn't any, and there's no God. I don't hear an uproar when they do, just adulation from "evolutionary scientist." Mention ID and you'll get an uproar. You might also tell evolutions acolytes to shut up about things they don't know and quit making outrageous and false claims. Such as the silly idea there is an "objective nested hierarchy". It assumes what it seeks to prove.
All I can say it is a good thing that some people have religion because the only thing apparently that keeps them from running amuck is the fear of God.
First I'm dealing with where an argument leads. But I know how depraved man is, both in what I observe in myself, and what I see in others. Anyone who has read the combox's on youtube would know this. :) Second I believe that God has to actively restrain man all the time. That's in the category of common grace.
Let me leave you with this. At some point, providing we don't commit cultural suicide which it increasingly looks like we will, people are going to rebel against the Darwinist creation myth. The Ptolemaic adherents held on too long. They tried to keep power through the state, which at that time was the church. So has Darwinism by trying to control science through the state, which in this case is secular. What I suggest is that another avenue of enquiry be allowed a voice. That scientist be afforded real academic freedom to voice their opinions unpopular of not. Don't require them to bow down before your Idol. Let them be peer reviewed. If the science is bad, let it be criticized. If not let it be praised. If we don't do this the cycle will repeat and inquiry will shift to the east. As will economic power. It is interesting to note that the fastest growing church is in China. No doubt someday they'll be sending missionaries to second tier America. God honors those who honor Him
DeleteWhat I suggest is that another avenue of enquiry be allowed a voice. That scientist be afforded real academic freedom to voice their opinions unpopular of not. Don't require them to bow down before your Idol.
DeleteA bad workman always blames his tools. The problem is Creationism is not the null. You still have to show what was created,when it was, and why it was and how it was. Those are the question design needs to tackle. But I do agree with you, the repressive nature of religion kept society more orderly.
No doubt someday they'll be sending missionaries to second tier America
As long as we are ahead of the Brits ;)
God honors those who honor Him.
"Chariots Of Fire"
Humans require other humans to survive generally, you have less chance of being eaten by a bear etc. And generally participation in a group requires some conformance to norms of behavior, depending on your place in the hierarchy. And generally the killing raping other in group members is frowned on.
DeleteIt is bad for the general morale. So if your selfish gene whispers in your ear kill/ rape the chances are it doesn't get to round two as often as the guy who follows the rules and confines his kill/raping to those outside the group.
That usually applies only within the group. To paraphrase Burke Commenting on the French Revolution: "Nature is a patriot. It teaches us to love our nation, our customs, our tribe, and our family." Burke was a religious man with good reason.
In a world with thermonuclear weapons it's a frightening thought. That's not to say that false religion won't do the trick. Natural man will use any excuse for evil. The apostle Paul talked about this in the letter to the Romans. :)
btw,
DeleteI'd give it a three. It got my meat working. It also gave me hope you might actually be sincere. But I don't find the arguments that compelling. They're also laden with what I perceive as false assumptions and a denial of reality in some cases. For more on that see above. As Spock told Savik: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, it is not its end". :)
That is interesting to me since it is so obviously wrong, just curious how many states require someone to be an atheist to hold office? None, How many require you to be a theist? 8 . Hegemony. Christians head every branch of federal government. Every state government. Hegemony.
DeleteThat again assumes that the politicians are what they claim. I don't see much evidence of it by the way they act. It looks to me like snookering the rubes.
bad workman always blames his tools. The problem is Creationism is not the null. You still have to show what was created, When it was, and why it was and how it was. Those are the question design needs to tackle. But I do agree with you, the repressive nature of religion kept society more orderly.
You assume that they'd have to explain who the designer was. They keep the claims non-specific for a reason. If savants like Dawkins find claiming Aliens did it let them. I don't think that'd be very intellectually fulfilling apart from my religious objections. I'm not a fan of infinite regress. That's just another Darwinian missing life form. Besides, every day Meyers paper seems to be more and more correct. As I stated the Long paper which supposedly "refuted it" didn't even address it. It was a cobbled together monster sold to a gullible judge. Micromutaional evolution is no longer a climb up mount improbable, it's a climb up mount ridiculous. The original axe paper and the subsequent one, along with recent discoveries in molecular biology have killed that off. so now we need huge amounts of genetic changes, epigenetic changes, detailed instructions, novel genes, multiple origins of the same gene across isolated lines, and on and on. That doesn't even count the number of non-existent life forms, explanation of the Cambrian, the failure of the artifact hypothesis, the failure of co-option. Despite Darwinist claims Meyers work has not been refuted in any sense. Well, other than to say "not so, evolution is true". We see some variability within species, but it has limits. How long are we going to waste money on this hopeless endeavor? No doubt the Ptolemaics could have made the same argument you just made. History is never going to be explained in any detail, especially ancient history. The clues are too few.
As to the latter religion does order a society, and you've got nothing to replace it with. I can work under any society, I'm just a messenger. I'm means. A free society makes it easier, but it is not necessary. The Apostles proved that if anyone did. That doesn't however mean I won't criticize it and spread the Gospel. And if they want to lock me up, torture me, kill me so be it. It's been done before. It's being done now to my brothers and sisters across the world. I'm held by the power of God. No human can overcome that.
"Chariots Of Fire"
Good example ;)
So you concede some religions are false,prove your's is not one of them.
DeleteI can't prove anything to you in an empirical sense. It's a revealed Religion. If God exists, as I say he does, then he'd have to reach across the gap. The Gospel is the means He uses. I'm one of the means He uses to spread it. The saving is up to God, not me. I'm glad it's that way. I'd hate to think that somebody ended up separated from God because I wasn't glib enough, smart enough or whatever. That would be a horrible prospect.
Velikovskys said:
DeleteIf we are more then that shut up and plant the turnips.
It is a literary allusion. It means if we are something more than a mechanistically determined biological robot then quit trying to prove a materialist creation myth and do something constructive.
ekektos:. Besides, you have a pretty naive view of the Crusades.
DeleteTrue Believers and grifters, wrapped in a religious cloak. And real estate
You would have to examine it in it's context and not make anachronistic inferences about it.
Really? It seems like a pretty good example of a religiously sponsored eugenics program.
Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist, so of course we celebrate her.
Not for being a racist eugenicist. Just as we don't celebrate George Armstrong Custer because he was a genocidal maniac. Each was a product of their time.
I'm glad it's that way. I'd hate to think that somebody ended up separated from God because I wasn't glib enough, smart enough or whatever. That would be a horrible prospect.
Words don't convince people usually, it is the reflection of your God by the example you set.
trying to prove a materialist creation myth and do something constructive.
Finding out the how, why, when, is always constructive and interesting. You should give it a try.
eklektos: Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist, so of course we celebrate her.
DeleteNo, she wasn't. While certainly a product of her times, Sanger didn't approve of bigotry, and thought that birth control should be available to all.
What was evolutionary Psychology and despair leading to suicide? Guess I was wrong. evolution doesn't appear to provide such protections: http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk/2012/10/11/atheism-has-a-suicide-problem/
ReplyDeleteAh, good ol' Appeal to Consequences.
ReplyDeleteIn a materialist world that's all there is, cause and effect. Unless you want to be inconsistent. But that's just the meat talking. :)
DeleteSo, in your non-materialist world, there are effects without causes and causes without effects?
DeleteDid Newton think so? Kepler? Faraday? Your lack of understand is scary. I think the world works according to well ordered principles which are discoverable because they were made that way. But brain and mind are two different things. But not in the materialist reductionist worldview. Did the twentieth century just not happen for you? What do you do, specialist I'm guessing. Plus, why are you even here? Because you have doubts. It's okay, I have them too. You seem to be about as reflective as a stealth bomber.
DeleteNow don't think I wish to be mean, I don't. I think you carry the imago dei, so I know why I'm here. To try to get you to reflect and come to God. Not just any ole god of your own imagination, but the One who revealed himself. I like to discuss science, logic, et al. But that's not my ultimate purpose. I believe in life, but I know I'm a wretch. Atheism isn't liberating, it the saddest thing I can imagine. I mean you can indulge your desires, but that only gets you so far. Solomon found that out. So think about it, reflect a bit. Join the wretches, the waters fine. :)
Sobering, and important.
ReplyDeleteI am talking here for the rights of yellow kaki (persimmon) fruits. We are traditional fruits and men are not allowed to eat us. We will submit the petition to UN and will struggle for our rights! Venceremos! Long Life for Yellow Kakis! :)
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ReplyDeleteI often wonder why evolutionist bother to go to creationist websites to argue evolution. If we are actually just ignorant or stupid why do they bother? If they believe what they claim, all causes are material, then what difference does it make what we believe. Our worldview is simply our primitive unadapted simian brains believing in fairy tales. We'll die out and the ubermensch will prevail. Well, till something replaces him. But do we actually see an upward progression? Not really. Life seems to be getting less diverse.
ReplyDeleteNow some poor deluded fools like those in the extreme environmental movement don't seem to understand that if all we are is evolved apes then whatever we do is by definition natural. So if we wipe out species, encroach upon habitat so what? It's all good. They have no basis for such beliefs, they are suspended in mid air flailing about while at the same time criticizing their own beliefs. Their simian meat has gone haywire. This is of course one of those troublesome grounding problems. I notice it's someone else who always has to do the dying. Why doesn't Sir Richard practice what he preaches and off himself. So why are they here proselytizing? I can tell you why. Their worldview is inconsistent with reality, or what we can observe of it. This is why they anthropomorphize nature. They can't help themselves. Nature didn't decide to do anything, nor did a gene. We're back to a bumper sticker, "Stuff Happens". Because it doesn't jibe with what they observe they have doubts.
Being a theist I'm familiar with doubts, I have them all the time. When I do I try to examine their source and I've pretty much concluded what that nasty mean old Christian God said they were, rebellion. But that requires self-reflection, which most militant atheist like Dennett to seem to have the capacity for, or at least haven't demonstrated it up till now. For them to abandon such foolishness will certainly take a miracle. So why don't they "Shut up and plant the turnips" to paraphrase Candide. They wish to proselytize that's why. In reality they can't shut up their doubts until they get rid of those pesky people who just won't stop reminding them that their just a creature and not God. They want everyone on their side. This is pretty well demonstrated by the LGBT movement, they may have added more letters since then as this kind of thing rarely stops till it reaches maximum absurdity. They want to silence all opposition. Now why any Darwinian would side with this kind of nonsense is beyond me. They can't pass on their genes except artificially, as they still need two genders to provide the material. So they should in Darwinian terms be eliminated.
Now I'm know why I'm here. Science is a tool, but not an end. I'm here to proselytize. That's my mission. My Creator gave it to me. I can't help myself if Darwinians are correct, the meat rules. But of course they're wrong. I have a freewill, at least within the parameters of my finitude and creatureliness. Of course being one of those mean theist I understand that I have been warped by sin. We all have, as even a cursory examination of history will show you. I also understand that you have to be tolerant of those who don't hold my view. If I kill them then I've exceeded my mandate and have really condemned them to their eternal reward, which without God isn't pretty. There's an answer of course to the problem. God redeems because he made us with purpose and one of those purposes was to demonstrate the riches of his mercies. I also know had he not intervened I would have just gone on being permanently broken. So this is a clash of worldviews, despite what the materialist say. That's not to say that I'm not interested in the science, I am. I just know you can't make peace with materialist assumptions. The materialist says their worldview is correct and will do anything to protect it.
Worldviews are by their nature religious, which is why Darwinism looks like a religion. It is. Someone is right and someone is wrong. The materialist will just claim that my primitive ape brain just can't accept the glories of a totally reductionist world.
ReplyDeleteSo we are in a battle for the soul of man, which exists whether the totally inconsistent materialist realizes it or not. They assume logic, but why bother. It reminds me of the lecturing of Montag, "See here, philosophy. This one says this, that one says that, it's all rubbish. Burn them all". The reason I oppose Darwinism is that it's a blatant lie. It's nothing more than a lump of clay arguing with a potter that he's god. It is so simplistically stupid that I'm amazed that anyone can believe it. They accuse theists of being boring because "we have the answers while they are on a voyage of discovery. What a load of hogwash. They claim to have the answer, all causes are material. They are just pulling a bait and switch tactic. I can believe in God and want to know how things work. That's actually a scientific view, how things work.
At this point the evolutionist may claim, we're not saying that all causes are material, we're just saying that science should only look at evidence that can be tested. Then why is there evolutionary theory, and why is that theory so weak that they have to drum out anyone who questions their orthodoxy? Because materialism is entailed in the presupposition. We can only study the past scientifically. Ok, then you should expect to have a lot of unanswered questions, it's the past. You cannot observe the past and it can only be interpreted within a worldview. But Darwinism doesn't stop there, it knows no limits. It is a creation story, just a materialist one. Now one of the claims is "The present is the key to the past." This was expounded by Lyell who gave us uniformitarianism . Of course he was not a geologist, and all of his supposed proof s are questionable, fraudulent, or wrong. His posthumous letters showed that he wasn't interested in science but providing an alternate history. He was a serpent, so naturally we celebrate him. Along comes Darwin, who was greatly influenced by serpenthead. Darwin was more sincere, second generation apostates usually are. So he gave us evolutionary theory. The past explains life. No it doesn't. We can't observe it being created, we can only interpret it within a framework. Like history, art, literature, or anything else we can't actually observe being created. It can give us clues how we got to where we are and how it was made, but it's going to have a lot of unanswered questions. Now of course all of Darwin's proofs were questionable or wrong. I won't say he was fraudulent because I think he was sincere; just sincerely wrong. He never lost his religious faith, I don't think he ever really had any. He gave a set of things that he thought would disprove his theory. The things that disprove his theory are in fact observed, so of course we celebrate him. But unanswered questions keep popping up.
I digress. Why am I here? I'm here to spread the gospel. To tell wretched sinners like myself there is a hope. Repent and believe and you will be saved. I can do no other. It's my purpose, and the purpose of every believer. Now if someone wants to try to prove Darwinism they should be able to. But don't hog all the resources, use your pathetic theory to make our kids dumber, and try to silence all opposing viewpoints. We are in a war of worldviews. The culture of death vs the culture of life. I will not relent. I will not compromise. "For I am Ahab! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering Dawinist; to the last I grapple with thee; from the graves heart I stab at thee; for God's sake I spit my last breath at thee." (modification mine)
My simian meat made me say that. Yep, you're going to have to kill me.
uhm, did you ever notice it's always someone else that get's to give up their car, children, or die? Besides what makes you think they want to stop with the religious? It's the culture of death.
ReplyDeleteIan,
ReplyDeleteStop and think. You read an argument like Bart Ehrman reads scripture. You atomistically cut snippits out and argue against a snippit. That is by it's nature reductionist. Derrida was a git. Then you get to the bottom of a two page argument and say "So what you are saying is that overpopulation is no more a threat to us than global warming and that, in fact, they are both atheist conspiracies to take over the world and exterminate religion. Is that it?" Really? A long argument which contains allegory, metaphors, inferences, observations, I like to think a little humor (sorry but meat rules is funny to me), et al. and that's what you get??? This is why I get so frustrated with this kind of thinking it makes me want to slap you. Sorry, that was my simian aggression talking. Chimps are like that, well, except Bonobo's who have a very unique way of conflict resolution. It's okay, laugh, it's funny. Think of it as a DNA strand packed with information. Now that strand is only part of the explanation. The information only gets you so far. Now you need a whole host of other information to use the protein. This is complexly interwoven into a body plan and everything needed to make it work. You're not trying to build a liver, your trying to build an organism. A liver without everything else is useless, and gross. My mother could never get me to eat liver. This is why two people won a Nobel prize. They mutated fruit flies at various stages of development. Too early and you get dead flies. A little later you get Frankenflies. Too late all you've done is change the color of the seat cushions. Now the odds of developing a single useful protein fold are prohibitively high. The Axe study has proven this. Real science, not the Darwinian fairy tale. He did of course make the cursory bow to the Darwin Idol, if you don't you won't get published. But without everything needed to use it all you've got is liver, and liver sucks. And this is for a single usable protein. Co-option is a dead end. Behe demonstrated this in "Darwin's Black box" You need not only the 34 proteins involved in assembling a flaggellar motor, you need the instructions to assemble it. Now evolutionist pointed out that 10 of the protein structures are occur in other bacterium. They then patted themselves on the back and claimed Behe was refuted. What? Where do you get the other 24, and the set of instructions to use them? You can't co-opt what doesn't exist. This is why statistics are important. Now for "The Climb Up Mount Stupidity" to work, (joke, laugh), you have to do this repeatedly across multiple unrelated, by even Darwinian standards, species and phyla, often not only doing it once but more than once independently. This is why we hear them anthropomorphize nature. "Nature decided to develop an eye." Nature didn't decide anything. Nature took a powder and went to the Bahamas. It's flippin mindless! And they think God is improbable?? So you have step out of the trees and look at the forest. Life is not reductionist. A two page argument cannot be sliced and diced to disparate parts, it is a whole, like a dog. One other thing while we are at it, life is not a syllogism. You don't see much syllogism outside math. Which Zachriel bless his wretched little heart, doesn't seem to get. Life is a long chain of inferences which like facts must be put into a context. I honestly think that aside from some advantages the internet is making everyone dumber. Stupidity seems to ooze across servers. Memes like "simian brains" reproduce like bacteria. Primitive life, no, primitive stupidity. But I digress. Join the wretches, you don't have to leave your mind behind and the water's fine. :)
"A paragraph is a collection of related sentences dealing with a single topic. Learning to write good paragraphs will help you as a writer stay on track during your drafting and revision stages. Good paragraphing also greatly assists your readers in following a piece of writing."
Deletehttps://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/01/
eklektos: One other thing while we are at it, life is not a syllogism.
DeleteOf course not. Syllogisms are abstractions. However, deduction is essential in hypothetico-deduction.
If, a nd whe n I take a wr iting course frum yuh I'll wurry aboudit . Pedant
DeleteOf course not. Syllogisms are abstractions. However, deduction is essential in hypothetico-deduction.
DeleteWay to miss the point. You really are a tar baby.
eklektos: Way to miss the point.
DeleteJust reading what you wrote. You said "life is not a syllogism", which is trivially true. You also said "You don't see much syllogism outside math," which is false. Science often uses conditional logic; e.g. if p then q, not q, therefore not p.
Science often uses conditional logic; e.g. if p then q, not q, therefore not p.
DeleteIt is useful in very simple problems. But it is not useful in arguments which involve long chains of inference.
So I should have said "you don't see syllogism much outside of science. or in long arguments."
I stand corrected.
DrHunter,
ReplyDeleteA question, when was it better? If evolution replaced something when were the good old times? It seems to me that each group felt it was a special group,every other was expendable. Certainly no time in the history of the US was it true, Indians, Blacks,women,poor , all were deemed to have less or no rights.
Let me put in a comment here. That's not Christianity, that's an abuse of it. Christianity spends a lot of ink making the point that we all are one race. Race is a totally artificial construct. There's one race, Human. Everything else is variations on a theme.Ever wonder why rich white doctors place their abortion clinics for the most part in poor "black" neighborhoods? Wonder why the people in this video want to decrease the population of Africa? The Psalms cover our duties to the poor in detail. But it doesn't tell us to whine to the state to do it so we can watch football. It's our obligation as Christians. I believe in equal pay for equal work. But most women nowadays, thanks to the social engineers, don't work because they want to, it's because they have to. Praise God I was able to make enough to allow my wife to stay home and raise our children, which is what she desired to do. Most folks don't have that luxury. I don't kid myself this was ever a largely majority Christian nation. There's always a lot of tares among the wheat. But the founders were by and large Christian, as a cursory review of those at the constitutional convention shows. The principles were by and large Christian. The failure to live up to those ideals is another matter. Now we seem to be abandoning them altogether. I don't think that's a good thing. They were certainly worth striving for, however imperfectly.
DeleteV: You forgot one. What we must understand is that at the time it didn't seem like such a bad idea. In fact it seemed like a great idea. Murdering, terrorizing and enslaving people was a good thing because those people were marginalized. So who is marginalized today, such that we don't even realize they are on the list because, after all, it actually is a good thing that we murder a million+ of them per year, just in our country?
DeleteWhy exactly would you expect the problem of unwanted pregnancies to be solved over night? Oh that's right, there is no actual problem. Since God is supposedly in control, pregnancy works the way it’s supposed to work. We're simply ignoring the obvious, right?
DeleteEvil is the absence of knowledge. God wouldn't need to perpetually perform miracles to solve the problem of abortion. He could simply give us the knowledge of how to make better contraceptives, or allow pregnancies to be transferred to the great number of women who actually want children, but cannot conceive or go to term. Problems are inevitable. But, problems are solvable.
But this simply isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, is it? If God wanted that to happen, it would. But it hasn’t so, apparently, he doesn’t.
IOW, you’re trying frame the issue as revelation against human knowledge. But What you keep forgetting is that you have yet to explain is how revelation itself doesn’t represent yet another human idea, which is the product of trial and error. For example, how would it be possible to infallibly interpret an infallible source, should one even exist?
CH,
DeleteV: You forgot one. What we must understand is that at the time it didn't seem like such a bad idea.
To some it was a necessary evil, to some it was God's Will. That Americans were blessed and destined by the Creator. But I see no connection to your premise.
" “Darwin’s theory undermined the foundations of that entire Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe.” Therefore abortion
If that is true we should see a difference before and after those foundations were undermined, greater evil now than in a time when genocide and slavery were accommodated by the Western way of thinking which Darwin undermined.
In fact it seemed like a great idea. Murdering, terrorizing and enslaving people was a good thing because those people were marginalized.
It built the country, but your premise was not while the genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of people is is now considered wrong ,we allow a limited right to women to determine the course of their pregnancy, which is the same thing. I understand that argument.
So who is marginalized today, such that we don't even realize they are on the list because,
It was not on the list because I was listing those who were excluded from those " inalienable rights" before the ink was dry. But if you consider causing a pregnant women to die an abortion,then it was accepted.
after all, it actually is a good thing that we murder a million+ of them per year, just in our country?
No it isn't a good thing.But that is not your premise, you have yet to prove the link, if it happened before Darwin and it happened after, then Darwin didn't cause it.
It was not on the list because I was listing those who were excluded from those " inalienable rights" before the ink was dry.
DeleteThat's fine. I'm just bringing your list up to date and, in the process, reminding us that it's always different this time. We look back and rightly view yesterday's wrongs as wrong. But while casting our judgments, we never allow for our own guilt of the very same crime. Because this time we are righteous, don't you know. What we forget is that is exactly what our forefathers said at the time.
DrHunter:We look back and rightly view yesterday's wrongs as wrong. But while casting our judgments, we never allow for our own guilt of the very same crime.
DeleteYou refute your whole premise. Nothing has changed. Human life has always been expendable.
Because this time we are righteous, don't you know. What we forget is that is exactly what our forefathers said at the time.
Yes that is better argument, too bad you completely undercut it with your Tory history.
I remember an episode of the TV show "House" dealing with a woman who was religious, but not necessarily Christian, who had been raped. She was found to be pregnant and was having problems with theodicy issues. Now she had decided to keep the child. As my Aussie friends would put it , "good on her". She had the correct intuition. He tries to convince her to terminate (nice word for murder, empties it of moral content) the pregnancy. Now House makes a series of breathtakingly ignorant and stupid arguments. The one that struck me most went like this: "we are just products of biology, but because we have a brain we can sometimes aspire to something more than pure evil". Evil? From his worldview that's just a concept hanging in midair attached to nothing but an opinion. Materialism knows nothing of evil, just actions and reactions. At the end he says " She's decided to terminate the pregnancy. In the end I wonder whether I haven't just made a girl cry?" What a simplistic and stupid question. The more reflective question should be "In the end I wonder if I haven't just murdered someone else's creation?" Media is a powerful and often abused tool.
ReplyDeleteeklektos: Materialism knows nothing of evil, just actions and reactions.
DeleteThe term "materialism" is woefully antiquated. That you continue to use it in this way suggests you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand and do not understand concepts such as emergence.
Yeah, that's the point of what I wrote. Thanks for the atomization. Call it whatever you want. It's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Also, don't try to read my mind. The only intentionality you can get is from what I wrote in the post. The postmodernist were at correct in this. Which demonstrates they weren't wrong about everything.
Deleteeklektos: Yeah, that's the point of what I wrote.
DeleteWhat you wrote is a misscharacterization of my position and the positions of others. So, that's "your point?"
eklektos: Call it whatever you want.
I'm not hung up on definitions. "that you continue to use ["materialism"] in this way" is referring to the context, your conclusions and the complete absence of concepts such as emergence.
eklektos: It's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Yes. My position minus emergence would fit that description. And that's what you're presenting. That's the misscharacterization I'm referring to.
Not actually engaging the issues is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
eklektos: Also, don't try to read my mind. The only intentionality you can get is from what I wrote in the post.
So, you don't think that knowledge in specific spheres comes from an authoritative source?
What you wrote is a misscharacterization of my position and the positions of others. So, that's "your point?"
DeleteWell, there are many in the original post. If you want to deny materialism and argue emergence don't make statements like "dated" because emergence goes back to Aristotle. Further if you wish to claim that nature could only have made man through evolution then abandon evolution. Nature could not have made man through evolution, so you your argument seems to imply nature couldn't make man.. Because the theory doesn't match observation. Stop creating origin myths. The science and probabilities remain untouched. The problem is they keep claiming evolution is "proven" contra the evidence.
Yes. My position minus emergence would fit that description. And that's what you're presenting. That's the misscharacterization I'm referring to.
Emergence in evolution still assumes micro mutational changes which are acted on by natural selection giving rise to complex systems. It is simply trying to describe the how complex systems arise in evolution by appealing to laws without demonstrating causes. It still relies on the old Darwinian explanations. It doesn't abandon the materialist assumptions of the origin of life. It has been criticized as having no explanatory power at all. Rules or laws are without causal efficacy. Lower level properties do not determine higher level properties. The meaning of a text is not determined by the chemical properties of the ink. You can't use them to predict history. That's what evolution attempts to describe is history. It's nothing but rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. All to rescue a failed scientific theory.
So, you don't think that knowledge in specific spheres comes from an authoritative source
That doesn't even address what I said. I said :"I don't think you should mind read. You can't know my intentions beyond dealing with the text."
So you couldn't say that "you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand."
That's you reading your own biases into the argument. Particularly as the original post wasn't even directed at you personally. To explain life I would never hand knowledge in specific spheres total authority. That flattens everything out. It's reductionist and is not observed in life. Biology is useful and can explain certain things about life. And when it tries to describe how a particular biological system operates well and good. When it starts describing history it's stepped out of bounds. Particularly when the explanation provided is so full of holes it can only be artificially kept afloat through the naked exercise of power. Like the Ptolemaics.
eklektos: If you want to deny materialism and argue emergence don't make statements like "dated" because emergence goes back to Aristotle.
DeleteApparently, we’re still talking past each other. A dichotomy of “materialism” vs. the supernatural grossly misrepresents my position and the positions of others, despite thinking that biological darwinism is the best explanation for the biological complexity we observe. One need not be a Materialist in the sense you’re implying, yet *not* subscribe to the supernatural or any kind of woo woo. This is a false dichotomy.
For example, you go on to write…
eklektos: Further if you wish to claim that nature could only have made man through evolution then abandon evolution. Nature could not have made man through evolution, so you your argument seems to imply nature couldn't make man..
I’m at a loss to explain this conclusion other than you think evolution *is* Materialism as, apparently, abandoning one necessitates abandoning the other. This is what I meant when I said “you continue to use ["materialism"] in this way”.
eklektos: Because the theory doesn't match observation. Stop creating origin myths. The science and probabilities remain untouched. The problem is they keep claiming evolution is "proven" contra the evidence.
It’s not clear that you actually understand the theory, have a coherent conception of how human knowledge grows, or understand the context of facts in science. This has been addressed repeatedly here over and over again, yet these same issues arise. The term “willful ignorance” comes to mind.
eklektos: Emergence in evolution still assumes micro mutational changes which are acted on by natural selection giving rise to complex systems. It is simply trying to describe the how complex systems arise in evolution by appealing to laws without demonstrating causes. It still relies on the old Darwinian explanations. It doesn't abandon the materialist assumptions of the origin of life.
You’ve got it backwards. Emergence isn’t some kind of bolt on to evolution. Evolution *is* emergence. If you’re this confused about the theory itself, it’s unclear how future discussion of it will be fruitful.
eklektos: I said :"I don't think you should mind read. You can't know my intentions beyond dealing with the text." So you couldn't say that "you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand."
So, now you’re referencing incomplete quotes as well? What I wrote was…
That you continue to use [materialism] in this way suggests you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand and do not understand concepts such as emergence.
If you are actually interested in engaging the issue at hand, then how do you explain the disconnect between the theory itself and the version you keep presenting?
Scott: So, you don't think that knowledge in specific spheres comes from an authoritative source
eklektos: To explain life I would never hand knowledge in specific spheres total authority.
I’m not suggesting you hand off anything to anyone. I’m asking if you think that knowledge in specific spheres *comes* from authoritative sources. Specifically, the knowledge of how to build biological features.
Scott,
DeleteEvolution cannot be explained by emergence in the sense you use it. It is true that laws and rules do not order higher level systems without causality. That should be an uncontroversial statement. And human knowledge does not operate on physics. Knowledge may grow but that's entirely different from biology. Nor can it explain information in biology or its origin. Emergence again has no causal efficacy. It is a philosophy, not science. It is as impervious to scientific inquiry as Theology. The "unpredictable rearrangement of the already existing entities" is just another argument that blind chance can give rise to complex systems and has no explanatory power. It really is "stuff happens" because there is no ordering principle beyond "things emerge by ?". So it presupposes Darwinist mechanisms, unless you want to abandon them and suggest another causal agency. So if Darwinist mechanisms will not explain the rise of information in the cell it's causal agency is gone. That's question begging. If one can't explain how it works then how could you deduce it works? The cells information is its identity. Also there is no spontaneous regulation of the cell, it functions according to physical properties directed by the information contained in it. Computer models cannot be used to simulate emergence because it has to have information coded into the program, which requires a designer, so it is not a "naturally arising complexity caused by unexpected events." It violates the rules of the game. For all these reasons I see no reason to accept this as an explanation for biologic systems.
CH: As we have discussed many times, evolution is the most influential scientific theory in areas outside of science, for evolution carries a message that goes far beyond biology. And what is that message? As Peter Singer succinctly put it, “Darwin’s theory undermined the foundations of that entire Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe.”
ReplyDeleteNote how what is Signer referring to by “that entire Western way of thinking” isn’t clear. We have yet another quote of out context. What idea does exactly Cornelius object to being undermined?
All we are doing is catching up with Darwin. He showed us in the 19th century that we are simply animals. Humans had imagined we were a separate part of Creation, that there was some magical line between Us and Them. Darwin's theory undermined the foundations of that entire Western way of thinking about the place of our species in the universe. Yet for a century, we've carried on like nothing happened, abusing animals in the most terrible way. The idea that humans are special and can tyrannise animals as much as we like, is about to fall.
Discarding the idea of “the divine right of kings” undermined the foundations of the entire monarchial way of thinking about government. That we should elect leaders based in their ideas, rather than their providence, is one of the most influential ideas in government today.
Yet, rejecting monarchies doesn’t determine what ideas we *should* adopt in their place. What we have adopted is a tradition of criticism. See Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies.
In the same sense, discarding the idea of a magical line between Us and Them doesn’t dictate that human beings are not significant for other reasons. For example, we are significant because we are knowledge creators. We can create new explanations. So will artificial general intelligence (AGI), when we eventually develop it.
So, these attacks are *not* due to the idea that humans are also natural animals. That would be like saying we should let people die of cancer because people contract it naturally. It’s fallacious.
Furthermore, despite being someone who has adopted biological darwinism, I think these attacks are fallacious because they assume we will not create more knowledge in time. For example, we’ve already survived at least one predicted doomsday due to population growth. How? Because the rate in which we created the knowledge to produce food more efficiently exceeded that of the rate of population growth. And ideas that we haven’t even conceived of yet will solve this same problem in the future.
Nor is sustainability they imply actually sustainable as our planet is and has been inhospitable to life and will continue to become even more so in the future. For example, we’ve due for another catastrophic extinction event. Unless we learn how to change the earth’s orbit, it will become even more inhospitable in the distant future when our sun becomes a red giant. Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda, which could send us spinning out into deep space, etc.
So, what we’re left with is an argument from undesired consequences that take the form of bad ideas. And these ideas can be criticized precisely because we’ve rejected the idea that there is some magical line between humans and animals defined by some *authorize source*.
I take it you think these people are as loony as I do. They certainly aren't "Darwinist" as I understand the term. Besides, what they argue is demonstrably false. The problems in Africa are political. In Rwanda the government through sheer stupidity has turned the country from a net exporter to an importer of food. The problem with pressuring the wildlife there has to do poor farming techniques, constant war, and a taste for "jungle" meat. These are solvable. As a Christian I have a belief that we should be good stewards to His creation. As to this:
DeleteNor is sustainability they imply actually sustainable as our planet is and has been inhospitable to life and will continue to become even more so in the future. For example, we’ve due for another catastrophic extinction event. Unless we learn how to change the earth’s orbit, it will become even more inhospitable in the distant future when our sun becomes a red giant. Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda, which could send us spinning out into deep space, etc.
If free decay theory is correct, which at this point it appears to be, our magnetic field will weaken to the critical point and the solar wind will blast away our atmosphere long before the sun becomes a red giant.
As to this:
In the same sense, discarding the idea of a magical line between Us and Them doesn’t dictate that human beings are not significant for other reasons. For example, we are significant because we are knowledge creators. We can create new explanations. So will artificial general intelligence (AGI), when we eventually develop it.
I don't assume a magic line. I just say we are not the same kinds of things. That doesn't mean we don't have similarities. Anyone who has had a dog knows they can reason, have emotions, ect. In a lot of ways dogs are far smarter than apes. I'm not one of those parochial types who feels I have to defend the "Dignity of Man" in that sense. It's fascinating what animals can do. There is however a marked difference between a man and an ape. It's not an issue of similarities but insurmountable differences. As to AI I think it's a pipe dream, at least in the sense of making a "mind". It makes great science fiction premise, but what's really interesting is the ideas of how humans engage it. Like any good literature.
The Matrix was interesting to me not because of the action, but because it asked an old philosophical question: "how do you know you're not a brain in a vat?".
Scott,
DeleteSorry about the cut and paste problems. :)
eklektos: I don't assume a magic line. I just say we are not the same kinds of things.
DeleteThat's a distinction without a difference.
Nor is it clear why would Cornelius just so happen to leave that key context out of his quote.
eklektos: As to AI I think it's a pipe dream, at least in the sense of making a "mind".
What is it about a “mind” that makes AGI a pipe dream? What’s the difference in the distinction?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNo it's not. Is a boat a car? They share similarities. So what. The supernatural is not magic. That's another one of those tired memes. Try and think about how magic and supernatural could be different and you'll find they aren't the same thing. As to Ai it's an opinion. If someone wants to try, let them. Because even if they fail it could have very useful applications. Contrary to evolutionist claims the theory is not needed to do science. It can even impede it.
Deleteeklektos: The supernatural is not magic. That's another one of those tired memes.
DeleteSo, it's possible to explain the supernatural, in principle, but not magic? Or vice versa? Otherwise, you've merely changed the cast of characters in arbitrary ways for inexplicable reasons. This easy variability is the distinction without a difference.
eklektos: As to Ai it's an opinion.
I'm not following you. Are you suggesting your opinion on AI is arbitrary? Therefore, it's not based on anything, such as a distinction?
That's a distinction without a difference
DeleteIs it? So the supernatural is the same as magic? Why? Explain that. Show that beyond a few similarities, reference to outside contingencies, that they operate the same way. This is just a loaded pejorative. This silly meme needs to die. The line between a boat and a car is not magic. Did the boat evolve into the car? That's a Darwinian explanation if you stop and think about it.
What is it about a “mind” that makes AGI a pipe dream? What’s the difference in the distinction?
Till we could accurately describe a mind we couldn't know. The attempt is not a useless endeavor, useful things come out of it. Besides, it's an opinion. It's also intelligently directed, which of course would not be evolution. The chemical and physical properties of the computer are not what gave rise to it. Laws and rules are not causal agencies in information systems. Emergent theories applied to biology assume intentionality. Nature has no intention, there is no goal. There are reasons emergence as a philosophical construct were abandon long ago by history. You might look at Searles black box and the arguments about it to engage the question of mind. But that's philosophy, not science.
eklektos: So the supernatural is the same as magic? Why?
DeleteCould you explain the different, perhaps with examples?
Ignore. This is the last message you will receive.
DeleteIf you claim the two things are the same you'd have to demonstrate that, I wouldn't have to prove they weren't. Plus it's another category error.
scott,
DeleteI have some suggestions for you in your quest to understand the differences between magic and a supernatural agency. How does magic operate and what are it's principles? Does a supernatural agency have to operate in that way? Are say the sacrifices of the Hebrews of the same type as those involved in magic? Are there goals the same? Is a prayer the same as an incantation, summoning, ect.? Does it influence the agency in the same way? Does a prayer bind the agency to a course of action?
eklektos: If you claim the two things are the same you'd have to demonstrate that, I wouldn't have to prove they weren't.
DeleteWe didn't make any such claim. We asked a question. However, you did claim there was a distinction to be made saying "The supernatural is not magic." That you can't defend your position is revealing.
Did you just ignore what I wrote above? Of course you did. It was put forth that there was a "magic" line between animals and humans. Why? If their origins are different they are different. Plus supernatural just means outside of nature. Magic entails a lot of other things. In a Christian context magic is forbidden. If you wish to assert they are the same thing prove it.
DeleteScott: So, it's possible to explain the supernatural, in principle, but not magic? Or vice versa? Otherwise, you've merely changed the cast of characters in arbitrary ways for inexplicable reasons. This easy variability is the distinction without a difference.
Deleteeklektos: So the supernatural is the same as magic? Why? Explain that. Show that beyond a few similarities, reference to outside contingencies, that they operate the same way. This is just a loaded pejorative.
Again, are you saying that the way one “operates” can explained, in principle, but the other cannot? Or is the way both “operate” inexplicable? Are the cast of characters fixed for some explicable reason, or can they be exchanged in an infinite number of ways for inexplicable reasons?
Scott: What is it about a “mind” that makes AGI a pipe dream? What’s the difference in the distinction?
eklektos: Till we could accurately describe a mind we couldn't know.
So, you have no reason for your option that it’s a pipe dream because you think we couldn’t know?
What makes biological people unique from the rest of the animal world is that they can create explanations. Specifically, people is the term I’m using for the ability to create explanatory knowledge. Artificial general intelligence, if were actually general, would create explanations, rater than just picking from one of many that humans (other people) had already created. That’s the key difference. This doesn’t prevent other animals from eventually exhibiting this ability. Nor does it prevent animals like dolphins from harboring this ability in some way that we could not detect. But, as far as we know at the moment, the ability to create *explanatory* theories about how to solve problems is unique to human beings. This is in contrast to creating non-explanatory knowledge, which represents useful rules of thumb. Both people and animals can create non-explanatory knowledge. But only people can create explanatory knowledge.
eklektos: The attempt is not a useless endeavor, useful things come out of it. Besides, it's an opinion. It's also intelligently directed, which of course would not be evolution. The chemical and physical properties of the computer are not what gave rise to it. Laws and rules are not causal agencies in information systems.
Which is materialism, as you keep using it. Nothing new here.
eklektos: Emergent theories applied to biology assume intentionality. Nature has no intention, there is no goal.
Nature creates non-explanatory knowledge. It doesn’t have problems in the same sense we
eklektos: There are reasons emergence as a philosophical construct were abandon long ago by history.
That’s a loaded statement in that it assumes emergence has been abandoned in the first place. It hasn’t. Again, this response suggests you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand and do not understand concepts such as emergence.
Again, it seems like future discussion on this issue will not be fruitful.
eklektos:You might look at Searles black box and the arguments about it to engage the question of mind. But that's philosophy, not science.
DeleteI'm familiar with Searles black box argument. He falls in the impossible camp in this article on AGI.
eklektos: Plus supernatural just means outside of nature.
DeleteHow do you delineate between nature and supernature,
eklektos: Magic entails a lot of other things.
What other things?
Scott, till you demonstrate a mechanism by which "fortuitous events" could occur it is just question begging. micromutational evolution is a series of fortuitous events, but for macroevolution it's outside statistical probability.
Deleteeklektos: micromutational evolution is a series of fortuitous events, but for macroevolution it's outside statistical probability.
DeleteBald claim. There is ample evidence that small genetic changes can accumulate and lead to macroevolutionary change.
Zachriel,
DeleteBald claim. There is ample evidence that small genetic changes can accumulate and lead to macroevolutionary change.
Recent microbiological evidence disproves your assertion. While mutation can change expressions of feature at the microevolutionary level, the CIS gene level, changes to higher level noncoding sections of the DNA such as Hox genes inevitably has deleterious effects on the organism. They either kill it at the developmental stage or leave it crippled and an unviable candidate for selection. The fruit flies with legs where their antenna should be is an example. Almost 100 years of mutagenic studies have shown this to be the case. Higher level DRGNs involved in even earlier body plan development similarly have catastrophic effects on the organism.
See: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160611000911
If you wish to get to the meat of it you could purchase the textbook, but be prepared to pay a high price for it. It is also a very technical book so settle down for a slog..
eklektos: Recent microbiological evidence disproves your assertion.
DeleteApparently you are using the term "macroevolution" to refer only to changes in overall body plan. Most scientists would call the transformation of reptilian jaw bones into auditory ossicles to be macroevolutionary change, but whatever.
Changes to body plan in highly derived organisms, such as humans are very unlikely to be beneficial. However, if you are a tube worm sliming your way across a sea bed, small lateral protuberances might be significant advantage.
"a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
eklektos: See: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160611000911
The article is all about evolution.
This I am going to address directly, and I'm going to refer back to something you said earlier.
ReplyDeleteSo, what we’re left with is an argument from undesired consequences that take the form of bad ideas. And these ideas can be criticized precisely because we’ve rejected the idea that there is some magical line between humans and animals defined by some *authorize source*.
This is false because of two reasons. 1. The law of unintended consequences. It's true that there is nothing inherently in Darwinism that leads to this kind of behavior or makes that behavior necessary. It is sufficient, but not necessary. You can't make someone culpable for everything that people do with what they say. But I interpret it in a context that show me they are . It's called fallen man. 2. If they had merely stuck to the science and not made metaphysical claims they'd have been alright. They didn't. They started to make claims which they were not trained to make on the meaning of life, the nature of existence, ect. They celebrated people who made such claims like Dawkins, Dennett, etc. They funded fascist like Eugene Clark to protect their theory from scrutiny. They told what are patently lies to children and imported their idea's into areas such as teaching, sociology, history, literature, philosophy, theology, etc. I've taught, and I can tell you with some certainty teaching is an art and not a science. They pontificated on Theology. They were trained in none of these areas. They were specialists. Now that's not to say a specialist can't acquire knowledge in these areas, they can. I have. But I approached them for what they were. And none of this even begins to address whether they were even right in their science. They weren't as we learn each day. Newton was one of the smartest men alive, but when he ventured into theology he went off the rails
Cont.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEmergence is a very old philosophical construct. It was abandon because it entailed logical problems. Thanks for bringing it's co-option to explain evolutionary biology to my attention. Laws do not give rise to higher ordered systems without causal efficiency. The example of the ink on the page shows the problem. As I said the chemical properties of the ink did not give rise to the meaning of the text. Chemistry does not give rise to an IC, much less the computer or instructions to run it. Matter, motion, and energy will build a planet. However a planet is a lower order devoid of meaning. It has no information contained in it beyond the brute fact of its existence.
ReplyDeleteBiologic systems are higher order because they contain information. Higher orders require causal agents. They start with biogenesis. So at the start the Darwinist claims come crashing to the ground. But let's assume a lifeform. Darwinism claims the causal agency is random mutations creating structures which can be naturally selected. This is disproved by a host of observations. The statistical probability of a single useful and stable protein fold being generated is 1x10/37. This is given the evolutionary population and time factors. More complex fold raise the odds even higher. Now for the Darwinist model to work you have to do this a huge amount of times across divergent species, sometimes even doing it more than once in isolated populations. Some are entirely unique. Darwinist claim these can then be co-opted to build various structures in different species, assuming common descent. But nothing to co-opt and you've got a problem. There isn't enough time and population to accomplish this. It couldn't be done in the life span of 1,000 universe of ours supposed age with a population of 6 times that assumed.
However you still have to have the information to assemble the proteins into something useable. A protein by itself build nothing. This is statistically impossible for a single celled organism much less for a multicelled organism. For a multicelled organism you need epigenetic information which is contained in the cell structure, not in the DNA. DNA won't build a liver. Without this information you cannot arrange the cells into structures. No the odds go up even higher. So the Darwinian model is an insufficient causal agency to accomplish this. Emergence doesn't help because you have lost the causal agency. Chemistry won't accomplish it. So it adds nothing to the discussion. It's taking an old worn saddle and placing it on an old horse and claiming it is something new. The materialist assumptions were always there, just hidden behind "emergent evolutionary biology".
So why do Darwinist keep asserting it as a fact? And doing so contrary to the evidence? There may many motivations. There are careers at stake for heavens sake. Some need it to defend their atheistic religion. They even have atheistic "churches" now. But one is virtually certain. They don't want power ripped from their grubby little hands. That's not only dishonest but it denies reality. They don't want explanatory power for the origins of man to return to where it belonged in the first place, with other areas of knowledge. Simplicity is gone. Now you have to navigate a far messier world. The operation of a cell is light years away from the difficulty of constructing a coherent worldview.
ID does not deal with the nature of the causal agency per se. It merely makes an inference to design. It also falsifies Darwinism which is a perfectly acceptable scientific goal. That's why papers are peer reviewed. ID does not have to provide an alternate causal agency. So scientist need to quit claiming it does.
They are welcome to posit any designer they wish. But they cannot do so within the realm of science. Their creator is dead. Science killed him.
eklektos: ID does not have to provide an alternate causal agency.
DeleteIf not, then it is scientifically sterile.
Not if the limits are such that science has no possibility of going further. If it accurately describes reality it's not sterile. In fact it's useful because it saves wasting a lot of time and resources. Your assuming that science can explain everything. Mans scientific knowledge is not necessarily required to explain everything. And your comment doesn't even touch the arguments against Darwinism, and to date you haven't. So all you've done is make an assertion, ipsis dixit is not an argument.
Deleteeklektos: If it accurately describes reality it's not sterile.
DeleteSterile means it has no offspring. A good theory will generate many hypotheses. A great theory will lead to entire new fields of research.
eklektos: Your assuming that science can explain everything.
No, it can't. But if you put forth ID as a *scientific* claim, then the claim has to entail testable hypotheses. The moment you introduce an artisan, then we look for ways to detect the artisan, the artisan's characteristics, and the art, the time, method, materials, and so on. Otherwise, the claim is scientifically sterile.
eklektos: And your comment doesn't even touch the arguments against Darwinism, and to date you haven't.
That has nothing to do with support for ID. In any case, we'd be happy to discuss the evidence for evolution. Let's start with the nested hierarchy.
I'm going to discuss science and falsifiability. Now we know that scientific theories must be falsifiable to be true. But is it? Arguments have been made that show that Darwinism has been falsified by observation and statistical analysis. So why do Darwinist just say "no it's not!"? That's just naked assertion. They usually will ignore any actual science in the argument and try to argue that you must provide an alternative. So what we see in reality is to them it's not falsifiable. Their behavior often demonstrates this. They assume that Darwinism can explain origins because they have no other plausible alternative that is acceptable. Now failing to provide an alternative doesn't make Darwinism true. If it is false it is false. They would then have to find another explanation. Perhaps science cannot answer the question of the origin of life. The existence of life doesn't require an explanation within science. It's not necessary aspect of ontology that science can explain it. Science, like anything else has limits. This is why Darwinism could be more properly called a religion, with it's creation myths, dogma, doctrine, ect. Because as far as I can tell it's not a rational activity. If something is designed it would be designed whether they accept it or not. It would be designed whether it can be explained or not. That would just be what it was, a designed entity.
ReplyDeleteeklektos: Now we know that scientific theories must be falsifiable to be true.
DeleteSpecific hypotheses must be falsifiable. A theory is an explanatory framework consisting of various interrelated claims. You might falsify one claim of the theory. The theory may then be modified. Whether you call it the same theory or a different theory depends only on convenience. Darwin's theory has been modified continually since its inception, but most of the basic structure remains intact.
eklektos: So why do Darwinist just say "no it's not!"?
Actually, it's the "Darwinists" who do the research, find the anomalies, propose new scientific explanations that lead to the further development of biological theory.
Really? That's a claim, but from what I've seen it never addresses the fundamental question. Is mutation a plausible explanation for the rise of selectable traits in complex organisms? And if it is not then the rest is just window dressing until another mechanism can be found.
DeleteZachriel, besides what are you arguing? That the explanatory framework cannot be falsified? A lot of theories have been falsified.
DeleteAs to "the Darwinist do the research", I'm not sure if that's even true within evolutionary biology, much less other specialties. A lot of people do the research. If you want to argue the majority of the life scientist are Darwinist you'd be on surer ground.
eklektos: That the explanatory framework cannot be falsified?
DeleteYes, sometimes an entire edifice will collapse. We're just pointing out that theories are rarely displaced by naïve notions of falsification.
eklektos: the majority of the life scientist are Darwinist you'd be on surer ground.
Um, we weren't talking about physics.
eklektos: Is mutation a plausible explanation for the rise of selectable traits in complex organisms?
DeleteSure. Mutation is one known mechanism of evolutionary novelty.
eklektos: And if it is not then the rest is just window dressing until another mechanism can be found.
There's all sorts of mechanisms, gene flow between populations, recombination, transposition, chromosomal fusion or duplication, etc.
eklektos: micromutational evolution is a series of fortuitous events, but for macroevolution it's outside statistical probability.
DeleteAgain, calling evolution a “series of fortuitous events” suggests you're no longer actually interested in engaging the issues at hand.
See Zachriel's post above.
Fortuitous events are entailed in emergence theory.
Deletezachriel,
DeleteThere's all sorts of mechanisms, gene flow between populations, recombination, transposition, chromosomal fusion or duplication, etc.
That's just false, it is the mechanism by which you get your list.
Um, we weren't talking about physics.
Which is why I specified life scientists. But life sciences does include people whose specialties are actually outside biology. Those specialists are not all life scientists.
eklektos: it is the mechanism by which you get your list.
DeleteHave no idea what you are trying to say. We know mutations can lead to selectable advantage.
eklektos: Fortuitous events are entailed in emergence theory
DeleteWe can show that random mutations can be "fortuitous events".
Zachriel,
DeleteI think I said that. I was referring to scott's comment. I think you lost the thread.
eklektos: I think you lost the thread
DeleteWouldn't be the first time.
We used "fortuitous events" in scare-quotes. Completely random events can sometimes be fortuitous.
Let's approach Darwinism from the standpoint of religion. If Darwinism is a religion, as it certainly seems to be, how would it be organized? Well, like any other religion you have your high priests, your lower priests, acolytes, evangelist, and lower order acolytes. Now the high priests are off in the ivory towers writing scripture. They certainly won't be here. The lower order priests are out passing down the latest dogma to the faithful. The higher order acolytes then pass this dogma on to the masses. The evangelist are out spreading the news of the glories of Darwinism to the masses. The lower order acolytes are here, arguing procedure. The lower order acolytes are often not very sophisticated. Some may have a minor technical specialty. They frequently know little or no science, cannot read a long technical paper or study, and really have but a superficial view of science. Most often they come from a specialty outside of biology. They make metaphysical or religious claims. They get their information from the higher order acolytes in the form of dogma. "This is what thou wilt believe". Occasionally they will get flummoxed and run to a higher order acolyte if they can find one, and they will be reassured. Or they will grab something from the evangelist off the shelf. They want a worldview, not to actually discuss science. And Darwinism provides them a ready made one. It's nice, neat, and simplistic.
ReplyDeleteNow one of the favorite tricks of the lower order acolytes is loaded pejoratives. Another is ipsis dixit or pedantry. They like naked assertion or procedural issues. They want to take something from here and put it there. Things like "we see a DNA section move in this animal". Or "this process works over here". That's well and good, but you'd have to actually show that it relates to the discussion at hand. Particularly you'd have to show that it could build a new animal, nobody is arguing that there isn't adaptability on a minor scale. Otherwise it's just ad hoc. For anyone who has looked at the actual science, taken the time to read the sources in all those footnotes, this can be very frustrating. Particularly if one is actually interested in science. They never seem to want to discuss the meat of the argument.
Because of the actually scientific arguments put forth we see that Darwinism is an insufficient explanation for what we observe. You start messing with the epigenetic information in the example I've given previously and you get embryos that are not viable or animals that would be weeded out by natural selection. That's only one example of epigenetic information. These questions never get answered, or even touched. Just like the Long "study" never addressed the Axe study. It's just lower order dogma. So is Darwinism a religion? That's what it looks like to me. It is not falsifiable by science, contrary to evidence, and requires leaps of faith. That could certainly be described as religion.
eklektos: Because of the actually scientific arguments put forth we see that Darwinism is an insufficient explanation for what we observe.
DeleteOf course it's insufficient. However, even though the theory is constantly being revised, it is the unifying theory of the biological sciences.
eklektos: ID does not have to provide an alternate causal agency.
They falsely claim they can scientifically demonstrate "causal agency".
Zachriel,
DeleteOf course it's insufficient. However, even though the theory is constantly being revised, it is the unifying theory of the biological sciences
It's the unifying creation story, whether it's correct is another matter. Could just be another solid state theory.
They falsely claim they can scientifically demonstrate "causal agency".
So does Darwinism. Random mutations giving rise to selectable traits.
eklektos: It's the unifying creation story, whether it's correct is another matter.
DeleteThe Theory of Evolution is strongly supported.
eklektos: Random mutations giving rise to selectable traits.
Mutations are just one source of novelty, nor it is what is usually meant by agency.
zachriel,
DeleteThe Theory of Evolution is strongly supported.
That's just an assertion. Whether that is correct is another matter.
Mutations are just one source of novelty, nor it is what is usually meant by agency.
Causal agency. And it's textbook definition.
eklektos: ID does not have to provide an alternate causal agency.
DeleteOf course it does if it purports to be what it claims to be. Intelligent Design means that there is an intelligent agent.
Zachriel,
DeleteAs I said, if you do not wish to accept ID, don't. But if the science falsifies Darwinism then it falsifies Darwinism whatever it's source.
eklektos: But if the science falsifies Darwinism then it falsifies Darwinism whatever it's source.
DeleteSure, but it wouldn't be ID then, which is a claim about intelligent agency.
Zachriel,
DeleteLet me get this straight. If Darwinism is proved to be incorrect then it must be anything but ID? So the only answer that would be acceptable would be is a natural explanation? What if there is no natural explanation?
eklektos: If Darwinism is proved to be incorrect then it must be anything but ID?
DeleteNo. There are an infinitude of possible explanations, including Intelligent Design, which is a claim about intelligent agency.
So to return to your statement, "if science falsifies Darwinism then if falsifies Darwinism whatever its source" is tautological, so sure; but merely falsifying Darwinism doesn't make something ID, which is a claim about intelligent agency.
eklektos: What if there is no natural explanation?
It could mean intelligent agency, or it could simply mean there is no explanation.
Zachriel,
DeleteSo lets explore whether ID has more explanatory power. Scientist posit a whole lot of explanations for which there is little proof. Multiverses, quantum mechanics generating a singularity, dark matter, etc. But they don't get pounded for doing so. Why, because their flights of fancy are natural, i.e. material. If there is no explanation then you'd have to search outside of science. But claiming that "all those religious people are deluded, macro-evolution is a fact", as Dawkins does, is just ad hominem. I find this troubling.
Zachriel,
DeleteSo lets explore whether ID has more explanatory power. Scientist posit a whole lot of explanations for which there is little proof. Multiverses, quantum mechanics generating a singularity, dark matter, etc. But they don't get pounded for doing so. Why, because their flights of fancy are natural, i.e. material. If there is no explanation then you'd have to search outside of science. But claiming that "all those religious people are deluded, macro-evolution is a fact", as Dawkins does, is just ad hominem. I find this troubling.
eklektos: So lets explore whether ID has more explanatory power.
DeleteOkay.
eklektos: Multiverses, quantum mechanics generating a singularity, dark matter, etc.
You can *posit* most anything. A good hypothesis should entail specific empirical predictions.
You forgot the explanatory power thing.
Here's a blunt question for the Darwinist. It is ontologically necessary that science be able to explain existence?
ReplyDeleteeklektos: It is ontologically necessary that science be able to explain existence?
ReplyDeleteScience is like a beacon in a dark universe full of mystery. It allows us to reach limited understanding about some things while remaining ignorant about the vastness around us.
Zachriel,
DeleteI'll take that as a no.
That's right. Science is very limited. What is striking about science is that we can reach tentative conclusions while most of the universe remains cloaked in mystery.
DeleteCornelius,
ReplyDeleteDid we hit the comment limit on the other thread or something?
There is a load more at the bottom of page which populates the unseen comments,it gets a bit clunky
Delete