In a recent UD post, Gil has been more specific than he often is, so I thought I would respond here:
The resolution of the debate about the creative powers of natural selection is dead simple and utterly trivial to figure out.
- Natural selection throws stuff out. Throwing stuff out has no creative power.
- Existing biological information, mixed and matched, can be filtered by natural selection, as in sexual reproduction, but nothing inherently new is created.
- Random errors can produce survivability quotients, but only in circumstances in which overall functional degradation supports survival in a pathological environment (e.g., bacterial antibiotic resistance), and only given massive probabilistic resources and a few trivial mutational events capable of producing the survival advantage.
- Random errors are inherently entropic, and the more complex a functionally-integrated system becomes, the more destructive random errors become. Anyone with any experience in even the most elementary engineering enterprise knows this.
To his first, I cite this:
To the second, I say: why not? Every mutation is something new, and that can be “mixed and matched” as well as “existing information”.
To the third, I say: this is simply not the case.
To the fourth, I say: this assertion assumes that the biological landscape is as rugged as the engineering landscape. It clearly is not. Engineered artefacts are usually highly vulnerable to slightly alterations – A stuck screw can render an entire motorcycle worthless, as Robert Pirsig noted. This is not the case with biological organisms, which countless slight variants are perfectly viable, as is evidenced by the fact that although all children (including even monozygotic twins) are unique, most are viable.
Therefore this:
Yet, we are expected by Darwinists to believe that throwing a sufficient number of monkey wrenches into the complex machinery of living systems, over a long enough period of time, can turn a microbe into Mozart.
Is not unreasonable at all 🙂
William J Murray,
So you won’t take our position seriously, but we have to accept yours as having substance.
Can our side have access to Sunday School?
When Sunday School is funded by public taxes, sure.
Since my side is the only side that claims to be making arguments by something other than chance, it’s the only side worth taking seriously.
That’s the fallback position of their side, effectively “shunning”.
Liz-
If we follow the RULE of your position, NOTHING requires a demonstration nor evidence.
William J Murray,
So you’re side wants a payoff before we can show your students both sides of the argument?
Here you go. Response typed out by chance:
Response typed out on purpose:
Well .. everything else.
But you won’t really start typing everything by chance, will you? None of you will. You’ll type it out by purpose, ordered by will, and expect me to find it to be something significantly different from a chance collection of letters, and expect me to respond to it in a purposeful way – not in some random, chance way, like:
Well, I don’t see anyone actually using chance to respond. Instead, all I see are people employing purpose and expecting it in return as if it is fundamentally different from chance.
But, as I said, no demonstration can coerce anyone into not denying the obvious – not even a demonstration they themselves cannot help but validate every time they act, speak, and write something intended to fulfill a purpose.
William J. Murray
Yeah, nothing says freedom like the banning of ideas from the classroom.
Freedom doesn’t mean the right to introduce any manner of anti-science woo into science classes just because it fits your particular religious view.
Scientific ideas are taught only after they demonstrate their mettle and earn a place in the classroom. You’re completely free to demonstrate that your ideas belong too, but no IDer has done so yet.
Science isn’t a democracy, and it doesn’t run an affirmative action program for unsupported pseudosciences like ID.
William J Murray,
I typed this on purpose.
Can you now make an argument saying I typed it by chance?
William J Murray,
Let’s see if I can type something else on purpose.
You’re wrong.
Now do you believe you’re infallible, or is it possible you’re wrong?
An alternative model, which fits the data just as well, is that ID proponents have failed to notice that there is a problem with their argument.
Why would I make such an argument? I’m not arguing that purpose is generated by chance causes. I’m the one that believes purpose to be fundamentally different from chance and not extractable from chance causes, where, as I outlined in my thread:
Chance = non-teleological causes that happen to result in particular effects via regularities referred to as “lawful” and stochastic in nature.
Purpose = teleological causes that are intended to result in particular effects; the organization of causes towards a pre-defined future goal.
Is your “on purpose” effect ultimately generated by chance causes, or not? IF not, then what is purpose, and how does it operate?
Except that you’re still purposefully arranging letters as if chance arrangements just won’t get the job done.
That is, in the end, your problem. I can understand points of the kind Gil makes. I just think he is wrong. Simple as that. It is not code, and it is not machinery, and it is vastly more flexible and plastic (metaphorically!) than either. Using those terms analogously does not prove equivalence, let alone commonality of cause. Gil mischaracterises evolutionary theory, as you do over and over and over. And you mischaracterise the role of ‘chance’.
We – we human beings – are purposeful. Our communications are ‘non-chancy’, as far as we can make them. They were created with intent: the intent to convey a message from one brain to another. What that has to do with the inner workings of bacteria and trees and bats and giraffes … who bloody knows? It may all be ‘ultimately’ by (what you call) chance, and yet our actions be purposeful, with absolutely no contradiction. But what you call chance and what I call chance … chance does not mean just any old thing happening. History is channelled down courses, just as water under the ‘intent-free’ influence of gravity. ‘Chance’ (as the antithesis of ‘purpose’) builds stars, synthesises chemical elements, makes exothermic reactions happen with a little prod, pulls matter into balls and sends the energy of that collapse whizzing into space … what intent lies behind those propensities, who knows, but the phenomena themselves appear regulated only by non-intentional interaction.
Our viewpoint baffles you to the point of clear exasperation. So … what would you have us do? Abandon that which we understand with some clarity because some people don’t, can’t or won’t?
You are not amenable to explanation of where you or Gil may have misunderstood. Those misunderstandings stick out like a sore thumb in everything you people write on the science. But will you be corrected? Will you heck!
The idea that this is an accurate analogy for the mutational process … ! Throw a monkey wrench hard enough at a monkey and it will probably not work. Do you really think opposition to that notion, even as a metaphor, is an accurate summary of the ‘Darwinist’ paradigm?
It appears there are none here willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to chance causes being the ultimate source of whatever they write here.
Unless “purpose” is something other than a proximate label for “chance” (as I have defined above), you’ve said nothing significant here.
t’s a ludicrous position. Nothing “baffling” about it at all.
William J. Murray
Except that you’re still purposefully arranging letters as if chance arrangements just won’t get the job done.
So your argument is that since some processes are purposely driven, that means all processes must be.
Logical thinking just isn’t your thing, is it?
I hesitate to interrupt this discussion of free will, purpose, etc. yadda yadda yadda … but to go back to the Original Post (remember that?) …
I think that what Elizabeth was mindful of when showing the picture of Michelangelo’s David was this story, which is probably apocryphal:
Its your error in logic not mine, so how should I know?
For some reason you manage to more or less respond to what I type but you claim it’s chance, like your example that looks like this: “hdfj7&&sn %%”.
Anything I type that looks like what you typed in your example under “purpose”, was probably done with “purpose”
This means when you claim as “chance”, something you previously claimed as an example of “purpose”, your not being rational.
No. My view is that we must accept purpose as a fundamentally different kind of causation or else nothing is ultimately separable from chance causation, including the very arguments we make about purpose and chance.
Once chance (as defined above) subsumes purpose, one has lost their ability to make a meaningful argument.
Tell me what you think a “chance cause” is. I think you may have a straw man here.
And when you’ve done that, tell me what you think “will” means, as in “volition”.
Thanks.
Toronto,
The epistemology is sound if everything – even chance – is ultimately subsumed by purpose. It is not sound if everything – even purpose – is ultimately subsumed by chance, because then we can only make a true statement and consider it true by chance.
In an epistemology ultimately based on purpose at least knowledge can be purposefully found and purposefully realized as coherent; an epistemology based on chance can only be found, and realized by chance, rendering purposeful argumentation an inherently deceitful (even if it is self-decpetion) practice.
I have moved one post to Guano.
William, I don’t want to prevent you from expressing views that are intrinsically derogatory about the rest of us (e.g. that we lack free will), but I do ask that you stick to the game-rules of this site, and make the assumption, whether you happen to believe it to be true or not, that we are all posting in good faith.
Specifically, that each one of us is attempting to understand the position of others.
Also can I ask of everyone that they to their best to justify that assumption.
This means that one can hold everything as being ultimately subsumed by purposeful causes, or that there are both ultimately purposeful and chance causes, but not that only chance causes ultimately exist, because they have refuted the capacity to make purposeful arguments or purposefully gain knowledge.
That I consider Darwinists, atheists and materialists to be madmen and lunatics doesn’t mean that I think they are not responding in good faith.
Despite all the foregoing, I think WJM really could understand the concept of chance if he put his mind to it. But multiple forces conspire against him doing this:
1) His entire argument would collapse immediately;
2) He would owe apologies to all us materialist robots; and
3) If he succeeded, his entire religion would stand revealed as meaningless.
So I’m not holding my breath. Let the games resume.
William J Murray,
Once “religion” is accepted over “rationality”, any sort of argument is meaningless.
It’s your theistic outlook of the “non-theistic” aspects of our “human experience”, that is preventing you from making meaningful arguments.
As soon as you gain the courage to think for yourself, you’ll see how well our universe actually works.
Once anything is accepted over rationality, any sort of rational argument is unavailable. Unfortunately, the proper use of rationality requires free will and purpose; one cannot use reason “by chance” and achieve a meaningful outcome.
What religion would that be?
I guess it doesn’t, strictly speaking. But the subheadings in the rules say:
I will now add a further addendum to the effect that this also means not accusing people of lunacy.
I see that still no one has accepted my challenge to start typing their responses by chance.
Tsk.
To refresh my objection to WJM (from another thread):
Please note, I did not deny God or divine Providence. Instead, I highlighted the illogical idea that examining the purpose of natural events (ultimately intelligently designed, albeit through secondary causes, including random events) would yield productive results, using a non-controversial example.
WJM, you must believe that God has a purpose for the processes the lead to the formation of solar systems, as well as the stellar bodies themselves. But do you honestly believe Science can discover what those purposes might be, and if so, how?
Or do you admit that most (if not all) natural processes do not lend themselves to revealing God’s purpose, and if so, how can you fault Science for this simple fact?
I’m supposed to cross-refer back to your every utterance now? (I confess, either way, I don’t really know what your sentence is intended to convey)
Purposeful: having a purpose [aim, goal, intent]. By which I mean a personal purpose in doing things, not (necessarily) resulting from someone else’s purpose. We may or may not have resulted from processes that have an equivalent purpose [aim, goal, intent]. Call them what you like. You appear to be equivocating the intent behind postings and the assumed intent behind our existence.
Are you going to answer my question?
William J Murray,
Yours, …the religion you follow.
It would be irrational to expect someone to “tell” you what your religion is.
Are you saying you don’t know your own religion and yet you claim to actually be a theist?
When you ask one I don’t find nonsensical, yes.
I don’t follow any religion.
It seems that these Darwinists find the sculpting of David to be categorically the same as natural selection. Since we know David was sculpted by an intelligent agency, we can infer from this that Darwinists agree that living forms are sculpted out out potential via an intelligent agency that is purposefully trying to acquire that form, their equivocal protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Sounds like you have nothing left.
Given that donations to religious groups are tax deductible, it is already partially funded by taxes.
Yep. If there’s any purpose behind William’s posts, I can’t find one.
But then, for Darwinists, there is no difference between the production of David, or the production of a pile of rocks after an avalanche; they are equal outcomes of chance – everything is reducible to chance (as defined above), which is why Elizabeth posts a picture of something that is obviously intelligently designed as a compatible reference to a process assumed to not be intelligent – natural selection.
Yep, that’s it! Bang on the button. That is the salient point, no question. You have certainly convinced me. Chuck another one out, WJM, they’re snapping tonight!
Flint,
We should be thankful for the WJM’s of the world.
Imagine a judge being told that his verdict would be a result of “mere chance” and thus “meaningless” during a trial.
I’m guessing he would rule against the creationist side.
Thanks William.
Well, he’s still going on about “chance” which he defines as “non-teleological causes that happen to result in particular effects via regularities referred to as “lawful” and stochastic in nature.” Now, this definition either includes adaptive feedback processes or it does not. And if it does not, then does “purpose” include such processes? And if THAT does not, then what does? Clearly, the universe is full of such processes.
Is evolution lawful? Well, I don’t see it violating any laws. Is it stochastic? You betcha, it is fundamentally stochastic. Are stochastic processes regularities? If not, his definitiion is self-contradictory.
So now, what do you do if a feedback process meeting all the requirements of “chance” ends up producing something that generates purposes? Seems to me the process producing the purpose-generator had no such purpose, this was simply a possible result of feedback processes. So if YOU are the result of chance (and by his definition, you are), but you produce a purposeful post, where do we draw the distinction? If purposeless processes can produce purposeful by-products, what does WJM mean by “ultimate”?
Personally, I get the impression he hasn’t thought it through and perhaps can’t.
No, William. I posted a picture of David as a direct refutation of Gil’s assertion that throwing stuff out can’t be creative. It clearly can. Now, the issue becomes: can a non-intelligent agent throw stuff out creatively?
Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not the argument I was addressing. I was simply addressing Gil’s assertion that “throwing stuff out has no creative power”. It can.
If Gil had said “non-intelligent agents have no creative power” I would, obviously, not have posted a picture of David. But he didn’t say that.
So I did.
The statue of David came about by more than just throwing stuff out- that is IF what was done can even be considered “throwing stuff out”- and throwing stuff out does not account for the stuff in the first place.
So first you still need to make your case that any statue came about merely by throwing stuff out. As far as I can tell, only you and a handful of others think that it is. And taht means nothing to the rest of the world.
No. You are making the same logical error as Upright BiPed, or rather attributing that error to us:
You think we are saying:
No, we aren’t. We are saying:
And thus disproving Gil’s assertion that throwing stuff out has no creative power.