768 thoughts on “I lost my faith in ID”

  1. Alan Fox,

    So young women give birth?

    Jesus is not called Emmanuel

    I’m not seeing the connection.

    Can you make an claim that Isaiah is not describing the coming Messiah? If not lets call it a piece of evidence. The child is called God with us.

    Now look at Isaiah 9 6

    For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
    And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

  2. colewd: Can you make an claim that Isaiah is not describing the coming Messiah?

    Of course not. I don’t need to. Your claim apparently is that some ancient text provides verification for some less ancient text. I just don’t see it.

  3. Alan Fox,

    Of course not. I don’t need to. Your claim apparently is that some ancient text provides verification for some less ancient text. I just don’t see it.

    The claim is that when you put it all together you will see that the OT or the Tanakh is describing a coming Messiah of which Jesus as described in the Gospels fits.

    It is very unlikely that any human would want to fake this as the Messiah has to suffer greatly as prophesied in Psalms and Isaiah.

    Lets try Isaiah 61 1-3

    The Year of the Lord’s Favor
    61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
    2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,

    In the Gospel of Luke Jesus read this to his own Synagogue in Nazareth. After putting the scroll down he said “in your hearing this Scripture is fulfilled”. Jesus claims Isaiah is talking about him. Another piece of evidence.

  4. colewd: I offered an available dictionary definition which did not allow you to categorically claim that biblical documentation was not evidence.

    Dictionary definitions are never precise enough to bear the weight of philosophical analysis. If you quoted from a standard textbook in epistemology, philosophy of science, or probabilistic reasoning that would be a different issue.

  5. colewd: The claim is that when you put it all together you will see that the OT or the Tanakh is describing a coming Messiah of which Jesus as described in the Gospels fits.

    Well, that claim fails since I don’t see it.

  6. colewd: After putting the scroll down he said “in your hearing this Scripture is fulfilled”. Jesus claims Isaiah is talking about him.

    When was Luke written? How did he hear what Jesus remarked?

  8. Alan Fox,

    Well, that claim fails since I don’t see it.

    Yet 🙂

    Are you willing to follow along as a member of the Jury?

  9. colewd:
    Alan Fox,

    Yet 🙂

    Are you willing to follow along as a member of the Jury?

    I’m happy to look at evidence regarding historicity (if that’s a word) but it has to involve more than circularity and post hoc reasoning. Lay on, MacDuff!

  10. Alan Fox,

    And who wrote that gospel?

    The gospel of Luke was written by Luke. I can even quote wiki on this one

    The traditional view is that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by the physician Luke, a companion of Paul. Many scholars believe him to be a Gentile Christian, though some scholars think Luke was a Hellenic Jew.

  11. colewd: The traditional view is that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by the physician Luke, a companion of Paul.

    The traditional view? Do we know of Luke other than as a character in the New Testament? Circularity? I take on board KN’s point that we can’t claim people don’t exist just because there is no positive evidence. The converse is equally valid.

  12. Alan Fox,

    I’m happy to look at evidence regarding historicity (if that’s a word) but it has to involve more than circularity and post hoc reasoning. Lay on, MacDuff!

    What are your claims of this type of reasoning? If you ask me to make the case that it is impossible that this is all a fabricated myth, I cannot make that case. If you deny that document evidence is evidence then you will see the reasoning as circular.

    If the case is true beyond a reasonable doubt then the case is solid. The more evidence you collect the more solid the case becomes. Christianity adds credence to the Tanakh.

  13. colewd: What are your claims of this type of reasoning?

    Start with evidence. There is archaeological evidence for the city of Troy.

    If you ask me to make the case that it is impossible that this is all a fabricated myth, I cannot make that case.

    I know this and I can’t make the opposite case. I’m relaxed about that.

    If you deny that document evidence is evidence then you will see the reasoning as circular.

    I don’t deny that documents aren’t are* evidence. But supernatural claims need better support than just a text.

    If the case is true beyond a reasonable doubt then the case is solid. The more evidence you collect the more solid the case becomes. Christianity adds credence to the Tanakh.

    Well, others may have more invested in arguing about this than I do. A text, on its own, is evidence that someone or other wrote something. Consilience is what you need to get my attention.

    ETA oops*

  14. Kantian Naturalist,

    Hi KN: I do appreciate this discussion. Here is from Stanford Philosophy.
    Including some stuff we are discussing.

    Consider an historical example that is often thought to illustrate this phenomenon. Many organisms manifest special characteristics that enable them to flourish in their typical environments. According to the Design Hypothesis, this is due to the fact that such organisms were designed by an Intelligent Creator (i.e., God). The Design Hypothesis is a potential explanation of the relevant facts: if true, it would account for the facts in question. How much support do the relevant facts lend to the Design Hypothesis? Plausibly, the introduction of the Darwinian Hypothesis as a competitor in the nineteenth century significantly diminished the support enjoyed by the Design Hypothesis. That is, even if there were no reason to prefer the Darwinian Hypothesis to the Design Hypothesis, the mere fact that the Design Hypothesis was no longer the only potential explanation in the field tends to erode (to some extent at least) how much credence the Design Hypothesis merits on the basis of the relevant considerations.

    Assume for the sake of illustration that what one is justified in believing does in fact depend upon the space of alternative hypotheses of which one is aware: as new hypotheses are introduced, one’s justification for believing already proposed hypotheses changes. Given the Evidentialist thesis that differences in justification are always underwritten by differences in evidence, it follows that a complete specification of one’s evidence at any given time will make reference to the set of hypotheses which one is aware of at that time. This is an example of the way in which intuitive judgments about what individuals are justified in believing in certain circumstances, when coupled with a commitment to Evidentialism, can drive one’s theory of evidence (i.e., make a difference to which items one classifies as ‘evidence’ in one’s theorizing).

    The justifying or rationalizing role of evidence is also central to other prominent epistemological views, including views which are strictly speaking incompatible with Evidentialism as formulated above. Consider, for example, Bayesianism. (See the entry on Bayesian epistemology.) The Bayesian holds that what it is reasonable for one to believe depends both on the evidence to which one is exposed as well as on one’s prior probability distribution. According to the Bayesian then, two individuals who share exactly the same total evidence might differ in what it is reasonable for them to believe about some question in virtue of having started with different prior probability distributions. Still, inasmuch as Bayesians often focus upon rational belief change, or on what is involved in rationally revising one’s beliefs over time, the justificatory role of evidence retains a certain pride of place within the Bayesian scheme. For Bayesians typically maintain that that which distinguishes those changes in one’s beliefs that are reasonable from those that are not is that the former, unlike the latter, involve responding to newly-acquired evidence in an appropriate way.[8] Thus, for the Bayesian no less than for the Evidentialist, it is evidence which justifies that which stands in need of justification.

  15. colewd: The Design Hypothesis is a potential explanation of the relevant facts…

    Insofar as it would fit any set of facts.

  17. Alan Fox,

    . Consilience is what you need to get my attention.

    This is what got my attention. Prophecy becoming evidence was a big surprise.

  18. colewd:
    It is very problematic for the claim that random genetic change and selection/drift are responsible for complex adaptions.

    Maybe you’re forgetting your claim, your claim was that because proteins and DNA are sequences you thought it must all be magic, because, according to you, being sequences is problematic for evolution (maybe I should ask: problematic compared to what?). However, the main problem is that you’re not paying enough attention. It’s not problematic at all. That it’s a sequence makes it very simple: point mutations are enough to explain the source of variation. Selection makes the rest.

  19. Entropy,

    Hi Entropy
    Before I attempt to litigate this issue I want to make you are aware of this debate.

    At 44 min in and 1:07 in Dr Swamidass discusses the limits of Darwinian evolution and Neutral theory that includes the ability to generate complex adaptions. Earlier in the debate Mike Behe explains his current design argument. Dr Swamidass did not get any criticism for his position he took at Peaceful Science where many evolutionary biologists blog.

    I think it is possible you agree with Dr Swamidass and if that is true we have some common ground that can be established.

  20. colewd,

    Swamidass is referring to the neutral theory, dating back to the 1960s and prior, and even foreshadowed in Darwin’s Origin, in nonmathematical terms. You are trying to make way too much of the supposed inadequacy of a fictitious ‘Darwinism’.

    Did you read the Walsh/Lynch essay I pointed to on this subject? It is well worth a read in full: p11 onwards, should you want to represent the state of play, and Lynch’s view, accurately. He also derives a multi-locus model, p136. (The ‘look inside’ preview omits random pages, but I was able to get the whole thing by refresh).

  21. Entropy,

    That it’s a sequence makes it very simple: point mutations are enough to explain the source of variation. 

    Point mutations and sequence rearrangements, strictly speaking.

  22. colewd: The only known demonstrable mechanism capable for some of what were are observing is a mind.

    Argument Alan: It’s a human mind we are observing not a Devine mind.
    Argument Bill: Evidence for a Devine mind.
    Argument Alan: A human mind is different than a Devine mind.
    Argument Bill: A human mind can test the hypothesis that a mind is capable of producing some irreducibly complex structures in biology.

    There have been minds for all of human history.

    Even I have a mind.

    How do I create a universe?
    How do I create biology?

    It appears that merely having a mind is insufficient. Something more is needed.

    I cannot create irreducibly complex structures in biology and neither can you. Nobody can. Likewise I cannot create a universe with observers.

    So what more is needed? Does your mind that you believe created biology need a lab and equipment to do so?

    If so, how do you know that and where is that equipment?
    If not, then by your own admission this ‘mind’ and our ‘minds’ are nothing alike.

    Either way, you lose.

  23. Allan Miller,

    Thanks for pointing out Lynch and Walsh’s fine essay on the state of evolutionary theory. I think that, in the case of Larry Moran’s use of the word “Darwinism”, the issue is that he is equating it to panselectionism, and considers it to have been replaced by “modern evolutionary theory”. He does tend to exaggerate the role of nautral mutation and random genetic drift in that theory. Lynch and Walsh are tearing a strip off of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis types, and Larry is not one of those, as far as I can see.

  25. colewd:
    newton,

    For the Jews Isaiah 53 was a messianic prophecy in the first 1000 years after Jesus.

    The question seems to be whether it referred to Israel as a nation or an individual.Your hypothesis is for 1500 years the Jewish interpretation referred to an individual. During the period after Jesus birth ,why was Jesus not accepted as the subject of Isiah?

    It was first argued to be talking about the Jewish people about 1000 AD and this became a source of internal argument.

    Internal argument between whom? The members of the Jewish religion, not the converts to Christianity, seem pretty universal in their lack of acceptance in the divinity of Jesus and his position as being a Messiah.

    BTW:Muslims also believe that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah so that kicks this above the 50% point.

    There you go , so at the time Jesus lived,since only a few knew about him, he was not the Messiah , then as the religion grew he became the Messiah. If it is a popularity contest.

    Funny that despite that belief , many Muslims want to destroy the Jewish State.

  26. newton,

    The question seems to be whether it referred to Israel as a nation or an individual.Your hypothesis is for 1500 years the Jewish interpretation referred to an individual. During the period after Jesus birth ,why was Jesus not accepted as the subject of Isiah?

    He was by many Jews that decided to follow him. Here is the story of Isaiah 53 in Acts 8.

    Philip and the Ethiopian
    26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

    30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

    31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

    32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

    “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
    33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]
    34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

    36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] [c] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

  27. newton,

    Internal argument between whom? The members of the Jewish religion, not the converts to Christianity, seem pretty universal in their lack of acceptance in the divinity of Jesus and his position as being a Messiah.

    Here is some reading about the controversy. You will see that when you try to make the passage about the Jewish people the reading becomes awkward.

    https://live.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/issues-v13-n06/whos-the-subject-of-isaiah-53-you-decide/

  28. newton,

    There you go , so at the time Jesus lived,since only a few knew about him, he was not the Messiah , then as the religion grew he became the Messiah. If it is a popularity contest.

    What do you mean he was not the Messiah? Your statement contradicts the Gospels and the Writings.

  29. Allan Miller,

    Swamidass is referring to the neutral theory, dating back to the 1960s and prior, and even foreshadowed in Darwin’s Origin, in nonmathematical terms. You are trying to make way too much of the supposed inadequacy of a fictitious ‘Darwinism’.

    At 44 min he is talking about the Darwinian mechanism. At 107 is is talking about neutral theory.

    I will read Lynch. Thanks for posting it.

  32. colewd,

    You are proposing a $100 dollar book that is more than 100 pages. I already invested then Futuyma’s book.

    Can you summarize his proposal for complex adaptions?

  33. OMagain,

    why bother? you already know it’s all wrong.

    I agree. If it was a testable model it would make the front page of the news and Behe would go away.

  34. colewd: If it was a testable model it would make the front page of the news and Behe would go away.

    I’m sorry to be the one that breaks this to you, but, honestly, nobody really gives a fuck about Behe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe#Journal_articles

    It seems journal articles are losing ground to books, media appearances and film and video appearances.

    He’s given up and is just making money, doing just enough science to claim that mantle.

    He, like you, has no positive arguments for Intelligent Design that don’t rest on the inadequacy of something neither you nor him seem to understand.

    As such your critiques, such as they are, are simply ignored.

    Behe has already “gone away” you’ve just not noticed it yet.

  35. colewd:
    colewd,

    You are proposing a $100 dollar book that is more than 100 pages.I already invested then Futuyma’s book.

    It’s more than 1000 pages, indeed, and frankly way beyond me; I wasn’t suggesting you read it! I was urging you to use the ‘look inside’ facility on Amazon to see his actual views on matters where you see him as a ‘revolutionary’, starting p11, an excellent essay on the challenges some think evolutionary theory is up against.

    He does not dismiss natural selection, simply regarding neutrality as the proper ‘ground’, the null hypothesis against which assessments of selection should be made. He criticises the more excitable proponents of an ‘EES’, believing that 100 years of current theory does not need to be swept aside due to popularly ‘problematic’ concepts such as epigenetics, plasticity or ‘evo-devo’.

    On selection, he is a critic of ‘panselectionism’, the belief that selection is the default or sole force, just as Joe F points out Larry Moran is. But, as the people criticised as panselectionists point out, it is a rather mythical position. This, to come full circle, is the point Swamidass makes regarding the ‘Dissent from Darwinism’ petition.

  36. colewd:
    newton,

    He was by many Jews that decided to follow him.Here is the story of Isaiah 53 in Acts 8.

    I get that, for a period it was a Jewish sect. The early promoters realized that limited the scope.

    “Many” is a relative term. The religion has survived intact, despite many efforts, some by Christians, to eradicate it. Despite sharing the same roots. Mainstream doctrinal position remains unconvinced of the evidence in Isiah , that Christ is their Messiah.

    So one can hold the view of a created universe, truth of the Old Testament and find the Christian interpretation of the Bible as unconvincing.

    Maybe what is needed is to be already convinced.

  37. colewd: Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

    Hmmm. Was the eunuch pleased to be rid of Philip? I mean, Bill, this isn’t reporting, it’s a story.

  38. OMagain,

    I’m sorry to be the one that breaks this to you, but, honestly, nobody really gives a fuck about Behe.

    Really? Why do you lead with your chin like this 🙂

  39. Alan Fox,

    Hmmm. Was the eunuch pleased to be rid of Philip? I mean, Bill, this isn’t reporting, it’s a story.

    This is Gospel of Luke. Do you know who Luke was? What data do you have to make the claim the event never occurred?

  40. newton,

    So one can hold the view of a created universe, truth of the Old Testament and find the Christian interpretation of the Bible as unconvincing.

    Maybe what is needed is to be already convinced.

    I am currently discussing this with a very close Jewish friend. I think what this will development into is the realization that Judaism is enhanced by the documented arrival of the Messiah as predicted by the prophets. The Bible is very hard to dismiss if you take a detailed look at it and try to falsify it.

    The Bible is both story and history and I am now much less interested in demarcating these. The Story is used to help us understand our creator. It isn’t until that Creator comes to earth in human form and experiences life from the human perspective that true reconciliation can take place.

  41. colewd:
    newton,

    What do you mean he was not the Messiah?Your statement contradicts the Gospels and the Writings.

    Not really a big concern

    If present day popularity is a evidentiary proof of the nature of Jesus, then why not the past?

  42. colewd: It isn’t until that Creator comes to earth in human form and experiences life from the human perspective that true reconciliation can take place.

    Yeah, because that makes so much sense. I suspect the ‘creator’ could have understood such if it had wanted to without all that palavah.

    And anyway, you seem to be saying that the creators perspective is significantly different from a humans, so much so it had to actually become one to understand us.

    And yet this the same ‘mind’ that is so similar to ours we can draw conclusions about the origin of extant biology….

    I would say make your mind up, buy you are happy with the lack of consillance in your position it would seem.

  43. newton,

    If present day popularity is a evidentiary proof of the nature of Jesus, then why not the past?

    The issue is that the rise of the religion was very rapid starting from after the resurrection despite Roman persecution. By 330 AD after Constantine supported Christian worship the growth started to over 2 billion followers today.

    I think the early Church is evidence as the religion hung on despite Rome’s attempt to extinguish it . Josephus statement around 95 AD is very powerful.

    For he appeared to them alive again, the third day:8 as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are NOT EXTINCT at this day.

  45. colewd,

    I have no interest on watching Swamidass or Behe. I think both are a waste of time. The types of selection and neutral-to-semi-neutral theories have nothing to do with whether sequences make it easier or harder for evolution (you say harder, so, harder as compared to what?).

    As I said, it makes it very simple: sequence divergence can be pointed out as the source of heritable phenotypic variation.

  46. colewd: Really? Why do you lead with your chin like this

    No, I get that it seems like he means something to you, and to the small circle of people who actually care about ID. I really do. You don’t have much, and he’s much of what you have.

    But even Behe admits that at the heart of it all he has instead is “poof”.

  47. Entropy,

    As I said, it makes it very simple: sequence divergence can be pointed out as the source of heritable phenotypic variation.

    I don’t have any problem with this claim.

  48. OMagain,

    No, I get that it seems like he means something to you, and to the small circle of people who actually care about ID. I really do. You don’t have much, and he’s much of what you have.

    -2 of the Top 5 amazon books on organic evolution are ID.
    -70% of the US public believes in either special creation or divinely guided evolution.

    This battle rages on whether you see it or not.

  49. colewd:
    OMagain,

    -2 of the Top 5 amazon books on organic evolution are ID.
    -70% of the US public believes in either special creation or divinely guided evolution.

    This battle rages on whether you see it or not.

    Only at Amazon.com. That only tells us that there are loads of fundies in the US. Nothing we didn’t know already

  50. colewd: This is Gospel of Luke.

    The gospel according to Luke.

    Do you know who Luke was?

    No and neither do you or anyone else. And there is no way to discover the authorship of the gospel according to Luke either. That text was attributed to “Luke” later.

    What data do you have to make the claim the event never occurred?

    I question this bit, particularly:

    the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away…

    No evidence other than text that spirits of Lords take people away suddenly. And it flies in the face of physics.

    I think such embellishments were meant to impress at the time they were written. These days, some are more sceptical of claims that defy reality. It’s a mark against honesty.

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