Joe G has been looking into the posts here at TSZ. Apparently this inspired him to get into a series of outbursts of rage. Well, maybe not. Looking at his blog rage seems to be his normal state. Back in his blog he’s stated fuming about what he thinks are facts that prove intelligent design, I mean Intelligent Design, with capitals because, let’s not forget, ID is about “God.” So I’ve been trying to explain to him why that’s profoundly and irremediably wrong. Here I’ll expand a bit on that, and thus willl try and avoid contaminating other threads with Joe G’s angry prose.
To get this started, I’m going to check Joe G’s latest attempt, Joe G starts thusly:
The genetic code is evidence for Intelligent Design based on the following facts:
Facts!? Wow, this is starting so well, I’m sure I’m going to be convinced! Good-bye sinful atheistic life!
1- The genetic code involves a coded information processing system
Well, that’s the way we decided to describe it, precisely because the people involved in deciphering how organisms get proteins from the DNA sequence were somewhat involved in deciphering human codes. So, we call them codes by analogy, not because anybody really thought that they’re codes in the sense of human codes. But the analogy works so well, that we can give this one to Joe G. So, Joe G, what’s next?
2- There isn’t any evidence that nature can produce coded information processing systems
Here’s where you start very poorly Joe G. Well, you started poorly with the title, but I’m very forgiving. Nature produces coded information all the time. It happens all around you. Scientists have examined how it happens, and they have found no designers lurking in there. Not a single one. Life continues to reproduce, and thus produce more life forms, each with their genetic codes and the systems that process the encoded information. Lots and lots and lots of new systems appear all the time. Many times over in the time it took me to write this very sentence. So, how come Joe G needs evidence for what’s happening right in front of him. Inside him, each time a bacterium reproduces in his very intestines, on his very skin? Well, all he does is deny it and affirm that it happens by design. On what basis? None. Not a single observation involves an intelligent designer doing anything. These organisms reproduce physically, using everything according to what we know about nature so far. Therefore, I prefer to believe what I’m witnessing, over those fantasies of Joe G’s. Is that wrong?
3- There isn’t even a way to test the claim that nature can produce coded information systems
Of course there is. Look around you Joe G. If you want it to happen in a test tube, in an experimental system, there’s plenty of scientists working with bacterial cultures, with rats, with mice, and all of those model organisms reproduce. Can you believe it? they do! And all of them could not even exist if it weren’t for the “encoded information processing systems” you like so much. Not even you would be able to do anything without them! Not even you! That means that even you are evidence that nature produces those systems. Ask your parents, and they’ll tell you they went very physical in order to have you.
4- There is ONE and ONLY one known cause for producing coded information processing systems and that is via intelligent agency volition
Sorry Joe G, but, as I said, that’s false. They’re produced by all kinds of organisms, often without any volition, like with bacteria, who do it after eating and growing too much, and rarely there’s any intelligence involved.
Not only that, here’s where you have to stop and examine your claim. Of course, you mean to say that you, personally, only know about humans being able to produce such kinds of systems. However, you’re ignoring some very interesting problems:
- The systems you’re talking about exist in humans: therefore we could not have made those genetic code/information processing systems ourselves.
- The very systems we use to produce coded information processing systems, meaning our very intelligences, are themselves code information processing systems. We have to be able to cope with encoded information. We need to be able to produce abstractions, work with them, put them together, infer, test, infer further, etc, before we can produce any other code. That means that making codes via “intelligent agency volition” requires systems able to process encoded information. So, if you wanted to propose an intelligence, other than the human one, you’d still be engaged in a silly impossible circularity.
- Thus, the only possible way out, is for code information processing systems to be producible in ways other than “intelligent agency volition,” again, given that such intelligences are themselves and work on the foundations of preexisting code information processing systems.
That was it for Joe G’s “facts.” However, given that I had already answered his silly syllogism, Joe G continued:
Peer-review is devoid of any science showing that nature can produce coded information processing systems. The fact that the genetic code is still called a “frozen accident” tells us there still isn’t any way to test the claim that nature can do it. And peer-review and textbooks are absent such a test
No it isn’t. Again, it happens all around us all the time. As, as I explained, they must be doing so naturally, because any preexisting intelligence implies preexisting code information processing systems. Thus, you’d be proposing ludicrous imaginary intelligent designers, I mean, Intelligent Designers, useless as explanations. Gaining nothing in return. So, instead of wondering how the systems forming those other, imaginary intelligences came to be, I’d better cu to the chase and investigate the nature that we can witness. One where nobody has caught any intelligent designers at work in that constant production of what looks, very convincingly, like natural code information processing systems.
EvoTARDs may disagree but they will NEVER be able to refute any of those 4 facts. entropy will be its normal lying self and post total lying bullshit about what I posted. But it will NEVER present any science to refute what I posted.
Well, only the first survived, and only because the analogy works and I’m feeling generous.
And morons, if it could not have been humans that produced the genetic code then we infer it was some other intelligent agency. Nature doesn’t magically get an ability just cuz humans were not around.
What a load of hubris. You think you’re above nature Joe G, but it’s the other way around. We have the ability because nature has it. Otherwise, we could not even possibly exist. Our intelligences work naturally. Our very designs work naturally. Everything we do works according to the ways of physics and chemistry. You’re putting the cart before the horse, and the blunder is spectacular. In order to infer “Intelligent Design”, you ignore the very reason our intelligences work. You ignore the very meaning of intelligence.
A single flare of the sun has enough energy to obliterate our planet and you think you can do more than nature. A single volcano could destroy everything around you and you think you can do more than nature. A single water current could break all your bones against some very natural rocks, and you think you can do more than nature. A bunch of wolves would happily devour you, caring not one bit about your intelligence, and you think you can do more than nature. What a pathetic joke.
Most sincerely,
—Entropy
Life is not a premise, it’s right here. It’s you, it’s me, it’s everywhere. I don’t know why anybody would call it a premise. As per ridiculous, well, each one has their tastes. I find life fascinating.
Since, of all life, only we make plans, I don’t see why we should think that there was a plan all along to have some angry commenter in a blog, putting the cart before the horse.
Curiously enough, studies on complexity show that there’s tendencies for chaos to suddenly move into zones that form beautiful systems. Some complexity theorists have even proposed that abiogenesis happened because some chaotic set of chemical reactions fell into one of these “strange attractors.”
I doubt chaos theorists understand how those strange attractors are formed out of the chaos, but they find them in many different realms. From the simple mathematical simulations, to the way the weather works, to ecosystems, to the economy. I find strange attractors very hard to believe, precisely because I don’t understand how that happens, and, apparently, nobody else does. But the results are unequivocal and reproducible. So my personal feelings have no say in the matter. It is what it is.
Anyway, curious choice of words phoodoo.
You know, pushing back the origin of the plan to a planner that itself needs no explanation by fiat is not really much of an answer is it? What does it explain? Everything?
Then it explains nothing. Bit like you. phoodoo.
OMagain,
It’s not that there are some ‘brute facts’; it’s brute facts all the way down!
Allan Miller,
Why is this wrong?
When you start from here the math challenges go away. Wonder why 🙂
Math challenges go away? Of course we don’t expect math challenges in a book of fantasy, unless it’s by Lewis Carroll.
————
Is the implication that you believe the book of fantasies, to be about reality, because you don’t need to think?
Entropy,
I believe you are reasoning in a circle until you support your “fantasy claim” to a book believed by most in our country.
I am interested if you can argue your position without a labeling fallacy.
it doesn’t matter how many people believe a fantasy, it remains a fantasy until proven otherwise.
Never heard of that kind of fallacy. I can support my claim: the book(s) contains stories typical of fantasies. Talking animals, talking fires, magical beings that in one story have problems with iron, to add drama, but have no problem in the next. Magical beings who order and help destroy peoples who oppose his chosen people. Just magical beings! What else do we need to think that the book is a book of fantasies?
So, if the fantastic stories there are not fantasies, I’m going to need a lot of pretty good evidence, before accepting it (or them, since it’s a compilation or traditional stories), as anything but what it looks like.
Can you demonstrate by answering a few simple questions?
How many generations have passed since that event?
When the worldwide flood happened, what year would we call that now?
After that event, where all species were reduced down to single pairs, why do we not observe evidence of such a bottleneck in extant DNA?
From that single breeding pair, how many generations had to pass before the entire earth was repopulated?
It seems to me the math challenges get harder, not easier when you start from ‘there’.
Entropy,
Like your fantasy of a trillion trillion new life systems every blink? *
*Actually more like 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. But whatever….
This is what phoodoo says when he has no argument or understanding. He just appeals to his own incredulity and rhetoric.
“Oh so it’s just lucky accidents?” QED.
Why do anyone here care what Joe G thinks on any subject?
I don’t know if that’s the number, but who else would deny that reproduction happens if not you phoodoo.
Entropy,
I think you should pose the question on a science forum, “How many new life systems have emerged on Earth in the last 100 years?”, and see how many responses you get which include a number with 20 zeros after it.
Maybe you can also post it on a forum for people with Down’s syndrome.
So now there’s something wrong with having Down’s syndrome? How’s that for a well-poisoning fallacy.
Given that you seem to have essentially only three types of logically fallacious responses, which are the appeals to incredulity, caricature, and consequences fallacies, it really shows how completely intellectually and morally bankrupt a person you are at bottom.
Please take a break from pretending to lecture anyone here on anything concerning facts or ethics.
You tell me.
UGG coding for Trp in some organisms and STOP in others isn’t a ‘math problem’, nor is it in the Bible.
And this would demonstrate … ?
Ugh.
Add to question begging and labeling a burden shift fallacy. You are mistaking the use of metaphorical stories with fantasy. Do you understand the basic theme these stories like the serpent in genesis 3:15 are representing?
There’s no question begging. If it looks like a fantasy it’s quite likely a fantasy, until proven otherwise. After all, the fantasy is the positive claim. It’s like claiming that I have an invisible dragon in my garage. Sounds a lot like a fantasy, therefore it most likely is a fantasy. Whose burden of proof would that be? Mine? Yup. It would be mine. Given that, what do you mean by burden shift? It’s your claim that what looks like a fantasy is no such thing. The burden of proof is yours, and there’s no question begging.
If they’re metaphorical stories they’re fantasies by definition. Right? They’d be giving you a fantastic set up in order to convey some message. So I’ve been right all along.
Why would it matter? You admitted it’s fantasy. We’re done.
In other news, it seems like Joe G has finally quit. Most likely he finally understood the errors of his ways.
😁
Are you admitting the Genesis six day Creation and Noah’s Flood/ Noah’s Ark are just metaphorical stories?
I don’t see any other reasonable way to interpret that, but I seriously doubt he’d be willing to admit that his metaphorical stories are REALLY metaphors. From there, it’s just a short hop to understanding that religions are vehicles for imbuing a culture with a common grounding in beliefs, values, and perspectives. A way for a society to share a moral viewpoint. Metaphorical aspects like gods and messiahs aren’t to be taken literally, they are simply symbols used as shortcuts and simplifications.
I do think that fantasy, myth, and metaphor are separate categories, serving different purposes. None of them, however, qualify as natural history or objective reality.
That nobody, I mean nobody, believes that every time an organism reproduces they have created a new coded information processing system.
Not even people with Down’s syndrome believe that…ugh.
Yeah, that would be like believing that the sun that rises every morning was the same sun every time!. Who would believe such a thing?
Well, no they don’t, indeed, so that’s evolution destroyed, then. You have flipped even more bizarrely from 100 years to every single generation.
Love to see the theist value system in action.
Parrot mode fully operational, good for you.
Yes, they do. Better yet, multicellular organisms with dividing cells do it all of the time.
But that’s not what phoodoo means. At least not until you mention codon substitutions. Then it’s back to “tornado in a junkyard” again. And then somebody mentions that new coded information processing systems are being produced all the time, and round and round we go.
Corneel,
I’m not so sure I’d say a pair of daughter cells has a ‘new coded information processing system’, so much as having duplicated the old one.
There must be some miscommunication here, as you appear to be denying something which seems to be obviously true.
Let’s see if we can break this down.
Is phoodoo identical to phoodoo’s father? [The science on this seems settled.]
Is phoodoo capable of processing coded information? [Perhaps not…]
I suspect that you want to have “new” mean “entirely different”, whereas for the biologists to defeat the IDist ‘argument’, the new information processing systems only need to be slightly different.
But let’s leave people with trisomy 21 out of the conversation, okay?
The duplicated one is a new system. It wasn’t there, it was built by gathering molecules from the environment. Whether we want to agree on calling them new or not, the main point is that each system in each daughter cell is built from simpler molecules, even if catalyzed by the older cells. Since we don’t catch magical beings intervening, and since all the processes involved go in the ways of nature, then new systems are formed all the time naturally. Nature can build coded information processing systems.
But we can go further and better. I’ll continue later.
Neither would I. That is because you and me can correctly parse the meaning of “new” in context to mean “different”. But phoodoo is talking about translation machinery in the literal sense. When I buy a new car, I get the same one as everybody else, newly assembled.
As noted above, there is a lot of miscommunication going on, because of machine thinking.
Adapa,
They may or may not be. I am not discounting the possibility. A day may be a metaphor for for a period of time. Noah’s flood maybe a metaphor for the purification of humans from sin. The Bible repeats the theme of Gods covenant with man, man breaking the covenant, God judging man, and God promising the delivery of the Messiah to ultimate reconciliation. The message is delivered both metaphorically and through descriptions of historical events.
Can you think of a good way to tell real events from metaphorical stories? I can, how about you?
I wonder what gods are metaphors for. Sometimes for human capacity for self-delusion, sometimes for human reluctance to admit ignorance, sometimes for the boggling complexity of the universe. Maybe the inability of the less observant to let go of childhood imaginary friends. What’s your guess?
And yet
So which is it? How can we “start” science from a metaphor?
So is that a metaphor? That’s where the math challenges go away, remember. So, how do we do math via metaphor?
If we don’t know which parts of the bible are describing actual events and which are not, as you clearly don’t, how can “math challenges” go away at all based on anything in there?
I think you just pick parts you believe, and so long as your belief is sincere you don’t need math or thinking or facts or anything. In fact, those things just get in the way of sincere belief.
Such as believing that the universe we live in is plausible without an intelligent Creator?
Such as believing that the intelligent Creator could not attempt to communicate with the beings he created?
Such as believing that the intelligent creator could not use metaphor as a way of communicating His plans?
Hey Bill, how do you tell metaphorical stories from actual historic events?
From whence came that intelligent creator?
You deny that such a creator was created, but I simply say that the universe has the same property you assign to the creator – it does not need to be created, it just is.
By assigning that property to the universe itself we can dispense with the idea of an Intelligent Creator and we lose nothing at all.
It’s funny the number of personal appearances god puts in in the bible.
And yet, lately, nothing at all.
It’s a shame he’s such a bad communicator then.
Simply saying that men and women were equal would have saved a lot of pain.
Simply saying that slavery was bad, regardless of circumstances, would have saved a lot of pain.
Simply saying that possession is not real and you can’t expel demons would have saved a lot of pain.
You can believe that the creator of the universe could not foresee how not going into detail a bit more on slavery might have led to the bibles use to justify it over and over again, but it seems to me more likely it’s just a book some people made up with no relation to any such universe-creator.
In short, if the bible is the best your designer can do to ‘communicate’ with the beings it made (why not pick up the phone?) then your designer is a bit shit.
This is not a belief Bill. This is the philosophically proper default position. We exist within this universe, and, as far as we can observe (infancy educational biases aside), everything just works however it does. We, the only intelligence we can point to, are deeply dependent on what surrounds us. So, intelligence, as in what we mean when we refer to our own, is but a small part of the universe, and deeply dependent on it. Not only that, it seems to be an ability for dealing with the tiny part of the universe that surrounds us, supports us, but can also harm us. So, something that develops for dealing with the universe is now what’s needed for the universe to exist? That just doesn’t make sense.
Therefore, the universe is much more basic, foundational, than intelligence. The proper order of things is a nature that can support a large amount of things, among them, a tiny one: us with our intelligences and all.
First you have to have pretty good evidence that there’s such a thing as a creator. Even then, for a being more foundational than the universe, communication is not guaranteed, since it would be possible for such a creator to also limited by the capacities of her own creation. It’s yet another large discussion, but we don’t need to go there, since evidence, appropriate in magnitude, for the existence of such a creator should come our way first.
See above.
Entropy,
The evidence given the basic make up of the Universe is overwhelming. The evidence of His reality once you understand the Bible is also overwhelming. The Judea Christian God is objective reality beyond a reasonable doubt IMO.
That’s not evidence of a creator, that’s evidence that the universe is overwhelming enough. We just a tiny part of it. Did you even try and understand what I tried and explained?
The bible looks overwhelmingly human-written/thought/made. Nothing about it makes me think there must be a creator. It does tell me that the parts were written by people in different ages, with different values.
Since you seem to understand the philosophical problems, though you tend to forget, I suspect your belief is much more emotional than rational.
Anyway, please read what I wrote. I think it’s beautifully insightful, if I dare say so myself.
Why yes, as a matter of fact, these are precisely the sorts of beliefs that math, thinking, and facts get in the way of.
Entropy,
Isn’t this just a point of disagreement that comes down to individual analysis and starting assumptions. You are starting with “brute facts” that are rooted in philosophical naturalism.
I see it exactly the opposite way. I don’t see 40 human authors writing 66 books over 1000 years with one cohesive message, and loaded with prophetic messages possible without Divine guidance.
I see Christianity as the only coherent worldview unless you restrict yourself to “brute facts” as you have. A restriction I find unnecessary given the evidence.
Flint,
Respectfully Flint, I think you need to rethink this. If you use math and facts as a way to understand the world then you would need a model of origin events without starting assumptions. Even if you start with the laws of physics as a “brute fact” you cannot get there without invoking the requirement of conscious intelligence as a possible known cause.
Why? Demonstrate that to be the case.
Does this “conscious intelligence” not also operate by laws of physics itself? If so, you are trapped in a loop.
If not, then I just claim that property for the universe, as above, and we can dispense with the extraneous entity of your deity.
http://www.sci-news.com/physics/stephen-hawkings-theory-origin-universe-05971.html
whereas:
See the difference? One person idly reads the bible and seyz godditit, the other group actually do actual work to actually produce a potentially testable idea.
I must have missed where they invoked conscious intelligence anywhere. So your “must” invoke is not really a must at all.
The only person it constrains is yourself. That’s why you’ve failed to convince others. You cannot apply your mind-straight-jacket to others.
When do we get to test the idea that godddit colewd?
Nope. My position is what happens when you restrict yourself to facts, without allowing your imagination to go wild. This is what happens when you start by accepting that you’re born in ignorance in the middle of quite a lot that you don’t understand and start your thinking from that point on.
Not by choice. We’re born in abject ignorance, except for the little that evolutionary phenomena has built into our instincts. We’re ready and very attentive to learn from our parents. We’re still naked. So, we have to accept, at that point, our parents, other peope, our feeding, our clothing, our whole surroundings as brute facts. What choice do we have in the matter when we don’t know anything beyond that? None. Fantasies might fill your need to know better, but they remain fantasies. Keeping with reality we bounce at something where our knowledge stops. We have to hit rock bottom, brute facts. You do think of your imaginary friend as a brute fact. Meaning something that requires no further explanation. It’s just there and there’s nothing else to question. “Justifying” the fantasy doesn’t make it any less of a brute fact to you. In my case, where I stop I think this might be the foundation, until shown otherwise. in your case, you think that’s it, even though it’s mere fantasy.
I suspect this happens because you don’t want to be critical or skeptical about it.
I suspect we have different definitions for coherent. Again, I do not restrict myself by choice. I restrict myself because I see fantasies for what they are. Because I recognize our limitations. Because I notice the deep and unsurmountable philosophical problems, the absurdity, the incoherence, with your position. So, I might be ignorant about many things, how the universe started, if time is truly a dimension or not, if there was a Big Bang, if there’s multiverses or only one, if the way the universe works could have been any different, if anything outside my field of expertise is as well established or not. I don’t mind. I have learned that I cannot know everything, and that such ignorance doesn’t justify believing in magical incoherent beings. So that’s that. Why should I feel uncomfortable that some things might just be brute facts?
Cohesive message, you say?
What should I do if someone strikes my face, knocking a tooth out?
Matt 5:38-40. cites, and explicitly contradicts, Lev 24:19-21 !
The standard Christian apologetics “Gospel replaces Old T” ignores the woeful failure to communicate during the intervening centuries.
Entropy,
Are you taking the position that inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning are not coherent ways to make sense of the world?
Is it possible you are dismissing facts you don’t want to deal with?
You are trying create the perception that objective reality does not exist with a labeling fallacy. The fact that you need to use a labeling fallacy to make your argument points to the difficulty of your position.
DNA_Jock,
Bring man to reconciliation with God was a long process. The future coming of Jewish Messiah was symbolically introduced in Genesis 3:15. He we revealed in more depth in Deuteronomy 18:14-21.The Prophet
And later introduced in more detail in Isaiah 7, 9, 53, 61 and many other OT passages.
Isaiah 9:6. (9:5 in the Jewish Tanakh)
Are you reading? I’m taking the position that if we are honest with ourselves we learn to distinguish the imaginary, fantasies, from what we can really know. If you’re ignoring what intelligence is, how it works, it’s deep dependencies and it’s tiny prevalence, you’d be aware that intelligence cannot be foundational. That intelligence is but a tiny product of the universe, among many many many many other products, not the other way around.
Is it possible that you’re dismissing facts you don’t want to deal with?
What? When did I say that objective reality doesn’t exist? That would be a contradiction of terms. What labeling fallacy? I call your fantasies for what they are. If you think I’ve got it wrong, then deal with the absurdities of such fantasies, don’t just dismiss them as if they weren’t important.
Which difficulty? I haven’t struggled explaining my position, I haven’t had to appeal to emotions, or to stories in an incoherent set of books, to justify anything of what I have learned about the world. I cannot find any incoherence in my view, however limited it might be, while I find yours astoundingly incoherent from the very basics. From the very foundations. So what are you talking about? Should I not call your fantasies fantasies just because you find it somewhat offensive? I see them as fantasies. What do you want me to do? Hide this fact from you?