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
Entropy,
Entropy with all the respect that is due to you proper argument avoids logical fallacies. It also avoids bald assertions. When these are required to argue your position then its time to rethink your position.
You have labeled the Bible a fantasy with out proper argument. DNA Jock tried to make an argument by pointing out an apparent contradiction. Although I disagree with his assessment it was a proper argument.
When you assert that intelligence is only a small piece of the universe you are basing this on your preconception. At the end of the day this is just a bald assertion rooted in philosophical naturalism.
Christianity is most likely objective reality. Arguing against it with all the supporting evidence is extremely difficult. There is a reason most of us celebrate Christmas and Easter. 🙂
The universe that we live in is plausible because it is the universe that we live in. Whether or not there is a creator does not enter into the question of plausibility.
Presumably an intelligent creator, if there is one, could attempt to communicate. However, there is no actual evidence of any actual communication.
This is the clear give away that man created God in man’s image. You want your intelligent creator to be fully a part of human culture. You don’t even ask whether that’s a reasonable expectation.
There’s absolutely no logical fallacies in what I have explained to you.
What are you talking about? When I just tell you what I think, I’m not making an argument, I’m telling you what I think. You ask later for “support”, which I have given and you refuse to check. I cannot force you to read what I write, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t write it.
When these are requested, because they cannot be required per burden of proof, I have responded, not only by explaining why I see your fantasies for what they are, but, also, by explaining to you where the burden of proof resides.
I don’t need a proper argument the burden of proof belongs with those who claim that what looks like fantasy is not fantasy. However, I still helped you out in understanding why it looks so much like fantasy. Maybe you’re not reading carefully enough. I don’t need to absolutely prove that the Bible is fantasy. All I need is indications that it’s fantasy to notice it’s nature, even though it contains several styles, given that it’s a collection of fantasies, parables, fables, verses, ancient laws, etc. However, convincing me that these books are about real-life magical beings is a very different problem, one that doesn’t belong to me.
Nope. This is the most we can say about it. Fantasies, again, are not information. They’re fantasies. The only intelligence everybody can agree about is ours. If we examine it from every angle, and then we examine the claim that the universe had an intelligent creator, the claim shows to be obviously absurd. You cannot propose an intelligence behind the origin of the universe, claiming it to be a scientific claim, if you ignore the very nature and needs of the one and only intelligence you’re supposedly using as anchor for your argument.
Nope. It’s an observation, and a call to pay better attention to those observed intelligences before jumping to extravagant, absurd, conclusions.
Are you saying that our intelligences do not need any support? No? Then why argue that intelligence comes first, universe second? Why imagine that there must be intelligences that do not require any support?
Are you arguing that every other organisms has that kind of intelligence? No? Then why argue that intelligence is foundational at all?
Are you arguing that intelligence is not a capacity for dealing with our surrounding reality? No? Then why should we think there’s intelligences for not dealing with anything? What would that even be? I doubt we could call something that serves no need for dealing with anything an intelligence.
These problems make your position so absurd that our intelligence doesn’t help you there at all. You’re taking about something else altogether. What that might be seems rather undefinable. That means you’re arguing for an incoherent thing, no matter the angle or twist you might want to give it.
So, pointing to the tiny size of our intelligence, even as a collective, helps us realize of the absurdity of your position.
When you say that my point is rooted on philosophical naturalism, my answer is: nope, it’s rooted on the most fundamental philosophical principles. If those look like philosophical naturalism is because there seems to be no reasonable way to jump beyond what we can know into the realms of the imaginary, since it’s immediately obvious that the imaginary that you’re proposing is incoherent to the very foundations.
When you claim that something is but the result of philosophical naturalism, you’re admitting that your argument is circular. That I first have to go into the realm of fantasy and accept it as real. That I should let go of all the incoherence and philosophical problems because fantasy works in a completely different way. Once we’re there, god-did-it is but part of your preferred fantasy. We could replace it by any other fantasy, only you’d rather have us remain within yours, for the sake of avoiding philosophical “naturalism,” but accepting philosophical fantasy for your sake and your sake alone. None other. Couldn’t be more circular.
That’s but what you believe. I remain skeptical for very strong reasons, reasons you cannot surmount, precisely because there’s nothing actually objective about your position.
If there was such evidence at all, there would not be opposite sides on the issue.
Sure there is. In the words of the main character in The Fiddler on the Roof: tradition!
The history of humanity has been plagued with beliefs in mythological characters, like Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Jesus, Mohamed. Many have believed them to be real. No matter how many, that hasn’t made them materialize into reality. Mass delusions happen. Some could have inspired great things at times, horrific ones at other times. That’s humanity. That’s storytelling. That’s imagination. So?
Most likely? There is some doubt then? Even for you?
Literally everything you have said can by said by any adherent to any other religion, and believed as much as anyone can believe such.
What test can we perform that shows that Christianity is objective reality whereas Hinduism is not?
Entropy,
My argument is based on evidence so it’s not circular. I cited evidence from the Bible which makes prophecies of the coming of the Jewish Messiah. How did they know without divine guidance?
You say that I have the burden of proof because of your opinion. Do you really believe this?
No I am not. All arguments need support. We have an objective criteria for determining intelligent cause. The arrangement of parts that perform a function to which we can assign a reason (purpose) for that function.
Neil Rickert,
The question being asked is what is the cause of the universe we live in. You are responding to a different question. Is the universe plausible? This has a probability of 1 of course. 🙂
I cited evidence of His actual communication. Scroll up into the prior conversation.
Without clear evidence to the contrary perhaps. Why could this not go either way?
What is the purpose of the arrangement of parts labelled ‘Loiasis’?
Do you have a list of collections parts that perform a function that you have assigned a purpose to? I.E have you actually done what you have claimed you have done?
Can you name a single one? A single arrangement of parts and it’s function/purpose?
No, those are just words in a book edited after the fact to “prove” whatever the current editors wanted to.
Is Harry Potter evidence that magic is real then?
What actual “evidence” do you have that god created man in his image?
Mere words in a book?
Have you forgotten you should be busy showing why your religion is “objectivity” true whereas Hinduism is not?
What would you say to a Hindu to convince them they were wrong and Jesus is the way? After all, you have “clear evidence” and direct undeniable communication from god in your book. So, what do you say?
And yet there are many millions of people who do not.
If it’s a mere numbers game that makes Christianity true, then given as Hinduism was around 4000 years ago it’s logical to say that Hinduism was true until Christianity overtook it and then became true?
Or is it your believe that Christianity was still true before it even existed? If so, why did your god let all those Hindus go to hell before he sent Jesus down?
Also, did the global flood actually happen or was that a metaphor? It’s a joke you can’t say, you get that right?
colwed,
When did god make the horse?
How old is the universe?
How old is the earth?
Bet you’ll ignore these simple childish questions too. Too difficult for your worldview it seems!
You’re missing the point. The mere accusation that I need to walk away from philosophical naturalism means that I have to use a different philosophy. My philosophy is not naturalism by choice, but by our human limitations. Nobody has shown that there’s anything else. Therefore, asking me to go beyond what we can check and test, means going into fantasyland / make believe. That makes your arguments circular. They have a circular requirement. In order to accept your point, I have to first allow for the existence of fantastic beings, the supernatural. All without evidence.
What do you think circular means? You keep saying ‘m question begging, yet you fail to see that I remain objective, while you’re asking me to forget objectivity. WOuldn’t that mean that it’s you who’s question begging?
Are you kidding? It’s awesome that fantasy makes prophesies and then the prophesies are fulfilled by other fantasies?
What’s truly amazing is that, despite it all being just fantasy, they force-fitted Jesus into the prophesies by inventing some census thing, because Jesus’s stories were from the wrong place.
My opinion? Nope. When something looks like fantasy, the burden of proof that they’re no fantasies lies in the one claiming that they’re reality. Otherwise, imagine how many fantasies could be claimed to be true and left to the rest of the worls to prove false.
I don’t “believe” it, I understand it to be your burden of proof. I insist, however, that I have explained to you why the Bible looks like fantasy (among other things, like those ancient laws).
Not the argument, Bill, intelligence. Are you saying that our intelligences don’t need support? Are you claiming that our intelligences are not a means to deal with our realities? If not, then you cannot claim that there’s an intelligent “cause” for a reality that is necessary before there can be intelligence.
Nope. That’s insufficient until you can cover the basic needs for whatever intelligence, such as evidence of the intelligent beings being around at the times and places where some intelligent beings were proposed to do something. Such as those intelligent beings having the necessary physiologies and technologies for performing their proposed work. As in archeological investigations.
Parts that do something that you anthropomorphize into “purpose” are as natural as they seem to be until proven otherwise. At least, we see them reproducing around us without any intelligences intervening in them doing so.
Do you really not see the problem and incoherence of proposing that intelligence built the universe, when the only intelligence you can point to is ours? While ignoring everything we need before we can build anything at all? While ignoring that we’re made of the very things that you’re attempting to explain? While ignoring that without those very things you’re attempting to explain, our intelligences wouldn’t even be?
I doubt that we can ever answer that. It’s not even clear that it is a meaningful question. Our ordinary meaning of “cause” has to do with what happens within our universe, so it doesn’t seem to make sense to apply it to universe itself.
Of course, we can make up answers. But, without actual supporting evidence, that doesn’t get us anything other than a “god of the gaps” argument.
Entropy,
It means an argument that relies on its original premise.
As in this argument which will struggle without the label “fantasy”. These statements demonstrate ignorance of Theology.
Our intelligence comes from intelligence. If you go down another path and deny intelligence is foundational then you face an infinite regress.
How is this more then denying our ability to do inductive and deductive reasoning?
Neil Rickert,
Neil, the existence of the universe, mankind and the Bible are supporting evidence. The evidence is stronger that you can imagine if you look at it without prejudice.
Its not a “God of the gaps” argument its a God of the whole show. The individual cases build up to the whole of objective reality.
Rather, it’s you that faces that.
You just said our intelligence comes from intelligence. Or, in other words all intelligence need a prior one to create it.
So where did the intelligence that created us come from?
If it did not need to come from intelligence itself, then you have just dis-confirmed your own claim that intelligence only comes from intelligence.
If it did need to come from intelligence then it’s you that have the infinite regress.
Now, of course, you’ll simply respond that your particular intelligence did not need to be created, it was always there. And I simply retort that I claim that property for the universe itself. Which neatly “solves” the problem and dispenses with extraneous entities.
What say you to a Hindu then who believes precisely the same but about their religion instead?
What test have you performed that shows Hinduism is false whereas your region is true?
OMagain,
Do you think for one to be true the other has to be false?
Those are the gaps.
That’s where you bring in the god of the gaps.
Yes. Don’t you? Otherwise why are you a Christian, specifically?
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
It’s quite clear that includes other gods like Brahma et al.
You know, the clue is in the other gods bit?
Last time I checked monotheism was a big part of Christanity. Has that changed colwed?
OMagain,
I think it is the most coherent complete explanation of objective reality.
I don’t see Hinduism completely contradicting Christianity so its not a real null hypothesis.
Such as “forget what you know and allow my book of fantasies, which contains fulfilled prophesies, a lot of room.”?
Seems to demonstrate ignorance of the history of the bible. On your part.
I find it deliciously ironic that you propose an incoherent infinite regress and then tell me I risk an infinite regress. The only way out of the regress, as I have shown, is to admit that intelligence is a product of nature, not the other way around.
Let’s see what you quoted:
It looks a lot like properly using our deductive and inductive reasoning. We properly check what intelligence is, we notice it’s one of several attributes of beings who also have the capacity to use tools, thus being able to use their intelligence beyond simply thinking and into action. We notice that it seems to be an ability that allows us to cooperate and deal with our environments, we notice that in order for us to build something we have to be there to build it.
Therefore, any proposed intelligent beings doing something in the past must have been there, being able to use tools, being able to put their collective work together, etc.
Your problem is that you want me to consider intelligence in isolation, as if it were some magical thing, floating around on its own, and performing all kinds of actions without a body and without tools, without any help from others, etc. But that’s not what intelligence looks like Bill.
Why should I kinda conveniently forget and even refuse to examine what intelligence is, and how it achieves what it achieves, what it needs, and still consider it intelligence, and then propose it to be the very reason there’s a universe, or life, or a planet, or a sun, or whatever you want to blame on it?
The contradiction is in the Christian creeds. Either way, Hinduism wouldn’t be a null hypothesis, but a competing one. Though hypothesis is “a bit” of a stretch. I suspect you don’t know what null means.
Congratulations on your first OP.
Can’t wait to see Joe G’s response here at TSZ!
Unless he’s banned.
Surely there has been many flares of the sun. Yet our planet remains.
The evidence that “a single flare of the sun has enough energy to obliterate our planet” seems to be lacking.
But do carry on with your rhetorical nonsense.
Surely our planet hasn’t been there to suffer the blast.
I’d explain the physics, and the instrumentation measuring the energy outputs, outbursts?, of those flares, but I suspect you’ve been weirdly sarcastic. So, feel free to take the next flight to the sun and jump in to catch a flare. Let us know how it was at your return.
Rhetorical nonsense? So, if an ocean stream crashed you against some rocks you’d come back unharmed? If you fell down a deep precipice you’d be all right? That volcano didn’t destroy Pompey? Winter storms don’t stop airports? That hurricane didn’t destroy that much of Miami? That other didn’t destroy so much of Puerto Rico? No natural phenomena have ever harmed humanity?
Those are tiny, but truly tiny, compered to the energy of a sun flare, but you want to deny it could destroy our planet?
I suspect you’ve got the point and you didn’t like the implications. Start allowing those ideas into your mind and you might end up unable to deny that nature is unimaginably above you and your smartest accomplishments.
Mung,
I wasn’t expecting Joe G to comment here. I truly don’t care if he’s banned or not.
The account “JoeG” was suspended by Lizzie (site owner) several years ago after
postingJoe posted* a link to a gratuitously obscene image. Subsequently, a sock puppet account of Joe’s, “Frankie”, initially was tolerated but eventually was suspended for persistent failure to abide by the rules. If Joe wants to participate here again, admins could consider it.ETA *amended for clarity
I doubt that Mung has the same concern for the people that Joe has banned from commenting on his blog being able to respond when he names them.
Just another concern troll.
OMagain, In the fifteen or so years I’ve been observing Joe in his various guises, the one thing I’ve never observed is anyone ever managing to have any sort of useful dialogue with him.
In case JoeG is looking in and a warning to anyone tempted to visit his website. It seems it is infected with malware currently. Entering the URL redirects me to a fake Amazon site offering gifts of mobile phones
Snurk.
You did manage to get one thing right. I simply don’t care what Joe does at his own blog. Is this your blog? Is it Alan’s blog? Is it Elizabeth’s blog?
Did Elizabeth sign off on Alan’s removal of me as an admin?
Do you even care?
PM me if you’ve changed your mind.
PM me if Elizabeth signed off on your removal of me as an admin.
Where you are involved, no.
You’ve made your bed so go lie in it.