To define:
NDE (Neo-Darwinian Evolution) = OOL & evolution without prescriptive goals, both being nothing more in essence than functions of material forces & interactions.
ID (Intelligent Design) = Deliberate OOL & evolution with prescriptive goals
(I included OOL because if OOL contains purposefully written code that provides guidelines for evolutionary processes towards goals, then evolutionary processes are not neo-Darwinian as they utilize oracle information).
I’m not an evolutionary biologist, nor am I a mathematician. Therefore, when I argue about NDE and ID, the only cases I attempt to make are logical ones based on principles involved because – frankly – I lack the educational, application & research expertise to legitimately parse, understand and criticize most papers published in those fields. I suggest that most people who engage in NDE/ID arguments (on either side) similarly lack the necessary expertise to evaluate (or conduct) such research on their own.
Further, even if they had some related expertise that makes them qualified, to some degree, to successfully parse such papers, as has been brought up in this forum repeatedly is the lack of confidence in the peer-review process as a safeguard against bad science or bad math, or even fraudulent and sloppy science. A brief search on google or bing for scientific fraud and peer review process will find all sorts of studies about a growing epidemic of bad citations – citations that reference recalled, recanted, fraudulent or disproven research.
So, for the majority of us who are not conducting active research in evolutionary biology, nor are mathematicians or information theorists, what are we really saying if we assert that “evolution has been proven by countless papers”, or “ID is necessary to the formation of DNA”? When one of us claims that Dembski’s work has been “disproven”, or that Douglas Axe has proven something about functional protein probabilities, what does it mean when we (those whom I am referring to in this post) have no personal capacity to legitimately reach that conclusion via our own personal understanding of the math or the research fields/data involved?
All we can be doing is rhetorical characterizing and cheerleading. We argue as if we understand the research or the math, but in fact (for many of us) we don’t, and even if we did, unless we are doing that research, we cannot have that much confidence in the peer-review process. All we can do (outside of arguments using logic and principle) is quote abstracts and conclusions or other people we believe to be qualified (and honest) experts about data and research we don’t really understand and which may or may not be valid. This is really nothing more than just cherry-picking convenient abstracts and conclusions and assuming the peer-review process worked for that particular paper.
Therefore, the NDE/ID argument for most people has nothing to do with (and, in fact, cannot have anything to do with) valid and informed interpretations of biological data or an understanding of the math involved in information theory as it is applied to evolutionary processes – even if they believe that to be the case. Logically, if we admit we are not really personally capable of qualitatively examining and reaching valid conclusions of research that we would somehow vet as valid research, we must admit all we are really doing is choosing to believe something, and then erecting post hoc arguments in an attempt to characterize our choice of belief as something derived from a legitimate, sound understanding of the facts (biological & mathematical) involved.
This means that for most of us, the NDE/ID argument is really a proxy argument that belies the real argument, or the reason we have chosen NDE or ID to believe in the first place. IMO, that “reason” is a disagreement of ontological worldviews, and I think that the two general worldviews that are in conflict which are fighting a proxy battle through the NDE/ID debate are:
1) Humans are deliberately generated entities that exist for a purpose;
2) Humans are not deliberately generated entities that exist for a purpose.
Now, I don’t claim those general worldviews cover every foundational motive or position in the NDE/ID debate. But, I think it is logically clear that most of us must be presenting what can only be rhetorical cheerleading in an attempt to construct post hoc rationalizations for our choice of belief (combined with attempts to make the other “side” feel bad about their position via various character smearing, motive-mongering, name-calling, belittling their referenced papers and experts, and other such invective, and so we must have chosen our belief for some other reason, and IMO the two categories above represent the two basic (and pretty much necessary) consequences of NDE/ID beliefs.
So, to simplify: for whatever psychological reasons, people either want or need to believe that humans are deliberately generated beings that exist for a purpose, or they wish or need to believe the contrary, which leads them to an emotional/intuitive acceptance of ID or NDE, which they then attempt to rationalize post hoc by offering statements structured to make it appear (1) as if they have a valid, legitimate understanding of things they really do not; (2) that they have real science on their side; (3) that experts agree with them (when, really, they are just cheerleading convenient experts), and (4) that it is stupid, ignorant, or wicked to not accept their side as true.
Of course it is from the perspective that every question and every answer is determined by ones’ worldview! Nothing else COULD have happened from that perspective!
I speculate that one worldview holds that conclusions are derived from evidence, and therefore changes in the evidence can change the conclusions. Conclusions are tentative in this worldview, but certainly not capricious.
And another is that whatever fails to support foregone conclusions simply is not evidence. How CAN it be? Conclusions are not tentative in this worldview, since by protocol all evidence MUST support them, to BE evidence in the first place.
One worldview leads to you being probably correct, the other leads to you being Absolutely Certain. It’s a matter of which condition is more confortable for you. You can’t have both.
No one ever accomplished anything scientific just because they believed in a God. No one ever accomplished anything scientific just because they didn’t believe in a God. By “worldview” and “materialistic/atheistic” you are clearly admitting that ID is all about religious beliefs. Religious beliefs have nothing to do with “sound reasoning”, but have everything to do with corrupt inferences, conclusions, and biases.
Actually, evidence does tell how to collect it, and how to interpret it, and how to generate an hypothesis about what it might be in the first place or the second place or the third place, etc. Curiosity, observation, accidental discoveries, study, testing, comparing, sampling, experimenting, and the accumulation of knowledge from doing those things leads to learning what “evidence” is and how it should be looked for and collected and interpreted and how hypotheses should be generated. No one is born knowing what evidence is. Everyone has to learn what it is, and some people either want or have to learn more than others, and that knowledge is usually passed on to others in the society or family and to subsequent generations, unless some of that knowledge is lost due to upheavals in the society or family. As time goes on, more is learned about “evidence”, and because of that more evidence is sought and found, better collecting methods are employed, more accurate interpretations are made, accurate predictions can sometimes be made, and better hypotheses and theories are generated.
William, does the word ‘solipsism’ have a meaning in your worldview? If so, can you tell me what that meaning is?
I think that both are good questions.
Amadan,
Because I am willing to admit that my worldview affects how I perceive and interpret everything I experience doesn’t mean I subscribe to the notion that the entire world only exists in my mind.
What it means is that, cognizant of the fact that deep worldview premises generate a long and pervasive chain reaction that influences all thought and behavior, I am very, very careful about what fundamental propositions I utilize, and am vigilant about the effects they produce.
Fundamental beliefs are like chaotic strange attractors, IMO – they can form all kinds of unexpected and significant patterns in one’s thought process and behavioral pattern, patterns that are often unrealized by that person. My published work explores this, and describes a process I used to uproot fundamental beliefs all the way down to nihilism – and there I realized even nihilism was a world view.
Conscious, intelligent entities cannot help but operate from an ontological and epistemological system, whether recognized by them as such or not. I’m aware of mine – in fact, I deliberately constructed it as it now exists. I don’t conflate it with “reality” (as many empiricists seem to do here), but rather recognize it as only a tool by which I interact with what I assume to be objectively existent.
Not “just” because, but obviously (if one looks at history) it helps.
What you claim I am “admitting” isn’t representative of anything other than what what you wish I was “admitting”. The theory of ID is, IMO, scientific. IDists, generally, are theists that, generally, promote theistic philosophies. I can keep from conflating the two; can you?
Religious beliefs are a form of philosophy, and philosophy has everything to do with sound reasoning.
William J. Murray,
Thank you. That’s an interesting reply. Can you post a link to your published work on this or tell me where I can find it please?
By way of background, I’m not a scientist, or particularly empirical. Just skeptical in the rather jaded way that lawyers tend to become!
I would agree with all that, William, and I think it is vital that empiricists recognise (as I would say most do) that what they are working with, always, are models of reality, not the thing-itself. The huge benefit of empiricism, however, is that it gives us an objective way of evaluating those models; in other words, it assumes that reality exists, and that the more closely our models fit the data, the closer they approximate to reality.
That’s why I made the point that while worldview might (and surely does) affect the models we construct, the entire edifice of scientific methodology is designed to minimise the effect to which we select the data to fit our models, not the other way round. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and the better should not be the enemy of the good 🙂
What do any of your posts have to do with the topic of this thread?
I don’t rely on what science provides; I use what science provides. What I rely on is my belief in god, my free will, my capacity to discern and reason, and my creativity. Without those things (not mine, but historically), science as we know it wouldn’t even exist.
You have put your cart before your horse.
Asks the guy that duplicated an entire off-topic post just to post a one-line question.
Why do you not ask that of anyone else who writes long posts and questions (to me) about things off-topic? Biased, much? I answer questions and challenges people here address to me. If Elizabeth wants to move them, she can. Are you the thread monitor (but only when it comes to those you disagree with)?
Elizabeth,
Reiterating your biased conflation of empiricism with “a method of unbiased, objective model-making” doesn’t change it from being a blatant, biased testimonial to your particular worldview that empiricism can make unbiased, objective models.
Why, according to IDists, if science is a process based on theism and god, do they ignore that process, (science), when it says something uncomfortable to them?
I have not said that “empricism can make unbiased, objective models”. I have said that empricism allows us to evaluate models objectively.
That is a crucial difference. Our worldview has a huge effect on the questions we ask, and “paradigm shifts” occur when we radically change those questions. But the answers we get are provided by the data, not by the worldview.
Data is always interpreted through worldview.
What do you mean by “objectively”, if not “according to reality? If by “objectively” you mean “according to empirical premises”, what have you said, if not “empiricism allows us to evaluate models empirically”?
The former is a claim that your system of empiricism can objectively model reality; the latter is self-referential nonsense. You are either proselytizing the worldview “empiricism” as “revealing objective reality”. Or, you are mouthing self-referential nonsense.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change”
Ah, I have finally seen the light. Empiricism is basically an illusion, everything is so subjective that the very IDEA of “objective” reflects hopeless bias. There isn’t really any such thing as “testing” a model, since the tests are biased and any interpretation of the test results is nothing but ratification of a pre-existing worldview. The concept of “knowledge” is a snare and a delusion. The apparent resoundingly consistent success of the scientific enterprise just depends on how you look at it.
Pay no attention to the biased notion that this enterprise has enabled this conversation in multiple ways – providing the technology, giving us the time and health to interact, supplying the “knowledge” base for discussion, etc.
I wonder if this “nothing means anything except what we WANT it to mean” approach applies to the Designer. I sometimes suspect it gets suspended when applied to eating when we’re hungry, and looking both ways before crossing the street. And other subjective, baseless irrelevancies.
I mean “by independent observers”. That’s the key to empiricism, and the reason that scientific papers have these boring methods sections, and why operational definitions are so important: so that findings can be replicated (or not) by independent parties. In other words that the findings are not “subjective” – in the eye of the beholder only, but “objective” – can be agreed to be so by independent observers.
As so often, William, I’m not understanding your point. I didn’t say that “empiricism” “reveal[s] objective reality”. I don’t think it does. I think it presents models of reality that can be tested, objectively, against data.
But no model is ever a perfect fit, and so all models, in one sense, are false. It is the fact that our models can converge at all that tells us that some kind of reality exists. But we cannot observe it directly, we can only test our models against data.
William J Murray,
I think you are confused by the term empirical.
If an apple drops on someone’s head, one world-view may consider it to be an act of god while a different world-view may claim a yet to be discovered, “unintended by any intelligence” process, is responsible.
The empirical data however, is that an apple that was on a tree is now on the ground.
Your world-view doesn’t change that.
objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers
– Merriam-Webster
Elizabeth,
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were using a personal definition of the term “objective”.
Toronto,
I didn’t say worldview changed data. I said it interpreted it.
Joe G:
Which is why first principles are so very important.
please see my citation of the Merriam-Webster just above; as it clearly demonstrates *perceptible by independent observers* is far from a “personal definition” of Lizzie’s. In fact, it is the routine use of scientist for the term “objective”.
In other words, the term “objectively” here actually refers back to the empiricism, which essentially (as a philosophy) claims that knowledge comes from the senses, and such knowledge should be verifiable via other people’s senses. In essence, you have in fact said “empiricism presents models of reality that can be tested empirically (according to empirical premises)”, which is essentially nothing but a self-referential ideological tautology.
William J. Murray,
I agree with madbat089. I see nothing objectionable or idiosyncratic about Lizzie’s definition of objective. In what way is it lacking in your view?
She has said that “empiricism presents models of reality that her senses create that can be tested against other people’s senses.” None of this is tautological.
If I look at a DVD edge on I see a narrow line of plastic. If I look at it from above I see a silvery disk with a hole through the middle. Has the DVD changed between the two perspectives or is it simply the way it is represented in my mental model of the world?
William J Murray,
The fact that an apple is on a tree is empirical data.
You and I could both watch that same apple fall to the ground.
Is it wrong to accept that you and I, watching that apple fall, have shared an empirical observation?
I wasn’t, although I’m aware you tend to use it in a different sense. My usage is fairly standard. Could you give me the definition you have in mind when you use the term?
No, it isn’t.
What I am saying is:
The evidence that “reality” exists is evidenced by the fact that we observe regularities in the world – that we can make predictive models.
Our models are not reality, but the better their predictions, the closer we can infer that they model reality.
We can evaluate our models by using them to make predictions and quantifying the difference between our predictions and our observations.
These models can be tested by independent observers, corroborating the predictive validity of our models. It is this property that renders empirical models “objective”.
So are these the books you referred to, William?
As I said in an earlier comment, if so, that may help us to understand where you are coming from.
You rely on science every minute of every day, every day of your life, whether you realize it, admit it, and appreciate what science has provided, or not. I rely on science too, every minute of every day, every day of my life, and I realize it, admit it, and appreciate what science has provided.
Does that really matter for the purposes of these discussions? Knowing that kairosfocus was one Gordon E Mullings who lives on the Caribbean island of Montserrat satisfied a certain curiosity (and provided ammunition for more personal attacks) but it really added nothing to his arguments or our understanding of them. By the same token, if this William J Murray is that William J Murray, it would be interesting but so what?
Well, William has referred to his books, which is why I asked.
And if those are his books, then I think it does help (well, it helps me) understand some of what he is saying (which I often find puzzling). It’s not the name that matters – but what else the same person has written. It does not help me to know kairosfocus’ real name, but it does help me to know what he has written on his website.
Not only did I respond to you when you first asked, I even linked to my books. No, that’s not me, or my books.
I read WJM’s OP to be saying that people (later amended to non-experts) on both sides of discussions of ID derive their views on the matter more from their views on the existence of a creator-god than from the evidence.
I think that for at least some of those who believe in a personal God, the existence of that God is, understandably, a very important thing that is reflected in many aspects of their life. In particular, their view of what is likely in biology is strongly affected by that belief and the related, subsidiary beliefs they hold (in a young Earth, in an omni-benevolent creator, in the specialness of humans, etc.). So I can see that WJM may be right with respect to those individuals.
But because that belief in a personal God is so important a thing in their lives, they (and I assume based on the OP that WJM is one of the “they”) tend to overestimate the importance of beliefs about God in the lives of those who do not have a belief in a personal God. (I think there is a human tendency to overestimate the importance of the things we are interested in.)
So WJM thinks that people who do not believe in God derive their other beliefs more or less directly from that premise. It seems clear to me however that the lack of belief in a personal God is much less likely to drive other beliefs than a belief in that God is. If you believe there is a personal God who punishes and rewards, it is important to take that into account in deciding what to believe about biology. If you do not believe there is a personal God, that weight is removed from the balance.
As someone who does not believe in a personal God, I think my beliefs on the nature of biology are based on what I understand of the facts and what I take to be the stances of the experts. The absence of God from the mainstream explanation is not a factor in favor of that explanation for me. If my understanding of the evidence and the experts’ view came to be that life on Earth was designed by aliens or time travelers or God, that would be interesting.
Walter Kloover,
I’m not going to bother with a point by point, but suffice it to say, you’ve not understood anything I said.
It takes two to tango.
The evidence is evidenced?
Self-referential. How do you know “reality” is capable of being predictably modeled in the first place? How do you know that the capacity to be “predictably modeled” is not just a feature of your own biased filtering system?
More self-reference. Essentially, you’re saying: “Reality is that which empirical models predict, so models that predict well describe reality well.”
All entirely self-referential. You begin with the belief that reality is that which is arbited by empiricism, then use the process of empiricism to reach empirical conclusions. The bias is clearly 100% closed-loop, self-referential empiricism.
William J Murray,
I think Walter Kloover presented a good assessment and here’s why:
By presenting this choice, you have made it the central point, that nothing could create humans for a purpose other than god or an alien species.
A fine-tuned universe is something that “aliens”, themselves slaves to physics when it comes to their existence, had no power to create.
Since you believe only a world-view based on theism is reasonable, I am going to declare god the winner.
If you had a non-god world-view, you would never choose what you “want” to believe over what is “believable” because there would not be any “reason” to.
I think this is what the debate is about, what you “need to believe” and that which is, on its own, “believable”.
She doesn’t. She says predictions of our models can be compared to reality, not that they are reality. Try a little harder, William.
You might have a point if this “empiricism” only worked historically, but it looks into the future at events that haven’t happened yet, and predicts successfully those events.
For instance, if I drop a feather and a bowling ball in a vacuum, I can predict exactly when they are going to hit the ground simply by knowing their height above ground.
What I can’t know if I have two Christians of different denominations in a room, is what is morally correct for either of them, even in identical situations.
I’m not saying that the assumption that “reality” is empiricism-available is a bad belief system; I’m just saying that it’s a belief system, an ideology that has a profound effect on everything one thinks, says and does. When one fails to understand that their belief system is just a belief system, and instead mistake it for that which arbits reality, they lose sight that their premises are just ontological and epistemological premises like anyone else’s.
Elizabeth has directly implied over and over that it is by empirical models that we best describe reality – in fact, she said that it is through empirical models that an existent reality is “evidenced”, which is a blatant, 1 to 1 correspondence of “empiricism” to “reality”. Reality, to Elizabeth, is that which can be modeled empirically.
The problem with the empirical model of reality is that it is self-refuting; empirical models exist in the mind. They cannot be demonstrated empirically. In fact, all models of “what reality is” and “how reality can be known” exist only in the mind, so any philosophy that doesn’t acknowledge the primacy of mind will be ultimately self-refuting and nonsensical.
Empirical models do not describe “reality”; they only describe the limitations of the predictability of experience.
Yup; this pretty much captures the issues with having to work around sectarian dogma.
Sectarians have been warring among themselves and killing each other for centuries. The net result is a proliferation of divergent opinions about the nature and desires of a deity (or deities).
On the other hand, nature doesn’t care about sectarian dogma. Science converges regardless.
Sectarian constraints are constraints slapped onto people by threats of the pain of death and eternal torture. That pretty much restricts what the fearful can consider. Deep-seated emotional terror of deviating from sectarian beliefs drives the interest in the “logic” that allows one to find comfort in not deviating.
Yes, that’s how scientists describe the world we live in: by making observations, building theoretical models, testing their predictive power, repeat. I don’t think, however, that any scientist, Elizabeth included, would say that scientific models are reality. At best, they are approximate descriptions of reality.
No disrespect, William, but this paragraph clearly demonstrates that you do not understand how science works. It does not attempt to explain “what reality is” or “how reality can be known.” Its goals are much more modest, namely to describe how things work. Not why.
In anything you are saying, you are presupposing your view of what of reality is, which is, according to your worldview, only valid in your worldview.
If we were brains in a vat dreaming this existence, our “dreamed” experiences have been better served by an “empirical” belief in our dreamworld.
Whether a “dream or real”, when I took my antibiotics, the pneumonia, “real or dreamed”, went away.