[note: the author formatted this is a way that did not leave space for a page break. So I am inserting the break at the top — NR]
- Paley’s teleological argument is: just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watch-maker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker. Paley also addressed a number of possible counterarguments:
- Objection: We don’t know who the watchmaker is. Paley: Just because we don’t know who the artist might be, it doesn’t follow that we cannot know that there is one.
- Objection: The watch (universe) is not perfect. Paley: Perfection is not required.
- Objection: Some parts of the watch (universe) seem to have no function. Paley: We just don’t know those functions yet.
- Objection: The watch (re universe) is only one possible form of many possible combinations and so is a chance event. Paley: Life is too complex and organized to be a product of chance.
- Objection: There is a law or principle that disposed the watch (re universe) to be in that form. Also, the watch (re the universe) came about as a result of the laws of metallic nature. Paley: The existence of a law presupposes a lawgiver with the power to enforce the law.
- Objection: One knows nothing at all about the matter. Paley: Certainly, by seeing the parts of the watch (re the universe), one can know the design.
- Hume’s arguments against design:
- Objection: “We have no experience of world-making”. Counter-objection: We have no direct experience of many things, yet that never stops us from reasoning our way through problems.
- Objection: “The analogy is not good enough. The universe could be argued to be more analogous to something more organic such as a vegetable. But both watch and vegetable are ridiculous analogies”. Counter-objection: By definition, no analogy is perfect. The analogy needs only be good enough to prove the point. And Paley’s analogy is great for that limited scope. Hume’s followers are free to pursue the vegetable analogy if they think it is good enough. And some [unconvincingly] do imagine the universe as “organic”.
- Objection: “Even if the argument did give evidence for a designer; it’s not the God of traditional Christian theism”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding.
- Objection: “The universe could have been created by random chance but still show evidence of design as the universe is eternal and would have an infinite amount of time to be able to form a universe so complex and ordered as our own”. Counter-objection: Not possible. There is nothing random in the universe that looks indubitably designed. That is why we use non-randomness to search for extraterrestrial life and ancient artefacts.
- Other arguments against design:
- Darwin: “Evolution (natural selection) is a better explanation”. “There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” — The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. Counter-objection: “Natural selection” would be an alternative hypothesis to Paley’s if it worked. But it demonstrably doesn’t, so there is not even a point in comparing the two.
- Dawkins: “Who designed the designer?” Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Dawkins: “The watch analogy conflates the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves with the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes”. Counter-objection: Paley is aware of the differences between the living and the inert and is not trying to cast life into a watch. Instead he is only demonstrating that they both share the property of being designed. In addition, nothing even “arises”. Instead everything is caused by something else. That’s why we always look for a cause in science.
- Objection: “Watches were not created by single inventors, but by people building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: In Dover case, the judge ruled that such an inductive argument is not accepted as science because it is unfalsifiable. Counter-objection: Both inductive and deductive reasoning are used in science. Paley’s argument is not inductive as he had his hypothesis formulated well before his argumentation. Finally, Paley’s hypothesis can absolutely be falsified if a random draw can be found to look designed. This is exactly what the “infinite monkey” theorem has tried and failed to do (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: Paley confuses descriptive law with prescriptive law (i.e., the fallacy of equivocation). Prescriptive law does imply a lawgiver, and prescriptive laws can be broken (e.g., speed limits, rules of behavior). Descriptive laws do not imply a law-giver, and descriptive laws cannot be broken (one exception disproves the law, e.g., gravity, f = ma.). Counter-objection: Of all the laws with known origin, all (100%) have a lawgiver at the origin. The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive laws is thus arbitrary and unwarranted.
- Objection: It is the nature of mind to see relationship. Where one person sees design, another sees randomness. Counter-objection: This ambiguity is present only for very simple cases. But all humans agree that organisms’ structures are clearly not random.
- Dawkins: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Counter-objection: Just a corollary: since organisms indeed appear designed, then they are most likely designed according to Occam’s razor.
- In conclusion, Paley is right and his opponents continue to be wrong with not even a plausible alternative hypothesis.
Links:
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks KN. Maybe this philosophical revision is why we don’t talk about Einstein’s laws of relativity. So, besides equivocation / reification, it’s also something of a circular argument. They’re called “laws” because they were imagined to be the magical-being-in-the-sky’s pronouncements, therefore the magical-being-in-the-sky exists.
This conclusion seems reasonable to me. By definition, selection reduces any collection of anything by NOT selecting some. Selection can’t increase diversity. Selection is a process that weeds out some and preserves others according to some metric. Mutations are the agency that increases diversity. Between them, mutation and selection produce an equilibrium we call the biosphere.
Whether or not that is in Paley, it is the way people thought about how the adaptations of organisms arose — there just did not seem to be any alternative to Design Intervention.
It was a completely fair argument. And my arguments are not the ones failing. Of course I know you will not be persuadable on this point, so I will not discuss it further with you. The onlookers will draw the right conclusion.
More totally mistaken conclusions by nonlin.org. More points on which nonlin.org cannot be persuaded by any reasonable argument. More points on which onlookers will be reasonable, even if nonlin.org is not. More things I will not further bother to discuss with nonlin.org (I am of course open to discussing them with others).
And again, we can reflect on the words of Richard Dawkins
Kind of convenient for us to have the quintessential illustration.
Yea. Unfortunately evolutionists don’t like to mention this very often. How many text books state clearly, “One of the main hindrances to genetic diversity is natural selection. It is what prevents changes to species.”
Selection by itself doesn’t increase diversity. The combined iterative process of random genetic variations filtered by selection increases genetic diversity.
What’s that make, about the 500th time that simple scientific fact has been explained to you?
Much like “Intelligent Design” theory is supposedly “strictly scientific” according to the DI, in light of this thread’s title, here’s a tribute to another kind of “excellent” adventure, that’s only “partly” true (hint: in IDT’s case, it’s the “strictly scientific” part!). https://youtu.be/q3fx6TugN7g
No, that doesn’t increase diversity. It increases divergence among species, but not diversity within species, which is what Phoodoo was talking about (though he may not realize it).
And selection can increase diversity within populations: frequency-dependent selection does that by maintaining a greater number of alleles in the population at greater frequencies than would be likely under neutral evolution.
Selection can also increase diversity by increasing the frequency of rare favorable alleles. It depends on initial gene frequencies and when you stop.
To illustrate frequency dependent selection with an example: The Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA) locus on chromosome 6, which plays an important role in the immune response, is one of the most polymorphic (variable) regions in the human genome. That is because of selection, not in spite of it. This diversity is promoted by the fact that pathogens tend to adapt to the most common alleles, making rare alleles inherently favorable and preventing them from being lost to drift.
I would say this “clear statement” is also misleading. Let me try another analogy: think of white noise – sound of all audible frequencies simultaneously. Can’t get more diversity of sound than that. Now let’s apply selection, picking some of those sounds and eliminating nearly all of them, but selecting different sounds at different times. The result, properly applied, is music. Music is FAR less diverse than white noise, but you wouldn’t say that selection is a hindrance to music, it’s what PERMITS music. Composing music, like composing species, is a matter of “tuning out” what doesn’t fit. Yet there is no limit to what music can be composed.
God yes, evolution’s dirty little secret: natural selection (and drift) tend to reduce genetic variation, and hence, despite nonlin’s inept resistance, tend to push the population frequencies of alleles towards 100% – the pinnacle of invariance, the meanest of means.
It would be hard to emerge from an evolution course or lengthy discussion without appreciating that fact – it’s almost a Law: the Inbreeding Coefficient tends upwards in an almost entropic manner – but somehow it’s all clandestine: What They Daren’t Say. Despite being argued here, in plain view, for nigh on a decade.
Granted that there are forces opposing complete homozygosity (what I like to call “100%” 😁) in many cases.
That would be misleading. That kind of “inference” assumes that natural selection refers to some phenomena that just continuously wipes out any variation, rather than referring to the better chance of survival of advantageous variants, and the less likely survival of disadvantageous ones. It’s not as if only one advantageous mutation, thus one and only one advantageous allele, was possible. It’s not either as if there wasn’t plenty of neutral and semi-neutral variants available and appearing all the time.
I should think it would be self-evident that a process that either accepts or rejects ALL candidates is not a selection process at all. phoodoo is quite right that selection hinders diversity and works against changes to species. But one need only look around to see rampant diversity, and recognize that something else is operating in addition to pure elimination.
Completely wrong and uninformed. A simple search would disprove you: https://www.famousscientists.org/evolution-theories-before-darwin/
And Darwin’s stupid ideas were not accepted for a long time either… until atheism became much more entrenched. There was no alternative because “evolution” didn’t make any sense as it doesn’t make any sense today. But apparently Darwin just turned out to be a better scammer than Fraud, Hitler, Stalin, etc.
If “fitness” were a thing, at a minimum you and/or others would be able to reply with your “fitness” function. Since you aren’t, what exactly are we even talking about?
Where’s the “reason” in yapping on and on about “fitness” without one shred of quantifiable evidence?!?
And anyway, all this discussion is tangential to this OP. Anything about “Paley’s excellent argument”?
Your problem is that immune response genetic changes are not inherited, hence nothing to do with “selection”, “evolution” and any such nonsense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody
It’s a build in defense mechanism with which organisms have been endowed.
Absolutely false. No instrument makes music by rejecting (selecting) white noise frequencies.
You have yet to prove your fantastic theory with a practical example. Still waiting on the other thread…
So that would be a “convergence of character”, right? Then how come we don’t see that in the multi-gen data?!?
Let’s not forget: the topic today is Paley’s excellent argument. I don’t see much push back. Maybe everyone agrees with this OP’s conclusions beyond the feeble counter-counter-arguments 🙂
The OP is quite another conceptual mess usual of Nonlin.
Let’s see the first part:
The argument seems problematic, but let’s leave it alone for now. If this was really Paley answering “objections,” then Paley was as conceptually confused as the OP’s author.
That doesn’t look like an objection. It looks much more like someone accepted the argument to be true, and requested more information. Thus, if that was Paley’s actual words, then he did not answer the question.
Again, that doesn’t look like an objection, looks like someone accepts the argument, but thinks that it fails to attest for a perfect god, which is, perhaps, what the asking person wanted to have, something attesting for a particular, perfect, god, rather than for a “puny” one.
This one looks a little it like an objection (finally!), but weird to be one. Why would an objector call the universe a “watch”? That would concede Paley’s argument, making this not an objection, but a request to make it more robust. Paley’s “answer” is no “answer.” It doesn’t address the problem, it makes it worse, since now he has implied that the conclusion of the argument can only be true if everything in the universe has a function. This means that the argument won’t be correct, by Paley’s self-imposed standard, until there’s enough knowledge to tell one way or another about those functions. Waiting for the proper knowledge, evidence, to tell if there’s a magical being in the sky is the position of those who don’t buy into the existence of magical beings in the sky. Thus, this “answer” concedes that the “argument” fails
I very much doubt that this was an actual objection, and that Paley answered it. For one, an objector would not call the universe a “watch,” and a knowledgeable one would not call it “a chance event.” Paley’s supposed answer also presumes much more knowledge than he could have and, interestingly, the imaginary objector is asking about the universe itself, and Paley to life. Were both of them on drugs?
Again Nonlin, an objector would never call the universe a watch. That would be a concession. Don’t be so openly deceiving. This one contradicts the one above, and shows how little you understand about scientific proposals, and how easily you mistake concepts for their referents. As many have said already, laws are descriptions about the way nature works. That doesn’t make them commands of a magical being in the sky.
This is the same “let’s wait until we have more information before deciding,” with Paley just shrugging it off.
In the end, the whole list only shows that Nonlin believes that the argument is correct, yet cannot present a convincing reason for a skeptic to buy into it.
This post boils down to “I’m right because I say I’m right, and this must be true because, since I’m right, I must be right.”
So, just to be fair, what would you consider a STRONG counter argument to Paley? One that might even seem plausible to you?
[citation needed]
You are so cute when you are trying to bluff your way into genetics. Alleles at the HLA-locus are heritable, just like at any other genomic locus. You are probably referring to V(D)J recombination within lymphocytes.
Flint,
I think you stoped reading my comment too soon.
I think that has been Non-lin’s only argument presented so far.
I’d be impressed if Nonlin could demonstrate an adequate understanding of what Paley’s argument actually was. Most creationists can’t, and Nonlin is no exception.
That’s the downside with all this information that’s written down somewhere: it’s no good if people don’t know how to read.
Nonlin.org,
My fantastical theory that all of something is 100%? Hahaha! You’re on your own on this one, laddie.
We see a gradual disappearance of variation over multiple generations without novel variation arising from mutation and recombination (or outcrossing, if there’s something to outcross with). So I don’t know who you are including in your ‘we’. Probably just you.
🤣 Poor Nonlin!
Moved a comment to guano
So you can’t come up with anything better than what I gathered and are asking me to do your work?!? Seriously???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_(20th_century)
Yes. Your other bullshit story (“frequency dependent selection”) really didn’t make any sense.
Kantian Naturalist,
Then it’s all good? You know, since you got no specific objections… generic displeasure notwithstanding?
You don’t even remember your own claim? Wow! Refresher: you were talking about alleles frequency changes as if you knew all possible alleles of every gene and all you had to do is add with your brand new abacus. So once again, go over a real life example of a gene and all its alleles (which are known to you of course).
And this means what exactly? Are we or are we not seeing “convergence of character”? “Divergence of character”? Neither?
Complaints about moderation are discussed in the “moderation issues” thread, not elsewhere.
Nah. No complaint.
My claim was that if (note the conditional) an allele is increasing in frequency, the proportion contributed by any other allele(s) must be decreasing, because the sum of all allele frequencies must add up to 100%. This must be true irrespective of whether you have examined all alleles or none, from basic mathematics. You have been strenuously denying that simple axiomatic fact ever since, to my continuing amusement.
I don’t know what your archly scare-quoted phrases are supposed to represent. It means that the variation of a population – the number of different alleles at a locus, if we take the genetic stance – decreases. Alternatively expressed, it means that homozygosity increases.
I know you’ll say ‘this means what? again’, but that’s because you don’t know any genetics. You don’t think it has any relevance to evolution – but then, if you don’t have a clue about it, how would you know?
Basic fact you just keep missing: even if in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice, there is.
But since you admit to not have any experimental evidence for the nonsense peddled, it’s clear that the allele frequency tells you nothing about anything especially since you can’t even articulate what an allele is with respect to an x-base pair gene. Then wtf are you even adding? Apples, oranges, and snakes? Will that amount to 100%? Of what? Snakes?
To put you out of your misery, this is why you’re struggling so much: the definition of “allele” is vague and not directly tied to the gene at it preceded genes. That’s why you have no way of tying the two. Not that the ‘gene’ is much more firm of a concept given all the epigenetics and so on. And “evolution” that preceded both is hopelessly retarded as explained over and over again with experimental proofs.
And the experimental proof for this nonsense is…? Please do not link to nowhere on the internet again. Explain briefly and only then link to the pertinent source. If any…
Genes began to be understood by Gregor Mendel, they were rediscovered in 1900. The term “gene” is from Johansen in 1910. The term “allele” is a short form of “allelomorph”, which was a term used by Bateson and Saunders in 1902. They understood the existence of genes but were not yet using Johansen’s term “gene” for them (they tended to be called “factors” instead).
Alleles were always, since then, understood to be the different possible forms of a gene. In any population, the frequency of all observed alleles must, of course, add up to 1.
It is not merely a theory that the totality of something is 100%. You don’t have to go out into the field to check this.
I have already articulated that. For any genetic sequence, of any length (which does not have to map onto a coding gene) alleles are the different variants of that sequence (including its absence). And their frequencies must sum to 100%
“All the epigenetics and so on” is also rooted in genetic sequence.
That genetic variation is unavoidably lost is a common observation, particularly when there is no broader population available for outcrossing, e.g. in conservation. Of course when populations are larger, variation is lost more slowly, but lost it is (absent selection against homozygotes, for example).
There is a practical application of this principle in the chemostat, used to generate pure strains of microorganisms for research. There is no active attempt to eliminate variation; it just happens, inevitably.
All the facepalms that ever were, that are, and there ever will be. And it will still not suffice.
Nonlin,
I think you did not read what I wrote carefully, which makes your “insult” backfire. You cannot call someone an idiot while making it obvious that you’re failing to understand the point.
I know that was a suppose dialog between imaginary “objectors” and an imaginary Paley. The point was that the imaginary objection I was checking wasn’t an objection at all, I wasn’t questioning your “dialog structure”, I was questioning the content. If you cannot understand the difference between questioning the content and questioning the “structure” of your supposed objections/”Paley’s” counter-objections, then the problem is your reading for comprehension abilities, not my intelligence.
I’d advice you to read more carefully and then either address or explain how I made a mistake of judgement, if I did. However, I know how useless that request would be. You’re not in the business of admitting mistakes and then carry on with something more sensical. You’re in the business of denying any mistake, no matter how ridiculously obvious (like your claim that evolution has nothing to do with genetics 🤣😂😂🤣🤣🤣, or that the total of something cannot possibly be 100% 😂🤣🤣😂😂😂), and doubling down on those ridiculous mistakes, as if insisting on them made them any less ridiculous.
Where? I don’t see any support on that page for your claim that “Darwin’s stupid ideas were not accepted for a long time […] until atheism became much more entrenched”. I think you just made this up.
Why? Your objection that “immune response genetic changes are not inherited” is demonstrably false. You have only denied facts without support so far.
Thanks for confirming my statement. Probably not what you intended… Specifically, you confirmed that ‘alleles’ precedes ‘gene’ and that both are somewhat vague having been defined before a better understanding of the biochemistry.
False. Not when the term ‘alleles’ is so vague. Perhaps you have the answer Allan can’t provide: exactly how many alleles does an x-pair gene have? Because 1 (100%) is such a precise number, you MUST either reply with a precise number or shut up. More yada, yada empty words full of BS will not be accepted.
False. You, Falsenstein & Co need to provide the EXACT number of alleles for an x-pair gene. And that number is…?
Does that mean you have the answer? Then don’t just sit there while Joe and Allan are roasting.
This is plain stupid. I already explained with apples oranges and snakes or whatever.
You’re not providing the experimental proof, brief explanation, and/or a link to the pertinent source as asked.
That’s just as bad. Did you open the links provided? Did you think those were my objections?!? If so, how stupid is that? No, they were the best I could find from someone that thinks like you including your “heroes” Hume, Darwin and Dawkins. And if those are not good enough, by all means, come up with your own [stronger] objections.
Perhaps you can’t read and/or understand:
“The modern synthesis[a] was the early 20th-century synthesis reconciling Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel’s ideas on heredity in a joint mathematical framework. Julian Huxley coined the term in his 1942 book, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis.”
The parasitic relationship that revived Darwin – the parasite – started in the 20th century (1942?) . Crystal-clear.
Then go ahead and demonstrate. What are you waiting for?
Let me suggest a non-biological example to non-lin.
I make a cake. It is circular, a flattish cylinder of uniform density. I offer you a slice, sector-shaped. Is there a simple relationship between the slice and the remaining cake? Say we weighed them, could we say your slice is 10% by weight and what’s left is 90%? Is this controversial?
You haven’t. Let’s see if we can establish some common ground. See my cake slicing.
Failing to read for comprehension yet again. I didn’t think those were your objections, after all, you would not object to Paley’s argument. Again: for the particular one you quoted I said it doesn’t look like an objection. There’s a difference between “doesn’t look like an objection” and “those were your objections.”
Failing at reading for comprehension twice, how stupid is that? What do you think that reveals about how well you researched the theme and actual objections? I’d suspect you weren’t able to understand them at all. You are very likely to have mistaken one thing for another, etc.
Of course that would be the best you could find. The lack of reading for comprehension you display when dealing with my comments can only mean that whatever you “find” will go way above your head, yet you’ll imagine that you understand them, but you’ll be mistaking one point for another, mistaking comments and requests for objections, etc.
What would be the point of explaining my own objections if you cannot understand the difference between “that doesn’t look like an objection” and “I don’t understand the structure”, or between “that doesn’t look like an objection” and “those are your objections”.
Also, I have no heroes Nonlin.
Alan Fox,
My mind is blown to see that Nonlin still fails basic comprehension on a point like this. There is truly nothing nonlin will not deny endlessly in order to feel correct.
Nonlin.org,
We see what you think you explained; in truth, you explained that you still don’t grasp the concept of percents.
You ask us to engage with your objections. Someone takes the bait and does engage. You then demonstrate an almost unreal lack of ability to engage with the actual arguments presented and instead attempt to insult the person making the arguments, thinking that you can obfuscate the playing field and escape safely. Everyone sees that you have no ability to reckon with any argument presented to you at all.
That’s a bizarre request. You haven’t said what x is, while the – ahem, let’s see if I’ve got the tone right – EXACT number of alleles depends on which organism and chromosomal location we are talking of.
But it doesn’t matter, because none of this has any bearing on whether the sum of allele frequencies for such a locus is 100%. Which it must be. This is just basic maths. You’re giving Joe G a real run for his money in the black-is-white argumentation stakes.
“Apples oranges and snakes or whatever”? Cripes, I wish you could see how terrible at argumentation you were.
For a given segment of a genome, the total of frequencies of all variants of that segment must add up to 100%. All the pissiness in the world does not change that simple fact. It requires only a grasp of frequency, and of the concept ‘allele’. Unfortunately genetics seems a bit of blind spot for you, despite its asserted lack of relationship to your real pet hate, evolution.
While you’re still struggling with such simple notions as the concepts ‘allele’ and ‘frequency’, I’m not sure you’re ready for anything more mentally taxing, that depends on a sensible grasp of the basics.
A gene with x sites in its DNA sequence (is that what you mean by “x pair”?) has of course
possible alleles, not counting alleles that have more bases inserted or some bases deleted. Most will of course have frequency 0, but the total of all of their frequencies must add up to 1.
I conclude that nonlin.org must mean something sensible, but it seems that everyone can’t figure out what nonlin is talking about. So there are two possibilities: (1) we are all a bunch of dolts who can’t read, or (2) nonlin.org’s arguments are written very unclearly. I vote for the latter.
Joe Felsenstein,
Aha! That makes much more sense.
I was thinking that nonlin had discovered the (non-pseudoautosomal) X chromosome, and had decided (in his infinite wisdom) that allele frequencies of, say, the alpha-galactosidase gene would add up to something other than 100%.
I may have over-estimated him yet again.
Should be obvious to any fool that you can’t count all the people in the room if you don’t know their names, and therefore there can’t be 100% of them. Duh.
There’s certainly an interesting discussion to be had in comparing Hume’s reasoning with Paley’s reasoning, but one would need to actually understand them in order to do so, which means taking the time to read them. But this is the 21st century, and no one has the time for that.
Allan Miller,
After reading a few of Nonlin’s claims to this effect, the “problem” seems to be that for Nonlin the sum of all alleles cannot be 100% “because” the alleles of all individuals have not been examined. In other words, Nonlin seems to want exact counts of every allele, or else there’s no 100%. That would be astoundingly nonsensical from someone else. However, it would be just on par with Nonlin’s everyday nonsense.
If so, and if Nonlin applied the same “logic” to his/her already confused “regression to the mean,” for example, Nonlin would have to conclude that there’s no mean to talk about without the measure of every character of all individuals, dead, alive and to be born. I wouldn’t expect Nonlin to acknowledge such an implication though.