[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:
Come on Bill. There’s a foundational differences between analogy and science. An analogy is a form of composition comparing two things, while science is a procedure for advancing knowledge. Analogies can be used in several ways, including poetry. The scientific method could start by making an analogy to try and build a hypothesis, that then gets tested. However, scientists try and be careful not to take an analogy too far, most importantly not towards a conclusion that doesn’t follow. That would be both unreasonable and unscientific.
Furthermore, I could use the same analogy to argue that life is mechanical, thus not supernatural, not magical. That’d be a much better conclusion from the analogy, since there’s no evidence that “mechanics” can only come from design. After all, in physics, for example, classical mechanics refers to natural phenomena. Yet, that still wouldn’t be science, but an argument from analogy. Do you see the difference between analogy and science now?
We shouldn’t be needing to explain such elementary concepts Bill. At this rate you’ll be asking us to support the claim that some HaiKu is not science.
Entropy,
It looks like science to me. We have a hypothesis and a mechanistic explanation. A mind was behind the origin of the watch. It also happens to check out. 🙂
And yet here you are, making that argument over and over and over. And nobody is ever convinced. Despite the fact that watches don’t evolve, that watches don’t breed, that watches don’t have DNA….
What happens to check out? That watches are made by watchmakers?
There’s a reason ID is slowly fading away. It’s because of people like you who try to wrap up religion in science and fail every time.
Among all these then where is the evidence for intelligent interventions
What part of life’s diversity is explained by evolution and what is not? If there is evidence of adaptation that can be examined where is the similar evidence for intelligent designed adaptation beyond what can be achieved by evolution?
As it seem to me you are admitting, out of necessity as it’s undeniable, there is evidence for evolution without mentioning the fact that there is no evidence for your claims regarding what evolutionary biology does not explain.
So on the table you place lots of evidence, but unfortunately for you none of it relates to your claims. We have evidence for evolution, you admit that. But it seems your evidence that the cell is designed comes from the bible and you won’t say what page!
Fucking nonsense. WIll you give up already?
DId you know that the bible has ‘codes’ in it colewd? There are all sorts of prophecies and predictions that can be discovered encoded in the bible.
For example, by taking every 50th letter of the Book of Genesis starting with the first taw, the Hebrew word “torah” is spelled out.
Perhaps the evidence I’m looking for that the cell is designed is hidden in a bible code? Would it be possible for you to spend some time, say the rest of your life, looking for such a code?
I wonder what you mean here. Dependent on what? DNA in living organisms stores information that is used by the organism to function, self-sustain and reproduce. Proteins are the workhorse of cells , acting as catalysts, structural elements and a whole host of other functions. Even currently*, sequence is not critical in DNA, there is considerable redundancy in the triplet code. As I and Jock already pointed out, there is no one-to-one equivalence between amino-acid sequence in proteins and their function..
*There are echos of an earlier doublet code that was a stepping stone from RNA World.
Come off it, Bill. You may think so but can’t explain coherently why nor is anyone taking much notice of your assertions.
Arguing for evolution! *chuckles*. Look in evolution’s telescope, Bill.
I didn’t,say “evolves” in this context and “emerges” is not a synonym for “evolves”. Water was not created at the beginning of the formation of the universe. Things had to cool down and matter had to condense first. But the properties of this univers appear to be fixed and constant so were determined at the outset. Nothing I wrote suggests otherwise.
Apparently that is the figure for gaseous water though it is 106° for ice
No, just an interesting fact remembered from my undergraduate days. Here’s a more detailed source on the structure of water molecules.
Then we do have some common ground.
Yes, if you are asked, “what is life?” a brief, basic answer would hardly cover it. It can only be a good thing to flesh it out with qualifications.
And here there is a bit of a conundrum. We are given the impression that the matter of our experience is in some way unreal. Even if it is the ‘stuff’ in terms of which natural scientists, and other various experts, describe and explain the world to us. While the so called real ‘stuff’ of quantum mechanics can only be thought of in terms of probabilities and is nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
Arthur Zajonc is a man who has studied quantum mechanics for a long time and
In an interview with him in 2009 he gave an answer about his experience:
The danger we face is in bypassing our lived experience (colour form and so on), looking for more fundamental forces behind this lived experience (measure and nimber), using these fundamentals to make models, and then treating these models as reality.
Our lived experiences do give us reality, but it is only a partial reality.
Here is an interesting video on D’Arcy Thompson’s Theory of Transformation, by Arkhat Abzhanov.
Thompson studied how living forms were related through transformations.
Modern technology has enabled the transformation of forms to be studied in great detail and accuracy. This is now possible right up to 4 dimensional space/time.
Examining the morphospace of birds, including the earliest birds, archeosaurs and dinosaurs it was obvious that birds occupied “the baby space”. This is the same part of morphogenetic space occupied by the embryos and juveniles of these other organisms.
This is an application of Goethe’s morphology in which the archetypal, dynamic, living form is made manifest in individuals.
By retaining a youthful plasticity birds have survived while the very forms of those extinct dinosaurs reveal that these species had become old and calcified, too rigid to adapt.
Modern technology has provided us with the tools to accurately apply projective geometry in the study of growth and evolution of form. Every shape that an organism goes through is contained within the Goethean archetype) We can actually see the trajectories of organisms morphing throughout shape space in a way that does not happen in the case (pun intended 🙂 ) of objects such as watches.
Trajectories are something that can be predicted. Is that also the case here?
Yes, it is possible to predict the trajectory of a developing organism.
In the book Patterns of Human Growth, by Barry Bogin it states:
So water emerges from its constituent elements, the elements emerge from the constituent sub-atomic ‘particles’. These particles are beyond the known rules of time and space.
I suppose then that it’s fair to say that water emerges from entities that are beyond time and space 🙂
Of course I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the laws of the compound are entirely different from the laws of the elements of which it is composed.
Organic life has properties that are not present in the individual material constituents of which it is made. Show us the evidence that uric acid is conscious. If you put a hamster in a blender and then separate out the products you won’t find any sign of consciousness within them.
To say that it emerges tells us nothing.
Well, we do know a bit more then that, or hope to know. E.G. string theory and similar.
If you can talk about something “these particles” then logically they are not beyond the known rules of time and space.
And anyway, we don’t actually know what those rules are. We have models that seem to produce similar results.
WilliamJM has some idea about how he makes decisions in a realm where actual real free will is possible. I’ve asked him, in that realm are there rules of time and space or whatever the equivalent is there? He never answered.
These particles you speak of, that are beyond the known rules of time and space. Do they themselves follow their own rules of time and space, or whatever the equivalent is?
I can talk about infinity and eternity. What does that tell you?
Entanglement is outwith the known rules of space and time. It is not constrained by space or time.
Pretty sure it’s properties that are emergent. That’s the argument anyway.
That words are meaningless, ultimately.
Communication is difficult. That’s one of the reasons mathematics exists. Less room for miscommunication. People talk about god all the time, but they all mean something different and seem to assume everyone else is saying what they are saying.
Infinity and eternity as mathematical or theistic concepts?
C’mon now. Is that the bottom for you then? Once we understand entanglement that’s it, nothing else left beyond that?
If entanglement is outwith the known rules of space and time how come I can talk about how it works?
Or are you just choosing to pin “why” at point?
It’s not. It’s a misapplied analogy. Again, an analogy is not science, it’s a comparison between two things. If applied poorly it leads to false conclusions easily. Take, for example, Paley’s bullshit.
You missed this example of proper use of an analogy:
Don’t think so myself but be my guest.
I suppose the word has many applications. Hydrogen emerges when water is subjected to electrolysis, Freeze water and ice crystals emerge. When our kettle boils steam emerges out of the spout. Rain, hail and snow emerge from clouds.
And if you believe in the orthodox explanation as to how the early universe formed then you will probably believe that the lighter elements formed first and water emerged from reactions involving hydrogen and oxygen.
This is demonstrably true colewd. The evidence that demonstrates it is when you said:
You forgot to link to where it was “checked out”. I’d be interested in that link, be it a book or website or paper etc.
What is the hypothesis, precisely? What does “it checks out” actually mean? Demonstrated beyond a doubt? Six sigma? Could you be any more vague?
The bible demonstrates that cells are designed, by a mind just like ours. Or not like ous, colewd won’t say, it’s “above his pay grade”. But he sure knows a lot about what’s wrong in evolution and what it can and cannot do. Even though he won’t say what his deity does or does not do, he has to make sure there is some arbitrary line there that he can at least shove it so far behind he can stop thinking about it in realistic terms.
colewd, is there a possible universe where your god made evolution work as we think it does? Is that possible?
Words in general, or just those two particular words? Words do have meanings. But I must admit, sometimes words have two meanings, especially if you are trying to build a stairway to heaven 🙂
Mathematical if you prefer.
No, there’s an infinite amount to learn after that and an eternity in which to do it.
Okay then talk about how it works, or quote some expert talking about how it works.
So you don’t believe in the big bang?
So you don’t believe in the big bang?
Belief is a religious concept. There was no bang by the way. Did the universe start from a singularity or was it a near miss? I don’t know.
OMagain,
I would work if the innovative change mechanism was part of cellular machinery. Unfortunately there is currently no evidence for this?
OMagain,
Where did you get this idea?
“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, …”
Oops sorry, different kind of design
“ The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”
Proverbs,
Cells have purpose . The way they are designed is the way they do it.
So you don’t believe in the big bang?
Our present understanding is time and space existed before the emergence of subatomic particles.
There’s a Wikipedia page. You should check it out!
From you. You said it earlier in this thread. I would go back and quote you but it makes no difference.
Ah, so what is this innovative change mechanism then and how do you know it is not part of cellular machinery?
Have you looked at every part of every cell? We are discovering new organs, still, so how have you come to the conclusion that something that you cannot describe or detail in any way whatsoever is not to be found? How do you know it’s not been disguised as something else?
It’s a bit like Intelligent Design. Somewhen, somehow, something did something to something. We don’t know when, how or what but we sure know those Darwinists are wrong.
But it’s an interesting point. If you know what is missing then presumably you are now able to start a search for the mechanism of change, now you know what it looks like as you know it is not in the cells. This sounds like progress in the science of intelligent design!
Colewd has identified what cells do not have that the Intelligent Designer must supply. So all we need to do is now look for evidence of that mechanism in action.
so, colewd, now we know what is missing can you help us put up a wanted poster so we can find it?
Can you describe this ‘innovative change mechanism’ in greater detail? How did you notice it’s lack and how do we recognize it when we see it.
There you go.
Agree now? I got it from you because that’s what you said.
I’m sure there are aspects of the big bang story that are true and there will be aspects that if not overturned will need to be greatly amended in the future.
But I do think that it leaves out a great deal. We could describe the life of a person from conception to death in terms of all the chemical and physical processes that have taken place in their bodies. Although this could be very accurate and in accord with reality it leaves out the most important aspect of a human life, the personality, feelings, thoughts, wilful actions and interactions.
In my opinion it is a similar situation with the birth and development of the physical universe. It might be accurate, but it leaves out much more than it includes.
Beliefs are something every person has. To be without beliefs you would need to be either all knowing or have no inner life whatsoever.
It doesn’t matter. Water is the product of a seeming cascade of emergences springing from fundamental ‘particles’ which do not follow the rules of spacetime governed by classical physics. So water might not emerge directly from this realm but it does purportedly emerge indirectly through a series of stages if there is such a thing as quantum reality at the base of matter.
See my previous reply.
But subatomic particles do not obey the rules of classical time and space.
By “classical” you seem to mean Newtonian? But that’s a given.
I have read that page and it informs us as to how quantum entanglement has been created, has been observed, has been measured and tested in many ways, and has been manipulated and used.
But nowhere does it explain how it works. Why do these ‘particles’ ignore spacial distances and time intervals between cause and effect?
The Wiki entry quotes Schrödinger: “I would not call [entanglement] one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought.”
It calls for a change in how we think about reality.
A given with consequences.
At least colewd isn’t pretending that there’s scientific evidence for the intelligent design of terrestrial life — they’re just a straight-up, garden-variety creationist.
True,but you did not qualify the claim “ : I suppose then that it’s fair to say that water emerges from entities that are beyond time and space“
I assumed you were talking about subatomic particles.
Maybe. Maybe the alternative of an infinitely old universe bouncing through expansion and contraction without actually getting to (or from) a singularity, just very close. What difference that makes to our lives, dunno.
Well, in my view, all life is physical. I think the distinction you make is illusory. Just because we don’t understand how physical processes work in humans to produce the result of what and how we are doesn’t mean we necessarily need to invent something.
Again, a bit of naïve speculation is fun. Talk of “this realm” suggests you think there are others. Sure there may be but they don’t interfere of impinge on our corner of the universe.
Not at all as far as we can see. Demonstrate!
None whatsoever. There is no clear definition of a “species”, hence no “speciation”: http://nonlin.org/speciation-problems/
But then again, demonstrate!
Adaptation doesn’t require and doesn’t have anything to do with “evolution”. Again. prove me wrong!
And if you comment on PS, and utter such nonsense as above, what do the Darwinistas have against you anyway? Beyond comprehension.
“Emerges” suggests otherwise and it’s wrong.
For the dumb ones, ID is Creation by logical necessity. There cannot be one without the other.
Aha. Then your belief in “evolution” is a religion. Of course.
Blind belief is not necessary when you have actual evidence.
Shhh, you are not supposed to be saying that! ID is ‘Creation’ in it’s ‘scientific’ form. That’s how you’ll be smuggling it into schools, but not if you spoil it like that!
Then how does antibiotic resistance spread through a population.
Nobody needs to prove you wrong. You need to prove that you are right, that’s how it works in the real world. As you will find out, eventually.
Why shmy.
It does, and we have. Some, anyway.
Have you not noticed the pushback against, say, the idea of the multiverse from UD?
Everybody here knows perfectly well what ID really is. The people denying this are on your side of the fence.
ETA: Heh, even closer than you think. Here is someone denying that trying to demonstrate Intelligent Design is no different from trying to prove the existence of the Creator. But this bloke has quite the history of contradicting himself and then denying he did so.
I was. Subatomic ‘particles’ are entities that are not restricted by the classical rules of time and space. In saying that they are ‘beyond’ I might have implied that they do not have a spacial aspect when they obviously do.