Intelligent design (evidence)

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Fine tuning doesn't necessarily mean goddidit. One could invoke the multiverse argument, and that ours is just one that is more amenable to life. Of course, we don't have any multiverse evidence yet.

Multiverse just seems like a dubious proposition to me, for reasons given in the CD thread.

I just don't think any scientific evidence can get you to a transcendental creator. There's always the possibility of demiurges who created our universe, or guided evolution on our planet.

IMO science can suggest God, and philosophy can argue for a particular metaphysics, but there's an intuitive leap of faith to be made. This isn't a bad thing, as God can be more plausible than not-God, but it is a good argument for secularism (different from atheism or materialism).

 

[Jim_Smith]

To be fair, even Freser has said "Yaweh made this" found in every cell would not be adequate proof of God:

There is an extensive message that can be found in nature telling us that God exists: The big bang, the fine tuning of the universe to support life, the fact all the conditions needed by a planet to support life also make the planet an ideal location from which to discover the preceeding facts, the information content of DNA that could not have arisen by natural processes (and thus macroevolution could not have been caused by natural selection), the cellular machinery, cybernetic systems and irreducible complexity which could not have gotten there without intelligent design, the non-physicality of consciousness, the fact that all this is discernible to the human mind even though that mind supposedly evolved only to hunt and survive in the wild. The message is: "The universe was designed to support life which could discover that the universe was created for that purpose, and such life was created within the universe to achieve that purpose. In short the message is "The Elohim are here"

The founders of modern sciecne Copernicus, Gallelio, Newton, and Kepler, all believed the universe was the product of a mind and that it was intelligible to us because it was the product of an intelligent being. In those times, science was part of religion, it was the study of the mind of God.

Many modern scientists believe the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, Louis Pasteur.

 

[radicalpolitik]

Multiverse just seems like a dubious proposition to me, for reasons given in the CD thread.

I just don't think any scientific evidence can get you to a transcendental creator. There's always the possibility of demiurges who created our universe, or guided evolution on our planet.

IMO science can suggest God, and philosophy can argue for a particular metaphysics, but there's an intuitive leap of faith to be made. This isn't a bad thing, as God can be more plausible than not-God, but it is a good argument for secularism (different from atheism or materialism).

I freely admit I have a bias against religion. Guess I rather resent my pre-teen and early teen years as a christian, and that I loath what has been done in the name of 'god'. I will quite happily accept a more pantheistic/pandeistic view, in that the physical universe itself is identical with divinity, much like what you mentioned Paul Davies suggested. i.e. A 'god' that exists within the universe.

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

There is an extensive message that can be found in nature telling us that God exists: The big bang, the fine tuning of the universe to support life, the fact all the conditions needed by a planet to support life also make the planet an ideal location from which to discover the preceeding facts, the information content of DNA that could not have gotten arisen by natural processes, the cellular machinery, cybernetic systems and irreducible complexity which could not have gotten there without intelligent design, the fact that all this is discernible to the human mind even though that mind supposedly evolved only to hunt and survive in the wild. The message is: "The universe was designed to support life which could discover that the universe was created for that purpose, and such life was created within the universe to achieve that purpose. In short the message is "Yawah is here".

I don't think Feser's point is to criticize the evidence for design as inadequate, but rather to point out (accurately IMO) that you can't to a singular Creator & Sustainer of Everything from that evidence.

Now not everyone worries about reducing the object of worship to a single being, so it's not necessary for everyone. But I do think it's worth reading up on the philosophical arguments for the necessity of a deity that - as Flew points out - we can plausibly assume is benevolent to our fates.

I freely admit I have a bias against religion. Guess I rather resent my pre-teen and early teen years as a christian, and that I loath what has been done in the name of 'god'. I will quite happily accept a more pantheistic/pandeistic view, in that the physical universe itself is identical with divinity, much like what you mentioned Paul Davies suggested. i.e. A 'god' that exists within the universe.

Yeah, this seems to be the position of a few people - not sure I said Paul Davies was one of them though? I do think this kind of God as World Soul is what Freya Matthews and Whitehead are getting at in their writings.

 

[ghost]

Fine tuning doesn't necessarily mean goddidit. One could invoke the multiverse argument, and that ours is just one that is more amenable to life. Of course, we don't have any multiverse evidence yet.

How many universes have to pop into existence at random before the multiverse becomes cluttered. An infinite number of universes would result in chaos; not orderliness like we see in our universe. Even God has to pick up his room.

 

[steve001]

How many universes have to pop into existence at random before the multiverse becomes cluttered. An infinite number of universes would result in chaos; not orderliness like we see in our universe. Even God has to pick up his room.

Can you prove this? More likely this is an example of motivated reasoning.

 

[Jim_Smith]

I don't think Feser's point is to criticize the evidence for design as inadequate, but rather to point out (accurately IMO) that you can't to a singular Creator & Sustainer of Everything from that evidence.

Now not everyone worries about reducing the object of worship to a single being, so it's not necessary for everyone. But I do think it's worth reading up on the philosophical arguments for the necessity of a deity that - as Flew points out - we can plausibly assume is benevolent to our fates.



Yeah, this seems to be the position of a few people - not sure I said Paul Davies was one of them though? I do think this kind of God as World Soul is what Freya Matthews and Whitehead are getting at in their writings.

Feser is right that if you see a text message in DNA you don't know who put it there. It could be someone that is part of the physical universe, such as space aliens, or the intelligent dinosaurs who evolved into wise old owls. But if you consider the big bang, the fine tuning of an intelligible universe, and the implicit design in the fact that the same characteristics that allow a planet to support life also make it an ideal place to make scientific discoveries, then that points to a designer outside the universe, a transcendent creator.

 

[malf]

Something beyond our understanding happened to bring this universe into existence with its (mostly) stable physics. Something batshit crazy wierd... Nobody is postulating a 'purely materialistic explanation' for that; there isn't one. And, outside a handful of folk, 'science' doesn't care.

Now if you feel the need to assign a 'prime mover' to that act and you want to call it 'god' - go for it! It poses a few awkward philosophical questions, but (in lieu of anything more tidy) we can convince ourselves that they are trivial and hand wave them away.

If you wanted to go further and tell me that this prime mover had a strict set of (human!) morals and that He sent His son to our realm to die for our sins, well.... good luck with the paradigm change guys. ;)

 

[steve001]

How many universes have to pop into existence at random before the multiverse becomes cluttered.

3. 2's company, three's a crowd.

 

[steve001]

There is an extensive message that can be found in nature telling us that God exists: The big bang, the fine tuning of the universe to support life, the fact all the conditions needed by a planet to support life also make the planet an ideal location from which to discover the preceeding facts, the information content of DNA that could not have gotten arisen by natural processes, the cellular machinery, cybernetic systems and irreducible complexity which could not have gotten there without intelligent design, the fact that all this is discernible to the human mind even though that mind supposedly evolved only to hunt and survive in the wild. The message is: "The universe was designed to support life which could discover that the universe was created for that purpose, and such life was created within the universe to achieve that purpose. In short the message is "The Elohim are here"

The founders of modern sciecne Copernicus, Gallelio, Newton, and Kepler, all believed the universe was the product of a mind and that it was intelligible to us because it was the product of an intelligent being. In those times, science was part of religion, it was the study of the mind of God.

Many modern scientists believe the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, Louis Pasteur.

Citing opinions plucked out of dark holes does nothing for the advancement of the argument than your opinion has. Both are on the level.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Are you saying that the Table of Elements has nothing to do with nucleus stability the strong force preventing the nucleons from flying apart? Is that what you're saying?

No, I'm saying that we do not understand the reasons for the physical laws and constants. Perhaps they are constrained in some way. Perhaps different values would give us a different sorts of universes. As far as the multiverse is concerned, do you have evidence of a law that prevents more than one universe?

You're inferring god from lack of knowledge.

~~ Paul

 

[ghost]

No, I'm saying that we do not understand the reasons for the physical laws and constants. Perhaps they are constrained in some way. Perhaps different values would give us a different sorts of universes. As far as the multiverse is concerned, do you have evidence of a law that prevents more than one universe?

You're inferring god from lack of knowledge.

~~ Paul

Yes I do have a law that prevents it. If other universes exist, then they must exist here, all around us. But that would cause an infinitely cluttered multiverse which would either be detectable or would be too cluttered to support life. However, if the universes were separated by distances, then that would imply that our space-time exists within another space-time, and could in fact be several layers deep, space-time within other space-times. We would be able to detect that as well. You are overlooking the fact that randomness has a cost in chaos and messiness; yet we see orderliness all around us.

 

[ghost]

Can you prove this? More likely this is an example of motivated reasoning.

The number of laws of physics is relatively light: standard model, Maxwell's equations, Einstein equations, entropy, quantum mechanics. According to your argument, there should be an infinite number of laws: where are these infinite numbers of randomly cast laws of physics?

 

[Reece]

Books:
Signature in the Cell and Darwin's Doubt both by Stephen Meyer. Signature in the cell is about the origin of life, and Darwin's Doubt is about the cambrian explosion.

An 80 page chapter about the Cambrian explosion by Meyer et. al. which is similar to Darwin's Doubt is here:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=639


For books on comsmology try Counting to God by Doug Ell or New Proofs for the Existence of God by Robert Spitzer

The best ID blog is http://www.evolutionnews.org

Lots of on-line articles here: http://www.discovery.org/csc/scientificResearch/

I have links to on-line articles on my blog:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html

Look in the "Contents" for these links:

Intelligent Design
Origin of Life
Origin of Species ("Evolution")
Human Origins
Cosmology

If you read something against ID don't forget to look on-line for a reply by an ID researcher. Some of the critics sound good until you find out that they are reusing old arguments that have been rebutted previously, or are misconstruing the argument for ID, or giving references that don't say what they claim to say, etc etc.

Thanks, Jim

 

[ghost]

I'm just curious. Does the Cambrian explosion, or evolution in general, take into consideration the intelligence of every animal that is trying to survive? In other words, life forms do not act randomly; they act like creatures with consciousness that are trying to survive in a dangerous world.

 

[steve001]

The number of laws of physics is relatively light: standard model, Maxwell's equations, Einstein equations, entropy, quantum mechanics. According to your argument, there should be an infinite number of laws: where are these infinite numbers of randomly cast laws of physics?

I'm not making any argument for or against multiverses. What I am doing is asking you if you understand the certainty of the position you are showing is only motivated thinking?

 

[ghost]

I'm not making any argument for or against multiverses. What I am doing is asking you if you understand the certainty of the position you are showing is only motivated thinking?

I disagree. I am only following the non-God explanation to it's logical conclusion. An infinite set of universes means an infinite set of laws of physics. Besides the fact that it strains our minds with things that are beyond our experience, it also risks infinite messiness.

 

[malf]

I disagree. I am only following the non-God explanation to it's logical conclusion. An infinite set of universes means an infinite set of laws of physics. Besides the fact that it strains our minds with things that are beyond our experience, it also risks infinite messiness.

And invoking a human construct (God) explanation is, at least, just as unhelpful. For those not needy enough to put a coin down, agnosticism has to prevail.

 

[ghost]

And invoking a human construct (God) explanation is, at least, just as unhelpful. For those not needy enough to put a coin down, agnosticism has to prevail.

You'll have to provide as much, if not more proof, for an alternate explanation.

 

[Arouet]

You'll have to provide as much, if not more proof, for an alternate explanation.

Right.