A challenge for atheist (From Youtube)

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well we are talking about hypothetical examples, it all depends on what arrow and rock are you imagining. The point is that at some point (depending on the amount and specificity of variables) random chance becomes a ridiculous explanation.

A single rock killing a lamb is within the possibilities of something happening by chance. ……… but lets say that everytime a lamb arrives at a specific point of a path a rock falls down and crushes the lamb. My guess is that after 3 or 4 lambs you will start to consider the hypothesis of “design” and after 10 rocks you will have no doubt that someone is intentionally killing those lambs. (even If you don’t know who he is, nor where did he came from)

The odds of one bullet hitting another in midair are so low as to be negligible. Doing it deliberately would take skill beyond any human. Therefore, we can conclude that God was in the trenches at the Battle of Gallipoli, firing off a rifle.


I'll leave it to the reader to decide for themselves which side God was fighting on.

 

[leroy]

You were not talking about the number of times before. You were claiming that one thing hitting another thing couldn't happen with out "fine tuning". And you were cherry picking by choosing a device that we already know requires an intelligence, and ignoring all of the other instances in nature where one object hits another object with no intelligence or intent behind it.

Before you skip on to other situation, do you acknowledge that, or not?

Again we are talking about hypotheticals. So it all depends on how you imagine the scenario.

In the case of the lamb example we have presumably millions of rocks / hundreds of rocks that fall from the cliff any given day and ships have an area of say 1*0.5 meters

The arrow example (at least the way I imagine the scenario) we have a single arrow and single bulls eye and the target is tiny (millions of times smaller than the ship)

 

[Sheldon]

No, what I am saying is that you shouldn't conclude by default that a character is fiction unless you have some sort of argument or evidence for it.

You are simply attempting to reverse the burden of proof, using an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. I don't need to hold a contrary belief either, I can simply disbelieve the claim, as it is not supported by any objective evidence, and leave it at that, and remain agnostic if the claim is also an unfalsifiable one of course.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The arrow example (at least the way I imagine the scenario) we have a single arrow and single bulls eye and the target is tiny (millions of times smaller than the ship)

- How could you possibly know that there was a "bulls eye"?

- How could you possibly know that there was only one "arrow"?

- How could you possibly know how hard it was to hit the "bullseye"?

 

[ppp]

Again we are talking about hypotheticals. So it all depends on how you imagine the scenario.

In the case of the lamb example we have presumably millions of rocks / hundreds of rocks that fall from the cliff any given day and ships have an area of say 1*0.5 meters

The arrow example (at least the way I imagine the scenario) we have a single arrow and single bulls eye and the target is tiny (millions of times smaller than the ship)

I've seen your posts Leroy. You're not stupid and there was no way that you would think anything that vacuous. Which means you're just taking the p*ss. Well done. Attaboy.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, what I am saying is that you shouldn't conclude by default that a character is fiction unless you have some sort of argument or evidence for it.

For me, it's more that God is irrelevant, and I just don't care about splitting hairs to differentiate things that don't exist and things that may not as well exist as far as we can tell.

Also, if you've retreated to "you can't prove God doesn't exist," you've already conceded that your religion is false.

 

[Sheldon]

1 your question is irrelevant, given that I am not talking about evolution

2 I can’t answer your question if you don’t explain what exactly do you mean by evolution, but I mostly agree with what scholars say..

1. You made several assertions about evolution.

2. My question was very specific. Here it is again:

Sheldon said: ↑
So you're saying the theory of evolution is not an accepted scientific theory then?

As that was implied in your claims.

No you did not

I certainly did, again go back and read the exchange. I even went back to double check, and be absolutely sure.

 

[leroy]

You are simply attempting to reverse the burden of proof, using an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. I don't need to hold a contrary belief either, I can simply disbelieve the claim, as it is not supported by any objective evidence, and leave it at that, and remain agnostic if the claim is also an unfalsifiable one of course.

Again what is the point of quoting my comments, if you are going to say something irrelevant to that comment.

What I am saying is that if you affirm that God is fictional, you have a burden prove, (if you make no affirmations you have no burden prove) do you agree with this particular claim?

 

[Sheldon]

SURE we have the finte tunning argument, “only if there is a God* of some sort we would expect to have a FT universe.

Well fine tuned is a subjective term. Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your conclusion, or even a rational argument?

 

[Sheldon]

Again what is the point of quoting my comments, if you are going to say something irrelevant to that comment.

What I am saying is that if you affirm that God is fictional, you have a burden prove, (if you make no affirmations you have no burden prove) do you agree with this particular claim?

I agree that all claims carry an epistemological burden of proof, commensurate to the claim . Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[leroy]

1.

Sheldon said: ↑
So you're saying the theory of evolution is not an accepted scientific theory then?

.

again it all depends on what you mean by theory of evolution,

1 I accept that mutations and natural selection occurs

2 I accept that there is conclusive evidence for the claim that we share a common ancestor with other organism

3 I think there are good reason to think that we share a common ancestor with all life (but there is room for reasonable doubt)

4 the claim that complex organisms came from simpler organisms mainly through random mutations + natural selection is controversial and may or may not be true (the scientific community is divided on this issue)

Does this answer your question?

My question is: do you affirm point 4? Do claim that point 4 (from above) is true beyond reasonable doubt? If yes / can you provide your conclusive evidence?

 

[leroy]

Well fine tuned is a subjective term. Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your conclusion, or even a rational argument?

if gravity would have been 1% stronger the whole universe would collapse in a black hole shortly after the big bang. (this is what is meant when we say that Gravity is FT) This is objectively true, this is true regardless of any opinion other might have………..and if you happen to falsify this assertion then the statement would be objectively wrong (there is nothing subjective with this statement)

 

[leroy]

I agree that all claims carry an epistemological burden of proof,

ok so we agree on that if someone claims that God is fiction, he has a burden proof

] . Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

That is just a “popular saying” that sounds true, but once you think about it is not really true.

For example the claim that Mexico beat Brazil 3-0 in the last soccer game they had, would be an
extraordinary claim, but an “ordinary” note in the news paper would be sufficient evidence to convince me that the claim is true

 

[Sheldon]

again it all depends on what you mean by theory of evolution,

1 I accept that mutations and natural selection occurs

2 I accept that there is conclusive evidence for the claim that we share a common ancestor with other organism

3 I think there are good reason to think that we share a common ancestor with all life (but there is room for reasonable doubt)

4 the claim that complex organisms came from simpler organisms mainly through random mutations + natural selection is controversial and may or may not be true (the scientific community is divided on this issue)

Does this answer your question?

My question is: do you affirm point 4? Do claim that point 4 (from above) is true beyond reasonable doubt? If yes / can you provide your conclusive evidence?

Not really since you answered what you accepted not what science accepted, and the theory of evolution is an accepted scientific theory in good standing. I asked before, have you heard of project Steve?

I am pretty dubious about point 4, specifically that natural selection is "controversial" or that (the scientific community is divided on this issue). Again have you heard of project Steve?

I have of course heard this spurious claim made by creationists before now. The evidence for natural selection and species evolution is contained within the scientific theory of evolution, which is vast obviously. If you have specific questions then I suggest you find a scientific forum, with the prerequisite knowledge and expertise to answer them.

You could start with the talkorigins website, it has a pretty large database of scientific evidence, and devotes quite a bit to debunking many creationist propaganda claims.

 

[Sheldon]

Well fine tuned is a subjective term. Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your conclusion, or even a rational argument?

if gravity would have been 1% stronger the whole universe would collapse in a black hole shortly after the big bang. (this is what is meant when we say that Gravity is FT) This is objectively true, this is true regardless of any opinion other might have………..and if you happen to falsify this assertion then the statement would be objectively wrong (there is nothing subjective with this statement)

This does not mean the universe is "fine tuned" as I said that is a subjective term, it is almost begging the question, simply assuming these narrow parameters mean it must be fine tuned, but not offering any objective evidence for the assertion. However I was asking about your conclusion below, it's emboldened for you.

SURE we have the finte tunning argument, “only if there is a God* of some sort we would expect to have a FT universe.

So can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your conclusion? Only it seems like pure unevidenced assumption to me.

 

[Sheldon]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

That is just a “popular saying” that sounds true, but once you think about it is not really true.

For example the claim that Mexico beat Brazil 3-0 in the last soccer game they had, would be an
extraordinary claim, but an “ordinary” note in the news paper would be sufficient evidence to convince me that the claim is true

I usually take the term to mean that the evidence should be commensurate to the claim. When I say sufficient objective evidence, the word sufficient indicates that different claims will have a different burden of proof. For example, If I claimed I have a dog, then most people might be happy to accept this, without any evidence at all, as belief has no significant consequences, and we know dogs exist and are kept as pets. If I claimed I had a talking dog, it's fair to say the bar has obviously been raised substantially.

 

[leroy]

I usually take the term to mean that the evidence should be commensurate to the claim. When I say sufficient objective evidence, the word sufficient indicates that different claims will have a different burden of proof. For example, If I claimed I have a dog, then most people might be happy to accept this, without any evidence at all, as belief has no significant consequences, and we know dogs exist and are kept as pets. If I claimed I had a talking dog, it's fair to say the bar has obviously been raised substantially.

What one should do is divide 2 numbers

1 the probability of having a talking Dog (a very small number)

Divided by

2 the probability that you are lying or hallucinating (relatively large number)


A big number divided by a small number results in a very small number

Therefore the probability of a talking dog is small.....

Evidence for a talking dog would be anything that makes the numerator larger or the denominator smaller...... (Is this definition of evidence good enough for you?)

 

[leroy]

- How could you possibly know that there was a "bulls eye"?

- How could you possibly know that there was only one "arrow"?

- How could you possibly know how hard it was to hit the "bullseye"?

I DONT UNDERSTAND YOUR POINT, this is a hypothetical example so I can invent any values to answer your questions

The only point that I am making is that if you are sitting in a park and note that an arrow hits the center of a bulls eye, you will assume that there is an archer (design) even if you don’t have prior evidence for the existence of this archer.

 

[leroy]

Not really since you answered what you accepted not what science accepted, and the theory of evolution is an accepted scientific theory in good standing. I asked before, have you heard of project Steve?

I told you what my views are , so feel free to label me as someone who accepts the theory of evolution or label me as someone who doesn’t.

have you heard of project Steve?

I am pretty dubious about point 4, specifically that natural selection is "controversial" or that (the scientific community is divided on this issue). Again have you heard of project Steve?

Sure this proyect attemts to show that most scientist accept the claim that we share a common ancestor with other organism, as I said before I have no problem with accepting that claim

Project Steve doesn’t claim (nor denies) that complex organisms evolved from simpler organisms as a result of random variation + natural selection, this is still an open question within th scientific community and many alternatives have been proposed (neutralism, statistical fluctuations, epigenetics, natural genetic engineering etc.) and scientists simply don’t know which alternative is the correct one.

Now the question is do you agree with me on point 4 or do you affirm the opposite?

Please provide a direct and clear answer,

I have of course heard this spurious claim made by creationists before now. The evidence for natural selection and species evolution is contained within the scientific theory of evolution,

Sure, but from the fact that these mechanism occur (random variation + natural selection) it doesn’t follow that complex organisms evolved through this mechanism

You could start with the talkorigins website, it has a pretty large database of scientific evidence, and devotes quite a bit to debunking many creationist propaganda claims.

Quote any article from talk origins where they afffim that there is conclusive evidence that complex organism evolved from simpler organisms through random variation and natural selection

 

[leroy]

This does not mean the universe is "fine tuned" as I said that is a subjective term, it is almost begging the question, simply assuming these narrow parameters mean it must be fine tuned, but not offering any objective evidence for the assertion. However I was asking about your conclusion below, it's emboldened for you.[

But “narrow patterns” is the definition of “fine tunning” FT simply means that the values of some constants are initial conditions are are narrow such that if they were a little bit different life would have not been possible

So can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your conclusion? Only it seems like pure unevidenced assumption to me.

There are only 3 possible explanations for the FT of the universe (feel free to propose a 4th alternative)

1 Physical Necesity

2 Chance

3 Design

1 is unlikely to be true given that these values are independent form each other

2 chance is unlikely because the rage is very very narrow , the probabilities are very small

3 Design is the only reasonable explanation.

Feel free to ether falsify design or to propose a better explanation.

Prediction: the design hypothesis predicts that new examples of FT will be discovered as our knowledge in physics and the universe progress.

If new discoveries make the range less narrow the design hypothesis will lose force.