Chance vs Intelligent design

[Ella S.]

For sure. Lack of information means we can only speculate about the probability of this or that outcome - we cannot obtain definite probabilities because there are any number of variables we aren’t even aware of, let alone able to calculate. Even with example of the decks of cards, there may be factors - such as the possibility of a deck leaving the factory with a card missing or duplicated - which will not have occurred to us at all.

Does that make any effort to weigh up the probability of existence a completely vain exercise? I don’t think so, and neither it seems did Lee Smollin, who didn’t just pull his one in 10^239 figure out of nowhere - although it’s worth noting that the odds change dramatically, in the event that there may be anything up to an infinite number of universes for life to evolve in. Which appears to be one reason why various multiverse theories, from both QM and from cosmology, are given more credence than one might otherwise expect.

When there is more information with which we can say more definitively that human life was unlikely to arise, I'll entertain it and whatever proposed mechanisms it might imply. We're not quite at that point, though. Until we are, then, yes, I would consider the exercise to be completely vain.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

It’s unintelligent design that becomes intelligent over time, and the chance is, with so many stars, planets and galaxies, it was a given that humans would have been developed, became intelligent and will soon create its own independent intelligences. God is ongoing and becoming. The Omniverse is not intelligent but it will be someday, because of us. That is why we exist; to create God, and that God exists to be benevolent. The idea that the Universe was fine-tuned for life doesn’t make any sense. Most planets don’t have life on it. But rather, it seems that Earth was fine-tuned for life, that happened by chance by an unintelligent beginning, The Omniverse. That will become intelligent over time. I’m repeating myself but you get what I’m trying to say by now, I hope.

 

[YoursTrue]

I'm struggling to grasp what you are getting at. Can you elaborate a bit more?

Ok I'm just beginning to read this thread and I see it's rather long, so I am going to ask what is your definition of intelligent design? In other words, would that mean God designed children born with no arms?

 

[Audie]

Without "why" questions, we would have no science, surely?

Of course.

 

[Valjean]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

It does not work perfectly. Life is rather a Rube Goldberg affair, since evolution can only modify what already exists, and can't redesign anything from scratch, or design an entire structure or system. Moreover, each tiny tweak is accidental, and those that persist and are incorporated into an organism are not likely to be the optimum designs to achieve whatever effect they end up being part of. Consequently, although organisms are marvels of complexity, they are poor 'designs'; inefficient, and overly complex.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

If it were designed, the designer was inept.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

But not comparable. Design, ie: 'Goddidit', is an assertion of agency. The ToE is a theory of mechanism. Apples and oranges.

 

[Truthseeker]

It’s unintelligent design that becomes intelligent over time, and the chance is, with so many stars, planets and galaxies, it was a given that humans would have been developed, became intelligent and will soon create its own independent intelligences. God is ongoing and becoming. The Omniverse is not intelligent but it will be someday, because of us. That is why we exist; to create God, and that God exists to be benevolent. The idea that the Universe was fine-tuned for life doesn’t make any sense. Most planets don’t have life on it. But rather, it seems that Earth was fine-tuned for life, that happened by chance by an unintelligent beginning, The Omniverse. That will become intelligent over time. I’m repeating myself but you get what I’m trying to say by now, I hope.

Yes, it's true that most planets don't have what we call life, it looks like. That doesn't mean that God didn't create a Universe or Omniverse so that there inevitably would be life on some planets, including intelligent life. It is not necessary to me that all planets have life for there to be "fine-tuning". It's still a very important result, in my opinion, for there to be intelligent life somewhere. I don't think intelligent beings make the Omniverse intelligent over time.

Of course what I say is not any proof at all that this is true. I respect your opinion.

 

[Truthseeker]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

There is very low probabability that there would be life any where if there is only one Universe.

Fine-tuned universe - Wikipedia

Examples[edit]
Martin Rees formulates the fine-tuning of the universe in terms of the following six dimensionless physical constants.[2][17]

• N, the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force between a pair of protons, is approximately 1036. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[17]
• Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[18] If ε were 0.006, a proton could not bond to a neutron, and only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the Big Bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%.[15][17]
• Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. If gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[17][19]
• Lambda (Λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, Λ is on the order of 10−122.[20] This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. A slightly larger value of the cosmological constant would have caused space to expand rapidly enough that stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[17][21]
• Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[17]
• D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 spatial dimensions.[17] Rees argues this does not preclude the existence of ten-dimensional strings.[2]

Max Tegmark has argued that if there is more than one time dimension, then physical systems' behavior could not be predicted reliably from knowledge of the relevant partial differential equations. In such a universe, intelligent life capable of manipulating technology could not emerge. Moreover protons and electrons would be unstable and could decay into particles having greater mass than themselves. (This is not a problem if the particles have a sufficiently low temperature.)[22]

Carbon and oxygen[edit]
Further information: Triple-alpha process § Improbability and fine-tuning
An older example is the Hoyle state, the third-lowest energy state of the carbon-12 nucleus, with an energy of 7.656 MeV above the ground level.[23] According to one calculation, if the state's energy level were lower than 7.3 or greater than 7.9 MeV, insufficient carbon would exist to support life. Furthermore, to explain the universe's abundance of carbon, the Hoyle state must be further tuned to a value between 7.596 and 7.716 MeV. A similar calculation, focusing on the underlying fundamental constants that give rise to various energy levels, concludes that the strong force must be tuned to a precision of at least 0.5%, and the electromagnetic force to a precision of at least 4%, to prevent either carbon production or oxygen production from dropping significantly.

To get around this it has been proposed that there may be an infinite number of universes, all of which have different constants, and we happen to live here to observe this particular Universe, so there is no need for a god to create a Universe that is fine-tuned. They propose it could still be chance.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

I always intuitively object to the claim that it all works "perfectly".

For something to be labeled as "perfect", you would have to be able to contrast it against something that is not "perfect".

Moreover, for something to be labeled as "perfect", you would also have to be UNABLE to imagine something better. If you can do that, then obviously it is not "perfect".

I can imagine a human body where the eyes aren't backwards and thus without blindspot. So that by itself is already a point that could be better.
I can also imagine a human body with a spine that IS fit for bipedalism. Our S-shaped spine causes lower back pains in 70% of humans at some point in there lives.
I can also imagine a body where the laryngeal nerve does not go down to loop around the aorta just to go up again for no specific reason.
I can also imagine a body where the mouth is in fact big enough to house all the teeth.
Etc.

So... "perfect"? No. Instead, merely "just good enough".


Even the world itself... The mast majority of the surface is uninhabitable for humans. And even in those area's where humans can live, frequently they are confronted with hardship. And that's not even taking into account all the biological organisms that our trying to kill us everyday.

In a "perfect world", we would not be in a constant struggle for survival imo.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sometimes you hear people say that there is no evidence of design in the universe, but that is a lie, as evidence of design is all around us if we have eyes to see it.

Claiming it, does not make it so.

First define what you mean by "design" in a falsifiable manner.
Then explain what evidence for that would look like.
Then point at data from the world and explain how it fits those properties.

I know an atheist would say that is BS

IOW, you knowingly argue a strawman.

With atheism the big picture is that this sentence happened by chance.

And this atheist, like you know, says that is BS.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The complexity of DNA for one thing.

Complexity is not an indicator for design.
Whenever someone tries to argue that it is, all they end up doing is provide an argument from ignorance / awe / incredulity.

The mystery of Consciousness for another.

There you go. Perfect example of an argument from ignorance. It's a "mystery" (= we 'don't know'), therefor design. Appeal to ignorance from start to finish.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are invoking the anthropic principle - we observe the universe as it is because we exist to observe it - but while this is undeniably true, it is also a tautology, and avoids confronting the apparent statistical improbability of our existence - which has been calculated by at least one physicist, Lee Smollin, at 10^229/1.

The Life of the Cosmos

Unlikely things happen all the time.

What was the probability of any specific drop of rain to hit your nose?

 

[Nakosis]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

We don't even know the conditions/components necessary for life to have developed on Earth. How can we have an intelligent discussion about how rare such conditions would be throughout the universe?

What is the point believing one or the other in an absence of knowledge?

 

[gnostic]

There are approximately 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

Our Milky Way has at least 100 billion planets.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

So...

Everything here on planet earth makes sense. Like, everything down to an atomic level works rather perfectly. One needs to only examine the human body to be amazed at all of the hundreds of thousands of inner and microscopic processes going on at once in our body.

Like, the whole world works. The whole universe works. It works rather perfectly it seems. Some might say, it works intelligently.

Perhaps it makes sense that this whole get up was designed by a higher intelligence.

But then we look at the stats listed at the top of the OP.

Not every planet supports life. Like perhaps just Earth works.

There are bazillions and bazillions of planets. And there has been plenty of time. Enough time and enough particles have slammed into each other and eventually life happened. There is so much space and time that it was bound to happen. Something was bound to work.

So it also makes sense that chance brought us here. It is reasonable.

Both sides are reasonable I think.

Im not trying to create another "evidence for god" thread. I'm trying to focus on a particular aspect of that argument. I'm just curious what you guys think is more reasonable.

Chance or intelligent design

And why?

It depends on what you mean by "chance"?

Because there are more than one definition and more than one usage of the term.

The way sciences (eg physics, biology) use the word "chance" are often based on statistics and probabilities.

Then there are various usages in philosophies.

And worse still, when “chance” being used by creationists who have little to no understanding of sciences and maths.



The Intelligent Design, where "design" require "designer" being used on nature on Earth or the Universe, is nothing more than the same primitive, ancient and medieval superstitions, of believing in the supernatural, like gods, demons, spirits, etc.

The absurdities if things, (“things” such as the universe, the world, life, etc) didn't happen by chance, then

(A) in the cases of religions - it can be “defaulted” to God or divine will, or

(B) in the case of Intelligent Design - it can be defaulted to design”, therefore it can be implied there been Designer.​

In both cases, there are no evidence, and there are no logic in this type of thinking...in fact, it isn’t thinking at all, because it relies on a number of fallacies;

• argument from ignorance,
• circular reasoning,
• confirmation bias

And behind all this, it is the same ignorant Dark Ages superstition.

But the so-called Intelligent Design movement is so much worse than mere superstitions.

Senior members of the Discovery Institute, are trying to enforce pseudoscience teaching of ID in science classrooms, which include blatantly lying to the public, using conspiracy theories, propaganda, bribing, intimidation, etc.

There are good reasons why Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Percival Davis, Dean Kenyon, and so on, avoid having their works printed at Peer Review publishers. They don’t want their “fake science” being scrutinized by working scientists.

There are no testing done in Intelligent Design, no testable evidence & data, ID don’t meet the requirements of Methodological Naturalism -

1. Falsifiability
2. Scientific Method
3. Peer Review

The implying of design provide no real explanations that are testable, just sprouting nonsensical and baseless assumptions.

Intelligent Design is pseudoscience mumbo jumbo, still relying on people’s naivety and superstitions. ID is still a religious concept of creationism. They just dishonestly change the names, from Creator or God, to Designer. It is still superstitions based on religion.

 

[Nakosis]

"Chance", what is chance that it can do anything?

Chance is circumstances/events outside of your control.

There are millions of things happening in the universe all at the same time. Chance is what we call those circumstances/events that intersect with your life you had no knowledge of or control over.

So all of these things happening outside your awareness have a chance of intersecting your life.

 

[George-ananda]

Complexity is not an indicator for design.
Whenever someone tries to argue that it is, all they end up doing is provide an argument from ignorance / awe / incredulity.

Complexity is suggestive of intelligent design versus chance (the OP question) but not proof.

There you go. Perfect example of an argument from ignorance. It's a "mystery" (= we 'don't know'), therefor design. Appeal to ignorance from start to finish.

Well on Consciousness some of us say more than 'we don't know' and hold it to be fundamental and not created by chance by matter. Again, that is not proof but a controversial position.

 

[gnostic]

We don't even know the conditions/components necessary for life to have developed on Earth. How can we have an intelligent discussion about how rare such conditions would be throughout the universe?

What is the point believing one or the other in an absence of knowledge?

True.

Our observations of the universe, only truly started last century - to be more precise, 1919 to 1929, when Edwin Hubble discovered there were more galaxies than just the Milky Way. Hubble was using the largest ever telescope ever built AT THAT TIME (1919), the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory.

Before 1919, astronomers like Charles Messier (1771), William Herschel (1802, 1820), John Herschel (1864), have catalogue the galaxies as nebulas in the Milky Way.

It was Hubble who correctly identified Andromeda, Triangulum, and others as galaxies, not nebulas. It was also Hubble’s discovery in 1919, that the universe was much larger than previous thought, which led to 1920s astrophysicists Alexander Friedmann (1922), Howard Percy Robertson (1924) and Georges Lemaitre (1927), to formulate theoretical models of the “expanding universe” cosmology, later better known as the Big Bang theory.

Of course, even larger and more powerful optical telescopes were constructed throughout 20th and 21st centuries, as well as telescopes equipped for radio astronomy, and eventually led to rise of space telescopes since 1968.

The points being, none of our powerful telescopes - optical or radio - ever discover life in other planets in the Milky Way or other more distant galaxies in the universe, because of the limitations of what our technology can observe.

To actually detect life on other planets, we need to physically land spacecrafts on the surfaces, but other than landing on Mars, we have spacecrafts, manned or unmanned, to reach any planet outside of the Solar System.

Voyager 1 & Voyager 2 - both launched in 1977 - left the Solar System into interstellar space in 2012 and 2018, respectively.

In the next couple of years, they will lose all electrical powers (eg Voyager 1 has been predicted to lose its last power by 2025). They are the most distant man-made objects, and yet, neither of them have travel even a single light year.

159.40 AU (23.846 billion km; 14.817 billion miles). One light-year is about 63241 AU (astronomical unit). So Voyager 1 has only travelled 0.25% of 1 light-year in 45 years.

Do you see my points?

You are right, Nakosis.

Our technology are not good enough to detect life in other planets, so the best we can say that “we don’t know” if there are other life out there. We simply don’t have the knowledge to make any decisions.

But these silly creationists want to claim, there are no other life in the universe, simply because they wanted to believe god created humans, as if we some sorts of special pets or lab rats.

The idiocies of Creationism never cease to perplex me with their outrageous claims and their astonishing ignorance.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Complexity is suggestive of intelligent design versus chance (the OP question) but not proof.

No, it's not.

Well on Consciousness some of us say more than 'we don't know'

Yes, some make all kinds of claims

and hold it to be fundamental and not created by chance by matter.

Which is your religious belief - the very thing that requires evidence.
Horse before the cart.

Again, that is not proof but a controversial position.

It's a faith based position. Which is exactly why it is controversial.
It has no evidence. It's just a claim.

 

[George-ananda]

No, it's not.



Yes, some make all kinds of claims



Which is your religious belief - the very thing that requires evidence.
Horse before the cart.



It's a faith based position. Which is exactly why it is controversial.
It has no evidence. It's just a claim.

Well my spiritual beliefs are not based on faith but on best analysis all things considered. And I consider the consistency of those that allege experiences beyond the physical.

My beliefs are based on rational thought or I could just as well throw darts at a dartboard containing every possible belief. I don't do that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well my spiritual beliefs are not based on faith

Yes, they are.
That's why you just called them "beliefs".

 

[George-ananda]

Yes, they are.
That's why you just called them "beliefs".

‘Beliefs’ can be based on ‘best reasoning’ or ‘faith’. I use ‘best reasoning’ as in ‘considering all evidence and argumentation I BELIEVE the defendant to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt’.