Expelled

[Autodidact]

Sorry, I’m still getting use to all of the semantic noise in here. I thought I had a good grasp on English, but have felt lacking recently.

I am gaining a stronger understanding of the distinctions that can be drawn between Chaos and ID as theories. I also agree that saying “God did it,” is not enough even for me. Even though as Solomon said “wisdom is folly,” we were made to be curious, and we will never stop looking for answers about how things work. Now, don’t think that I am saying that Evolution isn’t an interesting framework to work in. I am simply questioning its veracity.

I also agree that there is significant evidence that can be drawn on to support the different models of evolution, but from what I have read, it is all based on inductive reasoning. In my formal logic training I was taught to prefer deduction over induction. Can you please recommend a site where sound reasoning is used to correlate material data to models in current use?

Science is all inductive. Not inductive; not science.

 

[Smoke]

You seem to assume the opposite of randomness is design. That's a false dichotomy.

And you seem to believe in magic. Order without rules = magic. From chaos, chaos; no rules, no order.

As a response to Sunstone's post, that doesn't even make sense.

 

[Blentyn chan Celi]

Science is all inductive. Not inductive; not science.

Hi again.

I agree, and I believe PureX will too; but, to assume that- if a hypostasis holds in all observed cases, then the hypostasis holds in all cases – is something less then bulletproof.
I just don’t like it when people say “current data shows…” when they mean our “best guess is...” (Please don’t take my interpretation too literally.)

 

[Smoke]

Hi again.

I agree, and I believe PureX will too; but, to assume that- if a hypostasis holds in all observed cases, then the hypostasis holds in all cases – is something less then bulletproof.
I just don’t like it when people say “current data shows…” when they mean our “best guess is...” (Please don’t take my interpretation too literally.)

Hypostasis?

It is the essence of science to be open to new data. When you are no longer open to new data, you have a religion.

 

[Blentyn chan Celi]

Hypostasis?

It is the essence of science to be open to new data. When you are no longer open to new data, you have a religion.

That was my point.

 

[Hope]

No, in fact, deliberate order and design is not the opposite of randomness and chance. A child could be excused for thinking that it was, but an adult should know better.

For instance, when a teenager who was looking for a CD on the floor of the car ran into me at a stoplight, he certainly didn't design the damage to my truck and his father's car. The damage wasn't random, either. It had a lot to do with the shape of his father's car, the shape of my truck, the speed at which he was traveling, and angle at which his father's car hit my truck. Dents didn't just appear randomly at various points around my truck, or on surrounding vehicles.

We often hear believers claiming that evolution is random; it's nothing of the kind.

That seems a bad analogy to me. (Sorry about the accident, though---that sucks...hope you are ok. )

See, whether that kid meant to hit you or not, he's still an intelligent being who was ultimately responsible for inflicting the damage. The car didn't drive itself. And the car would not even have been in existence to damage your truck had someone intelligent not designed and built it.

Your analogy, it seems to me, is equivalent of saying, evolution (the car) was not the result of an intelligent designer, but came into being through mere chance, yet somehow, out of mere chance, turns into something orderly and designed, which in turn inflicts orderly and designed damage. I don't buy that.

Of course evolution itself is not random; but that's where the confusion comes in. When a higher intelligence to start the process of evolution is taken out of the equation, how can anything be called designed or orderly when it is really the product of chance? The words "design" and "order" no longer have any meaning. And any attempt to give them meaning seems nonsensical to me.

 

[Hope]

Your agenda is that you've already made up your mind and offer the question so you can persuade others to accept it.

Well, isn't everyone in this debate, including yourself, doing the same thing? Heck, why bother debating when one doesn't have an opinion?

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory, it is a theological theory. Theology does not offer a chance for scientific method to determine truth.

I believe that all that is is the result of Creation by a Primal Cause, Whom we may as well call God. I agree with you in essence, but that does not mean my opinion leans on any scientific theory.

To me it is just obviously true.

Science and religion are the two eyes we possess to pierce the mysteries of reality. If you cover one eye, you are half-blind.

Regards,
Scott

I totally agree with the last statement. And that's why I think scientists who are not afraid to examine the world and universe with both eyes wide open and admit the possibility of a First Cause w/ intelligence should not be shunned by the rest of the scientific and academic community. Which is what this movie, Expelled, seems to be about.

 

[Hope]

And you seem to believe in magic. Order without rules = magic. From chaos, chaos; no rules, no order.

Exactly.

 

[Smoke]

Your analogy, it seems to me, is equivalent of saying, evolution (the car) was not the result of an intelligent designer, but came into being through mere chance, yet somehow, out of mere chance, turns into something orderly and designed, which in turn inflicts orderly and designed damage. I don't buy that.

I didn't say anything at all about where the car came from. I was talking about a single incident which, although it was not designed by anybody, had results that were not random.

Of course evolution itself is not random; but that's where the confusion comes in. When a higher intelligence to start the process of evolution is taken out of the equation, how can anything be called designed or orderly when it is really the product of chance?

Why should we call the world "designed"? That's my point. It was not designed.

 

[Fluffy]

Heya camanintx,
I don't think we disagree on any of these issues. I just prefer to be especially careful with the language I am using:

But isn't it the "more stringent criteria" which professional scientists and university professors are held to when decisions on employment and tenure are made?

A significant portion, yes.

If someone wants to work on the theory of ID on their own time or get a job at a place like the Discovery Institute, what's stopping them?

Nothing is stopping them. However, this is not the issue. Many ID proponents don't understand why ID is rejected by the scientific community as unscientific when they see it as potentially valid. Answer: When scientists say "unscientific" they mean "lack of evidence" amongst other things.

But until they can support their work with hard data, why should they get special treatment?

They shouldn't but, again, this is not the issue. ID proponents do not believe they are asking for special treatment. Therefore, either:
1) You can explain to them why they are asking for special treatment
2) You can explain to them why what they are asking for is being denied

I prefer to devote my time to the latter case.

Heya Hope,

Well, isn't everyone in this debate, including yourself, doing the same thing? Heck, why bother debating when one doesn't have an opinion?

To discover which opinion is the stronger. Regardless, there is a difference between holding a position with certainty and attempting to search for evidence and arguments that support it and holding a position tentatively and attempting to see whether the evidence and arguments support it. The former makes a debate pointless.

 

[Popeyesays]

Well, isn't everyone in this debate, including yourself, doing the same thing? Heck, why bother debating when one doesn't have an opinion?



I totally agree with the last statement. And that's why I think scientists who are not afraid to examine the world and universe with both eyes wide open and admit the possibility of a First Cause w/ intelligence should not be shunned by the rest of the scientific and academic community. Which is what this movie, Expelled, seems to be about.

A "First Cause" is not provable by science. Science can analyze the "LIGHT" but it cannot see the finger on the switch (so to speak). Science can debate if there IS a beginning to the event, but it cannot debate whether or not the event was designed.

It has its spiritual eye closed.

Denying that the point cannot be scientifically analyzed, requires one to close the scientific eye.

Both points of view have to reject the other because the points of view deny one another.

"Nay, were man to gaze with the eye of divine and spiritual discernment, he will readily recognize that nothing whatsoever can exist without the revelation of the splendour of God, the ideal King."

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 139)

"12. O MAN OF TWO VISIONS!
Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved."

(Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)

Regards,
Scott

 

[Godfather89]

Science is all inductive. Not inductive; not science.

In the realm of Logic and Critical Thinking isnt Inductive Argument an Invalid argument? Invalid arguments mean that the premises are true, but the conclusion is false. Most Invalid arguments are also called fallacies. So quite essentially you just made science sound like a false notion thus rendering science invalid as a whole.

 

[Autodidact]

Hi again.

I agree, and I believe PureX will too; but, to assume that- if a hypostasis holds in all observed cases, then the hypostasis holds in all cases – is something less then bulletproof.
I just don’t like it when people say “current data shows…” when they mean our “best guess is...” (Please don’t take my interpretation too literally.)

Science never goes from "all observed cases" to "all possible cases." Scientific knowledge, because it is empirical, is always open to the possibility of further refinement, exceptions, developments, and even, on rare occasion, complete shifts in understanding.
"Current data shows" is stronger than "our best guess is." Just think of a level of certainty from 0 to 100%. Science never gets to 100%. But that doesn't mean it's at 0%, either. It's somewhere in between. In some few areas, it's 99.9% certain. That's where we are at this point with the theory of evolution, for example, and what we mean when we say it's "just a theory." It's much, much better than "our best guess." It's scientific consensus.

 

[Autodidact]

That seems a bad analogy to me. (Sorry about the accident, though---that sucks...hope you are ok. )

See, whether that kid meant to hit you or not, he's still an intelligent being who was ultimately responsible for inflicting the damage. The car didn't drive itself. And the car would not even have been in existence to damage your truck had someone intelligent not designed and built it.

Your analogy, it seems to me, is equivalent of saying, evolution (the car) was not the result of an intelligent designer, but came into being through mere chance, yet somehow, out of mere chance, turns into something orderly and designed, which in turn inflicts orderly and designed damage. I don't buy that.

Of course evolution itself is not random; but that's where the confusion comes in. When a higher intelligence to start the process of evolution is taken out of the equation, how can anything be called designed or orderly when it is really the product of chance? The words "design" and "order" no longer have any meaning. And any attempt to give them meaning seems nonsensical to me.

EVOLUTION IS NOT THE RESULT OF PURE CHANCE. The theory of evolution does not eliminate the possibility that it itself was created by God. In fact, if you believe in God and accept ToE, you would have to believe this. That issue, whether God created evolution, is outside the scope of evolution because it is outside the scope of science. It is a religious question. ID is a crock because it falsely asserts that this is a scientific question which can be answered as part of science.

btw, they better hope not, because if science does get to address the question of the existence of God, there is a much stronger argument against than for. Somehow I doubt that ID proponents want that taught in high school biology.

 

[Autodidact]

I totally agree with the last statement. And that's why I think scientists who are not afraid to examine the world and universe with both eyes wide open and admit the possibility of a First Cause w/ intelligence should not be shunned by the rest of the scientific and academic community. Which is what this movie, Expelled, seems to be about.

Many scientists do in fact believe just that. That is because of their religion, and it is their religious belief. What it is not is science.

 

[Autodidact]

In the realm of Logic and Critical Thinking isnt Inductive Argument an Invalid argument? Invalid arguments mean that the premises are true, but the conclusion is false. Most Invalid arguments are also called fallacies. So quite essentially you just made science sound like a false notion thus rendering science invalid as a whole.

It's not in the realm of Logic and Critical Thinking. It's in the realm of science. *sigh*

 

[Fluffy]

"Current data shows" is stronger than "our best guess is." Just think of a level of certainty from 0 to 100%. Science never gets to 100%. But that doesn't mean it's at 0%, either. It's somewhere in between. In some few areas, it's 99.9% certain. That's where we are at this point with the theory of evolution, for example, and what we mean when we say it's "just a theory." It's much, much better than "our best guess." It's scientific consensus.

That is dangerous ground. In reply to Hume's Problem of Induction, James Ladyman collects 10 possible responses in his book The Problem of Induction and Other Problems With Inductivism. Under the retreat to probability he provides the following criticisms:

However, note that Hume's conclusion is not merely that we cannot be certain of the conclusion of an inductive argument, but the much more radical claim that we can have no reason at all to believe it to be true rather than false. This is because we have no reason to believe in the uniformity of nature. The retreat to probable knowledge does not give us any new grounds to believe in the latter, so it does not seem to solve Hume's problem. Furthermore, usually judgements about probabilities are based on the observation of frequencies; for example, we might observe that two-thirds of the population of England have brown eyes and infer that the probability of someone in England whose eyes we have not yet seen being brown is approximately 66 per cent. However, the problem with inductive inferences, in general, is that we have no idea what proportion of the total number of instances we have observed. Indeed, universal generalisations entail an infinite number of observations and so any proportion that we observe, no matter how large, will always be a negligible fraction of the total. This is enough to show that the mere retreat to probabilism is insufficient to solve Hume's problem

I would add to this that Probability Theory is a deductive system and it is not mathematically valid to apply it to an inductive system unless you assume that the universe is uniform in which case you are no longer making inductive inferences but deductive ones.

How would you respond to this?

I personally prefer a variation of Popper's approach in which induction takes no place in science at all.

It's not in the realm of Logic and Critical Thinking. It's in the realm of science. *sigh*.

Whilst attempts have been made to construct a logical theory of induction, I agree with you that it is not in either the realm of logic or critical thinking. However, it certainly is not in the realm of science regardless of whether you believe that science should utilise it or not. It is either within the realm of philosophy of mathematics or the philosophy of science.

 

[Sunstone]

In the realm of Logic and Critical Thinking isnt Inductive Argument an Invalid argument?

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[Autodidact]

I would ask the person asking whether they were making a general attack on science, or whether they thought that in general science was a good way to learn about the natural world?

The entire argument is purely philosophical. In reality, we all use empiricism and induction all the time, or we would be unable to function. We would literally not be able to get out of bed in the morning. After all, how would we know the floor would be there? We don't, of course, know it 100%. But 99.99% is good enough for government work, and for getting up in the morning.

I find that when pushed to shove, all creationists admit they are anti-science in the end. They may start out embracing it, but when you start to pursue the arguments, they end up attacking it.

ID is no exception. They have admitted that their true goal is to destroy materialism, including methodological naturalism.Which is, of course, a cornerstone of the scientific method. They are actually out to destroy science, so we can return to received doctrine as a source of "knowledge." And that worked out so well in the tenth century, don't you agree?

 

[Fluffy]

Not that I'm aware of.

A great many philosophers of science will disagree with that assessment.

I would ask the person asking whether they were making a general attack on science, or whether they thought that in general science was a good way to learn about the natural world?

They are asking for a radical shaking up of the basic principles of science and the way in which it operates. They are indeed attacking any and all science that is based upon induction and saying "Either justify your induction or get rid of it".

The entire argument is purely philosophical. In reality, we all use empiricism and induction all the time, or we would be unable to function. We would literally not be able to get out of bed in the morning. After all, how would we know the floor would be there? We don't, of course, know it 100%. But 99.99% is good enough for government work, and for getting up in the morning.

And the entire underpinnings of science are purely philosophical. Inductively justifying induction won't get you anywhere either.

ID is no exception. They have admitted that their true goal is to destroy materialism, including methodological naturalism.Which is, of course, a cornerstone of the scientific method.

And that is not hallowed ground on which we must not tread. If the philosophical mindset of the scientist is being criticised then the burden is on the scientist to justify their assumption. They can't just sweep it under the rug and claim "tu quoque" or "Its not science, its SCIENCE".