TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
In the same way that Chemistry is "lengthy explanation" that molecules aren't being held together by interdimensional pxies.
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Fine Tuning argument / The best argument for the existence of God
- Thread starter leroy
- Start date
In the same way that Chemistry is "lengthy explanation" that molecules aren't being held together by interdimensional pxies.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
DNA.
It would? How do you know?
DNA disagrees.
But sure, back in the day there surely could have been multiple "distinct" population each with its own original beginnings. But if that was the case, DNA seems to suggest all but one of those populations went extinct, while the sole surviving population went on the conquer the world and fill it up with millions of species.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Indeed. Because it is not a scientific idea.
Plenty of people who study nature are in awe of its subtle structures and the ordered way it behaves. The religiously inclined can attribute it to God if they like, and the irreligious can be content with it as just nature.
What you can't do, if you are being scientific, is to start trying to find evidence of supernatural intervention that overrides the workings of nature. Because science is a discipline that looks for natural explanations of nature. If you're not looking for those, you're not doing science.
That is the most fundamental reason why ID can't be science, though ID invalidates itself in other ways too, notably its inability to produce a model that predicts what observations should be expected.
exchemist
Veteran Member
In a way that is exactly what natural selection is, though. You get variation in a population and then, by trial and error, the more successful variations outbreed the others and become dominant. It's all you need.
All this stuff about inherent purpose is unnecessary.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
Evolution, is called science, however, evolution, like ID, cannot make predictions. Evolution can be used to correlate that which was, or point out a step that correlates to evolution, but it cannot tell us what will be, in advance.
The reason is, it is too dependent on the science God of dice and cards; statistics. We assume this evolutionary God of dice will win a jackpot, somewhere, and at some time in the future. However, we do not know which corner store or casino he will be in what he wins the jackpot. This is not exactly rational science, especially since math oracles are often used.
Rational science is more like Newtonian mechanics, which can be used to place rockets in orbit or a man on the moon. Rational science can be used to make accurate predictions without any gambling involved. That is the gold standard that evolution falls short of.
The biggest problem with evolution is water is not taken into account to the point where you do not need dice. DNA needs hydrating water to become active, yet this is not shown in textbooks. The double helix shown in textbooks is not bioactive, but it is sold as such. Faith in the God dice and cards appears to make it so to the faithful. The God of dice and cards appears to play the role of water but in an irrational way that cannot be predicted.
Life evolved in water. Water was the natural nano environment for chemical evolution. Just as the desert or polar regions on earth set potentials for the life that is selected; scorpions and polar bears, water set its own potentials, which it still does today in all of life. This is not the God of dice, but follows the principles of rational science.
exchemist
Veteran Member
This is utter rubbish: evolution makes huge numbers of predictions, successfully borne out by the discovery of new fossils and DNA linkages all the time.
I'm not getting into discussing your well-known obsessions with water, hydrogen bonds, entropy and liberals, either.
If evolution couldn't make predictions our knowledge of biology and medicine would be a century or more retarded. The known mechanisms of evolution are very predictive -- and productive.
The idea that natural selection is a roll of the dice is simply wrong. It's selective, hence the name. It makes choices, albeit automatically and unintentionally.
See above. I don't know where you're getting this idea that evolution is a series of random events. People have been using artificial selection to breed desirable characteristics into plants and animals for thousands of years; the same mechanism nature uses. Poodles and maize never existed in nature.
Huh? What textbooks are you reading? Water is not taken into account? I don't see your point. Do you think DNA and the mechanisms by which it works are a mystery to biology?
What on Earth are you talking about? I seriously don't follow.
exchemist
Veteran Member
You won't get a sensible explanation. It's a piece of crank mysticism he has been boring people with on other forums for around a decade.
exchemist
Veteran Member
In fact though that link seems to overlook the most obvious prediction of the theory, namely that intermediate fossils between various forms should be found in rocks of intermediate ages. In recent years we have found such things as feathered dinosaurs and precursors to whales, in rocks of the age you would predict them to be in.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Ok then support your assertion, which physicist disagree and why? (this is related to the BB paradox)
leroy
Well-Known Member
@9-10ths_Penguin already refuted the argument from intermediate fossils...... Dobt you see its a tautology
So there is nothing special, if instead of feathered dinosaurs we would have found something else then you would say that "something else" evolved
What are you on about?
leroy
Well-Known Member
That is very interesting but based on your definition that has nothing to do with "exolanatory power"
Ok this has something to do with explanatory power
If the universe was designed..... Then the designer could have made a FT universe....... Agree? That would be an example of explanatory power
If you disagree you would have to show that even if a designer crested the unuverse, it would be unlikely that he would create a FT universe.
leroy
Well-Known Member
I am using your brilliant "its a tautology" argument to refute evolution (common ancestry)
YECs SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS INFALIBLE ARGUMENT
joelr
Well-Known Member
Because so many things have to happen it's very clear the universe was not fine tuned for life. No matter how you look at it now, the early universe does not appear to be there as a "life-creator". This isn't complicated.
All "God of the gap" notions. We just don't know why the entropy was so low. So? In this universe that values are such that stars can form, elements can form and life formed. That doesn't mean it was created by a conscious agent for a reason. In fact it's almost impossible because taking a quantum ball of super compressed energy being bound by the Heisenburg uncertainty laws, you cannot expect anything to happen of note. Like I said matter may have all been annihilated right away.
Observation shows the same that quantum mechanics shows - random and probabilities.
That's exactly what special pleading is - avoiding aspects you don't like - and you did just that by making excuses for things that do not fit into your model.
Now you are moving the goalpost? Not tuned for life? That's even easier to show it's not tuned if not for life. The universe follows many mathematical laws, it's like an expression of mathematics and the reason why we see symmetry and order on various levels from the quantum to macroscopic levels.
Yeah you can look at everything and say the universe was FT for this and that and it just becomes absurd because now everything in the universe was "fine tuned" for that? It's all speculation, it serves no point and the fundamental laws of QM don't even allow for any of those purposes because you cannot make future predictions with certainty. Why create a universe for black holes when all the matter might immediately react with antimatter and turn to energy?
It's clearly just a natural happening.
The universe is not a machine. First a dieity shouldn't be producing designs that "might work". But the universe has worked fine on it's own going back to 10-16 of the big bang. The notion that at that point, right at the point we have no science for.....guess what....well that exact point is when it was "fine tuned". Huh..... Well that's pretty suspicious. Right where science ends that is where you stick a "fine tuned by a deity". Cute. Unconvincing. This is theism clouding judgment.
This should be the point where a science minded person thinks "wow I can't wait until one day when science discovers what natural processes started the big bang". Because that will happen.
All this is is an extention of one of the various creation myths. Science has taken all the good parts out of them. No more war with old gods vs young gods to create the universe out of the loser old gods or whatever story you prefer. Science has creationism pushed all the way back to "yeah but it was tuned up".
Which is still silly. The early universe was likely all a unified energy. When it split it did so in a way that was symmetrical and we see that reflected in the large scale universe. Instead of just one thing there are many that fit together because they were unified at one point. There are probably other universes with different outcomes. Nature is creating stuff like crazy but somehow it cannot handle universes and multiverses?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
That is blatantly false. Evolution makes a ridiculous amount of predictions.
In general terms, it predicts a nested hierarchy in life.
That, by itself, already makes up for literally millions of predictions.
Because this hierarchy is reflected throughout many different fields of study:
- comparative anatomy
- comparative genomics
- the fossil record (in terms of age, location and anatomical features).
A few examples:
- no creature will share more ERV's with homo sapiens then the great apes will. If you find a bird that shares more ERV's with humans then a chimp, evolution is in trouble
- you will not find a mammal with feathers. Not living, not in the fossil record. Inactive genes for feathers will also not be found in the genome of mammals. Finding such genes, such creatures or such fossils, will put evolution in trouble.
- you will not find mammals in pre-cambrian strata. Finding a rabbit in the pre-cambrian, will put evolution in trouble.
- and so on and so forth
Literally every new genome sequenced, every new fossil found, every new species discovered... is a test of evolution. Every single new discovery in zooology, paleontology, genetics,... has the potential of not falling in line with the predictions of evolution.
Predictions in science are not like "prophecy" or "fortune telling".
Predictions in science have to do with what kind of data one expects to find or NOT find. It's not about "prophesizing future events". This is true for all predictions that flow from theories - any theory - in all of science.
This makes zero sense and exposes a vast ignorance on both what evolution is about as well as on how science is actually done.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Not a single theoretical physicist is discarding Inflation Theory because of your silly "bb paradox", which if you are correct, they should be doing as inflation theory predicts a multi-verse.
ie: if inflation theory is correct, then the multi-verse exists.
If your assertion about the "bb paradox" a priori ruling out a multi-verse is correct, then any hypothesis that predicts such a multi-verse would be discarded instantly on that fact alone.
But no theoretical physicist is doing this. So clearly, they don't agree with you.
Inflation theory would be discarded by default, purely because it predicts a multi-verse. But it is not.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Yes it does. Did you even read it?
- if it offers greater predictive power (if it offers more details about what should be expected to be seen and not seen);
- ....
- if it makes fewer assumptions;
Your assertion of "god dun it", makes ENORMOUS assumptions and it makes exactly zero testable predictions.
If the universe was created 10 minutes ago, then the creator could have created the universe 10 mintues ago, including our memories of having lived our entire lives. Agree?
No. That would be yet another example of a bare assertion explaining nothing at all.
I have no need to disprove bare claims for which zero evidence is given.
What you get to assert without evidence, I get to dismiss without evidence.
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