The problem remains that any argument for design requires a coherent argument for a designer. This is also true of the argument for fine tuning. Where is the fine tuner?
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How do you detect "design"?
- Thread starter TagliatelliMonster
- Start date
Yes, the evidence of human manipulation determines the object is bit natural. The origin of the bone is natural and actually based on present technology scientists can determine the animal that humans carved.
Design by definition requires a designer. The definition describes design by humans not nature or any other source.It is possible that we will come into contact with an alien in the future who is also a designer, but that is hypothetical.
At present there is no evidence of a designer other than humans, therefore nature is not designed,
I believe you are arguing for design in nature. Your posts and choice of your references reflect your argument.
One, I guess on can argue for design in terms of nature only, but it would be an oxymoron, and and anthropomorphic view of nature.
The fallacy of fine tuning part
Victor J. StengerAbstract
Victor J. Stenger, The fallacy of fine tuning part - PhilPapers
The claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine tuned for life and that this provides strong evidence for supernatural design is perhaps the best scientific argument for the existence ...
The claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine tuned for life and that this provides strong evidence for supernatural design is perhaps the best scientific argument for the existence of God since Paley’s watch. Even atheist physicists find these so called “anthropic coincidences” difficult to explain and need to invoke the Weak Anthropic Principle and multiple universes to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine tuning is simple. Our form of life was fined tuned to our universe by evolution. While multiple universes are expected from modern cosmological theories, theists and some scientists object that invoking the unobservable is not science. Of course, God is unobservable too, so the best theists can claim is a standoff. This is the first in a series of columns based on a book in the works that attempts to show that the apparent fine tuning of fundamental constants can be understood from basic physics without invoking multiple universes. In some cases the explanation is provable. In other cases, it is not provable but plausible. Fine tuning by design is a God of the Gaps argument. The proponent has the burden if proving that no possible natural explanation can be found. Thus a plausible natural explanation is sufficient to defeat the argument. A list of thirty four parameters that seem to be fine tuned has been assembled by Rich Deem on the God and Science website. Several of Deem’s constants, such as the speed of light in a vacuum, c, Newton’s constant of gravity, G, and Planck’s constant, h, are just arbitrary numbers that are determined simply by the unit system you are using. They can be set equal to any number you want, except zero, with no impact on the physics. So no fine tuning can possibly be involved, just as the number p is not fine tuned. I will focus first on the five parameters that have the most significance because, if interpreted correctly, they seem to pretty much rule out almost any conceivable kind of life without fine tuning: · Ratio of electrons to protons · Ratio of electromagnetic force to gravity Expansion rate of the universe · Mass density of the universe · Cosmological constant I will admit that the features a universe would have for slightly different values of these parameters, all other parameters remaining the same, would render unlikely any form of life even remotely like ours, that is, one that is based on a lengthy process, chemical or otherwise, by which complex matter evolved from simpler matter. Let me discuss each in turn, with the last, the most difficult, reserved for a future column..
Next essay will follow. The book he wrote is more comprehensive.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Thank you, so that is two. The source is clearly not reliable.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You do not seem to understand what it means when scare quotes are used. That does not help you And the problem with the Fine Tuned Universe is that there is no scientific evidence for it. It is just an argument from ignorance, a logical fallacy.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Evidence is often a matter of interpretation. Why should I trust your interpretation?
You are just making a blank statement of no evidence.
What would the evidence look like if there was any in your view?
Factual evidence itself is not open to interpretation. The evidence needed for the argument of "Fine Tuning" and "Design" is that the NAture of our physical existence could not come about by without "Fine Tuning" and "Design."
Why should you accept any since they are philosophical argument and not based on objective evidence of fine tuning.
So do the different various claims of fine tuning.
The same problem as with "Design" arguments. The evidence should demonstrate that the nature of our physical existence and life could not come about by "Design" or "Fine Tuning"
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Ehav4Ever
Well-Known Member
No, at this point I am only argueing that the word "design" is used in the exact way I used it by people on all sides including those who don't beleive that a design requires something that designed it or even that intelligience is needed for such. I don't have any reason, in this thread to advocate for either side of the debate. I was merely responded to the writer of the OP with a particular perspective. I think you misunderstood my intentions.
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Ehav4Ever
Well-Known Member
You might not agree with the use of the word in the way I presented, but there have been people using it that way for some time. Including in publications about science that have no concern or beleif in creationism or intelligent design. As I menioned, words are created by people and languages evolve and how words are used evolve.
Concerning neutrality, you may be reading to much into what I stated as something that I don't hold by, nor did I claim. It could be that thiest creationists and athiests non-creationist get so wrapped up in trying to one up each other that everything becomes an arguement for one side or the other rather than just simply a comment or a question for earnest discussion.
Here are a few non-theist examples of what I meant in my response to the writer of the OP.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Because people like you insist on claiming that you are able to detect design in other ways.........................
People like you claim there are other ways for detecting design..........
Go back to the OP and read the last sentence.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Sure that is because I misunderstood your words.Because people like you insist on claiming that you are able to detect design in other ways.........................
People like you claim there are other ways for detecting design..........
Go back to the OP and read the last sentence.
But given your clarification, I don’t disagree and neither would Demsky nor any other ID proponent.
So what is your point? Your making a tautological claim, obviously evidence for manipulation would be evidence for design
How does life or the universe or text written in the sky, fail as “design objects”?
You didn’t disagreed with this comment, son unless you claim the opposite I will assume that you agree..
“For example it seems to me that you wouldn’t object the design hypothesis if the spear is made out of the bone of some unknown animal, because the evidence for manipulation would still be there.
it seems to me that You wouldn’t object the design hypothesis even if we don’t know who de designer is, nor where did it come from, you wouldn’t object the design hypothesis even if there is no prior evidence for any designer living in that area where the spear was found, and you would object the design hypothesis even if this where the firs spear ever found in the planet . “
Pogo
Well-Known Member
The disagreement with Dembski and others is his use of the language of teleology, his attempts to couch his ideas in mathematics is the reason his specious logic is dismissed.
It is not logic, it is a god of the gaps argument no matter how he dresses it up. It was given its time in the sun 30 years ago and found wanting, that you and other non-scientists continue to resurect it is not evidence of its value, but only of the faith (belief without evidence) that you put in it.
leroy
Well-Known Member
Wow, I knew that you were part of a cult that rejects by default any idea that contradicts naturalism………………but I wasn’t expecting such a direct admission
The only evidence we have is life on earth and possibly the moons of Jupiter and on Mars is of natural origin and failed as designed by definition as cited. One may believe our physical existence and life is designed by a Designer God, but we have no evidence for this at present.
Text written in the sky would be designed by a man in an airplane,
Proponents of Intelligent Design in the Discovery Institute like Demsky believe their is evidence of Intelligent Design.
The Top Six Lines of Evidence for Intelligent Design
Many different pieces of evidence point to design in nature. Here they six, their order simply reflecting that in which they must logically have occurred within our universe.
www.discovery.org
The Top Six Lines of Evidence for Intelligent Design
CASEY LUSKIN FEBRUARY 25, 2021 INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Pogo
Well-Known Member
Yes, we are discussing science, you have just stated that you are not interested in this discussion.
Have fun at church where your arguments are appropriate.
This is beyond semantics, this is just your total misunderstanding of science as a defined segment of philosophy.
The conclusion that you do not know what you are talking about is only reinforced by your posts.
Theist, non-theist or whatsitist, no meaning. The use of design in this context by definition you need evidence of a designer by definition, There is absolutely no evidence of design or a designer.
By the evidence our physical existence is the result of Natural Laws and natural processes without any design or designer by definition.
The arguments for Fine tuning and Design have common roots in the belief that randomness and/or Chance play a role in the outcomes of cause and effect events in nature. he reality is nothing in the outcomes of cause and effects in nature is random, or as Einstein commented, "the dice are loaded."
First the 'belief' in 'Fine Tuning' is hypothetical and without objective evidence. Fads tend to fade if there is no objective evidence to support them.
Yes the existence of a Multi-verse is possible, but at present we only have evidence of one universe ours. One of the arguments for Fine Tuning is the multiverse argument considering the belief that there is the possibility of a wide range of a wide range of possible constants for there to be one like ours to have all the constants within the narrow possible range for life. The problem is yes IF there is a wide range of possible constants this may be true. bue we do not know the possible range of constants that different universes could have in a multiverse. Actually we do not know the possible range of constants for different universes if the multiverse exists, The range of constants may be very narrow or as Einstein propose the "dice are loaded."
It is more likely that if there was any significant variation in the constants of universes in a hypothetical multiverse any alternate universes out side a narrow range of constants would simply fail to form and exist,
The following is an excellent argument against any form of Fine tuning.
link.springer.com
More to follow . . .
First the 'belief' in 'Fine Tuning' is hypothetical and without objective evidence. Fads tend to fade if there is no objective evidence to support them.
Yes the existence of a Multi-verse is possible, but at present we only have evidence of one universe ours. One of the arguments for Fine Tuning is the multiverse argument considering the belief that there is the possibility of a wide range of a wide range of possible constants for there to be one like ours to have all the constants within the narrow possible range for life. The problem is yes IF there is a wide range of possible constants this may be true. bue we do not know the possible range of constants that different universes could have in a multiverse. Actually we do not know the possible range of constants for different universes if the multiverse exists, The range of constants may be very narrow or as Einstein propose the "dice are loaded."
It is more likely that if there was any significant variation in the constants of universes in a hypothetical multiverse any alternate universes out side a narrow range of constants would simply fail to form and exist,
The following is an excellent argument against any form of Fine tuning.
The Fine-Tuning Argument: Exploring the Improbability of Our Existence
Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design, whereas others have felt the need...
Abstract
Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design, whereas others have felt the need to explain this apparent fine-tuning of the clockwork of the Universe by proposing the existence of a ‘Multiverse’. We analyze this issue from a sober perspective. Having reviewed the literature and having added several observations of our own, we conclude that cosmic fine-tuning supports neither Design nor a Multiverse, since both of these fail at an explanatory level as well as in the more quantitative context of Bayesian confirmation theory (although there might be other reasons to believe in these ideas, to be found in religion and in inflation and/or string theory, respectively). In fact, fine-tuning and Design even seem to be at odds with each other, whereas the inference from fine-tuning to a Multiverse only works if the latter is underwritten by an additional metaphysical hypothesis we consider unwarranted. Instead, we suggest that fine-tuning requires no special explanation at all, since it is not the Universe that is fine-tuned for life, but life that has been fine-tuned to the Universe.1 Introduction
Twentieth Century physics and cosmology have revealed an astonishing path towards our existence, which appears to be predicated on a delicate interplay between the three fundamental forces that govern the behavior of matter at very small distances and the long-range force of gravity. The former control chemistry and hence life as we know it, whereas the latter is responsible for the overall evolution and structure of the Universe.- If the state of the hot dense matter immediately after the Big Bang had been ever so slightly different, then the Universe would either have rapidly recollapsed, or would have expanded far too quickly into a chilling, eternal void. Either way, there would have been no ‘structure’ in the Universe in the form of stars and galaxies.
- Even given the above fine-tuning, if any one of the three short-range forces had been just a tiny bit different in strength, or if the masses of some elementary particles had been a little unlike they are, there would have been no recognizable chemistry in either the inorganic or the organic domain. Thus there would have been no Earth, no carbon, et cetera, let alone the human brains to study those.
- 1.
Design: updating the scholastic Fifth Way of Aquinas (1485/1286), the Universe has been fine-tuned with the emergence of (human) life among its designated purposes.Footnote1 - 2.
Multiverse: the idea that our Universe is just one among innumerably many, each of which is controlled by different parameters in the (otherwise fixed) laws of nature. This seemingly outrageous idea is actually endorsed by some of the most eminent scientists in the world, such as Martin Rees (1999) and Steven Weinberg (2007). The underlying idea was nicely explained by Rees in a talk in 2003, raising the analogy with ‘an ‘off the shelf’ clothes shop: “if the shop has a large stock, we’re not surprised to find one suit that fits. Likewise, if our universe is selected from a multiverse, its seemingly designed or fine-tuned features wouldn’t be surprising.” (Mellor 2002). - 3.
Blind Chance: constants of Nature and initial conditions have arbitrary values, and it is just a matter of coincidence that their actual values turn out to enable life.Footnote2 - 4.
Blind Necessity: the Universe could not have been made in a different way or order, yet producing life is not among its goals since it fails to have any (Spinoza 1677).Footnote3 - 5.
Misguided: the fine-tuning problem should be resolved by some appropriate therapy.
More to follow . . .
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
There is a big difference between engineered (intelligent) design and evolved (natural) design. Engineered designs tend to become less complex and eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies in function. Evolved designs are unplanned. So they tend to be less efficient and messier. Animal bodies can contain vestigial organs, which have little or no bearing on the survival of the organism but are holdovers from ancestors in which they had a useful function.
A good example of an inefficiency in an evolved biological design is the lack of bilateral symmetry in the two recurrent laryngeal nerves (RLN) that supply sensation and energy to each side of the larynx in a wide variety of animals, including our species of evolved ape. They are always of unequal length, because the one on the left is trapped underneath the aortic arch, but the right one is free to move higher in a body as, for example, the neck becomes longer over generations. The left RLN has to grow longer as the neck stretches, so giraffes have an extremely long left RLN and a much shorter right RLN. If intelligent designers saw this kind of thing happening, they would redesign the body to elevate the left RLN above the aortic arch, because the extra length serves no function.
Richard Dawkins has written extensively on the difference between biological evolutionary and artificial engineered designs, and that is why he entitled one of his books The Blind Watchmaker. That is, the watchmaker can still design and make watches, but he just doesn't see flaws in his designs. He may take longer to get the watch to work right or repair its function, and the results won't be as good because of that limitation. Nature's breeding program relies on survival of the fittest in a given environmental niche, but it does not eliminate all of the flaws, or evolutionary detritus, left over from ancestral bodies that it left behind. In order to "see" those flaws, it needs some way to distinguish the necessary parts in the design from the unnecessary parts.
A good example of an inefficiency in an evolved biological design is the lack of bilateral symmetry in the two recurrent laryngeal nerves (RLN) that supply sensation and energy to each side of the larynx in a wide variety of animals, including our species of evolved ape. They are always of unequal length, because the one on the left is trapped underneath the aortic arch, but the right one is free to move higher in a body as, for example, the neck becomes longer over generations. The left RLN has to grow longer as the neck stretches, so giraffes have an extremely long left RLN and a much shorter right RLN. If intelligent designers saw this kind of thing happening, they would redesign the body to elevate the left RLN above the aortic arch, because the extra length serves no function.
Richard Dawkins has written extensively on the difference between biological evolutionary and artificial engineered designs, and that is why he entitled one of his books The Blind Watchmaker. That is, the watchmaker can still design and make watches, but he just doesn't see flaws in his designs. He may take longer to get the watch to work right or repair its function, and the results won't be as good because of that limitation. Nature's breeding program relies on survival of the fittest in a given environmental niche, but it does not eliminate all of the flaws, or evolutionary detritus, left over from ancestral bodies that it left behind. In order to "see" those flaws, it needs some way to distinguish the necessary parts in the design from the unnecessary parts.
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Pogo
Well-Known Member
I'm sorry, but after how many years of presenting their top 10 evidences, that were a joke then, see sensuous curmudgeon and pharyngula, they can't even come up with 10. They have also never published anything in the peer reviewed science press.
\
We can argue a conspiracy theory, but at some point it becomes obvious that it is just that, a conspiracy theory and their claimed arguments were not even worth peer review.
Sorry @leroy, we have been reasonably dismissing your argument since before you were born. It was an ancient argument that never held up even in it's ancient versions. New knowledge has only made it's
vacuity more obvious.