How do you detect "design"?

[mikkel_the_dane]

overstatement, MN deals only with that which we can demonstrate and measure, it makes no claims to anything beyond that including gods or everything being a brain that we don't know because that is all it really is.

Correct, I over did it. Good catch.

 

[Pogo]

Well, yes. But we still have those who claim that it is a fact, that the universe is natural, physical and such variants. I wish there where evidence for that, I have never found in any actual creditble text.
So I have chosen to argue against some versions of religion and some versions of science. But that is me.

There are metaphysical naturalists and methodological naturalists, I think you are confusing them and because you are not a metaphysical naturalist you find the methodological naturalists position to be inadequate whereas I and probably most others just don't worry too much about that which is maybe beyond the methodological.

 

[Pogo]

Correct, I over did it. Good catch.

Problem is they are both MN

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There are metaphysical naturalists and methodological naturalists, I think you are confusing them and because you are not a metaphysical naturalist you find the methodological naturalists position to be inadequate whereas I and probably most others just don't worry too much about that which is maybe beyond the methodological.

Yes, and that I live in a functional secular society, where some version of overdoing evidence and all that are in effect more dangerous than religion.

 

[leroy]

The consensus is we don't know but we are exploring possibilities.

and James tour doesnt reject that concensus..............so he is not against the consensus as @Valjean claims...................do you have the intelectual honesty to afimr that your atheist friend is wrong?..............or are you a shameless person who would defend people form your cult even if they are wrong?

defaulting to I don't know so some god musta dunnit is not even in contention without evidence for this god's capabilities or existence.

James tour doesn’t say we don’t know therefore God did it.

 

[Pogo]

and James tour doesnt reject that concensus..............so he is not against the consensus as @Valjean claims...................do you have the intelectual honesty to afimr that your atheist friend is wrong?..............or are you a shameless person who would defend people form your cult even if they are wrong?


James tour doesn’t say we don’t know therefore God did it.

Then why are you even bringing him up? What evidence for what do you think he represents?

 

[leroy]

No, not this one again, you cannot assign a probability with no knowledge especially when you can't even define what it is that you are trying to claim a probability for.

You are just writing Useless and meaningless words, instead of answerign to the point made in the post.

Why do you even respond to my comments, if you replies don’t even aim to interact with my comments?

Please ether grant or refute my points

1 if you are an agnostic who doesn’t know if god exists or not (around 50%/50%) then from your point of view, “magic” wouldn’t be very unlikely

2 if you are an atheist who thinks that likely god doesn’t exist, you need some sort of argument or evidence to support that

Why is this so hard to understand?

 

[leroy]

Then why are you even bringing him up? What evidence for what do you think he represents?

1 I quoted an article written by James tour to support a point

2 @Valjean rejected the point because according to him JT is against the consensus of experts.

3 I challenge him to support his claim (that JT is against the consensus)

My question to you is, do you have the intellectual honestly to correct your atheist peer, and tell him that he is wrong?

 

[Pogo]

You are just writing Useless and meaningless words, instead of answerign to the point made in the post.

Why do you even respond to my comments, if you replies don’t even aim to interact with my comments?

Please ether grant or refute my points

1 if you are an agnostic who doesn’t know if god exists or not (around 50%/50%) then from your point of view, “magic” wouldn’t be very unlikely

2 if you are an atheist who thinks that likely god doesn’t exist, you need some sort of argument or evidence to support that

Why is this so hard to understand?

Because it is crap that has already been explained to you, this silly idea of 2 choices equaling 50 %.
Is there a 50/50 chance it is raining where you are today? Well it is either raining or not raining, so why not?

1 I quoted an article written by James tour to support a point

2 @Valjean rejected the point because according to him JT is against the consensus of experts.

3 I challenge him to support his claim (that JT is against the consensus)

My question to you is, do you have the intellectual honestly to correct your atheist peer, and tell him that he is wrong?

What article, what point?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

All that physical machination IS the “evidence”. It logically cannot have just randomly popped into being from nothingness.

There is no physical evidence that supports the idea of an intelligent designer popping the universe into existence from nothingness.

What is more complex: a robot or a living cell? What is more difficult to appear on its own due to natural processes: a robot or a human?

A god. That's got to be the least likely thing imaginable to exist uncreated and undesigned.

Evolutionists believe that some thunderstorms in the distant past did something that has never been seen: create life. If a non-living object cannot put itself together from any natural process, then how do evolutionists believe that a living cell that is much more complex than any robot put itself together?

You have not shown that nonlife cannot organize itself into life, and you're still confused about the difference between abiogenesis and evolution.

Also, thunderstorms are as passe and dated as missing links and cavemen clubbing their women. The earliest models of abiogenesis involved lightning because the Miller-Urey experiments included a spark thought to have been a very lucky and unlikely event occurring in just the right place at the time when multiple ingredients found themselves coincidentally placed and oriented just right.

Today, the sun or sea-floor hydrothermal vents are thought to be the steady the providers of energy nature used to power abiogenesis, and it appears that life ought to exist wherever it is possible for it to exist - not a one-off event. Living organisms are dissipative structures like tornadoes. They channel ambient energy and in so doing develop structure whenever conditions are right for that to happen.

• there is no evidence for “the supernatural” (I disagree, but granted for the sake of this comment)
• there is no evidence for any natural mechanism capable of producing life from non-life

given 1 and 2 shouldn’t we declare a draw ?.............if there is no evidence on ether side, shouldn't we be agnostic? Shouldn’t we be on a 50% / 50% scenario where both are equally likely?

There is evidence for nature and natural mechanisms. Take an ice cube out of the freezer in a comfortable room and watch it melt naturally. Or maybe you consider that supernatural.

Why should naturalism win by default?

The naturalistic explanation is preferred because it is simpler (Occam)

why is abiogenesis fundamentally different from robots? we know that iron, copper and other metals are produced naturally by stars....................so why Can´t a robot assemble itself?

As others have noted, you haven't defined robot. You and I are likely robots as creationists use the term in free will discussions. If so, we are biological (organic) robots.

If you mean a metallic android, nature cannot create such a thing. Inorganic chemistry is very different from biochemistry (organic chemistry). The atoms and molecules are different. Carbon chemistry is unique. Life requires long-chain organic molecules. Heavy metals don't combine like that. Life uses mostly carbon as well as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus, all of which combine readily with carbon.

Granted biological mechanisms are known, and none of those mechanisms can produce life.

Biological organisms produce new life every day using biological processes.

Challenge
1 take all the amino acids sugars and lipids that you what (Let’s assume that every single amino acids, lipid, sugar etc. can be formed naturally,)
2 simulate any environment (assume any temperature, any pressure, any source of energy etc… that you what)
3 given 1 and 2 make a self replicating molecule…………..the only condition is that you can´t use preexisting life to do that.
Can you do that? no can any scientist do that?................... why not?

You left something out. One also needs millions of years in a sterile environment.

What observation/experiment/test would convince you that abiogenesis probably can´t happen naturally?

You'd have to show that there is an insurmountable barrier somewhere in the chain from nonlife to life. The fact that new organisms are assembled in wombs and eggs from simple organic ingredients every hour of every day without intelligent supervision us tells that no such barrier exists.

there is no evidence for any natural mechanism capable of producing life from non-life

The first life didn't come from preexisting life. What do you consider the first life - that which you believe your god created, or that god itself? Do you consider the god alive? If so, there's life that didn't have a living precursor. If not - if you don't consider pure disembodied mind life - then the life it created is life from nonlife.

quote from an educated person: "THOSE WHO THINK scientists understand the issues of prebiotic chemistry are wholly misinformed. Nobody understands them. Maybe one day we will. But that day is far from today. It would be far more helpful (and hopeful) to expose students to the massive gaps in our understanding. They may find a firmer—and possibly a radically different—scientific theory. The basis upon which we as scientists are relying is so shaky that we must openly state the situation for what it is: it is a mystery." James M Tour Group » Evolution/Creation

I wouldn't be interested in opinions from creationists. You probably consider that unfounded and unfair, but creationists have a habit of thought that deforms their thinking. You have that as well as does Eli. You're all looking to overturn the science that challenges scripture. Science has no such agenda. Scientists follow the evidence dispassionately to its logical conclusions. Creationists are looking for irreducible complexity. It's a different way of processing information, and it's a defective one.

The agenda is different. Science looks for correct answers. Religion looks for gods. The culture of science is truth-oriented. The culture of religion is to promote itself and its gods, and anything that does that is acceptable even if it includes lying.

Trump illustrates the problem with tendentious thinking and thinkers. His agenda is to accumulate wealth, power, and adulation, and to punish those that oppose him, and he has no barrier to lying if he thinks it will help him. We shouldn't be looking to him for honest answers. We don't really even need to what he is saying. If he believes that it promotes his well-being, he'll say anything. Creationists have that same reputation regarding promoting their religion.

 

[Eli G]

...You'd have to show that there is an insurmountable barrier somewhere in the chain from nonlife to life.

Nor I need to, because that doesn't happens in real life. It is you who need to show the opposite.

The fact that new organisms are assembled in wombs and eggs from simple organic ingredients every hour of every day without intelligent supervision us tells that no such barrier exists.
...

Organisms configuration is predetermined in the genes that came from another living organism transmitting its characteristics to its offspring.

The configuration of an organism in formation is predetermined by the information contained in the genetic material that that organism received from a living organism previous to it that transmitted it to it.

A chicken generates an egg inside herself; If the rooster does not fertilize that egg, a chick never comes out of it.

 

[McBell]

I do not think that anyone has ever claimed that it is the only tool.

There a few theists here on RF who make the claim all the time.
They call it scientism and are all the time claiming that those who disagree with their presentations not only believe it, but worship it.

 

[leroy]

Because it is crap that has already been explained to you, this silly idea of 2 choices equaling 50 %.
Is there a 50/50 chance it is raining where you are today? Well it is either raining or not raining, so why not?

Strawman.


Address my actual claims

 

[Pogo]

Strawman.


Address my actual claims

When you make a point and provide the article to support it as I stated in the last post.

 

[YoursTrue]

Not to argue, but -- I have come to terms that God Almighty is from everlasting to everlasting. Thus, in reference to life starting on the earth, He started it -- however it happened from whatever...but frankly, given the prospect of yes, God starting life on the earth, now I doubt (but don't KNOW for a fact) that a rock, pebble, or meteor crashed on the earth and somehow life began from that.

 

[Valjean]

So then what is the source of "natural law" in your 'scientific' opinion?

Science says: "unknown," and is comfortable with that. It continues researching the question.
What do you claim as the source? What evidence supports it? How has it been tested? What physical mechanisms are involved?

Natural law is just the mega-mechanism generating and defining existence. It simply is our recognition of what is possible and what is not possible to occur. So how were these possibilities and impossibilities set? And however they were set, how can you deny that their purpose is not their result ... existence as we know it? And how, logically, can any of this come to be without there being some transcendent source realm?

We don't know the origins of natural law. Why are you so uncomfortable with "we don't know?"
Why do you think Goddidit! answers this question? It's an attribution of agency and claim of conscious design, not an explanation of anything. It's unevidenced; based on nothing.

At least religions acknowledge the logical necessity for that transcendent source realm. You can't even manage that.

Because there is no "logical necessity" of a transcendental source -- whatever that means. You're constructing a narrative to fit your mythology, not a narrative fitting any evidence. Cart before horse.

The purpose is the result. That is logic 101. And like it or not, this clearly implies intent. All design implies intent.

Please take a course on basic logic. You don't seem to understand what it is.

You have not demonstrated conscious design. Complexity and function don't equal 'design'. Examples of, and mechanisms producing, unconscious "design" are everywhere.
Physical reality doesn't conform to your real-world experience, feelings of familiarity, or commonsense.
Follow the facts, not your heart.

That explains nothing of the source.

Who's claiming a "source?" Research continues.
Till an explanation is discovered, be comfortable with "unknown,"
NB: Goddidit! doesn't explain anything, either.

It's not logical, so why are you trying to claim this?

ok support the claim with a source.

For Darwin Day, 6 facts about the evolution debate

Tuesday is the 210th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults say humans have evolved over time.

www.pewresearch.org

The survey cites "scientists," and specifies human evolution. I'm sure the percentage of actual biologists and the scientists supporting evolution generally is even higher.

Propsed pathways ? (maybe) but there is not a single known viable pathwayhttps://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/11/darwin-day/

Remember I give all the Amino acids, sugars and lipids that you want……………..then what? how do you make a self-replicating molecules for that?

Molecules combine, interact, and form structures. You can observe it in any high school science lab with simple lipid bilayer vesicles. It's not rocket science.

Chemistry is a known and observable science. Divine poofing is neither known or observed. It's a proposal of magic -- yet you consider it more likely than chemistry. Why?

For the first time, large self-replicating molecules win evolution

How can molecules evolve to become more complex, to the point that smaller ones might eventually become large, complex, biological organisms?.

sciworthy.com

Self-replicating molecules show signs of metabolism for the first time

Chemical system combines two of life's three essential features making it one of the most lifelike yet

www.chemistryworld.com

Simple lipid networks combine self-assembly, replication, competition and inhibition

Artificial cells have previously lacked the complexity that is distinct to natural life but scientists are edging closer

www.chemistryworld.com

Spontaneous Emergence of Self-Replicating Molecules Containing Nucleobases and Amino Acids

The conditions that led to the formation of the first organisms and the ways that life originates from a lifeless chemical soup are poorly understood. The recent hypothesis of “RNA-peptide coevolution” suggests that the current close relationship ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Again, you can use your favorite robot as a reference, please quit your dishonest semantic games and answer to my question .

1 We both agree on that the idea of a robot a car or a computer assembling itself with natrualy occurring metals is unacceptable

A metal robot? Who said anything about metal?

2 why is the idea of a self-replicating protein assembling itself with naturally occurring amino acids lipids and sugar fundamentally different from the robot example?

Because we can observe protein synthesis happening every day, by natural, automatic steps.
How do organic robots reproduce and metabolize? Have we ever observed this?

 

[Valjean]

Well abiogenesis is a fact (obviously life came from non-life at some point in the past)

My issue with *some* atheist is that they conclude beyond reasonable doubt that abiogenesis happened through natural mechanisms …….. I don’t think the evidence that we have today supports such a radical and confident conclusion

If the alternative be supernatural mechanisms, where's the evidence of that? I'd say the idea is considerably less evidenced than the natural mechanisms we observe every day.

In fact, what evidence is there for any supernatural mechanism, for anything? The only defense of the idea I ever see posted are questions about the viability of natural mechanisms. Undermining an alternative doesn't evidence the primary proposal.

 

[Valjean]

That is false, few if any relevant steps are known………………..


Well supposing that you are an agnostic, who believes that the existence of a god is within the 50% rage……………..”magic” becomes “not very unlikely”………….I mean if God excists then magic every once in a while is expected.

If you think that probability of the existence of a god is much lower than 50% then magic would be unlekly but you would have to support your atheism with some arguments and evidence……………

Your alternative rests on the presumption of a magical, supernatural god. I maintain you have neither evidence this foundation exists, nor any mechanism by which its magic might be effected. "Goddidit!" has the same truth-value as "pixies did it!"

Till you can logically or empirically defend the supernatural premise, it remains unfounded and not a legitimate or reasonable alternative. The burden is yours.

Nitpicking an active area of research does not strengthen your God "hypothesis."

 

[Valjean]

1 I quoted an article written by James tour to support a point

2 @Valjean rejected the point because according to him JT is against the consensus of experts.

3 I challenge him to support his claim (that JT is against the consensus)

My question to you is, do you have the intellectual honestly to correct your atheist peer, and tell him that he is wrong?

I'm not rejecting Tour's claims because his opinions are in the minority. I reject them because they're based on personal incredulity and an appeal to magic.
As for the opinions of biologists, just google. The whole discipline is based on evolution.

Don't tell me I'm wrong. Show me I'm wrong. Explain my errors.

 

[Brian2]

Experts in science create the models, and they are the most likley explanations. Creationists and ID folks offer no better models, just demands and complaints. We note these folks can't even show that any god or creator exists that would account for the models they want to be true.

Science uses only the evidence it can handle scientifically. That should be remembered about science.

You don't seem to trust scientists. Why is that? Are you trying to discredit them because you have religious beluefs that you would prefer to be true, but lack evidence for?

I trust science and scientists about many things, and question other things that I do not agree with.
With things I doubt it seems to be that it is not real science to the extent that it cannot be repeated or falsified.

Scientists are the experts, and they have learned the ethics and standards required of their work. We critical thinkers surely don't listen to the "ethics" of those who are dishonest about science, scientists, and results in science. Creationism has created (irony intended) a community of believers that have been exploited, and in doing so the believers have gotten duped into non-credible beliefs that ruin integrity and reputations. The believers on forums who show they have been indocrinated into not only a religious framework, but one that is contrary to what science reports, is an embarrassment.

To you the beliefs are not credible but to me they are credible because I am using more evidence than science does and do not blindly follow science in everything it tells us. Many people believe what science tells them and think it must be true because "they are the experts". It is sad that people get indoctrinated like this. But that's the human condition and we all get indoctrinated into something without knowing it probably.