How do you detect "design"?

[Brian2]

That a rather odd question. But let's try. If that God wants to be found then definitely yes. If it does not want to be found, in other words if it were the mythical Hide and Seek champion of of the universe then maybe not.

It's not a matter of hide and seek when God has shown Himself in history for those who can see and believe it. It is a matter of whether physical sciences should be able to detect something that is not physical, by scientific means.
It sounds reasonable that science would not be able to do that and that science would not even know when and how God would act to be able to detect God's actions in the universe.

 

[Brian2]

Theists tend to be Vitalists. They regard 'life' as a sort of mysterious, intangible essence; a divine 'stuff', beyond just an emergent property of chemistry.

No matter how well we can document the spontaneous formation and assembly of the several components of life by ordinary chemistry, they'll remain unconvinced, and continue to appeal to magic.

Dr James Tour says that such demonstrations are not as close as are being said. However why would being able to do that demonstrate chemistry alone as being responsible for life?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It's not a matter of hide and seek when God has shown Himself in history for those who can see and believe it. It is a matter of whether physical sciences should be able to detect something that is not physical, by scientific means.
It sounds reasonable that science would not be able to do that and that science would not even know when and how God would act to be able to detect God's actions in the universe.

Well, God just show Her to me and told me that you are Wrong.

See, it is easy to do God as with your kind of evidence.

 

[Pogo]

I certainly don't know 'everything.' But logic tells me that seeds did not come about by themselves, I.e., without an intelligent designer. They're more fantastic than a cabin. Now do I know anything beyond that now? No.

So you start out with the idea that the cabin stands out from the background and we know it is built by an intelligence, and then you jump to the background that the cabin stands in that you don't know how it came about. So now you just jump straight to the conclusion that you wanted before you began your demonstration.
See that (cabin) it's designed.
See that (tree) I don't know but it seems complicated
See God musta dunnit.

Notice there is no rational logic here, just a desire to end with your belief that Goddidit to explain what you don't know.

 

[shunyadragon]

Science has not shown that the world works automatically without intelligent supervision.

Science only considers the objective verifiable evidence of our physical existence and cannot show "Intelligence supervision."
There absolutely no objective evidence of Intelligent supervision.

The question about a creator is never irrelevant. All irrelevance would show is that the person is using an argument from ignorance,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and it is not because there is a lack of evidence, it is because the person refuses to see the evidence because of previously held belief that empiricism is the only way to knowledge.

The question of a Creator is relevant to religious beliefs, not science. It is not an argument of ignorance to be neutral to the existence of God when there is no objective evidence for the existence of God.

You no doubt speak as a representative of science and empiricism and should write as such and qualify what you say with the admission that it applies to science and the work of science only and has no impact on the reality in the real world where people are claiming that God has an impact on their lives every day, and that impacts the world big time.

Careful how you use real and reality concerning the beliefs of the many variable beliefs in God and religion. How would you objectively determine which of the many conflicting beliefs are real or have a rel impact that could not be considered natural?

Empiricists are free to disagree but are just using faith in their worldview to say that my faith is not true and that my experiences are imagination.

Empiricism is not based on "faith" by definition in the English language.

So why do atheists want theists to demonstrate what is impossible?

First, careful you CANNOT associate atheism with science. Neither atheism nor Theism can demonstrate the existence or non-existence of God.

And how do you know that the laws of nature act automatically?

The only objective verifiable evidence we have is that the nature of our physical existence comes about naturally by Natural Laws and processes, We have absolutely no objective evidence of anything else.

 

[F1fan]

I can show you but you have already chosen not to believe any evidence I have for God.

It's not a good sign that you lack confidence in your evidence. You must know it's weak and insufficient to convince skilled thinkers.

Since you refuse to present evidence we have to reject your personal religious beliefs.

Yes I think I have always said that. But they are not irrelevant in explaining why things are.

Of course gods are irrelevant to explaining how things are. Why? Because even you refuse to present eidnce that they exist. That means we have no basis to assume they exist. We aren't interested in assuming explanations, we are interested in what the evidence tells us about reality, and gods aren't part of it.

They are fine for religious belief, but religious belief isn't interested in truth, it's interested in a cultural tradtion that some folks rely on for identity and meaning. The danger for theists is hanging identity on a framework that isn't factual, and largely implausible. Any insecurity and fear will only be made worse by trying to argue for the truth of religious belief. This fear and anxiety is wht so many Christians will adopt an absurd creationist story and reject science. Science becomes a threat to identity.

The choice was to say that empiricism and science are the only ways to find out the true. The rejection of the rest of theism is automatic unless God shows Himself to you under your rules.

But look at how you refused to een present your eidence for why a God exists. You want God to be part of the discussion but are too afraid to explain how it is valid and true as necessary and true. That is why we throw it out. Theisms offer nothing to how we understand what is true about how things are.

Your choice.

It's not my choice that you, nor religions, can't offer evidence for your beliefs. Do you believe in the hundreds of Hindu gods? If not, then you understand why we reject your God. No evidence.

If you want to be taken seriously, you present evidence. Otherwise it is your choice to offer nothing. No evidence of design. No evidence of a supernatural. No evidence of gods, angels, demons, etc.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

James Tour is just saying that the chemists in the field are over exaggerating where science is when it comes to the origin of life.

And what is he calling an exaggeration? That there is no evidence for an intelligent designer? That absent an intelligent designer, that life must have formed spontaneously? That the building blocks for life form spontaneously?

He is a high achieving organic chemist and knows what it takes to synthesize molecules and how much harder it would be in the wild rather than in a controlled environment of the lab.

He's a creationist. That means that like you, he is looking for evidence for a god everywhere, and likely the same one you believe in. That kind of thinking perverts scientific inquiry. Wishful thinking affects what people see. Belief in the god of Abraham comes with a sense that lying about it in the name of promoting it is acceptable. The creationist's agenda, values, and methods are not the same as the skeptical empiricist. They're constantly redirecting discussion toward whatever they think supports a god hypothesis.

That's what you do: "How do you know that there is no intelligent oversight? How do you know that chemistry is all that is there? Science is limited to the physical. You can't prove that gods don't exist or aren't tweaking reality."

You're probably aware of how therapeutic trial are performed. Placebos and therapy are given to different cohorts and the results compared. To eliminate patient and clinician bias, both are kept in the dark regarding who gets placebo and who gets the potential treatment. Why? Because we see what we want to see or hope to see or expect to see. We saw that in the ID people, who kept finding irreducible complexity that wasn't there. And we see it in all creationists, which is why their arguments aren't very interesting or useful to those with different methods and goals, namely, describing how the world appears to work for a dispassionate, critically thinking observer:

• "Motivated reasoning is a cognitive and social response in which individuals, consciously or sub-consciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived. Individuals tend to favor evidence that coincides with their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts them, despite contrary evidence."
• "Tendentious - expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view"

People do claim to be influenced by God however and that has a big impact on the world, whether the gods are real or not.

Yes, the belief in gods is real and affects the world as other real things do.

Science cannot study the effects of a spirit God

It could if there were effects.

You want it both ways. You want gods to be affecting reality but say that these effects are undetectable. If there are no detectable effects, then whatever you are thinking exists is irrelevant and the claim can be called "not even wrong."

It's not a matter of hide and seek when God has shown Himself in history for those who can see and believe it. It is a matter of whether physical sciences should be able to detect something that is not physical, by scientific means.

There you go again. Undetectable to science but detected by believers anyway. Pick one. Is this god detectable or not?

 

[Pogo]

Let's say scientists haven't been investigating these things for a long time, I.e., according to you, I suppose you figure history and writing about science and evolution or creation hasn't been around THAT long, right? So I figure you figure that maybe humans have been thinking about these things for a few thousand years. What do you think?

Yes, humans are curious and like to make connections between causes and effects (fire and warmth and pain) but we start out as babies with little more than tit makes feeling go away. Grow up more questions that we want answers to. Don't have answers so invent gods to fill in the blanks.
Slowly we fill in the blanks and discard these made up gods. That is history and here we are and some still feel the need to use gods to fill in blanks and others are content with I don't know but I will see if I can figure it out.

 

[Pogo]

So do you think that physical means by nature and evolution and not by an intelligent designer has packed all that information into a little seed?

In the absence of any evidence for a designer and with all the evidence from evolution, why do I need to imagine a god to do this.

 

[Pogo]

Science has not shown that the world works automatically without intelligent supervision.
The question about a creator is never irrelevant. All irrelevance would show is that the person is using an argument from ignorance,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and it is not because there is a lack of evidence, it is because the person refuses to see the evidence because of previously held belief that empiricism is the only way to knowledge.



You no doubt speak as a representative of science and empiricism and should write as such and qualify what you say with the admission that it applies to science and the work of science only and has no impact on the reality in the real world where people are claiming that God has an impact on their lives every day, and that impacts the world big time.



Empiricists are free to disagree but are just using faith in their worldview to say that my faith is not true and that my experiences are imagination.



So why do atheists want theists to demonstrate what is impossible?



And how do you know that the laws of nature act automatically?

This is just the tiny little doubt, god of the gaps argument that we don't know everything so my beliefs are still useful.
Better to admit that you want to believe something because it makes you feel better but I know it is irrational.

 

[shunyadragon]

James Tour is just saying that the chemists in the field are over exaggerating where science is when it comes to the origin of life. He says that he does speak to chemists in the field in private and finds out what they really think. He is a high achieving organic chemist and knows what it takes to make synthesise molecules and how much harder it would be in the wild rather than in a controlled environment of the lab.

James Tour is an Intelligent Design scientist, and has presented only a religious assertion for his beliefs and absolutely no evidence for Intellligent Design. He is only one out of the thousands that accept science as science. He does not reflect the positions of by far the majority of scientists.

 

[Pogo]

Science cannot study the effects of a spirit God, but science cannot say that spirits don't exist.

And since neither you nor anyone else in my life has presented any evidence beyond "I don't know so I think goddidit" I will continue to be as @It Aint Necessarily So an apatheist.

 

[shunyadragon]

Yes I agree.

If you agree with this you accept the subjective interpretation of scripture.

Religious beliefs and the interpretation of prophesies would be a separate issue and involve conflicting claims between religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and science for the most part not involved with science.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's not a matter of hide and seek when God has shown Himself in history for those who can see and believe it. It is a matter of whether physical sciences should be able to detect something that is not physical, by scientific means.
It sounds reasonable that science would not be able to do that and that science would not even know when and how God would act to be able to detect God's actions in the universe.

Where has God ever shown himself in history? Unsubstantiated religious claims are not history.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Where has God ever shown himself in history? Unsubstantiated religious claims are not history.

The problem I have is there is no way to tell how to find the correct religion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The problem I have is there is no way to tell how to find the correct religion.

Yes, and historians know this. That is why religious claims are not history. They could be right, but since there is no way to tell which one religion is right they are all ignored. Ignoring a claim is not the same as assuming that it is wrong. If somehow reliable evidence arose that supported it then one could accept the claim. Stating that all religious claims are wrong is almost as bad as claiming that all religious claims are right.

 

[Ostronomos]

It's not a good sign that you lack confidence in your evidence. You must know it's weak and insufficient to convince skilled thinkers.

Since you refuse to present evidence we have to reject your personal religious beliefs.

Of course gods are irrelevant to explaining how things are. Why? Because even you refuse to present eidnce that they exist. That means we have no basis to assume they exist. We aren't interested in assuming explanations, we are interested in what the evidence tells us about reality, and gods aren't part of it.

They are fine for religious belief, but religious belief isn't interested in truth, it's interested in a cultural tradtion that some folks rely on for identity and meaning. The danger for theists is hanging identity on a framework that isn't factual, and largely implausible. Any insecurity and fear will only be made worse by trying to argue for the truth of religious belief. This fear and anxiety is wht so many Christians will adopt an absurd creationist story and reject science. Science becomes a threat to identity.

But look at how you refused to een present your eidence for why a God exists. You want God to be part of the discussion but are too afraid to explain how it is valid and true as necessary and true. That is why we throw it out. Theisms offer nothing to how we understand what is true about how things are.

It's not my choice that you, nor religions, can't offer evidence for your beliefs. Do you believe in the hundreds of Hindu gods? If not, then you understand why we reject your God. No evidence.

If you want to be taken seriously, you present evidence. Otherwise it is your choice to offer nothing. No evidence of design. No evidence of a supernatural. No evidence of gods, angels, demons, etc.

It is truly unfortunate that you live in materialistic illusion and take that to be evidence against the omnipotent One. Unlike you I have actually seen evidence for God. But that is only because I was "chosen" by birth.

I feel sorry for you as you will have to wait until death to wake up and see the fact that an ultimate reality as proven by Langan and other geniuses is real.

Every human being has an essence that continues on after death of the body. No amount of atheistic delusion will ever persuade this fact any other way.

One of the evils of atheism that is evident in your words is the fact that they deny the reality of evil. Metaphysics is a gift to be unravelled by the truly intelligent. Hence it is not accepted as obvious by lesser mortals.

 

[Pogo]

It is truly unfortunate that you live in materialistic illusion and take that to be evidence against the omnipotent One. Unlike you I have actually seen evidence for God. But that is only because I was "chosen" by birth.

I feel sorry for you as you will have to wait until death to wake up and see the fact that an ultimate reality as proven by Langan and other geniuses is real.

Every human being has an essence that continues on after death of the body. No amount of atheistic delusion will ever persuade this fact any other way.

One of the evils of atheism that is evident in your words is the fact that they deny the reality of evil. Metaphysics is a gift to be unravelled by the truly intelligent. Hence it is not accepted as obvious by lesser mortals.

That's nice but since you claim all of this is worthless to me as I am not chosen, I will continue with the understanding that since it makes no difference to me and in fact I can't tell the difference, it effectively doesn't exist and atheism is the appropriate attitude.

Have a day.

 

[McBell]

It is truly unfortunate that you live in materialistic illusion and take that to be evidence against the omnipotent One. Unlike you I have actually seen evidence for God. But that is only because I was "chosen" by birth.

I feel sorry for you as you will have to wait until death to wake up and see the fact that an ultimate reality as proven by Langan and other geniuses is real.

Every human being has an essence that continues on after death of the body. No amount of atheistic delusion will ever persuade this fact any other way.

One of the evils of atheism that is evident in your words is the fact that they deny the reality of evil. Metaphysics is a gift to be unravelled by the truly intelligent. Hence it is not accepted as obvious by lesser mortals.

Wow.
That is an awful lot of ego masturbation.

What does it have to do with the thread topic?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Huh?
What does this have to do with evidence for design?

A mighty oak tree is designed to have small acorns on it instead of the size of pumpkins or watermelons
There is No design for a 'watermelon tree' or a 'pumpkin tree' because it would Not be safe to sit under huge melons or pumpkins over head