Intelligent Design vs the Methodological Naturalism standard for science

[shunyadragon]

So, wait. People who can ignore clear machine tool markings and clear signs are obviously either blind, or worse.
There are a lot of pencil pushers out there with PhD's who cannot sharpen their own pencils nor know how it is done or recognize the signs of it. That seems what we have here.

You have it your way, and I have it mine. This discussion is at an end from my side.

The discussion has ended from your 'end,' without providing any found tools or techniques of advanced technology. You are not acknowledging that scientists, engineers and archaeologists are replicating ancient techniques and tools used to build ancient monumental structures such as the pyramids.

Still waiting . . .

. . . but I expect the void of theological speculation of absolute nothingness will follow.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.

If SETI gets an interesting signal, the very first thing it has to do is eliminate all *terrestrial* sources for that signal. Then it has to eliminate all known non-intelligent sources for that signal (neutron stars, etc). Then, it has to look at whether there is a new *natural* phenomenon that is going on that we just didn't pick up on before. It is only *after* all other explanations have been considered and discarded that the *possibility* of an extra-terrestrial intelligence might be proposed, tentatively.

Why? Because extreme claims require extreme evidence. In a case like ETs, the evidence has to be very, very, very good before even getting close to that conclusions. There have just been too many times when there have been 'false alarms'.

sure, though standards are very different depending on the implications

a very simple, one-off, mathematical sequence derived from a mere blip in intensity was enough for a "WOW" reaction!

While for some the vast array of sophisticated functional mathematical algorithms permeating all space/time and life itself, can be safely assumed to have accidentally manifested for no particular reason

No, aliens would *not* be supernatural. They would be natural beings subject to the same natural laws we are. And human intelligence, no matter what else you think about it, is certainly a natural phenomenon.

So, no, the Rosetta stone was NOT created by a supernatural process, although it *was* produced by intelligence.

Agreed, but you see the problem with subjecting an explanation for natural laws themselves..."to the same natural laws we are"- a little like trying to explain gravity using only classical physics!

By definition the explanation for nature itself transcends the laws it created, be that a spontaneous or intelligent cause. i.e. 'super-natural' in this sense is a box you probably want to be able to check is it not?

Now, we *can* in some cases, test for intelligence. But the *way* we do that is by process of elimination, as I described above. Especially in new or unusual circumstances, we have to be *very* sure what the natural processes can do before we can conclude an intelligence is involved. That alone can require a great deal of legwork. But if you eventually want to conclude an intelligence, it is *required* legwork.

We agree here, & that's a lot better than some who insist it should be banished from any consideration as inherently unscientific

As above though, how rigorously did we have to eliminate all possible natural causes for the Rosetta stone before we allowed ID??

Rather you would have to eliminate all possible sources of ID, to a practically impossible degree, before you would be forced to conclude an unguided natural process

So it depends on context, and I would submit to you, that the vast volumes of information and information systems we can read in the universe, goes far beyond the Rosetta stone in terms of the improbability of accidental creation

 

[Polymath257]

So, wait. People who can ignore clear machine tool markings and clear signs are obviously either blind, or worse.
There are a lot of pencil pushers out there with PhD's who cannot sharpen their own pencils nor know how it is done or recognize the signs of it. That seems what we have here.

You have it your way, and I have it mine. This discussion is at an end from my side.

Look at
Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology

Specifically, in the chapter about abrasive technologies. The 'machine markings' are NOT due to high tech machinery, but by low-tech abrasive drills. The holes were not drilled using copper or bronze (they are too soft to do so), but using emory or other hard stone, just as we can polish stones today. And yes, such abrasion leaves 'track marks' that people have mistaken for machining marks.

 

[BilliardsBall]

There is no mention of 'Intelligent Design' in the Bible. Verses of the Bible cannot be used to falsify the scientific hypothesis of 'Intelligent Design.



I have read the papers from the Discovery Institute and other sources over the years, and none propose a falsifiable hypothesis to support 'Intelligent Design,'

Any one can go to the department store and buy a ream of white paper. The thousands of academic papers do not exist that actually present an academic scientific hypothesis for Intelligent Design that may be falsified.

All you have to do is cite the one academic paper that proposes a ID hypothesis that may be falsified.



I did not say they were not scientists. I did say that they have not developed a hypothesis for Intelligent Design that may falsified by scientific methods.

The Dover trial was the opportunity for them to present this and they failed. Some of the major proponents of ID did not even testify.

There is no mention of the Hebrew or Greek words for ID in the Bible, there is no mention of the word atheist or developmentally challenged, either, but they are there in the holy texts. It is the height of folly, and I don't believe you are that foolish, to say the Bible doesn't clearly teach that God designed the universe and that God is the most intelligent being who exists. It is also beneath mentioning that a tremendous diversity of scientists, including atheists, stick with theories that include life being planted on our planet by intelligent aliens, to account for the many present anomalies in science.

It is not necessary to provide a falsifiable test of ID IMHO, it is only necessary to show that mechanistic design and mechanistic evolution are flights of fancy that are falsifiable on multiple fronts from lack of forensic evidence to lack of mathematical probability to literally thousands of anomalies in the biological and other sciences.

"Any one can go to the department store and buy a ream of white paper" is rude and belittling to the thousands of scientists and other deep thinkers who write on the subject. I'm not dismissive of scientists opposed to ID, I cite the anomalies and facts in evidence. Please do the same and stop merely venting your anger at fundamentalists.

 

[Polymath257]

We agree here, & that's a lot better than some who insist it should be banished from any consideration as inherently unscientific

As above though, how rigorously did we have to eliminate all possible natural causes for the Rosetta stone before we allowed ID??

Given that we have a long history of working in stone, and know its properties and whether it will spontaneously form writing on it, I'd say the thousands of years of experience was sufficient.

Rather you would have to eliminate all possible sources of ID, to a practically impossible degree, before you would be forced to conclude an unguided natural process

On the contrary, the unguided process was eliminated because of our knowledge of how stone works.

So it depends on context, and I would submit to you, that the vast volumes of information and information systems we can read in the universe, goes far beyond the Rosetta stone in terms of the improbability of accidental creation

What knowledge base do you work from in making such claims? As far as I can see, we have a very short and rather tentative base to work from where *everybody* knows there is a lot going on that we do not understand. In particular, we have almost no deep understanding of the *natural* potentialities. That is a huge contrast to our knowledge of stone technology. So anything like a conclusion of ID being involved is way, way, way premature. This is doubly so because the natural processes we *do* understand seem to go a long way to explaining the phenomena we observe.

 

[Polymath257]

It is not necessary to provide a falsifiable test of ID IMHO, it is only necessary to show that mechanistic design and mechanistic evolution are flights of fancy that are falsifiable on multiple fronts from lack of forensic evidence to lack of mathematical probability to literally thousands of anomalies in the biological and other sciences.

And in that , you would be wrong. A falsifiable ID hypothesis *is* required. At this point, NO probability calculation has any relevance whatsoever simply because we do not know the processes involved in, say, the formation of life. Without that, any calculation is mostly guesswork.

"Anyone can go to the department store and buy a ream of white paper" is rude and belittling to the thousands of scientists and other deep thinkers who write on the subject. I'm not dismissive of scientists opposed to ID, I cite the anomalies and facts in evidence. Please do the same and stop merely venting your anger at fundamentalists.

Maybe the poor quality of the scholarship by these people *needs* be belittled. At best, they are hacks. At worst, they are media whores.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Given that we have a long history of working in stone, and know its properties and whether it will spontaneously form writing on it, I'd say the thousands of years of experience was sufficient.

On the contrary, the unguided process was eliminated because of our knowledge of how stone works.

so would it make a difference if it were written on an unknown substance with unknown properties? No because it's the specified information that provides the evidence, our experience with information systems, not rocks or any material it's written on

As the rocks on the beach spelling "HELP'- we know this pattern CAN form spontaneously from the action of the waves, it's just not the most likely explanation unless we can utterly rule out ID.

What knowledge base do you work from in making such claims? As far as I can see, we have a very short and rather tentative base to work from where *everybody* knows there is a lot going on that we do not understand. In particular, we have almost no deep understanding of the *natural* potentialities. That is a huge contrast to our knowledge of stone technology. So anything like a conclusion of ID being involved is way, way, way premature. This is doubly so because the natural processes we *do* understand seem to go a long way to explaining the phenomena we observe.

There are lots of intuitive arguments for things being natural or artificial- I maybe gave you the anecdote of me teaching sailing on a lake: The kid saying how nice it was that the lake was put there for us to enjoy, my 'correcting' him that it was a natural phenomena we took advantage of, then finding out it was a reservoir...

the intuitive fallacies can work both ways, and are especially unhelpful with something as utterly without precedent as origins of universes and life right?

But there is an objective measure - mathematics: physics and biology all boils down to information, not just 'complex' information, but sophisticated, specified, organized, hierarchical information systems, self extracting archives, even literal digital information systems in DNA. We only have one proven source for such things, but even that is not conclusive- it comes down to probabilities. There are just too many ways to arrange information that does NOT result in anything, far less a universe that is literally able to contemplate it's own existence

 

[shunyadragon]

There is no mention of the Hebrew or Greek words for ID in the Bible, there is no mention of the word atheist or developmentally challenged, either, but they are there in the holy texts. It is the height of folly, and I don't believe you are that foolish, to say the Bible doesn't clearly teach that God designed the universe and that God is the most intelligent being who exists. It is also beneath mentioning that a tremendous diversity of scientists, including atheists, stick with theories that include life being planted on our planet by intelligent aliens, to account for the many present anomalies in science.

No the Bible clearly teaches that God Created the universe. There is absolutely no mention of the foolish notion that God had to 'design' Creation before God Creates,

It is not necessary to provide a falsifiable test of ID IMHO, it is only necessary to show that mechanistic design and mechanistic evolution are flights of fancy that are falsifiable on multiple fronts from lack of forensic evidence to lack of mathematical probability to literally thousands of anomalies in the biological and other sciences.

ID claims to be based on science and that is the 'elephant in the room' problem. The fact is that it has not been determined to be supported by science.

The rest of the illogical and irrational false statements has been repeatedly addressed.

"Any one can go to the department store and buy a ream of white paper" is rude . . .

It was intentionally rude, because you made an over the top outrageous false claim. Thousands of white papers?!?!?!!? There are zero, negatory, nada, nothing published that presents a valid hypothesis that is verifiable by scientific methods. The Discovery Institute is the only major research organization pursuing this, and their publication record is miserable.

Can you cite a list of these thousands of 'white papers' that provide academic science support for ID?

and belittling to the thousands of scientists and other deep thinkers who write on the subject. I'm not dismissive of scientists opposed to ID, I cite the anomalies and facts in evidence. Please do the same and stop merely venting your anger at fundamentalists.

Another false statement; There are not thousands of scientists who wrote on the subject since 'ID' was proposed as a scientific explanation for creation by God, Today there are at most 30 or 50 out of tens of thousands of scientists world wide, and I am being generous. At my count by far most supporters of ID are theologians, philosophers, and layman.

It is on you to cite the scientists that provide the falsifiable basis for ID. Actually one scientist will help immensely that publishes a viable hypothesis to support ID.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You are prepared, therefore, to take on hundreds of verse on the subject and thousands of white papers and academic papers commonly available supporting ID?

Papers don't matter, and there are none that support the ID hypothesis

Tangible fruits of research matter, not editorials and debunked claims of irreducible complexity..

What useful ideas have the ID investigators uncovered? None at all. That's the sine qua non of a wrong idea. It can't be used for anything. Here are two different ideas, one is right, and one is wrong:

I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier.

I live three blocks north and five blocks east of the pier.

One of those ideas is useful. I can use it to find the pier. The other won't even get me to the water. One is correct, and the other not. This isn't rocket surgery. Evolutionary theory works. It provides a mechanism that is obviously correct (biological variety and nature favors some forms over others leading to a change in gene pools over time), it makes predictions about can can and cannot be found in nature that have never been falsified, ad it can and has been applied to improve the human condition,

ID does none of that. It is an utterly sterile concept. I'll leave it to you to decide which idea we should retain and which we should disregard.

Or will you resort to your stock-in-trade and cite supposed generalities to discredit ID scientists as not even scientists?

ID isn't science.

Science looks at what can be seen directly or indirectly, and attempts to explain and predict it. ID is looking for what cannot be seen, hasn't been found, and may not exist. That isn't science.

If the faith based belief that informs this program is incorrect, then it will uncover nothing.

 

[Grandliseur]

Look at
Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology

Specifically, in the chapter about abrasive technologies. The 'machine markings' are NOT due to high tech machinery, but by low-tech abrasive drills. The holes were not drilled using copper or bronze (they are too soft to do so), but using emory or other hard stone, just as we can polish stones today. And yes, such abrasion leaves 'track marks' that people have mistaken for machining marks.

Please don't deny reality. Look at this brief video:

As a young person I received an education in tool making including the machinery used in our making things. No person who knows anything about tools and tool marks can deny what this video shows. It is short and to the point. Just get past the first 30 seconds.

If you don't believe this is your problem - but such rationale does not belong in my universe.

 

[Polymath257]

so would it make a difference if it were written on an unknown substance with unknown properties? No because it's the specified information that provides the evidence, our experience with information systems, not rocks or any material it's written on

An unknown material, and unknown language, unknown grammar, symbols, etc? Yes, that *would* make a difference. If the material was such that 'writing' patterns spontaneously appears, that would make a HUGE difference.

As the rocks on the beach spelling "HELP'- we know this pattern CAN form spontaneously from the action of the waves, it's just not the most likely explanation unless we can utterly rule out ID.

But if it only had "I", we could not make such a claim.

There are lots of intuitive arguments for things being natural or artificial- I maybe gave you the anecdote of me teaching sailing on a lake: The kid saying how nice it was that the lake was put there for us to enjoy, my 'correcting' him that it was a natural phenomena we took advantage of, then finding out it was a reservoir...

the intuitive fallacies can work both ways, and are especially unhelpful with something as utterly without precedent as origins of universes and life right?

Which is *precisely* why we have to *first* understand the things that can happen naturally (without intelligence) before we consider intelligence as a primary explanation. We know of no intelligences that can work on the cosmic scale, so we should make *very* sure we have eliminated the natural explanations before we consider the ID possibilities. And, at this point , it is *way* simpler to stick with natural explanations.

But there is an objective measure - mathematics: physics and biology all boils down to information, not just 'complex' information, but sophisticated, specified, organized, hierarchical information systems, self extracting archives, even literal digital information systems in DNA. We only have one proven source for such things, but even that is not conclusive- it comes down to probabilities. There are just too many ways to arrange information that does NOT result in anything, far less a universe that is literally able to contemplate it's own existence

And we understand, even today, so little of the chemistry leading up to these things (that even an intelligent agent would have to use) that any such calculation is way, way premature.

We *know* that mutation and selection can, and does lead to hierarchical complexity. The question is whether the *type* of complexity from such matches what we see in life. From everything I have seen, it does.

Again, *any* calculation of probabilities from a position of ignorance is completely useless.

 

[Polymath257]

Please don't deny reality. Look at this brief video:

As a young person I received an education in tool making including the machinery used in our making things. No person who knows anything about tools and tool marks can deny what this video shows. It is short and to the point. Just get past the first 30 seconds.

If you don't believe this is your problem - but such rationale does not belong in my universe.

Yes, I watched it. Now go and look at what the professionals say about exactly the same things. You have misinterpreted the evidence.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

An unknown material, and unknown language, unknown grammar, symbols, etc? Yes, that *would* make a difference. If the material was such that 'writing' patterns spontaneously appears, that would make a HUGE difference.

it WAS an unknown language, with unknown grammar & symbols, we still recognized ID immediately from the specified information, whether or not we could decipher it

Which is *precisely* why we have to *first* understand the things that can happen naturally (without intelligence) before we consider intelligence as a primary explanation. We know of no intelligences that can work on the cosmic scale, so we should make *very* sure we have eliminated the natural explanations before we consider the ID possibilities. And, at this point , it is *way* simpler to stick with natural explanations.

it was way simpler to stick with classical physics and steady state. QM and BB where both firmly within the realm of the supernatural not so long ago
The simplest explanation may be the most tempting, but nature has shown little regard for Occam's razor so far has it?

The simplest explanation for HELP on the deserted island beach is the natural one, the waves washed it up that way-- invoking an intelligent agent asks more questions than it answers, who is it? where did they come from? where are they now? If you work for the coast guard do these questions incline you to dismiss ID?

And we understand, even today, so little of the chemistry leading up to these things (that even an intelligent agent would have to use) that any such calculation is way, way premature.

We *know* that mutation and selection can, and does lead to hierarchical complexity. The question is whether the *type* of complexity from such matches what we see in life. From everything I have seen, it does.

Again, *any* calculation of probabilities from a position of ignorance is completely useless.

We understand more and more about information systems, more and more about the specificity and precision of information underwriting physics and biology-

As for the odds of this happening by chance? Hawking puts it at about infinity to one, hence the number of random universes that would be required in a multiverse to accidentally spit this one out eventually.. so you could argue that with him- but we are not at a complete loss to calculate odds relying on chance, they are looking slimmer and slimmer the more we learn, there is a pattern emerging here- and it's not towards a simplistic classical Victorian model of reality.

 

[shunyadragon]

it WAS an unknown language, with unknown grammar & symbols, we still recognized ID immediately from the specified information, whether or not we could decipher it. No unknown materials nor technology has been found.

There are at least several instances of untranslated, and unknown writings, and none of this is unusual nor mysterious. Again 'arguing from ignorance' in this case is a fallacy, and not an argument for advanced high technology.

it was way simpler to stick with classical physics and steady state. QM and BB where both firmly within the realm of the supernatural not so long ago
The simplest explanation may be the most tempting, but nature has shown little regard for Occam's razor so far has it?

The simplest explanation for HELP on the deserted island beach is the natural one, the waves washed it up that way-- invoking an intelligent agent asks more questions than it answers, who is it? where did they come from? where are they now? If you work for the coast guard do these questions incline you to dismiss ID?

We understand more and more about information systems, more and more about the specificity and precision of information underwriting physics and biology-

As for the odds of this happening by chance? Hawking puts it at about infinity to one, hence the number of random universes that would be required in a multiverse to accidentally spit this one out eventually.. so you could argue that with him- but we are not at a complete loss to calculate odds relying on chance, they are looking slimmer and slimmer the more we learn, there is a pattern emerging here- and it's not towards a simplistic classical Victorian model of reality.

non sequitur fallacy abundus, and . . .

From: Argument by Repetition

"An argumentum ad nauseam (also known as an argument by repetition) is the logical fallacy that something becomes true if it is repeated often enough. An ad nauseam argument that can be easily shown to be false leads to the "point refuted a thousand times".

 

[shunyadragon]

Intelligent Design is falsifiable by us beings not being able to design intelligence. Then you have to ask were the conditions right for this a long time ago. As we develop sciences of consciousness, we'll see how it forms and gets passed on.

Confusing to say the least. First, science is progressively developing the ability to design intelligence. Human Creative intelligence is a confirmed attribute of human nature. At present, there is no falsifiable hypothesis of ID, nor a creative intelligence beyond human intelligence.

 

[Polymath257]

it WAS an unknown language, with unknown grammar & symbols, we still recognized ID immediately from the specified information, whether or not we could decipher it

And once again, NOT an unknown material with unknown properties.

it was way simpler to stick with classical physics and steady state. QM and BB where both firmly within the realm of the supernatural not so long ago
The simplest explanation may be the most tempting, but nature has shown little regard for Occam's razor so far has it?

Not really. At every stage, the simplest description based on the available evidence has been the best way to proceed.

The simplest explanation for HELP on the deserted island beach is the natural one, the waves washed it up that way-- invoking an intelligent agent asks more questions than it answers, who is it? where did they come from? where are they now? If you work for the coast guard do these questions incline you to dismiss ID?

No, but we *know* humans write messages like that, that humans can get lost on islands, that local conditions are unlikely to form that arrangement of sticks, etc. It is based on the fact that we know that the 'natural' explanation is less likely than the explanation using a human intelligence. It also helps that we recognize the language. A similar message in Chinese may be more difficult to spot for English speakers.

We understand more and more about information systems, more and more about the specificity and precision of information underwriting physics and biology-

And more and more about the dynamics and self-organization of systems far from equilibrium.

As for the odds of this happening by chance? Hawking puts it at about infinity to one, hence the number of random universes that would be required in a multiverse to accidentally spit this one out eventually.. so you could argue that with him- but we are not at a complete loss to calculate odds relying on chance, they are looking slimmer and slimmer the more we learn, there is a pattern emerging here- and it's not towards a simplistic classical Victorian model of reality.

And once again, with no knowledge of possible mechanisms, NO probability calculation is remotely likely to be accurate. The conditional probabilities will all be unknown, but crucial for the calculation.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And once again, NOT an unknown material with unknown properties.

as we established, if it were written on unobtainium ,rocks on a beach, felt tip, clouds in the sky, this would make no difference to the evidence for ID, which is the information specified, not the medium it is specified with

No, but we *know* humans write messages like that, that humans can get lost on islands, that local conditions are unlikely to form that arrangement of sticks, etc. It is based on the fact that we know that the 'natural' explanation is less likely than the explanation using a human intelligence. It also helps that we recognize the language. A similar message in Chinese may be more difficult to spot for English speakers.

precisely, we know creative intelligence can produce lots of specified information, we have no verified examples of nature doing likewise- not to say it's not impossible, just which is 'simpler' in terms of better established, concluding ID is an inference to known mechanisms rather than unknown ones.


It's very interesting though, that you complain the analogy is unfair because it allows the remote possibility of an intelligent agent getting lost on the island...

Yet you have no complaint being granted 100% a fully functional natural mechanism, fully capable of producing the exact same result. We have absolutely no evidence of any such exo-cosmic creation device in reality.

So the analogy is actually heavily biased towards a naturalistic explanation, yet you still choose ID. We would have to utterly rule out ID to an impossible degree to resort to the wave action as the best answer right? How do you go about ruling out God to anything like this extent?

And more and more about the dynamics and self-organization of systems far from equilibrium.

And once again, with no knowledge of possible mechanisms, NO probability calculation is remotely likely to be accurate. The conditional probabilities will all be unknown, but crucial for the calculation.

if you assume an unguided unintelligent information generator, of course we can't give an exact figure for the odds, we just know it is astronomically low, again hence multiverse theory-

The larger problem is like the waves, you'd also have to rule out any intelligent agent to allow chance to win out, and we have no basis to do that other than personal preference

 

[socharlie]

"god did it" is not an answer

it is too simplistic but in essence that is true, we do not have any other answer...

 

[socharlie]

But, that in no way makes theism more likely. Almost every human in the world thought that the earth was the center of the universe for a very long time. That didn't make it more likely true.

I tell it is, because atheists LOST intuition side of human nature, very sad but in a way the way crippled not complete humans...

 

[socharlie]

OMG! Confirmation bias writ large.


Okay

"Gerald Lawrence Schroeder is an Orthodox Jewish physicist, author, lecturer and teacher at College of Jewish Studies Aish HaTorah's Discovery Seminar, Essentials and Fellowships programs and Executive Learning Center, who focuses on what he perceives to be an inherent relationship between science and spirituality."
Source: Wikipedia​

Now what?

.
.

very shallow. he also nuclear physicist MIT PhD in physics...and have a lot smart book by him...