I'm Not Giving Up The Watchmaker Argument , , , ,

Mr. Plantinga says he accepts the scientific theory of evolution, as all Christians should.

Bet you would not last two minutes in a debate with a great christian apologist like Plantinga!

Quote mining (also contextomy) is the fallacious tactic of taking quotes out of context in order to make them seemingly agree with the quote miner's viewpoint or to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or to make it seem that the opponent holds positions they don't in order to make their positions easier to refute or demonize.[note 1] It's a way of lying. This tactic is widely used among Young Earth Creationists (YEC) in an attempt to discredit evolution.

Quote mining is an informal fallacy and a fallacy of ambiguity, in that it removes context that is necessary to understand the mined quote.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining

 

My focus is on defending science.

 

I musta hit a nerve.. bye now.. go hate Christians elsewhere, please.

 

[

No thanks I will stick around and keep pointing out the ignorance and the lies being told by some fundamentalist christians.

Nice dodge on the question about Jesus try it again.

Was not Jesus crucified because he had a message that others did not want to hear?

 

Quote-mining is a dishonest tactic widely used by creationists.
You have no points because you have no arguments to refute.

 

It's a public forum, the door swings both ways.

 

Throughout this thread are misconceptions of how natural selection works. The misconceptions are demonstrated well by the often recycled argument of the implausibility of trillions of monkeys pounding on a keyboard eventually producing the works of Shakespeare. That argument is directed toward those with no understanding of statistics, how natural selection results in biological diversity, how DNA itself is predisposed to create the genetic variation of a species that given the mechanics of natural selection combine to result in genetic shifts of populations over time, and have, in fact, resulted in producing the entire works of Shakespeare which was not some random, product of chance or “the enough times” conjecture. That the diversity of biological species we observe is a product of chance is a misconception of evolution as is the notion of evolution has some kind of progression toward complexity, inevitably resulting in civilization and technological achievement over time. How the biological diversity we observe today can be credibly explained in terms of how Natural Selection has worked against the fundamental shared common Genetic code all life as we know it possesses and is reproduced in successive generations of offspring. In fact, considering all life we’ve observed is DNA based, strongly implies a common ancestry. There is no guarantee if we find life elsewhere on earth or in the universe that it will be DNA based and if we do find non DNA based life, we will know there are other solutions for life to encode and pass survival characteristics to successive generations, but it would be highly likely, given what we know, that natural selection would be key to that type of life’s means for adaptation to the natural environment it inhabits.
Natural selection is not a process that operates from pure chance. That the entire works of Shakespeare can result from trillions of creatures pounding on a keyboard if given enough time I would agree is unlikely. His works are not some random combination of characters, but are a product of technology, human understanding and experience, shared meaning, and the singular history of humanity and is a product of the evolutionary record where the common ancestor of humans and apes provided the genetic material, much of it still existing in our DNA, that through the process of natural selection, resulted in a species that manifested the adaptive mechanisms of language and culture from which one individual, Shakespeare produced a work that resonated with others of the human species. So, if you classify the common ancestor of humans and apes as a monkey (I don’t), then given the billions of years of evolution, a monkey’s decedent did produce the entire works of Shakespeare ... but that wasn’t a product of chance. As for a watch found on a beach, it would be a product of the same process.
BTW, for those that believe in the intelligent design conjecture, the same logic would have to be applied to the intelligent designer... who designed the intelligent designer, and then, the one that created that one... and.....

 

"Could have" is "iffy" language , ,
like , ,
"maybe" language
"probably" language
"but" language {as in "but maybe it did not happen this way"}

"could have" is "iffy" language

Not my problem
The reality of no eye fossils is your problem
I understand there can NOT be any eye fossils, but that is still
not my problem -- its yours.
You can blame Evolution for it.

Well I don't know that I do claim that "it can't" evolve.
I don't know that Theistic Evolution is not the way it
happened. You don't know either. Nobody does.

And "good ideas" is subjective and subject to our
biases and prejudices regarding the Probability
of the ideas being "good ideas" or not being "good ideas."
One man's "good ideas" will be another man's "bad ideas"
or "not so good ideas."

Doesn't mean that it did, either.

It is Faith-Based in the sense that an Intelligent Designer
can not be demonstrated true with Empirical Evidence that
eliminates the need to exercise Faith in God. The existence
of God can not be proven at the certainty-level of 2 + 2= 4.

If you eliminate Faith from Christianity you will thereby wreck
and destroy Christianity.
Why?
Because Christianity is a Faith.
"without faith it is impossible to please God."
"he that comes to God must believe that He exists and that He
is a rewarder of them that earnestly seek Him"
"for by Grace are you saved through Faith --- and this not of
yourselves --- it is the gift of God."

This leaves arguments based on Probability and there are a lot
of them. Christianity is not based on Fideism. And Probability
based arguments are highly subjective and one man's grade
of High Probability will be graded by another man with Low
Probability or maybe Medium Probability.

I grade a lot of them with High Probability so I do have some
evidence that satisfies me and I am going to continue to hold
the following with a mixture of both Faith and Some Evidence , , ,

It is absurd and irrational to believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time
plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent
Matter could have assembled a "highly complex Working Rolex Watch" , , ,

If you can believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking
non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent Matter could
have assembled the "highly complex human eye" and the "highly
complex human brain" , , ,

, , , then you can just as easily believe that unthinking non-intelligent
Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking
non-intelligent Matter assembled a "highly complex Working
Rolex Watch" , , ,

JAG

 

Suit yourselves.. God is Good.. "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God"

 

Back again thought you were leaving, any luck with that question or does it offend your sensibilities to discuss the "son of the sky fairy"?

Was not Jesus crucified because he had a message that others did not want to hear?

Allahu Akbar!

 

here for my Brothers.

 

That's a Faith Belief.
That's a Faith Based suggested possibility.
If you can believe that -- you can believe in an Intelligent Designer.
Its possible that John 3:16 is true and that God is working
on the principle of Acceptable Losses and that if you use your
Free Will to continue to choose to refuse to believe in the Lord
Jesus as your Savior, then you will experience the "perish"
of John 3:16
{1} believe and get Eternal Life
{2} refuse to believe and perish

In fact, that is what Christianity teaches to be factually true.
John 3:16 specifically says that you will perish if you do not
believe in the Lord Jesus as your Savior -- this is the Principle
of Acceptable Losses -- and as it now stands, YOU are one
of the Acceptable Losses.

Elsewhere the Lord Jesus said, "if you believe not that I am He,
you will die in your sins." {same thing , , Acceptable Losses}
_______

Your "many universes" is like your "enough times" -- neither one
can even possibly be refuted --- not falsifiable. At least not now.

My view is its all "scientific sounding" wiggle and squirm designed
to escape from the God-That-Does-Not-Exist that you know very
well does in fact exist --- but you have made a Free Will decision
locked-down NOT to believe in Him , , , so we have , ,

"many universes"
and we have
"enough times"
and we have
"many planets"

, , , and the Net Results of all that is all the folks on your Ideological Side
get to, for all practical purposes, remain as their own god --- which at bottom
is what this is all about.

JAG

 

I just care about the evidence. I don't care if the scientist performing a chemistry experiment is a Christian, atheist, Wiccan, or Buddhist. Its the quality of his work and evidence that really matters in science.

I don't think you can get monkeys to all sit quietly at a typewriter writing for years on end. So the probability is really 0% no matter how long you try. However, lets assume you managed to get them working. It is:
P = 1 - (1 - (number of characters) ^ (number of allowed types of characters)) ^ (number of tries)

What you will find is that no matter how small the probability is, with enough tries, eventually the probability of it happen becomes near certain. This is mathematically certain and you are wrong to say it can't happen.

But there are some constraints. First, the probability of a single try must be greater than 0%. Second, the probability can't degrade as attempts are made. If the process isn't random and won't even allow for the correct result, then its not going to work. Lastly, there must be enough time and tries for this to happen.

So the enough tries principle works for very well-defined situations like planets that can support life. But in other complicated cases like abiogenesis, we need a combination of natural forces that naturally produce complexity rather than pure randomness. That combination of forces can be the product of enough times though.

Evolution isn't a random process and involves selection. So your examples can't refute evolution.

The enough tries principle is backed by math. But the situation in question needs to match the constraints on the principle to work. For example, it is 100% certain that if I keep rolling a dice for eternity eventually I will get 1 billion heads in a row. That is 100% certain assuming enough tries and time. But if I die after 70 years, then that probability drops to zero, so we should be careful when applying the principle. It can be used speculatively as a counter possibility to a designer when we aren't sure about everything.

I'm not attempting to show no design at all. I'm just saying we don't have the evidence everything did come about by design. I'm claiming that the agnostic position is most reasonable, but at the same time we have strong evidence that life evolved from a common ancestor.

A problem with design is that we don't have any direct evidence of a designer other than assuming complexity means design. Another problem is that you need to explain where this advanced designer came from. If you say the designer is timeless and always existed, then I can say that life is timeless and always existed. You are claiming this advanced super-powerful being existed but have to explanation for how this being could have existed or come about. Its more reasonable to believe that complexity increased gradually than that it just always was there for no reason.

 

The "enough times" notion was not introduced by me --- rather
twas introduced by one of the gentlemen of your Ideological Tribe.

So I'm sticking with the 999,999,999,999 trillion monkeys producing
a fully functional USS Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier with everything
needed from paper clips to Fighter Jets to the Nuclear Power Plant.

Regarding the "scientific sounding gobblygook" I have no clues
regarding how much of that is guesswork and speculation. Only
God knows about stuff like that.

JAG

 

There is nothing wrong with that language if its accurate. I prefer it to baseless claims of absolute certainty. We can't know for sure how the organs evolved because they don't fossilize. We can only theorize. But from the fossil, genetic, and morphological evidence for evolution and common descent, we can know these organs did evolve even if we don't know the fine details of how.

So either you have proof or faith and no in between? Sometimes you can have strong evidence for something that makes it almost certain without being proven. This isn't the same as faith.

Why is God such a fan of faith without evidence in the first place?

I'm fine with you trying to use evidence even though you have no proofs. But I just don't see how you can use faith in a debate. Faith is just belief without evidence and has no logical basis.

There are no natural processes that can produce a watch. Natural selection and mutations can produce complexity in life in a process that isn't purely random. Just because natural processes can't produce one thing (watches) doesn't mean it can't produce anything.

 

Why do people perish based on what their religion is? Is that really fair to those who have faith in other religions and are good people?

The multiverse hasn't been shown to be true but we have a lot of mathematics that shows it is possible. At least the multiverse conforms to our knowledge of physics rather than just making up a magical being who can override all natural laws and is hiding from everyone in a secret dimension. With the multiverse you don't have to explain how an all-powerful and all-knowing being just existed with no designer when supposedly complexity can only come from design.

 

Okay go with the 999,999,999,999 trillion monkeys producing
a fully functional USS Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier with everything
needed from paper clips to Fighter Jets to the Nuclear Power Plant.

And you can have 'em running all over the place and jumping up
and down as they put that boat together.

You introduced the "enough times" thingy --- I's just "playing off"
what you introduced.

.

Faith.
That's a Faith Belief.
"near certain" is NOT certain.
"near certain" is "iffy" language that allows for the outcome to be
not as predicted.

"iffy" language to some measurable extent -- not real heavy "iffy" language
but enough "iffy" to say it is "iffy" language.

____________

Eternity , , ,

If you can sell this , ,

999,999,999,999 trillion monkeys producing a fully functional USS
Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier with everything needed from paper clips
to Fighter Jets to the Nuclear Power Plan , , ,

, , if they had all Eternity to get it done , ,

then sell it.

Of course, I don't know that you are trying to "sell it" --
maybe you're not.

.

Your "eternity" takes this out of the realm of the possible and
creates a Thought Experiment that has nothing to say about
Human Beings and the Real World.

I wonder if , , ,

, , , those 999,999,999,999 trillion monkeys producing a fully
functional USS Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier with everything
needed from paper clips to Fighter Jets to the Nuclear Power
Plant , ,

, , could be achieved if they had Eternity to get it done?

I personally don't believe it.


.

Interesting.
You make many reasonable points.

.

Monkeys?
" Little Richard" Dawkins said that gorillas were our cousins.
I read where he said that in a wiki article recently on Evolution.
But I forgot which one it was.
Anyway , , ,
Monkeys?
Gorillas?
.

That's enough for me.
Different people require different level of Probability.
Based on what I know about the Human Being, the
Earth, and the Universe --- there is no possible way
for ME to ever believe that it was brought into being
without an Intelligent Designer.

___________


You write interesting posts.
I appreciate them.
You do a good job when you write your posts.


Best.

JAG

PS
I will respond to some of your other points as soon as possible.

I'm outnumbered here , , lol , , ,


``

``

 

I'm pretty sure that the more monkeys you add, the less likely this aircraft carrier is getting made. I also don't think there is even a chance that monkeys can do some of the operations like welding and integrating computers to make an aircraft carrier. So the probability here is 0%. For the enough times principle, you need more than a 0% chance on every individual try.

This principle can only be used in certain situations with varying levels of certainty depending on how much we know about them. Wet can be reasonably certain with planets. We have evidence that there are countless trillions of planets with all manner of environments. So eventually we will find a planet with matter, in the liquid water zone, etc.
.

Faith when you believe without evidence. You can believe something based on a lot of evidence without math-level proofs or blind faith. There is an in-between here. For example, I can believe that atoms exist based on strong scientific evidence even if I don't have proofs. Belief in atomic theory isn't equivalent to believing in volcano Gods just because neither has proof. One has strong evidence while the other doesn't. Iffy language is perfectly fine if there are conditions and you aren't certain. Its ok to not be certain.

Technically we are "cousins" with all life. Some are more related to us than others. Gorillas are more closely related to humans than monkeys, and chimpanzees are even more related. We can even identify retrovirus-inserted DNA that is in the same place in humans and apes that was inherited from our common ancestor. There is overwhelming evidence we are related to other animals.
.

Ultimately we make our own decisions about what is probable but that doesn't make your or my beliefs reasonable.

 

Gobblygook? I can understand why you’d cast what I wrote as “Gobblygook” given you “have no clues regarding how much of that is guesswork and speculation” and the assumption “Only God knows about stuff like that”, a statement that suggests you have already made up your mind on the ‘God did it’ casual root, a conclusion based on ‘faith’. Given that you start with a conclusion and, I suspect, will not entertain any other explanation, there is no basis for rational discussion, no common epistemological frame or rules of logic upon which to discuss the topic. An, ok, but then trying to discredit evolutionary theory when you don’t understand it to begin with makes for a purposeless discussion. That too is ok, few have the understanding of evolutionary theory and how understanding the concepts of natural selection to make credible arguments in support of it or against it, for instance those that give credibility to the Drake equation, in addition to making a number of erroneous assumptions regarding statistics theory, most also entertain misconceptions regarding evolutionary theory as a factor in the calculation and evaluation of the predictive potential of the equation.
Whether there is a God or not has little to do with the explanatory value of evolutionary theory in describing the diversity of life we observe. And, for those that believe in Intelligent Design, any arguments supporting that conjecture ultimately result in an argument of infinite recursion.
One of my favorite questions are from those wondering why is our universe so finely tuned for life as we know it? It’s a point of perspective; easily answered by noting given evolutionary theory and natural selection, it’s not the universe that is finely tuned, rather life that is finely tuned to this universe through explainable natural processes.

 

An Taibhse,
My apologies.
I didn't mean any harm by it.
It was a bad choice of words.
I had no justified reason to type "Gobblygook" --- it just popped into mind
and I typed it without serious reflection.
I apologize again.
Your post was well written and it was NOT "Gobblygook"

Best

JAG.

 

Okay, I will buy that.
I didn't believe the monkey's thing anyway.
But I wasn't sure, when I made the point, if you believed it
or not.
Now I know you don't.

I can agree with that and not give up anything I believe.
.

Disagree.
Faith is when you believe without 2 + 2 = 4 levels of
certainty. I have evidence that say the Lord Jesus rose
from the dead --- N.T. Wright wrote a masterpiece titled
The Resurrection Of The Son Of God. N.T. Wright is a
highly respected distinguished Christian theologian with
very impressive academic credentials. His work is
recognized as THE masterpiece on the Resurrection.
I think its over 700 pages and its packed with historical
research. It is not "nothing" -- but rather very much
"something."
So that is some evidence --- but it does not rise the the
certainty-level of 2 + 2 = 4 , , , but it does enjoy a High
Probability of being true.
William Lane Craig has a lengthy chapter on the
Resurrection of the Lord Jesus in his masterpiece titled
Reasonable Faith. Its a historical study. Its some evidence.

So my Faith in Christianity is not based on Fideism --- but
neither is it based on Empirical Evidence that rises to the
certainty-level of 2 + 2 = 4 or to the certainty-level of this
syllogism , , ,

P1 All men are mortal
P2 John is a man
C Therefore John is a mortal

Agreed.
And I do.
This is why I am convinced that there is an Intelligent Designer.

Okay, but there are no credible arguments for "volcano Gods"
but there are many credible arguments for an Intelligent Designer.
Credible in my world --- maybe not in your world.
An Intelligent Designer will not take you to the God of the
Bible -- I make that connection via Faith. And I do not
apologize for exercising Faith. Nor will I ever. /just saying

Okay, but Evolution literature has a lot of "iffy" language
in it --- not to even mention unproven assumptions
and Faith Based Beliefs that are guesswork and
speculation.
And I will never forget the "iffy" language.
But like I said Theistic Evolution might be true?
I do not know. Neither do you. Nobody does.

I don't KNOW that.

So you say.
Your word "related" is the key word there. I have a feeling your
word "related" means more than the word "like" -- that we are
somewhat "like" chimps.
I am NOT buying the notion that humans are descended from
chimps. My views is that you can not prove that to be true.

That word "related" again.
That's a key word that "related."

That sounds like something I can agree with --- yet I gotta tell
ya that there is no Truth Reality "out there" that has the Power
or the Authority to issue a Proclamation on what is, or is not,
reasonable.
You have heard me say it before and here it comes again , ,
There is no such thing as the , , ,
International Authority On What Is, Or Is Not, Reasonable.
So?
So what you might call Reasonable, I might call Unreasonable
and vice versa.

JAG

 

{1} I guess you saw my apology post up-thread apologizing for my
"Gobblygook" remark.
{2} I will read what you post.
{3} Sure my mind is made up with regard to there being
an Intelligent Designer and there is 0 odds that I will ever
change my mind on that.
{4} I expect your mind is made up too, is it not?
Let's see if it is?
Could there be an Intelligent Designer?

JAG

 

I have debated JAG on another forum. He doesn't believe in natural selection even after I gave him the process by which bacteria develop a resistance to an antibiotic

through a non-random process which is not goal oriented. He doesn't accept any non-random processes in evolution such as natural selection or sexual selection. He

isn't interested in educating himself about the theory of evolution and will reject any argument anyone puts forth supporting evolution. It is a waste of time to debate him.

I am surprised that Distraff was the only individual that brought up the fact that evolution is not a random process. I didn't read through every response so

maybe someone else understood this most glaring fallacy. He starts off with the wrong assumptions and continues to repeat them over and over. I didn't see a rebuttal by

JAG on Distraff's point about evolution being non-random.

 

What I will say is that the enough times principle needs to be applied carefully and can only be applied speculatively in some situations. But in the case of habitable planets, its a solid math-based argument.
.

I don't think you are using "faith" the way the bible does. It sounds like you are defining strong science with a lot of evidence like the theory of gravity and atomic theory as "faith" simply because they don't have 100% proof and maybe are only like 99.99%. I don't think thats what the bible meant by faith. Faith was supposed to be a big leap, not something based on solid although not 100% evidence.

Its not useful to put a claim with a mountain of evidence like the theory of gravity in the same "faith" boat as volcano Gods and unicorns. We need to differentiate them in our language.

And that is why I believe in the theory of evolution. Science doesn't rely on proof either and instead uses lots of evidence. The real debate is whether they actually have the evidence.

There are credible arguments for a genetic designer or deity although I don't find them very convincing. But there aren't any for any specific religion like volcano Gods ... or the God of the Hebrews.

The iffy language is a very very good thing. Scientists don't want to make exaggerated claims of knowledge they can't back up. So they are careful to use "ifs" and "maybes" when that terminology needs to be used. We know that evolution is happening before our eyes, that all life shares a common ancestor, and diverged with mutations and natural selection. What we are less sure about are the little sub-theories like what natural selection pressures pushed humans to evolve intelligence, or why T-Rexes have two fingers.

The two main mechanisms of evolution are natural selection and mutations. However, that doesn't mean they are the only ones. For example genetic drift and sexual selection play a role as well. There is also horizontal gene transfer for many species of bacteria. Now, it is possible that some kind of higher intelligence or extraterrestrial entity was involved as well, but you need evidence, just like we have evidence for natural selection or mutations.

And I'm curious why an advanced being would need to wait around for billions of years for the unpredictable processes of evolution. Why not just line up the genes right and do a Garden of Eden immediately? Even we humans are making genetically modified plants and are working on CRISR for more advanced gene editing. You can get exactly what you want immediately by direct gene modification.

I mean that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. From the fossil record, this common ancestor was very chimp-like but we didn't evolve directly from modern chimps. We have over a dozen transitional species between humans and apes, hundreds of fossils, and even some DNA. Scientists are confident that we are related ancestrally to apes, and rightly so.

Even babies will curl their toes when holding on to their mother, just like baby chimps held onto their mother's fur with their feet. Or that whales have multi-chambered stomachs like cows do for digesting grass even though they eat simple sea microbes like other sea creatures. This is because from the fossil and genetic evidence, they share a close common ancestor with cows.

The only absolutely "authority" on truth is reality itself. Of course reality isn't a person. All we can do is have our opinions and try to make our beliefs as close to reality as possible.

 

I did see your post. Kudos for that...not many would do that.
My mind is not settled on any issue. But my beliefs tend to follow what I consider more likely based on my epistemological frame based on decades of knowledge accumulation within a consistent framework, my evaluation of evidence, and even an awareness of the gaps in my knowledge and awareness of my biases that I take pains to eliminate as much as possible. I don’t have absolute beliefs, other than my self imposed immutable code of ethics that I follow (I do not expect others to adopt my code... I don’t assume that right). As for believing in God, Gods, or some other similar spiritual manifestation, I don’t disparage anyone from their beliefs, but I do sometimes point out inconsistencies and alternative explanations. I am comfortable not knowing certain answers, but that doesn’t mean I am willing to accept the word of others if I cannot reason it with the means I have lived by to accumulate knowledge. With religion, I have had the opportunity to live among many peoples having many beliefs, and have long been a student of culture giving me a perspective of understanding few probably have.
As for science, I long ago adopted the scientific method as a means of knowledge accumulation, but I don’t simply adopt the narratives of any authority... for me to accept claims, I must be able to understand them, see how they logically fit into a consistent framework of understanding, and more often than not, do my own experimental verification. As for something like evolutionary theory and understanding natural selection, it is an area of study I have been working in, experimenting with and fitting the pieces of the puzzle together for nearly 50 years working across many disciplines including these last couple years, studying neural cognition in a couple areas of interest, spatial cognition, language, and culture.
So is there a God, a creator, an intelligent designer. I don’t know. I don’t conduct my life seeking what I can’t at least provisionally verify and accepting the revelation of others, particularly those filtered through countless generations of faulted humans, is not something I am willing to do. One of the early ones to comment similar to my view, was Thomas Paine in his essays ‘Age of Reason’. He was BTW, a Theist. I classify myself as simply not knowing and not having a means to construct a testable framework for inquiry that will satisfy the constraints I place on how I build my knowledge base. For that matter, in the case of string Theory, I’d say the same thing... though I am still at the stage of trying to understand it.... though from a feel of it based on what I do think I know of it, thus far, I have my doubts.
But, if I find there is a God, or God or some other spiritual force, it will be of immense interest. And, if I meet a God or Gods, it won’t end my questions.