I have nothing against “provisionally”, but you have no objective criteria for “best” when comparing multiverse to intelligent design. These arguments rage back and forth on websites all over the planet, and the same pattern crops up again and again: those already strongly inclined toward atheism-materialism always mysteriously seem to find the multiverse the “best” explanation, whereas those already strongly inclined toward theism mysteriously seem to find intelligent design the “best” explanation. If it were simply a case of purely objective people weighing the evidence and determining what the “best” explanation was, we would not find that pattern – we would see frequent switching back and forth, depending on the temporary preponderance of evidence. But we don’t. “Best” is heavily tainted by metaphysical priors. And I don’t mind that, as long as people admit it. What I can’t abide is the atheist-materialists saying, “Our verdict on the best explanation is objective and rational, but the verdict of the others is subjective, irrational, driven by religious prejudice, etc.”
One of my favorite atheists is Thomas Nagel, who admits that he doesn’t want intelligent design or theism to be true. He admits that his judgments include personal inclinations and preferences, and are not purely “objective science.” That puts him far higher on the objectivity scale than any atheist I’ve seen posting here.
You don’t know this, and neither does Denton. You have no clue about what chemistry may have been possible, and I am pretty sure not Denton, not any ID proponent (not even Tour) has done any sort of theoretical or lab experiment that even begins to address this.
The history of science is also filled with hypotheses that were once held to be unverifiable, but which were then verified once the experimental, as opposed to theoretical, scientists got involved. Confirmation of Bell’s Inequality is an example that comes to mind.
BTW, how are the efforts of ID scientists to verify the existence of their “designer” coming along?
A very minor rhetorical flourish offends you, when it comes from an ID supporter, but worse ones don’t bother you, when they come from atheists. Your “I have the conversational high ground” claim is not credible.
No, it addresses in a very systematic way the properties of the universe and proposes a way of accounting for them. See Denton, Nature’s Destiny, for example, and his later 6-part series.
Why must all truth be a consequence of hypotheses in physics? Most people want to know what is true, not what follows from hypotheses in science. Your statement smacks of scientism. And of course hypotheses in physics often are later abandoned, and so are a precarious basis for answering ultimate questions. For such questions, philosophy is more relevant than physics.
And many scientists say that there is no good reason to suppose that free will is even possible, but most people don’t for that reason say that free will does not exist, or that free will is not the best hypothesis to explain human action. Unless you can show that a designer is impossible, it should remain on the table as a possible explanation.
It might happen. If it does, you won’t need me to tell you.
Whereas, I am at a loss as to how the existence of the “intelligent designer”, which you favour as an alternative, could ever be demonstrated as long as those who claim to believe in that hypothesis refuse to so much as raise a finger to test it.
Only given your weightings for plausibility and parsimony. The fact that you can’t concede that there might be some subjectivity in your judgments says a lot about you.
You will not tell us what your academic training was in, but I would guess that if it’s there, it’s in the sciences and not philosophy, because you show a tendency to oversimplify when dealing with big questions at the borderline of science and philosophy. You think you’ve rendered a verdict on the matter that is cut and dried, and that anyone who comes up with a different verdict is prejudiced or not a good reasoner. The history of philosophy, if you studied it, would tell you that things are never as black and white as that, especially regarding the great ultimate questions.
No, not at all; in affinity maturation of antibodies, the mutations are not random but targeted and controlled and the selection is intelligent rather than natural. I invite you to read Gpuccio’s post at UD where, regarding the process of affinity maturation, he said the following: « the interesting point is that the whole process has been defined as “darwinian”, while it is the best known example of functional protein engineering embedded in a complex biological system » https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/antibody-affinity-maturation-as-an-engineering-process-and-other-things/
I have never claimed to possess a demonstration of an intelligent designer. Where would you get the idea that I have done so? How many times here have I stressed that there is evidence, but not proof? I’ve lost count.
My goal has never been to cajole everyone into accepting an intelligent designer. My goal has always been much more modest: to stop the bullying of people who do think there is such a designer, by ideologues who claim that “science” rules out the existence of a designer.
Nor have I ever said that arguments for an intelligent designer are all “scientific.” They make use of results of science, but they involve reasoning more subtle than what passes for “scientific” reasoning on blog sites like this. You will never find me arguing that science has proved intelligent design. I will never go further than saying that what we know of nature is quite compatible with intelligent design and that in my view, the features of the universe tilt more toward design than non-design. I will never speak of proof or demonstration, nor will I ever say that someone who is honestly not convinced of design is evil, ignorant, etc. I will say that certain people obviously have a theological, metaphysical, emotional bias against the possibility of design, and that those people often argue unfairly and with ad hominem tactics. But skepticism about design arguments in itself is neither irrational nor morally evil.
The fact that you are scornful and dismissive rather than offering rational argument says rather more about you. Even if my criteria are less than fully objective - though they are certainly not entirely subjective - they are still unanswered.
I am confident in my answer. But that is all. If those who take an opposing view have good reasons let them offer them. The fact that they have not is my reason for thinking that they do not have good reasons.
This is why it’s not worth talking to you. You try to catch people out on “errors” about what somebody said or did not say, instead of arguing about substance. Do you agree with the substance of what I just posted, or not?
If you have sufficiency of fine tuning, complexity is not irreducible and information is no barrier to traverse from the big bang to nature as we see it today.
If Denton has the apparently missing theory of intelligent design I would have thought it would be mentioned earlier. Does it give any reasons other than the supposed design to assume that the designer exists? Why we should expect it would be motivated to create a universe like ours? How it could exist? Does make testable predictions.
This is a nonsensical response. The point is that the multiverse is plausible and not an ad hoc invention.
I say that libertarian free will is a logical impossibility, yet compatibilist formulations are both possible and useful. And of course to say that the multiverse is at present a better - or less bad - explanation does not take any alternatives “off the table”.
To make matters worse, they frequently insist that God doesn’t want to be a puppet and submit itself to testing, has free will, works in mysterious ways, yadda yadda.