Intelligent Design and SETI

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@nwrickert

I’ll give my take on this (as a mathematician).

My wish has been granted! I was hoping you would.

@nwrickert

Mathematics works well in some sciences, because those mathematical models work very well. In fact, they work so well, that there is a tendency to conflate the model with the aspect of reality that it models. And that’s what make it look as if the cosmos is mathematical.

Very clearly put.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

Good points.

[Michael_Okoko]

@LyghtWayve

So my question is this: early in the process of a new approach or new discovery isn’t it normal that “evidence” is lacking and that argumentation is the first step?

Science can sometimes proceed this way. For example, many of us are familiar with the class of biomolecules known as “receptors” which receive intra- and extracellular chemical signals and initiate some type of response. However, when the concept of receptor-mediated signalling for chemical stimuli was proposed there was no evidence that such receptors existed. In fact, for about 75 years there was no strong positive evidence they existed. Biochemists kept on using the concept, despite the lack of good evidence for the existence of chemically stimulated receptors, because models involving the abstract receptors worked pretty well. Later on, strong positive evidence for the existence of the receptors emerged.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

Good point.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

Agreed, but what I do find in practice is that sometimes people say that and their notion of what “something better” looks like is immensely problematic. So you’ll get creationists railing against methodological naturalism, without any proposal for what the alternative is other than a pat answer of “God did it” or “God musta done it” as a replacement for the more conservative “we don’t yet understand this.”

Good point. I think anything that would replace methodological naturalism has some big shoes to fill.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

@nwrickert

I’ll give my take on this (as a mathematician).

…and I will happily defer to you and your expertise on this subject.

@nwrickert

As best I can tell, mathematics does not play any role at all in the cosmos. However, scientists find it useful to construct models of aspects of reality. And mathematics is very good as a modeling tool.

I agree with you on this and it’s actually a profound point. We must not, as you go on to say, conflate the modeling tool with the actual model and its ontology. That is definitely food for thought, at least for me.

@nwrickert

Mathematics works well in some sciences, because those mathematical models work very well. In fact, they work so well, that there is a tendency to conflate the model with the aspect of reality that it models. And that’s what make it look as if the cosmos is mathematical.

Good point.

@nwrickert

If you owe your bank $22, try telling them that your debt does not exist.

I don’t see how my debt is a physical reality. Debt and money are concepts in human minds and cultures. There is still nothing physical that is my mortgage for example. It’s not on the periodic table and it doesn’t describe any physical reality in the universe. Our culture has agreed on what we mean by money and its value.

@nwrickert

We model monetary transfers with mathematics, and the model works very well with negative values corresponding to debt.

We are still dealing with money which is used to capture value that we as humans ascribe to something. Negative values to money correspond to the concept of debt. It’s not as if there is a debt particle. When debt and money were invented as concepts it’s not as if there was a new particle or law of nature discovered. So it’s not a part of the physical world. As far as I can tell we are dealing with the following fundamental attributes of the physical world: electric charge, mass, length, time, temperature, luminosity and mole.

@nwrickert

Electronics models what happens with complex numbers, and imaginary numbers turn out to be very useful in those models.

I fully agree with this statement and it makes sense. This is why mathematics is so effective.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@LyghtWayve

I don’t see how my debt is a physical reality.

How about negative pressure? I can characterize the difference between the contents of my air compressor tank and the tire I seek to inflate by saying that the tank is +140 psi in relation to the tire, or by saying that the tire is -140 psi in relation to the tank.

But in either case the number is not the reality. It’s a descriptive, explanatory human expression that attempts to characterize that reality.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@LyghtWayve

@Mercer

If you read Crick’s original paper, he did not offer the adaptor hypothesis in an evidentiary vacuum. It was all about describing the possibilities suggested by data.

I agree here too. It was the fact that the data suggested possibilities that were not at first observed.

That’s the (when things work well) daily grind of science! It’s where the fun comes from!

@LyghtWayve

@Mercer

ID pseudoscience is nothing like real science.

I never said ID is like real science.

I didn’t say you did. You introduced the subject with ID!

@LyghtWayve

So, one of the things I hear Intelligent Design proponents say is that just as SETI looks for a signal that indicates intelligence, they see complexity in DNA, cellular interactomes, the beginning of life and many biochemical processes that indicate an intelligent source.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

But in either case the number is not the reality. It’s a descriptive, explanatory human expression that attempts to characterize that reality.

I agree with this statement.

[LyghtWayve (G)]

@Mercer

I didn’t say you did. You introduced the subject with ID!

@LyghtWayve

So, one of the things I hear Intelligent Design proponents say is that just as SETI looks for a signal that indicates intelligence, they see complexity in DNA, cellular interactomes, the beginning of life and many biochemical processes that indicate an intelligent source.

My full statement was:

@LyghtWayve

I never said ID is like real science. I also stated that this line of discussion was not related to the original ID question but the larger question of scientific epistemology in general, and how we can know things. Also, I stated that this is an interesting line of thought and inquiry, not a statement or outline of any particular position. At this point, I have far more questions than answers.

IJS

[Spinosaurus-729]

If we’re going with the SETI analogy, then let me introduce you to pulsars, which were initially thought to be extraterrestrials sending us signals, but we now know they are perfectly natural objects.

[Tim]

@nwrickert

Electronics models what happens with complex numbers, and imaginary numbers turn out to be very useful in those models.

Yes, I took a university paper in Calculus of Complex Numbers, and it turned out to be quite useful in understanding what Electrical Engineers were talking about AC power lines (Real and Apparent Power, Power Factor, etc) at an Electricity Supply company I worked at.