Another example of how poor your life-science undergraduate education was. You don’t know the difference between a “thesis” and a “premise.”
I advanced no thesis at all. I merely showed a flaw in one of your arguments, the flaw being an unsound premise.
You’re the one with the thesis – the thesis that arguments for intelligent design are inherently religious arguments. You have yet to make a case for your thesis.
That’s not a thesis, it’s a report of fact about the contents of a book. If you dispute the fact, you are free to read the book and show it’s not a fact. I’m certainly not going to waste time with you arguing that what I know to be a fact is actually a fact, any more than I would waste time arguing with you that the sky is blue, because you petulantly demanded, “Prove it.”
If I were as pedantic as Mercer, I would chide you for saying “biology” reproduces rather than “living things” reproduce, but I know what you meant, so we can let that go.
The difference you point out, which I grant, is insufficient to invalidate the parallel. And just to be clear, what I had in mind was not the “evolution” of one species into another, but the setting up of extremely complex molecular machinery in the simplest one-celled creatures in the first place. The best explanation so far is that it required design – and no religious premises whatsoever are required to come to that conclusion.
No, it means nothing of the sort. “Testing” has nothing to do with the methods used. It has to do with testing the empirical predictions made by a mechanistic scientific hypothesis, something that IDcreationism can’t seem to state, much less test.
Why is that? Might it be that way because ID is fundamentally a political scam? Isn’t that a hypothesis that makes empirical predictions?
Can you explain what the “empirical sciences” means in your context? I mean, are there any nonempirical ones that you are contrasting the empirical ones with?
I can, but I won’t, and I’ve already explained several times why I won’t. I’m adamant, so repeated carping won’t alter my behavior, so unless you are irrational, you will stop making the demand. Only an irrational person keeps making a demand that he knows will never be met.
That could happen easily enough, given the similarity of first names and often of tone and contents as well.
Then tell T. aquaticus to stop saying “Prove it!” in every post of his to me. Give him one of your lectures on how scientists are supposed to behave.
Your remark on Denton is off-point. We are not discussing here whether or not Denton correctly understands evolutionary theory. We are discussing whether or not Denton offers a coherent, interconnected argument for the fine-tuning of nature for life, and how best to convey Denton’s argument. And after having read every book Denton has published, and almost all of his other writings, I have concluded that no summary of any of his books can do them justice, and that the power of the argument lies in the full, detailed exposition of all the interconnected coincidences found in nature. The only way anyone will ever be convinced by Denton’s fine-tuning argument is by reading Denton – whole books, not snippets lifted out of his books.
Or alternatively, some rational people enjoy pointing out the irrationality of your position by eliciting your evasiveness.
I was discussing your inability to cite any evidence that convincingly supports Denton’s rhetoric.
I urge everyone to give that opinion the same degree of respect that they give to your opinions on science.
Why? Taq is not demanding that you prove anything scientific, just demanding evidence for your claims, which are not scientific hypotheses. It’s perfectly reasonable.
It does not matter to me whether a scientist works at the blackboard, in the field, or at the bench; all can be very good scientists. What matters to me, if a scientist is pretending to be a thinker, is whether the scientist has a rich, capacious, and flexible intellect, an open mind, and a philosophically critical attitude toward his own field and its potential limitations. If a scientist lacks these things, to me he’s a mere technician – maybe a mathematically super-clever one, maybe an excellent one, and maybe a useful one in discovering new data – but not a thinker in any deep sense of the word. The subject of origins, if it is to be a complete and thorough study, requires an intellectual openness regarding a large number of notions, an openness which one finds in thinkers like Polanyi, Hoyle, Davies, Polkinghorne, Gould (at his best), Denton, Alfred Russel Wallace, Henderson, Bergson, Robert Russell, J. Scott Turner, Rope Kojonen, etc., but is hard to discern in Monod, Dawkins, Krauss, Stenger, Eugenie Scott, Barbara Forrest, Nick Matzke, and the typical atheist blogger on sites like this.
Bingo! Exactly the reasoning ID proponents use, only for “human beings” they substitute “intelligent agency”. You’re finally catching on!
Undemonstrated dogma. Tell us again how unguided processes created the first life?
I know. Tell that to Mercer. Has he ever referenced any kind of science other than the lab kind? In ten years, all of his examples have been from biology/biochemistry and have concerned data uncovered while testing hypotheses in labs. He apparently has zero use for the kind of scientific reasoning employed by, say, Fred Hoyle, in talking about fine-tuning of the universe (and the universe was something Fred Hoyle was very cognizant about, regarding the “data”).
I don’t. Einstein was a scientist who hardly ever worked in a laboratory (though he interpreted the results of some scientists who did). His scientific work consisted largely of reasoning about the discoveries of others, and reasoning about the mathematical order of nature, not accumulation of data, testing hypotheses, and so on. I liked Einstein. I also liked his thoughts on science education, which I alluded to earlier here.
Exactly the point Hedin is making about modern science. It, too, has its role and limits. But try to convince someone like Stenger or Provine or Krauss of that.
And you’re not qualified to pontificate on evolutionary theory, either, which is at least as far from your scientific specialty of psychiatry (which after all partly concerns the brain) as brain surgery is. I hope you will remember that, too, next time you are inclined to lay down the law on what “evolution” teaches.
If you know, then stop tacitly assuming the contrary.
You say you don’t, yet in the bit I was responding to you did. Just stop doing that and all will be well. Stop trying to deflect this onto other people.
One of which “coincidences” is the pentadactyl vertebrate forelimb.
This is the equivalent of Denton expressing astonishment at the amazing coincidence that all members of his family have exactly five fingers on each hand!!
This is the level of idiocy of the argument you expect us to take seriously.
You misunderstand. We know that individual instances of structures like the pyramid do not arise from natural processes, but do arise from human activities.
We also know that individual instances of biological structures like the bacterial flagellum arise from the natural and unguided process of biological reproduction, so it is unjustified to deem them “designed” by the same standard we use for pyramids.
Now, ID’ers try discuss a different issue, namely: How did the flagellum (as a category of things rather than as an individual instance of a thing) first come into being. And, quite apart from the fact they get that question wrong as well, it is an entirely different question. Pyramids are artificial, and do not reproduce; flagella are natural and do reproduce (as part of the organism to which they belong). That is the distinction that is made.
Hopefully you now understand why this question is misguided.
What limits does science have that you believe these individuals deny? Please be specific.
However, I am fully justified in repeating the aspects of evolutionary theory as I have understood them from the people who ARE qualified in the field. Now, if I misunderstand what those people say, then by all means I should be corrected. But when I point out the abysmal misunderstanding of evolutionary demonstrated by the likes of Michael Denton, and no one is able to show that my evaluation is incorrect in terms of what he says or what modern evolutionary theory says, then it doesn’t matter if I scrub floors for a living. My criticism is correct and Denton is wrong.
Of all the fallacies and falsehood in Eddie’s latest screed, this is the most glaring:
Tommyrot.
There are many other structures from Stonehenge to the Nazca lines via the Khatt Shebib, Nan Madol, the great serpent mound and other less well-known examples, all of which are “standing alone in the desert” (or plains/forest/hills), none of which have any ancient records or texts associated with them, and all of which are scientifically considered to be designed.
Because no matter how often Eddie tries to pretend otherwise, there are scientific methods of determining design, used by archeologists, and these methods are completely different from those touted by the charlatans Eddie associates with.
I feel like you might be losing track of the discussion here. You were arguing that part of science education must include time for teaching the idea that “there is teleology in nature”, and I was explaining why that is a waste of time and has no basis for inclusion in science education.
Edit: Reading further in your post I see that we have probably been speaking past each other (see below).
I find this overly simplistic and one-sided. What principles people around here (both atheists and theists) enunciate is that to do an inference to the best explanation you must have actual explanations, and be able to comparatively evaluate their powers of explanation and scope, and hopefully end up with an explanation that isn’t merely better than another, but is also actually a good explanation.
The reasons the pyramids are well explained as the product of human design (and would have been even without historical documentation) is not just the lack of a plausible geological phenomenon to produce them, but that humans are known to build things on the surface of the planet. This background knowledge that humans build things is what makes the inference that the pyramids were built by humans, even if we didn’t specifically know how for a time, a reasonable inference.
If we had been in a state of total ignorance of beings that build things, before even we ourselves were making buildings out of mud or rocks or sticks, the inference that the pyramids would have been constructed by some sort of builders would have been equally as baseless as the inference that they were produced by geological processes(of which we would of course also have been totally ignorant). In that situation we would simply have been totally ignorant of their origin.
Yes, good. Totally agree, and I would apply this same principle to the diversity of life as the product of evolution. No reason to bother with the uneconomical idea that there are invisible intenders behind the scene teleologically pushing atoms around, or reaching into reality to zap flagella into existence, or sending extraterrestrial space-traveling biochemists to Earth billions of years ago to seed the oceans with photosynthesizing eukaryotes, when we already have a perfectly good explanation for the diversity of life: Evolution.
Then we have been talking past each other, as I understood you to be arguing for a sort of “teach the controversy/both sides/ID along with evolution” approach to standard biology education. If you are not advocating that, and are merely arguing that professors at univerities should have the freedom to teach unusual material on elective courses not required for a degree, then I actually agree with you.
Fair enough, I don’t find anything disagreeable here.
I think it would contain speculations on both. I’m sorry but I just don’t share what seems to be your perspective that scientists are fundamentally opposed or turned away from inferences to design. What they’re opposed to are vacuous fits-all explanations that can’t be tested by the data.
I don’t care who wrote the book or what they believe in the privacy of their own heads, I care about the quality of arguments and evidence they contain. I’ve seen enough of Denton’s material (I’ve read multiple papers of his) and excerpts from his books to know they’re terrible where they aren’t trivial. And Hedin is apparently regurgitating standard ID nonsense by citing people like Axe, Meyer, and Behe. I am familiar enough with the scholarship (more like lack of) and poor arguments by these people to know I’ll be wasting my time.
Or do you think one needs a lab to remove peacock feathers?
You spin a very tangled web of deceit to support your need to express contempt for others, Eddie.
Given the false claim preceding this, what is apparent to you is not linked to reality.
You left off the hypothesizing and predicting parts. Don’t those involve thinking too, and aren’t those types of thinking completely missing from ID, as well as your own thinking?
What’s amazing is that you can’t acknowledge this defect in IDcreationist thinking. To test a hypothesis by doing something in the lab or in the field, you have to think of both the hypothesis and the empirical test.
IDcreationism, at its root, is a failure of thought. Its proponents fail to think of anything they can do.
This is hilarious. As noted above, it’s not a dichotomy between thinking and doing, as you are falsely portraying it here, but the failure of IDcreationists to think of anything for themselves or anyone else to do. This is most amusing when the DI tries to spin a newly published paper as supporting ID–the first question I have is, then why didn’t anyone at the DI think of doing those experiments, or at least suggesting that someone else do them? It’s all retrospective; there’s zero courage for hypothesis testing.
And here we have Eddie’s caste system again. The Dalit technicians are just somehow unthinkingly “discovering new data” for the Brahmins to analyze. No hypothesis formulation (thinking) or testing (thinking + doing) ever!
“Has been found” is a passive verb, not indicating an agent. Unless the agent is specified, the statement is not of much use. For example, Donald Trump “has been found” to be one of the greatest American Presidents ever – but by whom? And Roger Whittaker “has been found” to be the greatest pop singer ever – but by whom? If a moron or ideological partisan makes a judgment, the judgment is not worth paying attention to.
If you enjoy looking at intellectual errors made by people without the epistemological training to render judgments regarding demarcation criteria, then yes, you should look at it.
Which is why I don’t. But unlike you, I’m acquainted with the facts – meaning the facts about what’s in the books that I read, and that you don’t. To know what’s in a book, you have to read it. And if you don’t know what’s in a book, you should either accept the account of someone who has read it, or at the most make no statement about the book at all. The one thing you shouldn’t do is disagree with, or imply disagreement with, someone who has read a book that you haven’t read, regarding what’s in the book. That’s the cardinal academic sin. (Well, maybe after plagiarism and falsification of data.)
I’ll stop the moment you have the courage to correct Mercer when he blathers on about science based on his very narrow lab focus. If you won’t correct Mercer, I’ll take it upon myself to do so.