@pauluc: Statistically and by objective criteria who do you think

Comment on A “Christian Agnostic”? by Sean Pitman.

Statistically and by objective criteria who do you think ” simply don’t understand how science really works” ? I agree I think this would suggest that the hypothesis is false.

It is indeed strange that scientists who are quite good at doing real science in various disciplines of science are apparently unaware that they aren’t doing science when it comes to their conclusions on the creative potential of RM/NS. Scientists are simply not immune from the trap of trying to pass off just-so story telling as real science – even within mainstream science journals.

For example, in his comments on a new mechanism for evolution postulated by Edward Wiley and Daniel Brooks, Roger Lewin says:

Natural selection, a central feature of neo-Darwinism, is allowed for in Brooks and Wiley’s theory, but only as a minor influence. “It can affect survivorship” says Brooks. “It can weed out some of the complexity and so slow down the information decay that results in speciation. It may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people have suggested.”

– Science, 1982, no. 217, pp. 1239-1240

Consider also the following relevant thoughts:

“To propose and argue that mutations even in tandem with ‘natural selection’ are the root-causes for 6,000,000 viable, enormously complex species, is to mock logic, deny the weight of evidence, and reject the fundamentals of mathematical probability.”

Cohen, I.L. (1984) Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities , New York: New Research Publications, Inc., p. 81

“I have quoted some voices of dissent coming from biologists in eminent academic positions. There have been many others, just as critical of the orthodox doctrine, though not always as outspoken – and their number is steadily growing. Although these criticisms have made numerous breaches in the walls, the citadel still stands – mainly, as said before, because nobody has a satisfactory alternative to offer. The history of science shows that a well-established theory can take a lot of battering and get itself into a tangle of contradictions – the fourth phase of ‘Crisis and Doubt’ in the historic cycle and yet still be upheld by the establishment until a breakthrough occurs, initiating a new departure, and the start of a new cycle. But that event is not yet in sight. In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutation plus natural selection – quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology.”

– Koestler A., “Janus: A Summing Up,” Picador: London, 1983, pp.184-185.

Of course, there are many who argue that RM/NS is not a true tautological argument; that this mechanism can be used to make real testable predictions regarding evolutionary progress and/or limitations. And, to a certain extent, I agree. However, when it comes to stories about higher levels of evolution beyond single-protein enzymes or enzymatic cascades, Mendelian-style variation, and various forms of devolution (the loss of pre-established systems of function), I fail to see any predictive power for the evolutionary mechanism that can be tested in a potentially falsifiable manner. Beyond this, there are also no statistically-based models for making such predictions in literature.

It is for this reason that I argue that arguments for the creative potential of RM/NS beyond very low levels of functional complexity are tautological just-so stories that are not testable by real life experiments or even by relevant statistical analysis.

So, you tell me, what is your “scientific” evidence, your scientific reasons, for believing in the creative powers of mindless evolutionary mechanisms beyond very low levels of functional complexity. Please, do explain to me the real science behind the mechanism of RM/NS. Show me the measurable predictive power of your mechanism to make predictions of success at various levels of functional complexity in a testable potentially falsifiable manner…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

P.S.

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], “Billions and Billions of Demons”, Review of “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,” by Carl Sagan, New York Review, January 9, 1997.

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Sean Pitman Also Commented

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@ken:

Effective atheist, closet creationist, close to classic IDist or creationist?

Are you sure it is my agnosticism that is changing rather than your opinion of what I am?

I didn’t say that you were effectively an atheist. What I said was that your arguments for agnosticism were effectively atheistic. There’s a difference. Your arguments for God’s likely existence are obviously the opposite of atheistic – certainly not agnostic either.

After all, someone who claims to believe that the existence of God is “likely”, because of ultimate origin arguments, doesn’t match most people’s concept of an “agnostic”.

So, please do forgive me if I am still way off base regarding your true position…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Ken:

You have transported me from an atheist to a closet creationist in the width of a thread my friend. 🙂 I wonder what you will create me as next?

What have I done? – besides point out that someone who claims that God’s existence is “likely”, based on arguments for ultimate causation requiring a God-like intelligence and creative power, isn’t what most people would call an “agnostic”?

In short, your “agnostic” arguments are the very same ones used by atheists like Dawkins and Hawking and your “God likely exists” arguments are essentially the same ones used by IDists and creationists. How then can I be faulted for suggesting that you’re not really an agnostic or an atheist? While you’re not a classic creationist or IDist by any means, you seem to me to be, at least for now, far closer to such than to pure agnosticism… which is a very hard position to hold, in its pure form, for very long I would think. Certainly Hawking couldn’t do it for long. Eventually one decides, like you, to try to figure out which way the turtles seem to be going…

Of course, you could end up falsifying my hypothesis… 😉

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Ken:

Now I think Hawkings thinking about our universe has evolved since he wrote Brief History of Time, because he is looking at turtles ( metaverses) a level or two upwards. However Grand Design implies grand designer doesn’t it. Can design ever be mindless?

Yes, Hawking has apparently evolved, or devolved if you prefer, from the position of agnosticism to atheism since he wrote A Brief History of Time.

As far as your question as to if a “design” can be “mindless”, the answer to that question is yes – depending upon what you mean by the term “design”. As far as we can tell, anyway, what appears to be “mindless nature” does in fact have certain creative powers (discussed further below).

Who or what created the matter for the first turtle? Ever seen a turtle appear out of nothing, ex nihilo?

This is exactly the reason why many scientists and philosophers have come to the conclusion that the “first cause”, whatever it may be, had to itself have been eternal. Of course there are those, like Hawking for instance, who argue that something can indeed come from nothing… but that belief certainly isn’t scientific in that it is not testable in a falsifiable manner and has no useful predictive power.

I told you I was intrigued by Intelligent Design and Deism didn’t I? And I still say that creation of the original matter for the original universe out of nothing is not a rational proposition. Why? Because science and mathematics can not explain infinity, first cause or infinite regress. And philosophy doesn’t seem to do much better (Munchhausen Trilemma).

Now you’re sounding like a creationist 😉

Can turlles read? For their sake I’ ll state it again: when the atheists, sceintists or philosphers rationally explain to me how ‘original’ matter and energy, that ultimately led to intelligent life, arose out of the mindless void, then I’ll become an atheist.

Me too! The only difference between you and I is that you are impressed with the unlikely appearance of original matter/energy out of nothing without a pre-existent eternal intelligence, while I am also impressed by the origin of the informational complexity needed to get otherwise random non-directed energy/matter to produce useful stuff. Consider that the origin of useful information is just as problematic for the atheistic mindset as is the origin of basic energy/matter itself (By the way, atoms and basic atomic particles are informationally rich, as are the fined-tuned fundamental constants of the universe).

If a faith construct ever satistifactority answers my questions then I’ll join that religion. (All come up relativistically short so far).

Science itself is a faith construct. You cannot make any conclusions as to the likely nature of empirical reality without taking a leap of faith, to one degree or another, beyond that which can be absolutely known.

This was Wesley Kime’s point in arguing that faith and science are forced to walk hand-in-hand. This is also the point of well-known philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn. You simply cannot avoid taking on a “faith construct” of some kind – no one can. The only choice any of us really has is which faith construct to take on…

Part of the problem is what we mean by mindless. Can a human mind know the mind of God?

Not in totality of course since we are finite and God, by definition, is infinite. However, we can known what God has given us to know about himself. In other words, we are capable of comprehending certain limited aspects of God.

What may appear as mindless nature may not be mindless at all if we figure out the Grand Design. I think both Einstein and Hawkings understood and understand this dilemma. In fairness and with great respect I think in what you and Dr. Kime in your own way are trying to do as well: marry faith to science for a more fuller and optimistic view of reality. Please note, especially my friend Wes, that I have stated that this is laudable. Not toying around here, I mean what I say.

Faith and science are already married since one cannot exist without the other. It is just that some fail to recognize when they are in fact taking leaps of faith.

Beyond this, you seem to be making the same point that the founders of modern chaos theory made. In short, randomness cannot be proven. What appears to be a random sequence from one perspective may actually be determined by a simple formula from another perspective. The same thing is true about what appears to be the result of a mindless mechanism. Ultimately, from a different perspective, the same phenomenon may have been known or produced by some deliberate purpose.

The problem, of course, is that our perspective is limited. We can only deal with the limited information that we currently understand. So, the best we can say is that certain phenomenon appear to be the result of apparently mindless mechanisms while other phenomena (like highly symmetrical polished granite cubes, or your automobile) much more clearly require the input of deliberate intelligence.

Might I be stretching the boundaries of agnosticim in saying that even though I cannot prove it – because ultimate creation ex nihilo and infinite regress makes no sense to me – the case for an ultimate grand designer/ force makes more rational, ‘likely’ sense?

You are definitely stretching the boundaries of agnosticism to argue for God’s “likely” existence. This is why I have been saying for some time now that you are not a true agnostic. You are a closet creationist to at least some degree. You present some of the very same arguments used by intelligent design advocates and even creationists in favor of the very likely existence of a God or God-like intelligence behind it all.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com