@Pauluc: It is, in short, one thing to wonder whether

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

It is, in short, one thing to wonder whether evolution happens; it’s quite another thing to wonder whether adaptation is the mechanism by which evolution happens. Well, evolution happens; the evidence that it does is overwhelming. I blush to have to say that so late in the day; but these are bitter times.”

Now, was that so hard? Really? Thank you for finally admitting what I’ve been saying all along…

Why is it always so difficult to get most evolutionists to admit, right upfront, that they have absolutely no idea how or by what mechanism evolution happens beyond low levels of functional complexity? As you’ve just highlighted, evolutionists are always very adamant that, because of shared similarities between all living things in a hierarchical pattern (aka: the Tree of Life) and their interpretations of the fossil record, common descent happened; that all life originated from a very simple common ancestor to produce all the diversity and complexity of life that we see today – all without the need for any intelligent input along the way. But, when it comes to actually demonstrating a viable mindless mechanism with such creative powers, powers to produce the high level functional differences found within living things (or even computer software programs), they’re completely at a loss. They have absolutely no idea (beyond fanciful just-so story telling that is).

How can this be? If the reality of evolution is so clearly understood as a real “science”, then how can it be that there is no known mindless mechanism that has the power to explain the existence of very high levels of functional complexity?

You guys simply assume that it happened. You tell your just-so stories about this morphing into that over vast periods of time by mindless mechanisms when you have no viable mechanism. No mechanism! How does this fact not cause you guys to take a step back? How are you so sure that the amazing functional complexities of living things must have been the result of a mindless process? – completely undirected by any form of outside intelligence? You simply don’t know beyond a great deal of bluster, smoke, and mirrors as far as I can tell. You’re just making it up as you go along telling just-so stories about how the mechanism must have been mindless. How can you tell these stories knowing, as you evidently do, that you have nothing, absolutely nothing, to back up your stories beyond statistically untenable extrapolations from very low levels of functional complexity?

I’m sorry, but this isn’t what science is all about. Science produces testable hypotheses and theories that give rise to useful statistically-based degrees of predictive value. Where is the measurable predictive value to your assertion that a mindless mechanism did the job? Where is your science my friend?

Unfortunately that is no explanatory model that could compete with a naturalistic models based on mutation, contingency/selection and stochastic processes [regarding the “organization of beta defensins”].

You’re talking about the origin of patterns here without any consideration of the functionality of the systems themselves. When you start considering the origin of the actual functionality of systems within living things, at higher and higher-levels of functional complexity, your models based on “mutation, contingency/selection, and stochastic processes” are helpless beyond bluster and just-so story telling devoid of testable predictions. Where is your predictive value? Where is the demonstration of such evolution in action or even relevant statistical analysis for any of your suggested mindless mechanisms? Where is the science?

What you’re trying to do is suggest that certain types of patterns are more consistent with a mindless naturalistic origin than with any kind of deliberate design. And, I would agree that various mindless mechanisms are indeed able to produce certain patterns that are evident in living things – to include the nested hierarchical patterns that are generally found throughout the “Tree of Life”. However, such patterns are not outside of the creative realm of deliberate design (as evidenced by various NHPs within computer systems such as object oriented programming and the like). How then does one tell the difference regarding the origin if these features in living things? If you actually had a viable mechanism that could explain not only the pattern of similarities evident in living things, but the existence of high-level functional differences, there would be no useful way to tell the difference and the most rational default would be in favor of mindless mechanisms producing the whole thing. However, the catch is that there is no known mindless mechanism that remotely comes close to producing higher-level functional systems. The only known creative force that is predictably able to produce such high-level functional systems in a reasonable amount of time is driven by deliberate intelligence – period. End of story.

So, the evidence that is actually available strongly suggests that high levels of functional complexity only arise with the outside aid of deliberate intelligent design. Therefore, where is the science for your bald assertions to the contrary? Do you and other evolutionists simply have a need to remove life and its high levels of functional complexity from all possibility of having an intelligent origin? Upon what basis is this effort motivated? Certainly it isn’t a scientific basis. Rather, it seems to me to be much more philosophically or religiously motivated. You seem to have a need, for some strange reason, to exclude God, or any kind of deliberate intelligent input, a priori from any possible involvement with the origin of life or its amazing functional complexity and diversity. That’s not science. That’s philosophy…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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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