Comment on The Creator of Time by Sean Pitman.
Really? Why not start with the basic difference between snowflakes and highly symmetrical granite cubes? – as far as their origins are concerned? Why not candidly respond to this question instead of dancing around it and ignoring it? – a seemingly simple question that I’ve presented to you a number of times in this forum? The best you’ve been able to do is ask:
“Snowflakes and perfectly symmetrical granite cubes…. which are designed, which are not?…
There is no guarantee that what humans deduce as design is what a supernatural designer would have done at all.” – george
The same is true regarding the motives of any kind of intelligent designer. Determining motives is not required before intelligent design can be rationally detected, by non-scientists and even professional scientists as well, at various levels of intelligence and creative power.
In any case, if you’re not able to admit that highly symmetrical granite cubes are obvious artifacts of intelligent design, and that higher-level artifacts are also recognizable by scientific investigation (such as the far far more finely tuned features of our universe), there’s really no point in discussing with you topics that are just a bit more complex – – such as the limitations of genetic mutations, natural evolutionary mechanisms, or the evidence for the recent arrival of life on this planet. Detecting design at higher and higher levels of creative power doesn’t definitively prove the existence of God (since definitive proof is beyond the power of science), but it does show, after a certain point, the rational need for the existence of such an extremely high level of intelligence and creative power that it cannot readily be distinguished from God-like creative power.
Now, if you want to try to move beyond snowflakes and granite cubes, fine. Tell me, where is your viable evolutionary mechanism for starters? Can you explain it to me? How do random mutations and natural selection create anything beneficial beyond very very low levels of functional complexity in what anyone would call a reasonable amount of time? What kind of understanding do you have of the biology of genetics and how mutations and function-based selection affect and/or change genetic functionality over various spans of time?
I mean, so far, I fail to see where you’ve presented an actual argument that counters anything I’ve said? Where have you presented of any kind of evidence or explanation as to why I might be wrong? – aside from a the usual mindless appeal to authority without any real personal understanding of the topic in question? Come on now, do you personally have something to contribute to this conversation beside to point out the obvious to me, yet again, that there are many who disagree with me when it comes to the origin and diversity of life on this planet? – Experts who themselves have absolutely no idea how the Darwinian mechanism actually works or could work, this side of a practical eternity of time, beyond the lowest levels of functional complexity? Certainly Ben Clausen has no idea (and I’ve personally talked to him about this). Do you know anyone, and I mean anyone, who does understand and can explain it? I mean, you make a fantastic claim here:
“Modern physics, chemistry and biology continues to provide answers to a cause and effect universe as to how physical reality including the emergence of organic life occurred.” – george
You’re actually trying to compare the emergence of snowflakes via natural mechanisms with the emergence of the extremely interdependent and functionally complex biomachines that comprise living things? – where far more precision is required than for the formation of the granite cubes, stacked rocks, and driftwood horses that are pictures above in this thread? Where have you been?! Where has the “emergence of organic life” been reasonably, much less scientifically, explained or demonstrated via any naturalistic mechanism? – before natural selection was even in play? Can you explain abiogenesis to me? – or do you know anyone else who can explain it or reproduce such a thing in the laboratory? You have to know that this claim is utter nonsense. No one has even come close to explaining abiogenesis via mindless naturalistic mechanisms – much less demonstrating it. Go back and look again at the debate between Stephen Meyer and Charles Marshall (Link) and actually read Meyer’s book, “Signature in the Cell“.
I mean, given your position, as stated, you shouldn’t be surprised if a highly complex quantum computer happened to self-assemble in the sands of the Sahara Desert. After all, such a demonstration would be far less difficult to explain via mindless naturalistic processes. And, you certainly shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the origin of snowflakes and any kind of granite cube, driftwood horses, or stacked rocks! Consider, for illustration, a few fairly recent statements from James M. Tour, one of the ten most cited chemists in the world:
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Does anyone understand the chemical details behind macroevolution? If so, I would like to sit with that person and be taught, so I invite them to meet with me.
I will tell you as a scientist and a synthetic chemist: if anybody should be able to understand evolution, it is me, because I make molecules for a living, and I don’t just buy a kit, and mix this and mix this, and get that. I mean, ab initio, I make molecules…
Still, I don’t understand evolution, and I will confess that to you. Is that OK, for me to say, “I don’t understand this”? …
Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science – with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public – because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said – I say, “Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?” Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go “Uh-uh. Nope.”
These people are just so far off, on how to believe this stuff came together. I’ve sat with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. Sometimes I will say, “Do you understand this?” And if they’re afraid to say “Yes,” they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.
If you understand evolution, I am fine with that. I’m not going to try to change you – not at all. In fact, I wish I had the understanding that you have.
But about seven or eight years ago I posted on my Web site that I don’t understand. And I said, “I will buy lunch for anyone that will sit with me and explain to me evolution, and I won’t argue with you until I don’t understand something – I will ask you to clarify. But you can’t wave by and say, “This enzyme does that.” You’ve got to get down in the details of where molecules are built, for me. Nobody has come forward.
The Atheist Society contacted me. They said that they will buy the lunch, and they challenged the Atheist Society, “Go down to Houston and have lunch with this guy, and talk to him.” Nobody has come! Now remember, because I’m just going to ask, when I stop understanding what you’re talking about, I will ask. So I sincerely want to know. I would like to believe it. But I just can’t.
Now, I understand microevolution, I really do. We do this all the time in the lab. I understand this. But when you have speciation changes, when you have organs changing, when you have to have concerted lines of evolution, all happening in the same place and time – not just one line – concerted lines, all at the same place, all in the same environment … this is very hard to fathom.
I was in Israel not too long ago, talking with a bio-engineer, and [he was] describing to me the ear, and he was studying the different changes in the modulus of the ear, and I said, “How does this come about?” And he says, “Oh, Jim, you know, we all believe in evolution, but we have no idea how it happened.” Now there’s a good Jewish professor for you. I mean, that’s what it is. So that’s where I am.
Do you think you can explain it to Tour? If so, by all means explain it to me while you’re at it!
In short, let me know when you can personally explain the Darwinian mechanism beyond very very low levels of functional complexity or when you can personally explain the existence of soft tissues along with sequenceable proteins and DNA fragments in dinosaur bones, or the existence of high levels of radiocarbon in these same bones, or the very high detrimental mutation rates in slowly reproducing creatures (like most multicellular organisms), or a host of other features of this world that strongly speak for a very recent arrival of life on this planet and a very specific limit to the creative potential of random mutations and natural selection.
What do you personally really know and understand here? – if you can’t even admit an obvious difference between the origin of a snowflake and a highly symmetrical granite cube?
Sean Pitman Also Commented
The Creator of Time
Again, if you personally don’t know why I’m wrong, or why someone like James Tour, a renown synthetic chemist, is wrong, why are you arguing with me here? You personally don’t know why I’m wrong, but you’re sure someone else does? – by faith? That’s the best you have? How many times have I heard that one before? Come on now. Your position, as with certain religious fundamentalists, is based entirely on your blind faith in the correctness of the claims of others, not a personal understanding of the issues in play.
Now, this faith of yours is great for you, but completely unhelpful for me or anyone else who wishes to have a personal understanding based on a reasonable explanation (like James Tour for instance) – an explanation that goes beyond a had wave and an appeal to some authority figure(s) who have yet to come up with a reasonable explanation themselves and make Nobel Prize winners and synthetic chemists afraid to admit as much in public forum much less publish anything counter to the prevailing dogma of the day (Link). This is especially true for someone, like me, who has studied this topic in great detail for many years and who is in fact able to explain the clear limits of the evolutionary mechanism and precisely why, statistically, these limits exist at the lowest levels of functional complexity (Link).
I’m sorry, but your faith in the claims of scientists and your arguments from authority have no explanatory value and are therefore entirely unhelpful to me. As Carl Sagan once wrote: “One of the great commandments of science is, ‘Mistrust arguments from authority.’ … Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.” (Link).
Why not at least try to figure it out for yourself? – see if you can understand it in a way that allows you to explain it to others who at least have a background in and basic understanding of biology and genetics?
“You see I get the design argument…”
How is that? How do you “get” the design argument when it comes to the origin or diversity of living things? – or even non-living things? You’re not even able to admit a clear difference between the origin of snowflakes and highly symmetrical granite cubes. You actually believe that the evolutionary mechanism is viable and that the arguments for abiogenesis are at least plausible and that the fine tuned features of the universe are at least theoretically explainable via the multiverse concept. Why? Because of some personal understanding of the topics? No. Because of your blind faith in the claims of popular scientists – that’s it. Otherwise, you evidently have no real understanding as to what you’re talking about when it comes to the creative potential and/or limitations of the evolutionary mechanism – or any other possible mindless naturalistic mechanism to explain the origin of life or of the universe itself. You also claim that it’s absolutely “impossible” to produce the modern biodiversity of land animals in just a few thousand years, starting from what could fit on an Ark, but you evidently have absolutely no personal understanding as to why (even though I’ve given you some pretty good hints as to why it is possible).
“but miracles, prophets, Santa Claus, fairies, ghosts, goblins, arks and the like are not proper subjects for science in my opinion.”
Perhaps that’s because you don’t understand how science works? Consider, for example, that the existence of gravity was detectable before anyone had any idea as to how gravity actually works. You see, knowing how something exists isn’t required for you to know that it exists. This means, of course, that if, theoretically, Santa Claus, fairies, ghosts, goblins, or prophets or miracles in general, of any kind, where to actually exist in the empirical world, then science, or any rational person for that matter, would in fact be able to detect such things if and when something were to happen outside of what mindless natural mechanisms could themselves explain (after a detailed investigation of course). It is only when mindless naturalistic mechanisms can reasonably explain a particular phenomenon that the “miraculous” would not be clearly recognizable to the rational person behind that particular phenomenon. If, for instance, one has no more evidence for their god than for the “celestial teapot” or the “spaghetti monster”, then there’s no good reason to believe in that god.
In short, then, as previously pointed out, science is not limited in its ability to detect the existence of the miraculous, if it ever theoretically occurred, but only in its ability to explain the miraculous…
I ask you, again, if you personally saw someone raised from the dead, whom you knew for sure was dead and rotting in the grave, you still wouldn’t believe what you saw with your own eyes? Of course you would believe it and so would everyone else, even scientists – despite an inability to explain how it happened. You see, its just not reasonable to claim that scientists or otherwise rational people are unable to even detect the miraculous – even if it were to theoretically occur (even if they were to see it with their own eyes and touch and examine it with their own hands). You’re clearly mistaken here…
Remember also that the assumption that future discoveries will one day be able to explain everything via mindless naturalistic mechanisms is not science, but a philosophy of naturalism that is very similar to a blind faith religion.
The Creator of Time
It’s been enjoyable having you. I wish you all the best. Someday, if I’m right, everything will be made clear and you will see your Maker face-to-face. Of course, if I’m wrong, neither one of us will be the wiser…
By the way, I am not a “young Earth creationist” or “YEC”, but something a bit different – a young life creationist (YLC). Of course, from your perspective it makes little difference. 😉
The Creator of Time
A “Rational Wiki” quote? – about proof and disproof? 😉
First off, science isn’t about absolute proof, but the weight of evidence. Nothing can be absolutely proved in science – only disproved. The power of science is in the ability for the hypothesis in question to resist disproof, thereby gaining predictive value. This means, of course, that a valid scientific hypothesis must be testable in a potentially falsifiable manner.
Now, as far as the particular claim that ID hypotheses are not and cannot be falsifiable (and by extension any notion or hypothesis of God-like activity isn’t falsifiable either), it’s clearly not true or modern sciences that actually detect ID wouldn’t be possible – like forensics, anthropology, and SETI. As previously noted for you, the ID-only hypothesis can be tested in a potentially falsifiable manner – quite easily. All you have to do to falsify the ID-only hypothesis is show how something else could more reasonably explain the phenomenon in question – and the ID-only hypothesis is neatly falsified.
For example, if you can find a mindless naturalistic mechanism that can reasonably explain the origin of a highly symmetrical granite cube, you would neatly falsify the hypothesis that only ID can explain the origin of the cube. Short of this, however, the ID-only hypothesis gains a great deal of predictive value based on the strong weight of evidence that is currently in hand. That is why it is possible to tell the difference between the most likely origin of such a granite cube vs. a snowflake or the like.
The same is true for the God-only hypothesis. As I’ve explained for you multiple times now, there are various levels of phenomena that require various levels of intelligence to explain. As higher and higher level phenomena require higher and higher levels of intelligence and creative power to explain, one eventually comes to a point where the level of required intelligence and creative power is so high that it cannot be readily distinguished from what one would normally attribute to a God or God-like being. It is for this reason that if you yourself saw someone you knew was dead and decaying in the grave, raised to life at the word of someone claiming to be God, even you would tend to believe this claim – and rightly so. That means, of course, that the detection of God-like creative power is rationally detectable, at least in theory, given the presentation of such evidence.
Philosophical naturalism, on the other hand, is not at all testable in a potentially falsifiable manner. It is not even theoretically possible to falsify a theory that is dependent upon evidence that you have yourself proposed will show up at some undetermined time in the future. It is therefore not a science or otherwise rational, but is on the same level as wishful thinking – just not helpful.
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As an aside, I have to also point out that the claims for the creative potential of the evolutionary mechanism presented on this particular “Rational Wiki” webpage are not backed up by demonstration or reasonable statistical analysis or workable genetic theories – at least not beyond very low levels of functional complexity. They’re nothing but just-so stories. I mean, why hasn’t James Tour been convinced by this stuff? Because, there’s simply no science here… as you would know if you did your own independent research into the potential and limits of the evolutionary mechanism. Their claims regarding “flagellar evolution” are a case in point when it comes to glossing over the details and not understanding the exponentially growing problem of finding novel beneficial sequences in the vastness of sequence space with each step up the ladder of functional complexity: Link
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
