Comment on God and Granite Cubes by Sean Pitman.
But it does work…
This is like saying that you can occasionally get a three letter word from looking at randomly jumbled Scrabble letters on a table. The evolutionary mechanism only “works” to produce what are equivalent to “three letter words”, with an exponential decay in evolvability as one moves up the ladder of functional complexity from here. You’re trying to argue that because three-letter words can easily evolve that given enough time an entire Shakespearean play is inevitable. That’s a ridiculous argument… and the same thing is true for biological complexity at higher levels.
and is the most rational and best explanation for the vast diversity of interlrelated life we see on the planet.
No, it isn’t. The most rational and best explanation beyond very low levels of functional complexity is intelligent design. You have absolutely no rational argument to the contrary – and neither does anyone else.
And the vast acknowledged scientific weight of the evidence ( from experts in their fields , not amateurs or fundamentalists) supports evolution.
Based on what? Where is the evidence for how the evolutionary mechanism can remotely achieve what you claim it did?
And, by the way, I’m not talking from an amateur position. I know biological science and have been trained in it very well…
That does not mean there are not issues to resolve as to how it works over time at a micro level. Of course there are, just like medicine is still working on a cure for many diseases.
It’s not that there are a few “minor” issues here. No one has the foggiest idea how the evolutionary mechanism could possibly “work” beyond very low levels of functional complexity – no idea at all. That’s not a scientific position. That’s a philosophical position that is only in play in an effort to avoid acknowledging the signature of God.
It is nonsensical to postulate that on a planet with limited resources, God make perfect, immortal, procreative life and instructed it to go forth and multiply! But that is the model you say is supported by the weight of the evidence. What was perfect God thinking about that design? How can such a concept appeal to your rational, scientific mind?
What is nonsensical is your lack of consideration of the power of someone who is actually a God. If you and I could think of very simple solutions to such problems, certainly a God worth His salt could also think of reasonable solutions. The command in the Bible is to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28).
The command isn’t to “overfill the earth”, but to fill it appropriately and rule over it. Do you think that a God wouldn’t understand birth control? – or that perhaps humans could expand to other planets within the universe?
Sean Pitman Also Commented
How do you know that? How do you know it could ‘never’ be testable, if in fact certain cosmologists are know making observations that they say indicate the effect of other universes on our own? How do you know as time goes on that Man will not in fact unravel the mystery and provide more concrete evidence of a multiverse?
I’ve already explained this is some detail. And, I’ve explained why the use of the “multiverse argument” can be used to explain everything and therefore nothing… and how this is anti-science. It’s not real science if it undermines the ability to produce “predictive power” for the hypothesis and/or theory – the very basis of science.
Again, the multiverse concept is impossible to test, even in theory, because other bubble universes would be permanently out of reach and unobservable. “Literally, anything can happen and does happen infinitely many times,” Steinhardt says. “This makes the theory totally unpredictive or, equivalently, unfalsifiable.”
An untestable idea is by definition unscientific, because science relies on verifying predictions through experimentation. Proponents of the multiverse idea, however, say it is so inextricable with some theories, including inflation theories, that evidence for one is evidence for the other. However, this argument is self-defeating. It’s like saying that evidence that predicts a multiverse is evidence that would predict anything and everything… and therefor nothing again. It’s a circular argument…
Also, as far as Laura Mersini-Houghton’s arguments, they are based on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) “cold spot” and “dark flow” data. However, since the initial WMAP data was obtained, a more thorough analysis of data from the WMAP and from the Planck satellite (which has a resolution 3 times higher than WMAP) failed to find any statistically significant evidence of such a bubble universe collision. In addition, there is no evidence of any gravitational pull of other universes on ours. (Link)
Here’s what the Planck team said about the WMAP data:
“The Planck team’s paper appears to rule out the claims of Kashlinsky and collaborators,” says David Spergel of Princeton University, who was not involved in the work. If there is no dark flow, there is no need for exotic explanations for it, such as other universes, says Planck team member Elena Pierpaoli at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. “You don’t have to think of alternatives.”
So, really, there is no solid evidence even for one other universe beyond our own – much less an infinite number of universes (which would make any “evidence” meaningless anyway because such a perspective makes any and all observations and predictions equally likely).
Yet, as Ron points out, God of the Gaps becomes your default mechanism for ‘ostensible’ design – that gets whittled down over time by science demonstrates how cause and effect mechanisms create phenomena. Again the glaring double standard.
Science itself is based on “gaps” between what various hypotheses can effectively explain and reliably predict. If there were no discoverable gaps like this, there would be no science. That is why pointing out the scientific ability to detect deliberate intelligent design behind various phenomena in nature is not a “double standard” at all – especially given that several modern scientific disciplines are based on the scientific ability to detect deliberate intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. How do you think forensic scientists, anthropologists, and SETI scientists hope to be able to detect true artifacts of intelligent design when they find them?
God and Granite Cubes
Oh please. A bacterium is not deliberately intelligent like humans are. This should be self evident to you. Also, human intelligence may be natural, but it is not the same thing as the mindless forces of nature (like meterological phenomena for instance). The existence of a highly symmetrical granite cube cannot be explained by any other “natural phenomena” besides that which also has access to at least human level intelligence. And, that’s the whole point. Different phenomena that are clearly “artificial” in nature require different levels of intelligence to explain…
God and Granite Cubes
That’s just it. The ID-only or “God-only” hypothesis is not being used to explain anything and everything… as already explained.
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?
Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
