Comment on EducateTruth.com promoted on 3ABN by Sean Pitman.
“Whatever it was, it was intelligent. How so? Because, the odds against non-intelligent mechanisms doing the job are so extremely remote while being within the realm of known intelligent production.†– Sean Pitman
Oh sure, the odds of intelligence self-organizing are real good! It cant happen on its own (darwinian evolution) but of course it HAS happened so some self-organized intelligence must have existed along- and we know this for fact because probabilities tell us this and anything else would be just-so story-telling. I like the circularity here. Give the man a cigar.
Who’s talking about self-organized intelligence? That’s also statistically impossible. Whatever the ultimate Source for our origins might be, it seems quite clear that it was/is eternal – i.e., without the need for its own origin (where did the “Big Bang” come from?).
There’s nothing circular about the concept that informational entropy is clearly evident in the universe in which we live. Informational quality flows downhill, not uphill, over time without the outside input of pre-existing higher level information.
Mainstream evolutionists, like naturalists in general, believe otherwise; that informational quality can and does flow uphill. The problem with this notion is that it counters all known observable and statistical evidence beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. Above very low levels informational entropy is clearly in play for all forms of high-level meaningfully-complex informational systems.
So, what is it? Is the “One” responsible for this universe and the very high-level meaningful informational complexity that it contains a mindless uncaring Creator? or an intelligent Creator? Can science even address this question? I think it can and has.
But, I don’t think you have yet supported your belief in what I call your “turtles all the way down” idea that high-level information can be derived mindlessly, ultimately from nothing, in just under 20 billion years… That notion requires far too much blind faith for me to swallow given the overwhelming evidence, as I see it anyway, that it’s really “turtles all the way up…”
And speaking of probabilities what is more likly:
A. A very simple single-celled bacteria came into being from slime.
B. An extraordinary three-part living being somehow came into existence that is all-powerful, all-knowing and present everywhere at once and which creates all manners of craetures from simple to even complex enough to be labelled “in our imageâ€.
Again, you assume the “God” came into existence; that there was a point in time when God did not exist. This isn’t in line with the concept of informational entropy. The existence of high-level functional information suggests an ultimate origin for such informational complexity in an eternally-existent Intelligent Source.
One thing is for sure,, there is little humility at this website. The proabailities argument is a The proabailities argument is a non-sequitor…but it will be back! We’ll hear more of it again and again and again.
And you are more humble?
Consider someone who strongly believes and argues that the ultimate origin of everything is clearly mindless nothingness; that science has clearly demonstrated that something can and has come from nothing and that high-level functional complexity can be assembled, mindlessly, from low-level systems in a reasonable amount of time.
Now, consider someone who argues that something never comes from nothing as far as can be scientifically demonstrated in a testable potentially falsifiable manner and that high-level functional complexity never arises from the mindless self-assembly of lower level systems in observable time nor is it statistically likely to occur even given trillions upon trillions of years of time.
Who is more humble? I propose to you that it takes just a little chutzpah to actually have a solid opinion from either perspective. You think you’re right and I think I’m right. So what? There’s nothing wrong with having a strong opinion on such things. You’re just upset because my opinion is in the minority. Does that mean, therefore, that I must be the arrogant one here?
I’m just asking questions about concepts from the mainstream perspective that don’t make sense to me given what I think I know. If you can answer these questions in a way that I can actually comprehend – great!
Now, I know you don’t like probability arguments, but if you don’t have a probability argument, you don’t have a scientific argument. Science is all about producing useful predictive value you know…
All I really care about is if you can present something scientifically testable or statistically relevant to support your claims for RM/NS producing high-level functional complexity within a reasonable amount of time. If you can do that, I’ll be most impressed.
Good luck ; )
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
EducateTruth.com promoted on 3ABN
@Geanna Dane:
Um, I think the evolutionists are the ones who informed us about ice ages.
You’re mistaken. Evolutionists were not the first ones to propose ice age theories – theories which were around well before Darwin published Origins in 1859.
For example, Andrew Ure (1778-1857) was one of the top chemists of his day with an international reputation as a meticulous scientist, a prolific writer and an effective teacher. But he was also one of those brilliantly versatile men of science in the early 19th century. In 1829 he published A New System of Geology in which he proposed some new theoretical ideas for the reconstruction of earth history, one of which was one of the earliest conceptions of an ice age, which he speculated would have resulted from the Flood. One of the author’s he quoted was Jens Esmark (1763-1839)
Jens Esmark also argued a sequence of worldwide ice ages well before Darwin. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations. He attempted to show that they originated from changes in the Earth’s orbit. Adding to Esmark’s work, Bernhardi, in a 1932 paper, speculated about former polar ice caps reaching as far as the temperate zones around the globe.
http://creation.com/british-scriptural-geologists-in-the-first-half-of-the-nineteenth-century-part-4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Esmark
They have given us more information about ice ages than creationists have and nothing, I repeat nothing, is going to change that. They have no problem with ice ages whatsoever.
They have no problem with ice ages, true. But, they do have a definite problem with the idea of very rapid, even catastrophically sudden, formation and regression. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that scientists began to realize that glacial melts can happen many times more rapidly than they tought possible just 10 years ago – to include the melting of Greenland’s ice-cap as well as the Antarctic ice. No one thought that such rapid melting could ever happen as rapidly as it is taking place today.
www.DetectingDesign.com/AncientIce.html
What is it with Adventists suddenly talking a lot about Las Vegas, card games, houses of cards, gambling and betting? I’m bewildered.
It is often a very good way to get important statistical concepts across to those people who don’t usually deal with numbers and the scientific usefulness of statistical odds analysis… like you ; )
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
EducateTruth.com promoted on 3ABN
@Geanna Dane:
So…ice ages are scientifically impossible and therefore could only result from a global supernatural flood. The arctic seas became hot which caused very high precipitation. Then an extreme cold spell came along that made an iceberg out of high elevations and high altitudes, decreased the ocean sea level and dried out the Mediterranean basin. I assume these explanations fit within the 1000 gsaar threshold (geologically supportable argumentative age reasoning) of explanatory complexity
Ice ages are not scientifically impossible. They are certainly consistent with a global catastrophe that involved massive volcanic activity. And, massive meteor impacts may indeed have provided the sudden release of the huge quantities of energy needed to produce the initial catastrophe on a global scale. Also, it is well-known that ice ages would indeed reduce ocean levels quite dramatically – easily below the level needed to maintain water in the Mediterranean basin (which is known to have been dry during the last major ice age).
I fail to see what it is about this scenario that you find so “complex” and unbelievable given the starting premise of a sudden massive release of energy on this planet?… What would you expect to happen? Orderly weather as usual? The whole surface of the planet was broken up by the massive impact that set the whole catastrophe in motion… the aftershocks of which we are still feeling to this day.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
EducateTruth.com promoted on 3ABN
@Geanna Dane:
So did the mammoths dies of cold or starvation? Maybe it wasn’t the intolerable cold, perhaps it was too much snowfall that spoiled access to the vegetation they depended on. Unless most or all of the fossils had identifiable food in their mouths or stomachs (I have heard that some did), how could one possibly know?
It really doesn’t matter if they died directly because of the cold or indirectly because of starvation (though I favor the former idea). Either way, the evidence suggests that they, along with millions of other types of animals, died out very suddenly in line with a sudden global cold snap. That’s the key point here. The cold snap would result in a rapid decrease in the ocean’s water level, resulting in an opportunity to dry out the Mediterranean basin…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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