@pauluc: In contrast to my acceptance of complementary roles of …

Comment on The God of the Gaps by Sean Pitman.

@pauluc:

In contrast to my acceptance of complementary roles of science and religion and faith you have a view that denigrates blind faith as a path to understanding of the transcendent and claim you must only accept in religion what is supported by the predominance of scientific evidence.

I’m glad empirically-blind faith works for you. It just doesn’t work for me. I go where I see the weight of evidence leading. I put very little stock in emotion-driven faith or some deep impression in the soul or a “burning in the bosom” when it comes to the truth of Jesus, being born of a virgin, his miraculous life, death, and resurrection – and other such miraculous claims about the true nature of empirical reality. Where is the empirical evidence to back up such fantastic claims?

Sorry. I have a weakness for the rational…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

The God of the Gaps
@Ervin Taylor:

Indeed… something we actually agree on. 😉


The God of the Gaps
Pauluc:

You wrote:

Thanks for responding although I do think you mischaracterization my position. I do believe I have articulated it sufficiently already on this site. To justify it again is unnecessarily tedious.

I may be rather dense here, but as far as I can tell the only thing you’ve been clear on is your notion that whatever mechanism produced life and its diversity on this planet, it wasn’t intelligent. After all, it was you who wrote:

Darwinian mechanisms may or may not be sufficient but natural mechanisms are most likely.

If by “natural mechanisms” you mean mindless natural mechanisms, then how is this statement remotely scientific? It’s a sincere question on my part. I fail to see how you’ve presented any testable argument regarding your proposed mechanism for either the origin or diversity of life beyond very low levels of functional complexity? How is the hypothesis of a mindless mechanism, without any input from any intelligent source of any kind, testable? How is it scientific?

I have never pretended my religious views are hypothesis driven. They are my merely my honest attempt to understand the infinite and are clearly amenable to change just as my science is open to growth and revision.

Great! Again, I’m happy if a faith that is independent of empirical evidence works for you. It just doesn’t work for me is all. I know you think that’s a horrible thing, but that’s just the way I am. For me, a useful faith is something that is based on testable evidence that can potentially be proved wrong – exactly the same as any valid scientific theory.

I do not pretend that I am expert on all areas and disregard established expertise but I accept in good faith. My scientific expertise can be established from my published peer reviewed work.

I’m sure you’re quite good at what you do. That doesn’t mean your being scientific when it comes to your notions as to the mechanism that likely produced life and/or its diversity on this planet. Please, present something testable to support your assertions in this regard. Otherwise, I fail to see how your position for the powers of mindless natural mechanisms can rationally be called “scientific”? How does your hypothetical mindless mechanism produce more predictive power than a natural mechanism that has the backing of an intelligent mind of some kind?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


The God of the Gaps
@pauluc:

Remember, the particular topic in play here is over the mechanism that produced the informational complexity of living things. Your assertion that, “You don’t know exactly how it happened [and neither does anyone else for that matter], but you’re sure it was the result of some kind of mindless naturalistic mechanism” is not testable or potentially falsifiable.

Contrary to your arguments on this particular topic, it doesn’t matter if life has existed on this planet a long time or a short time when it comes to explaining the mechanism that produced the very high levels of informational complexity within all living things. The time life has existed on this planet has nothing to do with explaining the mechanism of life’s origin or its diversity beyond very low levels of biological informational complexity.

Also, the arguments for genetic similarities or the nested hierarchical patterns of the “tree of life” say nothing about the likely mechanism that could also produce very high levels of functional biological complexity – nothing.

So, where does this leave us. You are proposing your leap of faith that some as yet unknown mindless natural mechanism will be found that can explain the origin of life and its diversity at higher levels of functional complexity. Such an assertion is not a currently testable hypothesis. It may be true, but it isn’t science at this particular point in time.

On the other hand, my position is that some form of intelligent design is required to explain both the origin of life and the production of novel biological systems beyond very low levels of functional complexity (specifically beyond the level of novel systems requiring a minimum of at least 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues).

My ID-only hypothesis is just as testable and potentially falsifiable as is the SETI hypothesis or the hypotheses used by anthropologists or forensic scientists. All that has to be done to falsify any of these ID hypotheses, to include my own, is to actually demonstrate the existence of some mindless natural mechanism that is predictably able to produce the phenomenon in question in a given span of time…

So, there you have it. My ID-only hypothesis is testable and potentially falsifiable while your non-ID hypothesis isn’t. That means my hypothesis is scientific while yours isn’t. It’s quite straight forward.

Oh, but I should believe the hunches of great scientists who have demonstrated their brilliance in so many areas of science…

I know it might come as a shock to you, but even brilliant scientists can be and often are wrong. Even Einstein, who was long thought to be completely untouchable, as taken some serious hits this year. Fundamental components of his theories of relativity may collapse. That’s just the nature of science my friend. It changes as new discoveries are made.

If your theories are not open for the potential to change, for being possibly wrong, you aren’t doing science… regardless of how brilliant you might otherwise be in various fields of science.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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