Disprove Darwin, and Deduct to Design

Disproving Darwin just causes Satan to resort to plan “B”.
Though I must admit, I would be quite curious to see what “plan b” is…

Well, I was arguing in the previous thread that life in fact does not possess high CSI- that while having increased in complexity throughout Earth’s history, life’s general specificity has remained basically constant.

As I pointed out, for something to be specific requires that it match a set of independently given criteria. The only such criteria we can use in the case of life is functionality. We see, then, that modern organisms are no more functional, no better adapted to their environments, than ancient organisms were to theirs. This is because when any one species increases in functionality, the others in its environment do the same in response (or else die out), and the end result it that all these species are as equally well adapted relative to each other as they were before; i.e., they are equally well adapted to their environment as before.

Dembski asserts that CSI is conserved. Instead, I would say that, in considering natural history, only one of the two components is conserved. Specificity is conserved in any closed ecosystem. One species may become better at surviving- more functional, and thus more specific to its environment- but only at the cost of a reduced ability to survive by some or all of the other species in the same environment. The other species will react by improving in functionality themselves, at a cost to the first species. Evolution, when considered at the level of an ecology, is seen to be a self-reinforcing feedback system.

Still, I have a few quibbles with Matthew’s filter. It requires a couple more assumptions than listed:

1. Assume that life has increased in both specificity and complexity (As I argued above, it has not).

2. Assume that necessary and random processes working in concert (i.e., cumulative selection) do not produce qualitatively different results than either working alone.

Using deductive reasoning, and assuming that since life has neither been shown to be the result of a random process (the probability is essentially zero), nor is it necessary (as George pointed out here), we can conclude that design is the only remaining conceived explanation.

Keep in mind, though, that I was referring to the origin of the first life, not the subsequent development of the modern diversity of life. Evolutionary theory states that the modern forms of life are neither necessary nor non-necessary; the exact forms are entirely contingent, but a similar amount of diversity is necessary. Much of the terminology in this filter is too black-and-white.

I think this is “off-topic”, but I have a question….

Does “ID” reject “6 day creationism”?

because it is outside the realm of the data being observed.

Ahhh… One of the hazards of one’s degree being in “Biblical Studues” is that one looks quite ignorant in the discussion of science.
I did some looking around and found that the YEC people,(that I was hoping to align myself with) reject 6 day creationism, and the ID people give it no weight at all it seems. So back to square one for me! I guess I will have to stay in the old “Biblical Creationism” party of fundamental old coots.
Sorry for the off topic question. I’ll go back to reading the thread again.
Though I must admit, I did have a few athiests tell me last night that they had more respect for me sticking to my beliefs, instead of trying to bring science into it. (Well, they actually said “their science”, but that would have sounded rather haughty of me to relay here.)

Perhaps your’re right.

I was trying to say that the athiests I was talking to last night, respected me because I didn’t use “science” (their realm) to prove my point. In other words, thay had more respect for me just having faith, instead of trying to drag science where they thought it had no place. (I think they are anti-ID is the point.)

And I have checked on answers in Genesis, and ICR, but they are only a part of YEC, there are some that reject 6 day, and provide their own hogwash for it. (Besides, everytime I mention YEC in conservative circles, I get the Seventh Day Adventist heretic speech on them starting the movement) I think I just have a problem overall because I understand so little about science, and don’t want to commit to a position unless I understand fully where they stand on fundamental issues.

With the release of The Genesis Flood

That is what caught my attention, was the possiblity that the flood was responsible for the incorrect dating of fossils. What exactly is the difference between YEC and ID?

Is ID “strictly” science, or does it make romm for theology? And doesn’t “evolution” appear to have a space in it for philosophy/theology?

If I can’t asnswer questions, the least I can do is ask…
And the one question I never get an “evolutionist” to answer is… Why is “Earth” the only place where “life” has evolved? Were not all the planets a part of the same “big bang”?

Guy-

And the one question I never get an “evolutionist” to answer is… Why is “Earth” the only place where “life” has evolved? Were not all the planets a part of the same “big bang”?

The Big Bang is completely separate from evolutionary theory, however. Many creationists make the mistake of intertwining the cosmological history of the universe with the biological history of the Earth; they are not the same. Entirely different classes of processes guide each. The ‘evolution’ of the universe is guided solely by necessary processes- for instance, gravity. The evolution of life is guided by natural selection, which as a combination of random and necessary processes is quite unlike any of the other forces acting in the universe.

Basically, the reason the other planets in the solar system don’t have life is that they do not have the correct conditions for it. However, there are likely millions of planets in our galaxy alone, and it is entirely possible that some of them do possess life. It may be improbable that any given planet will have the necessary conditions, but the sheer number of planets allows a much higher probability of life.

That is what caught my attention, was the possiblity that the flood was responsible for the incorrect dating of fossils. What exactly is the difference between YEC and ID?

ID is a superset of YEC. Subsets of ID may include, but are not limited to, YEC, OEC (Old Earth Creationist), theistic evolutionist, panspermist (the belief that intelligent aliens designed life on Earth). Each of these subsets, including YEC, makes all the claims that ID does, but additional claims as well about other branches of knowledge. For example, both ID and YEC state that life on Earth was created by an intelligent designer, but YEC goes on to state that that designer was the Christian God and that the designing happened 6,003 years ago.

Is ID “strictly” science, or does it make romm for theology? And doesn’t “evolution” appear to have a space in it for philosophy/theology?

ID is strictly science (provided one allows that it is actually scientific). It does make room for theology, but then so does most science. Evolution does likewise have space for theology. The difference is that ID lends a bit of credibility to certain specific theological positions that evolution is not philosophically friendly towards.

I can’t imagine an atheist admiring the rejection of science, but I guess I could be wrong. It certainly makes their job harder when a Christian is willing to accept certain scientific research, but not all, based on science alone. Oh well, who knows. Perhaps your’re right.

It isn’t so much that we admire it, as we see it as a slightly more intellectually coherent position. This is usually said when comparing strict Biblical literalists to modernist Christians who cherry-pick those sections of the Bible that they agree with. Modernist Christians claim to obtain their moral code from scripture, yet ignore any bits they don’t like. This implies that their morality is in fact innate, and that they only use the Bible to support the beliefs they independently obtained.

Make no mistake, most of those who claim to be literalists also interpret the Bible according to their own moral code. But there are those few who do act solely according to Biblical direction, and assuming the Bible’s veracity (which all parties do), then the only logical position is strict literalism.

What happened to Matthew? I’d like to see my latest points on CSI addressed.

WoW! I actually understood what George said! I am shocked! Thank You George, that filled in a lot of holes I had. I might have to start hanging around you more often…

Glad to be of service.

Oh, btw, which books did you get? I already recommended The Design Inference for a summation of the whole debate, but for a good understanding of evolution itself (without much in the way of reference to the ID/evolution controversy), try The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins.

Oh, btw, which books did you get?

The Design Inference was $85.00, which was a little too pricey for me. But I went with: “Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design”(Dembski) and “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” (Behe)

I will be honest, and tell you that I actually “fear” Dawkins. I am still somewhat influenced by some of my so-called peers, and many think him to be the “Anti-Christ” himself…. HAHAHA, of course I know that is not true! But I don’t want to go down a road that I am not comfortable with.

I would like a book from an evolution standpoint, but one that is easy for the layperson to read, and not focused on “Hating God”. I read so many reviews on ID books at Amazon, and all the negative reviewers focus on their hate of Christianity, and I don’t want to get into a theological debate on evolution, just the facts laid out to be examined. Call me a “coward” when it comes to Dawkins, but I just can’t bring myself to opening the book.

I hardly think that Dawkins fits the bill for that

So why is the Christian community so “Anti-Dawkins”? As if he were “Public Enemy #1″? That is what intimidates me the most, is the amount of objection to him, and not other authors.

Dawkins is quite anti-religion, but The Selfish Gene doesn’t dwell on that at all. The book doesn’t even focus on creationism- excepting the last chapter, the book is about evolution, nothing more, and Dawkins’ passion for his subject is infectious. His unique gift for analogy and explication allows him to bring across the theory in a way that is at once powerfully insightful and accessible to the lay person.

Alternatively, for an evolutionist POV, you might try The Panda’s Thumb, by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, who while an agnostic was decidedly not anti-religion. Ironically enough, he and Dawkins were at each other’s throats for much of their careers due to differences in their interpretations of the theory. Gould ridiculed Dawkins for his ‘Selfish Gene’ hypothesis (which is now accepted orthodoxy in the community) and Dawkins ridiculed Gould for his hypothesis of ‘punctuated equilibria’ (also now considered orthodox). Both were right about their own pet theories and wrong about the other’s.

For the POV of a Christian evolutionist, try Finding Darwin’s God by the Catholic biologist Ken Miller. He is also a good transcriber of scientific knowledge for the understanding of the layperson, but not, IMO, quite on the level of Dawkins and Gould.

Also, I had meant to say The Design Revolution not Inference. The latter is not aimed so much at the layperson, though a person of reasonable intelligence and education could understand it. The former, on the other hand, certainly is aimed at a broad audience, but does a nice job of summing up the arguments on both sides. Note, however, that much of it should be taken with a grain of salt- but I would say the same of Dawkins and Gould.

George,

“”" Assume that necessary and random processes working in concert (i.e., cumulative selection) do not produce qualitatively different results than either working alone.”"”

This is indeed the holy grail of Darwinism. I actually think that the “design” process itself may constitute a form of a “selected inquiry” (random search + objective selection) - something that would present a very interesting basis on which to have artificial intelligence-generated “designed” systems.

The question is, of course, whether such a mechanism actually exists in nature as well. For the time being I believe it has been all too clearly demonstrated that randomization of the data occurs to rapidly and too heavily for such a mechanism to keep up - and it is the lack of such over-randomization that allows “intelligent” beings like humans to utilize the process.

I haven’t formalized my ideas on random search design yet, so I’m not prepared to claim that they actually represent a valid source of high-CSI systems yet.

Keep up the interesting conversation!

-Matthew