Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

British science culture (and science) festival features some people we know

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A friend draws our attention to a current festival in Britain, “How the light gets in,” with presenters in the sci tech area such as:

Steve Fuller, one of the few philosophers of science who has tried to write seriously about the ID community (Dissent over Descent)

Massimo Pigliucci (one of the Altenberg 16, back when challenging Darwinism wasn’t normal) “This morning, Massimo Pigliucci poses the radical question: does science need evidence?”*

Rupert Sheldrake, who challenged Darwinism back in the late 1960s, when it was the sign of a sick mind.

Denis Noble, who, many say, is the point man behind the rethinking evolution project (here).

See how many others you spot.

* An attempted non-radical answer: Not if science doesn’t need funding.

See also: Royal Society to announce guest list for “rethink evolution” meeting – at last

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See also: Darwin’s boys try enforcing against the Royal Society If one doesn’t deal honestly with the information most people actually already know, it’s one’s own rep that is on the line. That goes for the Royal Society as much anyone else.

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Comments
,,when Agent causality, i.e. God, is rightly let back into the picture of physics, then a empirically backed unification between Quantum Theory and Relativity readily pops out for us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death:
Special and General Relativity compared to Heavenly and Hellish Near Death Experiences - video (reworked May 2016 – following two videos referenced in it) https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/1193118270701104/ (Entropic Concerns) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead is the correct solution for the "Theory of Everything" - video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/1121720701174195/?pnref=story Albert Einstein vs. "The Now" of Philosophers and Quantum Mechanics – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1129789497033982/?type=2&theater (Centrality Concerns) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death as the “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1143437869002478/?type=2&theater Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram - video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/1119619634717635/?pnref=story
Verses and Music
Philippians 2: 6-9 Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and upon earth." Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Hillsong- Lord of Lords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlqDIfS4O3s
bornagain77
May 29, 2016
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News, although all the people you have mentioned have said things that are worth reflecting on, I would like to focus in on one thing that Professor Steve Fuller said. Steve William Fuller, who is a philosopher in the field of science and technology studies, puts the hidden, but blatant, Theistic presupposition that scientists, who are trying to find a ‘theory of everything’, have like this:
"So you think of physics in search of a “Grand Unified Theory of Everything”, Why should we even think there is such a thing? Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution? Right? It is part, it is a consequence of believing in some kind of design. Right? And there is some sense in which that however multifarious and diverse the phenomena of nature are, they are ultimately unified by the minimal set of laws and principles possible. In so far as science continues to operate with that assumption, there is a presupposition of design that is motivating the scientific process. Because it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropriate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.”,,, You see, there is a sense in which there is design at the ultimate level, the ultimate teleology you might say, which provides the ultimate closure,,” Steve Fuller – Professor of philosophy Steve Fuller discusses intelligent design in Cambridge – Video – quoted at the 17:34 minute mark https://uncommondescent.com/news/in-cambridge-professor-steve-fuller-discusses-why-the-hypothesis-of-intelligent-design-is-not-more-popular-among-scientists-and-others/
And indeed professor Steve Fuller is completely correct to say,,,,
“it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropriate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.”
The reason professor Steve Fuller is completely correct to say what he said is because there are an infinite number of true mathematical theorems that exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms. In other words, the belief that there should be a unification between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, (i.e. a mathematical theory of everything), does not follow from the math, but is a belief that is born out of Theistic presuppositions.
Cantor, Gödel, & Turing: Incompleteness of Mathematics - video (excerpted from BBC's 'Dangerous Knowledge' documentary) https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1119397401406525/?type=2&theater The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: Unlike Gödel’s approach, mine is based on measuring information and showing that some mathematical facts cannot be compressed into a theory because they are too complicated. This new approach suggests that what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms. http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/sciamer3.pdf
Though not directly addressing Godel’s incompleteness, none-the-less, Steven Weinberg, an atheist who had a hand in formulating the ‘standard model’ in the 1960’s, basically agrees with Steve Fuller’s assessment that mathematical descriptions should be limited in their explanatory scope. He puts 'the fix' that atheists are in like this:
“I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that. The fact that the constants of nature are suitable for life, which is clearly true, we observe,,,” (Weinberg then comments on the multiverse conjecture of atheists) “No one has constructed a theory in which that is true. I mean,, the (multiverse) theory would be speculative, but we don’t even have a theory in which that speculation is mathematically realized. But it is a possibility.” Steven Weinberg – as stated to Richard Dawkins at the 8:15 minute mark of the following video Leonard Susskind – Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg – 1 in 10^120 Cosmological Constant points to intelligent design – video https://youtu.be/z4E_bT4ecgk?t=495
Even Hawking himself agreed that Godel’s incompleteness proves that there will never truly be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’:
“Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel (ref. on cite), halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”. Thus, based on the position that an equation cannot prove itself, the constructs are based on assumptions some of which will be unprovable.” Cf., Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010) @ 15-6 https://books.google.com/books?id=7MzOBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA536#v=onepage&q&f=false
As to Weinberg’s question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’, Bruce Gordon answers that question rather bluntly, but clearly, here:
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the “Boltzmann Brain” problem: In the most “reasonable” models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science. Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
And when the Agent causality of Theists is rightly let ‘back’ into the picture of physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, (instead of the self refuting ‘blind’ causality of atheists),
Agent Causality (of Theists) vs. Blind Causality (of Atheists) – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1118356054843993/?type=2&theater
bornagain77
May 29, 2016
May
05
May
29
29
2016
06:03 AM
6
06
03
AM
PDT

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