Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Science “Proves” Nothing

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When someone says “the science is settled” one of two things is true:  (1) they know better and are lying; or (2) they are deeply ignorant about the philosophy of science.  Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney writes:

. . . science is like an ongoing courtroom drama, with a continual stream of evidence being presented to the jury.  But there is no single suspect and new suspects regularly wheeled in.  In light of the growing evidence, the jury is constantly updating its view of who is responsible for the data.

But no verdict of absolute guilt or innocence is ever returned, as evidence is continually gathered and more suspects are paraded in front of the court.  All the jury can do is decide that one suspect is more guilty than another.

In the mathematical sense, despite all the years of researching the way the universe works, science has proved nothing.  Every theoretical model is a good description of the universe around us, at least within some range of scales that it is useful.

But exploring into new territories reveals deficiencies that lower our belief in whether a particular description continues to accurately represent our experiments, while our belief in alternatives can grown.

Will we ultimately know the truth and hold the laws that truly govern the workings of the cosmos within our hands?

While our degree of belief in some mathematical models may get stronger and stronger, without an infinite amount of testing, how can we ever be sure they are reality?

I think it is best to leave the last word to one of the greatest physicists, Richard Feynman, on what being a scientist is all about:

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything.

Or perhaps you prefer Popper:

Science does not rest on solid bedrock.  The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp.  It is like a building erected on piles.  The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or ‘given’ base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground.  We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, (New York, Routledge Classics, 1959, reprint of first English edition, 2002), 94.

Comments
HeKS, I want to thank you for continuing the conversation in my absence. I have become busy elsewhere and have not been able to follow along. Between the two threads I have been active on, I thought that I might try once more to engage Guillermo at the granular level regarding ID issues and claims. But I can see that it is likely a useless exercise at this point, even though I am sure he is intelligent enough to understand the issues if he could just control himself long enough to hear something besides his next calamitous reply. - - - - - - - - - - Guillermo, You referred to HeKS in some rather disparaging remarks on these threads today (“truly dumb” or some such). I'm sure you feel justified in this because of the obviously cool response you’ve run into here, but you just have to man up - you have repeatedly demonstrated not only a dreadful level of reading comprehension, but also truly incoherent reasoning skills. This is not even to mention the glaring fact that you haven’t a damn clue what you are talking about. This last point is rather easy to pick out. In any case, if you think HeKS rightfully deserves your scorn, then there is certainly no reason for me continue. p.s. Next time, you should probably attempt to make yourself not look so obvious. Try responding to what people actually say. Try listening to your conversation partner. Give that a try.Upright BiPed
October 6, 2014
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@G'moe #205
“It’s a simple fact that no natural process that has been proposed to date has been demonstrated to be causally adequate to produce the effects in question.” And what PROCESS has been demonstrated to do that? Can you describe that process, HeKS?
What process has been demonstrated to be capable of bringing about the effect of a complex arrangement of well-matched parts that are configured in such a way as to achieve a particular function? Simple, the process of an intelligent mind applying itself to the achieving of some functionally specified future goal or target. The same goes for, as Upright Biped puts it, "a semiotic system using representations with a dimensional orientation" as we find in the case of protein synthesis. Your problem is that you do not understand that there are different kinds of causal explanations. An explanation by reference to agent causation is a different type of explanation than a mechanistic explanation. See my latest comment to you in the other thread.
Man, you are really dumb..
Coming from you I'll take that as the highest form of praise.
“Thus, Upright Biped’s statement remains true” No, because: 1) the cause has not really been stated. What’s exactly the cause you are talking about?
Intelligent agency. If you don't get that then you don't understand the nature of causal explanations or the different forms they can take. See my comment to you in the other thread.
2) it has not been demonstrated that cause actually produces any features of life. Do you remember taking about “design INFERENCE” and “the MOST PLAUSIBLE explanation”?
An inference is not a demonstration. It's not supposed to be. A design inference is an inference to the best candidate for the source cause of the existence of certain things. Intelligence is inferred as the best cause for features found in living things because intelligence has been demonstrated to be capable of producing the defining characteristics of those features in other things (including in actual molecular machines), while no natural process has ever been demonstrated to be capable of producing those defining characteristics in anything. Hence, design is the best explanation for the existence of those things according to our uniform and repeated experience up to this point in history.
3) it has not even been demonstrated that cause exists at all.
Intelligence exists. You seem to be operating under the obviously false impression that the existence of a particular type of cause (like a non-human intelligence) can't reasonably be inferred on the basis of effects that would seem to make its existence necessary. In this you would simply be mistaken.
So, no. It has not been demonstrated there is something as “the intelligent cause of life”. It has not been demonstrated it existed. It has not been demonstrated it produced life. It has not been demonstrated it the only explanation.
Stop confusing what is claimed to have been demonstrated with what has been said to be inferred. Your comments are like a machine gun firing wildly at everything except the actual target.HeKS
October 6, 2014
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@G'moe #203
“And why am I intellectually dishonest?” Because you dismiss a question when you can’t answer as being not relevant, instead of ackowledging you can’t answer it.
You are living in a fantasy world. You didn't originally even ask that question to me when you claimed I was intellectually dishonest for dismissing it while being unable to answer why it wasn't relevant. You asked that question to Upright Biped and I had not directly addressed it one way or the other when you made your accusation. I had only commented to Upright Biped that we both seemed to come to the conclusion that we were likely wasting our time trying to have a discussion with you ... which is a conclusion that you make me more and more certain of every time you post a comment. When you actually directed the question to me I answered it, or rather I explained why it was irrelevant and nonsensical.
“The problem is that you’re engaging in debate over issues you don’t seem to understand” And you seem to be unable to clarify them. I know I don’t understand ID. That’s why I am asking questions. Someone who did understand ID WOULD ANSWER those questions.
Your questions are almost uniformly nonsensical and irrelevant and you either misunderstand or intentionally distort the answers.
“How is that another question?” Question 1: Can you prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain a certain natural feature? Choose the feature you want. Question 2: Explain why question 1 is not relevant in the context of ID Get it, now?
I see. So what appeared to be one compound question ("Can you explain why the Question X is irrelvant? Here is Question X") was to be taken as two questions requiring separate answers.
“the question that you seem to think is a brilliant argument. But if you really want to know what’s wrong with it, there are several things.” I know. That’s way Upright BiPed’s comment of “the cause I posit is the only cause that is actually DEMONSTRATED as being capable of what must be accomplished” (when what must be accomplished is some features of living organisms). To demonstrate that, you should demonstrate that these things to be accomplished cannot be achieved by any natural mechanistic process. And trying to demonstrate that has all this problems you list. Thanks for helping me show that.
LOL. You have a real genius for twisting reality. So, you claim that you knew your question had multiple problems with it, not the least of which was that it was completely irrelevant, and yet you thought that it still somehow demanded either an answer or an explanation for why it wasn't relevant? And you further thought that a question that was irrelevant to the issue under consideration could somehow make a point about that issue? In any case, you've twisted Upright Biped's claim to be something other than it was, which he has now corrected you on. Undoubtedly you will find some way to twist it further to avoid the obvious fact that his claim, as he actually made it, is accurate.
“It is completely irrelevant because it entirely misunderstands the nature of a design inference, which, being the result of an abductive argument, is always held tentatively” Remember that, Upright BiPed.
No, you remember that, Guillermoe. There was nothing irrelevant or misinformed about UB's statement, nor was there anything that contravened proper abductive argumentation.HeKS
October 6, 2014
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Guillermo, if you are going to argue my words, would you mind using my words, not your reformulation of them. Here us the text:
G: Can you name a biological structure that is dimensional semiosis? UB: Protein Synthesis. G: Can you explain how ID produce that structure in nature? UB: We needn’t play games. Neither of us has an instruction list for the origin of life. The distinction between us is that the cause I posit is the only cause that is actually demonstrated as being capable of what must be accomplished [a semiotic system using representations with a dimensional orientation]. To achieve the translation of nucleic codons into amino acids requires very specific physical conditions that are unique throughout nature – they are found nowhere else in the physical world except in the recording and translation of language and mathematics. What is a more viable scenario: that a cause known to be capable of language and mathematics is the likely source of the origin of life - or - that the physical capacity of language and mathematics arose in a pre-biotic environment without any of the organization afforded to it by informational constraint, and when it arose, the details of its construction were fortunately encoded in the very information that it made possible?
Upright BiPed
October 6, 2014
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G'moe:
For example, the soil is a complex arrangement of a great number of parts: organic compunds of different kinds, lots of species of microorganisms, invertebrates, inorganic compounds.
And materialism cannot account for any of it.Joe
October 6, 2014
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Earth to Guillermoe, neither of those links demonstrate that IC can evolve via natural selection and/ or drift. You are either very gullible, very dishonest or very stupid.Joe
October 6, 2014
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HeKS: "It’s a simple fact that no natural process that has been proposed to date has been demonstrated to be causally adequate to produce the effects in question." And what PROCESS has been demonstrated to do that? Can you describe that process, HeKS? Man, you are really dumb.. "Thus, Upright Biped’s statement remains true" No, because: 1) the cause has not really been stated. What's exactly the cause you are talking about? 2) it has not been demonstrated that cause actually produces any features of life. Do you remember taking about "design INFERENCE" and "the MOST PLAUSIBLE explanation"? 3) it has not even been demonstrated that cause exists at all. So, no. It has not been demonstrated there is something as "the intelligent cause of life". It has not been demonstrated it existed. It has not been demonstrated it produced life. It has not been demonstrated it the only explanation.Guillermoe
October 6, 2014
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Joe: "We can detect design by the number of parts and the intricacy of the object/ structure/ eveny in question" For example, the soil is a complex arrangement of a great number of parts: organic compunds of different kinds, lots of species of microorganisms, invertebrates, inorganic compounds. We should conclude it's designed, then? "No, irreducibly complex systems have been shown to be possible result of gradual random change. That is nonsense and you cannot present that evidence." Oh, yes, I can. http://www.nature.com/news/prehistoric-proteins-raising-the-dead-1.10261 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7381/full/nature10724.htmlGuillermoe
October 6, 2014
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HeKS "And why am I intellectually dishonest?" Because you dismiss a question when you can't answer as being not relevant, instead of ackowledging you can't answer it. "The problem is that you’re engaging in debate over issues you don’t seem to understand" And you seem to be unable to clarify them. I know I don't understand ID. That's why I am asking questions. Someone who did understand ID WOULD ANSWER those questions. "How is that another question?" Question 1: Can you prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain a certain natural feature? Choose the feature you want. Question 2: Explain why question 1 is not relevant in the context of ID Get it, now? "the question that you seem to think is a brilliant argument. But if you really want to know what’s wrong with it, there are several things." I know. That's way Upright BiPed's comment of "the cause I posit is the only cause that is actually DEMONSTRATED as being capable of what must be accomplished" (when what must be accomplished is some features of living organisms). To demonstrate that, you should demonstrate that these things to be accomplished cannot be achieved by any natural mechanistic process. And trying to demonstrate that has all this problems you list. Thanks for helping me show that. "It is completely irrelevant because it entirely misunderstands the nature of a design inference, which, being the result of an abductive argument, is always held tentatively" Remember that, Upright BiPed.Guillermoe
October 6, 2014
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RB:
If the shape of the earth is in fact “apprehended directly through our senses,” as Barry stated, why was that shape never directly apprehended prior to Aristotle?
It was.Joe
October 5, 2014
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HeKS:
(and it’s actually not clear that those terms don’t explicitly include logical deductions)
Of course, if it were explicit, it would be clear. In any event, the question is answered here:
What [Barry] did say is that notions such as “the earth is round” and “the earth orbits the sun” are immediate facts “we apprehend though our senses,"
Logical deductions are not attained by apprehending them through our senses. They are attained through logical deduction! Moreover, logical operations alone don’t tell us anything true about the world. They must have premises that tie them to the wold, and yield necessarily true conclusions only if the premises are true. Which brings us back to the “facts on the ground” that CAN be observed, and that DO belong in Barry’s category 1.
In any case, my position is simply that logically necessary deductions fall into the category that includes evidence, data and observations.
Then you are defining your base epistemological category differently than does Barry. Barry defined it in terms of facts “apprehended through the senses.”
I can’t quite tell if you mean that we agree or that you don’t understand the run-on sentence or what I meant by it.
The latter! I think what you wanted to say was “If you want to say that conclusions drawn as logically necessary deductions from direct observations do not qualify as being evidence or data that itself does NOT need to be accounted for by a theory then we will simply have to part ways on the point.” Given that, you are applying a somewhat different definition to your base category than did Barry.
People can bet their lives on mistakes and do all the time. The very language of betting one’s life illustrates the lack of certainty involved.
I think you miss the point of my reference to “betting one’s life.” Barry stated, “Category 1 knowledge…can be known with practical certainty.” He also refers to “reasonable” certainty (both of which I found to be hedges relative to his initial statements). As he does not say “absolute” certainty, I take it that he believes that we can be mistaken about things we “know” with practical, reasonable certainty. The question then is how confident one needs to be in a conclusion before it can be said that we hold it with “practical, reasonable” certainty. Suppose you and I are standing on the banks of a large frozen lake. A plunge through the ice at the center of the lake would certainly be fatal. I propose we walk across. You ask, “are you certain that the ice is thick enough to walk on?” I respond “yes, I’m certain,” and venture onto the ice. Clearly, there is a sense in which my action provides an operational definition of "practical" certainty, because my certainty informs my practice. If you can think of a practical metric for “sufficiently (practically, reasonably) certain” that is better than “sufficient to guide life-or-death practice,” I’d like to hear it. RB:
So here we have observational and predictive confirmation of a theory progressing to the point that the model could be judged as certainly correct in any “practical” or “reasonable” sense of certainty.
HeKS
This wrongly equates a theory’s high degree of predictive success with a correct and true synthesis of the relevant aspects of reality.
As my statement refers to Yuri Gargarin witnessing a round earth from space as he orbited same, I’d say the theory had been shown to be correct with “practical, reasonable” certainty, free of ad hoc epicycles.
Something cannot be both a theory and a fact in the same sense at the same time unless one is equivocating on the meaning of one or both of those terms. Observations are not theories (unless what one means by “theory” in this case is, “I have a theory that the external world exists and that I’m perceiving it”). Once something has been confirmed to be true by direct observation, the notion that it is true ceases to be a theory and becomes an observational fact. It may have previously been only a theory, and probably a well-supported one, but it would not be a theory anymore. Speculative theories cannot simply confirm themselves and become facts simply because they model, or even predict, the data well.
Theories that have progressed to become facts (for all reasonable, practical purposes) are not both theories and facts “in the same sense.” They are both fact and theory in the original, differing senses of these terms: “theories” in the sense that they synthesize and explain large bodies of observations and “facts” in the sense that we have become “practically, reasonably” certain of the fundamental correctness of that synthesis. With regard to “Observations are not theories,” let’s clarify by substituting “facts are not theories.” My response is simply while it is certainly true that the vast majority of facts are not theories, some theories are so well confirmed that we regard them as facts. From one of your earlier posts:
What I object to are claims that speculative theories involving numerous unconfirmed hypotheses and facing large amounts of contrary evidence are somehow entitled to the same epistemological status as direct observations, logically necessary deductions, and the raw data and evidence that those theories attempt to account for.
What I detect in the phrase “speculative theories” is another instance of the conflation of the colloquial sense of “theory” as a “speculative guess,” a colloquial understanding that puts “speculation,” “hypothesis,” “theory” and “fact” on a continuum of certainty, with the scientific sense of the term “theory,” which refers to a conceptual system that encompasses and explains facts and observations. There is no necessary continuum of certainty, as some theories are so successful at unifying such large bodies of facts and observations that, again for all practical, reasonable purposes, their correctness is as certain as is reasonably, practically possible. In this connection with this, the replacement of the classical description of space with that derived from relativity is often adduced as an example of a well-accepted theory being subject to refinement/replacement. That is certainly correct. But what is often missed in such discussions is the notion that upon attaining that revision/replacement, what we previously took to be hard and fast observational “facts” also change. As an example, before relativity we took it to be a “fact” that objects, governed by inertia, travel in straight lines unless forces are applied to modify that trajectory; after relativity we know that they are following geodesics in curved space. This illustrates the notion that what we take to be “raw facts” are often less “theory free” than we originally, naively, take them to be, and that knowledge often flows top-down from theory to fact rather than always bottom-up from fact to theory, as y’all seem to believe.Reciprocating Bill
October 5, 2014
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@Mung #195 Yes, his full quote only further demonstrates the massive flaw in his overall reasoning and approach.
I do think it’s a stupid question… It’s following a stupid claim, so it could not be otherwise.
And what was the stupid claim that this question followed? It was Upright Biped's claim that intelligence is the only cause that has been actually demonstrated to be capable of bringing about the effects that trigger a design inference. And to this Guillermoe responds:
Plus, ” the only cause that is actually demonstrated as being capable of what must be accomplished” is false. Prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain any natural feature you choose.
This is an obviously stupid question. It's a simple fact that no natural process that has been proposed to date has been demonstrated to be causally adequate to produce the effects in question. And even in the highly unlikely event that there exists some utterly unknown natural process out there that is up to the task, the very fact that it is unknown means it can't possibly have been demonstrated to be causally adequate. Thus, Upright Biped's statement remains true, not false as G'moe claimed and certainly not stupid. So what is G'moe's excuse for the silly question? We can just add this problem with the question to the other five I highlighted and the one that KF mentioned. This is basic, basic stuff. And even though G'moe said to you that he agrees the question is stupid, when Upright Biped first replied to it by saying, "This would be humorous if you weren’t serious," G'moe responded by saying:
And if you could answer it, some of your claims would be more that arbitrary claims.
In fact, G'moe claimed multiple times that this question is one that we "CAN'T ANSWER". And apparently we are intellectually dishonest if we don't take the time to answer obviously stupid questions or explain at length why they are stupid. Of course, now we have explained exactly why the question is obviously stupid, so perhaps we have regained our intellectual honesty. Or maybe it was just me who was at risk of having lost it in the first place. Who knows?HeKS
October 4, 2014
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@Reciprocating Bill #144
HeKS
Barry may not have said so explicitly, but I indicated in a comment…
I’ve responded to what Barry did explicitly say.
Did you miss the part where I said the following bit in bold?
Barry may not have said so explicitly, but I indicated in a comment shortly after his post that such things do fall within the first category as evidence/data (and it’s actually not clear that those terms don’t explicitly include logical deductions)
You continued...
What he did say is that notions such as “the earth is round” and “the earth orbits the sun” are immediate facts “we apprehend though our senses,” like watching apples fall (and like your weirdly dangling hands), observations that are theory free. I disagree.
There is some imprecision of language in saying those things if, for example, saying that we apprehend the earth is round through our senses means we apprehend it it is round by looking at it in its entirety (i.e. from a distance) and observe that it is round, which is obviously true now but wasn't at the start of the 20th century. However, it's not obviously inaccurate if what is meant is simply that we apprehend certain aspects of the earth through our senses, which, when combined with other facts we apprehend through our senses, make it logically necessary that the earth is round (a sphere), such that the conclusion does not rely on unconfirmed premises involving a network of unconfirmed hypotheses. In any case, my position is simply that logically necessary deductions fall into the category that includes evidence, data and observations. For me, this is simply an issue of relative epistemological status and what I object to are claims that speculative theories involving numerous unconfirmed hypotheses and facing large amounts of contrary evidence are somehow entitled to the same epistemological status as direct observations, logically necessary deductions, and the raw data and evidence that those theories attempt to account for. But just to be clear, I'm not saying you've tried to make these claims of equivalence in epistemological status. If you have, I don't think I've come across them ... except that this almost seems like what you were trying to do later in comment 144.
Of course, if you want to say that the ability to draw some conclusion as a logically necessary deduction from direct observations or other raw data does not qualify the conclusion as being evidence or data that itself needs to be accounted for by a theory then we will simply have to part ways on the point.
I wouldn’t want to say that because it make no sense.
I can't quite tell if you mean that we agree or that you don't understand the run-on sentence or what I meant by it :)
And, having said all that, I feel the need to point out that the reference to not having any doubt that the earth is round instead of flat was originally applied to the present day, after it has already been confirmed by direct observation.
I touched on this in a previous post: Of course, observational confirmation of that that model progressed to the point that some of us, since 1961, have directly observed the sphericity of the earth, observations that became possible in part due to the very success of the model, in conjunction with other successful models (e.g. of gravitation, orbital mechanics, etc.) These models had attained the clearest demonstration of “practical” and “reasonable” certainty of all: people bet their lives on them.
People can bet their lives on mistakes and do all the time. The very language of betting one's life illustrates the lack of certainty involved.
So here we have observational and predictive confirmation of a theory progressing to the point that the model could be judged as certainly correct in any “practical” or “reasonable” sense of certainty
This wrongly equates a theory's high degree of predictive success with a correct and true synthesis of the relevant aspects of reality. A theory can be highly successful at accounting for our observations, and even predicting them, and still be wrong. This is especially true when a large part of the reason that the theory can account for the observable data is because it has added numerous ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses to account for results that were in principle unexpected under the original theory. And it's even more true when the auxiliary hypotheses are added in order to allow the theory to continue to conform to and support philosophical presuppositions. This was the case for the Ptolemaic geocentric model and its addition of epicycles to keep it compatible with Aristotelian philosophy. It's also true of another theory that gets discussed around here a lot.
– in the process of which your categorical distinction dissolved completely as the core insights of the model progressed to become both theory and fact.
Something cannot be both a theory and a fact in the same sense at the same time unless one is equivocating on the meaning of one or both of those terms. Observations are not theories (unless what one means by "theory" in this case is, "I have a theory that the external world exists and that I'm perceiving it"). Once something has been confirmed to be true by direct observation, the notion that it is true ceases to be a theory and becomes an observational fact. It may have previously been only a theory, and probably a well-supported one, but it would not be a theory anymore. Speculative theories cannot simply confirm themselves and become facts simply because they model, or even predict, the data well.HeKS
October 4, 2014
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F/N: Am I the only one utterly astonished by the turn of events in the debates over design theory in recent days and weeks here at UD, including refusing to accept that there is a radical difference between an analysis of the logic of Cartesian-type XY-planes and XYZ spaces, and models as simplifications of systems that may be useful? And other scorched-earth retreat talking points in current or recent use? KFkairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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PS: The scale of the earth is large enough that it seems locally flat. Until one realises that the earth's shadow is being cast on and moving across the Moon in a lunar eclipse, one may not make the connexion between the casting of your shadow on the ground by the Sun, and the casting of Earth's shadow on the Moon> Once that is realised, all that is needed beyond is to understand that only a sphere always casts a round shadow directly behind it. BTW, it was the same not-connecting that allowed millions including thousands of the highly educated, not to connect an apple or mango dropping from a tree on Earth to the Moon undergoing centripetal acceleration in orbit around Earth. Once that was done and numbers were put in tracing to understanding the logic of space -- Geometry -- Newton's theory of Gravitation emerged. Its inverse square character is directly connected to the geometry of a flux passing through ever larger spherical shells.kairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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RB: There you go again. KFkairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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HeKS:
So that’s 5 blatant problems with your question/argument. Does anyone else have anything to add? Have I missed anything?
Guillermoe: "Can you prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain a certain natural feature?" Mung: "What a stupid question." Guillermoe: "I do think it’s a stupid question...it could not be otherwise."Mung
October 4, 2014
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KF:
It is now apparent that you refuse to acknowledge the difference between the logic of space addressed by Geometry and a model framework that is a simplification of reality and so is necessarily false though often useful.
No, the problem is that you are unable to grasp that axiomatic systems such as geometry and mathematics can be put to use building conceptual models. The current instance requires simplifications and assumptions that enable the application of the abstractions of geometry to a specific, very physical case. For example, modeling the earth as a geometric sphere omits every other fact about the earth except spherical shape. That's a simplification. Similar is the assumption, ultimately false, that light travels in the straight lines of Euclidian geometry. The very hallmarks you identify make it clear that Aristotle employed a model. The model was plenty good, nonetheless.
You will understand why we find it necessary to protect our children.
Once you have assumed your heroic stance, why not respond to this: If the shape of the earth is in fact “apprehended directly through our senses,” as Barry stated, why was that shape never directly apprehended prior to Aristotle? Was his the gift of superior eyesight?Reciprocating Bill
October 4, 2014
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G'moe:
You said you detect DESIGN. Designing is to plan and make decisions about (something that is being built or created). To detect design you MUST detect those plans and decisions. Basically, that’s detecting purpose.
We can detect design by the number of parts and the intricacy of the object/ structure/ eveny in question
No, irreducibly complex systems have been shown to be possible result of gradual random change.
That is nonsense and you cannot present that evidence.Joe
October 4, 2014
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HeKS, Nice summary, but I fear that it simply won't matter. He has way too much invested his faulty questions to give up on them now.Upright BiPed
October 4, 2014
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F/N: Collins English Dict: MODEL . . . 9. (Logic) a simplified representation or description of a system or complex entity, esp one designed to facilitate calculations and predictions. Just to underscore the point, KF PS: One crucial distinction between a theory and a model as applicable to this discussion, is that a theory properly speaking seeks to be possibly true, not just empirically relevant in a certain range of validity. So, for instance strictly, between 1880 and 1930 Newtonian Dynamics was demoted to a useful limited model for the physical behaviour of large slow moving bodies. For, it has been definitively shown not to be of universal applicability.kairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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RB: It is now apparent that you refuse to acknowledge the difference between the logic of space addressed by Geometry and a model framework that is a simplification of reality and so is necessarily false though often useful. If you expand "model" to mean everything, you empty it of meaning. Worse, if you do so in one step, the better to pull in under that umbrella the notion that there is equivalence in warrant between observations of the actual here-now world and the imaginative a priori evolutionary materialism controlled lab coat clad origins narrative presented to defenseless school children as though it were practically certain fact, that becomes blatantly manipulative. I suggest to you that you take time to think afresh. In the meanwhile we will take due note on what you and your ilk would do if given unfettered unsupervised access to our children under false colours of education in "Science." You will understand why we find it necessary to protect our children. KFkairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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HeKS, it is also a case of selective hyperskepticism, as it taxes design theory specifically as though it were the case that other inductive arguments do not face very similar limitations. Where, for much of the knowledge we are interested in, we must be content to provide reasonable and currently adequate support rather than demonstrative proof beyond all correction. And in fact, post Godel, not even Mathematics rests on certain, complete, known true and coherent axioms that entail all that is knowable in a field of thought. Deductive arguments in the real world are also incapable of proofs beyond all possibility of correction that also give relevant real world answers on complex topics. With school arithmetic axiomatised as the yardstick. KF PS: SB has sometimes pointed out that a factor here is, that as objectors tend to take sci for granted, they discover limitations of inductive warrant in the context of determined objectionism and so think the problems are specific to ID. They then proceed to attack, and often will not then acknowledge correction, locking in selective hyperskepticism. PPS: I find it highly instructive that there is a general refusal to engage the config space search challenge in light of available atomic resources and chem interaction rates, which leads to inability to sample more than a very small fraction of configs for 500 - 1,000+ bits of info capacity; leading to the strong stochastic expectation of reflecting the vast bulk not isolated islands of specific function. Where that isolation and rarity of FSCO/I in config spaces is driven by the requirement of a large number of well-matched, correctly arranged and coupled parts to achieve relevant function . . . cell based life rooted in encapsulation, smart gating, metabolism, code based self replication on a kinematic von Neumann self-replicator, complex body plan development on integrated tissues, organs and systems. Blind chance sampling is the alternative to intelligent direction to account for high contingency, where mechanical necessity in the end does not account for such. Front loading cosmic physics and chemistry or genomes etc so we have programmed complex outcomes, simply displaces the contingency up a level or two.kairosfocus
October 4, 2014
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@G'moe #180
HeKS: You are very dishonest intellectually and I’ll show it to you. I asked you a fair question. I HAVE JUSTIFIED WHY IT IS A FAIR QUESTION. You dismissed without giving reasons, just using irony to insult me. You know what they say, “irony is the strength of the cowards”.
Interesting. In at least 15 years of discussion and debate on theological and scientific issues with both laypersons (like myself) and academics, this is the first time anyone has ever accused me of being intellectually dishonest. And why am I intellectually dishonest? Because after taking the time to point out to you the widespread errors in your reasoning, which you simply ignored or responded to with different errors, I did not also take the time to explain to you why your question directed to someone else was silly.
If you really had a reason to dismiss the question (apart from not being able to answer it and to accept the implications of that) you would have given your reason. You haven’t, you simply treat me like it is a foolish question.
The problem is that you're engaging in debate over issues you don't seem to understand, you're accusing people of fallacies you don't comprehend, and you ask inane questions that you think are powerful arguments without realizing the obvious problems with them or that they are irrelevant, then you stamp your feet and make accusations when people recognize the level of error in your arguments and are surprised you don't see it for yourself.
It might be a foolish question. But you are not smarter that me if you can tell why it is a foolish question. So now, I’ll add ANOTHER FOOLISH question that you CAN’T ANSWER. Explain why the next question is not relevant in the context of ID: Can you prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain a certain natural feature? Choose the feature you want. And I insist that you answer the question itself. Anyone else is invited to try.
How is that another question? That's the same question that Upright Biped was saying was silly ... the question that you seem to think is a brilliant argument. But if you really want to know what's wrong with it, there are several things. 1) Your question is asking if we can prove a universal negative that is not logically contradictory and which would be functionally impossible to investigate, since the universal set includes unknown entities (i.e. unknown natural mechanisms). So no, of course we can't prove this. By its very nature it is incapable of being proved. 2) Your question seeks to create an unfalsifiable and permanent materialism-of-the-gaps argument. It makes all contrary evidence irrelevant, because no matter what the evidence indicates, or how strongly, this materialism-of-the-gaps position can always invoke some unknown material mechanism to explain anything. 3) Combined with an a priori commitment to materialism, it advocates an actual argument from ignorance: It has not been proved that there is not an unknown material process capable of explaining this effect, therefore it is still appropriate to conclude that there is some unknown material process capable of explaining this effect. 4) It indicates that our science should be utterly dictated by a completely blind philosophical commitment to materialism, which must be absolute, and that it is never appropriate to make statements based on our best knowledge and evidence at any given time if those statements don't support materialism. 5) It is completely irrelevant because it entirely misunderstands the nature of a design inference, which, being the result of an abductive argument, is always held tentatively. That means that if some new, previously unknown natural mechanism is discovered in the future that is causally adequate to explain the effects that triggered the design inference, the design inference would be considered falsified at that time and the natural mechanism would then be adopted as the best explanation. That, however, does not change the fact that design is by far the best causal explanation for certain features of nature right now based on the evidence we have available to us in the present. So that's 5 blatant problems with your question/argument. Does anyone else have anything to add? Have I missed anything?HeKS
October 3, 2014
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The same cannot be said for Darwinism and the naturalism it embodies as a framework for science. Suppose I were a super-genius molecular biologist, and I invented some hitherto unknown molecular machine, far more complicated and marvelous than the bacterial flagellum. Suppose further I inserted this machine into a bacterium, set this genetically modified organism free, allowed it to reproduce in the wild, and destroyed all evidence of my having created the molecular machine. Suppose, for instance, the machine is a stinger that injects other bacteria and explodes them by rapidly pumping them up with some gas (I'm not familiar with any such molecular machine in the wild), thereby allowing the bacteria endowed with my invention to consume their unfortunate prey. Now let's ask the question, If a Darwinist came upon this bacterium with the novel molecular machine in the wild, would that machine be attributed to design or to natural selection? When I presented this example to David Sloan Wilson at a conference at MIT two years ago, he shrugged it off and remarked that natural selection created us and so by extension also created my novel molecular machine. But of course this argument won't wash since the issue is whether natural selection could indeed create us. - Dembski
Heartlander
October 3, 2014
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2001: A Space OdysseyHeartlander
October 3, 2014
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G, Cant' say I can find fault then. I often follow up stupid claims with stupid questions myself!Mung
October 3, 2014
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Mung: I do think it's a stupid question... It's following a stupid claim, so it could not be otherwise.Guillermoe
October 3, 2014
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What a stupid question. Guillermoe:
Can you prove that no natural mechanism, known by now or unknown, can explain a certain natural feature?
If it's a natural feature it came about naturally, by definition. Proof has nothing to do with it.Mung
October 3, 2014
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HeKS @ 177, The fundamental problem doesn't seem to be disagreement, IMHO. I have wonderfully intense and interesting discussions in this area with a good friend who still believes in Darwinism. And it feels productive. We see the strengths and weaknesses in our respective positions and treat each other with respect. What bothers me here is the attitude of some of the ID deniers that their unsupported disagreement constitutes irrefutable evidence. :P -QQuerius
October 3, 2014
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