| Subject: Gnomes! |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 10/ 4/04 11:17pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Assumptions" on 10/ 3/04 2:22pm
>
>I think you might be making hidden assumptions about
>my assumptions.
Then why do you keep comparing life to things we know are designed? (Actually, you imply that because we can infer some things are designed, life should be no exception, which is pretty much the same as comparing life to things we know are designed)
>
>I assume you're referring to natural vs. artificial.
>Hybrid scenarios could perhaps be constructed, but
>beyond that what other possibilities are there?
One is that there are things out there for which we don't currently have a category. Nature might be one of those things on its own. It might "desire" order. This would be at odds with a typical definition of natural meaning "some process that occurs for no reason other than that's the way it is".
Further, if it be that nature actually encompasses everything here, meaning we are simply a part of a thing called nature, then we've created two categories with neither really applying. We cease to be "artifical", but we are different from the rest of nature that we currently observe by virtue of being one of the few pieces that are self-aware.
Anyway, there are other possibilities besides it being a black and white issue between two extremes that may not even be representative of the reality of the issue in the first place.
>
>Really? What other alternative is there? Artificial
>processes presupposes at least some
>intelligence.
Define intelligence. Does nature itself contain any intelligence? What constitutes "some intelligence"?
>Perhaps so, but nonetheless this prediction has been
>confirmed. How about you answer my question about how
>long research on abiogenesis must continue, and how
>long the prediction of ID theory could be confirmed,
>before ID can be rationally accepted?
The choice is not limited to Abiogensis or ID when Abiogensis fails. (if it does) The answer to your question is that we persist in our current paradigm until someone can explain the evidence observed better.
ID thrives on explaining the absence of evidence, which is not how science proceeds. It makes no predictions in a specific way about the data observable. It makes no predictions about what other things we might see should design be expected. It doesn't ADD anything other than explaining why we don't see a particular thing, and a million different crazy theories could do that.
(snip redundant talk and side issues that aren't really relevant)
>
>Why is that disputable? Natural mechanism =
>non-artificial.
Because you may not consider something that nature is responsbile for, say, a human making a painting, as a natural mechanism. That's a possibility, nonetheless.
How can you dispute the fact that the
>beliefs I believe are what I believe?
I don't. I dispute whether or not they are actually the case.
It's not rational to accept
>a belief regardless of the evidence.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
>
>Also, the problems for abiogenesis don't exist in
>physics. Many explanations work just find without
>problems. Some do, and if after decades of research
>we can't solve the problems and we find a better
>paradigm, then that paradigm should be accepted.
No explanation is going to explain everything we don't observe. It should, however, attempt to explain AS MUCH as we can observe in a penetrating way.
>
>The issue is how long we should put up with a troubled
>paradigm before we give up on it. Humans sometimes
>form scientific theories that are wrong.
Sometimes they do. Do you have a theory that better explains the observable evidence?
>
>That's not data. That's a facet of the theory. In
>any case we could apply the same sort of "unexplained
>questions" with abiogenesis and just about every other
>theory, thereby invalidating them all. That surely is
>a high price to pay.
There are unexplained questions, and there are unexplained mountains of questions. ID theory isn't in the same league as Abiogensis as far as science is concerned. It isn't in the same league because its formulation is concerned with explaining why science doesn't have evidence at juncture x or y, which is something we could easily concoct with any ex post facto explanation.
>>
>>I didn't say to "rule it out".
>
>Fine, but then don't insinuate that this unanswered
>question is any reason to reject ID theory.
By the same token, it shouldn't be problematic for Abiogensis that it hasn't found a natural mechanism for the creation of amino acids for certain.
If creation has no mechanism by which something is created, surely it too should be thrown out.
>
>WHY? I'm getting awfully sick of the avoidance of an
>explanation here.
Then you should read more carefully. The unexplained data (particularly with regards to whom or what the creator was) has within it the ability to topple or confirm the whole enchilada.
The problem with ID theory is that this unexplained data is avoided, whereas science attempts to explain unexplained data. (even as we sit here, scientists are trying to find experiments and data to explain natural mechanisms by which life could arise)
Since no one cares to try to explain the puzzling data for ID theory, ID theory remains static. Not answering the question of who or what made a given thing allows one to assume whatever they wish about its origins.
It's devilishly clever, and convenient for those beholden to creationistic lines of thinking. It isn't scientific, however.
>
>What golden rule?
I was referring to the fact that just because something looks designed it doesn't mean it is. It isn't a golden rule that when we sense design it must mean it was made by an intelligent designer.
(snip talk about abiogensis in textbooks)
>
>Again, go back to my obelisk/robot examples. How well
>does your objection work there?
It works fine because we don't know with certainty that someone DID make those things. We know a SOMETHING made them.
It does, like
>it or not, explain why we haven't found natural
>mechanisms yet.
So would a theory about evidence-stealing gnomes.
>But I just provided one.
If that's the best prediction that ID can make (explaining an absence of evidence) and that makes it viable, I think that ID is about to have serious competition with my evidence-stealing gnome theory.
>Again, I just provided one. Ignoring it doesn't make
>the prediction go away.
That's true, and before this very instant, I never considered my evidence-stealing gnomes to have any clout as a REAL scientific theory. I guess I was wrong.
>
>Read Mere Creation and then tell me that they
>don't commit to specifics regarding their theory.
If the book is so chalk full of specific predictions, you shouldn't have trouble eeking some of them out without my having to read the book.
(snip more talk about effort spent making predictions that I've yet to see)
>
>I suggest you read some ID material. There are a lot
>of predictions that are testable that you seem to be
>ignorant of. I already provided one example.
Perhaps you'll be so kind as to give me TWO examples, or at least some that don't rely on absence of evidence, or my gnomes will surely be nipping at your heels.
>
>That it's likely to have been made by someone.
Likely on what grounds?
(snip semantic talk)
(snip redundant talk on bifurcations)
>
>Now you seem to be talking about ultimate origins. My
>response would be this: what are the so-called
>"extravagant" implications?
If you posit a creator that made everything, then you have to ask who made that creator, or else it always existed, and then you have to ask how it came by its magical powers, and why it would want to make something in the first place, and a host of other questions that matter always existing doesn't have to address.
Second, mass existing
>forever leads to metaphysical absurdities.
A creator existing forever leads to metaphysical absurdities. ANYTHING existing forever doesn't make any sense, but it seems something somewhere along the way had to, and I happen to pick matter because it involves fewer complications.
(snip unproductive Miller talk)
>
You just can't get the same
>experimental results with that mixture.
Says who?
>And it's now known the Miller experiment fails to work
>in practice as it pertains to the early earth.
The mixtures that came after Miller that produced amino acids that are supposed to mirror early earth don't though. The meteorite from space that had proportions similar to what Miller and other scientists using different mixtures have had of amino acids doesn't hurt either.
(snip more redundant talk)
>
>Except that these "problems" are not problematic for
>ID theory, in fact they were predicted. I think
>eventually we might have to come to grips with the
>fact that the current theory might be wrong.
Except ID theory explains no observable specifics BETTER or AS WELL AS abiogensis does. It only explains absence of evidence.
If you say “yes” can you understand some
>people’s belief regarding the unwillingness of some
>people in the face of the evidence?
I can understand why people might not buy the Abiogensis theory as it currently stands, and I certainly wouldn't ask them to lock, stock, and barrel. Abiogensis, like many other things in science, is simply the best thing we have at the moment to explain the evidence. If ID were to explain the evidence better or as well as Abiogensis, then perhaps people in the scientific community would consider it more seriously. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't explain the data better. The ONLY thing it explains better is the LACK of evidence in some places, which I attribute to my gnomes.
>On what grounds? Chance doesn't seem to work
>(scientists no longer seem to believe in it).
Which scientists don't believe in chance? They'd be fools to rule it out entirely.
One
>might appeal to natural laws that haven't been yet
>discovered (as Klaus Dose and others have). But that
>doesn't seem plausible to biological information,
>since laws (almost by definition) describe highly
>regular phenomena (order, not information) and that
>the undiscovered laws will have to be consistent with
>existing ones.
I suppose then that information theory is not a science?
>
>BTW, I could make a similar claim and say that ID has
>shown to be plausible.
Yeah? Have you found an inkling that Creation might be the answer in some sort of experiment? Where might I find it?
>
>It's done lots of things on that regard. Read Mere
>Creation and see their attempts.
Unless you want me to suggest a reading list to you, I'd suggest you, as an adherent of ID theory, tell me.
>If the filter is used correctly, then yes.
Correctly? How does someone use it "correctly?"
>
>There have been a lot of ID adherents that have denied
>that charge (e.g. Behe). The burden of proof on their
>dishonesty rests on you.
By the same token, the burden of proof rests upon you to show that I'm disingenious about my evidence-stealing gnomes. Otherwise, I think the gnomes should be on the same level as ID theory, as I haven't seen anything to distinguish one as better than the other.
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