| Subject: Secondarily |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 04/28/05 7:29am
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Primarily" on 04/27/05 10:55pm
>
>No they don't. The question at hand is the origin of
>life on Earth. ID answers that question.
>Furthermore, merely that ID has a known possible
>mechanism does not "put the questions back a
>notch." The questions regarding ID you mentioned were
>already there without the known means.
Yeah, which is why the assumption of a designer simply delays those questions BACK one step. Having a mechanism of a designer does NOTHING to really answer these questions, but it does help to make them more complicated and perhaps unanswerable.
>>
>
>Such objections can easily be made (appealing to
>direct observations, actual empirical data etc.).
So to can they with ID, but unfortunately you are too immersed in apologetics to see them. (That's alright, I wouldn't expect someone who had invested lots of energy in the tortoise shell theory to be able to see the forrest for the trees either)
>
>ID doesn't do that, given the definition of the theory.
Yeah, a nameless faceless designer isn't at all open to making a crap load of assumptions.
>
>>models not being good fits,
>
>ID doesn't have that problem; it fits the empirical
>data quite well (as far as the data not being
>problematic to the theory, even though the theory
>makes falsifiable predictions).
I'm sure an invisible tortoise shell theory would too. The problem is that it doesn't jibe well with what we already KNOW about the way the world seems to work. The initial assumption is too complicated. Planets do not rest on tortoise shells. (At least there is no reason to assume they do)
>
>>situations in which the models don't yield accurate
>>answers)
>
>Where does ID not yield accurate answers?
I wasn't speaking strictly about ID but rather the desgin filter here.
>
>But there are lots of theories, particularly in modern
>physics, that have rather complex assumptions (e.g.
>QM).
But they didn't START that way. QM can be traced back to Maxwell who made a very minimal set of assumptions. Einstein came along and made another set of minimal assumptions and built directly on Maxwell to make a more complicated edifice, but not something that started with extremely complicated assumptions. A designer is the sort of model that should come about as the result of a host of simple assumptions but it does not. It invovles a massive leap from observation to explanation. Those sorts of theories historically simply do not hold water.
Additionally, the complexity for ID isn't as bad
>as you seem to make it out to be.
It's bad. It's on par with the tortoise shell theory.
>>
>>Yeah, but that's true for any theory, no matter how
>>crazy.
>
>The problem is that if you don't think the theory is
>true you need to justify it evidentially,
>rather than appealing to some philosophical principle
>of simplicity.
And I've responded that what I'm stating is not a "philosophical principle of simplicity". It's an empircal truth. Simple explanations work better more frequently. Do you deny that?
Furthermore, we could get into a whole host of issues with a designer like why pieces were reused, why some things have more offspring, why some things have pointy teeth and others do not, but I know that's a fruitless discussion because you'll simply make up reasons as to why a designer would do that. You won't accept empirical observations that do not JIBE well with ID, or you'll invent reasons as to why they do, and then you whine about how nothing evidentially is being presented.
Well, it's like this, you aren't really interested in discussing your theory; you are interested in ADVANCING your theory, and as I can see that is clearly the case, I'm not really all that keen on getting into nitty gritty nuts and bolts science. I know it'll be fruitless. I know it can be explained away.
The claim that artificial intervention
>"is not needed" is a direct attack on theory's
>veracity (since the theory is essentially "artificial
>intervention is necessary"). You then need to attack
>the theory on evidential grounds rather than
>trying for a short-cut philosophical victory.
Well, since humans "make life" artifically, and life "made life" on its own for long before that, I think it's safe to say that artifical intervention is not necessary.
>
>Well, if scientists did indeed artificially create
>life (take some chemicals, use them to create amino
>acids and nucleotides, use those products to make
>proteins and DNA...assembling the various created
>components to make a life form), why believe they
>didn't create life in this scenario?
Okay, they did. Nature "creates" life on its own all the time without help. End of argument.
>Okay, then it seems like I simply misunderstood what
>you meant when you said "inferences are not rational
>by definition" as it seemed you were saying
>"inferences cannot be rational, the definition
>prevents that." But then would the inference we were
>originally talking about be the most rational
>inference?
You seem to equate "most probable" with most rational. I don't think probability on its own is a measure of rationality.
>
>If they experimentally demonstrated it, yes.
Well have they experimentally demonstrated ID?
>
>What would be problematic data is if scientists
>had an experimentally demonstrated means by which life
>could evolve from non-life without artificial
>intervention.
This would certainly be ONE way in which something would be problematic, but there are a bunch of other issues that simply remained largely unexplained with ID which are problematic enough within themselves.
>
>Broadly, yes. But then the same thing goes for ID in
>biology. One thing that is similar with many
>humanly-made things is that the currents of nature are
>not reasonably capable of producing them. If
>artificial intervention is necessary for the
>thing to exist (or at least meet the criteria SP and
>"specification" in the explanatory filter) then design
>is a legitimate inference.
But of course, the thing under question is whether or not it really IS necessary. Life seems to make itself quite frequently without any help whatsoever.
>>But life "is created" all the time without any
>>intervention.
>
>I meant from non-life. Sure, RNA can be
>created from within the cell. But organic evolution
>(among other things) says RNA came about
>without the benefit of a cell's biochemical
>machinery. That's quite a bit different. ID does not
>dispute biogenesis, it disputes abiogenesis.
Well, on the one hand you use the fact that humans intervene as evidence that life needs help, but when I point out that life in fact doesn't need help quite frequently, you begin to shift the question back to life vs nonlife. I'm not really sure what your purpose is in pointing out that life needs artifical help in one instance and then ignoring the vast the majority of the time when it doesn't.
Put succintly, if life doesn't need help to make more life, why should it need to have help concerning non-life?
>
>Maybe not the entire set, but there some complicated
>things introduced (e.g. the mathematics).
If you trace it back far enough, the mathematics become very simple. (Maxwell's equations)
>
>And that's precisely what ID does, for reasons I
>already explained.
No it doesn't. It simply opens up a whole new can of questions that are probably in principle unanswerable.
>>
>>No, because it opens up a whole slew of MORE
>>complicated questions that are probably and would
>>ALWAYS probably be unsolveable. (Who designed this,
>>why, where did they come from...etc. etc.)
>
>That's it? That is not enough to justify the
>claim that it doesn't explain the data better.
Positing unanswerable questions is not the business of science. That is QUITE enough to justify not using it. Science describes, predicts and explains. ID, by virtue of forming questions that are unaswerable and untestable and PROBABLY ALWAYS WILL BE is enough to make it non-scientific.
>Consider again the robots on example. Does the mere
>fact that we have tons of unanswered questions make
>the explanation inferior? Obviously not.
If the questions are untestable and unanswerable and most likely always will remain that way, then yes. It does.
If the ID
>theory predicts the existence of the problems of the
>naturalistic formation theory, it explains such data
>better. The existence of such questions is irrelevant.
So says you.
>
>It can in the context from which it means. Besides,
>it still accurately detects design, which is
>the main purpose of the filter.
But in order to detect design, it is ruling out other possibilities which I think have been shown are not really accurate conceptions of what the world has to offer. That makes it unreliable.
>
>Yes it does. The claim that artificial intervention
>is necessary predicts that we would not e.g. find a
>naturalistic means to do the job. In fact the theory
>necessitates it. If the observations were different,
>the theory would be disproved.
But there is no reason to assume artifical intervention is necessary. Absence of evidence in one place does not automatically act as evidence for some other claim.
>
>Additionally, the origin of the theory is irrelevant;
>what matters is the evidence. Even if ID originated
>from a monkey randomly typing on a typewriter, ID
>should be rejected only on the basis of the evidence
>itself.
And it IS by people who aren't so eager to explain everything in terms of a designer doing X or Y.
>
>Good for you, but you're using a false analogy. The
>theory in its basic defined form makes the
>falsifiable predictions without any ad hoc
>hypotheses.
Yeah right. The entire THEORY is an ad hoc hypothesis.
>
>That they are necessary lends itself to
>falsifiable predictions. And if they are indeed
>necessary it means that organic evolution (and
>any other competing theory) cannot be correct.
But there is no reason to assume that they are. At all.
>
>I do because it is a fantastic and extraordinary
>event; not at all on par with experimental
>demonstrations that could falsify ID.
Now exactly what kind of experiment could we set up to falsify ID?
>
>And there we have the claim of ID, arguments stemming
>from mathematical probability (of e.g. biological
>information), to the geochemical evidence (remember
>what I said about Miller's experiments being obsolete?
> It's because the early Earth didn't have the required
>conditions) to other observed barriers of abiogenesis.
But we really don't know that for certain. You're jumping the gun. Could it be because you are too eager to run into the arms of ID?
>
>I disagree. What other answer would they be willing
>to accept (given that life had a beginning)?
One not yet formulated.
>
>Ha! Why is that the case? ID makes
>falsifiable predictions, has a known mechanisms above
>and beyond what abiogenesis has etc.
Because as you said before, what matters is evidence, not falsifiable predictions and not known mechanisms.
>
>Great. I agree. The question is, how long before we
>switch to another theory that solves those same
>problems (e.g. ID)? So far, your answer seems to be
>never! (Barring extraordinary circumstances, as
>opposed to the mere existence of the theory that
>solves those problems and predicts their existence.)
No, my answer is until something better comes along, we don't. ID is not better.
>
>And here we get to the question: why not? Does
>it not win the game of inference to the best
>explanation?
No, it doesn't. It wins the "this is possible" game. A possibility is simply that, it's possible.
>
>>
>I never said it was a worse theory. In this scenario,
>ID continues to have its falsifiable predictions
>confirmed, abiogenesis still has unresolved problems
>that the other theory accounts for and explains.
And consequently, opens up mega gaps that it cannot explain.
>
>As I pointed out, the existence of unanswered
>questions is not sufficient grounds to throw out ID.
>You’ll have to find something else.
Sure it is. It's the fact that they are unanswerable AND untestable however.
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