4 votes
Posted 31 May 2014 - 11:59 PM
Perhaps Intelligence seems like magic to you. And who says science only deals with Biological issues? That is part of the scientific method?
Posted 01 June 2014 - 12:02 AM
Posted 01 June 2014 - 12:21 AM
This is a classic argument from personal incredulity.To me, Intelligent design is that feeling you get when you take a psychedelic and look at how beautiful and alive nature is... the constant flow of energy... that the Universe isn't just an outcome of random chance; that there's an underlying genius to it all. Doesn't mean there's a personified Creator behind it. It could just be self-organization.
We aren't the cold, logical universe that science has mapped out. Science is a great tool but shouldn't be confused with the underlying reality. We just measured stuff and gave names to our measurements.
Doesn't give us a clue as to the WHY behind it all.
The inquisitive mind's favorite question is "Why?"... which science is great at answering for the most part... kobut if that is taken to the extreme, it eventually leads to "Why do we exist at all?" and maybe the most important, "Why is nature beautiful ito us?" And that's where science has, so far, been unable to take us.
So I'm supposed to believe it's an accident that stars and elements capable of producing life are everywhere? The whole thing is an accident, an outcome of probabilities?
Life has existed on Earth for 33% of the age of the Universe. I'd say that's a long time for a freak accident to happen.
In fact, assuming we are random outcomes means you think we are more special than thinking we are just a normal part of a normal universe. A normal outcome. Probably replicated all over the place, we are just separated by such massive distances we think we're alone.
Edited by Duchykins, 01 June 2014 - 12:40 AM.
Posted 01 June 2014 - 12:36 AM
Science itself is Philosophical and not material. It is an intellectual conscious process based 0n ideals which were not scientifically proven.
.
Posted 01 June 2014 - 01:19 AM
@Duchykins
Thanks for the condescending tone, but, you don't need to convince me of science.
I never said life developed unnaturally... quite the opposite. My point is, when people focus on the probability argument they seem to convey that life isn't a natural part of the universe like stars. That's what I'm trying to get across. Like life is a stroke of luck, rather than as normal as stars existing. That's why I said the probability argument actually makes you feel more special. You were lucky life formed on this planet, considering the odds might be .000000000001% !! As if you won a lotto. That's a certain way of viewing our existence. On the other hand, if life is just a integral part the Universe, the odds it appears here and not there aren't really that important.
[In fact, given the initial conditions of the Universe, or, its "DNA"- the odds were 100% that we are here and now. "With perfect knowledge of the initial conditions and of the relevant equations describing the chaotic system's behavior, one can theoretically make perfectly accurate predictions about the future of the system" -Wikipedia] But you can ignore the bracketed sentence as it might cause you high blood pressure.
Are you getting the angle this is coming from?
I view life as more of a inherent part of this place, rather than an aberration due to the vast possibilities that exist. I am NOT arguing that some God had to magically place life onto a planet or something. Take "God", whatever that is, out of this. I view the Universe more like a plant that grew out of a seed. No God has to sit there and command the plant to grow. lol.
So sure, I will stand in disagreement to say that there is an underlying order to the Universe, like the DNA of a plant, rather than everything being one giant accident due to the infinite dice rolls of existence. Something like that. And life is just as much part of that "DNA" as stars and galaxies.
I am comfortable to "stand alone" and say that life is all over the place. Given that there are 10^22 stars in the universe, even with tiny odds of there being life orbiting a star, you still end up with a lot of life existing in the Universe.
And again I'd say natural beauty is my source of 'religious' belief. In the sense of believing that I belong here, I'm not just some soon-to-die statistical aberration blasting through space at thousands of miles per hour.
Part of me thinks this is just a clash between left-brainers and right-brainers with different ways of interpreting the same thing. Being on the right-brain side, I see the left-brainers missing out on the best parts of life, the parts that differentiate us from computers. From their perspective, I'm an uneducated fool who talks about his feelings and aesthetic impressions alongside scientific realities.
Edited by JohnBonham, 01 June 2014 - 02:17 AM.
Posted 01 June 2014 - 03:21 AM
@Duchykins
Thanks for the condescending tone, but, you don't need to convince me of science.
I never said life developed unnaturally... quite the opposite. My point is, when people focus on the probability argument they seem to convey that life isn't a natural part of the universe like stars. That's what I'm trying to get across. Like life is a stroke of luck, rather than as normal as stars existing. That's why I said the probability argument actually makes you feel more special. You were lucky life formed on this planet, considering the odds might be .000000000001% !! As if you won a lotto. That's a certain way of viewing our existence. On the other hand, if life is just a integral part the Universe, the odds it appears here and not there aren't really that important.
[In fact, given the initial conditions of the Universe, or, its "DNA"- the odds were 100% that we are here and now. [i]"[/i]With perfect knowledge of the initial conditions and of the relevant equations describing the chaotic system's behavior, one can theoretically make perfectly accurate predictions about the future of the system" -Wikipedia] But you can ignore the bracketed sentence as it might cause you high blood pressure.
Are you getting the angle this is coming from?
I view life as more of a inherent part of this place, rather than an aberration due to the vast possibilities that exist. I am NOT arguing that some God had to magically place life onto a planet or something. Take "God", whatever that is, out of this. I view the Universe more like a plant that grew out of a seed. No God has to sit there and command the plant to grow. lol.
So sure, I will stand in disagreement to say that there is an underlying order to the Universe, like the DNA of a plant, rather than everything being one giant accident due to the infinite dice rolls of existence. Something like that. And life is just as much part of that "DNA" as stars and galaxies.
I am comfortable to "stand alone" and say that life is all over the place. Given that there are 10^22 stars in the universe, even with tiny odds of there being life orbiting a star, you still end up with a lot of life existing in the Universe.
And again I'd say natural beauty is my source of 'religious' belief. In the sense of believing that I belong here, I'm not just some soon-to-die statistical aberration blasting through space at thousands of miles per hour.
Part of me thinks this is just a clash between left-brainers and right-brainers with different ways of interpreting the same thing. Being on the right-brain side, I see the left-brainers missing out on the best parts of life, the parts that differentiate us from computers. From their perspective, I'm an uneducated fool who talks about his feelings and aesthetic impressions alongside scientific realities.
Posted 02 June 2014 - 08:02 AM
After some thought, @shadowhawk, it seems like the fallacy in the creationist thinking is this:
"The Universe is finely tuned to our existence. What are the odds of that?"
Meanwhile in different Universe, completely different life forms adapted to completely different conditions are asking THE SAME QUESTION.
So yes in this Universe the conditions are just right for this type of life. But in another Universe, the conditions are just right for another type of life.
I have to agree with Duchykins that you have it backwards. We are finely tuned to the Universe, not the other way around. You could speculate that we and the Universe are finely tuned to each-other, as in, a single system, but its another leap to say that we aren't tuned for the Universe, only the Universe is tuned for us. .....No.
That's taking humans out of the Universe-system altogether, as if our existence is independent of the Universe, and the Universe has to bend-over backwards to accommodate us, the only possible form of intelligent life.
Really, if the Universe was designed for humans, that means that humans had to exist before the Universe itself. Otherwise how does one know how to design the Universe for them? Seems a little backwards doesn't it?
Edited by JohnBonham, 02 June 2014 - 08:12 AM.
Posted 02 June 2014 - 07:46 PM
JohnBonham. Perhaps both the universe and humans were designed for each other by a thrid intelligent party. We oftem do not see the designer of designed things. All we see is the results of intelligence and that intelligence is not us.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 12:12 AM
An old friend says;
"The Galápagos finches are often touted as a great example of an adaptive radiation, showing how new species can arise through evolutionary processes. A new article in Nature by Galápagos finch researchers Peter and Rosemary Grant, "Speciation undone," confirms what we we've said here in the past -- Galápagos finch species are capable of interbreeding -- but adds a new twist: they're interbreeding so much that in multiple cases, two "species" may be fusing back into one species.
According to the article, "New observations suggest that two species of Darwin's finches are hybridizing on a Galápagos island, and that a third one has disappeared through interbreeding," as "one population of Darwin's finches has become extinct through interbreeding with another."
Those species are tree finches on Floreana Island, which initially had three species -- the "large," "medium," and "small" tree finches. It was thought a species of large tree finches arrived first, and then diverged into a "medium" species and "small" species. Later, a new type of "large tree finch" invaded the island, leading to the three species. As the Grants now note, new observations reveal "the large tree finch has disappeared from Floreana!"
Plus, the remaining medium and small species seem to be hybridizing, which they call "speciation in reverse." But you can only have "speciation in reverse" if you had actual speciation in the first place. As I've explained before, the biological species concept defines a species as "groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups." So if the "medium" and "small" finches are interbreeding with one another, then they're not reproductively isolated, meaning they're not different species, meaning "speciation" never took place in the first place.
Incidentally, this isn't the only example where Galápagos finch "species" have been observed to interbreed. As the Grants go on to explain:
On the small uninhabited island of Daphne Major, two species of ground finch (genus Geospiza) have been converging morphologically and genetically for more than 30 years as a result of persistent (although rare) introgressive hybridization following a natural change in the food supply. If introgression continues at the same rate, the two species will fuse into one in approximately 40 years.
They end with a telling admission that some famously touted "radiations" of species (like cichlids or the Galápagos finches) might not be so very different, biologically speaking, after all:
Rapid radiations of fishes and finches are especially at risk because their morphological evolution is not accompanied by strong barriers to gene exchange. Uniquely valuable in showing how speciation is done, such species deserve special protection from being artificially undone.
In other words, what we think are separate "species" might not really be that, after all."
The finches are a major icon of evolution are they not?
Posted 04 June 2014 - 04:06 AM
After some thought, @shadowhawk, it seems like the fallacy in the creationist thinking is this:
"The Universe is finely tuned to our existence. What are the odds of that?"
Meanwhile in different Universe, completely different life forms adapted to completely different conditions are asking THE SAME QUESTION.
So yes in this Universe the conditions are just right for this type of life. But in another Universe, the conditions are just right for another type of life.
I have to agree with Duchykins that you have it backwards. We are finely tuned to the Universe, not the other way around. You could speculate that we and the Universe are finely tuned to each-other, as in, a single system, but its another leap to say that we aren't tuned for the Universe, only the Universe is tuned for us. .....No.
That's taking humans out of the Universe-system altogether, as if our existence is independent of the Universe, and the Universe has to bend-over backwards to accommodate us, the only possible form of intelligent life.
Really, if the Universe was designed for humans, that means that humans had to exist before the Universe itself. Otherwise how does one know how to design the Universe for them? Seems a little backwards doesn't it?
The universe is NOT designed for humans, however. In fact, the universe is obviously almost all uninhabitable. The constants of the universe could have been designed to support our lives more effectively, or they could be calibrated to create another completely new form of life. If there was a designer, the designer made quite a few errors.
The most likely theory supported by science is the multiverse theory. It explains why the constants are the way they are as determined by the anthropomorphic principle, anjd also why the constants are not perfect --Of course we find ourselves in a universe where the constants of physics works, because our particular universe, and life, could not exist without them. There are likely parallel universes with slightly different values, but end up with remarkably similar and different results. Quantum physics supports this theory because of the uncertainty principle and several other thms including the schrodinger equatiin. Can you create a universe from nothing? Yes you can. Particle and anti particle pairs well up from the quantum vacuum all the time from "nothing". Given an infinite amount of time, it's possible that a universe and anti universe could well up out of the vacuum. Of course shadow hawk will say something along the lines of "well that's not really nothing because there are the laws of physics."
However, that's based on the assumption that anyone knows what nothing is and that the laws of physics are some concrete entity that actually exists. Saying nothing is the absence of something, for example, implies that there is something from which nothing can be compared to determine if it is nothing. It's also based on a ridiculous human preconception that nothing even exists. Furthermore, it assumes that there is nothing between something and nothing. Basically it reflects a false dichotomy on something that is not necessarily true to begin with. These pointless philosophical questions are meaningless and probably have no bearing on reality. Does the universe have to work according to philosophical nonsense? Of course not. Humans evolved in Africa to avoid predators, not to understand peculiarities of the universe.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 04:13 AM
An old friend says;
"The Galápagos finches are often touted as a great example of an adaptive radiation, showing how new species can arise through evolutionary processes. A new article in Nature by Galápagos finch researchers Peter and Rosemary Grant, "Speciation undone," confirms what we we've said here in the past -- Galápagos finch species are capable of interbreeding -- but adds a new twist: they're interbreeding so much that in multiple cases, two "species" may be fusing back into one species.
According to the article, "New observations suggest that two species of Darwin's finches are hybridizing on a Galápagos island, and that a third one has disappeared through interbreeding," as "one population of Darwin's finches has become extinct through interbreeding with another."
Those species are tree finches on Floreana Island, which initially had three species -- the "large," "medium," and "small" tree finches. It was thought a species of large tree finches arrived first, and then diverged into a "medium" species and "small" species. Later, a new type of "large tree finch" invaded the island, leading to the three species. As the Grants now note, new observations reveal "the large tree finch has disappeared from Floreana!"
Plus, the remaining medium and small species seem to be hybridizing, which they call "speciation in reverse." But you can only have "speciation in reverse" if you had actual speciation in the first place. As I've explained before, the biological species concept defines a species as "groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups." So if the "medium" and "small" finches are interbreeding with one another, then they're not reproductively isolated, meaning they're not different species, meaning "speciation" never took place in the first place.
Incidentally, this isn't the only example where Galápagos finch "species" have been observed to interbreed. As the Grants go on to explain:
On the small uninhabited island of Daphne Major, two species of ground finch (genus Geospiza) have been converging morphologically and genetically for more than 30 years as a result of persistent (although rare) introgressive hybridization following a natural change in the food supply. If introgression continues at the same rate, the two species will fuse into one in approximately 40 years.They end with a telling admission that some famously touted "radiations" of species (like cichlids or the Galápagos finches) might not be so very different, biologically speaking, after all:
Rapid radiations of fishes and finches are especially at risk because their morphological evolution is not accompanied by strong barriers to gene exchange. Uniquely valuable in showing how speciation is done, such species deserve special protection from being artificially undone.In other words, what we think are separate "species" might not really be that, after all."
The finches are a major icon of evolution are they not?
Do you honestly think your finch analysis disproves evolution? I hope you're joking. Modern DNA analysis shows that all species have a common ancestor, including the finches.
http://en.wikipedia....history_of_life
"In other words, what we think are separate "species" might not really be that, after all.""
So what? Convergent evolution happens all the time. Species merge and split frequently, although they tend to split more than merge. It's even likely that two different species can evolve identical traits when they were completely separated by land, like the known flightless birds.
Edited by serp777, 04 June 2014 - 04:17 AM.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 04:19 AM
JohnBonham. Perhaps both the universe and humans were designed for each other by a thrid intelligent party. We oftem do not see the designer of designed things. All we see is the results of intelligence and that intelligence is not us.
And we often think things are designed when they are not, like snowflakes.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 07:10 PM
See my discussion on snowflakes and design earlier.
Perhaps it, DNA, shows a common ID source 
Show me a true species that has merged with another. There are always many Genes that are not expressed. Natural selection sometimes favors one over the other but that is within a species. The finches Have been a MAJOR Icon of evolution. Every kid in high school knows about them.
ID is in as a scientific subject of study.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 07:36 PM
Posted 04 June 2014 - 07:40 PM
Edited by Duchykins, 04 June 2014 - 07:42 PM.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 08:08 PM
Duchykins: And LOL @ SPECIES MERGING TOGETHER! Is that what you think evolution is, two species coming together to make a new species?! Well, that would explain a great deal.
LaughingMan Read the posts again, I never said anything like this nonsense. I wasn't talking to you and someone else said this.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 09:10 PM
You asked for an example of one "true" species merging with another. That is undereducated creationist talk on the same level of defining animals into "kinds". A "true species" would be unable to merge with another, the fact that you thought it was a valid thing to ask for means you think it's a strike against evolutionary theory, LOL! Subspecies can merge, and do from time to time.Duchykins: And LOL @ SPECIES MERGING TOGETHER! Is that what you think evolution is, two species coming together to make a new species?! Well, that would explain a great deal.
LaughingMan Read the posts again, I never said anything like this nonsense. I wasn't talking to you and someone else said this.
Edited by Duchykins, 04 June 2014 - 09:15 PM.
Posted 04 June 2014 - 10:56 PM
Read the posts again. You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
The topic is not about defining unrelated terms and if you don’t understand something or want to go off topic, Google it.
http://en.wikipedia....Null_hypothesis
Posted 04 June 2014 - 11:19 PM
See my discussion on snowflakes and design earlier.
Perhaps it, DNA, shows a common ID source
ID is in as a scientific subject of study.
It doesn't matter what your discussion about snowflakes was earlier. The point is simple and doesn't require many words besides the fact that things can appear to be designed while not being designed at all. Appearance of design is not evidence for design, in conclusion.
"Show me a true species that has merged with another."
Neanderthals and humans. There is significant neanderthal DNA in incorporated into the human genome, reflecting that humanity was more adaptable and eventually became the dominant species and eventually "annexed" the neanderthals. Contrary to popular belief, the neanderthals did not go extinct, but instead were absorbed into the homo sapien genome over a substantial duration. .
http://discovermagaz...ng-neanderthals
It doesn't matter about icons or the knowledge of high school kids. That's irrelevant. You just used a red herring.
ID has no evidence. Therefore, it is just as scientific as faries or leprechauns.
Edited by serp777, 04 June 2014 - 11:23 PM.
Posted 05 June 2014 - 12:10 AM
Science is a process, not a position. It does not rule anything out in advance. So I do not care whether you believe in any of hundreds of evolutionary views, they all stand or fall on the evidence. ID will do the same. It is being prejudged based, not on the evidence but on naturalism. Let the debate continue and science as well. We will find out. So ID is in as a scientific topic of study. Look at this group.
http://www.longecity...-19#entry666779
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