I am placing here some of my posts I have made to other sites as a way to share and preserve my musings…
–Dembski’s work on specified complexity hasn’t withstood much scientific criticism, so if it is science it isn’t quality science.
And here is where there is a form of faith based absolutism. Dembski is not a Christian and yet he is really not doing himself any favors is he. There are atheist absolutist who are invested in Dembski being wrong. For that mater there is a science community that will have contempt for any Christian or critical thinker who does not take the absolutist party line that all was built from the ground up. There is NO good answer for the Cambrian explosion. Sure there have been some attempts but the naturalist who is invested in evolution having no significant defeaters hanging around is under an absolutist effort to prove out there faith. And I point out that the faith I talk of will no longer be needed once the naturalist atheist absolutism is buttoned up good and tight. You may ask what is the nature of this faith? This is faith and works the same as any religious faith works. And the faith is based on evidence and the hope that there will continue to be new and additional evidence for narrowing down all the gaps. This is also a faith that all of the wealth of evidence for God can be soundly refuted.
We both have our faiths that we are invested in. As a believer in bottom up godless evolution the investment is so strong that there is no end to the Internet defenders for evolution. And the same goes for other faiths as well. But how is this faith different for the atheist who is strongly invested in evolution being absolutist truth? Could we both not be arguing from ignorance? Yet most atheists I encounter on the Internet don’t claim an absolutist truth. It would seem that the problem of proving a negative is a real challenge in spite of the investment in naturalistic evolution science. A problem of one absolutist religion clashing with other absolutist religions all invested in there points of evidence. And even if I might wish for some fair minded atheists to admit that there is some evidence for God that does have some weight to it I am not likely to get that kind of provisional acknowledgment because of this strong absolutist faith investment in evolution. I on the other hand have no problem admitting that evolution is a good solid point of evidence in favor of the atheist even if I don’t now see that it rules God out of the picture.
Atheist can’t be absolutist about inability to prove a negative regarding God. But the absolutism is strong in the realm of the naturalism sciences.
But what does this mean?
It means that any critical thinking about evolution like what Dembiski and Plantinga are doing is career suicide. Richard Dawkins and his boys are not going to let this kind of critical thinking in to this absolutist atheist-scientist only club. Any whiff of an ID or Creationist pov and you are going to get hammered within this he-man religionists hatters club. The irony of this religious zeal for not letting in any opposing view is in a sense pay back time. After all there is some revenge to give out is there not?
One good evidence for this absolutist faith is exhibited in the Cambrian explosion. There was a much richer variety of species during the Cambrian era. Not a lot of hard bits to fossilize and then bang something was going on. Was it punctuated equilibrium? What about that peanut butter monster? Could we not have a peanut butter booger jump out at us in a very rare case of “discrete variable speedists,” you can’t rule it out?
So ultimately you have the two sides in a show down. All manner of Deists have evidence for God from the cosmological argument down to over 300 specific biblical prophecies for the coming of Jesus Christ right down to the lineage. The cosmological argument is science based and powerful evidence for a God being much more likely then not for a host of fine tuning that is scientifically evident and critical to life being possible much less a coherent structure to the universe. Even dark matter and dark energy are in the right proportions. Like I said powerful points of evidence that maybe don’t stand alone as good as they stand together as the aggregate wealth of evidence for God.
Here: http://www.williamlanecraig.com/ and Here: http://www.bethinking.org/ Just two sources for the wealth of evidence for God.
Yet my Atheist/agnostic naturalist brothers and sisters insist that none of it is “good enough.” Ok the dividing lines are reasonably clear. Atheists don’t want to have the appearance of absolutism but I have yet to hear any atheists give some weight to any of the apologetic arguments. Absolute insistence and or contempt prior to investigation of these apologetic arguments is self evident. And the open contempt prior to investigation is clearly evident in some that I have encountered. Yet few Atheists are going to acknowledge that they have any absolutism at all. Few atheists want to acknowledge a standard of truth or even an intellectually honest burden of proof.
But hey… Evolution does narrow it down in regard to God does it not? Here you have the empirical sciences and the stricture of science method. Narrows it down a bit more. Regardless of the implicated argument from ignorance I will give credit to some of the atheists points of evidence having some weight. Significant advances in research on abiogenesis narrows it down a little more. Yet like my biased atheist brothers and sisters I have faith that my points of evidence still trump those of the atheists. Both groups use faith even if one side does not like the usage of the word. Evolution is often the atheists dogma of choice. Regardless if atheists bristle and think the word dogma is a pejorative. Atheists are smart, shrewd, and think they are right despite the skittishness regarding there absolutism.
And with all the arguments from both sides there is a kind of stasis. Both sides keeping the other relatively honest. And this with so few atheists who are out of there hiding. But both sides are evolving…
And another post:
While I personally don’t see a big step from methodological naturalism (which is a cornerstone of science) to philosophical naturalism (which implies atheism), I don’t think science is pushing the latter. Science is both a method (or tool, if you prefer to call it that) and a body of knowledge. That evolutionary theory contradicts a key tenet of Biblical literalism is coincidental. As Gould would say, it is an example of religion trespassing into the magisterium of science.
So what you are saying is that the magisterium of science is bigoted against anything it deems to not be science.
For example if the theory of Evolution is falsifiable then the ability to make it false is a key ingredient to making it true. Yet in the bigoted magisterium one can not teach how to falsify evolution. Religion must not trespass into science because science is considered to have this philosophical magisterium bounded by the Philosophy of science.
So if something is considered true and the act of any counter factual piece of evidence having the potential to negate a theory makes that theory more substantial by the absence of that falsifier being present.
Popper claimed that the central feature of science was that science aims at falsifiable claims (i.e. claims that can be proven false, at least in principle). No single unified account of the difference between science and non-science has been widely accepted by philosophers, and some regard the problem as unsolvable or uninteresting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
So when it comes to evolution you want the classroom to teach a false-tautology by reason of the bigotry against all that is not considered science. The bigotry of the magisterium that will not let something like ID be part of the curriculum because it is provisionally not to be considered science because it’s not falsifiable.
Do you see how good this is for the religion of naturalism/atheism?
You don’t allow anything that is not falsifiable because it teaches evolution is not what it appears to be. Example: Mankind was built from the bottom up and not from the top down.
I bet you don’t see a problem in this. The bigotry of the Magiserium.
And this does not even get into how evolution has to deal with how it could be a “Correlation does not imply causation” problem. Keep up the barriers of the Non-Overlapping Magisteria and this evolution protecting regime acts against any critical view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_is_not_causation
This is quite handy in deed!
No problem with the fossil record having possible Spurious relationships because of the paucity of available fossils.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurious_relationship
To teach Intelligent Design would endanger the franchise right?
You can’t possibility teach the idea that there is no free lunch when it comes to building complexity out of the simplicity of previous generations.
Look at this:
“In response to a given problem situation (PS1), a number of competing conjectures, or tentative theories (TT), are systematically subjected to the most rigorous attempts at falsification possible. This process, error elimination (EE), performs a similar function for science that natural selection performs for biological evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
But in this case you have the non-overlapping Magistiria act as a natural selection function to eliminate any belief that does not fit evolution as the origin of all living beings.
All conjectures or tentative theories under this bigoted contempt would act as a filter to a fully open and bias free process. The contempt a prior restraint against tentative theories getting out of hand. The flaws in the error elimination process would naturally act as a buffer so that falsification is only performed under the illusion that these attempts are rigorous. Contempt prior to investigation the insurance policy for the teaching of evolution and it’s survival in the face of evidence for God.
In fact I may be making a mistake in pointing this foundational error out to anybody. It may be more harmful to Christians if ID is taught comparatively as part of any biology class. This could end up producing more Atheists then the other way around. Yet the dilemma now is that atheists think that the bigotry against the falsifiers for evolution will produce more atheists. Atheists have certainly built up there protective walls of cognitive dissonance so that this error built in ignorance will have to result in a consequence of some kind.
and just a touch more:
Could you explain how the idiom “correlation does not imply causation” relates to evolution?
Let’s use your example of irreducible complexity. (with a subtle twist)
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IR claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex; later investigations showed that it was reducible.
Now ask if all of neo-Darwinian evolution is testable. If there are parts that are not testable for lack of sufficient evidence then that is a gap. Ask if your own desire or need for Evolution to fit your world view is a confirmation bias. We can both have confirmation bias. But any clear evidence against evolution and reality of irreducible complexity can be muddied and obscured in rhetoric and misrepresentation. And Christians can be guilty of some of those same tactics. But how vital is evolution to fitting your own world view. How invested do you think neo-Darwinian scientist have been to the naturalist ideal of bottom up natural selection, genetic drift, and chance. Science is finding ever more complexity as it is better able to access some of the wondrous mysteries on this little backwater planet.
Can you fill in all the gaps?
Could you explain how the idiom “correlation does not imply causation” relates to evolution?
Again can ALL of evolutionary theory be tested or falsified? How do you know you have correctly correlated all the fossil record. And in some cases there is a paucity of fossil specimens. Are they correlated correctly. Did all the scientist work with all due diligence in all of there published pier reviewed publications. Is the honesty and integrity of every published scientist beyond reproach?
Think about this again.
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In its use in the domain of logic, however, ‘to imply’ means ‘to invariably lead to’. And while correlation does not necessarily mean that there is a causal relationship between, there is no other way to suggest a causal relationship between two things unless those things are correlated.
So every time some argument against evolution or questioning of the evidence what does it invariably lead to? Has there EVER been a point of evidence given in regard to IR that has not been responded to with the invariably lead to conclusion that it is not correct.
Not one time that IR has been pointed out and the neo-Darwinian science community would say something like. This is compelling evidence of IR and this will stand until more evidence if found to rule it out.
Has that ever happened?
Is there and inevitable correlation each time?
Under Poppers idea of falsifiability does it not also lend some truth to an idea if it was considered falsified until proven otherwise.
The irreducible complexity of things has been pointed out about more then just eye-balls and Bacterial Flagellum.
Look at this youtube page :
Is there an inevidable correlation to good solid youtube post on IR and some of the 5,558 comments that are purely vitupirations.
I don’t know of an IR idea ever being accepted until better evidence. One Hundred and fifty years of science and not once is there a pause to say hold up here we may be wrong. We are going to have to give credence to this particular IR evidence UNTIL more information suffices. Just one case? Can you point me to it?
It would seem that Poppers philosophy, and that is all it is, would not also withstand a provisional falsification becoming a real falsification in regard to all the science done. Not even and instance that then had the falsification latter falsified?
Not one time?
I guess evolution science is that powerful and trough or there is a HEAVY investment in ALL being inevitably correlated with a naturalistic explanation.
[Excerpt - In expressing why natural selection is believed to find creative designs/solutions to all these kinds of intermediate problems]: “Natural selection is uhmmm..uhhh.. well, I suppose that is a sort of matter of faith on my part.” – Richard Dawkins
I have faith as well and faith means trust. So to test faith you test your trust in the information. You test your trust that it is the truth.
But some faith is blind. Some of it does not get tested. But it is better when you test your faith.
