an invitation to micromass

[James S Saint]

Btw,

Chance isn't a Cause. It is a aberrant state. Chance isn't a force such as to cause anything. It is a probability issue which always and only stems merely from what is NOT known (from ignorance); "Since I don't know what is causing option A and there are 3 options seemingly equal in causal factors, the CHANCE of A is 33%". The CAUSE of A is necessarily not known, else chance has nothing to do with it.

Thus, by such understanding, it can be concluded that Chance (nor Randomness) certainly did NOT cause the BB (or anything else).

[BUFFALO]

It doesn't appear that you finished reading the book. What you site is the least sophisticated definition of "nothing" that Krauss uses, and he points to it simply because, up until the 20th Century, this definition of "nothing" was as advanced a definition as anyone had. He goes on further to discuss "nothing" as might be defined in the total absence of space-time, and then goes even further to define "nothing" as the absence of any physical laws from which space-time might take shape. In all three instances Krauss succeeds in showing how modern physics demonstrates the plausibility of having the universe, as we know it, spring from "nothing", nullifying the need for a creator.

Why don't you prove you understood the book and show how Krauss "succeeds in showing how modern physics demonstrates the plausibility of having the universe, as we know it, spring from "nothing", nullifying the need for a creator." Right now, you are just begging the question that K has succeeded. This is yet further proof that you don't understand what an argument is.

I just wish people like Kyle could accept that, although such a concept fits their perception of how things should work, there is no actual scientific support for the opinion.

More evidence that you don't understand what a rational argument is. You're just begging the question that there is no scientific support for a creator. Have you heard of the argument from fine tuning?

1. The universe is fine-tuned
2. all things that happen, happen due to chance, law or intelligence
3. chance and law cannot fine-tune
4. therefore the universe is fine-tuned by intelligence

I want to hear from you why you think it is more reasonable to believe that chance is a better explanation for fine-tuning than intelligence.

And now you sound exactly like one of those Creationist ID types who cannot accept that natural selection is not "chance".

1. Some people think the universe is fine-tuned
2. Some people think fine-tuning of the universe would imply an intelligent designer
3. Luckily, science finds no evidence of, nor necessity for, fine tuning or intelligent design
4. Therefore, we can stop worrying. There almost certainly is no God.

[kyle2000]

A) To "exhibit planning", since planning involves pre-thought and design, evidence displaying prior intent must be shown.

False. To find out if the pyramids are planned, that is to say not built by erosion, all we need to know is that they are sufficiently improbable to know that intelligence built them. We don't know what the prior intention was. There is a room in the Smithsonian devoted to artifacts whose purpose we are unaware of, but we still know they are artifacts.

Since the BB is (falsely) presumed to be the very beginning,

What evidence do you have?

My complaint is merely that one cannot validly say that the BB itself "exhibits planning".

You're just begging the question here.

Intelligence being involved is separate issue to the exhibition of planning contained within the BB itself.

False. Intelligence and planning are practically synonymous. You can't have planning without intelligence and vice versa.

B) One cannot conclude on the afore stated premises that chance didn't cause the planning or the intelligence. And therefore cannot conclude that chance didn't cause the BB.

C) The assertion that what is not due to chance must necessarily be due to intelligence requires support. "Intelligence" must be carefully defined and well as "chance".

Intentional and accidental are binary terms. What is not accidental is intentional, what is not intentional is accidental. What is intentional is intelligent, what is accidental is due to chance. It's basic langauge analysis. For a definition of intelligence I will cite the atheists social scientist Steven Pinker:

To make decisions “rationally,” by some set of rules, means to base the decisions on some grounds of truth: correspondence to reality or soundness of inference. An alien who bumped into trees or walked off cliffs, or who went through all the motions of chopping a tree but in fact was hacking at a rock or at empty space, would not seem intelligent. Nor would an alien who saw three predators enter a cave and two leave and then entered the cave as if it were empty. These rules must be used in service of the second criterion, wanting and pursuing something in the face of obstacles. If we had no fix on what a creature wanted, we could not be impressed when it did something to attain it. For all we know, the creature may have wanted to bump into a tree or bang an ax against a rock, and was brilliantly accomplishing what it wanted. In fact, without a specification of a creature’s goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless.

We know the BB is due to intelligence because the 20 or so parameters of the standard model are all tuned into the a narrow range that permits life. When you see 20 unrelated things pointing to one thing then the best explanation of that is intelligence, not chance. Not only are they fine-tuned for life, they are also fine-tuned for matter. It's very hard to get matter to hold together.

[BUFFALO]

Intentional and accidental are binary terms. What is not accidental is intentional, what is not intentional is accidental. What is intentional is intelligent, what is accidental is due to chance. It's basic langauge analysis.

Disagree. Evolution is an intelligent, non-accidental process of self organization, without intent or purpose.

For a definition of intelligence I will cite the atheists social scientist Steven Pinker:

To make decisions “rationally,” by some set of rules, means to base the decisions on some grounds of truth: correspondence to reality or soundness of inference. An alien who bumped into trees or walked off cliffs, or who went through all the motions of chopping a tree but in fact was hacking at a rock or at empty space, would not seem intelligent. Nor would an alien who saw three predators enter a cave and two leave and then entered the cave as if it were empty. These rules must be used in service of the second criterion, wanting and pursuing something in the face of obstacles. If we had no fix on what a creature wanted, we could not be impressed when it did something to attain it. For all we know, the creature may have wanted to bump into a tree or bang an ax against a rock, and was brilliantly accomplishing what it wanted. In fact, without a specification of a creature’s goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless.

It seems to me this quotation from Pinker works against your point in that he shows that it can sometimes be impossible to recognize intelligence for what it is without assuming some frame of reference. The funny thing is that theists often make use of a version of this principle to wave away questions as to why a benevolent God would allow the existence of evil (we cannot know the mind of God; He works in mysterious ways).

We know the BB is due to intelligence because the 20 or so parameters of the standard model are all tuned into the a narrow range that permits life. When you see 20 unrelated things pointing to one thing then the best explanation of that is intelligence, not chance. Not only are they fine-tuned for life, they are also fine-tuned for matter. It's very hard to get matter to hold together.

These parameters are anything but unrelated. And we really have no objective criterion for determining how improbable the universe is - we only have strong physical evidence for the existence of a single universe; the very best estimate we have is 1 for 1 = 100% likely.

[James S Saint]

A) To "exhibit planning", since planning involves pre-thought and design, evidence displaying prior intent must be shown.

False. To find out if the pyramids are planned, that is to say not built by erosion, all we need to know is that they are sufficiently improbable to know that intelligence built them. We don't know what the prior intention was. There is a room in the Smithsonian devoted to artifacts whose purpose we are unaware of, but we still know they are artifacts.

False. "Planning" is a verb. It indicates action which indicates time being passed, whether by intelligence or not.
The very first event cannot come to be by evidentury planning, because the evidence would have to exist before the event that was planned. Time to plan would have to have already taken place.
That is not to say that the BB did not come from intelligence, but rather that there can be no evidence specifically concerning planning, the action of making plans. The pyramids do not exhibit planning either. We deduce that they were planned in part because we axiomatically believe that time existed before the pyramids and thus accept as high probability that they were planned.

Deducing that intelligence was involved has nothing to do with deducing "planning", although the reverse would not be true. If one deduces that planning was involved, then one can conclude that intelligence was involved. But in the case of the original event, there can be no evidence of planning regardless of any evidence of intelligence.

Since the BB is (falsely) presumed to be the very beginning,

What evidence do you have?

Evidence of what?

Intelligence and planning are practically synonymous. You can't have planning without intelligence and vice versa.

False, as explained above. You can have intelligence without planning, but you can't have planning without intelligence. Just because I have intelligence does not mean that I have made plans. Just because there is evidence of my intelligence does not mean there is evidence that I made plans. Where are the plans? Concerning the BB, where are the plans. What evidence do you have that plans were made in advance? The plan is a product of the intelligence, not the intelligence that made the plan.

Intentional and accidental are binary terms. What is not accidental is intentional, what is not intentional is accidental. What is intentional is intelligent, what is accidental is due to chance. It's basic langauge analysis.

Not true.
Chance does not cause accidents. It is a state that allows for accidents to occur. "There is a chance (a possibility) that an accident will occur."

To make decisions “rationally,” by some set of rules, means to base the decisions on some grounds of truth: correspondence to reality or soundness of inference. An alien who bumped into trees or walked off cliffs, or who went through all the motions of chopping a tree but in fact was hacking at a rock or at empty space, would not seem intelligent. Nor would an alien who saw three predators enter a cave and two leave and then entered the cave as if it were empty. These rules must be used in service of the second criterion, wanting and pursuing something in the face of obstacles. If we had no fix on what a creature wanted, we could not be impressed when it did something to attain it. For all we know, the creature may have wanted to bump into a tree or bang an ax against a rock, and was brilliantly accomplishing what it wanted. In fact, without a specification of a creature’s goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless.

That is NOT a definition. He was speaking of indications and implications. His statement that intelligence requires a goal in order to enact or manifest is correct. But that has nothing to do with the logic involved concerning plans being made and evidenced.

Discovering a design, does not indicate intelligence in and of itself unless that design is extremely different than the norm. But even that is only an indication, not a certainty.

We know the BB is due to intelligence because the 20 or so parameters of the standard model are all tuned into the a narrow range that permits life.

It also permits a great variety of other things. So no, fine-tuning does not substantiate the case of intelligence unless the same principles specifically disallow for much else. Given 10,000 undesigned events, it is likely that one of them will be a design, such as the form in the clouds or the face in the Moon.

When you see 20 unrelated things pointing to one thing then the best explanation of that is intelligence, not chance. Not only are they fine-tuned for life, they are also fine-tuned for matter.

Note you said "pointing toward one thing". If that one thing were the only thing, if it was truly only one, you would have a case, as stated prior. But those principles do not merely point to one thing, no where near merely one thing.

It's very hard to get matter to hold together.

I happen to know exactly what holds matter together. It isn't as complicated as you seem to think, from my stand point anyway. But it certainly isn't "chance".

[kyle2000]

It seems to me this quotation from Pinker works against your point in that he shows that it can sometimes be impossible to recognize intelligence for what it is without assuming some frame of reference.

You have committed the fallacy of missing the point. The structure of your argument is as follows:
1. we sometimes cannot distinguish chance from intelligence
2. therefore, the BB is due to chance.

The fact that we cannot always distinguish chance from intelligence does not prove that the BB is accidental. You have also committed the fallacy of composition which states
1. sometimes we can not determine x from y
2. therefore we can never determine x from y
[then you make the nonsequitor]
3. therefore x did not cause z

where x is intelligence, y is chance and z is the Big Bang

The funny thing is that theists often make use of a version of this principle to wave away questions as to why a benevolent God would allow the existence of evil (we cannot know the mind of God; He works in mysterious ways).

I dealt with the argument from Evil in a post above. You probably didn't read it because you suffered from too much cognitive dissonance and are unable to read your opponents views.

We know the BB is due to intelligence because the 20 or so parameters of the standard model are all tuned into the a narrow range that permits life. When you see 20 unrelated things pointing to one thing then the best explanation of that is intelligence, not chance. Not only are they fine-tuned for life, they are also fine-tuned for matter. It's very hard to get matter to hold together.

These parameters are anything but unrelated.

False, change any one of the parameters a little usually less than one part in 20 orders of magnitude, and life becomes impossible. They are related in that they are all set to permit the existence of life. Further, you simply begged the question that they are unrelated.

And we really have no objective criterion for determining how improbable the universe is - we only have strong physical evidence for the existence of a single universe;

You have again committed the fallacy of missing the point. At issue here is whether or not atheism or theism is more plausible. Your argument has the following structure.

1. we cannot know the probability of a life-permitting universe arising from nothing
2. therefore, it is more likely that the BB was due to chance

You also have a argument from ignorance, in that you go from ignorance in your first premise, to knowledge in your conclusion. At best you have an argument for agnosticism, not atheism.

We are not trying to establish that the Big Bang was designed beyond all shadow of a doubt we are merely assessing whether the evidence renders atheism or theism more plausible. The atheists have no evidence, the theists can point to the fact that the laws of nature were set with a purpose, namely, the creation of life.

the very best estimate we have is 1 for 1 = 100% likely.

This is an argument from ignorance and hence invalid.

Intentional and accidental are binary terms. What is not accidental is intentional, what is not intentional is accidental. What is intentional is intelligent, what is accidental is due to chance. It's basic langauge analysis.

Disagree. Evolution is an intelligent, non-accidental process of self organization, without intent or purpose.

Evolution is the most ridiculously false theory to have gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community for longer than 70 years. (The acceptance of Natural Selection as the cause of evolution has only gained currency since about 1940). First, natural selection is a useless tautology, it merely says, those who are fit to reproduce will reproduce. Therefore, species are not designed. It's amazing that the scientific community has been duped by this absurd logic. Moreover, there is widespread discontent in the scientific community for Darwin's theory, though that discontent does not necessarily translate into support for ID.

Second, it is quite easy for a layman to understand just how astronomical the math stands against Darwinism. Moreover, the replies from Darwinists to the math argument are quite easy to refute. Here, for example, is the most detailed mathematical calculus I have ever seen from a Darwinist. This is John Maynard Smith writing in 2001:

Occasionally someone, often a mathematician, will announce that there has not been time since the origin of the Earth for natural selection to produce the astonishing diversity and complexity we see. The odd thing about these assertions is that, although they sound quantitative, they never tell us by how much the time would have to be increased: twice as much, or a million times, or what? The only way I know to give a quantitative answer is to point out that if one estimates, however roughly, the quantity of information in the genome, and the quantity that could have been programmed by selection in 5 billion years, there has been plenty of time. If, remembering that for most of the time our ancestors were microbes, we allow an average of 20 generations a year, there has been time for selection to program the genome ten times over.

There are several problems with the above calculation. There is no mention of mutation rates, no mention of how difficult it is to sequence a functional protein de novo, no mention of how many organisms have inhabited the Earth since its inception, nor any mention of how long it would take a newly formed protein to spread through a population. Mathematics has been rigorously applied to Darwinism, ironically it has only been applied to a very narrow section of it. If one looks through the pages of a population genetics textbook, one will find that the entire focus is on the frequency of alleles and how long it takes to force bad alleles out of the population. Alleles are proteins that are already built, population genetics is completely silent regarding the odds of Natural Selection actually constructing a brand new gene from scratch. Further, we have the codiscoverer of DNA, Francis Crick, as related by Daniel Dennett on record as calling the whole profession of population genetics unscientific:

I once got in a debate with Francis Crick about the virtues and vices of Connectionism ... I was curious to know how widely he would cast his denunciation. Would he say the same thing about population geneticists? The derogatory term for some of their models is "bean-bag genetics," ... Is their research good science? Crick replied that he had himself thought about the comparison, and had to say that population genetics wasn't science either!

So as to illustrate the mathematical challenges to Darwinism let me quote Oxford University, which is aware of the mathematical problems of Darwinism and is searching for two mathematicians to shore up the theory's foundations:

The concept of fitness optimization is routinely used by field biologists, and first-year biology undergraduates are frequently taught that natural selection leads to organisms that maximize their fitness. Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene (1976) promoted a conceptual integration of modern evolutionary theory in which genes are viewed as optimising agents, which is extremely influential and widespread today and encompasses inclusive fitness theory and evolutionarily stable strategies as well as general optimality ideas. However, mathematical population geneticists mainly deny that natural selection leads to optimization of any useful kind. This fifty-year old schism is intellectually damaging in itself, and has prevented improvements in our concept of what fitness is.

Intelligent Design math is much more detailed than the math that John Maynard Smith presents. The most important number to think about is 10^150. This is Williams Dembski's universal probability bound, viz. anything whose odds are above this number will not happen, for example, say you're trying to hit a lottery whose odds are one in a trillion. If one has only 100 tries to reach this number, then it is irrational to expect success and any success would be immediately suspected of foul play. Similarly, we can actually calculate how many events have occurred in our universe's history. This is arrived at by calculating the number of particles in the universe 10^80 and the amount of time, 10^26 seconds, and the number of divisions of a second, 10^44, if one accepts the Planck Time as the shortest measurement of time, even though this number now stands just beyond our experimental reach. So 10^80 particles reacting during each Planck Time in the history of our universe, an extremely absurd picture, the real number is much lower, would equal 10^150. As we will soon see, Darwinism must routinely surmount odds far beyond the universal probability bound of 10^150.
What the Darwinists claim is that immense probabilities can be broken into manageable steps, Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable, is a case in point. However, it will soon be shown that breaking horrific odds into discrete, easy steps simply can't be done. The smallest functioning biological unit is the protein, without proteins the organism cannot function. These are fabulously complex machines of enormous precision. A protein is composed of 20 different amino acids, strung together in chains of about 150 in unicellular organisms, and 450 in humans, though it is not uncommon to find some stretching as long as 1,200 or even 34,350, as is this case with the protein Titin, or 35,213 in the mouse homolog.
The odds of spontaneously assembling one protein of 150 amino acid residues from scratch are therefore 20^150 which is 10^194, well beyond the universal probability bound. The problems get even worse when we factor in that one protein by itself does nothing, but must instead work in teams of 10 or 20. The ribosome, for example, is composed of 31 proteins in some prokaryotes and I think around 50 in humans, moreover, it requires a team of about 200 proteins just to manufacture the ribosome. So what are the odds of getting 31 proteins to work together? Assuming each protein is on average 150 amino acids residues long, that's 20^150*31, or 10^6014.
There are problems with these calculations, namely, there are more than one ways to skin a cat. Darwinists love to point this out and it is a fair objection. It is a fact that there are several different ways to build a ribosome, the question is how many. 100? 1000? even if there are 10^20 different ways to form a ribosome that still leaves the odds of forming one from scratch at 10^5094. We simply do not have enough time or resources to test all 10^5094 possible sequences and find out which ones result in a functioning ribosome. Douglas Axe has attempted to calculate just how much error tolerance proteins can withstand before they lose their function. The number he arrived at was 10^78, viz. roughly 70% of the amino acids in a protein have to be exactly correct. He did this by altering already existing proteins and seeing how long it took before they fell apart. However, as I have already stated, since Axe is an ID proponent, his work is immediately out of bounds and disqualified since Darwinists do not accept evidence from scientists who deny the hard core of evolutionary theory, they will consider it and attempt to refute it, but they usually simply dismiss it out of hand. Therefore, we must turn to evidence that Darwinists will accept. There are certain regions of the genome which are called ultra conserved regions. These are large areas which are exactly the same in species which are thought to have shared a common ancestor more than 100 million years ago and they occur in the noncoding regions of the genome. "There are 481 segments longer than 200 base pairs (bp) that are absolutely conserved (100% identity with no insertions or deletions) between orthologous regions of the human, rat, and mouse genomes. Nearly all of these segments are also conserved in the chicken and dog genomes, with an average of 95 and 99% identity, respectively. Many are also significantly conserved in fish." Proteins can also be extremely conserved across species. The histone, for example, is the spool around which DNA winds. It coils DNA up 40,000 times tighter. It was clearly built with the foresight that DNA would wind around it, something Natural Selection does not have. The H4 histone is composed of 102 amino acid residues and in species as diverse as the snow pea and the cow only two amino acids are different.
All this points to a high specificity of proteins. As I said before the smallest biological unit is a protein and although we can only come up with rough estimates at their probability, common sense can provide us with substantial evidence that they are remarkably rare. Some scientists are guessing that the total number of possible functional proteins is about 10^8, even if that number is off by ten orders of magnitude that is still a far cry from, 20^1000 or 10^1300 the number of possible proteins containing one thousand amino acids. The odds of stumbling across a functional protein in a sea of all possible proteins is 1 in 10^1300-20 or 10^1280.


footnotes

1. Paul Davies, Information and the Nature of Reality, pg 134
2. Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1987, pg 102
3. www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/3498/RA%20in%20Mathema ... f.download
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titin
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome
6. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 3604007624
7. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/304/5 ... 1.abstract
8. Bruce Albert, Microbiology of the Cell

[Flannel Jesus]

Here's something nobody else has brought up: if it's so remarkable that the parameters are fine-tuned for us, what about the fact that it's not MORE fine-tuned for us? I mean, we could easily conceive of a world actually better suited for us, right?

The fact that the parameters are within acceptable limits for human existence is easily accounted for with or without god, but the fact that the parameters aren't exactly PERFECT for us is better explained without.

[kyle2000]

A) To "exhibit planning", since planning involves pre-thought and design, evidence displaying prior intent must be shown.

False. To find out if the pyramids are planned, that is to say not built by erosion, all we need to know is that they are sufficiently improbable to know that intelligence built them. We don't know what the prior intention was. There is a room in the Smithsonian devoted to artifacts whose purpose we are unaware of, but we still know they are artifacts.

False. "Planning" is a verb. It indicates action which indicates time being passed, whether by intelligence or not. The very first event cannot come to be by evidentury planning, because the evidence would have to exist before the event that was planned. Time to plan would have to have already taken place. That is not to say that the BB did not come from intelligence, but rather that there can be no evidence specifically concerning planning, the action of making plans.

You argument seems to be:
1. if we have no evidence of planning, then planning does not exist
This is a fallacy. Ideas are planned and they do not need to leave a material trail of their existence in order to exist.
Moreover, God exists outside space and time. The fact that He does exist outside space and time does not prohibit Him from planning. You seem to think that we need to discover some sort of blueprint in order to prove planning. This is false, all coordinate action requires planning.

The pyramids do not exhibit planning either. We deduce that they were planned in part because we axiomatically believe that time existed before the pyramids and thus accept as high probability that they were planned. Deducing that intelligence was involved has nothing to do with deducing "planning", although the reverse would not be true. If one deduces that planning was involved, then one can conclude that intelligence was involved. But in the case of the original event, there can be no evidence of planning regardless of any evidence of intelligence.

See below for my proof that if there is no planning, then there is no intelligence.

Since the BB is (falsely) presumed to be the very beginning,

What evidence do you have?

Evidence of what?

That the BB was not the beginning, at least of matter. Technically I believe that the birth of God was the real beginning. Whether God is eternal or began in time I don't know and I don't care. I prefer to believe that God began in time and His birth was uncaused, which means accidental. I believe both matter and mind can arise from nothing, but I do not believe that planning is the result of chance, which is why the BB is not due to chance.

False, as explained above. You can have intelligence without planning, but you can't have planning without intelligence. Just because I have intelligence does not mean that I have made plans. Just because there is evidence of my intelligence does not mean there is evidence that I made plans. Where are the plans? Concerning the BB, where are the plans. What evidence do you have that plans were made in advance? The plan is a product of the intelligence, not the intelligence that made the plan.

If you could give an example that would help. Even flicking on a light switch requires planning, it is your unconscious mind that does all the work whereas your conscious mind just does it effortlessly without planning. Your unconscious mind in order to perform a new movement needs to know which synapses to fire in which order. Let's say flicking on a light switch requires the firing of about 20,000 synapses, given the fact that 10,000 synapses are firing per second even when we are doing nothing I think that is a reasonable estimate. In order to perform that act for the first time the unconscious mind needs to lay out what sodium ions it's going to move through which ion gates, when and in what order, that requires planning. If your unconscious mind cannot enforce its will on the ions in your brain that you are not a person, you're just a dead object with no will of your own. Once how an act is done is known, an algorithm is memorized and the act can be performed mechanically, without planning, but ultimately all coordinated, intelligent actions at one time or another were planned.

Chance does not cause accidents. It is a state that allows for accidents to occur. "There is a chance (a possibility) that an accident will occur." Btw, Chance isn't a Cause. It is a aberrant state. Chance isn't a force such as to cause anything. It is a probability issue which always and only stems merely from what is NOT known (from ignorance); "Since I don't know what is causing option A and there are 3 options seemingly equal in causal factors, the CHANCE of A is 33%". The CAUSE of A is necessarily not known, else chance has nothing to do with it. Thus, by such understanding, it can be concluded that Chance (nor Randomness) certainly did NOT cause the BB (or anything else).

You're committing the fallacy of equivocation. You're using the word chance meaning probability, I'm using the word chance in its accidental sense. To categorize all motion into its proper categories, we will say
1. if A then B 100% or close to 100% of the time then the motion is due to a law of nature
2. if A then B C or D a certain percentage of the time, then the motion is random, or due to chance and moreover B C or D are unintended
3. if A then B C or D depending on the subject's will, this is intelligent motion, or motion by design or intended motion.

For a definition of intelligence I will cite the atheists social scientist Steven Pinker: "To make decisions “rationally,” by some set of rules, means to base the decisions on some grounds of truth: correspondence to reality or soundness of inference. An alien who bumped into trees or walked off cliffs, or who went through all the motions of chopping a tree but in fact was hacking at a rock or at empty space, would not seem intelligent. Nor would an alien who saw three predators enter a cave and two leave and then entered the cave as if it were empty. These rules must be used in service of the second criterion, wanting and pursuing something in the face of obstacles. If we had no fix on what a creature wanted, we could not be impressed when it did something to attain it. For all we know, the creature may have wanted to bump into a tree or bang an ax against a rock, and was brilliantly accomplishing what it wanted. In fact, without a specification of a creature’s goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless."

That is NOT a definition. He was speaking of indications and implications. His statement that intelligence requires a goal in order to enact or manifest is correct. But that has nothing to do with the logic involved concerning plans being made and evidenced. Discovering a design, does not indicate intelligence in and of itself unless that design is extremely different than the norm. But even that is only an indication, not a certainty.

What you're saying is that there is a point at which an arrangement of matter becomes too improbable to be attributed to chance. That is exactly what we ID proponents argue. We put the universal probability bound at 10^150, seeing as that is the maximum amount of events in our universe given the fact that there are 10^80 particles and 10^70 Planck times. Anything whose probability is above 1 in 10^150 it is irrational to attribute is to chance rather than intelligence. We're not saying that it cannot in principle happen, we're saying that it is irrational to believe chance can do it.

We know the BB is due to intelligence because the 20 or so parameters of the standard model are all tuned into the a narrow range that permits life.

It also permits a great variety of other things. So no, fine-tuning does not substantiate the case of intelligence unless the same principles specifically disallow for much else. Given 10,000 undesigned events, it is likely that one of them will be a design, such as the form in the clouds or the face in the Moon.

What you're saying is:
1. X is fine-tuned for Y
2. X permits Z to exist
3. Therefore, X is not fine-tuned for Y
That's a fallacy. You have not showed any principled reasons why fine-tuning should not be attributed to intelligence or why it should be attributed chance. Nor have you demonstrated that fine-tuning is some sort of illusion. As for your example of clouds or the man on the moon, those are not composed of any interlocking parts. In order to get real fine-tuning you need the following architecture:
1. if 1 - 1000, then 10,001
2. if 1001 - 2001, then 10,002
3. if 3000 - 3001, then 10,003, etc up 11,000
4, if 10,000 - 11,000, then 100,000
That's interlocking structures forming hierarchical relationships. This is how proteins, made up of about 600 to 10,000 dna molecules are formed. Teams of 10 to 12 proteins form pathways and teams of about 200 proteins form cells. The man in the moon does not serve as a new piece of a larger whole after it is formed. It's the same with clouds, after the face in the clouds is formed it does not go on to acquire a new property and accomplish a new task.

When you see 20 unrelated things pointing to one thing then the best explanation of that is intelligence, not chance.

Note you said "pointing toward one thing". If that one thing were the only thing, if it was truly only one, you would have a case, as stated prior. But those principles do not merely point to one thing, no where near merely one thing.

They point towards life, in the above example, we'll call life 100,000.

I happen to know exactly what holds matter together. It isn't as complicated as you seem to think, from my stand point anyway. But it certainly isn't "chance".

That matter is fine-tuned is very easy to demonstrate here are some quotes from Leonard Susskind: If photons were to be suddenly eliminated from the list of elementary particles, every atom would instantly disintegrate.... When we combine the theory of elementary particles with the theory of gravity, we discover the horror of a cosmological constant big enough to not only destroy galaxies, stars, and planets but also atoms, and even protons and neutrons — unless. Unless what? Unless the various bosons, fermions, masses, and coupling constants that go into calculating the vacuum energy conspire to cancel the first 119 decimal places ... If it were as easy to ‘switch on” the Higgs field as it is to switch on the magnetic field, we could change the mass of the electron at will. Increasing the mass would cause the atomic electrons to be pulled closer to the nucleus and would dramatically change chemistry. The masses of quarks that comprise the proton and neutron would increase and modify the properties of nuclei, at some point destroying them entirely. Even more disruptive, shifting the Higgs field in the other direction would eliminate the mass of the electron altogether. The electron would become so light that it couldn’t be contained within the atom. ... If the universe had started out much lumpier than it did, instead of the hydrogen and helium condensing into galaxies, it would have clumped into black holes. All matter would have fallen into these black holes and been crushed under the tremendously powerful forces deep in the black hole interiors. On the other hand, if the early universe had been too smooth, it wouldn’t have clumped at all.

[kyle2000]

Here's something nobody else has brought up: if it's so remarkable that the parameters are fine-tuned for us, what about the fact that it's not MORE fine-tuned for us? I mean, we could easily conceive of a world actually better suited for us, right?

The fact that the parameters are within acceptable limits for human existence is easily accounted for with or without god, but the fact that the parameters aren't exactly PERFECT for us is better explained without.

Paul Davies addresses this question in his book the Goldilocks Enigma though the second edition I think goes by the name of the Cosmic Jackpot. In short, he says that the cosmological constant appears to be about 1/10th more fine-tuned than it should be but that it is too early to tell.

To take a concrete example, consider dark energy, the "natural" value of which is 120
powers of ten greater than the observed value. As I have mentioned, Steven Weinberg suggested that this is an anthropic selection effect: our universe is a fluke as far as dark energy is concerned, and has been selected by us for its habitability [galaxies would not form if the dark energy were much larger). Universes with such strong suppression of dark energy are, in this theory, very rare. Applying the rule that small flukes are much more likely than big flukes, there should be many universes with dark energy values close to the enormous natural value, somewhat fewer with values modestly less than the natural value, and far fewer with dark energy very much less than the natural value. We might then expect our universe to lie close to the limit of what is a life-permitting value, on the basis that there are very many more universes of that sort than universes with even lower values of dark energy. And in fact this is not far off what is observed.

only four. If the results had shown, say, eight people correctly guessing four numbers and one person with all five, the organizers would have regarded this as in accordance with expectations for random chance. But a single "overkill" entry raises suspicions that something fishy is going on behind the scenes.
In the same way, if a physical parameter vital for life is ten times more bio-friendly than it needs to be for us to exist, this too should raise suspicions that random chance is not the explanation and that "something fishy is going on" behind the cosmic scenes. A margin of ten — the current estimate for the case of dark energy — is a hit too big for comfort (that is, to say that the measured value of dark energy is "close" to the life-permitting limit when it is a factor ten smaller is a bit of a stretch). However, the theory of galaxy formation is complicated and still not fully understood, and it may be that with more research it will be found that dark energy just two or three times higher than the observed value would be enough to inhibit life. Anyway, the multiverse theory makes the prediction that galaxy formation (or some other process affecting life) should be frustrated by a value of dark

energy only moderately larger than the measured value. If that turns out to be an incorrect prediction, then it would falsify the multiverse theory and point instead to "something fishy." And a theory that is potentially falsifiable is considered by most scientists to qualify for the description "scientific."

[Flannel Jesus]

That's not as strong of an answer as you seem to think it is. That's just one variable being better for us than the required value for that variable. It doesn't talk about all the other variables, how far off they are, and how clearly unoptimized this planet is for human life -- for fuck's sake, 70% of the surface isn't even land, not to mention the scorching hot, dry deserts and the freezing cold parts of the world. If less than 30% of a planet's surface is inhabitable by my species, can I really say that this planet was made for me? That's a stretch if ya ask me.

[kyle2000]

Number 1, I didn't say that Davies' text supported my position, in fact it doesn't. Number two, the ratio of land to ocean has to be carefully fine-tuned but only within about 10%

Brownee in his book Rare Earth lays it out for us:

continents enabled the run off of chemicals into the ocean which then caused carbonate and allowed for oxygen to appear in earnest. a high percentage of land creates great swings in temperature and it also reduces CO2 formation because carbonate formation occurs in the ocean.

Moreover, you've basically allowed unchallenged my numerous claims against atheism.

[phyllo]

Number 1, I didn't say that Davies' text supported my position, in fact it doesn't. Number two, the ratio of land to ocean has to be carefully fine-tuned but only within about 10%

Brownee in his book Rare Earth lays it out for us:

continents enabled the run off of chemicals into the ocean which then caused carbonate and allowed for oxygen to appear in earnest. a high percentage of land creates great swings in temperature and it also reduces CO2 formation because carbonate formation occurs in the ocean.

Moreover, you've basically allowed unchallenged my numerous claims against atheism.

Let's suppose that the Earth was 70% land and 30% water. The resulting environment would produce a different set of plants and animals through the process of evolution. Then an intelligent inhabitant may come to the conclusion that the Earth is perfectly tuned for life ... their life.

[kyle2000]

Let's suppose that the Earth was 70% land and 30% water. The resulting environment would produce a different set of plants and animals through the process of evolution. Then an intelligent inhabitant may come to the conclusion that the Earth is perfectly tuned for life ... their life.

[/quote]
Number one, you obviously didn't read this post of mine which deals with evolution viewtopic.php?f=4&t=178871&start=25#p2306091

Two, you're just begging the question that species change by means of NS acting on RM.

Three, you have an argument from ignorance going here: you don't know that a planet can exist with 30% water and 70% land. So you're going straight from ignorance to knowledge:
1. I don't know that a planet with 70% land can hold water
2. There I know that species can live on land with 70% land.

In any case, it's hardly relevant to this discussion. You've virtually failed to seriously engage my ideas. You're missing my central thesis by a wide mark.

[James S Saint]

Kyle, whether your conclusion is right or not, you are simply making too many mistakes in your logic and reasoning.

[kyle2000]

James, it is you that are making mistakes, not me. Just about everything you've said is wrong. Moreover, you've demonstrated your inability to engage with my ideas in that you virtually left unanswered my entire first post. Second, you're contradicting yourself, if I'm making too many mistakes, then there is no possibility of me being right, so the structure of your argument is as follows:

1. There's a possibility of A or not A
2. not A

where A is I'm right.

[kyle2000]

Further, James, you should have been able to determine that I was incapable of reason and hence unworthy of debate from my first lengthy post. It now looks to me at least as if you're unable to answer my claims and you're just coming up with some lame excuse to save face. You've failed.

[James S Saint]

James, it is you that are making mistakes, not me. Just about everything you've said is wrong. Moreover, you've demonstrated your inability to engage with my ideas in that you virtually left unanswered my entire first post. Second, you're contradicting yourself, if I'm making too many mistakes, then there is no possibility of me being right, so the structure of your argument is as follows:

1. There's a possibility of A or not A
2. not A

where A is I'm right.

Even in that, you made yet another.

[kyle2000]

Ok, well, in that case I was wrong. But you have basically conceded that when you said: whether you're right or wrong, you're making too many mistakes, is a contradiction. When we say someone is right we mean in general about most of the things they're talking about they're right. So someone cannot both be right and make too many mistakes at the same time.

But on second thought, don't answer because I'm not interested in a pseudo-debate about this trivial point.

You have failed to defend your atheism (even though you strike me as a bit more moderate) against the enormous amount of SCIENTIFIC facts I've pointed to and the logical a priori reasoning that I have presented.

[James S Saint]

Ok, well, in that case I was wrong. But you have basically conceded that when you said: whether you're right or wrong, you're making too many mistakes, is a contradiction. When we say someone is right we mean in general about most of the things they're talking about they're right. So someone cannot both be right and make too many mistakes at the same time.

But on second thought, don't answer because I'm not interested in a pseudo-debate about this trivial point.

You have failed to defend your atheism (even though you strike me as a bit more moderate) against the enormous amount of SCIENTIFIC facts I've pointed to and the logical a priori reasoning that I have presented.

And even more mistakes.
I said "even if you are right about your conclusion".

And also, I am NOT an "Atheist".
Atheists hate to try to debate against me.

[BUFFALO]

Kyle, let me first say that it is obvious that you put a lot of (furious) effort into your replies. I know I am being presumptuous, but I think you really need to evaluate why it is you go head-to-head against science in this way just to rationaize a belief in some kind of "Creator". Ask yourself, what are you getting out of it? I mean does the existence of God ensure you have an immortal soul and therefore immortality? Or does God just "fit" with how you "know" the universe "has" to work? No God, no justice. I'm really not trying to be facetious here; you are entitled to your beliefs, but science and philosophy is about being truly objective: realizing that not only does the universe not owe you anything, it doesn't give a shit. That is one of the reasons I am interested in philosophy as well as science - science does have weaknesses and it is my duty to myself to make sure I am aware of them.

It seems to me this quotation from Pinker works against your point in that he shows that it can sometimes be impossible to recognize intelligence for what it is without assuming some frame of reference.

You have committed the fallacy of missing the point. The structure of your argument is as follows:
1. we sometimes cannot distinguish chance from intelligence
2. therefore, the BB is due to chance.

You seem to be the one missing the point. Pinker is saying you have no guarantee of being able to recognize intelligent agency in any artifact.
1. We have no guarantee that we can recognize intelligence
2. Therefore, how can we claim to "see" ID in the universe

The fact that we cannot always distinguish chance from intelligence does not prove that the BB is accidental. You have also committed the fallacy of composition which states
1. sometimes we can not determine x from y
2. therefore we can never determine x from y
[then you make the nonsequitor]
3. therefore x did not cause z
where x is intelligence, y is chance and z is the Big Bang

Fair enough. But by the same token, if we can sometimes determine intelligence, that doesn't mean that we have done so with respect to the BB.
1. Sometimes we can not determine x from y
[then you make the nonsequitur]
3. Therefore x caused z

I dealt with the argument from Evil in a post above. You probably didn't read it because you suffered from too much cognitive dissonance and are unable to read your opponents views.

I am guilty of not reading all of your (rather voluminous) posts. But I hardly think you have "dealt" with theodicy in any final and conclusive manner. It is bound to survive for as long as religion is around.

False, change any one of the parameters a little usually less than one part in 20 orders of magnitude, and life becomes impossible. They are related in that they are all set to permit the existence of life. Further, you simply begged the question that they are unrelated.

You are the one who said they are unrelated. Sure, life as we know it might not exist under different conditions, but life itself is not ruled out. Nor do we really have any idea how "common" our universe is.

And we really have no objective criterion for determining how improbable the universe is - we only have strong physical evidence for the existence of a single universe;

You have again committed the fallacy of missing the point. At issue here is whether or not atheism or theism is more plausible. Your argument has the following structure.
1. we cannot know the probability of a life-permitting universe arising from nothing
2. therefore, it is more likely that the BB was due to chance

Again, I'd say back-atcha (missed the point):
1. We cannot know the probability of a life-permitting universe arising from nothing
2. Therefore, the existence of a life-permitting universe does not make atheism or theism more plausible

the very best estimate we have is 1 for 1 = 100% likely.

This is an argument from ignorance and hence invalid.

Ignorance? This is what we know for sure (without conjecture):
1. The number of life supporting universes we know of = 1
2. The number of universes we know of = 1
3. Therefore the probability that a universe will be life supporting = 1/1 = 100%
This is not ignorance, this is the default position, this is where we start. Anything after this introduces speculation.

Intentional and accidental are binary terms. What is not accidental is intentional, what is not intentional is accidental. What is intentional is intelligent, what is accidental is due to chance. It's basic langauge analysis.

Disagree. Evolution is an intelligent, non-accidental process of self organization, without intent or purpose.

Evolution is the most ridiculously false theory to have gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community for longer than 70 years.

Well at least now we know what we're really dealing with here. But I think you and I (and SIATDv2) have already had this discussion. The refusal to accept the FACT of evolution (apart from the theoretical aspects of the mechanisms responsible for evolution, which is essentially what all of the rest of your post dealt with) is a sure signal that you are essentially a creationist posing as a "reasonable" person. Your interest in "science" extends only as far as self-justifying your own world view.

[BUFFALO]

A few more thoughts on ID. Let's review the Grand Daddy of them all:

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation." — William Paley (Natural Theology 1802) [Often cited as originating the modern version of the argument from design]

The argument here is that it is intuitively obvious to any person that if you found a watch on the heath you would be able to distinguish it as something designed - i.e. the product of an intelligence. And I would say that the defining mental process is the "comparison" of the watch, something designed, with the rest of the heath, which is "natural stuff", i.e. not-designed. But can't we immediately see the problem here? If the watch is distinguishable as being designed by comparison with the heath, which is not, how do we then move to a position where we declare that the heath itself is designed? And to what should we compare the heath to distinguish designed from not-designed? In fact how can we possible know what "not-designed" means in a universe that has been tailor-made for us?

[kyle2000]

Kyle, ... I think you really need to evaluate why it is you go head-to-head against science in this way just to rationaize a belief in some kind of "Creator".

Science proves the existence of God. It's the atheists who misinterpret the evidence to disprove God. I am not against science. I am against scientists that perversely seek to extend science beyond its domain.

Ask yourself, what are you getting out of it? I mean does the existence of God ensure you have an immortal soul and therefore immortality?

No. God and finite life can coexist. What are you getting out of your atheism? It's irrelevant to the issue anyway.

Or does God just "fit" with how you "know" the universe "has" to work? No God, no justice. I'm really not trying to be facetious here; you are entitled to your beliefs,

None of this is an argument.

science and philosophy is about being truly objective:

Humans can't be objective. Read up on the Quine-Duhem thesis.

realizing that not only does the universe not owe you anything, it doesn't give a shit.

This is just begging the question.

That is one of the reasons I am interested in philosophy as well as science - science does have weaknesses and it is my duty to myself to make sure I am aware of them.

This is nice but it's irrelevant to the present issue.

1. We have no guarantee that we can recognize intelligence
2. Therefore, how can we claim to "see" ID in the universe

We don't need a guarantee, all we're worried about is what is the best explanation for the BB, chance or design. The following is a fallacy:

1. There is no guarantee that the BB was designed
2. Therefore, chance is a better explanation of the BB than design.

if we can sometimes determine intelligence, that doesn't mean that we have done so with respect to the BB.

Sure, we can always be in error but it does not therefore follow that chance is a better explanation of the BB than intelligence. You keep missing the point. The point is what is the better explanation of the BB, chance or design.

I hardly think you have "dealt" with theodicy in any final and conclusive manner. It is bound to survive for as long as religion is around.

You're just begging the question.

False, change any one of the parameters a little usually less than one part in 20 orders of magnitude, and life becomes impossible. They are related in that they are all set to permit the existence of life. Further, you simply begged the question that they are unrelated.

You are the one who said they are unrelated.

I'm sorry, I apologize.

Sure, life as we know it might not exist under different conditions, but life itself is not ruled out.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying but I think you're saying that life could exist under different parameters. Number 1, most of those parameters inhibit the formation of matter or galaxies. It's irrational to believe life could form without matter. Number 2, I assume you're trotting out the standard argument that there is more than one way to skin a cat, meaning there are other ways to form a galaxy or matter. If so, that is a textbook argument from ignorance. You don't know that's true and therefore you can't base any conclusions on that ignorance.

Nor do we really have any idea how "common" our universe is.

Again, this is an argument from ignorance. It is a fallacy to say:

1. Nor do we really have any idea how "common" our universe is.
2. Therefore, there are multiple universes, a near infinite amount of probabilistic resources, therefore life is bound to arise at random.

You're going from ignorance in your first premise to knowledge in your conclusion. At best you have an argument for agnosticism.

And we really have no objective criterion for determining how improbable the universe is - we only have strong physical evidence for the existence of a single universe;

You have again committed the fallacy of missing the point. At issue here is whether or not atheism or theism is more plausible. Your argument has the following structure.
1. we cannot know the probability of a life-permitting universe arising from nothing
2. therefore, it is more likely that the BB was due to chance

Again, I'd say back-atcha (missed the point):
1. We cannot know the probability of a life-permitting universe arising from nothing
2. Therefore, the existence of a life-permitting universe does not make atheism or theism more plausible

This is actually one of the agnostics better arguments. I have formulated a better argument, and I confess that my first argument while somewhat sound was not as strong as I would like it to have been. Here is the better argument:
Theism is not an argument from probability, we all know you can't calculate the odds of a coherent whole arising from nothing, rather it is an argument from analogy. In our universe whenever we see interlocking parts or coordinated steps to achieve a goal over time the cause is intelligence. Like causes, like effects. Since the universe has far far more parameters which must be much more fine-tuned than anything man could achieve, it is much more reasonable to conclude that intelligence is the cause of the BB rather than chance. Sure, every once in a while a very modest coherent whole will arise out of chaos such as a geyser, but that does not mean that chance is a better explanation of the BB than intelligence.

Take a look at the microwave background which shows the universe as it was 379,000 years after the BB. The temperature is perfectly uniform down to 10^-5 meters, that's one hundreths of a millimeter. 99 out of a 100 hundreths of a millimeter were the same temperature and it had to be that way otherwise galaxies would not have formed. Why anyone would think chance is a better explanation of that than intelligence is beyond me.

the very best estimate we have is 1 for 1 = 100% likely.

This is an argument from ignorance and hence invalid.

Ignorance? This is what we know for sure (without conjecture):
1. The number of life supporting universes we know of = 1
2. The number of universes we know of = 1
3. Therefore the probability that a universe will be life supporting = 1/1 = 100%
This is not ignorance, this is the default position, this is where we start. Anything after this introduces speculation.

I thought you meant that the odds of a habitable universe arising out of nothing were 1. That was not an unreasonable reading based on your language.

The refusal to accept the FACT of evolution (apart from the theoretical aspects of the mechanisms responsible for evolution, which is essentially what all of the rest of your post dealt with) is a sure signal that you are essentially a creationist posing as a "reasonable" person. Your interest in "science" extends only as far as self-justifying your own world view.

This is just mere begging the question and hence invalid. This demonstrates your inability to reason properly.

[BUFFALO]

Kyle, man, apparently everything is "begging the question" with you...

But as I pointed out in my take on the "watchmaker analogy", ID is the ultimate case of begging the question.

And you are not really arguing against my positions, you just argue around them.

Oh, and a statement like "Science proves the existence of God." puts you square on the lunatic fringe. (And, I know, that's not an argument...)

[BUFFALO]

Oh, and I'm going to add one more thing, just to be argumentative.

And, again, this is NOT an argument against your position. But, if there is such a great mass of indisputable scientific evidence proving that God exists, how do you (realistically) explain the fact that the majority of scientists are athiests or agnostics?

[James S Saint]

Kyle, ... I think you really need to evaluate why it is you go head-to-head against science in this way just to rationaize a belief in some kind of "Creator".

Science proves the existence of God. It's the atheists who misinterpret the evidence to disprove God. I am not against science. I am against scientists that perversely seek to extend science beyond its domain.

I'll go along with that one.
The problem is that religious people propose silly irrational arguments which convince atheists that religious people must be morons.
The truth is that there is no real difference between the 2 types except in whom they place their faith.