Our irregularly programmed evo vs ID back-and-forth

[Bayen]

Exactly.

Ari, I know the basic idea (at least from say primitive fish up). I know its not random chance (though it is random mutations). It's the forming life out of nothing that must be by random chance that I object to

It does work by random chance. They've tested it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment

The real question isn't where life came from, it's where the universe itself came from. The Big Bang still doesn't cut it for me... that's my biggest area of confusion.

Evolution is dealing with life and the process where we humans and all other species came from. Intelligent Design, if you take it back far enough like you're doing (behind evolution and such), is really about the origin of the universe.

So why are we mixing them up? They're completely different timeframes. We should be teaching ID with the Big Bang, not with evolution. And that's what annoys me. It's the people ignoring the science and evidence and saying that we should believe in Creation instead of evolution. That's not okay. BUT, if you put ID in with the actual origin of the universe, where evidence is slim (as far as I've seen) and it's not totally accepted, that's perfectly fine.

[Erik Mortis]

I only object to the creationism vs evolution arguements. It's obvious (or should be) that humans didn't just appear as they are.. nor anything else. But I might allow for the idea of ID at the creation of the universe to get things moving.. but once again.. where did that creator come from? If we can have a creator that was always here.. why not a universe.. or series of universes.. etc. I like simply explanations... an intelligent designer does not seem simple to me.

[Bayen]

Yeah.. that confuses me too. I was just saying that ID is as plausible as anything else right now, so no reason not to let it be there.

My point was that we're not arguing with Andreas, the guy who agrees with the science but sees the hand of God behind it all. We're arguing with the people who want to ignore science to teach their "theory" that humans just popped into existence as-is.

[Andreas the Wise]

Oh, I knew I wasn´t arguing. I went totally off the science tangent When I said Evolution (how life came out of nothing) I was trying to differentiate it from evolution (small changes being passed on hereditarily over time). I´m not sure what the proper scient term is for (life coming out of nothing), but in these sort of discussions, evolution is generally taken by creationists as the meaning the whole kit and caboodle, and sometimes scientists say "ah, but inheriting small changes over time is proven! Fail!" which is really just a pathetic debating trick to miss the actual point. So, what´s the proper term I should have been using to differentiate it?

[Bayen]

Abiogenesis, I think...

[Erik Mortis]

Something like that.

But we are indeed arguing that the creationist view, as put forth in the bible is wrong, which is what most creationists argue. which is what they are trying to teach in schools.

[Bill Bekkenhuis]

Creationism, in my opinion, is not only bad science, it is bad theology.

The Christian doctrine of Creation holds that while this is a God-inspired world, it is also a world whose reality is distinguishable from God's.

There is, at least to my way of thinking, no good theological reason for examining the physical world as anything other than self-contained and sufficient unto itself (Godless, if you will).

But as a Christian I also believe that secularity is to be taken as a working hypothesis not a final metaphysical system.

I'm inclined to believe that there are different spheres of reality that are each authoritative in their own realm.

They can communicate with each other but cannot be reduced to one another.

There is a time when science is the correct lens to use in viewing a situation and times when some other lens (legal, theological, poetic, etc.) is more fruitful.

It seems to me that science, not theology presenting itself as science, is the appropriate lens in a public school biology or geology class. (Actually, in a church school too, but at least where public monies are involved.)

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Scott, I like the "we believe this is true because it fits with what we've found before." As distinct from "this is true." As long as the distinction is clear.

The distinction's not so clear for me. "We believe this is true because it fits with what we've found before" is induction, which is one of the main ways of determining truth. It's the same method we use to predict that the sun's going to rise tomorrow morning. If you're going to deny the status of "truth" to anything proved by induction, you have to throw out everything except mathematics and a few miscellany.

Because I like to ask the what if questions. What if there was a one off interference in the laws of physics in 1400 BC? How would we tell, scientifically, since we can't observe it? If we found the evidence, wouldn't we try and explain it away without one off interferences? The thing is (for the purposes of this parable) the thing did happen. And science would keep telling us it didn't.

After thinking about it, I suppose you are right. I assume you use 1400 BC because that's when the Exodus and Ten Commandments are supposed to have happened? If God had visited plagues upon Egypt, scientists would most likely interpret them as normal natural disasters (in fact, I read something taking the Bible at face value but claiming the plagues recorded were consequences of a volcanic eruption around the time, which I don't know if I believe).

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's the same principle we use in determining that a magician who's pulled a rabbit out of a hat is probably faking in it some way. The laws of physics tend not to get suspended, therefore if a magic trick appears to violate the law of physics, it's probably a fake. This sort of jaded cynicism means we're almost certain to miss it if one day a magician is actually able to use supernatural powers to literally materialize a rabbit, but that's the cost of not being completely credulous all the time.

That being said, it is still meaningful to debate evidence for such things. If there were ever so much evidence for a magic trick that it was greater than our (large) amount of evidence for consistent physical laws, we would have to believe it was really magic. If a magician did his trick in controlled conditions in front of James Randi and Randi couldn't find anything wrong with it, I'd be willing to reconsider the whole "consistency of physical laws" thing. Likewise if there was really good evidence for God that couldn't be explained by biology or physics or philosophy or elsewhat.

(I would, however, subject the God claim to more scrutiny than the rabbit-materialization claim, just because of how convenient it is. If my friend claimed to have seen a leprechaun, I'd be suspicious. If my alcoholic friend claimed to have seen a leprechaun who drunk lots of beer and then left the cans lying around, and that's why there are beer cans all over my apartment and it's not his fault, I'd be even more suspicious. Because the God claim fits human values so well, I put it in the "even more suspicious" category.)

I´m not sure what the proper scientific term is for (life coming out of nothing), but in these sort of discussions, evolution is generally taken by creationists as the meaning the whole kit and caboodle, and sometimes scientists say "ah, but inheriting small changes over time is proven! Fail!" which is really just a pathetic debating trick to miss the actual point. So, what´s the proper term I should have been using to differentiate it?

Well, I didn't think it was that pathetic a debating trick. Half the people I talk to really do deny that there were small changes over time. The correct term is abiogenesis. If eve evolution but not abiogenesis, Ari is looking for people like you. I don't know how much you know about abiogenesis, but it's not just "And suddenly a monkey occurred!" Evolution can work on any self-replicating molecule. Self-replicating molecules aren't exactly a dime a dozen, but the experiment Bayen cited proves you can get complex molecules out of a primordial ooze. I mentioned the replication of DNA yesterday; that's not exactly self-replicating as it needs lots of side-enzymes, but the same principles (molecules whose electrochemistry makes their existence promote their own formation from their precursors) are at work. Wikipedia has a good article explaining some models of it that's not too technical. A small self-replicating molecule happening by chance, with several billions of planets having the right conditions to produce them over several billions of years, seems believable to me.

I was just saying that ID is as plausible as anything else right now, so no reason not to let it be there.

That would bother me less, but it would still bother me.

Automobiles work because their wheels are connected to an engine. The engine works because it has machinery that translates up and down motion into rotational motion. Up and down motion works because the pistons produce small explosions that move the casings. The explosions work because gasoline has a chemistry that allows it to release energy. And so on. To explain a car, you need to be able to explain each part, then each part of each part, and then stop.

If you don't know enough chemistry, and you know there's an engine but don't know how it works, you should say "I don't know how the engine works." You should NOT say "Maybe there's a small car inside the engine, and that produces the motive force that moves the big car." First of all, you have no evidence for this. Second of all, the small car is just as mysterious as the big car, so even though it sounds superficially like an explanation, it isn't. Third of all, what would be the point of putting the small car in the engine instead of just using the principles behind the small car to make the big car? Fourth of all, small cars just aren't the sort of entities you find in engines.

Saying "I don't know how engines work, so small cars are as good an explanation as any other" is just plain wrong. Small cars are a worse explanation than no explanation at all. After explaining something, it should be explained! You should know why it works the way it does and be able to use the same principles yourself it you have the resources. Saying "It's a smaller car in the engine" isn't an explanation, it's a way of saying "I can't figure out how to explain this, so I'm going to pretend I already did".

The existence of intelligent life is crying out for an explanation. Okay, intelligent life evolved from non-intelligent life. That's clever, like tracing the power behind the wheels to the engine. Life evolved from other life tracing back to abiogenesis. Also clever. Abiogenesis comes from molecules deriving back to the big bang. Also clever. The big bang was created by intelligent life. AAAAAAH! You're 'explaining' the engine by sticking a small car inside of it! Just discover the chemistry of gasoline!

My current leading candidate for causing the Big Bang? Collision of branes. What caused the branes? I have no idea. I am proud to have no idea. I wear with pride the fact that I don't just say "Oh, it was Zurble the cosmic turtle-spirit" and walk away. I regret the fact that I'm not smart enough to figure it out myself, but I wish the people who are smart enough the best of luck, and will read their Nobel-Prize winning paper when it comes out.

[Bayen]

Yeah, but if we're talking about the origin of the universe, and science pretty much has nothing, there's no real harm saying, "Many people believe that the world was Created." It's a possibility. I'm not saying it's a possibility I necessarily agree with (I don't, really), but we don't have a mountain of evidence to refute it like with evolution.

[Erik Mortis]

I think we got off point. Most of the time when we talk about creationists we are talking about the folk who say Earth and humans were created in 6 days by a sentient god. The universe's creation is another argument all together, one I myself don't delve into. If you wanna say "god" set off the big bang.. sure.. why not. doesn't really create a problem in day to day life. Just as long as you don't stop looking for the mechanics of the big bang.

[Andreas the Wise]

Ah, but aren't we talking about Intelligent Design?

[Hesam Jayatar]

I really wish people would stop calling it "creationism" or "intelligent design."

- Creationist makes it sound more credible than a fairytale
- Creationism also suggests that it includes the fairytales of religions other than fundimental Christianity. Which it certainly does not. How would a Republican feel about literal verse from the Koran being read aloud?
- I went to a religious school. The issue of including cultural religious tradition was solved by having a religion class.
- The arguement of religious stories vs scientific theory is nothing more than a political arguement that has nothing to do with faith, Christ or science. It has everything to do with what mandate is being pushed. State enforced religion and democracy do not mix. Pick which you value more.

[Malliki]

Yeah, but if we're talking about the origin of the universe, and science pretty much has nothing, there's no real harm saying, "Many people believe that the world was Created." It's a possibility. I'm not saying it's a possibility I necessarily agree with (I don't, really), but we don't have a mountain of evidence to refute it like with evolution.

Shouldn't the theory be proved, not disproved? I know this might go against something I've said before, but bla bla. Saying that something is true, or at least as true as something else, by saying that there is no proof refuting it is just bad argumentation. I often come across that argument when discussing religion. I point out that there is no proof that God exsists, and I get the answer that there is no evidence that he doesn't. If I use that kind of reasoning, I can say a lot of things. I can, for example, say that there is a planet out in the universe exactly identical to ours. You can't disprove it, therefore it is as plausible as saying that there isn't.

[Bayen]

I'm not saying it should be taught as absolute truth... but it can be pointed out that many people believe it. Why not?

You can't disprove it, therefore it is as plausible as saying that there isn't.

Exactly. Saying something absolutely does not exist is just as bad as saying something exists with no proof. HOWEVER, you can't use that as proof that something exists either. It's just a null-zone. And we do something called brainstorming to get ideas out there. A Creator is a well-supported idea (supported by people, that is, not by evidence) that we can put in the pool. I may not agree with it, but it can be there.

[Malliki]

Believing something without evidence is usually called faith and should be taught in religion class.

[Andreas the Wise]

So start a religion which explains the first cause of the universe as the Big Bang then? Secular humanism, maybe?

I stand by the statement tis more a historical question than a scientific one. If there was a once off interference by God, obviously you can´t replicate that under controlled conditions. If it happened by things evolving over billions of years, you also can´t replicate that ... in under several million years, anyway. The creationists I know that emphasise it scientifically have evidence. The question should be, historically, whether that evidence is enough to rule out the alternative, or vice versa. Since there´s still significant debate, obviously it isn´t obviously conclusive (compare, say, to the earth being round, or the orbitting the sun, both of which are accepted by virtually everyone now, and there´s no significant movement to have those models taught in science class)

[Erik Mortis]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15- ... reationist

http://www.sciam.com/report.cfm?id=crea ... -evolution

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Oh, I'd forgotten this topic!

I stand by the statement tis more a historical question than a scientific one. If there was a once off interference by God, obviously you can´t replicate that under controlled conditions. If it happened by things evolving over billions of years, you also can´t replicate that ... in under several million years, anyway.

I think you misunderstand the distinction between history and science. Science can and does make theories about things it can't reate. Stellar evolution is a classic example - the theory that stars start as clouds of dust and gas, become stars, and then become red giants and white dwarfs or go supernova. This process takes billions of years, so no one's seen it happen directly. But by seeing stars at different stages of the process and reasoning back about what might create them, they've gathered a lot of evidence that everyone accepts. Same with theories like canyons being caused by erosion, mountains ranges being caused by plate tectonics, dinosaurs having existed, Indians having come to America via the land bridge, et cetera. All of that is science - not even borderline science or sorta-science. Just plain science. It's based on observation and reason, and it's tested against new evidence that comes in.

Like all science, it you can build evidence for it, and you can falsify it. Take the Indians. For a long time, all the archaeological sites discovered in the New World dated from after 15000 BC, in a pattern where the earliest were the closest to Alaska and the latest were furthest from Alaska. That suggests Indians came to the New World via Alaska around 15000 BC. But if you found an Indian village in South America from 20000 BC, that would disprove the theory. In fact, archaeologists are finding such villages now, and the theory is changing to one major migration via land bridge plus many smaller migrations via boat.

Like all science, evolution can be confirmed or falsified. It's been very well confirmed and so far not falsified at all. I'm not sure how you'd confirm divine intervention, but I've never heard of anyone doing it. I did read a fun falsification once proving all those animals couldn't have fit in the Ark, but that's so obvious it seems sort of unfair.

Since there´s still significant debate, obviously it isn´t obviously conclusive (compare, say, to the earth being round, or the orbitting the sun, both of which are accepted by virtually everyone now, and there´s no significant movement to have models taught in science class)

Let's try this. Mormonism is an American religion that believes, among other things, that the Israelites came to America in around 600 BC, and that Jesus also came to America after he was crucified. There are about ten million or so Mormons, concentrated in the state of Utah, which has some excellent universities including Brigham Young U. For some inexplicable reason all of the archaeologists at BYU claim to have found lots of evidence for an advanced Jewish civilization in the New World in ancient times, and yet all non-Mormon archaeologists say this evidence is bunk. Most people in the state of Utah, having analyzed the claims of both sides, believe the BYU people; most people everywhere else believe the non-Mormon archaeological community.

There is a series of reefs and sandbars between India and the island of Sri Lanka. According to Hindu legend, this was built by the hero Rama and his army of monkeys in order to fight a demon who lived on the island. And when devout Hindu geologists investigate it, they claim to find incontrovertible evidence that the structure is artificial in origin. Everyone else says it's just a bunch of reefs and sandbars. In India this has actually become a very big controversy; when I was there some people wanted to dig a canal through part of it to help navigation. The religious community said they shouldn't defile Rama's bridge, the secularists said it wasn't REALLY a bridge, and scholars from both sides got engaged in a pretty big debate about whether it bears hallmarks of being intelligently designed by monkeys (take that, Darwin!)

I hope that you will accept that the Mormon and Hindu claims are clearly wrong (if not, feel free to look them up and consider the evidence; I've done so and they're both pretty clearly wrong). Even though there is still "debate" and "controversy" about them, I wouldn't want them being taught in schools, because it's easy to see that the "controversy" is really just some religious people ignoring reality in order to continue pushing their religious ideas.

Given a set of controversial scientific/pseudoscientific topics [punctuated equilibrium, superstring theory, American Israelites, creationism], I would group the first two together and the last two together. Who supports and opposes the first two can't easily be predicted by demographic grouping, most scientists admit there's good evidence on both sides, the scientific community is somewhat divided, and both sides know what experiments can be done to settle the issue and are working on performing them. In the second two, one view is supported only by members of a particular religious group, the vast majority of qualified scientists are on one side of the issue, and one side actively discourages or ignores experiments designed to settle the issue.

So that's how I would decide whether there's a real "controversy" or not. If you have a different decision process, one that can still correctly predict that "Jewish Indians in 600 BC" and "monkeys building magic bridges" and whatever other examples of silly theories I can come up with are wrong, but still leaves creationism as a viable option, I'd be interested in hearing it.

By the way, I'm still not sure whether you believe in evolution or not. I thought you said you did, but now you're saying you can't replicate life evolving over billions of years, and that people should "teach the controversy". You're also saying that creationists have "evidence" for their claims, which sounds kinda impossible if you mean the weaker "God caused the big bang" version.

[Andreas the Wise]

Meh. As I said, I don't know or remember the evidence much in detail so I'm in no position to refute it scientifically, and have no attention to. I just said it seemed more a historical rather than scientific proposition. Apparently, one of Erik's sources says I'm both right and wrong. It is something you test via seeing if the physical world reflects your predictions rather than actually being able to test as an experiment. Just, apparently, History is a science. I always thought humanities were slightly different, but then, the Chicago school treat Economics as Science, so ...

EDIT: Besides, if all of you are fiercely pro-evolution, how can you have a debate? You need someone playing devil's advocate ...

[hypatias mom]

Something I find amusing is that by merely stating that there is more than a singular explanation for what exists, one sets off a huge, heated argument. Whatever happened to measured discussion between proponents of disagreeing points of view? I am convinced that just because one sees existence of matter and life as possibtly having more than one ultimate cause, one is not necessarily duped, a dolt, or blinded by zir faith.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Something I find amusing is that by merely stating that there is more than a singular explanation for what exists, one sets off a huge, heated argument. Whatever happened to measured discussion between proponents of disagreeing points of view? I am convinced that just because one sees existence of matter and life as possibtly having more than one ultimate cause, one is not necessarily duped, a dolt, or blinded by zir faith.[/quote1u1v8yui]

If this is a heated argument by your standards, then I submit that your standards are too strict. This is what a usual ID vs. evolution discussion looks like - full of trolling, ridicule and drive-by posting. We mightn't be buddhist monks, but we're a hell of a lot better than Apolytoners . No, I'm afraid that if you read through this thread carefully, you'll find that nobody's a victim of being castigated as an unthinking automaton or a dolt. Oh, there's plenty of disagreement, but the closest it ever got to disrespectful in this thread was when I told people to learn basic evolutionary theory (my exact word describing people who argue against it out of misunderstandings was "wrong", btw - not "idiot" or "duped", just "wrong").

Meh. As I said, I don't know or remember the evidence much in detail so I'm in no position to refute it scientifically, and have no attention to. I just said it seemed more a historical rather than scientific proposition. Apparently, one of Erik's sources says I'm both right and wrong. It is something you test via seeing if the physical world reflects your predictions rather than actually being able to test as an experiment. Just, apparently, History is a science. I always thought humanities were slightly different, but then, the Chicago school treat Economics as Science, so ...

Scientists do what they can. Just because some of them work in fields where it's difficult or impossible to run experiments with strict protocols, only changing one variable at a time, etc. doesn't mean they throw their hands up and don't attempt to seek the theories that most reliably predict reality. Indeed, if you're rational enough it doesn't even matter whether you know the results before you even formulate your hypotheses. All you need is reliable evidence, no matter what the source, to tell apart the theories that accurately predict what happens, and the ones that don't.

(as an example, imagine someone had found an ancient memory device at Qumran containing, say, a hundred petabytes of data about proton collisions at 14 TeV, and we had a very good reason to believe it was reliable - say, a booming voice from the sky had announced to all the people in the world that it was the real thing (though, to be honest, that's not actually a very good reason to believe anything, but bear with me). We would probably not have built the LHC in that case - why bother, when you can just look at data someone else recorded? Who cares if it came from a dark, dusty cave? Who cares if you can't produce new data, when there's plenty of data to work with already? No, what matters is that the data is there, and you can check your theories against it. The rest is just technique.)

Besides, if all of you are fiercely pro-evolution, how can you have a debate? You need someone playing devil's advocate ...

Go on then, I appreciate your efforts

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Whatever happened to measured discussion between proponents of disagreeing points of view?

I thought we were having it here.

[hypatias mom]

Scott--

I agree most of these responses have contributed to a thoughtful discussion, and I am glad for it. A discussion loses its civility when a few posts question the intelligence, education, or the validity of one's considered perspective in such a way that the thought process, completeness of research, or even the intelligence of the proponents of opposing views are called into question. Some people arrive at their decisions by jumping to that perspective championed by their individual groups, while others arrive at no absolute conclusions without investing their thought, research, and time to the process.