Undesigned, designed, unintelligent design & intelligent design

[Selenite]

Due to the brain's "God-Center" mutation, unless it ever evolves out of us, no human in his innermost thought processes can ever really be a true atheist: "There are no atheists in foxholes" (Ernie Pyle).

Never cared for the veracity of that quote as it is also referenced when discussing the opposite effect — that warfare will cause some soldiers to waver in their belief in a God as his creations engage in bloodly carnage while often fighting in his name.

[tnjrp]

Due to the brain's "God-Center" mutation, unless it ever evolves out of us, no human in his innermost thought processes can ever really be a true atheist: "There are no atheists in foxholes" (Ernie Pyle).

Indeed, the God-Center is so powerful, that even deeper inside, it won't even let him be a true acentrist: "We are unreconstructed geocentrists hiding behind a Copernican veneer" (Carl Sagan).

Ah, on the menu today: some bald-faced assertions with an appeal-to-authority side salad. There are in fact atheists in foxholes. And I do believe we tend to be egocentrists first and any-other-centrists far second, and then by proxy from our egocentrism.

[Gillianren]

Due to the brain's "God-Center" mutation, unless it ever evolves out of us, no human in his innermost thought processes can ever really be a true atheist: "There are no atheists in foxholes" (Ernie Pyle).

Ernie Pyle was a fine writer and a genuinely brave man. But leaving aside that he was demonstrably wrong on that one, so what? Why should I assume he was right? And what does that have to do with the issue of ID's being a dodge for creationism?

Indeed, the God-Center is so powerful, that even deeper inside, it won't even let him be a true acentrist: "We are unreconstructed geocentrists hiding behind a Copernican veneer" (Carl Sagan).

So Sagan said. I think he was wrong. Sagan was not a psychologist any more than I am.

[HenrikOlsen]

So Sagan said. I think he was wrong. Sagan was not a psychologist any more than I am.

So do I, I rather think we're all egocentrists at bottom, for all of us it's an observable fact that we're the center of our universe.

[slang]

Many ID proponents claim that ID isn't a religious doctrine, insofar as they claim it's not a Christian doctrine, since it doesn't mention anything resembling YHWH.

(bold mine) Just read the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial transcripts to see that it's just a pose. It was very embarrassing for the ID side lawyers.

[tnjrp]

That's AFAIK why they switched to the "teach the controversy" demands.

[wd40]

So Sagan said. I think he was wrong. Sagan was not a psychologist any more than I am.

"God is subtle, but he is not malicious" (Albert Einstein). Just because Einstein was not an ontologist any more than we are, is reason for these thinkers opinions outside of their field, to be dismissed?

[tnjrp]

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"
~ Albert Einstein

Personal belief cannot be dismissed based on lack of evidence, but neither needs it be accepted despite the lack of evidence -- no matter how great a thinker expresses it.

[wd40]

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." (Albert Einstein)

It would be interesting to get the dates of Einstein's numerous philosophical quotations, as just like his views on the existence/non-existence of the Ether, Albert was not averse to reversing his opinions over the years.

[Hernalt]

No harm is done where a god produces a set of physical principles from which moral principles later derive, and whose derivations or code are all open source. Harm *is done when a god putatively produces physical principles only as a derivation or function of a law of love or a priori morality, to whose source code only a select few have access. And to whose newsletter one must tithe to get the breathless scoop on the 'real' reality behind the curtain of perception formed by this tedious and misleading miasma of falsifiability, reproducibility, rigor, process. The chicken or the egg came first. The machine code of the universe was written in "Now you are mine" <vader voice> or "Hey this works" <harmless hacker>. Which could Einstein have been referring to? Would such a god, removed from legislation of morality, retain non-vanishing influence inside a classroom? A scientist meriting the epithet will take on a Russian doll of black boxes. ID will knock on Jabba's door and say, "I don't think we can get any further."

If that gets mangled, I hope to argue that god is quite safe from science, - he does not need a starship - , and so ID proponents need not fear the orderly pursuit of science towards what should be to them the inevitable goal of discovering god in the details, the fine tuning constants, the coincidences of cosmology, the Fibonacci, the phi, the pi. (e, sqrt(2), and i are from the devil.)

And yes, people change.

[Gillianren]

"God is subtle, but he is not malicious" (Albert Einstein). Just because Einstein was not an ontologist any more than we are, is reason for these thinkers opinions outside of their field, to be dismissed?

No, but there's no reason for it to bear any more weight than anyone else's. Albert Einstein's opinion about God is an opinion, and he was entitled to it. But I don't have to believe it's right just because Einstein said it.

[Strange]

No, but there's no reason for it to bear any more weight than anyone else's. Albert Einstein's opinion about God is an opinion, and he was entitled to it. But I don't have to believe it's right just because Einstein said it.

Also, it seems to me that most of the Einstein quotes that mention God are about physics not theology. He simply uses God as a metaphor; they are equally meaningful whether God exists or not and whether he (or the reader) believes in God or not.

[George]

So do I, I rather think we're all egocentrists at bottom, for all of us it's an observable fact that we're the center of our universe.

I consider georgecentricity a reasonable compromise.

[pzkpfw]

This is often one of the key differences between science and religion: scientists, no matter how smart or what they discovered, are not like "prophets". We don't have to believe them "just because", or agree with all they write just because we agree with some of what they write.

We are also able to be quite specific about when they are wrong* as Newton, Einstein or anyone else sometimes is.

(* "wrong" of course, is itself a little subjective. Newton is "wrong" in ways, but actually "right enough" for many purposes.)

[George]

This is often one of the key differences between science and religion: scientists, no matter how smart or what they discovered, are not like "prophets". We don't have to believe them "just because", or agree with all they write just because we agree with some of what they write.

Yep, and those that correct prior greats become great themselves. Indeed, finding error is the desireable path, which is why theories require objective tests.

Falsification is honorable in science, but unwelcome by most in religion, because the two are so different. ID tries to straddle the fence. It has a false sense of being scientific because it makes some objective claims, or perhaps just one: some componentry is incapable of being evolved. Yet their main example case, a flagellum, has already been disproved in this very claim. The ID in Forbidden Planet is more credible at this point.

[HenrikOlsen]

That's AFAIK why they switched to the "teach the controversy" demands.

Which fails because ID is not an opinion in that controversy, since it's a religious rather than scientific answer to the questions, even though it uses intentionally manipulative misinterpretation of scientific facts to argue its case.

BTW, guys, could you dial back on the god issue? It's still an interesting discussion without it and the thread will less likely to get moderator intervention.

[Swift]

BTW, guys, could you dial back on the god issue? It's still an interesting discussion without it and the thread will less likely to get moderator intervention.

Actually, it is fine so far. The mere mention of the word "god" is not grounds for action. This topic is within the exceptions for the no-religion rule (see below) and since god is often part of religion, as long as it is in context (such as an Einstein quote on the topic), it is probably OK.

B) Focused, polite discussion of concepts such as creationism and "intelligent design" which bear direct relevance to astronomy and science, for the purposes of conversing about and addressing misconceptions.

C) Focused, polite discussion of the difference between astronomy (including cosmology) and religion

[HenrikOlsen]

Actually, it is fine so far. The mere mention of the word "god" is not grounds for action. This topic is within the exceptions for the no-religion rule (see below) and since god is often part of religion, as long as it is in context (such as an Einstein quote on the topic), it is probably OK.

Ok. I forgot to mention that it's also irrelevant to the original topic

[HenrikOlsen]

To get back to the OP, there's a nice paper titled Footprints of nonsentient design inside the human genome, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, listing a lot of the parts of the human genome which, if design is assumed, would indicate that the designer was unintelligent, incompetent or malicious.

Abstract:

Intelligent design (ID)—the latest incarnation of religious creationism—posits that complex biological features did not accrue gradually via natural evolutionary forces but, instead, were crafted ex nihilo by a cognitive agent. Yet, many complex biological traits are gratuitously complicated, function poorly, and debilitate their bearers. Furthermore, such dysfunctional traits abound not only in the phenotypes but inside the genomes of eukaryotic species. Here, I highlight several outlandish features of the human genome that defy notions of ID by a caring cognitive agent. These range from de novo mutational glitches that collectively kill or maim countless individuals (including embryos and fetuses) to pervasive architectural flaws (including pseudogenes, parasitic mobile elements, and needlessly baroque regulatory pathways) that are endogenous in every human genome. Gross imperfection at the molecular level presents a conundrum for the traditional paradigms of natural theology as well as for recent assertions of ID, but it is consistent with the notion of nonsentient contrivance by evolutionary forces. In this important philosophical sense, the science of evolutionary genetics should rightly be viewed as an ally (not an adversary) of mainstream religions because it helps the latter to escape the profound theological enigmas posed by notions of ID.

[HenrikOlsen]

How can it be that Random Evolution and the Copernican Principle are considered science, falsifiable and provable, but their exact opposites, Intelligent Design and the Anthropic Principle are considered not science, not falsifiable and not provable?

Trying to call the Anthropic Principle the opposite of the Copernican Principle shows a complete misunderstanding of at least one of them.

First of all, there's not one Anthropic Principle, there's really two, one of which is actually useful.
The Weak Anthropic Principle states that if the physical rules in the universe were different, we'd see a different universe, therefore the physical rules are as they are because the universe observably is what it is. It's useful because it can be used to deduce something about those rules by observing their consequences.
The Strong Anthropic Principle puts the cart neatly before the horse by claiming that the rules are as they are, in order to make the universe be as it is.

And frankly, neither of these are in opposition to the idea that the Earth isn't special and the rules are the same everywhere.

[tnjrp]

It would be interesting to get the dates of Einstein's numerous philosophical quotations, as just like his views on the existence/non-existence of the Ether, Albert was not averse to reversing his opinions over the years.

It would be completely irrelevant. Like I said, personal belief is not and need not be reliant on evidence: only when someone proposes universal applicability of his or her personal belief should it become so. And, lo and behold, there is still no compelling evidence for Eintein's or Spinoza's God, any more than there is for the Xtian Multiomniguy in the Sky also known as (by the majority of the ID proponents) the Intelligent Designer. Their universal applicability thus remains zero, regardless of what Einstein or whoever argued from his or her personal belief.

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To get back to the OP, there's a nice paper titled Footprints of nonsentient design inside the human genome, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, listing a lot of the parts of the human genome which, if design is assumed, would indicate that the designer was unintelligent, incompetent or malicious

That's an interesting paper but of course you can't really falsify a design hypothesis based on looking at the proposed results. You can merely show that intelligent design is not required to explain specific features.

[Gillianren]

It would be completely irrelevant. Like I said, personal belief is not and need not be reliant on evidence: only when someone proposes universal applicability of his or her personal belief should it become so. And, lo and behold, there is still no compelling evidence for Eintein's or Spinoza's God, any more than there is for the Xtian Multiomniguy in the Sky also known as (by the majority of the ID proponents) the Intelligent Designer. Their universal applicability thus remains zero, regardless of what Einstein or whoever argued from his or her personal belief.

It would indeed be irrelevant, but tracing various people's changes in stance about a lot of things can be interesting. Just to give more of a perspective on the person. Doesn't really say anything about the science, of course.

[Inclusa]

Fickleness and stubbornness coexist in some people, so it is very hard to make statements about personal beliefs.

[HenrikOlsen]

For instance, tracking Darwin's change from natural theology "the point of science is to glorify God through describing the magnificence of His work" to "this part of the universe doesn't actually need a god to work" is quite interesting.

[Hernalt]

BTW, guys, could you dial back on the god issue? It's still an interesting discussion without it and the thread will less likely to get moderator intervention.

wd40 'dialed' a reference to 'god'. His OP, his thread, his burden. If he's been flanked into reserve arguments or appeals, he deserves to see their effect.

[wd40]

If Evolution is falsifiable science, and Creationism/ID is unfalsifiable religion, then surely 'never the twain shall meet'.

In which case are not those Evolutionists who debate Creationists/IDers like Gish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Gish actually doing science a grave disservice?

Are these types of debates even taking place any more, or is the interest and skill in debating the subject, indeed any subject, passe?

[tnjrp]

If Evolution is falsifiable science, and Creationism/ID is unfalsifiable religion, then surely 'never the twain shall meet'.

"Evolution" is an observed phenomenon, "theory of evolution" is a falsifiable scientific theory.

In which case are not those Evolutionists who debate Creationists/IDers like Gish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Gish actually doing science a grave disservice?

Science is not made, its quality not determined and its remit not decided in live debates, be it between scientists, faux-scientists or stormtroopers for doctrine like the Galloping Duane Gish or William Lane "Kalamity" Craig. Insofar as such debates give the illusion that this would be the case they are doing a disservice to the reputation of science at least. OTOH those scientists who resolutely refuse to debate live may give the impression that there is something inherently weak about science as "it cannot even be defended in a debate". Yet OTOH sometimes such debates may spark interest in science even if they don't necessarily go well for those defending the scientific POV. So it's not a simple situation and not solvable by seeking to answer the question "to debate or not to debate" alone.

Are these types of debates even taking place any more, or is the interest and skill in debating the subject, indeed any subject, passe?

Oh they are definitely taking place. Here's a discussion about a fairly recent example of a debate between a physicist and a theologist:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/no...ig-t20991.html

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EDIT: been meaning to post this before but have forgotten -- a somewhat lenghty article by Chris Mooney about the whys and wherefores of science denial in general, with passing notes to creationism and ID in particular:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011...e-chris-mooney

[billy2]

That's not the point.
What science has proven is that a god isn't needed for the mechanism to work.

Or rather, a god isn't needed to maintain the mechanism. (insert your own analogies here)

The particles and their properties and interactions make everything possible, the origins of these particles/properties can never be explained by science. If you want to argue that, I'll just retreat to the pre big bang universe.

All science can do is describe how these 'magical' particles/matter interact to create what we observe. Now this all occurs after the fact of either a designer hitting 'Enter' or some kind of change occurring in an intelligent universe that just 'is'. Either way Science has nothing to say about I.D. either for or against.

[tnjrp]

Or rather, a god isn't needed to maintain the mechanism. (insert your own analogies here)

No such thing has been "proven" of course. Science can at best attemp to convincingly demonstrate that there appears to be a naturalistic mechanism for a given thing and that there appears to be no external manipulation involved.

The particles and their properties and interactions make everything possible, the origins of these particles/properties can never be explained by science.

Bald-faced assertion time, eh?

If you want to argue that, I'll just retreat to the pre big bang universe.

God can indeed be put in as small gaps as required, and since science never can guarantee there is no gaps at all, it always has a place to hide in.

Either way Science has nothing to say about I.D. either for or against.

Indeed saying something against the divine is impossible scientifically. God is the ultimate "strange attractor" and as a concept completely unfalsifiable. Which is largely the reason why it's a bumpy road for ID to be accepted as science of course. They seem to be struggling with the more pressing concern of showing such an entity must be assumed to start with tho, so I'm not sure the unfalsifiable concept they do their best to hide matters much.

[Van Rijn]

The particles and their properties and interactions make everything possible, the origins of these particles/properties can never be explained by science.

That isn't at all clear. You can talk about current limitations, but "can never be explained" is presuming too much. "Never" is for absolutes, and you're discussing scientific explanations, not absolute knowledge.

All science can do is describe how these 'magical' particles/matter interact to create what we observe. Now this all occurs after the fact of either a designer hitting 'Enter' or some kind of change occurring in an intelligent universe that just 'is'.

Well, there is evidence for a changing universe, but are you claiming the universe is intelligent? And, I don't see those as being the only two possibilities.

Either way Science has nothing to say about I.D. either for or against.

If you're saying that ID discussions don't belong in the science classroom, I agree. Is that your argument?