Evidence for God from Science

Gman wrote:

touchingcloth wrote: Well both of those resources discuss ways in which the ID hypothesis might be confirmed, neither touches on how it might be disconfirmed.

Oh really? Show me where it didn't..

Gman wrote:

DannyM wrote:Right now? Well I'm on the SW Coast, but the time is 4.15 in the afternoon...What's the time in sunny California??

Oh sorry.. It's 8:23 am. And it is sunny.. But cold, 46 degrees..

I live close to this..

touchingcloth wrote: Show you where they didn't say something?

touchingcloth wrote: If you believe that either of those particular articles deals with how the ID hypothesis might be falsified then feel free to point it out to me as I may be missing something.

They both give details for what observations might confirm the ID hypothesis ("High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found.") but as far as I can see neither article states what observations would render ID falsified (or at least count as a large negative mark against it).

touchingcloth wrote: Looks kinda almost a little teeny bit like Durdle Door here in England

touchingcloth wrote: So for possible ways to (in principle at least) falsify evolution:

• A lack of existence of a mechanism for heredity that allows for mutations from one generation to the next (perhaps one of the first tests of the theory as Darwin understood it, as he lived before the discovery of genes or DNA)
• Multiple extreme violations of nested morphologies between animals (as an example - a mammal that could photosynthesize)
• Compelling evidence that the fossil record is uniform rather than graduated
• Observation of ex nihilo creation of species
• Evidence of mechanisms/phenomena that would constrain the extent of mutations of genotypes

I'll try and discuss the rest of your post (and read the rest of the thread!) when I've next got some free time

• Multiple existences of mechanisms for heredity that allows for mutations from one generation to the next (perhaps one of the first tests of the theory as Darwin understood it, as he lived before the discovery of genes or DNA)
• No extreme violations of nested morphologies between animals (as an example - a mammal that could photosynthesize)
• Compelling evidence that the fossil record is graduated rather than uniform.
• No observation of ex nihilo creation of species
• No evidence of mechanisms/phenomena that would constrain the extent of mutations of genotypes.

Gman wrote:Let's just reverse this claim...

• Multiple existences of mechanisms for heredity that allows for mutations from one generation to the next
  So the ID hypothesis doesn't allow for a designer of such a mechanism?
• No extreme violations of nested morphologies between animals (as an example - a mammal that could photosynthesize)
  Well we haven't found any so far - does that count against the hypothesis then?
• Compelling evidence that the fossil record is graduated rather than uniform.
  The evidence is there and compelling - another mark against the hypothesis or not?
• No observation of ex nihilo creation of species
  As above - does the hypothesis not allow for designers who work bottom-up rather than top-down/ex nihilo?
• No evidence of mechanisms/phenomena that would constrain the extent of mutations of genotypes.

derrick09 wrote:As a interesting side question TC (this doesn't directly have anything to do with the conversation) but I wanted to comment that your avatar thing is the coolest ones I've seen on message boards. I was curious is that George Jefferson from the show "The Jeffersons" or is that someone else? Just curious.

touchingcloth wrote:

Gman wrote:Let's just reverse this claim...

So for possible ways to (in principle at least) falsify ID:

• Multiple existences of mechanisms for heredity that allows for mutations from one generation to the next
  So the ID hypothesis doesn't allow for a designer of such a mechanism?

touchingcloth wrote:[[*]No extreme violations of nested morphologies between animals (as an example - a mammal that could photosynthesize)
Well we haven't found any so far - does that count against the hypothesis then?

touchingcloth wrote:[*]Compelling evidence that the fossil record is graduated rather than uniform.
The evidence is there and compelling - another mark against the hypothesis or not?

touchingcloth wrote:[*]No observation of ex nihilo creation of species
As above - does the hypothesis not allow for designers who work bottom-up rather than top-down/ex nihilo?

touchingcloth wrote:[*]No evidence of mechanisms/phenomena that would constrain the extent of mutations of genotypes.[/list]
I'm not aware of any such mechanism, but I'd be interested to know if there was one

Phenomena such as the graduated fossil record are particularly interesting as without a process like evolution there's no reason they should exist. It's a far cry from being proof for the theory but it's potentially a ludicrously easy way of falsifying it. Likewise for nested morphologies.

DannyM wrote:Pro, I don't think we disagree on too much, and what we do disagree on we can agree to disagree on. So just a few points,.

DannyM wrote:Ultimately you do take those laws on faith. How do you know that a scientific 'law' will be the same tomorrow as it is today? You don't. You can certainly be 100% confident that when you step outside your door this morning that your front foot will make contact with the pavement in an ordinary fashion, but you ultimately rely on this knowledge based on 100% inference, hence faith has to play a part in your 'knowledge' of how gravity will treat you this morning on the pavement outside your house.

DannyM wrote:

Proinsias wrote:The majority of science accepts Darwinian evolution as sufficient to explain the diversity of life, but this does not seems to have much of an impact on you.

And this is where honest science vs dishonest science comes into it. Anyone who seriously believes that impersonal, inorganic matter can somehow, over however millions of years you like, organise itself into organic matter is simply living in cloud cookoo land. Not only this, but then to believe this organic matter, in the form of the highly complex, information-heavy cell...to be the consequence of random, impersonal chance is to lose sight of one's senses... Nothing indicates that this could occur 'naturally' from inorganic matter...Nothing.

DannyM wrote:But for anything to appear is surely a miracle, even if it appeared by 'chance'. That's my point.

DannyM wrote:Ah but Davison is not doing that at all. He explicitly is not a Christian, although he admires the "Christian ethic", as he puts it. He says that for any biologist to dismiss the blatant evidence of "a plan" in the emergence and complexity of life is simply preposterous. Like the heretic Marcion of the 2nd century, he believes in two gods, one evil and one loving...To paraphrase "How else do we account for the good and evil in the world".
On chance, here's Davison, first quoting Grasse: "..."To insist, even with Olympian assurance, that life appeared quite by chance and evolved in this fashion, is an unfounded supposition which I believe to be wrong and not in accordance with the facts.”
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 107.

DannyM wrote:There is no room for chance in Davison's mind.

DannyM wrote:He does mention in the paper that experimental evolution is a great possibility still...I don't know what he's done about it.

DannyM wrote:But then we lose all sense of the Darwinian mechanism if we drop the random and natural. I'm happy if you are.

touchingcloth wrote:

derrick09 wrote:As a interesting side question TC (this doesn't directly have anything to do with the conversation) but I wanted to comment that your avatar thing is the coolest ones I've seen on message boards. I was curious is that George Jefferson from the show "The Jeffersons" or is that someone else? Just curious.

Ha, thanks derrick!

It's from Arrested Development

Proinsias wrote:

DannyM wrote:Pro, I don't think we disagree on too much, and what we do disagree on we can agree to disagree on. So just a few points,.

Agreed!

DannyM wrote:Ultimately you do take those laws on faith. How do you know that a scientific 'law' will be the same tomorrow as it is today? You don't. You can certainly be 100% confident that when you step outside your door this morning that your front foot will make contact with the pavement in an ordinary fashion, but you ultimately rely on this knowledge based on 100% inference, hence faith has to play a part in your 'knowledge' of how gravity will treat you this morning on the pavement outside your house.

I don't know that a scientific law will be the same tomorrow as it is today - as I say most of them end up broken eventually. I can't be 100% what will happen regarding the pavement when I step out of my door in the morning but I am pretty confident I can make a reasonable prediction. I do rely on what as happened to predict what will happen but I'm not 100% confident.

DannyM wrote:

Proinsias wrote:The majority of science accepts Darwinian evolution as sufficient to explain the diversity of life, but this does not seems to have much of an impact on you.

And this is where honest science vs dishonest science comes into it. Anyone who seriously believes that impersonal, inorganic matter can somehow, over however millions of years you like, organise itself into organic matter is simply living in cloud cookoo land. Not only this, but then to believe this organic matter, in the form of the highly complex, information-heavy cell...to be the consequence of random, impersonal chance is to lose sight of one's senses... Nothing indicates that this could occur 'naturally' from inorganic matter...Nothing.

Science, as I gather from your previous posts, is putting aside personal belief's and following the evidence. I would hope that we both agree that inorganic matter, over whatever time period, came to think of itself as a person. If God gave it a helping hand or not is another matter. As an aside the matter that you are composed of was at some point inorganic.

DannyM wrote:But for anything to appear is surely a miracle, even if it appeared by 'chance'. That's my point.

So if the universe and everything arose by chance, without God, it's still a miracle? I suspect many Darwinist Naturalists would be happy with that, although they may choose to use the word 'chance' instead - you say tomato I say tomato and whatnot.

DannyM wrote:Ah but Davison is not doing that at all. He explicitly is not a Christian, although he admires the "Christian ethic", as he puts it. He says that for any biologist to dismiss the blatant evidence of "a plan" in the emergence and complexity of life is simply preposterous. Like the heretic Marcion of the 2nd century, he believes in two gods, one evil and one loving...To paraphrase "How else do we account for the good and evil in the world".
On chance, here's Davison, first quoting Grasse: "..."To insist, even with Olympian assurance, that life appeared quite by chance and evolved in this fashion, is an unfounded supposition which I believe to be wrong and not in accordance with the facts.”
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 107.

I think he is very much mixing his philosophy with his science. He starts by discussing a new mechanism for evolution and ends with talking about plans and chance. To insist that life appeared by chance is to me unfounded, but so is insisting it appeared by God. It seems we have a few scientists giving the opposite answer to that which the likes of Dawkins would give.

DannyM wrote:There is no room for chance in Davison's mind.

And you seems fine with this. If another scientist even gives the impression that he has no room for God you dismiss him. A scientist with no room for alternative answer to the big questions is mixing his philosophy with his science - you get angry when they make no room for God and are happy when they make no room for chance.

DannyM wrote:He does mention in the paper that experimental evolution is a great possibility still...I don't know what he's done about it.

Not much that I can find. Over 30 years on, you're going to need more than that to argue with a Darwinist using hir principles in lab conditions.

DannyM wrote:But then we lose all sense of the Darwinian mechanism if we drop the random and natural. I'm happy if you are.

I don't think we do. It still works in a lab and helps advances in medicine. It does all the practical stuff without the unprovable philosophical speculations.

Thanks Danny.

zoegirl wrote:lol, I remember that scene....Fawlty towers was rather painful to watch, I cringe whenever he messed up...it's on on PBS station saturday nights but I can rarely watch it.